The Bloody Baron

The quest follows Geralt, the protagonist of the series, as he helps the eponymous Baron find his family in the war-torn region of Velen.

The Baron admits to harboring Ciri and offers information about her whereabouts in return for finding his missing wife, Anna, and their daughter, Tamara.

Searching the Baron's family home, Geralt finds a lost talisman under the floorboards and signs of a violent struggle.

The pellar performs a divination on the talisman and reveals that Anna was pregnant but had miscarried due to abuse from the Baron, causing the fetus to become an undead creature called a botchling.

The fisherman admits he tried to help the women leave the region, but glowing marks appeared on Anna's hands, and she was kidnapped by a fiend.

[4] Sasko's strategy is to avoid using clichés unless they are used self-consciously, and his team frequently discards their initial ideas to adhere to this.

[4] According to Sasko, the concept of the quest originated from a single sentence: "Geralt meets a 'Baron' who wants the Witcher to kill a monster, and offers information about Ciri in return.

"[2] The quest is designed to embody the region of Velen "with all of its beauty and troubles", highlighting its themes of war, famine, death, lost people, magical rituals, and monsters.

[5][3] Sasko's approach to the storyline was influenced by his experience growing up in a poor village in the Polish mountains where he saw multiple cases of alcoholism and domestic violence.

[2] Sasko also designed The Baron to have charisma and a sense of humor in order to make the player feel conflicted.

[3] The botchling, a half-bat half-newborn whose name derives from the Polish word for "miscarriage", was inspired by a demon from Slavic folklore.

[3] The development team have called "Family Matters" one of the most difficult quests to design due to its ambitious subjects and nuanced themes.

[2] The Baron was voiced by Tomasz Dedek in the original Polish version and James Clyde in the English translation.

[3] PCGamesN also calls it the game's best quest, attributing its "emotional punch" to the quality of its writing and voice acting.

[20] Developer Chris Avallone cited the critical reception of the quest as a reason for hiring the same writers on the game Dying Light 2.