Overview
Contract: The Griffin from the Highlands is a level 24 witcher contract based at Crow’s Perch in Velen. Master armorers are rare, so Geralt is pleased to meet Yoana. Before she can forge her best armor, though, she needs acid from an archgriffin, and archgriffins don’t hand that over politely. The beast nests in the hills east-northeast of Heatherton. Unlike most contracts it is less a boss fight than an errand with claws: there is no haggling, and the archgriffin is a regular, if tough, monster.
Getting the contract
This contract is part of Master Armorers. It only appears on the Crow’s Perch notice board once that quest reaches the stage where the armor needs archgriffin acid, which happens as soon as you deliver the high-quality smithing tools to Fergus Graem. Until then, the notice simply isn’t there.
The investigation
- Ride to the marked area east-northeast of Heatherton. Bandits may be on the road, and you may run into the unmarked Looters encounter on the way.
- Use your Witcher Senses to find a trail of blood. It leads to one of the archgriffin’s feathers.
- Keep heading uphill from the feather to find the beast at its nest.
That’s it. The hunt is short, so prepare before you climb rather than after.
Fighting the archgriffin
An archgriffin is a bigger, nastier cousin of the royal griffin you met in White Orchard. Coat your silver sword with hybrid oil. The fight is all about keeping it on the ground: use Aard when it lands near you, and bring it down with Grapeshot or crossbow bolts when it takes to the air. Dodge its swipes and dives and punish it after it lands. For a closer look at how archgriffins fight, see Opinicus on our Creature from Oxenfurt Forest page.
After the kill, take the archgriffin trophy and the acid gland. The gland goes to Yoana for her forging, and the trophy is what the quartermaster wants.
Rewards
- Crowns: 25 from the quartermaster of the Baron at Crow’s Perch.
- Loot: archgriffin trophy, archgriffin mutagen, and the acid gland for Yoana.
- Diagram: the quartermaster also hands over the Tracker’s trousers diagram if you don’t already have it.
- XP: none listed for the contract itself.
The real prize is moving Master Armorers forward. Once the archgriffin is gone, a guarded treasure also appears behind where the nest was, watched over by a cyclops who seems to have taken up shepherding.
