Several PC Gamer guides walk through the opening hours of Blood of Dawnwalker, starting with the game's first real choice: whether to force feed Coen's mother, Esme. According to the guide, trying to force feed her results in her batting the spoon away and bursting into tears, upsetting Coen's father Pieter. Refusing to force feed her leads to the father attempting it instead, with the same result but less visible distress. The guide notes this decision has no long-term impact and simply introduces players to the game's choice mechanics before Coen is sent to get herbs from Anca.
Item and vendor logistics are also covered. One guide explains that silver is treated as contraband under vampire rule and can only be sold to the Silver Trader in Svartrau City's Neustadt District after completing the Into the Den quest, which involves killing a bear near Laslea Glen and investigating its remains. Attempting to sell silver before finishing that quest results in the trader dismissing Coen. Another guide details Witchcraft ability manuals, noting there are ten abilities total, four of which are unlocked automatically from Anca late in the prologue, while the rest must be found via Ancient Circles, Haunted Sites, Pilgrimage of Power quests, bookcases, or purchased from named merchants such as Vera, the Peddler of Wonders, Mevasser, the Uriash Matriarch, and a Sanzhana merchant unlocked through a chain of side quests.
Quest-specific guides cover moral branches with consequences. In the Blasphemy quest, players investigate the theft of a tapestry from Gremla using Focus Mode to track footprints and blood, leading to a villager named Premysl, who stole it because he found its imagery blasphemous. Convincing him to return it results in the tapestry being displayed at that evening's Blood Mass to villagers' horror, while agreeing to keep his secret nets the Daylight Amulet but results in Gremla being killed and hung in the church instead. The guide notes Gremla is not a major character and the choice doesn't appear to affect anything beyond the prologue.
The Echoes of Silenced Bells quest, involving Anca's return to St. Tyna's Convent to retrieve forbidden books, offers two approaches to navigating zombified nuns and soldiers guarding the courtyard: helping Brencis's soldiers retrieve a relic in exchange for keys, or using the convent bells to redirect the nuns to slaughter the soldiers instead. Later in the quest, players choose whether to let Anca cure the nuns using forbidden notes, which succeeds but involves further unholy pacts, or burn the notes, leaving the nuns cursed. The guide states neither choice has immediate impact and both lead to the same subsequent quest, Between the Words, without affecting romance options with Anca.
Faction and combat guides describe how to free Mert from Stoneward Post in the Under Watchful Eyes quest via a stealthier nighttime route using stolen prison keys and vampiric traversal abilities to avoid large fights, though a miniboss and several soldiers must still be defeated. Separately, joining the Manumits faction in the Where Loyalty Lies quest requires raising infamy to the 'Notorious' level by completing named Vrakhir quests, defeating a boyar, or destroying Soldier Camps and Military Checkpoints. One such boyar fight, against Ambrus in The Gilded Gauntlet, can be influenced by a side quest called The Bittersweet Toast, in which poisoning Ambrus weakens him in combat but risks poisoning the player if his blood is drunk. Defeating Ambrus lets players choose to drain his blood for the Scarlet Shield ability and Corruption, or kill him outright for infamy gains and his legendary equipment without the ability.