Note: Ten years after posting this, there are new goddamn bugs in this quest! I have updated the guide to include punching Calixto in his stupid face so you can progress it without having to falsely accuse a wizard and getting another NPC killed.
There are also plenty of guides that assume you know about the many bugs that can stop the quest dead, either by halting progress in a required sub-quest (Blood on the Ice) or by cutting NPCS off from the speech options offering you the house (Jorleif). Well, they're great and all but there don't seem to be any that say 'This - from the start of the game - is how to 100% guaranteed get Hjerim if you can't mod your game.' Which is why, after a few days of research and playtesting, I'm writing one titled precisely that.
This - from the start of the game - is how to 100% guaranteed get Hjerim if you can't mod your game.
Why Hjerim?
Hjerim is, without a doubt, the best non-mod house in Skyrim in terms of eventual storage space and convenience. It has both an alchemy room and an enchanting room, neither of which you need to get rid of if you want the child's bedroom for Hearthfire. It has a good amount of space for storage, an armory and display dummies.
It's only one transition away from a marketplace that has a fence and a blacksmith with a smelter (if load times bother you), and on the off chance that they don't have enough gold to buy your loot, there's plenty of merchants and an alchemist nearby.
No other city has all of these features - Riften is a good second choice, but there's no smelter and an extra transition to get to the general merchant. Breezehome is probably the next most convenient, but even then there's no enchanting table, no dummies, the layout is tiny and you lose the alchemy table if you want the child's bedroom. Even the Solitude house has no smelter, and the merchants are all behind transitions. Markarth's layout is a nightmare to quickly navigate when selling and the Hearthfire houses have nothing useful nearby anyway.
For those of you who are familiar with Skyrim's main and side quests, I'll keep it simple:
- Avoid the following:
- Any 'fetch/deliver [item] from/to [place] for [npc]' type quests (if you accidentally pick one up, reload),
- Talking to Jorleif / Ulfric before starting Blood on the Ice,
- Entering Hjerim before talking to the witnesses or inspecting the crime scene,
- Hitting level 10 and triggering the Dawnguard or Dragonborn cultist attacks,
- Installing any mods / DLC before getting Hjerim,
- Do the following in order without deviating:
- Do tutorial & escape Helgen,
- Follow Ralof (Stormcloaks) or Hadvar (Imperial) to Riverwood,
- Get sent to Whiterun by Gerdur (Stormcloak) or Alvor (Imperial) and enter Dragonsreach,
- Follow Jarl Balgruuf's quests until he makes you Thane and tells you you can buy property (Just before Dragon Rising starts),
- Go to Windhelm by cart*, enter, leave and travel to another location (Brandy-Mug Farm to the southeast should do). Repeat 4 times (no I'm not kidding, see below).
- Go to the graveyard between 7pm and 7am, repeating step 5 until you find a dead body surrounded by people,
- Initiate the Blood on the Ice quest by talking to the guard, and follow the instructions HERE in order, as they appear. Ignore the 'Get assistance from Jorleif' objective, as it never updates.
- Start the civil war questline by talking to either:
- Ulfric Stormcloak in Windhelm (Stormcloaks), Complete the Civil War up to the end of Rescue from Fort Neugrad. Speak to Jorleif.
- General Tullius in Solitude (Imperials). Complete the entire Civil War questline, and speak to the new Jarl, Brunwulf Free-Winter. If his steward (Captain Lonely-Gale) cannot be found, use Unrelenting Force on the exiled Jarls sat at the table in Windhelm's Palace of Kings to get a bounty. Escape, return, pay off the bounty / serve jail time, and then speak to the Jarl and Steward to continue.
- If the Steward does not have the dialog option to buy property, complete any sidequests that require you to pick up / deliver an item for someone and keep trying.
* Via the cart outside the Whiterun stables. Walking there risks accidentally setting off a fetch quest or levelling past 10 and having vampires or cultists accidentally kill a critical NPC.
Basically, if you want to be able to buy Hjerim, you need to have done the main quest up to Dragon Rising, and the Civil War quest up to Rescue from Fort Neugrad as the Stormcloaks (or the entire Civil War questline as the Imperials).
Below is an explanation of why you need to follow all of the above steps along with a little more detail, but for most people, the above is a collection of all you need to know in order to purchase Hjerim. If i've missed anything important hit me up in the comments, but I can confirm that this solution works as of patch 1.5 (Xbox 360).
Updated: should work on the anniversary edition if you punch Calixto.
So here's why you should avoid doing the following:
Skyrim uses a quest system called Radiant, and one of the things it does to keep things interesting is make up randomised fetch quests for the player to do. In theory, it means you will never run out of things to do. In practice, it sometimes has the unfortunate side-effect that if you have an incomplete Radiant quest, it can prevent Stewards that you haven't spoken to yet from getting the dialog options that allow you to buy property. It happens a lot to Falkreath, but it can occasionally happen in Windhelm. The most common of these to crop up is collecting an amulet of Arkay for Torbjorn Shatter-Shield if you stop to chat to him.
Some wikis are reporting that if you talk to Jorleif before starting Blood on the Ice, he will never have any more than the two basic speech options, and therefore not only will Blood on the Ice be impossible to complete, but the speech options for Hjerim will never appear. If you talk to Ulfric before starting Blood on the Ice, some users have reported it bugging Hjerim out later. Plus, if you start the Civil War questline by talking to him and decide to side with the Imperials, Ulfric become hostile and you cannot buy the property anyway until Brunwulf Free-Winter becomes Jarl.
Detailed runthrough:
So here's why you should avoid doing the following:
Any 'fetch/deliver [item] from/to [place] for [npc]' type quests.
Skyrim uses a quest system called Radiant, and one of the things it does to keep things interesting is make up randomised fetch quests for the player to do. In theory, it means you will never run out of things to do. In practice, it sometimes has the unfortunate side-effect that if you have an incomplete Radiant quest, it can prevent Stewards that you haven't spoken to yet from getting the dialog options that allow you to buy property. It happens a lot to Falkreath, but it can occasionally happen in Windhelm. The most common of these to crop up is collecting an amulet of Arkay for Torbjorn Shatter-Shield if you stop to chat to him.
Talking to Jorleif / Ulfric before starting Blood on the Ice.
Some wikis are reporting that if you talk to Jorleif before starting Blood on the Ice, he will never have any more than the two basic speech options, and therefore not only will Blood on the Ice be impossible to complete, but the speech options for Hjerim will never appear. If you talk to Ulfric before starting Blood on the Ice, some users have reported it bugging Hjerim out later. Plus, if you start the Civil War questline by talking to him and decide to side with the Imperials, Ulfric become hostile and you cannot buy the property anyway until Brunwulf Free-Winter becomes Jarl.
Also if you side with the Imperials before doing Blood on the Ice, it replaces all the Windhelm guards with Imperial Soldiers, none of whom have the correct dialog to initiate Blood on the Ice. Jorleif will then be stuck telling you that Hjerim is unavailable due to some 'unpleasantness.'
If you pick the lock and enter Hjerim before starting Blood on the Ice, the investigation markers will bug out and the internal logic of the quest jumps ahead to a point that makes it impossible to complete without console commands. So if you're on console, don't. If you enter after picking up the quest but before interviewing the witnesses and talking to Helgird, the quest markers bug out and the game will no longer point you to your next objective, which can make finding Calixto damn near impossible. Best to wait 'til you get the key.
Getting to level 10
Entering Hjerim before talking to the witnesses or inspecting the crime scene.
If you pick the lock and enter Hjerim before starting Blood on the Ice, the investigation markers will bug out and the internal logic of the quest jumps ahead to a point that makes it impossible to complete without console commands. So if you're on console, don't. If you enter after picking up the quest but before interviewing the witnesses and talking to Helgird, the quest markers bug out and the game will no longer point you to your next objective, which can make finding Calixto damn near impossible. Best to wait 'til you get the key.
Getting to level 10
At level 10, the game triggers attacks on entering capital cities from the Dawnguard (vampires) and Dragonborn (cultist) DLC packs. Either one can accidentally kill Arivanya in the crossfire, who needs to be alive in order for the quest to start properly.
Installing any mods / DLC before getting Hjerim.
Other mods / DLC can add or tweak things that can really screw with the incredibly fragile sequence of this quest, so if you want Hjerim, get all of this out of the way and then start replacing the dragons with the Macho Man Randy Savage.Updated: the special and anniversary editions auto-add the DLC, and you can't remove them, so just try not to hit level 10 or Vampires / Cultists might kill a vital NPC.
So here's a bit more detail about why you have to follow certain quests:
This is all to make sure Balgruuf is ready for the Civil War questline - You won't be able to speak to the Jarl freely in order to hand him the axe until you've got the quest up to this point, so you might as well do it now.
So here's a bit more detail about why you have to follow certain quests:
Escape Helgen. Follow Ralof (Stormcloaks) or Hadvar (Imperial) to Riverwood. Get sent to Whiterun by Gerdur (Stormcloak) or Alvor (Imperial). Follow Jarl Balgruuf’s quests until he makes you Thane at the end of Dragon Rising.
This is all to make sure Balgruuf is ready for the Civil War questline - You won't be able to speak to the Jarl freely in order to hand him the axe until you've got the quest up to this point, so you might as well do it now.
Updated: It appears you can speak to the Jarl without the axe now, but given that this method definitely works, I don't think it's safe to start experimenting and skipping steps. This guide should also work if you don't have the special / anniversary edition.
This is probably the weirdest requirement, but Blood on the Ice has an internal counter that logs the amount of times your character has entered Windhelm, exited, travelled to another map marker, and travelled back. Once it hits four and you enter the city, the quest will initiate. Travelling to Brandy-Mug Farm and back is enough.
The murder 'happens' (i.e. Skyrim moves the NPCs into place) between 7am and 7pm after the counter hits 4.
Blood on the Ice is one of the three main reasons people aren't getting Hjerim (the other two being the Civil War and the radiant quests bug), and is one of the most glitchy quests in the entire game. It's mostly because of this quest that I've made sure I did things in this precise order. Because of this, follow the instructions in your quest log exactly. There are walkthroughs on most Skyrim Wikis, but I'd do it this way:
Again, this is such a glitchy quest it's best to do it in this order just to be sure. After completing Blood on the Ice, you can then progress the civil war quest so that Jorleif will let you buy the damn house.
Once you start the civil war, you have two options:
Stormcloaks: You only have to get up to the end of the Rescue from Fort Neugrad quest, at the end of which Jarl Ulfric will make you Thane and give you the right to purchase property. Assuming you have no radiant quests outstanding, you can now go over to Jorleif and purchase Hjerim. Buy the clean-up first. If you don't buy the cleanup option first, the bloodstains and cobwebs will remain there and you'll never be able to get rid of them.
Imperials: You get the longer route, I'm afraid. In order to be able to buy property in Windhelm, you need to follow the quest-line the whole way through in order to replace Jarl Ulfric once he turns hostile to you as an Imperial. Once you have done this, speak to the steward. If his steward cannot be found, it's most likely because the game has not yet updated Captain Lonely-Gale with his new role, and he's wandering round Windhelm. If this happens, use Unrelenting Force on the exiled Jarls sat at the table in Windhelm’s Palace of Kings to get a bounty. Escape, return, pay off the bounty / serve jail time, and then speak to the Jarl and Steward to continue. For some reason, getting a bounty and then paying it off places the steward correctly into his 'routine' of being at the palace. If the Steward does not have the dialog option to buy property, complete any sidequests that require you to pick up / deliver an item for someone and keep trying. Again, buy the cleanup first.
Go to Windhelm, enter, leave and travel to another location (Brandy-Mug Farm to the southeast should do). Repeat 4 times.
This is probably the weirdest requirement, but Blood on the Ice has an internal counter that logs the amount of times your character has entered Windhelm, exited, travelled to another map marker, and travelled back. Once it hits four and you enter the city, the quest will initiate. Travelling to Brandy-Mug Farm and back is enough.
Go to the graveyard between 7pm and 7am.
The murder 'happens' (i.e. Skyrim moves the NPCs into place) between 7am and 7pm after the counter hits 4.
Initiate the Blood on the Ice quest by talking to the guard.
Blood on the Ice is one of the three main reasons people aren't getting Hjerim (the other two being the Civil War and the radiant quests bug), and is one of the most glitchy quests in the entire game. It's mostly because of this quest that I've made sure I did things in this precise order. Because of this, follow the instructions in your quest log exactly. There are walkthroughs on most Skyrim Wikis, but I'd do it this way:
- Talk to the guard at the graveside,
- Talk to the witnesses,
- Talk to the guard, and then Jorleif,
- Talk to Helgird in the Hall of the Dead,
- Follow the blood trails to Hjerim but do not go in,
- Talk to Jorleif,
- Wait 'til 9-10am, then go to the House of Clan Shatter-Shield,
- Talk to Tova, say you want to help catch the killer,
- Do not talk to Torbjorn - he offers you a radiant quest that will (temporarily) stop Jorleif from gaining the speech option to sell Hjerim until you get Torbjorn the amulet (and it's not an easy amulet to find).
- Go into Hjerim and click on all of the investigation targets, (some of them CAN make the house glitchy once purchased if not investigated). Make sure you pick up both journals, the amulet and at least one of the flyers.
- Talk to Jorleif again,
- Quicksave.
- (New step for the anniversary edition!) Go to Calixto's House of Curiosities, and speak to him. If it's locked (which it now always seems to be in the anniversary edition), break in by picking the lock and light punch him once (i.e. just tap the trigger, don't hold it). This may seem excessive and will get you a 40 gold bounty, but he will chase you outside, at which point you can put your fists away and talk to him.
- Sell him the amulet.
- Pay off your bounty with the nearest guard. If a guard interrupts you when you try to talk to talk to Calixto in the previous step (i.e. they catch you as soon as you run outside), cancel out of the guard's dialogue and try to catch Calixto before he goes back inside. If you miss it, reload the quicksave.
- Talk to Viola Giordano,
- Talk to Wunferth and accuse him of necromancy, then say Calixto was wrong, then follow his suggestion to wait for the murderer,
- Go to the market at midnight and kill Calixto as soon as he draws his weapon. This is easiest rushing him and using a one-handed weapon - bows and spells might hit a bystander and aggro the entirety of Windhelm. New anniversary edition bug: The murder may not happen at midnight - it'll probably trigger the next time you go to the market.
- Talk to Jorleif.
Again, this is such a glitchy quest it's best to do it in this order just to be sure. After completing Blood on the Ice, you can then progress the civil war quest so that Jorleif will let you buy the damn house.
Start the civil war questline by talking to either Ulfric or General Tullius
Once you start the civil war, you have two options:
Stormcloaks: You only have to get up to the end of the Rescue from Fort Neugrad quest, at the end of which Jarl Ulfric will make you Thane and give you the right to purchase property. Assuming you have no radiant quests outstanding, you can now go over to Jorleif and purchase Hjerim. Buy the clean-up first. If you don't buy the cleanup option first, the bloodstains and cobwebs will remain there and you'll never be able to get rid of them.
Imperials: You get the longer route, I'm afraid. In order to be able to buy property in Windhelm, you need to follow the quest-line the whole way through in order to replace Jarl Ulfric once he turns hostile to you as an Imperial. Once you have done this, speak to the steward. If his steward cannot be found, it's most likely because the game has not yet updated Captain Lonely-Gale with his new role, and he's wandering round Windhelm. If this happens, use Unrelenting Force on the exiled Jarls sat at the table in Windhelm’s Palace of Kings to get a bounty. Escape, return, pay off the bounty / serve jail time, and then speak to the Jarl and Steward to continue. For some reason, getting a bounty and then paying it off places the steward correctly into his 'routine' of being at the palace. If the Steward does not have the dialog option to buy property, complete any sidequests that require you to pick up / deliver an item for someone and keep trying. Again, buy the cleanup first.
If you get the house and there are still 'interact' objects all over the place, I'm really sorry but you have to reload back before step 10 and make sure you get all the interactables: the chest and bottles in the living room, pots and pans in the side room, chairs upstairs, both cupboards and the dresser full of notes and the altar in the hidden room.
And that's it! That's how to get Hjerim. Hopefully. As I said on the first page, if there's anything I left out or that wasn't clear, hit me up in the comments and I'll see what I can do.
And that's it! That's how to get Hjerim. Hopefully. As I said on the first page, if there's anything I left out or that wasn't clear, hit me up in the comments and I'll see what I can do.
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