Family Matters Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Quest
Suggested level: 6
Group: Main Quests
Location: Velen
This quest will start right after you finish the Ciri's Story: The King of the Wolves quest. The baron has for you an offer that you cannot refuse. He will tell you what he knows about Ciri if you help him find his wife and daughter first.
The baron turned out to be a tough negotiator who knew the full value of the information he possessed. He agreed to tell Geralt about Ciri on one condition: Geralt had to find his wife and daughter first. The women had mysteriously disappeared a short time before. Though the baron had moved heaven and earth to find them, all his efforts had proved fruitless.
Related points of interest
Pellar's Hut
Velen / Novigrad
Botchling
Velen / Novigrad
Smokehouse
Velen / Novigrad
Wolven Glade
Velen / Novigrad
Fisherman's Hut
Velen / Novigrad
Prior quests
To begin Family Matters you must first complete Ciri's Story: The King of the Wolves.
Quest stages of Family Matters
1. Follow the baron. / Use your Witcher Senses to search the room.
Go with the baron to the top floor. He'll unlock the door to his bedroom and his daughter's rooms so you can examine all of them. He will wait outside. To make progress, it is enough to search the baron's bedroom, but searching of his daughter's rooms can provide additional information about her interests.
In the daughter's living room you will find a letter to Tamara lying on the dresser and incense and a rusty key in the closet. Next to the bed in the daughter's bedroom you will find an ugly doll.
Letter to Tamara
(…) We are more like a family. We support each other and help each other survive tough moments, grapple with the past. For each of us has a past. So you needn’t worry about anyone digging into yours. We’ve got a rule – never ask more than someone offers on their own. The past doesn’t matter to us, only the future does, that and our common fight against evil and depravity, against perverse and loathsome practices of all kinds (…)
1.1. (Optional) Use your Witcher Senses to locate where the scent is coming from.
The smell of incense will take you to the basement. The rusty key you found will allow you to open a locked door in the basement. In the next room, you will find an altar indicating that Tamara is a follower of the cult of eternal fire.
In the bedroom of the baron and his wife, examine one of the walls that has a different color.
Then examine the painting hanging on the adjacent wall. You will find a hole in the wall hidden behind it.
Open the cabinet on the other side of the wall and you will find a piece of candlestick in it.
Examine the candlestick standing on the table and the wine stains.
Follow the smell of wine. Get out of the room and go down the stairs. You'll lose track on the half floor. Check one of the planks in the floor and you'll find a folk talisman in the crack.
2. Talk to the baron about what you found.
Go back to the baron and ask him about what you've found. When you ask about the talisman, he will confirm that it belongs to his wife but he knows nothing more about it. The person who might know something about it is the pellar who lives nearby.
3. Find the pellar's hut.
The Pellar's Hut is located in the forest to the northwest of Blackbough village. When you get there, you'll meet a few of the baron's men who want to punish the pellar for the way he cured their buddy Eldric. To talk to a pellar you have to get rid of them first and you can do it in several ways:
- Trying to bribe them WON'T work.
- If you have it upgraded (Delusion lvl 2) then you can use the Axii sign, then they will leave in peace.
- Ask them why the pellar has made them so angry, and then offer to help them bring their friend back to health. But this will only be possible if you didn't kill the baron's men at the Inn at the Crossroads during The Nilfgaardian Connection quest.
- Just kill them.
4. Talk to the pellar. / Agree to help find the missing goat to gain the pellar's gratitude.
Then approach the pellar's house door and knock. The pellar will let you in and you'll start talking. He'll recognize the amulet he made for Anna but he doesn't know where she is now. He will suggest that he may try to learn something from the ghosts, but in order for him to perform the proper ritual he needs you to find his goat - "The Princess" first. You must agree to do this, and then you will receive a new quest - A Princess in Distress.
5. Lead the goat to the pellar.
Complete A Princess in Distress quest, so find the goat that wanders somewhere in the nearby forest and take it safely back to the pellar's hut.
When the pellar gets his goat back, he'll perform a ritual and then tell you what he knows about Anna. You'll find out from him that Anna was pregnant but had a miscarriage. The unborn child was buried and became a botchling. He will also provide you with two possible solutions to this situation.
Geralt's search for the baron's wife and daughter took him to the local pellar, a sort of soothsayer and folk mage whom Geralt rightly suspected would be well informed about all local goings-on.
The pellar shared some juicy gossip with Geralt: supposedly the baron was a drunk and a terror to his family, and his wife's recent pregnancy had ended in a mysterious miscarriage.
The pellar's augurs showed that the miscarried fetus, undoubtedly discarded without a proper burial, had transformed into a dangerous monster: a botchling. The beast was murderous and foul, but could yet do some good. If its curse could be lifted and the monster could be turned into a lubberkin, this latter being, a friendly household guardian, could lead Geralt to the baron's wife and daughter.
6. Read the bestiary to learn more about botchlings.
Open the bestiary and read the botchling entry and you will find out how to prepare properly for the meeting with it. Cursed oil and Axii sign will be useful.
7. Talk to the baron.
Go back to Crow's Perch to confront the baron. As you approach the castle, you will notice that the castle is on fire.
When you reach the upper castle, one of the baron's men will ask you to help save his brother, who is stuck in a burning stable. Agree, and some time later, when you visit the castle again, the saved stable boy will give you 20 coins as a thank you for saving his life.
7.1. (Optional) Save the stable hand and the horses trapped in the burning stable. / Open the main gate to stables.
Enter the stables using the ladder on the outside and then climb down another ladder that is inside to the lower level. The barrels and boxes that obstruct your path can be removed the fastest with an aard sign. Watch out for the breath gauge. When it goes down to zero, you will simply suffocate. When you descend to the lower level, you'll meet a stable boy who will ask you to open the main stable door. Do it and the boy and the horses will run out safely.
Whether you saved the stable boy and the horses or not, you will then be facing a drunk and raging baron. It will end the same way in both cases. To calm him down you'll have to beat him in a fistfight at the castle courtyard.
7.2. Defeat the baron in a fistfight.
Then you and the baron will go to his chambers where the baron will finally tell you the real story. At the end, Geralt will present the baron with two options how to deal with the botchling, and he will ask the witcher to lift the curse instead of killing it.
7.3. Tell the baron to show you where he buried his child.
Here you can pause this quest, for example, to better prepare yourself for what will happen. When you're ready to continue, return to the baron and tell him that.
Geralt's bosom boiled with wrath as he went to confront the baron. He was ready to drag the truth out of the man with a sword, force him to confess to what had truly happened that fateful night. A witcher in this state is even more effective than usual, so Geralt accomplished this in short order. The baron admitted that his wife had miscarried after one of their frequent rows, and that she and his daughter had fled Crow's Perch. He also agreed to show Geralt where he had buried the miscarried child's remains. When the clock struck midnight, both men set off to find the botchling's grave.
8. Follow the baron.
At midnight, you both will go to the place where the baron buried the body of the unborn child. When you get there, you will meet the botchling. You will be able to decide whether you want to try to lift the curse from it or attack it immediately.
9. Path #1: Lift the Curse.
If you decide to try to lift the curse, Geralt will order the baron to take the botchling in his hands and take it to the castle.
9.1. Follow the baron to the castle's entrance.
Go with the baron towards the castle.
9.1.1. Protect the baron from wraiths. / Use the Axii Sign to calm the botchling.
On your way to the castle you will be attacked twice by wraiths. Kill them all as soon as possible and then calm the botchling with Axii sign.
When you get there, you will perform a short ritual that will cause the botchling to leave in peace and then you will bury his corpse.
Once Geralt and the baron had reached the unborn babe's place of burial, they did not have to wait long for the botchling to show up. The beast hissed and howled and threatened to assume its more monstrous and vicious form, but the two men completed the naming ritual before it could. Then, following ancient custom, they buried the creature under the threshold so that in time it might be reborn as a lubberkin, a household guardian spirit. Geralt hoped this being would help him find the baron's family.
9.2. Summon the lubberkin where the botchling is buried.
Go to the place where the baron buried the body of the botchling and use the "Sit and wait" option. The time will automatically pass and lubberkin will appear.
9.3. Follow the lubberkin. / Search the area around the smokehouse using your Witcher Senses.
Follow the lubberkin. He will lead you outside the castle walls to the Smokehouse. Find and examine the horseshoe, the bracelet, and the clothing.
9.4. Follow the lubberkin. / Examine the dead horses.
Follow the lubberkin. Be ready to fight a few rotfiends that prey on the corpse of a dead horse. Examine the corpse of the horse.
9.5. Follow the lubberkin.
Follow the Lubberkin and it will eventually lead you to the Fisherman's Hut.
10. Path #2: Kill the botchling.
You will have to follow this path if you decided to kill the botchling right away or if something went wrong while trying to lift the curse and it attacked you.
10.1. Kill the botchling.
If you decide to attack the botchling, it will turn into a much bigger monster and the fight will begin. The cursed oil and Axii sign will help you during this fight. When the monster's life bar drops to half, the additional wraiths will start to emerge and you will have to deal with them as well.
After the fight, Geralt will take a sample of botchling blood and the baron will return to his castle.
Once Geralt and the baron had reached the babe's place of burial, they did not have to wait long for the botchling to show up. When it did, the monster slayer slew the monster and collected some of its blood - this time not as a trophy but for use in an ancient ritual that, the witcher hoped, would provide him with more information about the fate of the baron's wife and daughter.
10.2. Talk to the pellar.
Go back to the Pellar's Hut and tell him that you have the botchling blood. To find out something, you and the pellar will have to go to a certain place and perform a necessary ritual.
You can go there right away or you can do something else first, for example, prepare yourself properly for what may happen.
10.3. Go to the pellar when you are ready to start the ritual. / Follow the pellar.
When you are ready, go with the pellar to the clearing near the Wolven Glade signpost. The pellar will inform you of your task during the ritual.
10.4. Prepare for the ritual and light the fires. 0/3
Your first task will be to light three fires. When you do that and the night comes, the pellar will start the ritual.
10.5. Relight the fires in the braziers if they go out during the ritual. 3/3
The pellar will begin the ritual. Your task during the ritual will be to make sure that all three fires are lit. When one of them goes out, come up to it and light it again. You will be disturbed by the wraiths coming to the clearing, which of course you will have to eliminate.
After the ritual, ask the hermit about the visions he had and you will learn about a fisherman named Voytek, who should know something about missing women.
At the end, you can escort the hermit home or leave him where he is. If you choose to escort him (you won't have to do anything, it will happen automatically), you will get additional experience points.
10.6. Find the fisherman Voytek's hut.
Go to the Fisherman's Hut where Voytek lives.
11. Look around the fisherman's hut.
Both paths will connect back by the fisherman's hut. Enter the fisherman's hut and talk to the fisherman and his family. They will tell you where Tamara is staying and what happened to the baron's wife.
The baron's wife and daughter had not fled Crow's Perch's unaided - a fisherman living nearby had provided key assistance. Geralt went to the man's hut, where he learned a fiend had attacked the two women during their flight. The beast had torn Anna's horse to shreds, then carried her off into the woods.
One detail the fisherman mentioned rankled in the witcher's mind: it seemed Anna's hands bore strange marks that had burned with fire just moments before the fiend appeared. What could have caused them? What did they mean?
Geralt would have to endure this rankling until he found Anna, who, if still alive, had to be somewhere in Crookback Bog. Tamara, on the other hand, had made it to Oxenfurt, where the fisherman had helped her find shelter with his brother.
12. (Optional) Find Tamara, the baron's daughter, in Oxenfurt. / Talk to the baron about Tamara.
Visiting Tamara in Oxenfurt is optional, but you should do it if you want to learn her version of the story and thus get extra experience points. You can do it both prior to and after talking to the baron about his family.
If you talk to the baron first and during the conversation you accept his request to visit his daughter in Oxenfurt to make sure that she is safe, then when you leave his castle he will run after you and give you the old Tamara's doll, apparently hoping that this will help to convince his daughter to return to him. This will unlock one additional dialogue option while talking to Tamara, although it will not change her mind.
If you talk to the baron first, he will also give you the documents that will allow you to complete the Thou Shalt Not Pass quest and thus allow you to easily get to the other side of Pontar.
You will find Tamara in one of the houses in Oxenfurt. The entrance is on the port side.
Tamara will tell you her version of the events and that she is not planning to go back to her father. She and her new friends are gonna go to the rescue of her mother. You will also meet one of her new friends, the witch hunter Graden.
13. Talk to the baron about his family.
Go back to the castle and talk to the baron. Tell him what you have learned about his family. If you haven't visited Tamara yet, he will ask you to go to Oxenfurt, to make sure she is safe and try to convince her to come back to him.
The baron will tell you another part of the story of his meeting with Ciri. You will learn this story in the form of the Ciri's Story: The Race quest. The baron will decide to tell you the next part of the story when you find his wife.
You will now also have the opportunity to play the gwent with the baron and get the card you need for the Gwent: Velen Players quest.
Upon hearing this, the baron revealed another scrap of information about Ciri. He told Geralt of a certain afternoon when he and his retinue had decided to celebrate a successful hunt with a bit of horse racing. The race had come to an abrupt halt, however, when a basilisk attacked. Here the baron employed an old storyteller's trick, breaking his tale off at a crucial moment and announcing he would not utter another word until Geralt found his wife.
14. Investigate all remaining leads in Velen and find the Baron's wife. / Tell the baron what you've learned about Anna.
To find Anna, the baron's wife, you must complete the Ladies of the Wood quest. Then you'll find out that the woman taking care of the children in the orphanage is his wife.
Go back to the baron and tell him what you know about his wife. As promised, the Baron will tell you the rest of the story of his meeting with Ciri - Ciri's Story: Out of the Shadows.
You don't have to, but you can listen to the Baron's family history. If you do that, you will get extra XP.
The Baron will decide to go to the rescue of his wife and ask you for help. A new secondary quest will appear in your diary - Return to Crookback Bog.
At long last, after Geralt had fulfilled his part of the bargain and found the baron's wife and daughter, the lord of Crow's Perch relieved the suspense and finished his tale. He recounted how Ciri had been forced to use her powers to save the baron's life. This had drawn the Wild Hunt's attention, so Ciri had had no choice but to flee once more - this time to the Free City of Novigrad. Geralt's search in Velen was at an end.
At the very end, you'll still see a little ugly creature run into the room. The Baron will explain to you that his name is Uma and that he won him by playing cards. After that, the quest will be over.
After completing Family Matters you will get or will be able to get Return to Crookback Bog.