A Murder of Crows

A Murder of Crows
Appearances	Dragon Age II

A Murder of Crows is a secondary quest in Act 3 of Dragon Age II that begins in Hightown near the entrance of the Blooming Rose. A man called Nuncio claims to be an Antivan noble and requests Hawke's help in capturing a dangerous assassin. He says he has been attempting to bring the criminal to justice and 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 seeking refuge with the nearby Dalish tribe so he needs someone more familiar with the Dalish to track him down.

Acquisition

Talk to Nuncio who is located outside of the Blooming Rose. You will get this quest with any of the prebuilt history (Hero of Ferelden, The Martyr or No Compromise) or an imported save where Zevran Arainai survived in Dragon Age: Origins.

Walkthrough

Variel

Go to Sundermount and speak to Variel, she will direct you to Mountain Cave at the base of Sundermount.

Note: On your way to the cave, off to some ruins on the left side, there are bones from which you can loot the design for Rune of Valiance, one of the best runes in the game.

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.

Zevran

Helping Zevran will cause him to return the favour by assisting in your battle against Meredith. Note that there are specific conditions for his appearance; see The Last Straw walkthrough for details.

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.

The Awiergan Scrolls: Third Aspect is found near some crumbled walls on the left-hand side, just before you get to the Dalish camp.

The Sylvanwood Ring can be looted from the Thief Leader as you approach the camp. Another can be found in a corpse at the Mountain Cave where the assassin is hiding.

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 previously chose to let Zevran leave instead of bringing him to Nuncio, he will also give you Finesse.

Note

• At the end of the quest, if Zevran was not in a romantic relationship with the Warden at the end of Dragon Age: Origins, you've flirted with him during the quest, and Isabela 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 Anders, Fenris, or Merrill and they are present when Zevran makes his offer, they will react jealously and Zevran will retract his offer. If the champion is in a relationship with Isabela and she is in the party, it is possible to have a threesome between Isabela, Hawke, and Zevran. Otherwise, regardless of whether or not Hawke is in a romantic relationship with Isabela, if she is present she will ask Zevran for sex, and Zevran will take her up on the offer. Hawke, if involved with Isabela can stop her from going, and Isabela will comply, telling Hawke he/she had better make up for it with sex later.
• Sleeping with Zevran will result in Sebastian: rivalry (+5) if Sebastian is present.
• This mission will not occur if you import a saved game from Dragon Age: Origins where you killed Zevran.
• Under specific circumstances, this mission will occur even if you did kill Zevran in Origins. 1.03, Witch Hunt import.

Bugs/Glitches

The following annoying bug can prevent the threesome between Hawke (either male or female), Isabela and Zevran, even if you've met all the prerequisites for this. If you've slept with Merrill and chose the break heart option immediately after this, it will put Isabela (if you already slept with her) in a state of a "ghost" romance. i.e. the dialogs still happen between Isabela and you, but in certain situations (like the threesome with Zevran and many others, including some endgame outcomes) the game won't acknowledge the fact that you are in a romance with Isabela (1.03).

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.

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.

Choosing any response other than "I'm here for the Antivan" with Variel will end the conversation, but she can still be conversed with again. This can be exploited to stack an unlimited amount of aggressive or diplomatic responses, and and can be used to change Hawke's personality.

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).

• After the fight is over and you're talking with Zevran, choosing the flirt option with Isabela present results in a funny scene if Anders and Aveline are also present.

Aveline: I think I just threw up a little. Anders: Ha!