Time, Saves, Shrines and Gameplay Systems

After the prologue, Coen has 30 days to save his family. The time bar has eight segments: fill it during the day and night begins; fill it at night and day begins. A complete day-and-night cycle contains 16 segments, for a starting campaign budget of 480.

The Sanzhani Tsarina’s special reward can add one day to the family-rescue deadline. Claim it through her special-reward dialogue when that option becomes available; it is separate from her reward for The Ring.

Segments measure activities that advance the campaign, rather than a fixed number of real-world minutes. The hourglass icon marks a time cost. Check the number beside it before committing to an objective or learning a skill.

Segment costs use a non-linear clock scale

The current Steam build assigns each quest objective tier both a bar cost and an in-world clock advance. A Minimal one-segment objective advances the clock by 30 minutes, but a Huge six-segment objective advances it by eight hours. Do not multiply every segment by one fixed duration.

The journal previews an objective’s cost

The journal’s gold segments show time already spent, and its silver segments show the cost of the selected quest objective. Later objectives and decisions can spend additional time, so add the costs of the steps along your chosen quest route.

For example, completing the trials and leaving the ruins in Stronger Than Achilles and uncovering Kallias’s secrets in The Night of Horrors are each six-segment, eight-hour steps. That cost belongs to the named objective, not the entire quest. A few story objectives push the clock to a particular hour instead; treat those as schedule changes rather than another row in the table.

A moon marks a night-only objective; a sun marks a daytime objective. A time-sensitive objective has its own warning icon and can have consequences if left too long. Those conditions are different from an ordinary objective’s hourglass cost.

Group exploration by the form it needs

During the day, visit shops and use Compel Soul or Astral Communion at sites you have found. At night, use vampire traversal to reach scouting towers and caves with ledges that need Shadowstep. Mark a location for the other form instead of spending time waiting at every obstacle.

Before ending a phase, combine a skill purchase you already want with the transition when its displayed cost fits. A zero-time rank will not move the clock, and an optional purchase still spends skill points: saving a wait is not a reason to buy a skill you do not need.

A flashing time bar can warn of an automatic cost

Some open-world activities advance time once you engage with them, without another confirmation. As you approach one, the blinking time bar previews how many segments it will use. Read that cue before entering an encounter when you are saving the remaining phase for another objective.

Learning a wanted skill can also be part of preparing for a different time of day. Before choosing to wait at a shrine, compare the skill’s time cost with the phase you need. Check prerequisites and manual access in the skill-book guide, or total planned purchases in the skill calculator.

Some utility ranks have zero time cost. Every listed rank of Mercurial Fervour and Shapeshift costs one skill point and zero time segments. Learning one will not advance the phase for a night-only or daytime objective.

Fast travel runs between discovered shrines. Interact with a usable shrine, choose Fast Travel, then select another discovered shrine on the map. A distant map marker alone does not replace discovering the destination shrine.

Some shrines are destroyed and need repair; others have guards to deal with before they are usable. The Vale Sangora map helps you find shrine locations. Keep destination discovery separate from the ability to use a particular shrine in your current situation.

Check inventory weight when fast travel is unavailable

The Overencumbrance tutorial states that exceeding the inventory weight limit prevents running and fast travel. Move spare equipment or materials into Storage, which is accessible at every shrine, or sell items you intend to part with. Check the weight again before selecting a destination.

Pack Mule increases Carry Weight; its final rank also lists running while Encumbered. When troubleshooting an unavailable travel option, use the current weight and shrine state rather than assuming that a movement bonus settles every travel requirement.

Prepare the next phase at the same stop

Shrines also let you learn skills and pass time. Decide which ranks you actually want, check their costs, and arrange your equipment before leaving. For a night route, put a blood restorative in a quickslot and review vampire healing and Blood Craving before approaching a quest character with low blood.

The save menu labels every entry as an Auto Save, a Quicksave or a Manual Save, and shows the campaign day and playtime beside it. Each type is created differently, so keep a manual save before a decision you want to revisit rather than relying on the automatic files.

Default keys

On keyboard, F5 is Quicksave and F9 is Quickload. Both are in the Shortcuts group of the controls settings and can be rebound. The pause menu also has a Quicksave button, so a controller player does not need a spare key.

If the game reports that saving is locked

During combat, cinematics and some scripted sequences the game refuses to save. The pause menu disables its Save Game and Quicksave buttons, and pressing the Quicksave key shows the message “Saving is currently locked”. Wait for the fight or scene to end, then save again; the lock is a state, not a corrupted file.

If saving stays unavailable after normal play resumes, check your game version. Hotfix 1.0.4 fixed an issue that blocked saving. That fix is separate from the temporary restrictions during combat or a scene.

A different message, “Failed to Load Save - the Save file is corrupted or incompatible with the game's version”, means the save could not be loaded by the installed version. Check that the game has finished updating before assuming the file is lost.

The autosave files rotate through a fixed number of slots and the game marks the last automatic save of a sequence as a Final Autosave. Because an autosave can be replaced by a later one, make a manual save before an irreversible quest decision or a long time-cost objective.

Where Windows stores the files

On Windows, press Win + R, enter %LOCALAPPDATA%\Dawnwalker\Saved\ and open the folder for your storefront. Steam uses SaveGames; GOG uses GOGSaveGames. If one is empty, check that you opened the folder for the version you play.

Keep a separate backup before a branching quest

1. Use Save Game → New Save while saving is available, and confirm the new entry in the save list.
2. Close the game, then open the Windows save folder above.
3. Copy the entire SaveGames or GOGSaveGames folder to a separate, dated backup location. Steam saves include a .sav file and matching .meta and .png files; keeping the whole folder preserves those together.

A separate copy keeps that point in the campaign even as you continue creating saves. Keep it outside the active save folder, and retain your current files when trying an older branch. Copying a folder does not make a Steam save interchangeable with a GOG save or guarantee compatibility with another game version.

Denarius: the coin used in shop prices

A Denarius is a gold coin bearing Brencis’s coat of arms; amounts are expressed in denarii. The coin’s own base buy and sell values are both 1, with no inventory weight listed. It is currency, while a Purse Full of Coins is a separately named quest object. Use the merchant’s quote to judge a trade, because an item’s base value and its final price can differ.

Every item page on this wiki lists a base buy value and a base sell value. Those numbers are the game’s starting point, not the quote you will see at a merchant. The shop works out the price in two rounded steps: first it scales the base value to the item’s level, then it applies whatever price effects are active on Coen.

Step 1: level scaling

For items that carry an item level, the base value is multiplied by 1.0369 to the power of (level − 1) and rounded to a whole number. Each level therefore adds about 3.69% on top of the previous level, so a level 20 item costs roughly twice its base value and a level 40 item about four times. Items without a level, such as consumables and trade goods, skip this step.

Step 2: price effects

The rounded level value is then multiplied by a buy or sell multiplier and rounded again. Both multipliers start at 1.0. The effects that change them are:

• Edict III adds 15 percentage points to the buy multiplier, and Edict VI adds another 15, so shops charge up to 30% more once both are in force.
• Bewitching Influence rank 1 subtracts 15 percentage points from the buy multiplier. Rank 2 sets the sell multiplier to 1.15, so Coen receives 115% of an item’s level-adjusted value. Rank 3 unlocks special stock in some shops rather than changing prices.

Because the two steps round separately, the shop quote can differ by a denarius or two from a single calculation with every factor multiplied at once. If you see a price that does not match, check the Court panel for active edicts and the item’s level when comparing prices.

The item-level multiplier above applies to prices only. Weapon damage scales differently; see why the same weapon can show different damage and the sword upgrade cost explanation.

Gear requirements and repeat loot

Dropped gear uses a four-level required-level spread around your current level. The requirement on the item is the value to follow: a drop can be useful for a future level or temporarily out of reach, so do not assume that every item matches Coen’s level. The native item-upgrade spread is one level per upgrade step; it is separate from the item’s required level.

The loot system also remembers recent results. It keeps the last 15 spawned items and the last 6 equippable items in its history, then reduces the chance of seeing the same item to 10% of its normal chance and the same equipment slot to 34.2% of its normal chance. These are weighting rules, not a no-duplicate guarantee, so repeated drops can still happen.

The change between day and night changes Coen’s form and available abilities. Swordmastery abilities can be used in either form. Witchcraft works in human form, while Vampirism abilities belong to his nighttime form.

Ability restrictions by form

Action difficulty and RPG difficulty affect different parts of combat. Action settings control timing and enemy behaviour, including attack speed and parry windows. RPG presets set the health, damage and player combat stamina-cost multipliers.

Fair uses a 1.00× baseline for all three RPG values. Challenging and Duelist increase damage and stamina costs. When using custom settings, read both the Action and RPG selections to understand the combination you are playing.

Enemy level adds another consideration: ordinary combat attacks receive an extra level-gap damage multiplier when the enemy is at least seven levels above Coen. Compare the incoming damage multipliers and region levels before choosing an encounter. A weapon upgrade changes the item’s damage without raising Coen’s level.

Compare Story, Fair, Challenging and Duelist in the difficulty table. Boss reference pages show base combat values; the encounter, difficulty and temporary effects can change the numbers used in a fight.

Combat and survival constants

The current Steam build uses different stamina rules inside and outside combat. Normal sprinting has a base cost of 0 per second; combat sprinting costs 30 per second, and Haste costs 20 per second. The low-health effect starts at 30% health.

Food is therefore less effective during a fight than outside one, and a torch’s six-minute duration is separate from the campaign time segments described above.

Focus highlights quest-related people and objects in gold, hostile characters in red, and loot containers or harvestable plants in white. Use it when the route leads you near an objective but its interaction is difficult to find.

Move from Shadowstep to walls and ceilings

In vampire form, aim Shadowstep at a flat wall or ceiling to enter Planeshift. Moving along the surface uses stamina. If it runs out on a ceiling, Coen falls; if it runs out on a wall, he enters Clawride and slides down. The Shadowstep controls explain aiming and quick forward movement.

Clawride lets Coen slide down a wall without losing stamina. Use the crouch input while in Planeshift, or at a ledge, to enter it. Check the landing area before leaving the wall.

Climb scouting towers at night

Scouting towers require vampire form because the climb uses Shadowstep and Planeshift. Reaching the top reveals nearby activities. If you arrive during the day, plan a later visit rather than spending stamina trying to repeat a nighttime route in human form.

There are 11 scouting towers. Inspect the points of interest from each lookout to add their markers to your map; visiting all 11 contributes to the Bird’s Eye View achievement. Use the tower map filter to plan the remaining climbs.

Check for treasure near the top of the eight towers outside Svartrau City: their chests can contain ability manuals and other supplies. The three city lookouts—Neustadt, Market and Cathedral Tower—serve exploration without those tower-chest rewards. Boar’s Back Tower is also a location for the Duelist’s Pendant.

Use the Haste ability for your current form

The Haste tutorial names two travel abilities: Mercurial Fervour for human form and Shapeshift for vampire form. Their upgrades reduce Haste stamina cost and then improve speed. They have separate learning requirements: higher Mercurial Fervour ranks need a manual, while Shapeshift ranks require Corruption.

Plan a route around the form and objectives you need. A useful trip can connect a shrine, a manual or ingredient source, and an objective available during that phase. Use My journey to keep those goals together and the map to compare their locations.