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Geology For Beginners is one of the earliest stranger missions you can start in Red Dead Redemption 2. As soon as chapter 2 rolls around and the open world opens up, you can ride your horse to the stranger in question and begin your search for 10 bizarre rock carvings.
The head-scratching cutscenes won’t be your only reward for finding the carvings. If you know what you’re doing, you’ll walk away with pocket cash, a unique item to sell at the fence, and an easily missed crafting item.
Finding Francis Sinclair
Francis Sinclair lives just past the quaint town of Strawberry, near the road leading to Lake Owanjila. Sinclair will be sitting on his porch, all you have to do is greet him, and the first cutscene will play. Sinclair will say that he would like you to hunt down a series of rock carvings for him, although he’ll hush up about why he needs them.
After you find a rock carving, Arthur will write down the coordinates, which you then have to send over to Francis.
Finding The Rock Carvings
Because it’s the closest to Francis’s house, you may wish to start your journey with the rock carving just across Lake Owanjila. To clarify how this process works, Arthur will not only jot down the coordinates on a piece of paper but also draw an X inside a bottomless pentagon on your map. This means you can easily check ahead of time whether you’ve already found said rock carving without having to ride back over to it. When you are near a carving you haven’t already marked, Eagle Vision will highlight it for you.
For your next carving, head up near Lenora View, around the same location as the Giant Skeleton. There are a couple of rock carvings hidden like this, out of the way and high up on a cliff wall, so remember to look all around the right area and use Eagle Eye for as long as the game lets you.
Go up the path at Mount Hagen. You’ll be close to where you can pick up the Morion Helmet, but unlike the helmet, this will be directly on the path and not randomly on the mountain.
Head back down South, specifically South of Window Rock and one of the corners of Cumberland Forest where it meets the Dakota River. The waypoint will likely put you above the carving, so be prepared to jump down or find your way around to the bottom.
Prepare for some spelunking. The carving near Bacchus Station will be hugging the middle of the cliff, so you’ll have to find the skinny footpath and walk along it.
Just like with the Dreamcatchers, there’s a rock carving near Limpany that’s unfortunately far away from all the others and will make the journey feel longer than it is. The carving will be a bit away from the road, and again, be careful of riding to the cliff above it, it’s a doozy of a fall.
And now, prepare to essentially go to the exact opposite side of the map. Whinyard Strait hides a rock carving on the cliffside connected to the creek. Do not ride on the path above, you’ll be standing on it if you do.
Head South of Moonstone Pond, and you’ll head up on a series of hills you have to navigate around. The carving will be on a hill in the middle. Be careful of slipping, you’ll find Arthur Morgan is weirdly fond of sliding down slight inclines.
Now ride over to the path beside Elysian Pool. This carving can be seen from the road, as neither of the trees in front of it is big enough to obscure it.
And finally, ride down to Deer Cottage in Roanoke Ridge.
Once you have all 10 carvings marked down, you just have to know where to send them to Francis.
Mailing The Coordinates
The way you send Francis the coordinates is by mailing them from a post office. Any post office will work. If you’d like, you can wait until you have all 10 coordinates and send all of them in one go. If not, then you can send however many you have on hand at the time. Francis will start mailing back rewards to you, depending on how many you have sent him.
Receiving Your Rewards
The rewards you’ll receive range from how many you send. There’s a total of 4 rewards, the first 3 are as follows:
- Kentucky Bourbon
- 10 Dollars
- A Rock Statue
The money and liquor are self-explaining, but the Rock Statue is a unique item with only one purpose, to be sold at a fence. Of course, players fond of rare items could just choose to hold onto it forever.
Sending all 10 unlocks the final reward, an invitation to visit Francis again. There will be a quest marker in case you’ve forgotten his exact location. This will only end up in a confusing cutscene, although many fans feel the mystery behind this stranger is far easier to solve than others, for what it’s worth.
You leave Francis’s mother’s house after the cutscene, so make sure you turn around and reenter the house. If you don’t, you may not be allowed back in later, which means you’ll miss collecting the Old Brass Compass. This compass is the only ingredient for the Raven Claw Talisman, which will make your weapons degrade slower, meaning less time using Gun Oil and more time sharpshooting.
