A wanted level that is also a questline
The Blood of Dawnwalker Infamy
Infamy is the valley-wide meter that turns Coen from a rumour into a problem Brencis has to answer. It is not a GTA star you wash off in a haystack. Konrad Tomaszkiewicz’s IGN First explanation is still the clean one: as you cross thresholds, Brencis issues edicts meant to hinder you. Patrols thicken. Checkpoints appear. A city can be locked down. Groups who already hate the vrakhiri start taking you seriously. Peak Infamy is a trophy — Throne of Thorns — and the usual key that makes the lord offer a parley.
Each officer also has a local aggression machine. Smash Ambrus’s blood stock, Bakir’s fear economy, or Xanthe’s Blood Guard pipeline and you are not grinding XP. You are writing endings.
How the meter actually moves
- Court Activities: the three vassal bosses. Lists treat beating Ambrus, Bakir, and Xanthe as the road to maximum Infamy.
- Flags: Capture the Flag wants every Brencis banner down. That is skyline graffiti with a receipt. See locations.
- Transports: Delivery Delay wants eight vrakhiri wagons wrecked. That is the blood-tax pipe. A Predator should treat it as rotation.
- Public disruption: burning a warehouse, sabotaging a dungeon, feeding where people can see. Hunger and Infamy are cousins, not twins.
Travel is still free. Raising Infamy is not a time segment by itself. The quests you used to raise it might be. Read the hourglass. The time system does not care that you felt cool tearing a banner.
What edicts do to the map
Sunrise edicts change geography. Peaceful roads grow military. Loyalists hunt you on sight. Svartrau can stop being a tourist stamp and start being a curfew. That is why Big-City Living and peak Infamy feel like different months. Resistance factions become more willing to talk, which is how companions and hidden jobs appear. NPCs who love Brencis hate you more — and sometimes become easier to intimidate because you are famous for the wrong reasons.
After the three officers fall, skip to the next day if the edicts have not rolled. Coverage of the endgame is consistent: the Infamy reading, then a message, then a journal quest that trophy hunters call A Deal with the Devil. Manual-save there. That file is how you try Folk Hero, Patricide, Knyazmaker, and the deal without four separate calendars.
When to raise it and when to starve it
A first-month Swordsman can still burn one dungeon at noon and live with the edicts. A completionist who maxes Infamy on day six will find shops, talks, and quests wearing different faces. That is content. It is also how you lock a quiet Anca morning behind a curfew. Peak Infamy on file one is a valid identity. It is a terrible surprise if you thought you were doing a folk-healer run.
Infamy opens doors and closes streets. It is not a wanted star. It is the politics layer the review scores keep calling the point.
Frequently asked questions
Is Infamy per officer or valley-wide?
Both. Officers have local aggression. Infamy is the valley meter Brencis answers with edicts. Maxing the court is how lists reach the parley.
Can I lower Infamy?
Do not plan a soap-and-haystack cleanse. Edicts are story weather. Play the weather.
Does peak Infamy ruin romances?
It changes who will talk to you and where. A lockdown is a worse date than a sword. Feed before town either way.