The Blood of Dawnwalker: How to Get The Knyazmaker Ending With Crake

The Knyazmaker is the ending you get when Coen kills Brencis with Crake and the Manumits fighting beside him. It is the longest of the ally routes, it plays out in daylight with Coen locked into human form, and it is the only ending that puts Catalin Dragosti on the throne of Vale Sangora. Two quests carry it, Rise at Dawn and Fall Before Dusk, and both sit behind Crake’s full questline.

Quick answer: Finish Crake’s chain through Who Pulls the Strings, speak to Crake (Marat) at the Manumit hideout to start Rise at Dawn, take Eastridge Outpost, then push through Fall Before Dusk and defeat Brencis without accepting his offer in the throne room. The Knyazmaker trophy unlocks after the final Grotesque Ascendant fight in Anachora.

Requirements before Rise at Dawn unlocks

Crake’s chain begins at the military camp in Briar Sloughs with The Firebrand. The Manumits will not open their door to a nobody, so your Court Infamy needs to be high enough for them to consider you useful before the questline moves past its introduction. The invitation into the hideout, the Manumit Weaver House in Svartrau City, comes during Where Loyalty Lies.

Quest	Notes
The Firebrand	Starts at the military camp in Briar Sloughs
Shadows in the Woods	Follows on automatically
Where Loyalty Lies	You are invited into the Manumit hideout here
What Hunts the Night	Required
What Moves the Dead	Required
Who Pulls the Strings	Last required step; clears the way for Rise at Dawn
Distant Shadows	Optional
A Closer Look	Optional; awards The Manumit trophy
Rise at Dawn	First ending quest
Fall Before Dusk	Second ending quest

Two other things decide how much you actually save. Brewing Esme’s medicine correctly in the prologue keeps Coen’s mother alive, and reaching the finale inside the 30-day window is what stops Brencis from sacrificing the family. Past day 30 the family dies and the story continues as a revenge run, so the Knyazmaker trophy is still reachable but In the Nick of Time is not.

Tip: Make a manual save the moment Rise at Dawn becomes available. Endings drop you back to the title screen rather than into free roam, and that one save is what lets you see the other routes without replaying the campaign.

Rise at Dawn: taking Eastridge Outpost

Open the map and travel to Crake’s marker in Svartrau City. He is waiting inside the hideout, and the journal objective simply asks you to return to Marat once you are ready to move.

World map open on the Svartrau area with Crake's quest marker highlighted — The map screen with Marat’s marker inside the city. Image: Rebel Wolves

Talk to Crake and confirm you are ready. A warning screen appears telling you that you are near the point of no return, so this is your last clean chance to back out and finish anything else you care about.

Listen to the plan. The Manumits hit Eastridge Outpost from an unexpected angle as a distraction while Catalin’s force strikes from the other side, which is what gets his army into the valley. The scene then cuts to sunrise over the mountains.

Cutscene of the sun rising over mountain ridges before the outpost attack — The dawn transition that starts the attack, and the reason Coen fights the whole route as a human. Image: Rebel Wolves

Sit through Crake’s speech to the rebels and pick whichever rallying line you prefer. These choices do not change which ending you get.

Follow Marat through the Tantari Woods to the cliff edge above the outpost, then tie off the ropes with the rest of the group. Coen cannot fly down in daylight, so everyone rappels.

Coen and the Manumit rebels roping up on the cliff above Eastridge Outpost — Rope setup on the cliff edge above Eastridge Outpost. Image: Rebel Wolves

Crake signals Catalin with a torch and gets a horn blast in reply. Slide down the ropes, then clear the vanguard once the attack starts.

Operate the wooden winch to open the outer gate. Catalin’s armored soldiers charge straight through and finish off Brencis’s garrison.

Catalin facing captured soldiers with the subtitle Silence! Which one of you is Crake? — Catalin sizing up the rebels after the gate falls, before making an example of a surrendered soldier. Image: Rebel Wolves

When the objective changes to going to Marat for the final battle, climb the stairs to the battlements. Crake and Catalin are arguing there, and speaking to them starts the planning conversation for the castle.

Coen asking what happens next during the battlement conversation with Crake and Catalin — Coen asks what comes next, and Crake lays out the split assault on Greifberg Castle. Image: Rebel Wolves

Fall Before Dusk: the daylight assault on Greifberg Castle

Catalin’s commander and Drogos lead a frontal assault while your group slips behind the lines through a secret passage. Everything from here runs during the day, which means no Planeshift, no Shadowstep and no vampiric burst damage. Human weapon skills and stamina management carry this fight, and it is worth checking your build before you commit.

Follow the group into the caves. You find a severed arm on the ground, Catalin blames Crake’s scouts for leaving the tunnels unsecured, and Coen volunteers to scout ahead.

Clear the tunnels. There is a full kobold hive down there, and it has to be dealt with before the group can move through to the castle proper.

Fight through the castle grounds. Guards, war dogs and uriash come first, followed by The Unblinking Blasphemy, the clay-encased flying horrors.

Break Xanthe’s magical loop. The dungeons are empty of your family by this point, and pushing on drops you into a repeating trap where the guards are gradually replaced by undead. The door at the back right of the room is the exit.

Beat the Commander of the Blood Guard, then head for the throne room where Brencis has the family seated at a feasting table.

When Brencis lunges at Catalin, step in. Intervening keeps both Catalin and Crake alive. If you stay back, Crake throws himself in the way and dies protecting Catalin, which changes the epilogue but does not stop the Knyazmaker route.

Defeat Brencis, then defeat him again in Anachora in his Grotesque Ascendant form. He hints at one last trap before he goes.

In the final conversation, acknowledging that turning Coen into a dawnwalker helped him in some way opens an extra choice over whether to finish Brencis or let him in. The trophy fires either way.

The one dialogue choice that cancels the ending

Right before the last fight, Brencis offers to hand over the family if Coen abandons the Manumits. Picking “Please – maybe we can come to an agreement.” swaps you onto The Turncoat instead, Crake dies, and Brencis keeps Vale Sangora. Refuse it and fight, and the run stays on the Knyazmaker track.

What you do	Result
Refuse Brencis and fight beside Crake	The Knyazmaker
Accept his offer in the throne room	The Turncoat
Fail to intervene when Brencis attacks Catalin	Crake dies; ending still completes
Reach the finale after day 30	Family already sacrificed; no In the Nick of Time

How to confirm the ending registered

The Knyazmaker trophy pops after the Anachora fight resolves. A run completed inside the 30-day limit with Esme’s medicine handled correctly in the prologue also awards In the Nick of Time along with the main story trophy. If the trophy did not appear, the usual cause is that Brencis was killed without Crake present, either through a solo castle break-in or by accepting the parley bargain.

The epilogue then moves to Laslea Glen for Things Will Be Different Now, where Coen works through chores ahead of winter and can help Pieter with repairs on this route. Catalin Dragosti ends up ruling Vale Sangora, and his regime is noticeably harsher than what the Manumits were fighting for. Lunka is turned regardless of which ending you take, and the epilogue closes with Neberu introducing himself as one of the Arbiters and Coen leaving the valley with his sister hidden in a cart.