Skyrim Rebuilding the Blades: Who Can Join, Who Can't

Short answer: you can recruit up to three followers into the Blades. After the main quest Alduin's Wall, take them to Delphine during the quest Rebuilding the Blades. In UESP's Followers table, the "Can Join Blades" column is blank for only four followers: Serana, Cicero and the two Dark Brotherhood initiates. Every other permanent follower can join.

What to decide before you recruit:

• A dead recruit cannot be replaced. UESP says that if a recruited Blade dies, you cannot fill the place with another follower.
• A recruit lives at Sky Haven Temple, the Blades' base. You can still take them along as a follower, but they return to the temple when you part (UESP).
• Take back any armor, helmet or shield you gave them before they join. UESP says recruits are given Blades gear, and their old gear is removed from the game.
• Whether their fighting style changes is where UESP's pages disagree. The Rebuilding the Blades page says Blades use Heavy Armor, Block and One-handed, and that followers who do not favor those skills are at a disadvantage. The Blades page says their old weapons are not lost and they still use preferred two-handed weapons or spells.

On sources. Steps and mechanics follow UESP's "Skyrim:Rebuilding the Blades" (revision of 31 July 2026), "Skyrim:Blades" (3 July 2026), "Skyrim:Sky Haven Temple" (23 March 2026), "Skyrim:Followers" (16 October 2026) and "Skyrim:Dragon Hunting" (31 May 2023), checked on 3 November 2026. Bethesda's notice lists the update of 20 August 2026 and an additional hotfix on 27 August. The Steam announcement title still reads "1.7.99", but we confirmed the executable as 1.7.104 on 10 September 2026. We did not recruit three followers in game to test this. Everything below is as UESP records it. This article assumes no mods and no unofficial patch, since they can change follower settings.

Steps (quest Rebuilding the Blades)

1. Prerequisite: finish the main quest Alduin's Wall. It is the quest right before Rebuilding the Blades (UESP).
2. Ask Delphine about the staffing shortage. Offer to help, and Delphine says she will look at anyone you think would make a good recruit. The quest begins.
3. Bring a follower to Delphine at Sky Haven Temple. She asks you to confirm, because the recruit must swear to leave their old life behind and stay. Confirm, and the oath is taken.
4. Repeat up to three times. The quest has three objectives, each "bring a follower to Delphine". A recruit leaves your service automatically, so you can bring the next follower at once (UESP). After the third, Delphine tells you to ask Esbern about dragon lairs.
5. Ask Esbern about dragon lairs. This completes the quest and starts the repeatable quest Dragon Hunting.

UESP's Blades page also describes the first recruit taking the oath right away while the other two begin training.

The four followers who cannot join

UESP's quest page says that, among permanent followers, Serana and the Dark Brotherhood followers cannot join. The "Can Join Blades" column of the Followers table is blank for exactly Serana, Cicero, and the two Dark Brotherhood initiates (one male, one female).

Every other permanent follower is marked as able to join, including the Companions, College of Winterhold, Dawnguard and Dragonborn DLC followers, housecarls and hirelings.

Who to recruit: candidates read from UESP's table

From UESP's Followers table we picked the followers who list all three of Heavy Armor, Block and One-handed among their primary skills. UESP's quest page also calls housecarls good candidates. "Max level" is the level at which a follower stops scaling with you (UESP).

Recruiting a housecarl overwrites their housecarl role. UESP says the Hearthfire housecarls stop defending their homes. Valdimar has Heavy Armor and One-handed in the table but no Block, and also uses magic; UESP says that without the Unofficial Patch his level cap of 50 and magic could still make him worth considering, while with the patch he specializes in Light Armor and is less suitable.

If you do not want to lose anyone, you can choose a follower who cannot die. UESP's quest page calls recruiting such followers a strong strategic option. Among those who can join, Mjoll the Lioness (max level 40) and Frea (no cap) fit (see our follower guide). But Mjoll does not list One-handed and Frea does not list Heavy Armor, so neither matches the Blades' fighting style well.

What changes after recruiting

• Home: a recruit lives at Sky Haven Temple. If you take them along as a follower, they return to the temple when you part.
• Rehiring: a hireling can be hired for free after joining.
• Spouses: if you induct your spouse, you can still move them to a house you own. If you choose to live at their home, you are directed to Sky Haven Temple (see also our marriage guide).
• Stewards (Hearthfire): a steward who joins returns to the property they manage, not the temple. The Blades page says they take part in the Blades' quests, but the Dragon Hunting page says they do not come to hunts, so the two disagree.
• Gear: recruits are given the standard Blades armor and a sword. Armor they had before does not come back.
• No replacements: if one dies you cannot fill the place with another follower. UESP also says every recruit becomes a protected NPC.

Dragon Hunting, the repeatable quest that follows

Ask Esbern about dragon lairs and you get a repeatable quest in which the Blades join you at a random dragon lair. According to UESP, the Blades wait near the lair and charge the dragon when you arrive. When the dragon is dead, they return to the temple and leave you to loot. Then you report to Esbern.

Blades who do not live at Sky Haven Temple will not come. UESP says this includes a spouse you moved to your home and a steward of a Hearthfire house.

How the Paarthurnax quest interacts

If the quest Paarthurnax has started, you can still bring followers to Delphine. According to UESP, though, Esbern will not finish Rebuilding the Blades or start Dragon Hunting until that quest is done. Until then, the items at Sky Haven Temple are treated as owned and are not free to take (UESP's Sky Haven Temple page).

Bugs and workarounds (as UESP lists them)

• Armor given before induction can vanish: listed as a bug fixed by the Unofficial Patch (USKP) 2.0.5. Dragon priest masks are lost too, which makes the quest in Bromjunaar Sanctuary impossible to finish. Take gear back before inducting.
• A recruit walks back to where you found them: UESP suggests reloading to before the previous recruit and trying again.
• Esbern may have no dialogue option.
• Followers may attack one another, killing one of your Blades.

We have not checked in game whether these still occur on current SE/AE builds.

Where the sources disagree, and what we could not confirm

• Candidate lists: UESP's quest page names Borgakh the Steel Heart and Ogol as good candidates, but in the Followers table neither lists Block. The quest page also changes its list depending on the Unofficial Patch. We listed only followers who have all three skills in the table.
• Fighting style and stewards: UESP's pages disagree on whether recruits keep their old weapons and on whether stewards join Dragon Hunting (explained above). We did not test which is right in game.
• Names: we could not confirm the official Japanese names of the quests and most characters, so the Japanese edition of this article keeps them in English.
• In-game testing: we did not test induction of three recruits, the gear replacement or where recruits live.
• Creation Club followers: they require paid add-on content, so we did not check their induction.

Sources

• UESP: Skyrim:Rebuilding the Blades
• UESP: Skyrim:Blades
• UESP: Skyrim:Sky Haven Temple
• UESP: Skyrim:Followers
• UESP: Skyrim:Dragon Hunting
• Steam: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition announcements