There are up to 17 corpses you can use Compel Soul ability on in The Blood of Dawnwalker (depending on your decisions). We’ll show you how to find them and why you’d want to partake in this arcane art!
How Compel Soul Works
Compel Soul is a daytime-only Witchcraft ability that allows you to gather information from the recently deceased. Showing the corpse a key piece of memorabilia will either start or progress a quest and typically doesn’t cost any game time.
Whenever you use Compel Soul on an individual for the first time, you gain a permanent reduction to the cooldowns on all of your Witchcraft abilities.
You can spend individual Skill Points (without spending time) to increase the multiplier on this additive percentage cooldown reduction, so it’s beneficial to use Compel Soul on every corpse you find.
You get the first point for free when you compel your first soul on Day 1, and the ability doesn’t take up one of your limited Active Ability slots.
Since it takes time for the effect to build up and none of the tiers cost any time, this is a great perk to upgrade if you have Skill Points to spare and you’re almost out of time to save your family.
If you compel all possible souls and fully upgrade the ability, you can reduce the cooldown of all Witchcraft abilities by up to 34%!
You can tell if a corpse can be compelled because it will have a whole bunch of red Anachora moths crawling on it. You can engage Focus Mode during the day to compel them.
These moths will also be fluttering around memorabilia that you can show to the corpse. Usually, there’s 2-3 pieces of memorabilia scattered about the immediate vicinity, but not all of them will be important.
The item descriptions typically aren’t helpful at reminding you of the exact locations you need to return to if you encountered a corpse at night, and it’s rare for corpses to get tracked with objectives on the map or get logged in the journal, so it’s best not to delay using Compel Soul once you’ve found a viable corpse.
The only in-game way to keep track of Uncompelled Souls is by reading through the descriptions for memorabilia you picked up that are stored in your inventory as Quest Items.
Once you’ve completed the associated quest or gotten the important information, memorabilia used for Compel Soul get removed from your inventory automatically, the moths will fly away, and you’ll no longer be able to compel them, though it doesn’t seem to work 100% of the time.
Compel Soul functions as a way for the player to get key information even if their decisions result in the untimely death of an NPC relevant to the story, so the variable number of compellable souls result from Coen’s regard for the lives of others.
Ambrus’s Fiefdom
There are potentially 4 souls you can compel in Ambrus’s Fiefdom.
Ambrus’s Soldier at Draining Camp
You can compel the soul of one of Ambrus’s soldiers at a draining camp on the southwestern edge of Briar Sloughs along the river border between Ambrus and Bakir’s Fiefdoms.
Star-Crossed Lovers Outside Maragir
You can compel the soul of a conscripted soldier in the mountains northeast of Maragir before informing the blacksmith in town of the fate of his daughter and this soldier’s lover.
Mert at Stoneward Post
During “The Firebrand” quest, if you wait too long to rescue Mert from the Stoneward Post Military Camp after speaking to his wife at the mill south of Laslea Glen, you’ll learn from the Overseer that he’s been executed. You can find his corpse near the back door to the camp and compel his soul there.
Nun at St. Tyna’s Convent
If you do Anca’s quest “Echoes of the Silenced Bells” at St. Tyna’s Convent during the daytime, you can compel the soul of a nun in the chapel, one that I guess Leonica couldn’t resurrect.
Once you’ve completed the quest, you will become unable to compel her soul.
Bakir’s Fiefdom
There are potentially 3 souls you can compel in Bakir’s Fiefdom, though access to one of them depends on your story choices.
Farkas’s House in Parlita
If you chose to find and give the Amethyst Ring to Farkas at the end of Coen’s “The Lunar Game” tournament arc hosted by Bakir, you can compel the soul of Farkas’s brother in their house in Parlita.
Manumit in Parlita
You can compel the soul of a Manumit behind a house on the outskirts of Parlita, though the opportunity to compel him ends once you jump down the well and retrieve his stash.
Some memorabilia Quest Items for this individual do not seem to get removed from your inventory after you lose access to compelling him.
Werewolf Site in Rockfalls
You can compel the soul of a recently amputated werewolf in a secluded area of the forest at the southern edge of the Rockfalls in Bakir’s Fiefdom.
Xanthe’s Fiefdom
You can compel 4 souls in Xanthe’s Fiefdom.
Don’t Kill the Messenger at Tantari Woods
You can compel the soul of a messenger somebody killed near a camp along the main path through Tantari Woods in Xanthe’s Fiefdom.
Razkovniche Plant Man in Oghasti
You can compel the soul of a botanist in Oghasti to learn about the miraculous Razkovniche plant that can be crafted into a potion that boosts your max HP and grants a skill point.
It seems you can only ever make this potion a single time, you have a few options for how to make it:
- Crafting it yourself does not cost any time but you’ll need to gather the other ingredients yourself
- Getting any Medic to craft it costs 1 game hour and a bit of Denarii but you only need to provide the Razkovniche plant
- Anca will craft it for free so long as you provide the plant (and she’s alive), but it still costs 1 hour
Since the ingredients aren’t too hard to come by, it’s best just to craft it yourself.
The Price of Magic in The Silts
You can compel the soul of a gay lover at a ritual site on the west side of the bog between The Silts and Tantari Woods in Xanthe’s Fiefdom and learn how to complete his ritual.
Xanthe’s Excavator in Arimaspian Ruins
You can compel the soul of one of Xanthe’s employees in some Arimaspian Ruins she’s excavating near the small bog east of Tantari in her Fiefdom.
Svartrau City
You can potentially compel 4 souls in and around Svartrau City, but they’re all easy to miss or locked behind time-consuming quests.
Murohn Victim at Almshouse Asylum
You can compel the soul of one of the Murohn’s victims in the sealed off plague wing on the second floor of the Almshouse Asylum in the Svartrau Cathedral Complex.
You can miss out on accessing this quest if you learn how to access St. Mihai’s Crypt before learning about the Murohn from someone in the Asylum.
St. Mihai Beneath Cathedral
You can compel the soul of St. Mihai beneath Svartrau Cathedral, and he does not like it. Check out our guide on reforging his silver sword for more details on how to reach him.
The Good Samaritan Farmer Outside Svartrau
You can compel the soul of a farmer due south of Svartrau City as part of the quest “The Good Samaritan”, which you can pick up from the Medic in Svartrau City a few days after completing Vicho’s initial quest.
You will be prevented from compelling her soul once you inform Vicho of the farmers’ fate as part of the concurrent quest called “A Study in Crimson”.
Soldier at Volk’s Abode
You can compel the soul of a soldier who tried to apprehend Volk at his home across the east river from Svartrau City at the end of Volk’s questline.
Compelling this soul with all apparent memorabilia does not seem to remove the quest items from your inventory or lock you out of compelling him.
Nish Post-Defenestration
If you fail to get Nish the Uriash to tell you how to reach the Clan Bakr Elder during the intro Lacra quest in Svartrau called “A Friend Like This”, you can compel his soul after Lacra botches the interrogation.
