Skyrim:Deceiving the Herd

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Frame the Dawnguard for murder. Quest Giver: Feran Sadri Location(s): Radiant City Prerequisite Quest: The Bloodstone Chalice Reward: Blood Potions, various items ID: DLC1RV03

Deceiving the Herd

Quick Walkthrough

1. Speak to Feran Sadri.
2. Read incriminating letter to determine city of victim.
3. (Optional) Dress up as a member of the Dawnguard.
4. (Optional) Choose a high profile victim.
5. Kill a victim in the streets, where you can be seen.
6. Plant the incriminating letter on the corpse.
7. Return to Feran Sadri for your reward.

Detailed Walkthrough

When you speak to Feran Sadri, he will complain that the Dawnguard have been recruiting and give you an assignment to give them something else to worry about: "You are to make a public show of murdering someone. Do it in the streets for all to see. The higher the profile the better. Make it seem you are a member of the Dawnguard, thus sowing confusion among the herd. Wear this armor and plant this note on the victim." He will give you a set of Dawnguard armor so you can impersonate the Dawnguard more easily, as well as the note to plant on the victim's body.

Feran will choose the city for you, but you are given the option of what to wear, how to kill the victim, and which victim to kill. After killing the chosen victim, plant the letter on their corpse and return to Feran.

The following table lists only the victims which count as "high profile" for the quest.

To meet our site's higher standard of quality, this article or section may require cleanup. The user who placed this here had the following concern: The following table is incomplete, and some entries may be incorrect. Please remove victims which you can confirm do not count toward the "high profile" option of the quest, and add any which do. To leave a message about the cleanup for this article, please add it to this article's talk page

†	NPC must be lured outside; see notes.

‡	During Bound Until Death

Notes

• Feran refers to high profile victims as "an important member of society. Someone attached to the Jarl's court, a merchant, a bard, a priest, someone with stature." However, some of those mentioned will not count toward the high profile option, so be sure to save beforehand if you want to make sure you get the benefits of this.
• A killing in this quest only counts if the target is "on the streets." Thus NPCs that never leave a building won't count unless you can coax them outside, such as by making them hostile and then stepping outside for them to follow.
• You must be seen making the kill in Dawnguard armor; stealth kills or kills with no one else around don't count.
• Killing a guard will progress the quest, if you do not wish to kill a named NPC. The 'high-profile victim' objective will fail, but the quest as a whole will be completed successfully.
• You can avoid the bounty if sent to Windhelm by choosing to kill Calixto Corrium in conjunction with solving the Blood on the Ice murders. Doing it this way concludes the investigation as well as gives you a success for the public murder, however he does not count as high profile.
• Wearing any Dawnguard armor satisfies the quests requirements—it is not necessary to use the armor given by Feran.
• Reanimating a high profile target and killing it (again) within the required city will satisfy the optional objective.

Bugs

• Even without accepting this quest, the objective "Plant letter on <Alias=Victim>'s corpse" may appear in your journal after you kill a high-profile victim.
  • This bug is fixed by version 1.2.1 of the Unofficial Dawnguard Patch.
  • You can use setstage DLC1RV03 10 to fix this once you have gone through all the vampire quests.
• You may not be able to plant the Incriminating Letter on the corpse, instead receiving a message saying "Quest items cannot be removed from your inventory".
  • This bug is fixed by version 1.1.1 of the Unofficial Dawnguard Patch.
  • Reloading a save from before entering the city should fix this.
  • Read Incriminating Letter to determine city of victim.
  • Wait for quest messages to appear before planting letter.
• Quest may not update if you use the Ebony Blade to kill a target with a high disposition towards you. ^{(see talk)}
• It may happen that the quest will start after installing "Dragonborn". If so, the journal will refer to one of the Cultists that attack you as objective of the quest. If you want to find the letter, you have to pickpocket Feran Sadri and steal it. After that, you can put the letter on the corpse of the Cultist and then, returning to Feran, finish the quest. ^?

Quest Stages

Deceiving the Herd (DLC1RV03)
Stage	Finishes Quest	Journal Entry
10		<Alias=QuestGiver> wishes to sow confusion and anger amongst the people of <Alias=City>. I am to kill a citizen out in the streets while impersonating a member of the Dawnguard. Then I am to place an incriminating letter on the corpse. The higher the profile of my victim the better. (Objective is assigned): (Optional) Choose a high profile victim (Objective is assigned): (Optional) Make it a public kill while wearing Dawnguard armor (Objective is assigned): Kill someone out in the streets of <Alias=City>
200		(Objective is assigned): Plant letter on <Alias=Victim>'s corpse
255
300

• The following empty quest stages were omitted from the table: 1, 100, 101, 110, 111, 220.

 

Notes

• Any text displayed in angle brackets (e.g., <Alias=LocationHold>) is dynamically set by the Radiant Quest system, and will be filled in with the appropriate word(s) when seen in game.
• Not all Journal Entries may appear in your journal; which entries appear and which entries do not depends on the manner in which the quest is done.
• Stages are not always in order of progress. This is usually the case with quests that have multiple possible outcomes or quests where certain tasks may be done in any order. Some stages may therefore repeat objectives seen in other stages.
• If an entry is marked as "Finishes Quest" it means the quest disappears from the Active Quest list, but you may still receive new entries for that quest.
• On the PC, it is possible to use the console to advance through the quest by entering setstage DLC1RV03 stage, where stage is the number of the stage you wish to complete. It is not possible to un-complete (i.e. go back) quest stages, but it is possible to clear all stages of the quest using resetquest DLC1RV03.

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