The Blood Of Dawnwalker: How to Save Vlad in Bad Blood

Minor spoilers for the burning-house scene, its failure state, and early Bad Blood consequences follow.

Save Vladimir during Bad Blood by taking the optional Find Vladimir route after leaving the Silver Mines, reaching the burning house with more than one health segment, and refusing the “Give in to the hunger” dialogue choice. Saving him costs one time segment and gives you a one-time-segment shortcut to Laslea, so rescuing Vlad does not put Coen’s family at greater risk. ^[1][6][9]

The key trap: the game checks Coen’s current health when the conversation at the burning-house door begins. At one health segment or lower, Coen is hungry, and the Vlad scene can turn into a feeding outcome instead of a rescue. Healing once the dialogue has started is too late. ^[1]

Table of Contents (8)

Vlad rescue requirements in Bad Blood

The rescue is part of the Bad Blood quest in the Laslea Glen and Silver Mines prologue sequence. Complete Sacred Covenant, progress through the mine objectives, and leave the mines to reach the return route toward Laslea. The game then adds the optional Find Vladimir and Talk with Vladimir objectives. They look skippable in the quest log, yet they control Vlad’s survival, a shortcut, 250 XP, and later village content. ^[6][9][13]

• Quest prerequisite: Complete Sacred Covenant and advance into Bad Blood.
• Route requirement: Follow the optional Vladimir trail after leaving the Silver Mines instead of heading directly toward Laslea.
• Health requirement: Start the burning-house conversation above one health segment. One health segment exactly is not enough.
• Choice requirement: Select reassuring or persuasive responses and never choose “Give in to the hunger.”

Two terms matter here, and the game is mean enough that mixing them up can wreck the run. Health segments are Coen’s current condition and hunger threshold. Time segments are the route-cost chunks used for travel and story timing. Vlad’s rescue depends on the first one, while the family-risk question depends on the second. Keep them separate and the whole branch makes a lot more sense.

If you need the broader mine-to-village order before this branch, use FinalBoss’s The Blood Of Dawnwalker prologue guide. Keep this rescue in mind while following it: the important resource is health entering the final encounter, not merely surviving it.

How to find Vlad after leaving the mine

Once Coen exits the Silver Mines and the main objective points him toward Laslea and his family, do not beeline to the village. Stay on the trail long enough to find a body near two soldiers. Examining it begins or reinforces the optional Vladimir objective, which is the game’s nudge that this detour matters more than the word “optional” suggests.

From there, follow the blood and environmental trail away from the standard village route. It leads to a burning house, and that is the only place where you can directly keep Vlad alive. If you skip this trail and continue toward Laslea, the rescue opportunity is gone and so is the shortcut Vlad can reveal later. ^[5][6][7][9]

At the burning house, two enemies are holding Vlad inside: one regular soldier and one Vrakhiri Banneret miniboss. This is the last combat gate before the decision, which is why the scene is nastier than it first looks. It is not only asking whether you can win the fight. It is asking what shape Coen is in the instant the fight ends. ^[1][5][6][7]

Protect your health before the Banneret dies

Enter the fight with a real buffer if you can. The Banneret encounter sits immediately before a hunger-sensitive human conversation, so taking enough damage to fall to one health segment turns a combat mistake into a story consequence. This is one of those Dawnwalker scenes where the health bar is also a morality trap.

Use cover and Coen’s vrakhiri abilities to reduce direct damage, and collect Vials of Human Blood from soldiers on the route for emergency healing. If the Banneret leaves you at one health segment or lower, use a vial before the door conversation starts. The safe target is always more than one health segment. ^[1][6]

If you want a broader survivability setup for the prologue, FinalBoss also has an early-build guide for The Blood Of Dawnwalker. For this specific branch, though, the priority is simple: keep enough health in reserve to avoid triggering hunger at the door, even if that means playing the Banneret fight a little slower and safer.

The exact choice that saves Vlad

Kill both enemies at the burning house. Coen then calls to Vlad and the conversation begins at the door. This is the only direct intervention point in Bad Blood; if the scene goes wrong, you are fixing it with an earlier save, not by circling back later. ^[1][6]

Health check: Coen’s status is locked when the dialogue starts

This is the part players miss. The game checks Coen’s current health right as the burning-house conversation starts. If Coen begins that dialogue at more than one health segment, he can resist the hunger and talk Vlad out. If Coen begins it at one health segment or lower, the scene shifts into the hungry version. Using a healing item after the conversation has already started does not undo that check. ^[1]

• Check that Coen has more than one health segment before initiating the conversation.
• Choose the dialogue that reassures or persuades Vlad to leave the house.
• Do not select “Give in to the hunger.” That choice kills Vlad even if Coen has enough health to resist hunger.
• Let Vlad leave the burning building and continue the conversation at the crag above Laslea.

In other words, there are two separate failure points: entering the scene hungry, and manually choosing the worst option anyway. Avoid both and Vlad lives. For an early-game branch, it is an impressively cruel little setup.

The scene also teaches one of Dawnwalker’s core rules without much mercy: conversations with human NPCs do not exist in a vacuum when Coen is starving. Here, that rule matters immediately and permanently. ^[1]

What saving Vlad changes

Spoilers for Bad Blood, Laslea, and early Day 1 content follow.

If you get the rescue right, Vlad leaves the house and accompanies Coen to a crag above Laslea. There, he explains part of the rebel network operating in Vale Sangora and reveals a route down toward the village. Use the clawride path from the crag to continue toward Laslea. ^[1][6]

• Time segments: Saving Vlad uses one time segment, and his shortcut to Laslea also requires one time segment. Going straight to the village without him takes two time segments. Saving him is therefore the faster overall route, not the indulgent one. ^[9]
• XP: Saving Vladimir awards 250 XP. Bad Blood also awards 250 XP for escaping the mine and 500 XP for full quest completion on launch-version values. ^[6]
• Rebel-network context: Vlad provides early information about rebel activity in Vale Sangora. If he dies, that first-hand conversation disappears. ^[1][6]
• Later content: Keeping Vlad alive preserves his Day 1 presence and the related The Firebrand quest context. His house is in Laslea, northwest of the chapel, and can be visited after the prologue route advances. ^[8][13]

That time-segment outcome is the part worth underlining. The branch is framed like a tense choice between helping Vlad and racing home, but the numbers favor the rescue. If your only concern is getting back to Laslea as efficiently as possible, Vlad is not a detour. He is the shortcut. ^[9]

What happens if Vlad dies

Vlad dies if Coen begins the conversation at one health segment or lower and the scene turns predatory, or if you directly select “Give in to the hunger” at the door. The 250 XP rescue reward is lost, Vlad cannot provide the shortcut, and the standard route to Laslea consumes two time segments instead of one. Later references to him and parts of The Firebrand setup also change or disappear. ^{[1][4][6][8][9]}

The family timer is the misleading part of this choice. Following Vlad’s optional trail is more efficient than skipping it because his rescue path replaces the slower standard journey back to Laslea. So the clean version of the advice is this: keep Coen fed, take the burning-house detour, and do not panic about losing time by helping him.

If you are replaying the prologue to fix the outcome, focus on the health threshold first. Most failed Vlad runs are not lost because players picked the wrong road; they are lost because they arrived at the right door in the wrong state.

Sources

• [1] PC Gamer, How to save Vlad in The Blood of Dawnwalker.
• [4] Video guide, The Blood of Dawnwalker Save Vladimir or feed on him.
• [5] Game8, All Dialogue Choices and Their Consequences.
• [6] PowerPyx, Blood of Dawnwalker Bad Blood Walkthrough.
• [8] Polygon, The Firebrand quest walkthrough in The Blood of Dawnwalker.
• [9] Into Indie Games, The Blood Of Dawnwalker walkthrough: Like Father Like Son, Sacred Covenant, Bad Blood.
• [13] IGN, Day 1 Walkthrough.