Should I Give The Inquisitor The Artifact?

When It Makes Sense

• Good fit: When your character or playthrough favors order, institutional support, or loyalty to the Inquisition, surrendering the artifact can reinforce faction trust. This path may unlock additional resources, safe passage, lore archives, or alliance benefits that an independent character would struggle to obtain alone. If you are roleplaying a lawful, cooperative, or duty-bound protagonist, the exchange often feels narratively consistent.
• Good fit: When the artifact is unstable, cursed, politically volatile, or too dangerous for a single person to transport, handing it to an organization with containment expertise may be the pragmatic choice. The Inquisitor’s chain of command, scribes, and guards can provide storage, study, and security that reduce the chance of accidental activation, theft, or harm to innocent bystanders.

When You Should Avoid It

• Warning sign: When the Inquisitor or the Inquisition has shown secrecy, coercion, extremism, or disregard for collateral damage, giving them a powerful artifact may backfire. The item could be weaponized, used for surveillance, or trigger events that conflict with your character’s ethics or the wellbeing of other factions.
• Warning sign: When the artifact is connected to a companion quest, a personal lineage, a promise to another group, or a puzzle that still requires it, surrendering it early can lock away content. Many branching narratives tie important rewards, companion conversations, or alternate endings to whether you retain, destroy, or transfer key objects.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Turning over the artifact can improve your standing with the Inquisition, granting access to funding, intelligence, safe havens, or specialized knowledge that would otherwise remain out of reach.
• It removes the immediate burden of guarding, transporting, or deciding how to use a dangerous object, letting an institution with more accountability and resources handle the risk.

Cons

• Once transferred, you usually lose direct control and may be unable to use the artifact in later battles, rituals, dialogues, or puzzles that require its presence.
• The Inquisitor’s future actions may not align with your intentions; the artifact could be exploited, lost to politics, or become the catalyst for conflict you would have avoided by keeping or destroying it.

Decision Checklist

• What does your character value most: loyalty to the Inquisition, independence, a prior obligation to another faction, or personal power?
• Have you exhausted all dialogue branches, companion warnings, and lore entries that hint at how the Inquisitor might actually use the artifact?
• Is there a recent save, checkpoint, or autosave available so you can return to this moment if the consequences diverge from your intended story?

Alternatives to Consider

If full surrender feels too risky, explore middle paths. You might withhold the artifact while sharing only the information needed to complete a quest, or ask a neutral scholar, rival faction, or trusted companion to study it first. Some narratives allow you to delay the decision, place the artifact in an independent vault, trade it for a different favor, or destroy it rather than hand it to any single power. Completing related companion or faction quests before deciding can sometimes reveal hidden dialogue options that avoid a simple give-or-keep binary.

Final Recommendation

Give the Inquisitor the artifact when your character clearly supports the Inquisition, benefits from institutional backing, and is willing to trade direct control for security or favor. Avoid giving it away when you distrust the recipient, have competing loyalties, or want to preserve potential rewards tied to the item. Because fictional choices can produce unpredictable narrative consequences, save before the decision and consult official guides, wikis, or community discussions if you want to avoid missable content. For real-world decisions involving legal, financial, or safety stakes, speak with a qualified professional.