Pinewatch looks like an ordinary farmhouse on the main road northeast of Falkreath, about halfway to the Guardian Stones (head straight west from Helgen to find it). It’s close to Lakeview Manor (Hearthfire), too. The crops out back are real; the farmers are not. Under the floorboards sits one of the best-defended bandit hideouts in Skyrim.
What you’ll find
- A locked, single-room Nordic house with stairs to a basement. A button beside the empty bookshelf downstairs opens a secret passage.
- Caverns built into old Nordic tombs and an excavation site, home to roughly a dozen bandits and stacked with loot from robbed Khajiit caravans.
- Pinewatch Bandit’s Sanctuary: the gang’s bedrooms, kitchen and dining hall, cleared of their draugr long ago.
- Rigel Strong-Arm, the bandit leader, in a room hung with bone alarms.
- A treasure room behind a master-locked door, protected by darts, swinging blades, a battering ram, a flail and a spear trap.
- A bandit watchtower with a double rock fall trap just south of the house.
Quests
- Silver Lining – Delvin Mallory of the Thieves Guild wants the Curious Silver Mold from the treasure room. Bribe Rhorlak in the house and he’ll tell you about the button.
- No Stone Unturned – the Stone of Barenziah sits behind a locked door by the room with the dead draugr.
- Possibly one of the Shalidor’s Insights books.
Notable items
- Curious Silver Mold and two silver candlesticks, plus jewels, ingots, ore and coins on the treasure altar.
- Stone of Barenziah.
- The Red Kitchen Reader (Sneak skill book) – its spot varies.
- Unusual Gem and a trapped chest behind a locked door in the sanctuary.
Tips
Loot Rigel for the Pinewatch Key and the treasure room key – or sneak past her and pick the master lock. In the treasure hall, walk, don’t run: the ram is placed to catch anyone sprinting through the blades, and the pressure plate before the treasure is not exactly subtle. The bed area makes a great Sneak trainer, as one bandit is always asleep there.
Good to know
You don’t need to be in the Thieves Guild to use the button. The trio at the dining table – a Dunmer, an Orc and an Imperial – is a handy blood source for Discerning the Transmundane, and if you sneak close they’ll mourn a friend who tried to beat Rigel’s traps.
Nearby
Closest places covered on TamrielSaga: Lakeview Manor, Peak’s Shade Tower, South Shriekwind Bastion, North Shriekwind Bastion, Bonechill Passage.
Location data (hold, map position, editor ID) read from the Skyrim game files; details checked against community wiki articles and summarised in our own words.