I'm intrigued by the story of Rune in the Thieves guild. He is an orphan who was rescued by a fisherman from a shipwreck as a baby.

Rune wants to find out about his origins, and why he was on that ship. All that was found with him was a small stone with strange symbols carved into it.

When you speak to Rune, there is no new quest generated. Your character simply says he/she will "keep a lookout".

I really want to find the quest associated with this, so I pickpocketed Rune to see if I could take a look at the small stone. He does not have it with him.

I then searched for the shipwreck. It is supposedly off the coast near Solitude. I travelled around and eventually found "Orphan's Tear". It is on the north shore to the West of Solitude. This may be the shipwreck. I searched it from top to bottom, found a little treasure but nothing significant.

No new quest was started.

This is only intensifying my curiosity, I really hope there is a quest associated with this.

Does anyone else know any more about this?

According to the Game Guide:

Rune is a Nord thief and a member of the Thieves Guild in Riften.

As a child, Rune washed up on shore after a shipwreck near Solitude, and was found by a local fisherman. Rune could not recall his past, but the fisherman found a rock with strange writing on it. The fisherman named him Rune and raised him, but Rune left to discover his past. He admits that most of the coin he makes working for the Guild has gone to help him uncover who he is, and why he was on the ship.

I am thinking now that the best option would be try to find his foster father, but with no name or town to go on it will be difficult. Looks like no-one on this forum is any the wiser!

I wonder if this is an epic quest that Bethesda have buried within the game. I can imagine there is the odd quest they have added that require a great deal of detective work to get started.

From what I can tell no-one in the world has completed this quest yet.

OK, last time I do a self-reply, I promise!

Something has occurred to me though, if you kill a character who potentially could give a quest to you, a prompt comes up in the centre of the screen:

"XXXX quest - FAILED"

Is this correct? Or do you have to have accepted the quest in the first place?

To find out if there is a quest, all you would need to do is kill Rune, and see if a message pops up about a failed quest.

I am at work at the moment, so if anyone could try this it would be appreciated. Thanks!

I tried killing Rune, but received no prompt of a failed quest.

Bethesda I am mildly disappoint

I was actually wondering something similar about the other girl thief, name escapes me at the moment. She was an orphan as well if I remember correctly and you could ask her what her real name was, she would reply with her personal history, and then you could try asking her name again. She would then say, "maybe later..when I know you better." Well folks, I'm the "Guildmaster" now and she still won't tell me. Wonder if you have to marry her.

Maybe those characters were placed for future dlc

Yup. That's what I was thinking. TES always has expansions and addons. He's probably there for later content. He's probably the bastard of the dead high king or something along those lines.