Quest Design Brief

Overview

Geralt encounters a farmer on the road who begs him to kill a wraith haunting his home at sunset. He can’t offer much coin but will pay the Witcher in his mother’s old jewelry instead.

At sunset, Geralt enters the farmhouse and fights the duskwraith. During combat, the duskwraith curses the farmer as a coward, and a thief. Once the wraith is defeated Geralt takes the brooch as payment, but there is no body to loot. The farmer thanks Geralt as he leaves the house. If asked, he explains his mother was a vengeful woman and that she died resenting him for staying home while his brother went to war. He says the wraith started appearing after he sold most of her jewelry to buy new tools and repair the barn.

The next sunset the wraith reappears next to Geralt, attacking him. Geralt deduces the brooch is cursed and returns to confront the farmer. The farmer swears that he didn’t know the brooch was cursed. Geralt says he won’t slay the farmer and will cleanse the brooch in the forest, destroying the brooch in the process. Geralt can choose to accept or refuse the small amount of coin the farmer can find.

Quest Goals

• Give the player a contract mission with a twist.
• Use the duskwraith, a rare variant of nightwraith.
• Give some context about how the war is affecting farming families.

Narrative Beats

Implementation Notes

Characters Required

• Geralt, farmer, duskwraith

Voice Acting Required

• Geralt, farmer, duskwraith

Reusable Assets

• Peasant asset for farmer, farmhouse model and interior, nightwraith combat animations.

New Assets Required

• Modified nightwraith model for duskwraith, cursed brooch quest item, cracked brooch misc item, duskwraith codex entry which is very similar to nightwraith entry, duskwraith trophy item and art.

Quest Item Behavior

• Can’t be sold or dropped
• Triggers a duskwraith encounter after every sunset while carried until cleansed.
• The item is replaced with a cracked brooch version during the quest

Combat Design

• Duskwraith (normal) – same animations, health, damage, and behavior as a non-boss nightwraith. Starts combat incorporeal so they can say voice lines once.
  • Voice lines focus on cursing the farmer as a coward and thief. Wishes he died in war instead of his brother. Hates that he “stole” and sold her things.
• Duskwraith (boss) – same animations and behavior as boss version of nightwraith. Increased health and damage from normal form.
  • Switch voice lines to cursing Geralt for not killing the farmer.

Reward Design

• Final defeat drops duskwraith trophy (same 5% exp bonus from humans and nonhumans as noonwraith and nightwraith trophies)
• Cracked brooch misc item with massively lower sale value than quest item
• A small amount of money from the farmer for his gratitude if accepted by the player.