Thy Brother's Killer is a quest received from The Mages' Collective Quest Board at Lake Calenhad Docks. A cabal of maleficarum are practicing blood magic near the home of a member of the Collective, who requests that they be brought to justice before they draw the attention of the templars to the area.
Walkthrough[]
The action takes place in the north of the East Brecilian Forest - the map will have an 'X' for an Ancient Tombstone used during The Mage's Treasure quest, which happens in the same area (the Ancient Tombstone to the very north of the map, not the one to the east).
When you first enter the area, two ogres will be near the tombstone. Kill them both, then exit and reenter the area. When you return to the tombstone, the four maleficarum (two normal and two lieutenants) will be present, standing around an altar. If you have already been to this area and killed the ogres before starting this quest, the four maleficarum will be there, and you will not have to exit and reenter the area.
Skills[]
The maleficarum are challenging enemies, able to use the following at level 14:
Note: Only one maleficarum can use Blood Magic abilities. Maleficarum also like to synchronise their spells: for instance, two of them might cast Chain Lightning or Misdirection Hex together, while the other uses Weakness or Cone of Cold.
Strategy[]
The fight will only start after you talk to them. Characters with Stealing skill may wish to pickpocket them all first.
Mana Clash makes the fight trivially easy - one hit is enough.
If you do not have this useful anti-mage spell, use a long-term Area of Effect spell on them, save, possibly quick-load to reset cooldown times and only then talk to them. Paralysis Explosion is particularly good in this instance, preventing three of them from doing anything to you for a considerable amount of time, as the mage you talk to will never be affected. Given their high number of spells, casting Glyph of Neutralization afterwards would certainly be worth it, preventing one or two of them from spellcasting. Of course, other anti-mana abilities would be as useful as ever in this situation. If your party has neither, then spread the party members out to minimize the effect of AoE spells cast at them.
An alternative strategy[]
Playing on PC, even on Nightmare, this fight can be very easy:
- The moment the fight starts, pause the game.
- Set party members with Poison-Making skill to throw Shock Bombs (which drain mana in addition to health) or other grenades into the midst of the four maleficarum.
- Release the grenades and instantly re-pause the fight.
- Switch to Alistair and have him target the four maleficarum with Holy Smite.
- Unpause the game and let these two effects devastate the four mages.
- Pause the fight again.
These two attacks can kill one of the two normal-ranked mages outright and leave the other mages heavily damaged and low on mana.
- Assess the damage of the remaining enemies, and set your entire crew to dispatch the one with the lowest health.
- As they are standing up (Holy Smite will have blown them off their feet), position Morrigan into the midst of them and cast Mind Blast. This will keep the other mages from casting at you while you take them down.
Bugs[]
As of patch 1.04 the bug that caused the maleficarum not to appear in the PC version of the game seems to have been fixed. However, just to be safe, clear out the ogres before taking Wynne into the area. If they do bug, causing Aneirin to spawn will fix it.
If darkspawn are not cleared out of this area around the tombstone prior to taking the quest in the PC Steam version, the maleficarum will not appear.
Rewards[]
Black Hand Gauntlets from one of the dead maleficar.
Return to any Mages' Collective Liaison for your reward:
- 175 XP
- 2
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