Windhelm Murder Quest

[mkurucar]

I am trying to do this quest so I can buy the house there in Windhelm but I cannot seem to activate the quest. I tried talking to the guy in the palace who sells the house but keeps telling me that it is a house for sale but it is not available. I have also tried leaving windhelm and re entering 4 times but the murder scene does not appear. Does anyone know what I should do?

[lordandromeda]

I can't be sure what part of what you're on, but here's how events went for me. Maybe it'll help.

 

I know we're in the spoilers section, but still.

 

THIS POST IS GOING TO DROP SPOILERS.

 

EDIT: Just re-read first post. You might want to do like me, and just chat everyone in the inn the f up. I made the bard sing me both songs a few times, think I bought some meade. You might also want to "meet" the creepy museum dude. Maybe get a tour of his museum. Maybe pickpocket him for his key, steal his journal from the chest in his loft.

 

I walked by the hall of the dead, and some chick I talked to in the inn was dead on a gravestone. People were freaking out, and after talking to a few of them I got the quest to solve the murder.

Upon nearing the home, Hjerim, I got the quest update to "gain access" to the house. I put it off for a long long LONG time, but eventually decided eh what the hell, and lockpicked my way in,

Blood stains, mysterious journal, and a pile of flyers written by some old lady, and I had gathered evidence worth telling some folks about. I think the strange amulet is somewhere in the house too, and it's imperative to the quest.

If you talk to the idiot who runs the strange museum in town, he will accuse the castle mage of necromancy.

DO NOT BELIEVE HIM.

I did, and nearly SCREWED myself entirely. If it weren't for the player.placeatme command, I'd have ruined my chances of "finishing" the quest entirely.

Talk to the castle mage, I forget his name, and, if I'm right, he should tell you that another murder is expected to happen VERY soon. Wait until midnight (preferably while still in the castle) and then head to the market district.

I'm not sure if the direction you come from matters, but just to be safe you might want to take the path that runs form the houses to the market. You can get there from a path to the right of the castle, some sort of strange side-road that took me DAYS to learn about.

If things work the way I expect them to via my experience, you'll catch that jerk from the museum planning to shank some chick, but when you get near he will sheathe his weapon and start to walk away. If you follow him, after a few moments the quest will update and tell you to apprehend the real killer. I'm not sure if you can "talk" him into anything, as I simply blasted him with a dual-cast incinerate and killed him instantly.

You should then be able to turn the quest into the steward or whoever, and have things properly settled. If you do it the fail way that I did, there WILL be a second victim before you stop him, whereas the way I think I described might save the second from death.

 

Whichever route you take, as soon as someone is jailed or killed for the crime you can purchase Hjerim, clean up the killer's mess, and enjoy the house. IMO it's the best vanilla house in the game, though after certain actions I did (explained in the modding section. Not that I expect anyone to care enough to hunt down my post just to know what stupid crap I did) it's fairly ruined for my purposes. I would suggest being careful what you move where, and I would also warn you that the dagger cases in the bedroom, unless patched, are bugged, and upon leaving the house, will stop counting said loaded daggers as existent. I am very lucky that I used crappy common daggers to fill them, instead of my precious daedric lord gear, like Mehrune's Razor. I stored that in the proper armory room, and it worked perfectly.

A final warning, for some reason the daedric greatsword is coded to consider itself as large as a giant's full body, and so if you mount it on a weapon rack outside your bedroom, there is a chance it will make it impossible to enter your housecarl's room. Not that you ever need to go in there, but it's still lame.

I hated that housecarl anyway. Always threatened me when I entered my own freakin home.

So I sacrificed him to Boethiah.

Edited December 1, 2011 by lordandromeda

[xlr8films]

Not that I expect anyone to care enough to hunt down my post just to know what stupid crap I did) it's fairly ruined for my purposes.

 

Did you fix the dagger issue with it?

[HackerSlasher]

I've put many hours into the game and have tried numerous ways to get this quest to kick-start. Sadly it's all been a complete waste of time and effort for me...

 

Firstly, it's a shame the search function here is completely lacking otherwise you could have put in "blood on the ice" and helped yourself. About the best you can do is to put in "Blood" in the advanced search and wade through everything.

 

Secondly and more to the point, if you've started the Dark Brotherhood quest line there's a one in three chance that you've killed a person who's required in this quest. If so you might like to load an earlier save - one where you're sure you haven't had contact with the Dark Brotherhood yet. Doing this doesn't guarantee that the quest will work for you mind as it's bugged to hell.

 

 

 

 

 

SPOILERS FOLLOW!!!

 

The links below may or may not help you or someone else :

 

http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/460057-blood-on-the-ice-problem/page__hl__blood

http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/467131-blood-on-the-ice-ms11-not-starting/page__p__3840968__hl__blood__fromsearch__1#entry3840968

http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/473329-blood-on-the-ice-bugged/page__p__3881492__hl__%2Bblood+%2Bice__fromsearch__1#entry3881492

 

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/User:Krusty/Sandbox2

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Blood_on_the_Ice

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim_talk:Blood_on_the_Ice

 

 

My tail of woe...

Even after creating a new character (four times) this quest never started for me. The best I could do was to use a few console commands to complete the quest which enabled me to buy the house. However, even though I asked for the house to be cleaned up prior to purchasing anything for it, it still looked a complete mess in there...

 

* "InvestigationTarget" options everywhere (they were always there for me in every game in this house) but nothing happens when pressing "E" on any of them.

* An old bed inside the newly purchased one and the same thing with the table downstairs and other item overlaps.

* Cobwebs everywhere

* An empty room upstairs

* Lighting glitches upstairs and the secret room is unlit.

 

I could have used a command or two to get rid of some of the offending old items but quite frankly I've had my fill of this quest as I know everything and all about it now, in trying to get it working. I'm now out exploring the wilds as the whole episode pissed me off in the extreme. I really enjoy detective work and being a sleuth too :sad:

Edited December 1, 2011 by HackerSlasher

[CrusnikVamp]

Is there a way to clean up the house, I've bought it and done the murder quest, but the hidden room with the Alchemy and Enchanting station is still filled with bone and that same alter, not to mention I've got blood all over the floor there, is there a way to clean it up, or should i just ignore it?

[HackerSlasher]

You needed to ask for it to be cleaned up prior to buying any 'enhancements' for it. It'll still look a bit of a mess but it's certainly better than if you don't. Just reload a save - hopefully just before you added anything to it and ask for it to be cleaned, then you can add to it as you like.

[Jnotay]

meh I've worked on debugging a little but I haven't been able to find anything to solve the issue of this quest starting/triggering what I've found though, with an earlier save (@ lvl 27) I was able to start the quest without any issues. If you type in console( help ms11 3 ) it shows global variables for this quest. MS11EnteringWindHelmCount =x.00 and MS11FollowUpStartDay = 0.00. There are also 2 important console portions of this quest: MS11PreEssentializing (which always runs before the quest is triggered) and MS11

 

For the quest to trigger like normal you need MS11EnteringWindHelmCount = 3.00, keep in mind that areas like Windhelm Stables count as Windhelm. I walked from Kynsgrove and noticed that the quest MS11PreEssentializing quest stopped as soon as I hit the bridge next to the stables and MS11 started, which lead to the trigger of events of Blood on the Ice. Keep in mind you need to do this ~9pm, which is what worked for the level 27 save.

 

Now for the Level 47 save where I've completed the war, joined the thief guild in addition to the mages guild, and so on. I've manually set these variables and I can't get the quest to trigger the same as the older save. Something is wrong with the MS11PreEssentializing crossing over to MS11, which is the major issue a lot of people are having.

 

So far the only fix is preventative – to do this early on before whatever is causing it to conflict the scripting happens

[The_Beef]

Thanks all. I assumed there had been questions about this quest before, but I couldn't remember the name of the quest and thus couldn't really get the best use out of the search function.

 

I also looked this up on one of the wikis later that night after work, and I have a much better idea of what I need to do now. I've gotten as far as having the court mage put in jail, but I haven't revisited him. I'm going to try sometime soon to see if the second murder will trigger.

[Vindekarr]

The issue I'm having is for some reason Calixto's shop is locked up tight and whenever I go in, the old nut just stands there saying you're not supposed to be in here" so rapidly it blurs together. It never opens either.

[crudius]

I have the calixto bug too.....i think?

place was locked and not reopening....so picked it and he is nowhere to be seen.

 

Anyway, i have been offered this quest and i think you have to pass through the graveyard at night for it to trigger....unless some people seem to have a bugged quest.