companions and vampires

[fighter007]

When will the main plot of Vampires and Companions end? I keep doing the same boring tasks over and over again, and Im already tired of it. I havent idea how much longer I ll have to wait for something more interesting to happen.

[Varanus]

Are you sure you didnt already finish them? Those same boring tasks are literally infinite repeatable quests. The companions usually require you to do one of those, then you get a story quest, and then repeat that cycle 2 or 3 times.
As for the vampires. You never have to do those repeatable quests. If thats all you have, and you're 100% sure you havent completed their main story, than you've likely a quest you dont realize you have, or you've somehow avoided speaking to the correct person.

[Valden21]

The main vampire quests? They end when the main vampire plot for Dawnguard ends. So if you just follow the quest for that, they'll stop. The vampire side-quests are filler, so you can ignore them. It's similar with the Companions. There's a specific end point for that quest-line, and it ends when Kodlak's soul is freed of the lycanthropy. Everything past that is just extra.

[Rez Elwin]

Vampires and Companions? The Companions deal with Werewolves. Where are you in the quest-line? You usually only have to do a couple radiant quests before the next main quest.

The last quest is Glory of the Dead in the Tomb of Ysgramor. That also unlocks the radiant quest to cure the brothers, but aside from that, you finished the quest-line.

[Morgan Fun Gamer]

The companions quest line will end after a few quests not very long I say it might be 3 to 5 hours long for me to complete maybe less and the vampires quest line I think it might be similar but a little longer.

[Fear2288]

Assuming by “vampires” questline you mean Clan Volkihar, the storyline ends when you kill Harkon.

The Companions questline ends when you free Kodlak’s soul from Hircine.

There are; however, five additional quests for the Companions afterwards. When you talk to Vilkas, Farkas, and Aela and select the dialogue option that’s something like “is there any more work to be done?” you will be given one of these quests. This is different from the radiant quest line which is just “I’m looking for work” or something like that.

The option does not automatically appear though, so you may have to complete a radiant quest or two from them first before it does.

For Vilkas and Farkas, these additional quests are to take them back to the Tomb of Ysgramor - separately - and free their souls from Hircine as well.

You will need a Glenmoril Witch head just like with Kodlak so hopefully you killed and took the heads of all five of them during that quest, and you didn’t get rid of the remaining 4.

Just as with Kodlak, you put the head in the alter, fight the wolf spirit, and that’s all there is to it.

Both will remain members of the Companions and are recruitable as followers, they just won’t turn into werewolves anymore.

Aela’s extra quests involve retrieving three Totems of Hircine (one at a time) from randomly selected dungeons around the map.

When she gives you the quest, she will become your follower and come with you to the dungeon. The Totem can be found in the “boss chest” in the dungeon. Once you pick it up, Aela should approach you and ask if you’ve got it. If she’s gotten lost or separated from you, go find her, because the quest will not progress properly until she gets to ask you this.

After you retrieve it, you will return to Whiterun and place it on an altar in the Underforge. Only then will Aela stop following. Each of the totems can be “activated” and grant some kind of bonus/blessing (like the Divine shrines), but you can only have one at a time.

Note: Aela will NOT give you these quests if you have cured yourself of lycanthropy. You must still be a werewolf in order for her to give you these. If you do one or two of them and then cure yourself, she will not give you the remaining one(s).

Also, just FYI, unlike Farkas and Vilkas, Aela will NEVER agree to be cured. There is absolutely nothing you can do in the game that will change her mind. It doesn’t matter how many of her radiants you do, what other quests you complete, or if you make her a follower and keep her by your side for 400 hours of adventures - she won’t do it.

Yes, you get 5 Glenmoril Witch heads, but the game only uses 4: Kodlak, Farkas, Vilkas, and yourself. There is no “hidden” way to cure Aela or some other werewolf character you can use that 5th head for. You can’t even use it for yourself, because once you’ve cured yourself of lycanthropy you can never get it again. That 5th head is for your personal loot box, to display on your shelf, to sell it for whatever it worth, or to beat Nazim to death with.

[Rez Elwin]

Originally posted by Fear2288:

You can’t even use it for yourself, because once you’ve cured yourself of lycanthropy you can never get it again. That 5th head is for your personal loot box, to display on your shelf, to sell it for whatever it worth, or to beat Nazim to death with.

It's still to cure yourself, a second time. You can get lycanthropy again, but only once. If you cured yourself, you can ask Aela to become a werewolf, she will agree to turn you once more. Unlike with vamprisim however, she only does this one time, because at that time the game had a way to cure yourself with a finite resource, so you could only do it twice. I suppose it was done this way to prevent anyone from being stuck as werewolf if they didn't want to be one.

After Dawnguard came out however, becoming a vampire lord became an alternate way to cure lycanthropy, but the hard limit of 2 times never changed.

[fighter007]

@Fear2288 I did the very repetitive "Extermination" quest for the Companions eight times. I freed Kodlak's soul, and after that, I've only been getting these boring quests—no others are available. As for the vampires, I became a Vampire Lord and started doing quests, but after a while, they also began to repeat. I remembered one thing: I did the "Retrieval" quest, where I was supposed to find a fragment of Wuuthrad and give it to Aela. After completing it, the journal tells me to return to Aela, but when I stand next to her, there's no quest marker and no dialogue option. Maybe because of this bug, the Companions quests keep repeating especially since I already have Wuuthrad, yet the quest still tells me to find the fragment.

[R4ndomG4mer]

Every faction has "radiant" quests. They were added to basically make the game infinitely playable even after you finish the main story and all the faction quest lines. Every time you get one, the location for radiant quests is randomly selected, and the quest objective is a bit different.

[Fear2288]

The post-story Companions quests are known to be kinda finicky. When I’ve done them I’ve usually had to complete 1 - 3 radiants for each of the members (Farkas, Vilkas, and Aela) before they offer up the quest. Sometimes I’ve even had to leave Whiterun entirely and do other things for a few in-game days and return before they were ready to give me them.

The fact that you still have a Retrieval quest active could be messing things up.

Those quests are only available between when you attack Gallows Rock and when the Silver Hand ransacks the Companions HQ. If you still have that quest after Glory of the Dead, something went wrong.

You could try using the console command “setstage cr11 200” to complete the Retrieval quest and see if that results in Vilkas, Farkas, and Aela giving you their post-story quests.

Also, just to clarify, are you a werewolf or not? You mention becoming a vampire lord. You cannot be a vampire AND a werewolf at the same time. If you’re a vampire, Aela will not give you the Totem quests. You MUST be a werewolf for her to offer you those. Farkas and Vilkas’ purity quests should still be available though.

And as far as the vampire questline…have you completed the Dawnguard storyline or not?

You mention becoming a vampire lord and then it sounds like you started doing the Volkihar radiant quests. Have you not done things like try and find Valerica, go to the Soul Cairn, go to the Forgotten Vale, etc?

I’ve never actually done the DG questline from the vampire side so I’m not 100% on how differently it progresses than by siding with the Dawnguard.

If you’ve already completed that storyline and killed Harkon, it’s over. The quests you’re still getting for the vampires are just radiant ones that’ll keep generating infinitely.

[Varanus]

Originally posted by fighter007:

I freed Kodlak's soul,

That would be the end of the Companions questline. So it would seem, at least for the companions, that my suspicions were correct. You already finished it.