"Warning: This quest is all about crazed forest spirits wanting vengeance for someone murdering a defenseless flower and will not conclude without somebody getting dead."

There you go. One quest warning label.

This is far from the truth there is evidence to accuse all three of them for committing the violation against the green pact. The evidence for the spinner's wife is easiest to find, but I actually ended up picking the khajit because of information I found out in his evidence, and on the way down to the chamber he admitted to cutting the flower. I think it was the hardest to find evidence to convict the Spinner, but the evidence to convict all three is there.

Edit: The khajit's divine evidence was the stone next to his smoldering cart in front of his tent, and the invoice in the tent. The Spinner's evidence was his totem or sigil or something I don't remember specifically what it was called, smashed in front of his home because of the storm and the plant cuttings inside of his home. And the Spinner's wife was the journal in her home and..was it a note written by the treethane about her sign being active in the sky? It was something like that.

While you can accuse any of them if you find all the pieces I still went with the female as she orchestrated the whole event. Given the option I would also have killed the khajiit as he did break the pact by following her orders. The only one innocent in my eyes was her husband as he genuinely thought the flower was obtained correctly and in keeping with the gp

I disagree about accusing the Khajit. He isn't bound by the Green Pact and so shouldn't be bound by it's punishments either.

I disagreed with the whole quest and find the Green Pact rather disturbing as an ideal. Personally, I would have rather slaughtered the tree spirit and be done with the whole GP peace then let that poor woman die. However, that wasn't even an option. An alternative option, which would have allowed the quest to remain on course, was to accuse one of the GP adherents to the "crime" of picking a flower (a FLOWER), and let them be sacrificed to their "wonderful" tree god...

You can also question the suspects before making an accusation. The Khajiit makes a convincing argument. Even if you accused him, that doesn't solve the problem since he doesn't follow the green pact and he only cut the flower after someone paid him to do it.

You see the same issue when dealing with contract killers. Who is responsible for the murder? The killer, the guard who looked the other way, or the one who hired the killer?

Is this bugged?

I can find 1/3 and 2/3 and 3/3, the hint tells me to accuse Gathiel but this isn't the 'right' answer but I don't see what else to do. I've gone back to the houses to look for more evidence but can find none, but Gathiel isn't correct.

I don't see how the Hell to proceed, I'm not allowed to accuse anyone else and can't find any more evidence.

Sod it, life's too short for all these bugged quests, I abandoned it and got exactly the same result.

I give up, I see no way to achieve what other players clearly mange, a second player turned it in while I was by Rolon and he too accused Gathiel and was accepted.

All 3 suspects were involved in the events, but since the game forces you to pick one to accuse, clearly the wife is "most guilty" of the three. What a lame quest. PC should at least be able to argue for a lighter sentence.

The way I see it, they made a pact with the devil to live in a forest that doesn't want animal life there - period. Someone breaks the pact and the devil collects his due. Maybe the villagers could just have left this forest instead of killing one of their own , but there you go. The GP makes an impossible moral problem but you have to bear in mind it makes no sense at all even within the confines of the game world.

What about all the deer etc. the Bosmer normally hunt, how come the forest doesn't wipe them out for murdering its plants? Or has it just got a grudge against humanoids ? The first rule of ecology is that it takes FAR more biomass to sustain a population of herbivores big enough to feed a population of humans , than it does to feed the humans directly. IF the Bosmer ate mostly only seafood, and helped the GP exterminate the herbivore population, it would kind of make sense.

TBH, I can see why this game has an age rating. It does not attempt to hide the brutality of living in a medaeval era - prisoners from other factions being tortured then executed, criminals being executed right in front of the player etc.

Historically accurate I suppose - in the 15th century England had a murder rate similar to war zones like the Congo today.


Lord of the Rings online was hugely sanitised - the enemy were mostly inhuman monsters, instrinsically evil, yet even they were offered mercy on the rare occasions they got captured. Even player characters never actually "die", they are merely forced to "flee the battlefield" when reaching 0 health. And the line of right and wrong in quests is very clear cut, no edginess.

In that respect they've done well with ESO - the fact that we're still talking about this quest - and others, like that guy in Auridon who temporarily turned everyone in the village to stone, and tried to harness Daedra. He didn't kill or hurt anyone directly, and wants to put things back to normal. BUT, he abandoned his assistant and left her for dead.

No matter how many times I look at it, I can't make a completely clear-cut case for killing him one way or the other. They must have run focus groups, listened to people's justification, and when most people were agreed on one course of action, added something to the scenario on the other side to split things again.

For the record, my main let that guy live. Guilty of being reckless and unlucky, and a coward , but no more. My alt chose to tell the truth to the Canonreave, and saw him executed on the spot ! Instant justice.

I accused the Spinner's wife because she was the one responsible for all of it.
In fact You can accuse anyone because the evidence is present for all of them
but:
the Spinner was innocent because he didn't know anything about flower's origin
the Khajit was innocent because he wasn't bound by green pact
and absolutely, there has to be option to persuade the forest not to kill her, it's horrible to be just an observer