An Existential Crisis is a Quest in Divinity: Original Sin II. Digging up the corpse of Crispin, a self-proclaimed philosopher, he challenges you to a battle of wits. Can you win?
Important NPCs
- Crispin
An Existential Crisis Objectives
- Dig up Crispin's grave.
- Prepare to answer his questions.
- Defeat him in a battle of wits.
An Existential Crisis Walkthrough
At Stonegarden, you will hear a voice calling for help (co-ordinates: X:625, Y:153). He begs you to dig him up. Agree to do so.
After you dig him up, a skeleton named Crispin will appear, claiming to be a philosopher, and challenges you to a duel of wits. At this point, if the character talking to him is not an Undead, you will need to do some preparation to win. Otherwise, feel free to engage him in the battle immediately.
He will have three questions. Answering any question wrongly will ultimately result in your character being killed instantly (he will still ask you 3 questions but you will lose at the end). The most common way to win for non-undead characters is to read The Essence of Existence, Volume One, Volume Two, and Volume Three to defeat him.
Instead of collecting the books for the answers, Crispin's questions can be solved with the following tags:
- Undead, Jester or Barbarian.
- Undead, Mystic or Outlaw.
- Undead, Scholar or Villian.
Warning: Each character only gets one chance, so unless you have an undead character, do not keep blindly trying. Continue on with the quest below to find the solutions, or else it may become impossible to complete the quest.
Tip: You will need to actually read the books and take some notes, as there aren't any clearly defined dialogue options that appear after reading them. If you've read all three books, the answers should generally become Option 3 for each question, assuming you don't have any particular tags.
You can find all 3 tomes at Ryker's mansion, as detailed in the picture below. Volume 1 is found where Ryker is, in his study. Volume 2 is found in the living room on the bottom floor. Finally, Volume 3 can be found on the 2nd floor, in his bedroom. Note that taking the books is considered stealing, and to get into the bedroom on the 2nd floor will require lockpicking.
Tips & Tricks:
- Fane, as an Undead, can answer every question properly if you can't find the books.
- Lohse can answer question 1 (Jester) and 2 (Mystic) , but for the third question you will still need the book "The Essence of Existence, Volume Three". It's next to the bed in a room with a cat and a dog on the first floor in Ryker's house. See the picture above for details. Likewise, Sebille can answer question 2 (Outlaw) and 3 (Scholar), requiring you to only need to read "The Essence of Existence, Volume One".
- Additionally, a character with the Villain tag can answer the 3rd question as well without reading the 3rd book.
Rewards:
- 9,650 XP upon quest completion.
- Mass Corpse Explosion Skillbook will drop from Crispin's body upon successfully defeating him.
- A large amount of gold and useful scrolls from his remain,
AnonymousIn this battle of "wits and philosophy" (he doesn't have much to offer to be honest), the [UNDEAD] wins by stating the obvious. Its actually hilarious how he crumbles when faced with the obvious facts.
- Anonymous
Just did this one, a note about the body having no loot -- you need to pickpocket him before completing the battle of wits to "initialize" his inventory (since you cannot trade). If you pickpocket to get items to show up in his inventory, when he dies there will be a randomly selected subset of items that he drops (e.g. skill books, scrolls, etc.). I'm not positive if you have to actually take anything per se, but his inventory needs to be initialized for him to drop anything.
- Anonymous
Haha. GG. I have Fane as my main on my first playthrough! Old man got mad! lol!
- Anonymous
be sure to pickpocket him lvl 4 recommended he has a bunch of blank scrolls, supernova, potions and around 8.3k i took it before finishing the quest because he will not drop all of his items upon completion
- Anonymous
I can't find my book 1. I don't know who I sold to. 1. I have checked most of the merchants alive. I hope it is not sold to those who are not alive at the moment.
- Anonymous
In DE, In all my play through, his corpse is always empty. The skill book is dropped on ground, not in corpse.
- Anonymous
I am playing with Lohse as main character, so I had the tags required and only needed to find the third book, which is in Ryker's bedroom on second floor of his mansion. If anyone wonders, you can safely kill the two guards upstairs without others on ground floor reacting in any way after you've done so.
- Anonymous
Just for documentation purpose, I guess. Obviously, spoiler warning, but I don't think the wiki supports spoiler format.
[SCHOLAR] State that every culture and history has established its own code and ethics. Within those codes, right and wrong are strongly defined.
- Anonymous
If you have the [Villain] trait, you get an additional correct option to question 3.
- Anonymous
DE: Checking his inventory in the trade window before succeeding at the questions dropped his gold (9k for me) and items. No pickpocket needed. I wasted a while manually searching Stonegarden because the listed coordinates look like they're in the Blackpits but they're correct, just off to the side.
- Anonymous
I can't find the 3rd book. I have the first 2 but the 3rd is not on or near the bed. I have looted and killed most of the house... I also don't have anyone with the traits to pass the 3rd question without the book. Another bug? This is the newer special edition of the game
- Anonymous
After you read the three books, you'll have the right dialogue options available to choose: Q. Our purpose in life. A: "State that is no greater purpose than to banish life's tumult in the pursuit of pleasure". Q: Is there such thing as fre will? A: "State that our individual freedoms are limited only by physical limitations. We are free to act within a defined set of rules". Q: Is there a difference between right and wrong? A: "Reply that morality is a river, steered by the impulses of men and women, Gods and Goddesses, chance and nature".
- Anonymous
In DE, the quest grants about 9,250(? It was above 9000, less than 10000) exp as opposed to over 16000)
- Anonymous
If you have the Villain tag, that response works for the third question, so Lohse can answer all three without books
- Anonymous
As someone else said, pickpocket him (don't need to take anything just see his inventory) befor answering his questions for a bunch of extra loot.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
I have lohse and I have the villain tag and i uswe that a d it worked
- Anonymous
randomly asnwer 3-3-3 in under 3secons after opening the books, not even reading it, and obviously didn't read the multitiple answers either, i just relay on my luck, and it's my first time doing it. lol and the achievement popped up. im using sebille, just hero no tags whatsoever.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
I guessed the answers. They were longer answers and expressed a more thorough understanding of the questions. With that in mind you should be able to half-ass this quest. Still read the 3 books in Rykar's mansion though.
- Anonymous
For Anyone still playing this game.... for the third answer you reply exactly what he says before he has the chance to finish. (I believe it’s The one about gods and such...) If you wait until after he finishes talking to reply he blows you up.
- Anonymous
Someone should try the Villian tag for question 3 because it worked for me. Sadly I was Jester and Scholar so I still needed a book but I think you can succeed if you have followed a set path.
- Anonymous
Don't know why but my after I killed Ryker and take all his books, the books don't show up in my inventory. Now I can't complete this quest
- Anonymous
On Definitive Edition only received 9,650 xp. Used Fane without reading any books.
- Anonymous
You can complete this quest without reading books, and being undead if you have 3 following tags on 1 character : Barbarian, Mystic , Villan.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
In a hilarious turn of events, I blindly picked the options I thought would be wittiest (finally making use of Beast's Barbarian tag) and won the duel. I recognized the answer to question 3 from The Essence of Existence, but only from reading the article did I notice the book was related to the duel. Or that you'd straight up die from failing. 10/10, favorite quest so far.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
OMG Fane's answers are just hilariously mean to a philosopher haha
- Anonymous
Try to steal from him while one of your characters talks with him. First time i tried it he only dropped the Mass Explosion book. On the second attempt after stealing and answering the questions he also dropped a bunch of gold as well as a few skill books. (Requires Thievery 3)
- Anonymous
you can sneak read Volume two by having multiple party members simultaneously engage in conversation with the masked servants. You make them turn away from the Volume to speak with you and then have once character sneak and read/steal the book.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
I'm guessing I have to do this quest after I kill Ryker, yeah? Attempting to steal/lock pick with the servants around is impossible. Fane, tragically, did not survive the journey to Reaper's Coast.
- Anonymous
Ignore my previous comment about Mass Corpse Explosion not dropping on version 3.0.180.158. The book dropped BESIDE the corpse instead of on it.
- Anonymous
On version 3.0.180.158, I did not get Mass Corpse Explosion. Instead I got something much weaker; I think it was Conjure Incarnate?
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
mass corpse explosion skill book did not drop. may be bug or drop may be chance.
- Anonymous
Lohse with Villian Tag will be able to answer all 3 questions without reading any of the books (Essence of Existence)
1) Jester
2) Mystic
3) Villian
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
For the third question, in addition to Scholar a Villain can also be used
- Anonymous
I have read the books, and still got blow up no matter which answer I chose in the third question, yes, another day, another bug. The correct order for the first two question is 3, 3. Such a stupid quest system.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
is the xp mention in this article the max amount? i got lesser with just using Fane
- Anonymous
You don't require lockpicking to get into the second floor bedroom; with a high enough wit you will find the key in the talking painting beside the door.
- Anonymous
The villain tag will also allow you to answer the 3rd question
- Anonymous
Scholar can answer the third question.
Pleasure is the answer to the first question.
- Anonymous
the origin characters that you didn't pick as side characters on the boat die when the hammer attacks. He's gone. The books are in ryker's house
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
If you play solo as Red Prince, this quest is bugged. I tried everything. reading the books in the right order, Living on the edge before approacing the conversation, hire a second party member as undead to get different answers. Nothing works. This is the second quest bug i have noticed so far, last one was "Drowning her sorrows".
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