Am I being an idiot? D:

I cannot for the life of me start this quest, no body outside the 'hall of the dead'...

help?

It's not you; there are bugs associated with this quest. Do a web search and you should find a fix.

you need to travel from to windhelm from another hold city four times usually at night the quest is pretty buggy be wary

'it will start when you buy the house in Windhelm,and i think you can only do that during or after the Civil War quests'

any confirmation on this?

I've done that :/ it is a one off chance thing? or should it always be there.

False. I did the whole quest without ever buying the Windhelm house or participating in the Civil War at all.

Actually I have heard that buying the house is what messes it up. Can't confirm that though.

[censored]... grrrrr *angry face*

and i so wanted that beasty looking amulet

Locate windhelm and periodically visit it during your quest FOUR TIMES. then on the 5th visit make sure its between 7-11pm and talk to guard. Should start from there. Go to graveyard

I have only been able to activate the quest at all on my third character, when I decided to try it straight after Helgen.

You could try that next time you start a character.
Be sure to look up a guide as it is a very buggy quest and you can screw things up even when you can activate it.

*SPOILER*



Here's how to start it without the body. Go to the shatter shield house and pickpocket the chick that sits next to the fire and take the key to the house that is the murderers lair and your future home, then go in and search for evidence and crap and it will start when you find the journals and the amulet.

The entire quest line is severely bugged, I cannot even begin the quest.

Yeah, not always though.
I did that and got odd things in the house called but I could not activate them.
I found the evidence, but no NPC's had any new dialogue.

So weird... I have finished this quest successfully with 3 different characters.

I'm not saying there is no bugs... but I have yet to find one.

But I do believe you need to visit Windhelm a few times before the murder-scene is initiated.

Trust me this quest line is as buggy as can be.

I've had it fail to start one game, and had it start in another on the second visit. I think the Civil War questline interferes with this quest, since I'd joined the Imperials in the first game, but hadn't joined either faction in the second.

Okay, I'll try these later today thanks.

Right. I went into the Shatter-Shield house, and Tova was lay on the floor, with a note of suicide next to her? is this normal?

Yes, if you did the DB quest that killed her last daughter.

i give up on this quest for my current character (over 60+ hours invested in her). i'm going to create a new character and start over to see if this fixes the problem with this quest. i'm running with 1.3.10.0 on pc. i wonder if it's fixed in this version but you have to start over from the beginning to benefit from the fix?

Since you are on PC you can use the console to give yourself the amulet. I don't know the item code but I bet it's on uesp.net. > player.additem [item code] 1 will do the trick. It does look cool

the amulet has pretty naff powers anyway, so I just took the strange one and wore that problem solved for now I guess.

Honestly I think other quests and how you get to windhelm can ruin the quest. It should be the VERY first quest you do outside of riverwood people telling you to visit the jarl of whiterun. Don't even go to whiterun. Instead I recommend run/walk all the way to windhelm. Don't use carriage don't use horse. SAVE right before you enter windhelm for the first time. Sometimes this can make all the difference in the world.

Now you want to leave windhelm and go to the nearest hold. If you havn't activated riften or riften stables then fast travel back to whiterun. Then go back to windhelm. Do this about 4-5 times but ENTER DURING NIGHTTIME like around 7 or 8 pm. If it doesn't work around then, immediatly reload that save before you enter windhelm the first time.

This is the most finiky quest of the current game with an even finikier house.

there is a lot of bugs invoved in this quest. a lot of people are having issues with it. my guess is that it will be patched in a upcoming patch. like the other person i made a new player and did it straight out of helgen worked fine. so depending on actions done before this quest it can become unplayable.

Nope, I never bought the house and the quest was still completely bugged for me.

I'm still trying to initiate this quest without the buxom Susanah the Wicked dead. Know if this is possible? Apparently she once was or still is scripted as a marriage candidate .