While exploring the world of The Blood of Dawnwalker, you'll quickly discover that one of the game's core mechanics is drinking blood. Feeding increases your Corruption Level, giving you access to better Vampirism skills, and also prevents Coen from losing control in the middle of a conversation and feeding on someone you wanted to keep alive. Here we'll explain what happens if you kill NPCs, whether they're important or not, and which characters you can safely feed on without worrying too much about the consequences.
Blood Hunger is a special mechanic that becomes dangerous when your Vampiric Health drops to 1 segment or less. At that point, Coen's need to feed becomes increasingly difficult to control.
During conversations, this can cause one of your normal dialogue choices to suddenly change into "Give in to the hunger". If Coen completely loses control and you're forced to select this option, he'll feed on and kill the NPC, with all the consequences that entails.
If you kill an important NPC, whether because of Blood Hunger or because you deliberately choose to do so, that character is permanently dead. The consequences are exactly what you'd expect: if the character was a merchant, you'll lose access to that merchant. If they were involved in quests, you may lose those quests entirely or at least the objectives, choices and outcomes associated with that character.
The game won't give you a Game Over for killing an important NPC. Instead, the world and its quests adapt to that character's death and you'll have to live with the consequences.
As a general rule, unnamed NPCs are much safer prey than named characters. If someone has a proper name, is a merchant or appears to be involved in a quest, it's best to think twice before feeding on them.
One particularly useful source of blood is the groups of travellers you'll encounter along the roads at night. You'll often find them gathered around campfires, and they can provide Coen with an easy opportunity to replenish his Vampiric Health without jeopardising an important quest or character.
If you're ever unsure, the safest rule is simple: avoid feeding on named NPCs and keep Coen's Blood Hunger under control before starting important conversations at night.
