Counting your Chickens is a Quest in Divinity: Original Sin II.
Important NPCs
- Big Marge
- Peeper
- Magicockerel
- Location x:438 y:307
Counting your Chickens Objectives
- Encounter a brood of hens who have lost their eggs.
- Find the chicken eggs.
- Return the surviving egg back to the hens.
- Check back later on the surviving egg's condition.
- Find and speak to its father.
Counting your Chickens Walkthrough
At the beginning of Reaper's Coast, just before you enter Driftwood, you will find some chickens on a ranch. If you have the Pet Pal talent, you will learn that their eggs have been stolen. Big Marge, the leader of these chickens, will task you with finding these stolen eggs.
Travel to the place marked on your map north of the hens, and defeat the Voidwoken there. Unfortunately, you will discover that all the eggs have been tainted and there is only one surviving egg left. Pick it up and take it back to Big Marge.
Secret: If you eat the egg now and report back to Big Marge, the quest will close with the same experience reward and some funny dialogue. You will not get the loot though.
After reporting back to Big Marge with the egg, she will reward you with the location of a treasure hidden behind the hens' coop. Dig it up and continue on your travels.
Before you revisit the chickens, later on, progress with the Powerful Awakening quest first in order to acquire the Spirit Vision skill, which is required to progress with this quest.
Revisit the chickens sometime later on and you will find that a Voidling chick named Peeper has hatched from the egg and killed all of the chickens. If you talk to it, it will follows you around thinking you're its mother.
Serious Bug: There have been many reports that once Peeper is following you, it may get permanently stuck in some locations (e.g. Hall of Echoes, underground areas, certain buildings, etc.). It is recommended to quickly finish off this quest here and now to avoid this issue. Simply quicksaving and then immediately reloading will make Peeper appear besides you.
While you're here, use Spirit Vision to find the Spirit of Big Marge, who will tell you to bring Peeper to its father. Travel to the location now marked on your map (directly north of where you are, named "Magic Rooster") to find Peeper's father, Magicockerel.
Warning: If Peeper dies at any given time before you reach Magicockerel (e.g. in battle), the quest will close and you will lose your quest reward.
After you reach him, have a character with the Pet Pal talent speak with Magicockerel, and he will tell you to kill Peeper because he sees Void-tainted eyes. You can choose to kill him or to let him live. Note: If you do not use Pet Pal to speak to him, the quest will default to Option 2.
- If you choose to kill Peeper, you will be rewarded with a choice of low-end loot as well as a chest that will spawn, containing a legendary and an epic item that's scaled to your level. Peeper's corpse will also carry one Source Orb.
- If you choose not to kill Peeper, he will transform into a Voidwoken Hatchling and summon dozens of other chicks to fight you. You will not get the quest reward and the chest will not spawn, but you can loot the dead bodies for more than one Source Orb.
Choosing either option will close the quest, and you will receive experience regardless of how the quest closes. From what it seems, killing Peeper yields more of a reward than letting him live.
But killing him and the surrounding void-tainted chickens he summons when he transforms gives you around 5-5 Source Orbs at least.
- Anonymous
If you want the multiples Source Orbs (not killing Pepper) don't revisit the chickens unless you're level 14 AT LEAST. When he summons the void guys, Daeyena who is close, get in combat with you also, and summons 3 other enemys lvl 14 that was wipping the floor with my face. My party is lvl 12 and I'm on classic difficulty. Had to kill Pepper in the dialog since it die pretty easy if I dont finish the quest now. Tried to teleport the Magicockerel before talking but he die...
Dang, I hate spoiler but this game is making me regret dont looking up stuff on the internet
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
You can return the egg, then steal it out of the nest, drop it and attack it to break it — this will net you double XP reward, and is much less hassle than the escort quest. (Also 'saves' the chickens from dying.)
Just kill him with the dialogue option - especially if you have Gift Bag 5 active.
The extra source orbs are not worth the headache the fight is gonna be (also no EXP reward for killing any of the chickens or peeper)
- Anonymous
When you first come across the void eggs, if you let them all hatch you'll get more experience (~ 400 more experience). If you kill them before they hatch you'll lose out a minor amount.
- Anonymous
in case someone wonders... you need to speak with the hen ghost before going to the roster to avoid 'open combat' and get the option to kill the chiken as part of dialog options instead.
- Anonymous
Ok so you can do "not kill Peeper" option without being attacked by Daeyena and another elf. For that you have to undress Undead character (I had Fane) and he will scare Daeyena, she will run away. With another character you shall talk to second elf, and the rest 2 characters can kill void chickens and loot some source orbs. Works in Definitive Edition.
- Anonymous
If you will talk to Magic Rooster with a character that has no Pet Pal, they will do some "cawking" dialogue lines, you will get 5k xp and A WHOLE WORLD OF PAIN. I strongly suggest to save before you attempt to dive into that.
- Anonymous
If Daeyana (gift bag mod) and her companion are near Magicockerel, they will become your enemies if you choose "not to kill that cute little ball of fluff." I tried this with a few reloads and bribes on Daeyana (to 100), and it appeared to make no difference. If it's possible to move Daeyana away (perhaps by doing later spore things? IDK how Daeyana works) then do that before escorting Peeper to Magicockerel, otherwise your choices will be killing Peeper for 7k exp+reward, or killing Peeper's voidwoken, Daeyana, and her companion.
I haven't done a playthrough with the Daeyana content, not sure if she'll spawn later if killed but I expect she won't. Really stupid placement and agro calculus for this particular NPC at this particular time.
- Anonymous
I don't know what caused it but the Magicockeral totally f'ed me, never given the choice to kill peeper. I arrived with peeper and the only dialog was something like, well you brought him, you deal with him and he warped out and everything aggroed.
- Anonymous
large marge told me she buried a treasure behind the coup. sure would be handy if the wiki had a location for it.
- Anonymous
Fun fact; this annoying Chicken is not only stupid, it lacks self preservation and there's no checks that they coded in to stop the chicken, sir lora, from joining you in the arena.
How did I find this out? So the chicken may have exploded into necrofire while me and my friends were in the arena, blind folded.
Slightly irritating, but at least that's *one* less annoying critter to deal with I suppose..
(as a side; im sure sir lora is cool. i however dont have petpal, someone else does, and im very tired of him standing in deadly AoEs, taking damage from AoEs, or just not staying out of combat. :v)
- Anonymous
If you're doing a 2 person lone wolf playthrough with atleast 1 undead character you can remove your clothing and Daeyana ai will cause her to run away. Get her far away then talk to the other elf so he won't aggro during the fight then you can complete the peeper quest without additional hires. Then you can always go back to Daeyana and she should slowly be walking back to her original spot.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
With lvl 12, last game version: killing peeper in the name of Magicockerel gives me 1 rune awarded form Magicockerel , 1 Source Orb from dead peeper and 1 rune and 1 legendary two-hand sword form the chest.
- Anonymous
if you do this before seeds of power, you will aggro the elves from that quest
- Anonymous
Daeyena died in the fight with the magisters at act 1. so i got no elves there
- Anonymous
FYI, peeper incessantly “peeps” at you while following for those of you playing with sound, just another negative if you end up with him trailing you before you can finish the quest.
- Anonymous
have 2 people talk to elves and the other 2 can fight the 10 chickens
- Anonymous
Each chicken respawns another until they are 10,its capped. Just aoe all 1 or 2 shots couse they spawn all over the map otherwise. Dos2 DE only 2 orbs and 4 dark pearls.
- Anonymous
For me, Peeper couldn't follow me through waypoint shrines. Is that normal?
- Anonymous
Help! Peper is gone and I can't find him anymore ... How can I fix it?
- Anonymous
The Chickens, after totaling 10 (I think but there might have been 1-2 more) not including Peeper, will not spawn any more chickens even though they have the ability up. I nuked all 9 and left 1 alive to possibly farm more corpses, but that one chicken spawned another chicken and removed one of the existing corpses. Recursive Chicken Recycling. The game will only allow them to spawn more until it reaches cap.
- Anonymous
If you bring Peeper to his father without interacting with Marge's spirit, the magicockerel will simply say "well, you brought him to me, it's not my problem, you deal with it!" as if he don't recognize him as his son.
- Anonymous
this quest seems bugged for me, i brought peeper to his father but everytime italk to the father he says i shall bring his child, the child is right next to me, wtf =D
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
Easy way not to aggro Daeyena when doing this quest:
-Learn the Nether Swap skill (Aerothurge 2)
-Place your party member/object as far as possible and swap them with Daeyena and Tyrell (only Teleport cause damage/trigger battle)
-They will not move back to their original position and you can clear out the chickens easily
- Anonymous
Just a forewarning -- I had not spoke with Daeyena for the Seed of Power quest who is nearby before allowing Peeper to turn into a void chicken in this quest and, perhaps because of the additional void chicken spawns, Daeyena aggros into the fight along with some level 15 Hungry Flowers.
I was level 12 at the time and while the fight with the void chickens/Peeper would have been completely manageable, even with the addition of Daeyena -- the level 15 Hungry Flowers and their acid spore attacks completely wrecked me.
So be sure to finish the nearby Daeyena stuff before speaking with the Magicockeral with Peeper in tow, otherwise you may be in for more than you bargained for. Or at least be sure to save before it (unless you're on Honour Mode because the game will autosave as soon as the fight begins).
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
Peeper would not follow me out of the hatch in Mordus' house so I spoke to him with my pet pal character, switched to another character and then teleported to a waypoint with another character.
Peeper is still down the hatch with the character he is speaking to but if you end the conversation and then use the hatch all characters AND Peeper are together out of the hatch.
I hope this helps someone! :)
- Anonymous
Peeper got stuck in the arena under the tavern. won't follow me using the stairs out of the area or teleport out of there. I spoke to Peeper and while speaking i teleported the whole group to another place. This way Peeper followed the teleport. Maybe this workaround for the bug.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
Accidentally set off Daeyna and all them at level 11 And I'm trying to avoid a wipe while the baby void chicks infinitely spawn in
this is that wild DOS action Ive been waiting for
- Anonymous
with the relics of rivellon update, if you didn’t kill Daeyena on fort joy, she will be near papa with Tyrille and attack you with her minions if you get into a fight with Peeper. So much for doing the quest early lol. I can’t confirm if they will be there if you killed her in fort joy.
- Anonymous
For killing peeper at lvl 16 I got quest items choice of potions or a Skillbook and a chest containing divine gloves and a power frame. Source orb on peepers corpse.
- Anonymous
If peeper gets stuck and isnt following you anymore, just quicksave and quickload, and he will reappear next to you after loading is complete
- Anonymous
Magicockerel does not give me the option of killing Peeper, I am forced to fight the Voidwoken ... Can anyone help me? ; -;
- Anonymous
Grande Marge doesn't recognize the chick and doesn't tell me anything, she just screams for the chick ...
- Anonymous
I just found a bunch of dark pearls instead of source orbs after killing the void flock. Lame.
- Anonymous
***** this chicken, it dies in many fights, he just go where there are fire and poison
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
Just how many "Everything's***** and you're only making it worse" quests does this game have, ffs XD
- Anonymous
I think I found a workaround for Peeper getting stuck in locations. What I did whenever he failed to make a transition to another area, was to send everyone _except_ the character he's following, backtracking to the previous area. He would be missing from the area as my party entered, but when I went back up, he would be standing next to his "leader" again.
- Anonymous
Killing Peeper via dialog yield's more exp. 7k Instead of 5k, BUT sparing Peeper and then killing him gives more source orbs, but less loot otherwise.
- Anonymous
This quest bugged for me. When I use spirit vision to speak with Big Marge she doesn't give me a quest or anything. And when I went to speak with Magicockerel anyway, the game automatically went for the second option, doesn't let me choose and turns everyone to voidwoken.
- Anonymous
When I chose to let him live, he turned ALL the chickens to voidwoken and he turned into a voidwoken DRILLWORM!
- Anonymous
I have encountered with my wife different issue with this quest. After returning the egg, Marge is telling us about hidden treasure and the chest appears on the map. We try to dig it out but nothing is found and after few minutes the chest disappears from the map. Has anyone got something like that? We even didn't get to all the happy buggs described with the second part of the quest yet, but I haven't found any post mentioning issues with digging. We play on PS4. Any ideas?
- Anonymous
Had the quest bugged so that each time I reloaded the game, Peeper would pop up and follow me but if I went to a different area (Like going up stairs) he'd dissapear again. Took him to his father by reloading the game next to him but he wouldn' acknowledge Peeper's presence. So I struck Peeper, making him run away for a short amount of time, waited for him to come back to me, and spoke to Magicockerel again. Fixed the bug, could finish the quest.
- Anonymous
I used fan of knives and killed them all in one turn, pretty easy honestly
- Anonymous
the voidwoken chickens are not "summoning" or "spawning" new chickens. they are resurrecting each other and I can only assume they have the "morning person" talent....which is clever pun, seeing as they are male chickens i.e. roosters. if even 1 is still alive when it's turn comes, it will resurrect 1 and that one will then take its turn next and resurrect another and then that one gets its turn and will rez another...until they are all alive again the trick is to either kill them all at once with aoe or use CC to make any still living miss their turn. or because the chickens are ressurecting each other, if you can "remove" the corpses somehow, then the chickens will no longer be able to rez each other. I used teleport to teleport the corpses far away and the live ones stopped rezzing them
- Anonymous
I was doing this quest and running past the hanging place (where you meet Maister Siva), there's the spirit of a hung Lizard Magister, Zusan, she reveals, that she was in love with Magister Borris and they were kinda responsible for the death of Bishop Alexandar, because of that (as a punishment) Borris was transferred for duty at Fort Joy. Strange, because during the court with Magister Atusa, Borris with pretty much alive Alexandar were both present there as well. And Alexandar couldn't be an undead at that time, his entourage in the small harbor later can cast healing spells on him, if you let them do so. I get, that they tried something like a sad story, or stuff, but clearly overlooked Alexandar's presence in Fort Joy.
- Anonymous
So small work around....when I save and then reload, pepper will re-appear if he disappears
- Anonymous
Oops. I just saw dead hens and a creepy chick turning into a monster. I felt bad about it, but for everyone's sake, including Peepers' I killed the poor chick. I REALLY wish Spirit Vision could just be a passive "always on" ability. I keep forgetting to activate it every 60 seconds as I'm adventuring.
- Anonymous
Peeper had a disturbing voice so I killed it 2 minutes later. No regrets.
- Anonymous
Just kill the damn thing or else you end up in the most pointlessly annoying & longest fight in the game, as each voidwoken chick can spawn another, I went from having 1 left to 15 & if you don't kill them all instantly, after a few turns have passed, it all starts again...infuriating
- Anonymous
Another bug: I actually got around to this quest early but didn't "pick up" Peeper following me until I was about ready to leave for the Nameless Isle. Second-to-last thing to do in the zone at all. For some reason, Peeper is here, Magicockerel is here, but Magicockerel is not recognising that Peeper is here. I managed to find a fix for this - use a teleporter pyramid. Set one down, teleport back to the ship, then to the Dunes, then back to the pyramid, and Magicockerel will realise his voidling son is sitting there.
- Anonymous
Hey just confirming that to get the chest and levelled gear you need to have Pet Pal and have actually spoken to the spirit of Big Marge, who will tell you to go see Peeper's dad. If you just go straight to see the papa rooster, you won't get the option to kill Peeper, it will just spawn a bunch of evil self-cloning hens (which, despite offering very little XP and no guaranteed loot, is a pretty funny fight).
Buggiest quest in the game. Somehow they figured out how to make Sir Lora at least teleport to your main character — but nearly one year post-release for the “Definitive Edition” and they still can’t get Peeper to work — at least stop him from going into basements... How hard can this fix be, honestly?
- Anonymous
"Return the surviving egg back to the hens" : X-Y coordinates, please? if anyone writes a guide, the one thing we absolutely require are coordinates to everything since this is the most useless, garbage mapping system in all the games.
- Anonymous
WARNING!! If you do the Ritual to return to the Hall of Shadows or whatever. Peeper will be teleported with you, but stupidly he won't be teleported back. Leaving him totally deleted from the game and the quest unable to be finished. I'm pretty gutted because the reward for finishing is really good. The devs really released a buggy mess...
- Anonymous
Putting a big ice field around you when triggering the voidwoken chicks to spawn and come to you is hilarious. 10/10 flops
- Anonymous
I had a totally different experience with Peeper. He followed me up to the family house where everyone perished and exploded. This caused my main character to become diseased (which I cured with the blessing spell) but my character has permanently lost the ability to use magic. No point in continuing without that ability. Bummer.
- Anonymous
Easy fix for having peeper stuck in hall of echoes, simply make a save after exiting the hall of echoes and reload said save, he appears next to you afterwards.
- Anonymous
Why can't there be a happy ending for poor Peeper? I would love to have him following me around as a pet till the end of the game :(
- Anonymous
i have problem that get no option to turn in pepper to the papa. then i tried something, and it worked: - drop a teleporter pyramid near the papa - travel back to mama, talk to her, picked all chat options - teleport back to papa, now i can turn pepper in
- Anonymous
Talked to the spirit of big marge before having peeper imprint on me on definitive edition, and the quest progressed normally (told to go find the father).
- Anonymous
Unfortunately I have the same bug where the quest cannot advance, idk what causes it/no workaround but I do remember completing this quest in standard, so this is a new problem just for definitive edition
- Anonymous
Attacking and not killing Peeper will fix the bug people have been encountering with this quest. At least it did for me.
- Anonymous
walking into the witchs celler bugs peeper out and he gets stuck down there you can get him out with messing around with different party members going in and out of the celler
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
This quest is bugged for me. Big Marge only says "Peeper! Peeper! Where are you, Peeper!" like someone else here already mentioned. If anyone has a fix, please share. :)
- Anonymous
Peeper got stuck in my game but reloading it made him reappear
- Anonymous
For those of you having trouble with the quest, here's what I did. I went to the coordinates on the map and found the Magicockerel. I was not given an option of either killing or sparing Peeper, so the game chose 'sparing' him for me. Don't know if that was my fault or not since I had PetPal on but whatever. The quest is completable this way until they patch it.
- Anonymous
I cannot find the treasure that bury behind the hen’s coop even though Big Marge told me the location herself. I guess it is a bug.
- Anonymous
Experiencing same bug as descirbed in previous comment: can't interact with Big Marge as meant to (and because of that unable to finish the quest the way I want to: there are no option just to kill him, only to spare)
- Anonymous
For some reason when I talk to Big Marge after getting peeper, she just says "Peeper! Peeper! Where are you, Peeper!" Even though he's right in front of her... Please send help I have all I can think of. Feel free to send a message to me on psn: DexDonuts
- Anonymous
Pretty sure those voidwoken chickens are hacking. Either they summon more or raise their dead, and either way it says they ae teleporting them >.>
- Anonymous
nice guide... thanks for telling us where to find Magicockerel
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
You can return the egg for 5K XP, steal the egg back, eat the egg, talk to her twice, get another 5K xp. Get more for doing the whole thing with taking Peeper and what not but this is fast and hassle free.
- Anonymous
Tell you will kill Peeper 10k xp + common item; tell you won't kill 5k xp + muddy malachite from some void chicken. Only one source orb from Peeper
- Anonymous
After you get Peeper's egg make sure to speak to Big Marge with a char that has Pet Pal. If you use a non-animal-speaking char she will just take the egg from you and the quest will be stuck.
- Anonymous
Workaround if Peeper gets stuck underground http://steamcommunity.com/app/435150/discussions/0/1495615865209249293/
It seems that you only need to separate the person who peeper is following and just use him to get out and Peeper will follow.
- Anonymous
Holy peppers. There's either a bug with voidwoken chickens cloning, or it's intentional. After refusing to kill peeper, he transformed, but every turn each pepper teleported a brand new peeper in. Before long they were spreading in every direction on my map and I had a real pain in the ass time catching up with them all to murder them.
- Anonymous
Stupid chicken follows me into the Hall of Echoes. And stays there...
- Anonymous
Guide makes no mention of Peeper dropping a Source Orb itself when you kill it. So you get quest rewards, a source orb, and a chest with nice goodies.
- Anonymous
I ate the egg and told big marge for 5000xp. Delicous experience and the character eating it coments on the taste.
- Anonymous
BIG tip, complete this quest as soon as possible. Otherwise pepper will be a BIG nuisances. At the beginning he does well avoiding fights, but as the game progresses with more mobs and more AoEs he dies very easily and makes you reload if you care about this quest's reward.
- Anonymous
You can return the egg with a character who doesn't have the Pet Pal talent. However, then Big Marge can't tell you about the buried treasure. No matter, you can still find and dig up the treasure behind one of the little chicken coops.
- Anonymous
Have tried this twice, I dont get any option. Just talk to the Magicockerel the Peeper tranforms. No chest, No loot, just alot of dead chickens.
- Anonymous
I got 5k gold and a divine item out of the chest, but I still feel bad about it
- Anonymous
Don't bother completing the quest....let PEEPER live you monsters!
- Anonymous
If you choose to spare peeper, and then loot all the dead chickens, you can get multiple source orbs, if you kill peeper, you get the chest of loot + a single source orb off peeper's corpse
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
My baby chicken is stuck in the tavern and refuses to follow me out. Even waypoint jumping doesn't help... guess it's just a bug?
- Anonymous
is there really no way to save little peeper? even when you choose not to kill him he turns int a voidcrawler :/
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
Spirit of Big Marge won't talk to me, tried saving and reloading game. Peeper also will not follow me. Anyone else having this issue?
- Anonymous
father is called magicockerel at x: 440 y: 306 closest teleport is probs driftwood fields, though paladin bridgehead is pretty close as well
You can get source orbs from han. Not worth it to fight daeyena if you don't want to kill her now.
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