The Dropped Gauntlet

The Dropped Gauntlet is a Vampiric Clan quest available in. The Agent is sent to answer a challenge from a Daedric Prince's Coven, who wish to fight the Agent's vampiric bloodline for underworld supremacy.

Background
Having contracted vampirism and been recognised as a member of one of the Iliac Bay's nine vampiric clans, the Agent will be contacted to complete quests at the behest of their fellow bloodline members.

Objectives

 * Take delivery of a letter from a member of the Agent's vampiric bloodline.
 * Journey to the town identified by the letter.
 * Speak with the bloodline vampire whom sent the letter.
 * (Optional) Read the letter sent to the Bloodfather of the bloodline.
 * Journey to and enter the dungeon outlined by the bloodline vampire and find the Daedric apostle.
 * (Either) Accept the apostle's challenge and slay the daedroth.
 * (Or) Submit to the apostle's Daedric Coven and leave in shame.
 * Return to the bloodline vampire before the time limit expires.

Rewards
The Agent will not receive any kind of reward for completing the quest successfully, although there will be a change to their reputation with other factions. Interestingly, there will be no change in reputation with the Agent's vampiric bloodline, regardless of success or failure.

The changes in reputation, based on success or failure, are shown below:

Successfully rebelling against the Daedric Prince and slaughtering their aspect will result in the additional reputation changes outlined below:

Conversely, failing the quest by submitting to the Daedric Prince will result in following loss in reputation:

Trivia

 * This quest can in theory be given to the Agent regardless of whether they had completed The Blessing of Vampirism or not.
 * Characters have a variety of remarks to make about the quest during its activation:
 * Acceptance: "Strange things are afoot in [dungeon]. Even stranger than usual, I should say."
 * Success: "[Dungeon] has quieted. Even the daedra stars glowed softer last night."
 * Failure: "Things have quieted down around [dungeon]. But the daedra stars burn at night."

Bugs

 * Due to a programming error, this quest will not function at all, for it has two mismatched references.
 * This can be fixed by changing the name of one of the following files so that it matches the other: P0B1XL08.QBN (in-game file); P0B10L08.QRC (text file).
 * A patch is also available at the UESP Wiki