Its been a while but you can absolutely prove it if you specifically grill someone at the inn with enough clues that they were lying. Review what you learned and specifically ask EVERYONE AT THE INN about who could be lying.

I exhausted every dialogue with everybody in the Inn. Can we please stop dancing around the subject? Who dunnit, please? lol

The bard? What possible evidence or question is there to prove he's the murderer? I found the proof that he lied to set up the other Bard out of jealousy. But nothing I found indicated he killed the victim.

There are two people that lied to convince the baliff that its a mistrial of justice. The Bard, who is a lot more powerful and conniving than he came off as and the racist loaf, who lied about his mother seeing something but if you talk to her you find out she's too mentally far gone to see or know anything you can then talk to him about how he's got nothing against the Barbarian.

If I remember right the bard lied about two things and if you personally grill him about how he hates Eres and how the blood he found was Red Dye from the merchant, you can get him to attack you and disappear in a cloud of smoke. Both clues will give a potential real suspect of the murder that moves to a future location and convince the Baliff that the guys he arrested didn't do it. As well as punish the guy who hates the locals for lying under oath.

Originally posted by marv:

There are two people that lied to convince the baliff that its a mistrial of justice. The Bard, who is a lot more powerful and conniving than he came off as and the racist loaf, who lied about his mother seeing something but if you talk to her you find out she's too mentally far gone to see or know anything you can then talk to him about how he's got nothing against the Barbarian.

If I remember right the bard lied about two things and if you personally grill him about how he hates Eres and how the blood he found was Red Dye from the merchant, you can get him to attack you and disappear in a cloud of smoke. Both clues will give a potential real suspect of the murder that moves to a future location and convince the Baliff that the guys he arrested didn't do it. As well as punish the guy who hates the locals for lying under oath.

Not doing spoiler tags anymore cuz anyone who saw the title of this thread and entered anyway made their choice and took their chances. lol

I made all that happen, but i've got no idea what you're referring to about a "potential real suspect".

Nothing I found points to any real suspects. The Bard guy just wanted to frame Eres because of their ongoing rivalry/jealousy.

But unless I missed some vital clue somewhere, all indications are that it was purely a crime of convenience for him. The murder happened...he had no idea how/why/who did it...but when he found the Red Dye he saw a chance to frame his hated rival for it. So he ran with it.

This is a bit of a plothole actually. Most people should be able to tell the difference between Blood and Dye just from the smell. Especially a Bailiff who hunts and goes on regular bandit patrols. He confirms that he does indeed go on regular bandit patrols when you accept his bounty mission.

Anyway, the Bard guy did the smoke bomb escape on me when I tried to take him in, but again...as far as i could tell he had nothing to do with the murder itself. He just used the murder as a way to get rid of a rival. Which would count as "Attempted Murder" against Eres, but as far as I can tell he didn't do anything to the original murder victim.

Did I miss some clue that indicates he actually did that murder too?

Well he escapes and possibly will show up again is all I'm assuming, its still possible he did it or knows who could do it and show up in later locations. As for who actually did the deed, we don't really know yet. Maybe future content will better flesh this out or give us a trail to a future perp, but right now this is it. Two false witnesses and fall guys for a crime that happens long before we show up.

Okay that's sort of what I suspected. Just wanted to make sure. Either the real killer is not yet implemented in the game, or nobody has figured it out yet basically.

Considering the Local Crime ring that's connected to a big Criminal Organization in Swordhaven, it probably wouldn't be hard to maybe find a clue that connects them to this or its just a smaller murder involved in that. But then again, currently in the game its just an awkward choice to Murder Hobo a certain camp if you feel like it and the Baliff's just like "Eh, they'll come back with another set of goons later."

Would be interesting to maybe link a trail through them or give the player a stronger narrative reason to get rid of them.

The Slaver Camp? I found the slaver camp by accident, and there was NOBODY there. Except one sleeping slaver around the back who completely ignored me while I freed all his slaves.

Then I killed him anyway, for the giggles. Is that the camp you mean?

I THINK the camp was empty because when I got that random encounter I decided to fight and managed to win. lol So I guess I ended up killing all the slavers in that initial encounter?

Originally posted by Jivebot:

The Slaver Camp? I found the slaver camp by accident, and there was NOBODY there. Except one sleeping slaver around the back who completely ignored me while I freed all his slaves.

Then I killed him anyway, for the giggles. Is that the camp you mean?

I THINK the camp was empty because when I got that random encounter I decided to fight and managed to win. lol So I guess I ended up killing all the slavers in that initial encounter?

Yes, if you defeated the slavers group (instead of allowing yourself to be captured), then there wont be anyone to defeat in the slave camp itself. Aside from the sleeping guard at the back gate.

As far as I understand, the bard at the inn is the real murderer, who did the killing (for an unknown reason) and framed the other bard. Since he's basically an assassin only masquerading as a bard (hence my headcanon why he actually kinda sucks at being a bard, and Eren is so much better than him).

What I'm trying to find out now is whether you can solve the murder without investing in Persuasion/Personality.

So far, no matter how many questions I ask to both witnesses, they just shrug it off. Ozka never refers to his mother. The bard at the inn (Strazd) also gives no dialogue option about painting Eres's hat (even though Eres himself suggested that his hat might have been painted red). The Dye Merchant at the inn also gives no specific dialogue options about the case. Without Persuasion, it doesn't seem possible to progress the quest towards a solution of the mystery.

The problem I'm having here is that the racist never implicates the grandmother and always just says he saw it himself. He can't remember any specific details but there's no option to call him out on it and have him claim his grandmother witnessed the event instead.

Originally posted by Balgin Stondraeg:

The problem I'm having here is that the racist never implicates the grandmother and always just says he saw it himself. He can't remember any specific details but there's no option to call him out on it and have him claim his grandmother witnessed the event instead.

Talk to his neighbour the clean freak farmer to get the implicating evidence

Originally posted by LArc7thHeaven:

Originally posted by Balgin Stondraeg:

The problem I'm having here is that the racist never implicates the grandmother and always just says he saw it himself. He can't remember any specific details but there's no option to call him out on it and have him claim his grandmother witnessed the event instead.

Talk to his neighbour the clean freak farmer to get the implicating evidence

Yes, you need to speak to Koriat who lives at the other side of the northern gate. And this lets you get the barbarian off the hook.

However, I still can't find a way to catch Strazd the musician in a lie. I even pass the Attention check to see he's hiding something, but I can't pass the subsequent Persuasion check due to my build, and apparently there is no other way of implicating him, despite it being blindingly obvious that Eres' cap was painted red, and even a travelling Dye Merchant in the same inn telling about an "eye-popping red dye" he got from Swordhaven.

It's pretty ridiculous that there seems to be only one way of solving the mystery. There should be an option to confront him about his rivalry with Eres and the fact that the cap was most likely painted, without the need for a persuasion check, or to add an intimidation check at least.

By the way, why isn't the cap itself available for examination? Finding that it's painted would surely disprove the flimsy case against Eres.

Originally posted by marv:

If I remember right the bard lied about two things and if you personally grill him about how he hates Eres and how the blood he found was Red Dye from the merchant, you can get him to attack you and disappear in a cloud of smoke.

How can you confront Strazd with the red dye from the merchant? I talked to the merchant and to Strazd, but there doesn't seem to be any option to put 2 and 2 together here. For some reason everything is locked behind a Persuasion check, even though it ought to be a matter of very primitive deduction (not even requiring exceptional intelligence, Eres literally suggests himself that his hat was painted red).

I haven't played this in a while but even if you prove Stazd is lying, all you can prove is that he saw an opportunity and lied to implicate his rival. There's nothing to indicate he did the actual murder. Which is why I was asking if there's any way to confirm who the killer truly is.

Originally posted by Jivebot:

I haven't played this in a while but even if you prove Stazd is lying, all you can prove is that he saw an opportunity and lied to implicate his rival. There's nothing to indicate he did the actual murder. Which is why I was asking if there's any way to confirm who the killer truly is.

Proving he's lying is the most important thing though, because the real goal of the quest is to get two unique and powerful companions for your team.

And considering Strazd literally attacks you and disappears if you catch him at lying, I'd say there's a good chance he's the real killer, too.