So I fired up my saves from v1.2.5 (I haven’t saved the game since then due to all the issues with v1.3+) where I had left off in the middle of the Ginger in a Pickle quest…
As soon as I load any save at any point after the Keeping the Peace quest has been started, an update comes across the top that says “Objective started: Kill the camp leader.” If I save my game at this point without doing anything else, it saves it as if I’m currently on the Ruin quest, which I have not started yet. The Ruin quest is not in my Quest Log either before or after this objective update appears.
The only thing I can think that might have triggered this is I did clear out the bandit camp next to one of the Warhorse armor chests (the one with the Warhorse helmet in it), and in doing so I took 4 bandit ears that I’ve been carrying around since then.
For whatever reason, if I go back to a save from before I talk to the Bailiff to start the Keeping the Peace quest, I don’t get this objective update.
Now that I think of it, I believe this has been happening since v1.3+, but at the time, I think I was only hearing the objective update as I loaded the game…