The Blood of Dawnwalker does not have a single fixed finale. The 30-day cycle sets the deadline for rescuing Coen's family, but the story can be closed out in several ways, and two of them can fire within the first hours of play. This page gathers the routes that have been documented since launch.
How Many Endings There Are
One detailed account of the shipped game counts eight endings and splits them three ways: four that begin with assaulting Greifberg Castle, one built on a deal with Brencis, and three secret endings reached earlier than the rest. That count comes from a single account and no other published source states a number, so it is recorded here as reported rather than confirmed. The same account names four of the routes: A Lone Wolf's Hunt, Rise At Dawn Fall Before Dusk, Midnight Reckoning, and A Deal With The Devil.
Two further points are reported alongside the count. A post-credit cutscene is reported to play on every route except one, and Lunka's fate is reported to be the same in all of them.
Two endings sit on firmer ground. The publisher has confirmed that the fight against Brencis at the close of the prologue, which the game expects the player to lose, can be won, and that winning it kills him and ends the game as a legitimate ending. Separately, two independent accounts document that Coen can simply walk out of the valley once the starting area opens up. Both are described in detail below.
Route Summary
Route | How It Is Reached | Status |
|---|---|---|
A Lone Wolf's Hunt | Assault Greifberg Castle alone, entering over the wall at night or through a side door by day. | Reported |
Rise At Dawn, Fall Before Dusk | Follow the Manumit questline to its end and let Catalin Dragosti's army into the valley. | Reported |
Midnight Reckoning | Follow Lacra's questline and break Brencis's ritual beneath the castle. | Reported |
A Deal With The Devil | Reach maximum infamy, meet Brencis at Shrike's Crag, and take his offer. | Reported |
Leaving Vale Sangora | Cross the broken bridge in the north west of the Briar Sloughs and follow the road out. | Documented by two independent accounts |
Winning the prologue fight | Defeat Brencis at the end of the prologue, then defeat his second stage. | Confirmed by the publisher |
Never waking up | Fail four cycles of the Home Sweet Home nightmare, then speak to Esme. | Reported |
Assaulting Greifberg Castle
Four of the routes above open with the same assault, and published accounts of the shipped game describe its shape changing with decisions made much earlier in the run.
Variable | Reported Effect on the Assault |
|---|---|
Ambrus still alive | He is fought as a boss in the entrance hall. |
Bakir still alive | He is fought as a boss in the dungeon and forces a fight against the prisoners first. |
Xanthe killed earlier | She is not fought in the throne room, but her trap sequence still has to be completed. |
The 30-day timer has expired | The family is already dead. Play continues without the clock, and the loss changes the epilogue. |
Entering by night | Every fight in the assault is taken in vampire form, which cuts off hex magic for the duration and leaves healing to Voracious Bite. |
One practical note applies to any route that reaches the epilogue: carry around 800 denarii, because the church asks for a donation and Yanna can be given a dowry.
A Lone Wolf's Hunt
Coen takes the castle by himself. Accounts give two ways in: a Shadow Step over the wall at night, or a daytime side door opened by securing Father Florin's support and completing his quest. From there the route runs through a mandatory boss fight against the Unblinking Blasphemy, a sweep of the cells to free prisoners, and a confrontation with Brencis in the dungeon depths in time to save the family. At that point Coen can fight Brencis, or bow and hand over either the Manumits or Lacra.
This is also the name of a quest in the shipped game. A post-launch hotfix note refers to A Lone Wolf's Hunt showing its difficulty level correctly, which confirms the name as a journal entry; the ending route and the quest share it. See Quest List.
Rise At Dawn, Fall Before Dusk
The Manumit route. Coen joins the rebellion, works through its questline, and then helps Crake bring in Catalin Dragosti, son of the valley's former tyrant Skender Dragosti, by taking Eastridge Outpost so his army can enter. The assault itself comes through the tunnels beneath the castle rather than over the wall. In the throne room Brencis turns on Catalin, and whether Coen intervenes decides which of the two survives.
Midnight Reckoning
Lacra's route. The pair enter the dungeons through the ancient ruins below the castle and destroy Brencis's ritual, which tears the castle apart and raises its dead. In the throne room Coen chooses between backing Lacra and breaking with her to protect his family. The family is described as alive at this point but overgrown by the red roots.
A Deal With The Devil
Reached by pushing infamy to its ceiling, the point at which Brencis's edicts bite hardest, and which the notoriety system ties to killing all three of his officers. Brencis then asks to meet at Shrike's Crag, a haunted site of an old massacre, and offers to return the family and exempt Laslea from the blood tax in exchange for marking the Manumit hideout. Spilling blood at the site summons its dead, which makes attacking him there costly. See Haunted Sites.
The Early Endings
Leaving Vale Sangora
The most thoroughly documented of the early exits, and the only one with two independent write ups. In the north west of the Briar Sloughs a road leads out of the valley across a collapsed bridge at the Cursed Chasm. Crossing the gap needs a Shadow Step at its longest range, which in turn needs enough corruption and a rank of the Shadow Dweller perk. Beyond the bridge the road runs to an unguarded gate, and walking into it offers the choice to leave the valley for good. There is no epilogue on this route, the post credits cutscene still plays, and both accounts record an achievement of its own alongside the first credits achievement.
Winning the Prologue Fight
The prologue closes with a fight the game is built around losing. It can be won. Winning means beating Brencis twice, including a second form, and the publisher has confirmed that beating him there kills him and ends the game, while noting that only a couple of people inside the studio managed it and that it is extremely hard in practice. The epilogue that follows is very short, because almost nothing has happened yet.
Never Waking Up
The hidden failure state of the Home Sweet Home quest, which begins at Aurelius's study on the top floor of The Silts Tower. Coen is caught in a repeating nightmare of a morning in Laslea. There is a way out, but playing through four cycles without taking it ends the run: Esme explains that Coen is staying, and the credits roll. This is reported to be the one route with no post credit cutscene.
The Epilogue
Every route except one of the secret endings runs an epilogue set in a rebuilt Laslea as the village prepares for winter, followed by a series of tableaux that report on the choices made along the way. Which characters appear in the village, and which stand with Lunka in the closing scene, change with those choices, as do the notices pinned to the tree in the square. All of it comes from post launch accounts rather than from the developers.
Tableau | Reported Variables |
|---|---|
The family | Esme is absent if the prologue medicine was brewed wrong. The whole family is absent if the thirty days ran out. Lunka leaves the valley with Coen in every version. |
The city is independent and lawless, still under vrakhir rule, or sacked in retribution. The plague returns only if Brencis is gone. The Uriashi either withdraw to the mountain or stay. | |
She stays in Laslea and is accepted by the villagers, or leaves in search of a different cure, depending on the decision about the Font. | |
Crake and the Manumits | Defending the newly independent valley, carrying out killings under Catalin Dragosti's orders, or dead at Brencis's hand. |
She moves on and keeps travelling, or is killed by Brencis and his court if he is still in power. | |
Canonised as a saint, or burned publicly if Brencis remains in power. | |
St. Tyna's Convent | The curse is lifted and its nuns wander into the woods, or the convent stays cursed and full of undead. |
The Svartrau murders | The killings stop if the right culprit was found, and continue if the wrong one was. |
The kobold hive | Records what was done with the hive during Lacra's Hive and Seek quest. |
Xanthe and Chariklea | Appears only if Xanthe was spared, and reports on what she does afterwards. |
What Is Not Confirmed
No first-party list of endings has been published. The count, the route names and the epilogue structure all come from post launch coverage.
Some achievements are reported to be tied to how the story ends, but the hidden portion of the achievement list has never been published in full, so the mapping is unknown.
Whether the routes above are the complete set is unknown, and a single account's count is not a roster.
Reported details of the post credit cutscene are thin, and accounts differ on whether it plays in literally every ending or in all but one.