Valdimar the Housecarl can offer his services as a steward.
A steward is an individual who offers his or her services in protecting and maintaining a homestead in The Elder Scrolls V: Hearthfire.
Choosing a steward
Once a homestead includes a basic small house, the option to appoint a steward becomes available. Once a steward has been chosen they cannot be dismissed unless they die, however they can be moved to a different homestead by recruiting them as a follower, then following the same recruitment procedure at the new homestead. It should be noted that if you do move a steward to a new homestead you will NOT be able to hire a different steward in the homestead you moved them from.
NOTE: Often a bug may occur if you assign the same stweard to more than one house, you will not be able to furnish your house. To avoid this, use a different steward for each house you own.
Stewards can be recruited as followers again at any time, and this will not interrupt their stewarding duties. If a trainer or a quest-giver is hired as a steward, they do not lose these roles.
Several followers are available to serve as steward and they can only be appointed to three homesteads in Skyrim:
- Windstad Manor located near the salt marshes of Hjaalmarch.
- Lakeview Manor located in the forests of Falkreath.
- Heljarchen Hall located in the snowy tundra of The Pale.
Followers who can become Stewards
If a follower is in close proximity of the homestead, and they qualify for stewardship, they will initiate dialogue and remark that such a fine homestead needs a steward and will offer their services. Alternatively, a new dialogue option will appear for the follower while on the property if the follower qualifies for stewardship. Followers who qualify are listed below:
| Companions | College Mages | Other followers |
|---|---|---|
| Dawnguard Members DG | Housecarls | |
Interactions
Once a steward has been chosen, they can perform several tasks that can be considered too trivial or time consuming for a master of a homestead.
Housing improvements
Stewards can arrange for several additions to be added to the homestead. These include:
| Improvement | Notes | Cost 
|
|---|---|---|
| Carriage | A personal carriage that can travel to several major and minor settlements. | 500 |
| Bard | A personal bard who will live in the homestead and perform upon request. | 1,500 |
| Horse | Requires a stable to be built first, where it will stay. | 1,000 |
| Cow | Requires an animal pen to be built first. | 200 |
| Chicken | Requires an animal pen to be built first. A maximum of three can be bought. | 25 |
Buying supplies
Stewards will arrange for building supplies to be delivered to the main chest located next to the Carpenter's Workbench. These include:
| Improvement | Quantity | Cost
|
|---|---|---|
| Clay | 20 bricks | 20 |
| Quarried Stone | 20 stone | 100 |
| Sawn Logs | 20 logs | 200 |
Furnishing the homestead
Rather than buying materials and crafting all the furnishings in a homestead, a Steward will offer to deal with the whole process for a flat rate. If this option is chosen, the furnishing won't appear instantly as they do when crafted, rather, each piece of furniture will appear over a period of many days.
| Improvement | Cost
|
|---|---|
| Small House | 1,000 |
| Main Hall | 3,500 |
| Library | 1,500 |
| Trophy Room | 1,500 |
| Bedrooms | 2,000 |
| Greenhouse | 1,500 |
| Enchanter's Tower | 2,500 |
| Alchemy Laboratory | 2,500 |
| Armory | 2,000 |
| Storage Room | 1,000 |
| Kitchen | 1,500 |
The total base cost of buying all the materials and crafting the furnishings themself is a fraction of the cost, albeit more time consuming. Crafting the nails, hinges, locks and iron fittings also raises the smithing skill.
Bugs
- PC 360 PS3 Purchasing furnishings from a steward will sometimes say "You can't afford that", even though enough gold is on hand. This can also occur when remodeling a small home into an entryway before hiring a steward at which time the furnishings for the entryway won't be able to be bought. There is no known fix for this bug yet.
- Template:Pc 360 Steward may not give option to hire bard in Windstad Manor and Heljarchen Hall. (A way to fix this is to kill the cow then enter and exit the house so that the corpse disappears. This will bring back the option to buy the bard. (Buy the bard before buying the cow again.) NOTE: This fix won't work if Unofficial Hearthfire patch is loaded, A fix to this is unloading Unofficial Hearthfire patch and then do the fix and after that reload it.
- Template:Pc 360 PS3 Purchasing furnishings from a steward will sometimes not work and the furnishings will not appear.
- Analysis of the game on 360 , at Lakeview Manor: The rate that newly-purchased furnishings appear seems to be linked to the number of times the Homestead is loaded, and not the elapsed time in the game. Newly-purchased furnishings for the Bedroom add-on did not appear in the room while waiting (even after waiting for 20 days), but fast-traveling between Riften and Lakeview Manor 20 times eventually loaded all of the furnishings. Running a short trip also does the trick. Just leave the area and enter another cell and back again. The two pinetrees between the carriage driver and the small pond is a good place to do it, as it is exactly there the cells change and is much faster than fast-travelling. The same with Heljarchen and Windstad - a short run away from the house is enough. (also confirmed on PS3 )
- Template:Pc 360 PS3 Marcurio may never give the dialogue option to be hired as steward.
- Template:Pc 360 PS3 If hired as a steward, Marcurio may offer no dialogue options other than to become a follower again.
- 360 If hired as a Steward, Ogol at Lakeview Manor may cause the game to lock up when he is seen inside. One work around for this is to have him join as a companion, then wait outside. This bug seems to affect the adopted children also, causing the game to freeze if the children see the Dragonborn.
- 360 PS3 If hired as a Steward, Aela the Huntress will eventually follow the Dragonborn around the house and draw her weapon and interrupt them at any time. While she is following the Dragonborn around the property, the system treats her as a pursuing guard, preventing fast travel even though she will not attack. If she is a follower and a steward, after being dismissed as a follower, she may sometimes return to Jorrvaskr instead of the homestead where she is steward.
- 360 "Paid" followers may be unable to become proper stewards: they either don't offer the steward dialogue or only offer to become a follower again.
- PC 360 PS3 Illia suffers a bug in which when she is dismissed no dialogue option is presented to recruit her as a follower again(See Illia bugs section). However in Hearthfire she does at least present normal Steward dialogue.
- Changing the steward from one homestead to another may result in stone and clay bought from them spawning in the chest of the previous homestead.
- PS3 If hired as a Steward, Vilkas or Ria may randomly wander back to Jorrvaskr, and may be killed en route. If they are killed, a courier will deliver a Letter of Inheritance, and a new steward may be hired.
- 360 Vilkas may wander back to Jorrvaskr if hired as a follower. May be fixed by transforming into a werewolf or by recruiting him as a follower and bringing him to your homestead, then dismissing him.