Black Tar Prophecies Quest Guide
Black Tar Prophecies starts as a druid's cleansing ritual and ends as one of the harder calls in the Horns of the South: you have to decide who lives, entity:drest or entity:iona. The quest runs clean up to that point, with no real ambiguity until the ritual is interrupted. Then it forces a sacrifice. This guide walks the quest and lays out exactly what each outcome of the Drest-or-Iona choice does, so you go into it knowing what you are trading away.
Starting the quest with Jann Herber
You pick up Black Tar Prophecies from Jann Herber at the Horns of the South keep. He sets you on the trail of a druid and the ritual that needs finishing. The first step takes you out of the keep and down to the water.
Finding Drest on the beach
Head to the beach south of the castle to find the druid Drest. He is the one who knows what the cleansing ritual requires, and he becomes your guide for the rest of the quest. Drest is also the same hermit who turns up in other Horns of the South work, so whether he survives this quest decides whether he is around for that later content. Keep that in the back of your mind, because the choice at the end of this quest is the choice that determines it.
Cleansing the Ancient Cromlech
With Drest leading, you work toward cleansing the Ancient Cromlech, the standing stones the ritual centers on. This is the body of the quest: get to the Cromlech, run the cleansing, and push the ritual toward completion. Up to here, Black Tar Prophecies plays straight. There is no fork, no trick, just the work of the ritual.
Then the ritual gets interrupted.
The interruption: Iona arrives
In the middle of the cleansing, a woman named Iona breaks in. She is Drest's estranged daughter, and she did not come to help. She came for revenge. Iona blames Drest for the life he ruined, and she is here to settle it. The ritual is now stuck, and the only way it finishes is with a sacrifice. The question the quest puts to you is which of the two it will be.
This is not a clean good-versus-evil split. Both Drest and Iona have a case, which is what makes the choice land harder than a simple kill prompt.
Side with Drest or side with Iona
You have to pick one, and the ritual demands the other. Here is what each path does.
Side with Drest (sacrifice Iona)
Choose Drest and Iona is sacrificed to complete the ritual. Drest survives, leaves the area, and returns home. Because he lives, he stays available for his future quests in the Horns of the South. If you want the druid around for later content, this is the path that keeps him in the world.
Side with Iona (sacrifice Drest)
Choose Iona and Drest is the one sacrificed to fix the ritual. Drest dies. You can loot his body for the Druid's Talisman, a tangible reward you only get on this path. The cost is that you are locked out of any future quests where Drest is a key character. His death closes those threads for the rest of your run.
Which should you pick?
The trade is straightforward once you strip it down. Siding with Iona gets you the Druid's Talisman now but ends Drest's questline. Siding with Drest gives up the Talisman but keeps the druid alive for his later quests. If you are the kind of player who wants to see content through and keep NPCs in the world, Drest is the pick. If you would rather take the guaranteed loot and you are not chasing his other quests, Iona is a defensible call. Neither choice is the wrong one morally, since the game frames both sides as having a legitimate grievance.
Quick reference
- Quest giver: Jann Herber, Horns of the South keep
- Find Drest: the beach south of the castle
- Objective: cleanse the Ancient Cromlech
- The fork: Iona interrupts the ritual seeking revenge on her father
- Side with Drest: Iona dies, Drest lives and stays available for his future quests
- Side with Iona: Drest dies, loot the Druid's Talisman, his future quests are locked out
Black Tar Prophecies is one of several grey decisions the Horns of the South puts in front of you, and the consequences here are about which questlines stay open rather than which faction backs you. For the bigger faction-defining call in this region, see the Galahad or One-Eye guide, and for how every major decision feeds the finale, the choices and endings hub ties it together.