Brynjolf (Skyrim)

"Mister Brynjolf said he could teach me a lot of tricks when I'm older!"

- Male child living in Honeyside, Riften. Brynjolf is a Nord thief and a member of the Thieves Guild in Riften. Brynjolf is currently the second in command at the Thieves Guild, below only Mercer Frey, the current Guildmaster.

Interactions
Brynjolf is first encountered upon entering the area around the Riften marketplace for the first time. He approaches the player and offers to let them in to a job he's working on. He tells the Dragonborn to find him in the Riften market between eight AM and eight PM the next day, thus starting the quest A Chance Arrangement.

Brynjolf is found manning a stall in the market. He says that he will create a diversion and, while everyone is distracted, the Dragonborn must break into the stall belonging to Madesi and steal his ring and reverse pickpocket it into Brand-Shei. (The ring is under the stall inside a locked strongbox, not in the display case.)

After Brand-Shei is arrested, Brynjolf will happily say that he found the right person for the job. He then directs the Dragonborn to The Ratway, an underground tunnel system underneath Riften, explaining that there is a tavern there called The Ragged Flagon, and if one can get to it, they can join his organization. (If the Dragonborn fails to plant the ring, they will still be asked to go to the Ragged Flagon and join the Guild.)

Upon reaching The Ragged Flagon, Brynjolf will be impressed. He will then introduce the Dragonborn to Mercer Frey, and induct the Dragonborn into the Thieves Guild.

Brynjolf also helps the Dragonborn by providing information and advice for future jobs.

During the main line of quests for the Thieves Guild, Brynjolf and the Dragonborn become Nightingales like Guildmaster-turned-traitor Mercer Frey.

After the Thieves Guild main Questline, Brynjolf can be found wandering around the cistern and the flagon. Due to a bug, when spoken to he will say that he has important things to do and will talk sometime later rather than speaking his scripted post-quest dialogue.

Brynjolf will nominate the Dragonborn to be the Guildmaster after the completion of the city influence jobs given by Delvin and Vex, and also give the player the Tribute Chest Key.

Trivia

 * He is voiced by Robin Atkin Downes.
 * When in combat, he will say "So, it's to the Pain then?" This may be a reference to The Princess Bride, during the confrontation between Westley and Humperdinck.
 * Unlike the Dark Brotherhood quests, where one had a choice to join or kill Astrid, the Dragonborn is expected to become a thief and complete the Thieves Guild storyline, there is no alternative questline. Because Brynjolf is necessary for that, he is not only marked as essential, but he is also invulnerable to damage should one attack him. Using the console to make him non essential does not change that. If he is attacked, even with the whole town as backup, he will kill everybody without taking even so much as a point of damage. The only way to kill him is to use the console to set his essential value to 0 and then also use the console to damage him to death. This will destroy the Thieves' Guild questline, however. Brynjolf is no longer invulnerable to damage after Under New Management, but he is still essential.
 * If one wishes to bypass The Thieves Guild questline entirely. You can continue the main quest line where you are sent to Talk to Brynjolf without talking to him (and being required to frame an innocent man for the information you need to find Esbern ) simply by going to the Bee and Barb and speaking to Keerava the barmaid to continue the quest "A Cornered Rat,"
 * Brynjolf says something different depending on how many septims the Dragonborn is holding.
 * If the Dragonborn has little money, he says, "Running a little light in the pockets, lad/lass?" Likewise, if the Dragonborn has a lot of septims, Brynjolf says, "Never done an honest day's work in your life for all that coin you're carrying. Eh, lad/lass?"
 * When given Gallus's journal, Brynjolf is able to read it without the accompanying translation notes from Calcelmo. It is highly unlikely that Brynjolf is able to read the Falmer language. More probably, Enthir wrote down his translation without explicitly stating he was doing so, or it may be an oversight on the developer's behalf.
 * He can be exploited as an extra follower. When Karliah introduces the Dragonborn to Nightingale Hall, she will enter it herself. Brynjolf, however, is scripted to follow the player into the hall. As long as the player does not enter Nightingale Hall, Brynjolf will follow and fight, however he will not sneak and will only repeat two lines of dialogue, (with the exception of in-combat dialogue).
 * He has slightly different dialogue in a few places if the player is the leader of the Dark Brotherhood, when asking him how to handle collecting the debts' during Taking Care of Business he will say not to kill them mentioning that 'This isn't the Dark Brotherhood, we do things differently here' whereas normally he states that it's 'bad for business'.
 * For an unknown reason he has left his satchel in the market in Riften.

Appearances


Бриньольф Brynjolf Brynjolf  Brynjolf