Crossbows

The quickest way: Dawnguard

Every player can get a crossbow early, before picking a side in Dawnguard.

1. Go to Fort Dawnguard in the Rift. In Dayspring Canyon on the way, Durak is practising with a crossbow: talk to him about it and he hands you a Steel Crossbow and 45 Steel Bolts.
2. If you didn't get one from Durak, Isran gives you the same when he sends you to Dimhollow Crypt, as long as you carry no Steel Crossbow and stand near him then. This is part of Awakening's start, before the vampires make their offer, so a player who joins the vampires gets it too.
3. Seven more Steel Crossbows lie in Dayspring Canyon, free to take, and two in Dead Drop Mine.
4. Disarming a Dawnguard crossbow trap gives you its Steel Crossbow: there are 3 in Dead Drop Falls, 5 in Ruunvald Excavation and 1 in the dungeons of Fort Icemoth.

Who sells them

• Fihada, the fletcher in Solitude, sells to anyone. The stock always has 15 Steel Bolts, and each restock has an even chance of one crossbow with 12 bolts, chosen by your level: Steel from level 1, Light Orcish from 6, Dwarven from 12, Elven from 19, Glass from 27, Ebony from 36.
• Sorine Jurard at Fort Dawnguard always has a Dawnguard Crossbow, 100 Steel Bolts and the book Silver: The Bane of the Undead. Her Enhanced and Dwarven crossbows only come once you bring her their schematics: see Sorine's jobs below.
• Gunmar at Fort Dawnguard has 200 Steel Bolts and the book Forging of the Dawnguard Bolt.
• Sorine and Gunmar won't trade with you once you've joined the vampires.
• Elrindir at the Drunken Huntsman in Whiterun has 20 Steel Bolts.
• The Antiquarian on the Animated Carriage can have a Dwarven Crossbow with 12 bolts among the Dwemer weapons he rolls.

Sorine's jobs: the Dawnguard schematics

Only on the Dawnguard side, once you've finished A New Order.

• Ask Sorine about crossbows and she teaches you to make the Steel Crossbow and Steel Bolts at any forge (you need Basic Smithing).
• Her radiant job Ancient Technology sends you for a lost Dwemer schematic. The six schematics come in a fixed order, one a job: the Enhanced Crossbow, then exploding fire, ice and shock bolts, then the Dwarven Crossbow, then the Enhanced Dwarven Crossbow.
• Each schematic you bring back lets you make that crossbow or bolt, and puts it in her stock for good: the Enhanced Steel Crossbow after the first job, the Dwarven Crossbow after the fifth, the Enhanced Dwarven Crossbow after the sixth.
• Her seventh job, from Crossbow Integration, sends you to Ironback Hideout. Finishing it lets you make the Creation Club crossbows: Daedric, Dragonbone, Glass, Nordic, Orcish, Silver, Stalhrim, Elven and Ebony, each with its own smithing perk. After that she has no more.

Books that teach a crossbow

Reading the book is enough; then the crossbow is on the forge's list, with the smithing perk it asks for.

• The Imperial Crossbow: the Light and Heavy Imperial crossbows. Always sold by the Solitude blacksmith (Beirand, Heimvar) and the Imperial quartermaster.
• On The Stormcloak Crossbow: the Stormcloak Crossbow. Always sold by the Windhelm blacksmiths (Oengul War-Anvil, Hermir Strong-Heart) and the Stormcloak quartermaster.
• The Ebony Black Bolt (Ebony and Heavy Ebony), Rogues, Orcs and Bolts (Heavy Orcish) and Tuskpiercer: Truth and Legend (Tuskpiercer, made at the Skyforge): nearly every blacksmith shows two random books from a list of 15 at each restock, so check them as you pass. Hestla at Castle Volkihar rolls three.
• Forging of the Dawnguard Bolt: the Dawnguard Crossbow and its bolts, if you also know silver smithing from Silver: The Bane of the Undead. Only Gunmar sells it.
• None of these books lie anywhere in base GTS: GTS switches off every copy placed in the world, so they come from merchants.

Taken from enemies and chests

• Imperial soldiers, guards and the Penitus Oculatus: about one archer in five carries a Light Imperial Crossbow, and one in five a Heavy Imperial.
• Stormcloak soldiers: about one archer in four carries a Stormcloak Crossbow.
• Orc stronghold archers carry Light Orcish crossbows, the Silver Hand silver ones, Vigil Enforcers silver or steel, and Dawnguard archers steel, silver or Dawnguard crossbows.
• Dwemer chests can hold a Dwarven Crossbow with 12 bolts, but rarely: a few chests in a hundred.
• Unique ones: Kagrenac's Crossbow (DAc0da), Zanrath's Crossbow in the reward chest at Aldnzark, and Val's Crossbow, carried by Val Serano.

If you join the vampires

• You still get Durak's or Isran's Steel Crossbow, everything Fihada, Elrindir and the Antiquarian sell, loot, traps and the crossbows lying in Dayspring Canyon and Dead Drop Mine.
• Every book recipe except the Dawnguard Crossbow's still works: the Imperial and Stormcloak books, and the Ebony, Orcish and Tuskpiercer books from any blacksmith.
• You lose Sorine's and Gunmar's stock, Sorine's teaching and schematics, her Ironback Hideout job and the Creation Club recipes it opens.

From base GTS 118's own files: the records as the game uses them, the mods' own settings files as Jay's collection ships them, and GTS's own menu setup. Each line was read by one reader and checked by a second. A line marked Setting is a menu or settings-file option: what it says is the default. Your own add-ons can change any of this.