Quest The Qunari Prisoner
Location:	Lothering
Quest Giver:	Sten
Other NPCs:	Revered Mother
Appearances:	Dragon Age: Origins

Just outside the north end of Lothering proper, a Qunari warrior named Sten has been imprisoned for killing a family. The Warden can convince him to seek atonement by joining the battle against the Blight, but must find a way to release him from the cage.

Walkthrough Edit

Speak with Sten in his cage. He is dismissive of most conversational options, but he may clarify that he would rather die in battle than in a cage. Regardless of how the conversation goes, most companions vocally disapprove of his situation and support releasing him.

You can open the cage in several ways:

• If the Warden has Mechanical Expertise (or Leliana is in the party,) you can pick the cage's lock.

• You can persuade the Revered Mother to release Sten into the Warden's custody. This is easier if you make a donation to the Chantry. However, if Leliana is in the party, she alone convinces the Revered Mother to hand over the key.

• You can intimidate the Revered Mother into handing over the key. Whether or not this succeeds, it amuses Morrigan (+4) , but offends Alistair (-13) , and severely disappoints Leliana ( (-15) ).
  • pc On PC, Leliana does not lose any approval.
  • mac On a MAC, Leliana grants +2 approval.

• In older versions of the game, you may be able to steal the key from the Revered Mother. A patch has fixed this.

Bug! If The Warden gets the key by intimidation, Sten will be surprised that the Revered Mother agreed to part with the key. He suspects The Warden has stolen the key off her, and sometimes you can't deny it, even if you didn't steal it.

Return to Sten's cage and release him.

Result Edit

Sten becomes available as a companion.

Exploit Edit

• Note: This bug can only be exploited by a Warden with less than 35 Strength and no Coercion skill. Otherwise, the intimidation succeeds, the quest progresses, and the exploit ceases to be available.

It's possible to gain maximum approval from Morrigan before freeing Sten. Every time you attempt to intimidate the Revered Mother, Morrigan expresses her appreciation for the entertainment. Simply choose the intimidation option, fail, end the dialogue, then start another. This yields (+4) each time. Repeat until maximum approval is reached.

• Leave Alistair out of the party for this- not only will he disapprove, he will convince the Revered Mother to give you the key regardless, making the exploit unavailable.