Grieving Susanna the Wicked

[Master David]

On my current playthrough I was doing sort of hardcore survival and I was near frozen outside of Windhelm. I went in and decided to pay up to spend the night. While there I saw an NPC I'd never seen before. She was named Susanna the Wicked. I've been playing this game for a decade and I don't remember her. I figured she was added by a mod or maybe the creation club anniversary thing. I talked to her, bought food from her, and listened to her music. It was nice to see a happy NPC since most characters in Skyrim are constantly complaining that they want to leave wherever it is they currently are.

I don't really deal with Windhelm much. It's just not a place I go often. So anyway I was doing the fishing quest to kill the vampire horker and I had to go into Windhelm to turn in the quest. And then I noticed the murder. This started the quest Blood on the ice. I've done this quest before. It's a bit annoying, which might be part of why I avoid Windhelm. And then I saw it. The name. The murder victim. It was ... Susanna the Wicked. No. Can't be. What!

I paused the game. No. My mind was racing. No! Not her. Please. I checked the wiki.

And for the next maybe ten minutes in real life I was just sat in my chair.

I had never paid much attention to the murder victim in this quest before. I thought it was just a generic NPC that was generated already dead. I never imagined that I could meet her before she died.

In the past when I play this quest I'm always thinking about avoiding accusing an innocent man. This time, I'm not thinking that. This time I'm thinking about Susanna and how I want justice for her.

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by Master David:

She was named Susanna the Wicked. I've been playing this game for a decade and I don't remember her. I figured she was added by a mod or maybe the creation club anniversary thing.

No.
She has always been in the game, she is scripted to die so many days after you visit Windhelm for the first time.

[Valden21]

She's in the base game. Perhaps you've never met her because her death is scripted; it's what starts the "Blood on the Ice" side-quest.

[smr1957]

If you do another playthrough, you might want to use these (I've used the first one and it works perfectly).

This mod gives you a chance to save Susanna:
Blood on the Ice Redux SE - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/6126
And this provides voiced dialogue for the above:
Blood on the Ice Redux - Voiced ESP-FE - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/54417

This changes the trigger so that you can actually meet her:
Finding Susanna Alive - A Blood on the Ice Trigger Revision - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/32512

[Zero McDol]

Thinks for the warning OP.

I'd never even considered that she was the one who got killed. I quickly went into Windhelm and made her a follower, so now the possibility is removed entirely.

[smr1957]

Originally posted by Zero McDol:

Thinks for the warning OP.

I'd never even considered that she was the one who got killed. I quickly went into Windhelm and made her a follower, so now the possibility is removed entirely.

Susanna dying is a scripted event, so making her a follower will not save her - you need to use the mod I linked, as it changes the scripts.

[Zero McDol]

Originally posted by smr1957:

Originally posted by Zero McDol:

Thinks for the warning OP.

I'd never even considered that she was the one who got killed. I quickly went into Windhelm and made her a follower, so now the possibility is removed entirely.

Susanna dying is a scripted event, so making her a follower will not save her - you need to use the mod I linked, as it changes the scripts.

Ah, thanks for the info, I'll be sure to add the the mod.

[Zero McDol]

Originally posted by smr1957:

Originally posted by Zero McDol:

Thinks for the warning OP.

I'd never even considered that she was the one who got killed. I quickly went into Windhelm and made her a follower, so now the possibility is removed entirely.

Susanna dying is a scripted event, so making her a follower will not save her - you need to use the mod I linked, as it changes the scripts.

So after doing some testing and probably because my game is both modded and I'm using the follower framework mod, she doesn't die as my follower. I also set her to essential, which likely helped as well. What does happen though, is I get locked out of the investigation entirely. Don't get me wrong, there was still a scream and things, but nothing beyond that; no body, no blood, and she's still alive in the home that I have her in. I waited an entire week in the town.

I still downloaded the mod and decided to reload to before going into Windhelm though, so I can complete the quest and officially keep her alive .

[Master David]

Thanks for the tips on mods. I posted really just to express my shock at what happened. As of right now I'm past the quest with this character but if I replay again (and I probably will cause it's Skyrim) then I'll likely try to have the mod installed so I can save her.

[Hymzir]

Blood on the Ice is prolly the buggiest quest in the whole game. I highly recommend using the mods that smr1957 listed for all future playthroughs.

The way the quest is set up means that it is perfectly possible to never encounter Susanna alive since the activation method is rather clunky for the quest. In the simplest terms, there is a collision marker around the Windhelm bridge area that counts x number of "visits" for the quest to activate. Once you have "visited" Windhelm a certain number of times the quest activates if you enter the Windhelm city exterior zone between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m.

However, there is no cooldown on that visit checker, so it's perfectly possible to trigger the quest on one's first visit to Windhelm simply by loitering around the bridge area. Maybe by visiting the khajit caravan area next to it. Every time you cross the threshold the counter goes up a point. If memory serves me correctly, the quest activates after 4 points or something. So just walking around the area can activate the quest. This happened to me on my first playthrough all those years ago. I came to Windhelm in the morning and Blood on the Ice started the moment I entered the city. My original Dragonborn never met Susanna alive.

Now you can keep Susanna alive by never entering the City zone between 7 in the evening and 7 in the morning. This also means the quest will never run, and you can't get the rewards. So that's a trade-off. The trinket has its uses.

Do also keep in mind, that the Susanna you can talk and interact with is a separate instance from the Susanna that is butchered. They are different base actors with completely different FormIDs. As is the one in the crypt during the "autopsy."

This can lead to some rather silly moments, like in a recent playthrough, where I was visiting Windhlem and spent the night at Candlehearth. I woke up around 6 in the morning, had Susanna sell me some grub for breakfast, and as I was making my exit from the inn, she said one of those generic greetings NPCs say in passing by to me.

Once outside I realized that it was still before 7 a.m. and I had been to Windhelm a couple of times before, so I decided to check the graveyard, and sure enough, there she was splayed on top of that tombstone all cut up and dead even though I had just talked to her literally a minute before.

When the quest starts, the instance of Susanna you can interact with is disabled within the game. I don't know what happens if you interfere in this process by making her a companion. It might be that the corpse version can't activate until the live version is disabled. And I don't remember if the "live" Susanna is later moved to the holding cell for dead and unneeded actors and whether that version is set to die upon entering the holding area. The game is not consistent in how it handles NPCs that get removed from play.

This means that preventing the live version from being disabled can cause all sorts of havoc within the game's scripting. The best way to keep Susanna alive is by installing the aforementioned mods and dealing with the Butcher before Susanna meets her scripted fate.

[smr1957]

Another mod that may be of interest - especially for those who either don't do the Civil War quest line or who would just like to purchase Hjerim earlier:

Neutral Hjerim - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/29508

Allows purchasing Hjerim after finishing Blood on the Ice, without having to do any of the Civil War questline. I've used it for years and it works perfectly.

[Straw Man]

I played Blood On The Ice once, on my first ever play through in 2012 on Xbox. It's never worked for me since. Not after switching to PC, not with any patch, fix, console command known to man.

I figure one of the last classic updates just fubar'd the hell out of it.

Blood On The Ice is the stuff of real legends, and I love it for that.

[Duneman]

I find Blood on the Ice works for me if I ignore the prompt to talk to the steward about the evidence in Hjerim and instead confront Wuunfurth directly, to have him point me to the actual culprit. It also helps to sell the Strange Amulet to Calixto first, else it remains a random quest item instead of its useful form.