The Dawnwalker prologue is short, but it is the only chapter that punishes hesitation. Six main quests run on a clock, ten side quests are missable the moment the chapter closes, and one of the six main quests has a recipe check that kills an NPC for the rest of the run if you fail it. After the prologue, the rest of the game opens into the Court meter, the vassal route, and the 30-day endgame window — none of which depend on the prologue to be perfect, but all of which feel easier when it is.
This walkthrough goes in order through the timed chain. If you have already started, jump to the section you need. If you are reading from the title screen, work through it once, then come back to the side-quest block.
The prologue quest chain
The prologue tells you exactly how it ends if you dawdle: its quests run on a timer and vanish — permanently — once the chapter closes. The main chain runs in this order.
| Step | Quest | Reward | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | All Good Things | — | Opening vignette; sets the family and the village stage. |
| 2 | Withering Away | 100 XP | The trap quest. Esme’s medicine only succeeds with hot water plus three spoonfuls of herbs; a wrong mix or a lapsed timer kills her for the rest of the run. |
| 3 | Like Father Like Son | 100 XP | Sparring with your father so the family conversation lands. Time-gated by his mood. |
| 4 | Sacred Covenant | 150 XP | The covenant scene that closes the family arc. |
| 5 | Bad Blood | 200 XP | First taste of Brencis’s vassals — the prologue “real” fight. |
| 6 | Smoke and Ashes | 300 XP | The mass scene; the chapter ends when this completes. |
The trap sits inside Withering Away: Esme’s recipe is hot water + three spoonfuls of herbs. Read the recipe before you start crafting; the ingredients are listed inside the quest, and the timer is short enough that you do not get to retry inside the same quest. If Esme dies here, you can still finish the prologue, but the quest log permanently loses the line that would have advanced her storyline in the mid-game.
The prologue side quests — ten missable
From here on, the journal marks every fragile task: an hourglass for time-sensitive objectives, a sun for day-only work, a moon for night-only work. The ten side quests that exist only inside the prologue are:
- Live Bait
- Someone Needs A Lesson
- Dead Drop
- Disturbed
- Deep Down
- Enter Not
- Blasphemy
- On the Run
- If a Tree Falls in a Forest…
- Bandit’s Treasure Map for Laslea Glen
Clear the ones that fall on the path you are already walking through. Leave the rest — losing a side quest costs you a small reward, but losing Withering Away costs you a story thread. The First 30 Days Survival Guide covers which side quests are worth the detour and which can be skipped without regret.
Time cost of the prologue
The prologue runs roughly 1-2 in-game days depending on how thorough you are. The hourglass on each quest lets you see the budget — most chain quests cost 1 segment, side quests cost 1-3 segments. The trap with Withering Away is that the timer for “make the medicine” starts the moment the quest begins, not the moment you start crafting, so wandering around the village to find the recipe costs you the time you need to follow it.
How to read the prologue journal
Three icons matter in the prologue, and they reappear throughout the game:
- Hourglass — Time-sensitive. The objective auto-fails if you do not complete it inside the budget.
- Sun — Day-only. The objective is only available during daylight segments.
- Moon — Night-only. The objective is only available during night segments.
If an objective has no icon, it is safe to leave it for later. If it has any of the three, treat it as a same-day priority.
After the prologue
When Smoke and Ashes completes, the prologue ends and the Court meter opens. From here:
- The Court System Explained page walks through the Anger / Infamy loop and the 41 Court Activities that drive the mid-game.
- The Best Builds Tier List is the next read — the skill trees are now unlockable, and the order you pick your early perks decides whether the campaign feels fair or punishing.
- The All Endings Complete Guide is the long-view reference: which endings are reachable inside the 30-day window, which require specific ally routes, and which are post-game.
If Withering Away killed Esme on this run, none of those pages will warn you about it — that thread is gone for this file. The next playthrough will reset the chapter, so the only way to recover is to start a new save.
Pairing With Other Guides
- The 30-day time mechanic explainer is the foundation read for understanding why the prologue’s hourglass exists.
- The Day and Night Duality page is relevant the moment Coen shifts between human and vampire forms inside the prologue.
- The Hex Magic and Burning Blood page covers the magic system that becomes available after the prologue closes.
If the prologue timer feels too tight on a first run, that is the design intent. The game is built around the 30-day window and uses the prologue to teach the same lesson at a smaller scale.
Sources: thebloodofdawnwalkerwiki.com walkthrough (Sep 4, 2026, “Seven timed prologue quests, three Court chains, three duels, one parley with Brencis”), IGN The Blood of Dawnwalker Walkthrough day-by-day table, Eurogamer hands-on preview (Bertie Purchese, 2026).