Assassins guilds are rare - that’s a given. The competition is always going to be wiped out to prove who is better in a test of mettle. Hell, there are only two factions of assassins still standing in The Elder Scrolls as is - the Dark Brotherhood and the Morag Tong. However, there is one mysterious group that might still be around by the time the events of Skyrim transpire: the Crimson Scars, an elusive band of killers who broke off from the Dark Brotherhood in the Third Era.
The story starts with Greywyn Blenwyth, an altmer who became a vampire during the second era. In fact, we meet him caged in Deepscorn Hollow in The Elder Scrolls Online’s latest DLC. Here, the player character - the Vestige - finds him in a cell, tucked away, begging for release. Whether or not he gets free'd is up to you, but it doesn’t matter. Either way, he survives and goes on to become something of a forgotten legend. At any rate, he got here because he went looking for answers to his newfound vampirism, his curse. Amidst his investigation, he found a First Era temple to Sithis that was riddled with members of a cult called the Unmakers led by the supposed “Daughter of Sithis.” Ironically, despite being their captive, he would eventually go on to join the Dark Brotherhood, another band of Sithis followers. This happened around the 400th year of the third era, just before the events of Oblivion. During his time in the guild, he became renowned as one of Tamriel’s best assassins. However, his reputation would soon change. According to him, the father of the Void - Sithis - instructed him to rid the Brotherhood of all its non-vampire members.
With this new goal and purpose, he began to find members who agreed with him to help him bring his vision to fruition. After “hearing from Sithis,” Blenwyth split from the Brotherhood, seeking to destroy and replace them as the de facto assassins of Tamriel. All the while, vampirism ran rampant throughout the Dark Brotherhood as he and his followers infected members while others were picked off from within. Unfortunately, he is one of only three members we know of who filled the ranks of the Crimson Scars. Their legacy by the time of Oblivion is a faint memory carried on by one book and a lone survivor. Alongside the founder, Blenwyth, the other known members were Silarian and Rowley Eardwulf.
We meet Eardwulf in Oblivion, but nothing is known of Silarian bar that they were deeply loyal to the Brotherhood. They infiltrated the Crimson Scars and revealed their plans to the Black Hand, the group that governs the guild as a whole. With this knowledge, the Brotherhood amassed an arsenal of silver weaponry and attacked the Scars as they slept, slaughtering them. However, the leader, Blenwyth, killed two of the guild’s own before fleeing to the familiarity of Deepscorn Hollow. The visions had stopped but his determination was still burning. While waiting for more of his kin to show up at Deepscorn Hollow, he tracked down and hunted the Brotherhood, bringing them to the altar where he would sacrifice them to Sithis. Eventually, he found Eardwulf at Wawnet Inn and told him of their new base of operations. The guild was flourishing into its own faction beyond the Brotherhood. It didn’t die out after that night - it came back with a vengeance.
However, it would be a short-lived bout of glory. Another vision struck Blenwyth, although this time it was a conflicting message. Sithis supposedly no longer wanted the Brotherhood to be vampiric. In response, Blenwyth purified himself and other members of their ailment. What happened after isn’t known. When we visit Deepscorn Hollow in Oblivion, it is abandoned, devoid of life. We find the shrine to Sithis, remnants of this forgotten guild, and little else. We know that the Scars were beginning to gain a foothold, returning to some semblance of former glory in their quainter size, but it’s peculiar that they simply vanished, leaving behind just one known member - the aforementioned Eardwulf who we find at the Wawnet Inn just as Blenwyth did. Perhaps the Scars simply folded back into the guild. However, given the blood they shed, this seems unlikely. It could be that they migrated to another continent to avoid the Brotherhood so that they might thrive elsewhere. Or, perhaps they were finally wiped out once and for all. With how ambiguous their fate is, the door is open for Bethesda to do anything with them.
The wording of some loot in Oblivion indicates a bleaker fate. Greywyn’s Final Cache is found at the shrine to Sithis alongside a Daedric dagger called the Crimson Eviscerator - the Scars’ equivalent to the Blade of Woe. This gloomy name seemingly points to a worrying fate for one of the most renowned yet forgotten assassins in recent history, although it could simply be misdirection. Whatever the case, you might think he’d be dead by the time of Skyrim. However, he could have gone back to his vampiric ways, used magic to prolong his life, or survived purely because of altmer genetics. Whatever the case, perhaps his guild lives on either in his memory with or without him still at the wheel.
The Dark Brotherhood is dwindling with only one group remaining: the Listeners. With how Skyrim plays out, it can either be destroyed in its entirety or clung onto with just a measly few members still standing. Crawling out of the muck to take over Tamriel again as the number one guild of assassins will be an uphill battle that might not be feasible, but if the Scars have been biding their time all the while, perhaps they could take the Brotherhood’s place. Ultimately, we’ll have to wait for The Elder Scrolls 6 to find out just where all these iconic guilds stand - let’s just hope Bethesda doesn’t forget about the Scars even if the inhabitants of Tamriel have.