How do I finish the Ring of Hircine's quest?

Question

I think I did something wrong in the Hircine's Ring/Sinding the Werewolf quest because now there seems to be no way to complete it.

After killing the beast and summoning Hircine, I went to kill the other hunters. They were already dead (except one of them who was dying and told me to watch out for the "prey" then died.)

Then I went to see Sinding (now in werewolf form and in the woods) and his dialog indicated that he thought we were about to go kill the hunters. When he finished talking he said "Let's go" and ran for about half a second before stopping.

He just stood there and all he would say is "I didn't expect to see you again." After a while I got bored and attacked him, which caused him to run away. A few days later I went back to the jail cell in Falkreath and he was back in there (in werewolf form.) There's no apparent way to open his cell door. I can kill him with magic or arrows (and the guard doesn't care) but a few days later he'll be back. Once I left the jail and somehow he followed me. The guards attacked him and he ran away again. I was able to keep up this time on my horse, but he just kept running in large circles around the woods.

So now I have Hircine's ring on and I can't take it off or wear any other rings. People on the street tell me that I look sick and there are no map markers anywhere for this unfinished quest.

How can I either complete the quest or get rid of the ring?

Answer 1

You've likely hit a bug.

While you've agreed to help Sinding, it doesn't lock in your choice: if you attack him at any time before the end of the quest (when the curse is removed from the ring, allowing you to take it off), you lock in your choice to help Hircine.

However, doing so is supposed to go down differently: you act as one of the hunters and chase Hircine through the grotto, ending with you skinning him. He's not supposed to appear in jail.

You can try that: kill him in jail and skin him. If that part isn't bugged, Hircine should appear and complete the quest for you. As a reward, the ring will disappear.

Otherwise, welcome to a Bethesda game, where crippling bugs like this are par for the course in the first couple of weeks after launch.

Answer 2

i was confused too on this quest. if you agree to help sinding take out the other hunters, he doesn't lead you anywhere, he follows you. after you talk to him while he's on that rock or whatever, there's another staircase behind him you can use to continue deeper into the area and kill a couple waves of hunters. hope i helped

Answer 3

I got the same bug as you, and just worked it out!

So apparently, there's a bug...

Like me, after speaking to the slaughtered hunters, you left that "cave" and saw a quest marker to some random place on the map. There, you found sinding in werewolf form walking. You have a short convo with him, and decide to help him kill the hunters. Then, he just stays there, and keeps saying "Didn't expect to see you again.".

At this point, i thought the hunters would just show up or soemthing, and then we'd kill them together. Nope, he just stays there...

So what I did, is i went back to the cave where the dead hunters were. He actually appeared right behind me as soon as i entered the cave and was a following member of my party. We roamed through the cave (up these sort-of-hidden steps) and eventually killed a few waves of attackers. After killing the last hunter together, the quest is complete.

I think the quest was supposed to make Sinding disappear after talking to him on the world map, and then the quest marker should have moved back to the cave. Unfortunately, it didn't, and you need to figure out to go back to that cave yourself.

If you decide NOT to help sinding, he will start running away from you on the world map, and you have to chase him down and kill him.

Answer 4

If you end up having to kill Sinding in jail, I used this technique:

1. Conjure Flame Atronach in cell behind Sinding.
2. Let guards attack Sinding being sure to keep Sinding close to cell gate.
3. Sinding will reach 0 health, and none will attack him, at this point I used a dagger (no knock back weapon works), killed him.
4. Quickly search Sinding Corpse and continue with ending quest.

The knock back of my weapon on the death blow always pushed him out of corpse search reach. Good luck.

Answer 5

If you decided to help sinding you had to leave the cave without attacking him after killing all the hunters. when you leave Hircine appears and congratulates you on killing the hunters and gives you the ring

Answer 6

I did it the easy way.

1. First, I checked the wikis.
2. Then I helped Sinding by killing all the hunters before going outside and getting the cleansed Ring of Hircine, then re-entering, slaughtering the poor sod, and getting the Savior's Hide.

There were no glitches from that method, unless you count the easy Master Criminal trophy exploit as a glitch!

Answer 7

I had a similar issue, being unable to talk to Sinding after killing all the hunters. All I needed to do was exit to the world map. Sinding followed me outside where I was able to talk to him, receive the ring from Hircine, and then kill Sinding to retrieve the Saviours Hide.

Answer 8

If you don't have any important progress after that event, should just revert to a different save.