Stealing inThe Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrimis fairly easy. Players can pickpocket someone looking away from them,drag an item to a corner of a shop to steal it, or even drag a basket or bucket onto a merchant’s head so they can’t see players clean them out.
However, selling stolen merchandise inSkyrimis much harder. Items with red names won’t show up during normal merchant transactions, and if a guard arrests the Dragonborn, all the stolen items in their inventory will vanish. To sell stolen loot, players will need to find a fence, and fences aren’t as easy to find as regular merchants.
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How to Identify Stolen Items
One issue that players often have is the fact that they can take some items without any consequence, but others count as stealing. This can include display items in shops, and items that aren’t actually for sale in the merchant’s inventory.
The main thing to look for is the color of the interaction text. If it’s white and says “Take,” players can pick up the item without consequences. If it’s the red word “Steal,” then taking it will mean the item is stolen goods, and its name will be red in the player’s inventory. Players can never sell stolen goods to normal merchants, even if no one saw it happen.
The reason why some items in towns and shops are white, and why some items start red but then become white, is because of NPC dispositions. If players complete quests for an NPC andimprove their reputation in town, NPCs won’t mind when players run around and take things. This means the low-value objects that belong to the pleased NPC will turn white. However, high-value objects will always be off-limits.
Where to Find a Fence
The easiest way to find a fence is to join the Thieves Guild in Riften. The guild headquarters in the Ragged Flagon has a fence, Tonilia, who can buy any kind of item from players, including stolen items. Players can then unlock more fencesby completing Thieves Guild quests:
Even players who avoid stealing much should unlock these merchants, because players can also upgrade guild fences to carry 4000 gold at the start of each day. Since they also accept every kind of item, this makes them extremely useful merchants for any kind of loot run.
The other way to sell off stolen goodsis in the Speech perk tree. The perk “Fence” allows players to sell stolen goods to merchants they’ve invested in, although thanks to a bug this works for every merchant instead. The biggest downside is that the Fence perk requires 90 Speech and spending 4 perk points to get access to the Fence perk.
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrimis available now on PC, PS3, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
