The Our Rotten Roots quest puts one of the most morally loaded decisions in The Blood of Dawnwalker squarely in your hands. You've fought through a kobold horde, survived Isbrand's erratic attacks in a hellish memory realm called Anachora, and now Lacra is waiting for your answer. Spare him or leave him to rot? The good news is that the core reward comes either way, but the choice still has real consequences worth understanding before you commit.
How does the Our Rotten Roots quest work?
Before you reach the Isbrand decision, you need to understand the chain of quests that leads here. The arc starts with A Friend Like This, where you first meet the vampiress Lacra. From there, Song of the Mountain takes you and Lacra to a hidden Uriashi Village. Then comes Hive and Seek, where you track Isbrand to an underground location.
That underground section is a full combat gauntlet against kobolds and their larger variants. Clear them all and check the nearby chests before moving on. One of those chests holds Isbrand's Plate, a legendary medium chestpiece with bonuses to maximum vampiric health, claw critical hit chance, claw critical hit damage, and blood drinking restoration. That item is available regardless of any later choices, so don't miss it.
After Hive and Seek, Coen and Lacra bring Isbrand's near-lifeless body to Westridge Outpost. Once a day passes in-game, Our Rotten Roots becomes available.
The Blood of Dawnwalker Our Rotten Roots Quest: Should You Spare Isbrand?
What happens inside Anachora?
Our Rotten Roots sends you into Isbrand's memories through a realm called Anachora. The sequence is mostly linear, but there's one meaningful branch point.
In the third major area, the path splits. Lacra explicitly asks you not to go left, because that route reveals something from her past she'd rather keep buried. You can respect that and head right, or push through the left path anyway to uncover the full extent of the harm Isbrand caused. If you take the left path and Lacra objects, you can apologize to her afterward, so it's not a relationship-ending move.
At the end of Anachora, you face Isbrand in a direct boss fight with Lacra fighting alongside you. His attack patterns are unpredictable, so prioritize blocking and dodging over aggression. His Piercing Shriek hits a wide frontal cone, so repositioning to his flanks reduces the damage you take significantly.
The Blood of Dawnwalker Our Rotten Roots Quest: Should You Spare Isbrand?
Should you spare or abandon Isbrand?
Once the fight ends, Lacra tells Isbrand to beg. The conversation branches based on what you say, and ultimately leads to two final choices.
The dialogue path
Lacra opens by suggesting she might spare Isbrand if he begs. You can stay silent and let that play out, or pick one of two responses:
- "Beg for what?"
- "Can I do it instead?"
Both paths eventually arrive at the same two terminal options.
The Blood of Dawnwalker Our Rotten Roots Quest: Should You Spare Isbrand?
The final choice
Neither choice affects the Piercing Shriek ability reward. You unlock it regardless of what you decide.
What does inviting Isbrand in actually do?
If you choose to absorb Isbrand's soul, he occasionally speaks to Coen as an internal voice. It's flavor rather than a mechanical system, but it's one of the more thematically interesting features in the game. The same mechanic applies to other vampire lords you defeat, so this is your first look at how that system works across the full run.
Choosing to leave Isbrand in Anachora cuts off that narrative thread entirely. He stays trapped, and Coen moves on without that presence.
Who was Isbrand, and why does it matter?
The lore here adds weight to the decision. Isbrand was the vampire who sired Brencis, the vrakhir lord driving the main conflict. The two coexisted peacefully for years before Brencis turned on his own sire, defeated him, and had him thrown into a mountain cave. The kobolds who found Isbrand there didn't free him. They used him as a living food source, feeding on him repeatedly and waiting for his regeneration to reset the cycle.
That context reframes the choice. Isbrand isn't a villain you've just beaten. He's a centuries-old vampire who was betrayed and tortured by the same enemy you're hunting. Sparing him or condemning him carries different moral weight once you know the full story.
What's the best choice?
For players who want the richest narrative experience, inviting Isbrand in is worth it. The internal voice mechanic adds an ongoing layer to Coen's character that you won't get otherwise, and it sets up how you'll approach similar decisions with other vampire lords later. Leaving him in Anachora is the colder choice, and it's defensible given what he did before Brencis turned on him, but it closes off a story thread with no mechanical upside.
The Piercing Shriek ability is yours either way, so the only real variable is whether you want Isbrand's presence woven into Coen's story going forward.
What comes next after Our Rotten Roots?
This quest is part of Lacra's full story arc, and finishing it opens up further relationship development with her. If you want to see where that goes, check out the full guide to romancing Anca for a sense of how dialogue-driven relationship systems work across the game's major characters.
For players still working through the early game, the things you should do first in Blood of Dawnwalker guide covers the priority actions after the prologue, including setting up for quests like this one.
If you picked up Isbrand's Plate and want to keep your armor competitive as the game progresses, the weapon and armor upgrade guide covers how vendors and Dinarius work for scaling gear.
For everything else across the full game, the complete Blood of Dawnwalker guide collection has walkthroughs for every major quest and decision.