The Blood of Dawnwalker Prologue Walkthrough — Wiki & Guide

The prologue is The Blood of Dawnwalker's guided onboarding: a compact slice of Vale Sangora where the 30-day clock has not started yet, every mechanic is taught in order, and a handful of low-stakes choices quietly shape two relationships you will rely on for the rest of the game. This walkthrough covers the opening quest chain in the order the game presents it — the attack on Coen's village, the first night as a half-vampire, and the morning routine of the Withering Away quest — and flags the dialogue options worth caring about.

How the prologue handles time and choices

Two rules make the opening much less stressful than it first looks:

• The clock is dormant. Time segments only start draining in earnest after the prologue ends. You can learn movement, combat and looting here without burning into your 30-day budget.
• Dialogue comes in two colors. Standard options can be replayed as many times as you like, so experiment freely. Gold-highlighted lines are one-time picks — once chosen, that thread of conversation closes. When a gold option touches a companion's personal story, it usually moves their bond in one direction or another.

All Good Things

The game opens in the forest outside Laslea Glen, with Coen chasing after his youngest sister, Lunka. This stretch is a movement tutorial: follow the path, sprint when prompted, and sit through the short scripted losses of control — they are story, not failure. The sequence ends at the church, where the attack on the village plays out and Coen is bitten.

What follows is your first combat lesson in human form: a handful of enemies, forgiving windows, and a nudge toward directional attacks. Then comes the pivot of the whole intro — Coen's scripted death and transformation. As a newly turned dawnwalker you fight the same encounter again, this time with claws and vampiric abilities, which is how the game teaches the two combat kits side by side. A conversation with the vampire who oversees your turning follows; the white options here are repeatable, the gold ones are not. The quest closes at the church cutscene, and night falls on Laslea Glen.

Withering Away

Withering Away is the first real morning of the game and the quest the prologue clearly wants you to finish — completing it cleanly shields you from story consequences later and unlocks two follow-up quests (Page-Turner and Like Father, Like Son). It plays as a sequence of small household errands:

1. Wake up and gear up. Open the chest beside your bed for clothes, and grab the weapon and odds and ends near the door on your way out.
2. Chores first. Split wood in the yard, then light the kitchen hearth — the stove triggers the morning cutscene with your family. One early dialogue asks how to handle your sister's appetite; a gentle line like promising not to force her to eat sets the tone.
3. Visit Anca for herbs. Follow the objective to Anca's hut at the edge of the glen. Arriving automatically unlocks the small shrine on her property — shrines are where you spend points to upgrade Coen's traits, so remember this spot.
4. The riverside scene. You'll find Anca washing at the river. Watching quietly, then asking about her scars and apologizing for prying, is the path that builds her bond; brushing it off closes it. These picks matter — Anca is one of the companion characters with her own quest line.
5. The purchase. Back at the hut you can buy herbs for 50 gold. Paying up front nudges her bond upward; saying you'll settle the debt later works too, as long as you actually pay before you head to the monastery much later in the story.

Finishing the errands ends Withering Away and starts Day 1 in earnest — from here, everything you do spends the clock.

Page-Turner: the reading date worth your segments

If, during Withering Away's epilogue at Anca's, you pick the warm option — the one about missing evenings like this — you'll spend 2 time segments reading poetry with her and unlock the Page-Turner side quest. It's a short, character-driven scene: match the poem's words correctly (fear pairs with thunder), pick the curious follow-ups such as asking about the red-covered book, and insist on reading Catullus together. Later in the scene, helping Anca gather herbs and letting the moment land where it naturally goes — including the slightly bold dialogue picks — completes the quest and pays out a level and a skill point.

Like Father, Like Son

Once Withering Away wraps, Coen's father Pieter invites you to train. This is a five-minute tutorial for the Charge skill, and the manual it rewards carries into every sword fight that follows. It costs a sliver of time, so it's a common recommendation to run it as your last errand before the day's final story beat.

After the prologue

When the night's mandatory quest pulls you to bed, Day 1 begins and the real structure of the game reveals itself: 30 days, 16 time segments in each day-night cycle, and far more quests than any single run can cover. That deadline is the heart of the game — see our guide to extending the 30-day timer before you commit your first week, and our endings breakdown if you want to know what the calendar is pushing you toward.

Keep reading:

• All 7 Endings Explained
• Extending the 30-Day Timer
• Characters & Cast Guide
• Legendary Equipment Locations