Can You Spare Bakir? The Drain Path Explained

Yes — Bakir can be spared, in the specific way The Blood of Dawnwalker defines mercy for its vampire lords: not a clean pardon, but the drain. Where Xanthe can be spared outright through her bargain, Bakir’s alternative to the killing blow is having his blood and essence consumed — his body dies, his soul does not. Whether that counts as sparing him is the game’s coldest joke, and the answer, mechanically, is yes.

The Choice at the End of the Lunar Game

Bakir falls at the climax of The Lunar Game — the tournament where his anger meter finally maxes out. Defeated, the Mad Khan offers the standard fork documented in the kill-or-spare guide: execute him for loot and Infamy, or drain him for power. The drain is the mercy path. It counts as sparing his soul from Anachora, at the price of his body — the same structure as Ambrus’s choice.

What Sparing (Draining) Bakir Gives You

Shadowstorm — one of the stronger offensive mutations in the game. For most builds this outvalues everything in his loot table, and it arrives exactly when the mid-game starts testing your damage output against the remaining court.

The Farkas ring questline, fully opened. The amethyst Ring with the Purple Eye sits in Bakir’s treasury, and how you resolve that choice decides whether Farkas’s brother Dusan lives or dies. The drain path pairs naturally with the full investigation — one decision to take the power, the other to take the ring to someone who understands it.

One return engagement. Like every drained lord, Bakir’s soul comes back inside the Brencis fight and must be beaten again. The kill-or-spare guide is direct about the trade: a full-mercy run faces a longer finale, but walks in with more abilities, more allies, and more world intact than any kill-run.

What Killing Him Gives You Instead

The kill path is the transactional one: standard loot, an Infamy spike, and a clean ending to the Warmonger’s story. There is no kill-exclusive trophy for Bakir — unlike Ambrus, whose Right Fist of the Knyaz trophy is the one reason achievement hunters choose the blade. For Bakir specifically, the ledger is lopsided: the drain pays better on every axis the game measures.

The Strategic Picture

Bakir’s mercy is the investment play the game keeps offering: kill for silver today, drain for power tomorrow, and let tomorrow’s power carry the finale. The vampire lords choice guide maps the full-mercy run — drained Bakir and Ambrus, spared Xanthe — and it is quietly the optimal route, taxed at the end by exactly one extra fight per drained soul. If you are weighing Bakir against the other two Boyars, spare Xanthe first — her payoff is bigger — but do not let that talk you into killing the Mad Khan. Shadowstorm plus a living Dusan beats his loot table twice over.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a way to spare Bakir without draining him? No — his mercy path is the drain. Only Xanthe gets a true diplomatic spare.

Does draining Bakir affect Infamy? The drain itself is the mercy path, but check the Infamy system before the duel — reaching Bakir at all means court activities have already raised it, and the finale’s Edicts will be in force regardless of how you finish him.

Do I still get Farkas’s quest if I kill Bakir? The ring can still be taken from his treasury, but the questline’s best outcomes — the ones that keep Dusan alive — are far easier to reach on the drain path, where you are already positioned to handle the ring correctly.

Is Shadowstorm worth the longer Brencis fight? Community consensus: yes. One compressed rematch inside the finale costs less than Shadowstorm earns across the entire run before and during it.