There are two romance options and one bromance route in The Blood of Dawnwalker: Anca and Lacra are romance options, while Crake is the bromance route. You can romance all three in a single playthrough without any of them locking you out of the others, and the system is forgiving enough that you do not need to select every flirtatious dialogue option perfectly. What you do need is to complete each character's full questline and make your interest explicit at the key moments listed below.
This guide contains story spoilers for all three romance arcs.
How romance works in The Blood of Dawnwalker Romance in Rebel Wolves' 14th-century Carpathian RPG is tied directly to questlines rather than to a hidden affection meter. Each of the three characters has a personal chain of quests, and progressing through that chain is what opens the romantic option at the end of it. Dialogue matters, but it is rarely punishing. The game signals clearly when a line expresses romantic interest versus when it declines the opportunity.
Two points are worth understanding before you start.
First, disagreement does not end a romance. You can push back against a character's goals during conversation and still romance them afterward, provided you stay respectful about it. The relationships are built to tolerate friction.
Second, nothing in the romance system is permanently missable through a wrong dialogue choice. There are no quests or activities that lock you out of a romance opportunity. That said, The Blood of Dawnwalker runs on a 30-day in-game clock, and pursuing all three arcs means budgeting your time across all three questlines rather than sprinting the main story. The constraint is scheduling, not choice.
1. How to romance Anca
Anca is a herbalist from Coen's home village of Laslea, the first character to help him track down where his family is being held, and the most patient of the three romance options. She is also the one with the longest runway, appearing as far back as the prologue.
Anca's questline Withering Away and Page-Turner (prologue) Echoes of Silenced Bells Between the Words Where Old Devils Lie Stronger than Achilles Prologue: Withering Away and Page-Turner Visit Anca's hut to collect the herbs for Coen's mother Esme, then choose to spend time with her rather than leaving.
Two flirt opportunities appear here. You can insist on reading the book with the red cover, which opens up more intimate dialogue, and you can save her herbs from the storm by collecting all 11 and returning them to her for a good impression.
Neither of these affects your relationship later. Whether you spend time with her in the prologue at all has no bearing on your romance options down the line. Do them for the scenes, not out of obligation.
Echoes of Silenced Bells This quest deals with the nuns from the convent Anca once belonged to. However it ends, the outcome does not affect your relationship with her. It exists to set up the flirt opportunity in the next quest.
Between the Words This is the first conversation that genuinely matters.
While the two of you are reading, offer to make the tea and choose "It's my pleasure." That opens up additional time together. After you finish reading, choose "Always? What do you mean?" followed by "Your feelings towards me, it's more than just faith." That second line is a direct declaration of interest and is what the ending of her arc pays off.
Where Old Devils Lie When you return to Anca, ask what she has discovered in the books. Express your gratitude for her help, then ask how she sees you. She will acknowledge where the two of you stand before steering back to the task at hand. Nothing here is pass or fail, but it reinforces the declaration you made earlier.
Stronger than Achilles This is the one point in Anca's arc with a real consequence attached.
During this quest Anca reveals that she wants to use The Font. Choose "Go ahead. Make what you will with it" and let her have it.
If you drink the Font of Life yourself instead, Anca becomes hesitant about the relationship afterward. This is the single choice in her questline that can complicate the romance, so make it deliberately.
Back at the inn After Stronger than Achilles, return to the inn. Provided you declared your feelings during Between the Words, you can now have the conversation properly.
Choose "I meant what I said," then "Screw decency, I want you too." After the kiss, choose "Not sure I got that. One more time?" to complete the romance.
2. How to bromance Crake
Crake leads the manumits, the mortal rebellion standing against the Vrakhiri Court. Your first meeting involves a knife at Coen's throat, which sets the tone. As a rebel fighting supernatural oppression, he is guarded around a Dawnwalker by default, and his arc is about earning past that.
Note that some guides and in-game materials refer to this character as Marat. Treat the two names as the same bromance route.
Crake's questline The Firebrand Shadows in the Woods Where Loyalties Lie What Hunts the Night What Moves the Dead Who Pulls the Strings Distant Shadows A Closer Look Getting access to Crake You cannot begin building this relationship until you have joined the manumits, and reaching Where Loyalties Lie requires raising your infamy first. Until that unlock, your choices around Crake do not register for bromance purposes.
How you complete or resolve the quests in his chain does not appear to affect the bromance. What matters is that you make time for all of them.
What Hunts the Night and What Moves the Dead During What Hunts the Night, the dialogue is flexible, but comfort Crake rather than blaming him. Afterward you return to base for What Moves the Dead, where you can help him remove his armor and tend to his wounds. Take that option.
The mountainside conversation This is where the bromance is actually decided.
Once you reach the point of discussing Ascar with Crake, he will refuse to talk about it. Shortly afterward, Drago tells you where Crake goes to cool off. Catch up to him at the mountainside and offer to train with him.
Then work through this dialogue chain:
"May I join you, then?" "I'm worried about you, and I'd like to help." "I know what this is about." "He was a manumit once, wasn't he?" "Ascar is your father, isn't he?" "Why?" "Hey, nothing you say can change the way I see you." That last line is the one that lands. Crake will move to kiss Coen, and kissing him back completes the bromance.
3. How to romance Lacra
Lacra is the only Vrakhiri romance option, driven by vengeance and guarded about her motives. She insists her goals align with Coen's, and the relationship builds naturally through her questline, but she is wary at the outset and responds to honesty rather than charm.
She is also the only romance option Coen will not encounter simply by playing the main story.
Finding Lacra Lacra's existence is not revealed automatically. You need to unlock and complete the quest A Friend Like This, which involves dealing with Ambrus of the Vrakhiri Court. A note found on Ambrus's corpse reveals Lacra's connection to him, and from there you can pursue her location.
If you never deal with Ambrus, you will not meet her. Her romance is not locked by a wrong dialogue choice, but the arc has to be discovered before it can be started.
Lacra's questline A Friend Like This The Song of the Mountain Hive and Seek Our Rotten Roots The Night of Horrors A Friend Like This You fight Lacra when you first meet her. The battle stops automatically once you deplete her health, so there is no way to fail it into a dead end. Afterward she is willing to talk, and you can open up about needing help taking on Brencis.
How you handle the Uriashi captive during this quest does not affect the romance.
The Song of the Mountain and Hive and Seek Lacra's romance stays available regardless of how you resolve the Uriashi village situation, including going against her wishes and taking the peaceful route. After speaking with the Uriashi elder, continue underground with Lacra for Hive and Seek. There is heavy combat below, so arrive prepared. None of the dialogue in this quest affects the romance.
Our Rotten Roots This quest begins after a day has passed. Once you defeat Isbrant, start expressing that you want to keep helping her.
The key beat is afterward, when the two of you are alone in the cave. Do not leave immediately. Keep talking to her about the plans. This is where the relationship shifts.
The Night of Horrors When you speak with Lacra again, tell her you believe the parlay with Brencis is a trap, then ask what she wanted to talk about. That leads her to something that can protect you both.
Once the Mandrake appears, accept it and share it with her to open up the rest of the conversation. When Lacra offers you her blood, drink it. The final prompt gives you the option to kiss her, which completes the romance.
Can you romance all three characters? Yes. Romancing Anca does not close off Crake, and bromancing Crake does not close off Lacra. There is no jealousy system and no point at which committing to one partner locks the others out.
The only real limit is the clock. With a 30-day in-game deadline and three full questlines to work through alongside the main story, pursuing all three means planning your days rather than following whichever thread is in front of you.
Playing a 30-day RPG without the hardware fighting you The Blood of Dawnwalker is built in Unreal Engine 5, runs 55 to 70 hours for a thorough playthrough, and swaps Coen between human daytime and Vrakhir night states with entirely different lighting and ability sets. That day and night transition is where the engine works hardest, and it is also where a system without headroom starts dropping frames.
There is a practical reason that matters for a romance run specifically. Chasing three questlines against a hard deadline means a lot of travel between Vale Sangora's regions, and traversal is exactly the workload that exposes a system running at its limit.
If you have the desk space, a powerful gaming desktop is the most straightforward way to remove performance from the equation. The Nitro 85 Gaming Desktop - N85-100-UR37 pairs a 12-core AMD Ryzen 9 9900X boosting to 5.6GHz with AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT graphics, which is the strongest GPU of the three options here and the one best suited to pushing Unreal Engine 5's lighting at higher resolutions. It ships with 16GB of DDR5 and a 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD, and a desktop chassis means it holds its clocks through a 70-hour campaign without the thermal ceiling a thin laptop has to respect. Wi-Fi 7 and 2.5GbE Ethernet cover the day-one patches a new RPG tends to accumulate.
If you would rather play from the couch, an affordable gaming laptop is the sensible entry point. The Nitro 16S AI Gaming Laptop - AN16S-61-R7YL runs an AMD Ryzen 7 350 with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 and 8GB of dedicated memory, backed by 16GB of DDR5 and a 1TB SSD. Its 16-inch WUXGA panel runs at 180Hz in a 16:10 aspect ratio, and that extra vertical space is genuinely useful in a quest-heavy RPG where you are reading dialogue and checking objectives constantly.
If you want more headroom in something you can still carry, a compact high-performance gaming laptop is the step up. The Predator Helios Neo 14 AI Gaming Laptop - PHN14-71-906J combines an Intel Core Ultra 9 285H with an RTX 5070 and, importantly for an Unreal Engine 5 open world, 32GB of LPDDR5X memory. Its 14.5-inch WQXGA display runs at 165Hz with a matte ComfyView finish, which is worth noting for this game specifically: a large share of your playtime happens at night in dim forests and candlelit interiors, and a matte panel keeps ambient room light from washing out detail in exactly those scenes.
Frequently asked questions How many romance options are in The Blood of Dawnwalker? There are three relationship routes: Anca, a herbalist from Coen's home village; Crake, leader of the manumit rebellion; and Lacra, a Vrakhir driven by vengeance. Anca and Lacra are romanceable, while Crake is the bromance route, and all three can be pursued in a single playthrough.
Can you romance everyone in The Blood of Dawnwalker? Yes. Pursuing one romance does not lock out the others, and there is no jealousy or exclusivity system. The only constraint is the 30-day in-game clock, which means finding time for three separate questlines alongside the main story.
Is any romance in The Blood of Dawnwalker missable? No romance is locked out by a wrong dialogue choice. Lacra, however, is not encountered automatically. You must complete the quest A Friend Like This and find the note on Ambrus's corpse before you can locate her at all.
Does disagreeing with a character ruin the romance? No. You can disagree with a love interest during dialogue and still romance them afterward, as long as you remain respectful toward them and their goals. Lacra's romance stays available even if you go against her wishes during the Uriashi village situation.
What is the one choice that can hurt a romance? During Stronger than Achilles, drinking the Font of Life yourself rather than letting Anca use it makes her hesitant about the relationship afterward. Choose "Go ahead. Make what you will with it" to avoid this.
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