Greetings everyone.

Those of you, who know me, are well aware that I’m a vivid fan of the Dark Brotherhood in Elder Scrolls. I’m such a big fan, that I, in fact, lead my own Dark Brotherhood Roleplay guild on the EU Megaserver, surrounding the Sanctuary of Blacklight.

It is with this background that I’ll like for everyone, to take a look at the newly released Home: Erstwhile Sanctuary. This home is an abandoned Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary beneath the city of Kvatch in Cyrodiil, and least to say, as you can read by the title, the Dark Brotherhood certainly abandoned it with good reason.

Let us take a look at the entrance – which at first is brilliant. The entryway is a tight hallway leading to a small library-like room. This small room in itself is a good first sight, since you can use it for much: A library, preparation chambers, a planning hall or even an armory.




If we then take a turn, we’re presented with a gorgeous scenery in a wide cavern hall with plentiful of beautiful waterfalls, and of course the trademark stained Dark Brotherhood glass in the far end. This first sight is a promising one that leaves an immediate impression of grandeur and adventure.


A grand room like this often has no other purpose, than to serve as a pathway for other places. We see this in Cheydinhall, Falkreth and Gold Coast Sanctuaries too. That also makes it difficult to build in, beyond improvements to the scenery itself – It is a place to be seen, not used.

Now unfortunately, this is where our promising start breaks to a halt. For this beautiful area only leads to a single hallway, with several small biomes. But to both sides we have two additional rooms. The first being the most sinful of them all.


“The Trophy” room is, beyond any belief, the worst designed quarter of the entire sanctuary. The creators of this particular player home have decided to throw unmoveable Dark Brotherhood pillars halfway through the ground to create several pedestals, similar to the Night Mothers shrine in the Gold Coast Sanctuary.


This decision alone is not only harmful to the room itself, but also to the many possible creative outcomes the room could’ve had, had it not been carelessly filled with worthless pillars that serve no purpose. I’ve had people argue that you can put dungeon statues on top, but the problem is: The pillars are more than double the size, making them awfully awkward to look at.


This room could’ve been a brilliant planning quarter, an awesome bathing area, even a botanic garden for alchemy ingredients. Had it not been for the pillars ruining all purposes of this room, beyond that of a trophy room.

Let us proceed to the “Speaker’s” bedroom, as the description of the home itself gives it. This room is the second proper room to reside within this sanctuary. You can make anything your thoughts can think of in here. The only problem with this room is the forced bookshelves, similar to the room by the entryway. These are just more awkwardly placed.


At last, we have the big room which I tend to refer to as the Biomes. This is an area that would fit nearly perfectly for a good display of alchemy, exotic plants and creatures. It is generally speaking a nice hallway with a beautiful view over the caverns beneath Kvatch.



With a creative room separation, you can make a nice kitchen or suitable sleeping quarters for the assassins of the brotherhood.


Now, with this said. I would like to list the type of rooms we see most often for a Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary.
- Planning Quarter / Preparation Room
- Shrine to the Night Mother or Sithis
- Armory / All Crafting Station
- Torture Chamber / Prison
- Sleeping Quarters
- Matron / Patron private office/quarter
- Kitchen
- Training Room
- Alchemy Room

Now, after the preview of the Erstwhile Sanctuary, it becomes incredible apparent that the Sanctuary as of whole, does not fill the needs for these quarters. There is no proper room for Sleeping Quarters, Torture Chambers, Kitchens or even a Matrons’ office.

While one naturally, can make the large biomes room into separate ones, that still only leaves the Erstwhile Sanctuary with two ordinary and proper rooms. It is just unfortunate that the bookshelves in both are unmovable, since they really limit the potential purpose of the rooms themselves.

The Dark Brotherhood abandoned Erstwhile Sanctuary, not because of the Speakers’ wall crashing down, but because the Sanctuary itself is not a fitting Sanctuary for any group of people to live and survive in, no less call their home.

The Dark Brotherhood is a family of assassins, a creed who worships an entity only few dare to. Their Sanctuary is not only a hideout, its place of worship, their way of living. It is a family home where one can rest, enjoy a good dinner while preparing alchemical elixirs, sharpening your blade or merely enjoy a good plot or chat with fellow brothers and sisters.

The Erstwhile Sanctuary is a shoddy example of a Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary, and that is why I hope that the Developers of ESO will reconsider bringing the Erstwhile Sanctuary to the live servers, in this condition.

I suggest the following changes so that the value and purpose of the home itself can increase drasticly.
- Make all bookshelves moveable.
- Remove every pillar from the North-Most Room behind the Stained Glass.
- Add two additional rooms to the large Biome, one to the north, and one to the east.


With simple, and small changes like these, the Erstwhile Sanctuary could become a proper Sanctuary, one that the Dark Brotherhood could feasibly have lived within for some time, before eventually becoming abandoned. But as it currently stands, there is no reason for the Dark Brotherhood to ever, have utilized a location this bad, for a living.