Accessing DLC without giving Lordvessel to Frampt or killing Sif

In Dark Souls, I have just defeated Ornstein and Smough and acquired the Lordvessel. Now, if I remember correctly, you can give this to Kingseeker Frampt, but that will make it impossible to join the Darkwraith covenant. I'd rather give it to Darkstalker Kaathe. I have never played past this point before so I only know about Kaathe from the Dark Souls Wikis.

I have also just bought the Add-on Artorias of the Abyss and have read that the Great Grey Wolf Sif appears as a summonable NPC in a new area, as long as he wasn't killed before, which also changes the cutscene before the fight. As requirements to access the DLC I have read that you have to kill some crystal golem in the Darkroot Basin and to place the Lordvessel.

But, to get to Kaathe, if I understood this correctly, you have to kill Sif to get a ring to walk the Abyss where Kaathe apparently is. So if I want to access the DLC before getting to Sif, I would have to give it to Frampt, right?

The only other option I could imagine is to place the Lordvessel by jumping down the hole where Frampt is, whithout waking him up, but I read that that makes him angry somehow. Also, can I still help Kaathe after doing that?

Long story short: I want to join the Darkwraith, but also access the DLC and have Sif there before killing him to walk the Abyss. Is this possible?

Solution 1:

From the wikidot:

"Kaathe can be found near The Abyss bonfire after you have defeated The Four Kings, provided that you haven't yet placed the Lordvessel on the Firelink Altar (regardless of whether you have the vessel or not)."

So, it is the act of placing the Lordvessel on the altar that causes Kaathe to not appear, not the act of talking to Frampt.

In order to access the DLC, you need to collect an item from the Duke's Archives, an area only accessible after placing the Lordvessel. So no, it is not possible to access the DLC before killing Sif, if you want to interact with Kaathe in the same playthrough.

There may be one possible way to accomplish this, however: if you get another player to enter your world and give you the Broken Pendant (the item required to enter the DLC). BUT, I've never tried this myself, and after searching about on Google I couldn't find whether or not it was possible.

Solution 2:

By default it is impossible to both:

1. Join the Darkwraiths
2. Unlock the AotA Sif special intro

in a single playthrough.

As pointed out by JMcMinn, you have two conflicting storyline arcs.

In order to join the darkwraiths you must kill the four kings before placing the lordvessel

In order to unlock Sif's special intro, you must free him from the Chasm of the Abyss, which means you need access to the DLC. To access the DLC you need to:

1. Kill the hydra in Darkroot Basin, free dusk and talk to her.
2. Place the lordvessel after obtaining it to open Dukes Archives
3. Kill the golem to obtain the broken pendant

These two actions are mutually exclusive. If you place the lordvessel in order to access the DLC, Darkstalker Kaathe will disappear, preventing you from joining the Darkwraiths. In order to join the Darkwraiths, you must first gain access to the Abyss by killing sif.

Certain items in the game cannot be dropped. The Broken Pendant is one of these making it absolutely impossible to do without modifying your save game to have the pendent.

Solution 3:

You can't access the DLC before you kill Siff AND join the Darkwraith covenant on the same playthrough, simply because you need to place the lord vessel to access the DLC, but by doing this you have either killed Siff and joined Darkwraith allready or you have placed it via Firelink/Frampt (and doing this causes Kaathe to not spawn).

So, you can access the DLC before you kill Siff, just not on the same playthrough as giving the vessel to Kaathe (I thought this was a little unclear from the answer above, wanted to clarify).