Bakir’s Pillories: Familiar Face Walkthrough in The Blood of Dawnwalker

Bakir’s Pillories: Familiar Face is one of the twelve Court Activities tied to Bakir in The Blood of Dawnwalker, and the only one where the captive is someone Coen already knows. The setup is simple — a man is locked in a pillory, guards are watching him, and the game leaves the rest up to you.

Quick answer: Go to the village of Parlita and follow the yellow “!” marker on the main road in the southern part of town, interact with the pillory to trigger the objective “Investigate the pillory,” then kill the guards to free Vasil. The activity costs 3 time segments and pays out 100 XP and 1 skill point.

Familiar Face location in Parlita

Court Activities do not appear on your map until you find them, so Familiar Face sits in your journal as an unknown activity until you physically walk into Parlita. Head for the main road running through the southern half of the village and look for the yellow exclamation mark. The pillory is out in the open with a small group of soldiers in red and green standing guard around it.

Bakir’s region is scaled for level 20 and up, so this is not one to rush straight out of the prologue. If you want the marker placed for you ahead of time, clearing the valley’s towers reveals activity icons as white question marks on the map.

How to free Vasil from the pillory

Track the activity from your journal and approach the pillory on foot. Talking to the soldier on watch gets you nowhere — he tells Coen to get lost, and Coen’s demand to let the man go is refused.

Start the fight. The guards attack as a group rather than one at a time, so pull back into open ground instead of trading blows with your back to the pillory.

Coen trading blows with two red-and-green Bakir guards, the targeted enemy's health bar on screen — The pillory guards wear Bakir’s red and green colours and engage as a group. Image: Rebel Wolves

Fight at night if you can. Coen is stronger after dark with his claws than with the sword, and the surrounding rooftops give you Shadowstep options if the fight turns against you.

Night-time combat in the village with the ability prompt showing on the combat HUD — Fighting the guards after dark, with the vampiric ability prompt live on the HUD. Image: Rebel Wolves

Finish the last soldier. Once every guard marked in the encounter is down, the objective updates and the pillory becomes interactable.

Coen striking the last marked guard, whose health bar is nearly empty, with bodies on the ground — The activity only advances once the final marked guard falls. Image: Rebel Wolves

Release the captive. He turns out to be Vasil, one of the villagers from Laslea — the same man Coen can run into during the prologue side quest Someone Needs a Lesson.

Vasil speaking to Coen in a dialogue scene after being freed from the pillory — Vasil talks to Coen once he’s out of the pillory. Image: Rebel Wolves

The Feral Hunger outcome

Rescuing Vasil is not guaranteed to end well for him. Coen can be overcome by Feral Hunger during the scene, attack the man he just freed, and drain him — which kills Vasil outright and still closes the activity. That outcome is what unlocks the Feral Hunger trophy.

Note: killing friendly NPCs and quest givers can shut you out of other content elsewhere in the valley, so keep a manual save before you walk into Parlita if you want both the trophy and a living Vasil on the same playthrough. The game gives you 54 manual save slots for exactly this kind of hedging.

The Blood of Dawnwalker gameplay during Bakir's Pillories: Familiar Face in Parlita

Familiar Face cost and rewards

Detail	Value
Region	Bakir (level 20+)
Location	Parlita, main road in the southern part of the village
Objective	Investigate the pillory
Time cost	3 time segments
Rewards	100 XP, 1 skill point
Other effects	Raises Bakir’s anger and Coen’s infamy rating

Time in The Blood of Dawnwalker is spent like currency rather than ticking down on its own, and you have 30 in-game days to beat all three vassals and reach Brencis. Three segments is cheap for a full activity, so Familiar Face is an efficient way to push Bakir’s meter.

How it feeds into Bakir’s anger meter

Bakir has twelve Court Activities in total, and you need roughly nine of them to fill his anger meter and unlock The Lunar Game, the quest that finally puts him in front of you. All three pillories together cost 9 time segments and each one hands over a skill point, which makes them among the best value entries on his board.

Pillory activity	Where to find it
Out of Love	A backyard near the middle of Svartrau City
Familiar Face	Southern main road in Parlita
Old Hand	Directly in front of Lunar Manor

Every activity you clear also raises Coen’s infamy rating, which triggers Brencis’s edicts — extra patrols in settlements, checkpoints on the roads, higher shop prices, and eventually soldiers who recognise Coen on sight. That is the trade-off for angering a vassal quickly.

Confirming the activity completed

You will know it registered when the journal entry closes out, the 100 XP and skill point land, and the Court menu shows Bakir’s anger has moved up. If the reward never appears, the usual cause is a surviving guard still in the encounter, or the pillory never being interacted with in the first place — approaching the marker is not the same as triggering the objective.

Once Familiar Face is done, the other two pillories and Bakir’s distilleries, transports, and headhunter camps are all still sitting there waiting, and they remain available even after you eventually kill him. There is no penalty for leaving Parlita and coming back — untouched activities stay put indefinitely until you actually start them.