The prologue is the part you cannot finish
It has its own budget, it ends at sundown whatever you have done, and the 30-day clock has not started yet. This is where the game takes things away from you.
Everything people fear about the 30-day timer is actually true of the prologue instead. It runs on a single day phase that ends at the Blood Mass, there is not enough room for every quest in it, and anything you have not finished simply fails. One reviewer spent around fifteen hours replaying it to find an order worth keeping, and still dropped two quests.
The Blood of Dawnwalker — Official Opening Cinematic
GameTrailers · 3:58
The opening cinematic, published the day the game unlocked. This is where Coen's story starts, before the prologue hands you the controls.
The six main quests
| # | Quest | Cost | What to know |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | All Good Things | free | Opening quest. |
| 2 | Withering Away | 1-3 | Brew Anca's medicine correctly (hot water, three spoonfuls of herbs). Otherwise Esme may die at the Blood Mass, or it may have no major consequence. |
| 3 | Like Father, Like Son | 1 | Mandatory. |
| 4 | Sacred Covenant | 3 | Hidden cost. POINT OF NO RETURN - auto-starts if prologue segments run out. |
| 5 | Bad Blood | 3-4 | — |
| 6 | Smoke and Ashes | 8 | The 30-day clock starts here, when you learn from the dying soldier where the family was taken. |
These sum to more than the prologue budget because they are charged across the whole prologue, not all from the free-choice window.
The point of no return
Sacred Covenant. It carries a hidden 3-segment cost and it is the door out of the prologue. Critically, if your segments run out it starts by itself — the game will make the decision for you and fail whatever you had open.
The 10 side quests, all of them missable
- Dead Drop · free
- Enter Not · free
- If a Tree Falls in a Forest... · free
- Blasphemy · 1 seg · Gremla
- Deep Down · 1 seg · Gavril
- Disturbed · 1-2 seg · Crina
- Live Bait · 1 seg · Yanna
- On the Run · 1 seg · Iorgu
- Someone Needs a Lesson · 1 seg · Vasil
- Page-Turner · 3 seg · Anca
Bandits’ Treasure Map: Laslea Glen is the exception — it can be completed after the prologue. The Firebrand becomes available during Smoke and Ashes, and Into the Den can be done during or after the prologue, so it can wait.
The two things worth protecting
- Esme. Withering Away requires brewing Anca’s medicine with hot water and three spoonfuls of herbs, then getting her to take it, all before nightfall. Get it wrong and she may die at the Blood Mass and be missing from the epilogue, or it may make no major difference; the Withering Away page has every choice.
- Your remaining segments. Attacking a friendly NPC gets Coen arrested and burns every segment you have left, which ends the prologue on the spot.
When the 30 days begin
At the end of Smoke and Ashes, when you learn from the dying soldier that the family and the village have been taken to the castle. Everything before that is on the prologue’s budget, not the campaign’s.
Finishing the prologue awards A Dawnwalker is Born, held by 75.2% of Steam owners — so roughly one in four people who bought the game have not got this far yet.
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