Crimson Desert All Above the Law Challenges

There are 10 Above the Law Challenges in Crimson Desert. They are part of the Life Category. Finishing all Above the Law Challenges unlocks the Shadowlord trophy & achievement.

Challenges Overview:

• Crimson Desert Challenges Guide

Challenge 1: Night of the Silent Banner Pike

• How to Unlock: Pick up Sealed Abyss Artifact in Hernand, at intersection directly east of Halssius Apothecary.
  
  
• Challenge: Destroy 10 Banner Pikes at night without being detected.
• How to Complete: This challenge requires destroying the hanging banners that can be found throughout the game, at night without being spotted. An easy location to do this is in the city of Hernand, right beside the Abyss Nexus in the middle of town. If you warp to it and look left there is a banner pike along the path. Move a bit away from any group of soldiers if they are there (visible in below daytime screenshot) and then shoot the banner with an arrow to destroy it. Warp back to the Abyss Nexus and it respawns the banner, repeat until the challenge is complete. The game considers night time to be from 9PM – 4AM.
  
  
• Reward: 1x Abyss Artifact, 1x Destruction II

Challenge 2: The Herder’s Lament

• How to Unlock: Pick up Sealed Abyss Artifact in Hernand, on side of the road northwest from Torchlight Beacon.
  
  
• Challenge: Sell 3 goats to Bram at the camp’s ranch.
• How to Complete: To be able to sell livestock at camp, you must first work through all of the camp expansion Faction Quests under the Grounds of the Sunrise section. Then the 7th quest you receive in the Gathered Will section is called Field of Abundance, which results in your building a ranch for the camp. Once the ranch is built you can complete Ben’s Request, which explains how the ranch functions. During this section you will be told to pick up goats from nearby and bring them to the ranch, you can continue grabbing goats from this location and bring them to the middle stall to sell 3 for this requirement. If you don’t want to get this out of the way, you can also sell extra livestock goats and these count as well.
  
• Reward: 1x Abyss Artifact

Challenge 3: The Vanished Wagon

• How to Unlock: Pick up Sealed Abyss Artifact in Hernand, on the side of the road northeast of Calphade Beacon.
  
  
• Challenge: Sell 3 wagons to the fence.
• How to Complete: Stolen wagons can be sold to specific fences in exchange for money. You are introduced to this feature if you complete the Greymane faction quest Strongbox with Wheels in the Scattered Embers category that becomes available starting in Chapter 4, which will mark the location of the Hernand fence on the map for you. After this quest you would then need to bring two more wagons to the fence at any time to complete the challenge.
  
• Reward: 1x Abyss Artifact

Challenge 4: Back Alley Cleanup

• How to Unlock: Pick up Sealed Abyss Artifact in Pailune, on the side of the road west of Camp Bjornlund.
  
  
• Challenge: Hand over three criminals to the constabulary.
• How to Complete: In each of the major cities you can pick up Bounty Notices that gives the location of Outlaws, which you can then capture and return to the associated main city for a reward. Do this with any three criminals. Note this isn’t counted retroactively, it only counts after picking it up, so if you finish all bounties before doing the challenge it is missable. To catch them alive, crouch near them (press Left Stick / ‘C’ on PC) then press the button prompt to tackle the target( + / + ). You can view the exact bounty location if you track the quest from the faction quests menu. Some bounties will only spawn at certain daytimes, so if nobody spawns check back at another time.
• Reward: 1x Abyss Artifact, 1x Faded Abyss Artifact, 1x Service I

Challenge 5: The Hand That Brushes Past All

• How to Unlock: Pick up Sealed Abyss Artifact in Crimson Desert, on the side of the road west of Crimson Mountains Fortress.
  
  
• Challenge: Pickpocketing in Hernand/Demeniss/Delesyia
• How to Complete: To pickpocket people, you will first need to equip a mask (purchasable from Back Alley Shops):
  
  Then walk into them and the “Pickpocket” prompt will briefly appear for 1-2 seconds, quickly press the shown button ( / ) to steal the person’s pouch. Quickly exit the red search area to not get caught.
  
• Reward: 1x Abyss Artifact, 1x Disarm II

Challenge 6: Worth Its Weight

• How to Unlock: Pick up Sealed Abyss Artifact in Hernand, on the side of the road west of Calphade Farmhouse, at the field edge.
  
  
• Challenge: Sell 10 pigs to the fence.
• How to Complete: This challenge requires selling a total of 10 pigs to any animal fence throughout the game. An easy location to do this is directly south of the city of Hernand, in the field south of Muckroot Ranch. There is a pen with a bunch of pigs in it. Steal one, then quickly run away to escape the suspicion area.
  
  
  Take the pig north up the road to the Livestock Black Market vendor to sell it. You will have to walk up there each time, you can’t ride your horse, but none of the NPCs care that you have the pig after you lose suspicion from first picking it up.
  
• Reward: 1x Abyss Artifact, 1x Faded Abyss Artifact

Challenge 7: Hands Quicker than Eyes

• How to Unlock: Pick up Sealed Abyss Artifact in Crimson Desert, immediately south of Desert Ruins.
  
  
• Challenge: Steal 5 objects within 10 seconds.
• How to Complete: To steal items you need to obtain a Mask, which is an equipped item that you need to be wearing to commit crimes. They can commonly be found by looting bandits, or purchased from Back Alley Shop vendors:
  
  Once you have a mask equipped, find a location with a bunch of stealable items in close proximity without anyone around, and pick up 5 within 10 seconds. Many houses will work for this, especially the larger manors around Hernand and Demeniss.
• Reward: 1x Abyss Artifact, 1x Ledgermain II

Challenge 8: Trespassing

• How to Unlock: Pick up Sealed Abyss Artifact in Hernand, on the side of the road west of Vellua in a small wooden shrine.
  
  
• Challenge: Open 20 locked doors.
• How to Complete: To open locked doors you need keys. Any key can be used on any door. The keys aren’t tied to specific doors. You can frequently loot keys from defeated bandits across Hernand. Once you’ve reached 100 Trust with a dog, have the dog follow you around and it will automatically loot the enemies for you, then you will get lots of keys without extra work. After getting 20 keys total, go around towns and castles and open the locked doors there. Hernand town has many locked doors at the townhouses and in the castle. You can also buy keys from Back Alley Shops, these are found on the edges of all major towns and indicated by “?” icons in the Environment tab of the map (found south of Hernand town, east of Demeniss city, south-east of Delesyia city, south of Tashkalp town, north of Varnia city). The Back Alley Shops sell 3 keys each for 20 copper coins per key, and their inventory refreshes each in-game day at midnight (can sleep to skip time). So if you travel between all of them it’s the quickest way to get 20 keys immediately:
  
  
  
  
  
• Reward: 1x Abyss Artifact

Challenge 9: The Dark Pilgrim Who Stole the Ember

• How to Unlock: Pick up Sealed Abyss Artifact in Demeniss, at Thornbriar Fortress sitting on a ledge right outside the south entrance.
  
  
• Challenge: Steal candles from the Church of West Demeniss, Church of East Demeniss, and Cathedral of Demeniss.
• How to Complete: There are 3 churches across Demeniss region. You must go into each church, while wearing a mask aim the lantern at a candle to get the “steal” prompt. Try to do this while out of sight from NPCs so you don’t get a bounty on your head, can make a manual save before each. You can only steal while having a mask equipped, which you can buy from any Back Alley Shop:
  
  West Demeniss Church: there are usually some people in this church, check the back right corner for a candle on a cupboard that you can steal unseen.
  
  
  East Demeniss Church: if nobody is in the church you can steal the candle on the altar, the church vendor won’t see it.
  
  
  Cathedral of Demeniss: candle is on altar.
  
  
• Reward: 1x Abyss Artifact, 1x Ledgermain II

Challenge 10: The Crow’s Crown and the Last Chivalry

• How to Unlock: Pick up Sealed Abyss Artifact in Delesyia, just past intersection directly south of Masterium Northeast Gate.
  
  
• Challenge: Arrest the worst criminal.
• How to Complete: The requirement for this challenge is to reach a maximum bounty of 100 silver, then be arrested by guards. You can increase your bounty by doing illegal things like stealing, but the easiest way is to just attack friendly NPCs. Once you reach a bounty of 100 silver it won’t increase further. When you are being chased by guards, some will tackle you which starts a QTE, which you can fail to be taken to jail. This will clear your bounty, along with charging you the 100 silver.
• Reward: 1x Abyss Artifact, 1x Bloodbane II