As you reach Chapter 4 in Rogue Trader and you regain control of the voidship, you’ll get numerous quests and quest updates. Provided you’ve been progressing the companion quests, you’ll get Blood Ties, which is Abelard’s next companion quest. This will take you back to Dargonus where you’ll have to help out his family who stand accused of being traitors while uncovering a conspiracy against you from the four houses. Want to know who is the real culprit? Read on to find out!
There will be blood on your streets as you enter Dargonus in Chapter 4. Who or what caused this?
Return to Dargonus¶
Once you have the quest, which is automatically given to you when you regain control of the voidship in chapter four (provided you’ve been doing 
Abelard’s previous quests), head back to Dargonus in the Mundus Valancius system. When you enter Dargonus, you’ll get a short scene where you’ll find some corpses in front of the palace with guards telling the public to stand aside. As the scene ends, you’ll get your first choice, either point at the bodies or pass the [Medicae] check, with the latter bearing more information. Either way, exhaust the dialogue, and when you regain control, pass the [Awareness] check to find a Blood-Stained Letter before heading into the palace. Make your way up the stairs, exhaust the guard’s dialogue, and the game will automatically put you in dialogue with the houses.
(1 of 2) When you regain control in Dargonus, pass the Awareness check.
When you regain control in Dargonus, pass the Awareness check. (left), This is important as you’ll find a piece of evidence, the Blood-Stained Letter. (right)
Find the Culprit and Expose the Mastermind¶
When talking to the houses in the main room, exhaust all the dialogue apart from the last option “I do not have time to deal with this” as this will admit that the Werserians are guilty. If you don’t have the time to read through all that, select the second from the last option “Sabotaging logistics, riots, conspiracy…” to skip to the next part which will update the objective to find the culprit. There’s a lot you can do here such as speak to all the houses to exhaust their dialogue, but these next steps are all you need to do to get the correct outcome:
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Step 1: Speak to Governor Urbend Drivestem and ask him to speak to his son (Cornelius).
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Step 2: Exhaust the dialogue with Cornelius until the [Coercion] option appears. Pass that check or convince Cornelius in another way to tell the truth (
Marazhai can help here). Exhaust his dialogue again but don’t sentence him to death. This allows you to summon everyone for the verdict, but you won’t find out the true mastermind just yet, so hold off on that. -
Step 3: Speak to all the houses and exhaust their dialogue, especially Vincent Gaprak in private.
(1 of 3) Ask Urbend if you can speak to his son.
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Step 4: Head to the palace entrance to find Gallen/Halen Gaprak praying on the first floor opposite the entrance and interact with him. This causes him to drop dead and you’ll get a couple of checks (Awareness and Medicae). Neither of these are needed to complete the quest but they will give you more information. When you’re ready, search his pockets for the “Short Note”, head back up the stairs, and talk to the Gapraks. Tell them you found a dead body and exhaust the following dialogue, as this will lead to Abelard telling you that there is someone else pulling the strings. This will update the quest to “Expose the Mastermind”.
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Step 5: Go back to the Gapraks, tell them about the body you just found, and eventually Abelard will tell you to speak to the head of the various houses.
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Step 6: Talk again to Urbend Drivestem and ask him if he saw Marcharius Sauerback before you arrived. Urbend will tell you no, but one of the nearby aristocrats has. Select “Lead me to that place” and follow them to the nearby bench.
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Step 7: Pass the [Awareness] check and Abelard will mention that he recognizes the bouquet and that House Sauerback serves this wine. That is the smoking gun, apparently.
(1 of 5) Head toward the entrance to find a nervous aristocrat who will suddenly die when you interact with them.
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Step 8: Head back to Urbend Drivestem and summon everyone for a verdict.
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Step 9: Pass all the [Awareness] checks (these are low, and you should have no problem passing these).
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Step 10: Select “House Sauerback guilty. Seneschal, you may take it from here”. The bug will happen here if it happens at all. If you regain control of the party, something went wrong. However, if the scene continues to play, and Abelard approaches them, you got past the bug!
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Step 11: The only thing left to do is to execute the mastermind on their own or the whole house. Regardless of your choice, you’ll get the
Traitor’s Ring. You can talk to the mastermind before the execution, but you will find little out.
(1 of 4) Talk to Urbend again and summon everybody for a verdict.
Talk to Abelard on the ship’s bridge¶
Make your way back to the voidship, find Abelard near the map table, and speak to him to complete the quest. In short, the main triggers to complete the quest appear to be the following: Bloodstained-Note > talking to Vincent > convincing Cornelius to tell the truth > short note from Halen Gapraks body > bouquet on the bench > pass awareness checks to all the houses during the verdict > and Seneschal, you may take it from here. Other things that may help are bringing the Xenos along in your party if you don’t have any or the opposite if you do, coercing Macharius Sauerback regarding the Xenos, doing the opposite method of getting Cornelius to tell the truth, using Marazhai instead of coercing or vice versa.
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If you bring Heinrix, he is also able to both skip the coercion options and provide you with some extra useful information.