Did anyone finish Dawnguard as Vampire Lord? I am asking this question cause when I played it for the first time I played as Dawnguard with my main Nord warrior character that was level 55 back then I had no problems to finish Dawnguard. I had all the quests finished and all the main quest lines behind me.

Then I decided to start a new character. Like an evil mage High Elf and more or less I played only a few quests beside Dawnguard story line. I just joined the Companions and the Winterhold college. I played only 2 first quests from the main quest. But when I finished Touching the sky and got the Auriles bow Kindred Judgmet doesn't wanna to start. I found many people reporting it, but no solution. I tryed all kinda of stuff but nothing worked. When I reloded my Nord and replayed that part I had no problems with starting the last quest of Dawnguard. So I got to thinking that maybe Vampire side has it always bugged?

What is your experience guys?

Here are my threads about the bug and no community replies on them:

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1413124-as-vampire-kindred-judgment-wont-start-da-mn-it/

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1413123-as-vampire-kindred-judgment-wont-start-da-mn-it/

I play on PC btw.

I finished fine as a Vamp Lord but I am on X Box, so I am not sure about it being bugged on PC

I don't recall. On PC I had alot of issues with bugs and had to resort to console commands to get things to function properly.

I didn't do dawnguard side since it's like a mirror of volkihar, so I dunno if dawnguard was as bugged.

I am also on Xbox 360, did the vampire side first, I had already gone through all the conversation options with Serana about what would happen next both before getting the bow and before returning to the castle. I could not say if Kindred Judgement started or not as a quest option at that point, Braggen went back to the castle, and everything progressed as expected. Braggen kept the bow and killed Harkon. Obviously I am not one to bother much looking at quest objectives.

I did the Dawnguard side next with my second character Aussie, who also went through all the conversation options with Serana, just to see if anything was different, it definitely came up as a quest that time, and we returned to the fort next.

The thing is I can't kill Harkon if the quest doesn't start.

You get artifacts that buff your character a lot if you side with the Volkihar.

You get weapons if you side with the Dawnguard.

I always side with the Volkihar since I don't care much for the weapons.

As for the bug, I played it on xbox so I don't know for sure but I've heard/read a lot of threads that have had the same problem so it possibly is bugged.

If you have a save game before you entered the sanctuary you could try going back to that, anything that could have gone wrong probably went wrong there. Make sure to go through all Serana's possible replies to your questions, both before the fight and after, then hopefully it starts, but I do not remember it ever starting at the sanctuary when Braggen claimed the bow, which is strange. I was a bit distracted the first time by the nice new armor and a fancy bow. When you return to the castle speak to Serana before entering. Unfortunately I have overwritten most of Braggens saves so would have to replay from the shrine at Darkfall cave to test it out. I am not sure I am that enthusiastic about Dawnguard.

Mind you I did always want to jump on top of one of the wayshrines to explore the higher area.

Edit
I replayed the whole thing, from the start in Darkkfall cave, never spoke to Serana once, never died, and it started OK, the game froze immediately after, but Kindred Judgement had started. I would still replay it from entering the sanctuary though, if you have a save game.

Or being on the PC you could just try
"Use the console command setstage DLC1VQ07 200 to properly complete the final 'Retrieve Auriel's Bow' objective."
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Touching_the_Sky

I would think my game froze because I was in too much of a hurry to get some sunblessed arrows, spoke to the wrong person, game did not like that. And with all the music and distractions Kindred Judgement starting was really not that noticeable if you were looking elsewhere, reloading and getting the bow the second time it came up with its more dramatic moment.

I have the save before the Dark Cave. I think I spoke with Serana all I could. I could replay it again but I really hate the damn mission. I did try the console command "setstage DLC1VQ07 200 to properly complete the final 'Retrieve Auriel's Bow' objective."

It does end the mission but it doesn't trigger the Kindred Judgement.

I could try again and speak to Serana and run trhrough the mission. The problem is I played the mission so slowly getting all the Paragons and Ancient Falmer Tomes. It takes ages.

Trust me, you do get quicker at at. I take it you also do not have a save closer to the sanctuary? Did you try the console command straight after getting the bow, before doing anything or talking to anyone? It is definitely not talking to Serana that is causeing the glitch, Braggen was in too much of a hurry speeding through things to talk to her, or wait for her. He killed what ever got in his way, did no paragons, and never woke any of the frozen falmer in the first part of the Sanctuary, quest started fine.

Unexplained glitches will often happen if your character dies in a spot that QA never tested. Did you die in an unusual or unexpected way while doing it the first time? Doing it all a second time would quite likely fix the problem, since you are probably not going to do it the exact same way. Another possibility is doing the shrines out of order for some reason, Bethesda does not seem good at testing for the unusual things some of us can do. If you take the path up to the higher section (frozen lake) that is nearest the paragon platform, you could end up missing one shrine till later. I did it the logical way the first time, the second I did the top one near the dragons and then went back and did the lower one. My second character went mountain climbing and did the first snow one before the one in the vale, I have never done the one near the sanctuary and had to take the portal back to do a missed one.

I erased the save on the santctuary at the beggining but I have 3 saves before I get the bow if you mean the end sanctuary? Its already when the talk started so I can't talk to Serana. Well I will replay it on easiest and try to do it fast just to check.

BTW where are the saves on the PC in Skyrim?

No idea, I play on the xbox 360, My Documents in a Games folder of some description (games or mygames) would be a good place to start, unless Steam has its own folder for it, in which case steam>steamapps>common>Skyrim>saves might lead to them. If you ask in the PC support section for the main game you could probably get the right answer to that question.

I found the saves. In My documents.

But back to the point. I replayed the mission on Novice. God its easy to play on that level. I talked to Serana all I could. Basicaly 2 lines come up. What can you tell me about the bow? And the lines that come out of that. And Are we doing them a favour. Thats all. When I finshed the mission all is the same again. Kindred judgemet is just not starting.

I am telling you its cause I didnt play any other quests. I guess when they tested it they had characters that had many other quests and the main quest. As I stated I played only 2 first missions of the main quest and 2 College quests and 3 Companion quests. A few side quests too. Plan was to play college quests after I have finished Dawnguard quests. I kinda wanted to have an evil mage vampire Dovakhin with the blocked sun. Then progress to the other quests.

I'm on PC and my first playthrough was without the unofficial patch. I started clean out of nowhere straight from Helgen and completed dawnguard no problems so I don't think that's the problem.

And you think that's easy? Play Oblivion and put the difficulty at 0.

You take like no damage ever, and kill everything in like 1 hit lol

So no other quests? Just straight to play Dawnguard? But were you Vampire side or Dawnguard?

So no mods and no patch? As I said it worked fine for me on Dawnguard side but it doesn't work as Vampire side.

Yup and yup I played the vampire side.

I had some texture mods, and a reverse the feeding/power system for vampires mod.

None of that would affect the quests.


After completion I downloaded the unofficial patch to fix the game up more.

I ran into my fair share of problems but not the one you're talking about, I was still able to complete the quests sometimes with help of console commands. But it was more AI not functioning correctly in my game that made me need consoles, not quests not starting.

Besides people sometimes randomly fighting, it was fine.

Oh and questmarkers in the wrong places.

But point being, I had nothing to the extent you had. It was still playable and I reached the end, it is possible.



Some people get hit with more, or harder bugs than others. Luck of the draw lol.

My more common problems in dawnguard were people attacking each other, or walking into a town and the ENTIRE town starts to chase me and try and kill me with no bounty or hidden bounty. Go back a day later and their friendly again. Just random stuff that made me shut off combat AI so I didn't get slaughtered by all of whiterun or all of riverwood.

After installing DG, I noticed my quests never auto-started. I had to constantly enter the menu and set the quest log to show me the way. Annoying, but not critical.

However, once I got the bow, I saw a journal entry for the new quest, but did not get the "thu duh" sound or screen text to let me know it was added. I spoke to Serana, and she pretty much stated we needed to kill her papa.

Once I entered the castle, then, I got the onscreen message of one quest ending, and the other started.

Not sure where you are, but try entering the castle to see if this kicks the quest. Not sure if this will make a difference, but I FT'd to the castle after getting the bow. I did not use the portals to return.

This, however, left me feeling incomplete, so this is part of a question as well: Is killing Harkon the final quest in the DLC?

This DLC seemed to be over much too quickly, especially since I never had to go back to the DG and "report" Harkon was dead? WTH.

The double-dragon fight was cool, though.

Yes, Kindred Judgement is the last main quest of Dawnguard. You have smaller quests as Destroy the Dawnguard and Gift after it and you can do the radiant ones. I have the save just before taking the bow. But it doesn't trigger the next mission or Serana talks about killing Harkon. If I go to the Volakir castle nothing special happens. But I can shoot the sun with the Auriels bow and blacken the sky if I have the bloodstained arrows.

Then I'd say something happened in your quest file that didn't trigger a flag. I know some quests won't start if you have other misc quests still pending, and this could be a possible reason as well. Unfortunately, UESP has nothing on this, so it's a gamble to correct.

Another option may be to reload prior to entering the portals.

It looks to me the game didn't set a flag for you, giving you the bow but not marking the quest complete.

I do not think it can be having misc quests pending that causes it, Braggen had a few left and Aussie had well over 20 misc quests in the journal and about that number of other quests. If Dawnguard had been that fussy she would never have got to start anything. It would be something in the lost valley causing the problem, something not that many players seems to do, or not do.

I have played through both sides of Dawnguard on PC. Both sides had bugs with the radiant quests that you are given after then main storyline is complete. Humans who cannot be turned to vampires or even seduced, prompts to get a quest from an NPC that has no dialog. I have even had bugs with the Greybeards sending me to word walls (for Dawnguard added shouts) that have already been read. Some of these can be fixed with console commands, others seemingly not.

Likely because a non-optional alias couldn't fill. Probably because Stalf or Salonia Caelia's corpses were purged by the game. Potentially could get around it by spawning them both with the console.