BANDITS ON THE ROAD

As soon as you've arrived in Lothering (Lothering Map, L1) you're going to be stopped by a group of bandits and they will demand 10 silver coins before they'll let you through. You can now decide how to deal with this situation along with having a discussion from them.

Confronting the Bandits

If you pay them 10 silver coins you'll only make them more greedy and they'll request 20 silver coins.

  1. You can use intimidation to prevent them from attacking your team. In addition to that you can also use persuasion to demand money for letting them go.

  2. Once you've found out what they're up to you can use persuasion to convince them that a poorly defended caravan is heading this way.

Sadly in order to solve this quest once and for all you'll have to get rid of the bandits by defeating them in battle. You shouldn't have any problems provoking them to attack your team members, even if you've been acting peacefully so far. As soon as the battle has started focus your efforts on defeating their leader who is going to be a mini-boss. Once the leader is almost dead he'll surrender and you'll trigger a new conversation. You can now decide to finish off the bandits or you can let them go. If you allow them to leave don't forget to order them to return all the stolen goods.

Once this encounter is complete, walk down the ramp towards the village proper. Alistair will initiate a conversation about what to do next, and can give directions to the various factions to enlist against the Blight. (The relevant map locations will be added after this quest is completed, even if you don't ask Alistair for any directions.)