The Blood of Dawnwalker Walkthrough — Main Story Route & Quest Order
Six timed prologue quests, three Court chains, three duels, one parley with Brencis — the whole story fits in 7 to 10 in-game days.
Quick answer: Clear the six timed prologue quests, farm Court activities until each lord accepts a duel, and beat Ambrus, Bakir, and Xanthe in that order. Maxing your Infamy triggers a parley message from Brencis and the final quest A Deal with the Devil — save manually before it. A Court-focused run reaches that point in 7–10 of your 30 in-game days.
Route at a glance
The main story is a straight line wearing an open world costume: the prologue locks you into a timed sequence, the middle frees you to anger three vampire lords in any order, and the endgame fires automatically once the third falls. This walkthrough follows that line and names the quests and time costs along it, so you always know what the clock is doing.
| Stage | What you do | Time cost |
|---|---|---|
| Prologue | Six timed main quests, ten missable side quests | Runs on its own countdown — Withering Away must not lapse |
| Court activities | Clear camps and transports to raise each lord’s Anger | About 3 segments per activity, 1 for cellar jobs |
| Ambrus duel | The Gilded Gauntlet, then The Bittersweet Toast | Duel unlocks at maximum Anger |
| Bakir duel | The Lunar Game, then The Ring | Duel unlocks at maximum Anger |
| Xanthe duel | The Cycle of Love | Duel unlocks at maximum Anger |
| Finale | Infamy Edicts cutscene, then A Deal with the Devil | Triggers the day after your Infamy maxes |
The prologue quest chain
The prologue tells you exactly how it ends if you dawdle: its quests run on a timer and vanish — permanently — once the chapter closes. The main chain runs All Good Things, Withering Away, Like Father Like Son, Sacred Covenant, Bad Blood, and Smoke and Ashes. The trap sits inside Withering Away: Esme’s medicine only succeeds with hot water and three spoonfuls of herbs, and a wrong mix or a lapsed timer kills her for the rest of the run.
Alongside the story sit ten prologue side quests — Live Bait, Someone Needs A Lesson, Dead Drop, Disturbed, Deep Down, Enter Not, Blasphemy, On the Run, If a Tree Falls in a Forest…, and the Bandit’s Treasure Map for Laslea Glen. Clear the ones on your path and let the rest go rather than risking the medicine timer. From here on, the journal marks every fragile task: an hourglass for time-sensitive objectives, a sun for day-only work, a moon for night-only work.
How Court activities work
After the prologue, the Court menu becomes your quest board. Each lord’s territory holds a grid of short activities — intercept a blood transport, burn a distillery, raid a cellar — and every completed one raises that lord’s Anger. At maximum Anger the lord’s duel quest appears. The game never points at the activities, which is why tower climbing helps: the 11 towers mark nearby activities with white question marks on the map.
The activities themselves are compact. Ambrus’s transports Bloody Business and Roadside Surprise each cost 3 time segments; his three cellar raids cost 1 each; Judge and Executioner frees two prisoners and, if you wait a day, revisits their camp. Under Watchful Eyes in the Prisoner Processing Camp doubles as the side quest The Firebrand. A hidden chain — A Friend Like This, Song of the Mountain, A Mother’s Plea, The Heart Wants What It Wants — starts in a Svartrau City alley and ends in the village of Uriash, and it is worth finding before Bakir’s duel.
Ambrus: the northern chain
Ambrus, the Right Fist of the Knyaz, rules the northern valley and is tuned for Level 1+ characters, making him the intended first duel. His Court grid spans blood transports, a prisoner processing camp, leech collector camps, prisoner transports, blood cellars, and dungeons — mostly clear-the-camp work at 3 segments a job. His two main quests, The Gilded Gauntlet and The Bittersweet Toast, cap the chain and open his duel when his Anger maxes.
Bakir: the Khan chain
Bakir the Mad Khan expects a Level 20+ Coen, so slot him second. His grid mixes rebel hunter camps, payoff transports, distilleries, and pillories across Svartrau City and beyond. Two pillory jobs repay extra attention: Familiar Face rescues Vasil from the starting village, and Old Hand near Lunar Manor leads to Catalin’s Tutor — beat that duel and Catalin becomes a Swordmastery teacher. His main quests, The Lunar Game and The Ring, trigger his duel at maximum Anger.
Xanthe: the Dark Mistress chain
Xanthe the Dark Mistress is the level ceiling at 25+, so her grid closes the mid-game. Her Blood Guard recruiters hand out legendary loot if you steal the vrakhiri blood: the Phials of Brencis’s, Ambrus’s, and Bakir’s Blood. Her excavation lines end in ghost fights — Bloodied Dagger hides a locked chest behind a Ritual Dagger and a compelled corpse, with legendary boots inside. Her hidden activity, Home Sweet Home, starts at Silts Tower for 4 time segments and replays the prologue: survive it four times in a row to unlock the Together Forever achievement and its secret ending, or exit through the well, follow the church flashback in the order Alin, Esme, Coen, and leave with the Astrologer’s Ring. The Cycle of Love is her main quest and duel key.
The final quest and every ending
Beat the third lord and your Infamy maxes out. Skip time to the next day and the Infamy Edicts cutscene plays; then a message arrives — Brencis wants to parley. A Deal with the Devil lands in your journal, and this is the save point that matters: make a manual save and never overwrite it. Every one of the 7 endings branches from this quest’s dialogue, so you can roll them all from one save instead of three 50-hour runs. After each ending the game returns to the title screen with no free roam, which makes that pre-finale save your cleanup anchor for side quests and trophies too.
If the 30 days lapse before you finish, the story falls into its failure ending, Time Runs Out: the family dies and the trophy endings stay locked on that run. The deadline is generous — a Court-focused route arrives at Brencis within 7–10 days — but it is not optional.
FAQ
Can I do the lord chains in any order?
Yes — all three Court grids open immediately after the prologue. The recommended order is Ambrus, then Bakir, then Xanthe, because their level expectations climb from 1+ to 20+ to 25+.
What happens if Withering Away times out?
Esme dies and stays dead for the rest of the run. The recipe is hot water plus three spoonfuls of herbs, so treat that quest as the prologue’s first priority.
How long does the main story take?
A Court-focused route reaches the finale in 7–10 in-game days out of the 30 available, leaving the rest of the budget for side quests and cleanup.
Where should I save before the finale?
The moment A Deal with the Devil enters your journal. That save replays all 7 endings in minutes and anchors every missable-trophy cleanup afterwards.
Do side quests expire?
Prologue side quests expire with the prologue. Everything after stays available until you start it — hourglass-marked objectives inside started quests can still fail on their own timers.