The New Gnisis Cornerclub is the tavern of the Gray Quarter in Windhelm, and the social heart of the city’s Dark Elf community. Patrons drink, trade gossip and avoid the Nords’ sneers, and some locals quietly admit the drinks here beat those at Candlehearth Hall. It is a bar, not an inn: there are no rooms to rent.
What you’ll find
- Ambarys Rendar – owner and bartender, holding court on the ground floor. Unusually, he does not tail you around his establishment.
- Malthyr Elenil – his assistant, who sleeps in the bed on the top floor at night.
- Three levels in total, with a business ledger on a table to the left at the top of the stairs.
- A curious container called simply “Pot” on the top floor. It looks like a cooking pot but works as a chest.
- A shelf with an Adept-locked strongbox, plus a table holding an Imperial sword and shield.
Quests
- Some Light Theft – Stands-In-Shallows wants you to lift a bottle of Double-Distilled Skooma from the club.
- Diplomatic Immunity follow-ups – if Malborn survives, he hides out here and asks you to deal with a Khajiit mercenary before he leaves for Morrowind for good. If Brelas ended up in the Thalmor interrogation room and survived, she turns up here too.
Notable items
- A Game at Dinner (Alchemy) – on a table on the second floor.
- The Red Kitchen Reader (Sneak) – wedged between a barrel and the stairwell on the ground floor.
- The skooma itself – under the stairs on the second floor, between crates.
- Imperial armor and an Imperial helmet on a second-floor shelf, and a copy of The Arcturian Heresy.
Tips
Since Ambarys does not follow you around, the Cornerclub is one of the more relaxed places in Windhelm to grab the skooma for Stands-In-Shallows. Still, wait until nobody is looking – a Dark Elf bar is not where you want to be caught stealing from Dark Elves. Need somewhere to sleep afterwards? Head back to Candlehearth Hall.
Good to know
Susanna the Wicked will tip you off about this place if you want a “real drink” – and then insist you never heard it from her. Viola Giordano, meanwhile, suspects the club’s nightly noise has something to do with the city’s murders. The name likely nods to the town of Gnisis on Vvardenfell.
Details checked against community wiki articles and the Skyrim game files, summarised in our own words.