Skyrim: Join the Bear Riders

SR-qico-BearRiders.png Join the Bear Riders.
Location(s): Falkreath Hold
Reward: Bear mount and/or Gunilla's gratitude.
ID: BR01
Bear Riders

Quick Walkthrough

  1. Find Bear Rider Lodge.
  2. Talk to Gunilla.
  3. Forge some Rider equipment
  4. Talk to Gunilla again.
  5. Buy a bear from Meija
  6. Return to Gunilla.

Detailed Walkthrough

Find the Lodge

The Bear Riders Lodge is located near the border with Cyrodiil at Pale Pass, as the founders came from the original lodge at Bruma. It is on the road, close to where the path turns off for Southfringe Sanctum.

Talk to Gunilla

The only person on the main floor of the lodge is Gunilla, who is dressed as the usual innkepeper for such a tavern. If you are on the quest, she has additional dialogue about joining the Riders. A male player character will be told that they can't join, but may be offered a quest to do instead.

A female player may join, once they have the required items; a Rider's armour, and a bear to ride. It may help to raise Gunilla's disposition with a bit of sex. She needs a change from Timo.

The armour can only be forged in the basement of the lodge, and you need to deal with Timo for that.

Forge your armour

The forge (like the one in Whiterun) can make unique pieces that can't be made anywhere else. These all have "Rider's" in their name. There are several grades to be made, depending on your smithing skill. All of the Rider's body pieces expose what the bears like to see, which is just about everything. The body piece is the critical one, and it is optional whether you wear it with the longer boots. You should be able to retain 'matching set' bonuses while wearing Rider's items. See more details of the armour on this page.

Talk to Gunilla again

Go back up the stairs and talk to Gunilla again. If you have the required armour, she'll now tell you to go get yourself a bear from Meija, the trainer in Falkreath.

Buy a bear

Meija is in the Dead Man's Drink tavern, usually eating or listening to the bard. If you ask to buy a bear (and have the gold and the required armour) she'll lead you outside and round the back, to where Thor is waiting.

Return to Gunilla

Ride your new bear back to the Lodge, perhaps stopping somewhere along the way to test the spell, and talk to Gunilla to confirm you've met all the requirements, and she can declare you a member of the Bear Riders.

At this point she may give you the quest to recover Maija's lost amulet. She'll also encorage you to find more applicants for the Bear Riders, but this does not start a quest to do so.

Notes

  • The Bear Riders emblem at the top right is taken from the original Oblivion Rumple Mod that introduced the Bear Riders. It plays no part in the Skyrim mod.
  • At most quest stages, it is sufficient to have the Rider's body armour in your inventory, but fucking the bear will require you to wear it. It will not get in the way, which is why you may not want to wear it around town.
  • This was to have included a quest to recruit Riders (like the one for the Blades), but NPC riders proved to have serious problems with remounting their bears after combat.

Bugs

  • Finding them is your job!

Quest Stages

Join the Bear Riders (BR01)
Stage Finishes Quest Journal Entry
? Objective ? ???. ???.
  • Any text displayed in angle brackets (e.g., <Alias=LocationHold>) is dynamically set by the Radiant Quest system, and will be filled in with the appropriate word(s) when seen in game.
  • Not all Journal Entries may appear in your journal; which entries appear and which entries do not depends on the manner in which the quest is done.
  • Stages are not always in order of progress. This is usually the case with quests that have multiple possible outcomes or quests where certain tasks may be done in any order. Some stages may therefore repeat objectives seen in other stages.
  • If an entry is marked as "Finishes Quest" it means the quest disappears from the Active Quest list, but you may still receive new entries for that quest.
  • On the PC, it is possible to use the console to advance through the quest by entering setstage FreeformCaravansA stage, where stage is the number of the stage you wish to complete. It is not possible to un-complete (i.e. go back) quest stages, but it is possible to clear all stages of the quest using resetquest FreeformCaravansA.