Bakir, the Mad Khan is one of three vampire court bosses you have to remove before Brencis will deal with you in The Blood of Dawnwalker, and he is easily the most theatrical of the group. His fight only opens up after you have made enough of a nuisance of yourself in his territory, and it comes in two parts: his consort and her guards first, then the Khan himself.
Quick answer: Clear roughly three-quarters of Bakir’s Court Activities to max out his anger, start The Lunar Game, pick [stay silent] at the first prompt and Enough! I'm fed up with this nonsense. at the second to trigger combat. Kill Beldam and her minions, then dodge Bakir’s slow sword swings and red shockwaves and hit him from behind. Finish with [drain Bakir's blood] or [kill Bakir] to earn The Mad Khan.
Requirements before the Bakir boss fight
Bakir’s region is tuned for level 20 and up, so he is not the boss to rush straight out of the prologue. Ambrus sits at the low end of the scale, and Bakir is the natural second stop.
The gate on the fight is his anger level. Court Activities are the game’s real main quests, and each one you complete in Bakir’s territory pushes his anger higher. Once it hits maximum, the quest that leads to the confrontation unlocks on its own. You do not need to clear every activity in his region — about 75 percent of them is enough.
Two things to keep in mind before you start grinding them out. Court Activities are never marked on your map automatically; they show as “Unknown Activity” until you physically find them. And every one of them burns time segments, which matters because you only have 30 in-game days to defeat all three vampire bosses and rescue your family.
Tip: Make a manual save before you walk into the boss quest. The dialogue choices you make during Bakir’s storyline have no effect on which ending you get, but a clean save here saves you a long backtrack if the fight goes badly.
Bakir’s Court Activities that raise his anger
There are 12 Court Activities tied to Bakir, split across four categories plus one hidden, missable entry. They stay available after you beat him, so anything you skip now can be mopped up later.
| Activity | What to do | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Headhunters: Matter of Honour | Beat the enemies outside the house. You can ask for a duel, but you always end up fighting all of them. | 3 segments |
| Headhunters: Silent to the Grave | Clear the backyard behind the forest hut. Compel the body, then drop into the well and loot the book for the Secret Stash sub-quest. | 3 segments |
| Headhunters: Smoke Them Out | Defeat the enemies. | 3 segments |
| Transports: Curious Shipment | Kill the escort walking the road. | 3 segments |
| Transports: Fool’s Gold | Kill the escort. Letting the soldiers live hands you a treasure map and starts Ill-Gotten Gains. | 3 segments |
| Distilleries: Ends and Means | Clear the yard, then destroy the distillery inside the barn. | 3 segments |
| Distilleries: Coercion and Duress | Clear the yard, then interact with the distillery to smash it. | 3 segments |
| Distilleries: Offshoot | Fight through the forest, then destroy the distillery in the cave. | 3 segments |
| Pillories: Out of Love | In a Svartrau City backyard. Approach the man in the pillory and kill the guards. | 3 segments |
| Pillories: Familiar Face | Southern main road in Parlita, marked with a yellow “!”. Free Vasil from the pillory. | 3 segments |
| Pillories: Old Hand | Outside Lunar Manor. Say “I’m not letting anyone hurt this man” to start Catalin’s Tutor and unlock a Swordmastery teacher. | 3 segments |
| Uriash Village: A Mother’s Plea | Hidden, missable and time-sensitive. Requires A Friend Like This, Song of the Mountain, then The Heart Wants What It Wants. | — |
The Lunar Game: Dialogue choices that start the fight
The encounter opens with Bakir performing for a masked crowd from a balcony, and the game hands you a “Time to Decide” prompt while he talks. Neither branch here changes your ending, but the sequence below is the clean route into the fight.
[stay silent]. Coen holds his tongue and Bakir carries on with his speech, eventually presenting a plate of hearts to the crowd.Enough! I'm fed up with this nonsense. This is the line that ends the theatre. Bakir turns the crowd on you and combat begins immediately.Phase 1: Beldam, Consort to the Mad Khan
Bakir does not step into the courtyard first. Beldam, Consort to the Mad Khan does, and she brings a mixed pack of standard guards and masked attendants with her. This phase is a crowd fight, not a duel, so treat the minions as the actual threat and keep moving rather than committing to long combos on Beldam while three enemies are behind you.
Killing Beldam pays out 32 XP and 108 gold. The courtyard clears out and Bakir walks in a few seconds later, so use the gap to top up your health before he closes the distance.
Phase 2: Bakir’s attacks and how to counter them
Bakir fights with a sword and leans on three things: heavy melee strikes, red shockwave attacks that push out from him, and summoned bats that harass you between his swings. His swings are slow and telegraphed, which is the whole key to the fight.
Dodge through the heavy attacks rather than blocking them, then punish from behind while he recovers. Trading blows head-on is what gets players killed here, because his shockwaves land while you are still locked in an attack animation.
Blood magic is your sustain. Voracious Bite restores health by drinking a target’s blood and returns 60 percent of a Health Segment, which is enough to reset a bad exchange without leaving the arena. Shapeshift is also worth having equipped, since turning into a Wolf grants Haste and makes Haste cost 30 percent less Stamina.
Ending the fight: Drain or kill Bakir
Bakir does not die from damage alone. Once his health runs out he drops to his knees and combat ends, and a cutscene plays where he begs Coen to finish him off.
You then get two options: [drain Bakir's blood] or [kill Bakir]. Picking the first has Coen bite his neck. Either way the Mad Khan dies during the games, which is exactly what The Mad Khan trophy asks for — “Kill Bakir during the games. Vale Sangora will need a new game master.”
You will know it worked when the trophy or achievement notification fires after the final cutscene and Bakir’s Court Activities stop contributing to his anger meter. His region stays open, so anything you skipped is still there.
If the Bakir boss quest never appears
There are only a couple of reasons the confrontation does not unlock. His anger has not reached maximum yet, which means more Court Activities in his territory. Or you have been finding activities but not completing them — discovering an “Unknown Activity” marker does nothing on its own, you have to finish the objective.
Bakir is one of three names on the list, alongside Ambrus and Xanthe, and all three have to fall before Brencis will summon you for the final quest. Because each Court Activity eats time segments, it is worth clearing his region in one focused pass instead of drifting into side content — a main-quest run through all three bosses can be done in well under 10 in-game days, leaving plenty of room inside the 30-day limit.
