The Blood of Dawnwalker: How to Complete Xanthe’s Recruiters Taste of Power

Taste of Power is one of three Blood Guard recruiter activities under Xanthe in the Court menu, and it is the only one that hands over a Legendary Phial of Brencis’s Blood. The fight itself is short. The part people get wrong is the prompt at the end, where one wrong pick throws away the reward entirely.

Quick answer: Kill Xanthe’s men in the Svartrau City courtyard, loot the bodies for the Recruitment Instructions, then interact with the golden blood reliquary and choose [collect vrakhiri blood] for 3 time segments. That option, and only that option, awards the Phial of Brencis’s Blood.

Where Taste of Power is located and what it costs

The activity sits in a courtyard inside Svartrau City. Like every Court Activity, it does not appear on your map on its own — it shows as an unknown entry in Xanthe’s Court panel until you either find it in the world, climb a nearby tower to reveal question mark icons, or loot the document that marks more of her activities.

Xanthe’s region is tuned for higher levels than Ambrus’s or Bakir’s, so most players reach this one late. The whole thing costs 3 time segments, spent when you interact with the reliquary rather than during the fight.

Detail	Value
Court Activity group	Xanthe’s Recruiters (Blood Guard recruiters)
Location	Courtyard in Svartrau City
Time cost	3 time segments
Main reward	Phial of Brencis’s Blood (Legendary)
Other rewards	22 XP, 1 Skill Point

How to complete Taste of Power

Track the activity in your journal and head to the marked courtyard in Svartrau City. The objective reads “Approach Xanthe’s men and check what they’re doing.” At night you can drop in from the rooftops instead of fighting your way through the streets below.

Coen moving through the dark Svartrau City courtyard with the combat HUD active — Dropping into the Svartrau City courtyard where Xanthe’s recruiters are waiting. Image: Rebel Wolves

Talk to the Blood Guard standing with the group. The conversation ends in a fight regardless of what you pick, so there is no dialogue path that skips the combat here.

Defeat every recruiter in the courtyard. It is a small group rather than a full outpost, and clearing it flips the objective to “Search the soldier’s bodies for clues.”

Coen striking a targeted recruiter, with the enemy health bar and damage numbers on screen — The recruiter fight is a short skirmish, not a camp assault. Image: Rebel Wolves

Hold the loot prompt on the fallen soldiers. One body carries the Recruitment Instructions, the item the objective actually wants; the rest cough up minor pickups like Barley Beer and Denarius.

The square-button Loot prompt over a dead soldier during Xanthe's Recruiters — Looting the soldier’s body yields the Recruitment Instructions. Image: Rebel Wolves

Walk to the golden blood reliquary the guards were standing around and interact with it. A short menu opens with three options, and this is the moment that decides whether you get the phial.

Before you leave, search the chest at the same location. The document inside marks additional Xanthe activities on your map, which saves a lot of aimless riding later.

Coen beside the candlelit table and chest holding the blood reliquary, quest objectives on screen — The reliquary sits on a candlelit table, with the chest containing the Xanthe document nearby. Image: Rebel Wolves

Reliquary options: Collect the blood or destroy it

The prompt offers three choices, two of which cost 3 time segments. Only one of them puts a Legendary item in your inventory.

Option	Time	Outcome
[collect vrakhiri blood]	3	Completes the activity and awards the Phial of Brencis’s Blood
[destroy the reliquary]	3	Completes the activity, no phial
[leave]	—	Backs out; nothing is claimed or destroyed

Note: the phial is not a consumable to hoard. Drinking a vampire lord’s blood pushes Coen’s Corruption up and opens a Vampirism ability — Brencis’s blood is tied to Piercing Shriek. If you are deliberately keeping Corruption low to stay on human-side perks, taking the phial and simply not drinking it is the safe play.

How to confirm the activity completed

Once the blood is collected, a “Quest Ended” screen appears titled Xanthe’s Recruiters: Taste of Power, listing 22 XP, 1 Skill Point, and the Phial of Brencis’s Blood. Close it and the Court menu opens on Brencis’s Court, with Xanthe’s Anger meter nudged up by one activity.

Quest Ended screen for Xanthe's Recruiters: Taste of Power showing the phial reward and Close prompt — The Quest Ended screen confirming Taste of Power and its Phial of Brencis’s Blood reward. Image: Rebel Wolves

If the completion never fires, the cause is almost always one of two things. Either an enemy in the courtyard is still alive, which keeps the search objective locked, or you picked [leave] at the reliquary and never came back to it. The Recruitment Instructions on their own do not close the activity — the reliquary interaction does.

What Taste of Power counts toward

Xanthe has 15 Court Activities in total, and you need to clear roughly 12 of them to max her Anger and trigger her boss quest, The Cycle of Love. Taste of Power is one of the cheapest entries on that list in terms of effort per time segment, which makes it a natural early pick when you start working her region.

Its two sibling activities follow the same shape and pay out the other two Legendary phials. Just a Bit More gives the Phial of Ambrus’s Blood, though a blood addict interrupts you the moment you reach for the container, and Come Home gives the Phial of Bakir’s Blood along with another map-revealing document in its chest. Run all three back to back and you finish with every lord’s blood in your bag and a healthy chunk of Xanthe’s Anger already banked.