Family Matters

Family Matters is the main quest at the heart of Act I in The Witcher 3, and for many players it is the moment the game shows what it is really made of. Geralt arrives at Crow’s Perch looking for news of Ciri, and Baron Phillip Strenger, better known as the Bloody Baron, has exactly the information he needs. The catch: the Baron will not say another word about her until Geralt finds his wife Anna and daughter Tamara, who vanished in the middle of the night.

A missing family and an ugly truth

The search starts in the family bedrooms, where Geralt’s witcher senses turn up spilled wine, a hidden talisman and a secret altar to the Eternal Fire. The talisman leads to the pellar near Blackbough, a village soothsayer who, after Geralt fetches his runaway goat, reveals what the Baron has been hiding: Anna was pregnant, lost the child after years of her husband’s drunken abuse, and the unburied baby has turned into a botchling.

Back at Crow’s Perch, the stables are on fire, and after the smoke clears Geralt ends up trading punches with a very drunk Baron. The confession that follows is one of the most painful conversations in the game. The Baron is not a cartoon villain. He is a violent drunk who loves his family and hates himself, and the quest never lets you forget either side of him.

Botchling or lubberkin

At midnight, Geralt and the Baron go to the child’s grave. Here the player decides: lift the curse by naming the botchling and burying it under the threshold, turning it into a protective lubberkin, or kill it and bring its blood to the pellar for a ritual at the Wolven Glade. Both paths end at the fisherman Voytek’s hut, where Geralt learns that Anna was carried off by a fiend-like beast near Crookback Bog, while Tamara made it safely to Oxenfurt.

Where the story goes next

Tamara wants nothing more to do with her father and has joined the Church of the Eternal Fire’s witch hunters. Anna’s trail leads into the bog and to the Ladies of the Wood, and the quest only closes once Geralt returns with news about her. Only then does the Baron finish his tale about Ciri, pointing Geralt towards Novigrad. It is a quest with no clean hero and no perfect ending, and it is still talked about years after release.

Walkthrough

Follow the Baron and search his chamber and Tamara’s room at Crow’s Perch with your witcher senses. Follow the wine scent to a talisman under a floorboard and the saffron scent to a hidden Eternal Fire altar.
Show the talisman to the Baron, then visit the pellar near Blackbough. Deal with the Baron’s men outside his hut (talk, Axii or fight).
Find the pellar’s goat in A Princess in Distress. He then reveals Anna’s miscarriage and the botchling.
Return to Crow’s Perch, optionally save the stable hand and horses from the fire, and beat the drunken Baron in a fistfight.
At midnight, go to the grave with the Baron. Either lift the curse (protect the Baron from wraiths and calm the botchling with Axii) or kill the botchling and collect its blood.
Lubberkin path: follow the spirit to a smokehouse and Anna’s torn-apart horse. Botchling path: bring the blood to the pellar and keep the braziers lit during the ritual at the Wolven Glade.
Visit the fisherman Voytek’s hut to learn what happened to Anna and Tamara.
Report to the Baron, and optionally find Tamara in Oxenfurt.
After completing Ladies of the Wood, tell the Baron what you learned about Anna to hear the rest of Ciri’s story.

Quest Consequences & Choices

Your choice at the grave changes how you track Anna and Tamara, but has little effect on the Baron’s own fate. That is decided later, in The Whispering Hillock: if Geralt frees the spirit, the Crones curse Anna into a water hag and she dies when the curse is lifted, and the Baron takes his own life. If Geralt kills the spirit, Anna survives but loses her mind, and the Baron takes her far away in search of a cure.