A Murder of Crows

A Murder of Crows is a secondary quest in Act 3 of Dragon Age II wherein a man claiming to be an Antivan noble tells you that he is pursuing a dangerous assassin. He says he has been attempting to bring the criminal to justice but that his quest has become personal since the man has killed several of his subordinates. When asked why he has come to you for help, he says that the assassin is an elf and is blending in with the nearby Dalish tribe so he needs someone more familiar with the Dalish to track him down.

Acquisition
Talk to Nuncio outside of The Blooming Rose.

Walkthrough
Go to Sundermount and speak to Variel, she will direct you to Mountain Cave at the base of Sundermount. After entering the cave and fighting a Varterral you come across the assassin, who is actually Zevran. You can choose to take him in or let him go; in the process, you can flirt with him. If you let him go, he runs off; there should be a new camp on the marshes map. Go there, the man who "hired" you attacks you and Zevran shows back up to help you fight him off.

Helping Zevran will cause him to return the favour by assisting in your battle against Meredith.


 * If you are also working on A New Path, be sure and talk to Variel first.

Notable Items/Rewards
Bring a rogue to deal with the chests and traps you encounter.

If you loot the cave, you can get Boiled Leather Plates (Companion Armor Upgrade for Isabela), Righteous Rain (a bow), and Ring of the Shadow Hunter.

After defeating Nuncio, you can loot the camp for Proving Battle Tunic. If you choose to let Zevran live, he will also give you Finesse. JUST TAKE THE SHIT and move !!!!!!!!!!!

Note

 * If Zevran was not in a loving relationship with the Warden at the end of Dragon Age: Origins and Isabela, not romanced, is not in the party, he will offer to "get to know" Hawke after the Crows are eliminated. If the champion is in a relationship with Isabela and she is in the party during the quest A Murder of Crows, it is possible to have a threesome between Isabela, Hawke, and Zevran, if the champion agrees to kill the Crows that are after him. Even if Hawke is in a relationship with Isabela, she will ask Zevran for sex. Hawke can ask her not to, and Isabela will comply, telling Hawke had better make up for it with sex later. If the champion is in a relationship with Anders, Fenris, or Merrill and they are present when Zevran makes his offer, they will react jealously and Zevran will retract his offer.


 * Having Sebastian and Isabela in your party at the end of the quest will result in


 * This mission will not occur if you import a saved game from Dragon Age: Origins where you kill Zevran.

Bugs/Glitches
Due to unknown reasons, introduction dialogues might trigger twice, before letting Zevran go and after dealing with the Crows. Also, quest might stay active in the journal even though it is finished.

Loading a save file from before the Varterral fight will possibly fix this. May have to do it several times before it actually resets. (Only tested this once) --Kayden

Zevran's dialogue (and codex entry) are written to differ for a romanced Warden and for a romanced Warden who did the Ultimate Sacrifice (he will turn down Hawke and/or Isabela's propositions). However, as of the current release Zevran's dialogue is bugged to the non-romanced state.

Sometimes, the cave will glitch at the foot of the steps leading to the large area where the Varterral waits. Leaving the cave or Sundermount completely, does not fix the problem. On my third play though, I was unable to complete this quest. Occurred on the PS3 version. Also occurs in PC version, loading a save before entering caves solved the issue.

If you finish A New Path before talking to Variel you might not be able to complete the quest. The Dalish elves may attack you on sight, forcing you to kill all of them (including Variel) and preventing you from finding out where the assassin may be hiding.

Trivia

 * A group of crows in the wild is known as a "murder" (e.g. a flock of geese, a herd of cows, a murder of crows, etc).