After having served the Baron of Velen and assisted the Crones at Crookback Bog, Geralt is ready to complete this chapter of his journey. The final step in Bloody Baron’s quest to find his wife in The Witcher 3 starts with Return to Crookback Bog quest.
In the Return to Crookback Bog mission in The Witcher 3, you help the Bloody Baron of Velen to find his family and rescue them from the evil Crones.
How the Return to Crookback Bag quest in TW3 plays out depends on one of your prior choices. When you encounter the Spirit under the tree, you can either free it or kill it. This choice will change how Return to Crookback Bog plays out and what situations you encounter in the mission.
How to start Return to Crookback Bog quest
The Return to Crookback Bog quest in The Witcher 3 unlocks after the Family Matters main quest. You need to ensure that you don’t start the “The Isle of Mists” main quest, as starting this quest will fail Return to Crookback Bog, and you won’t be able to either play or complete the quest.
You can find the Return to Crookback Bog quest in Downwarren Village on the map. After you start the mission, the Baron will head out to the marshes to save his wife and daughter from the Crones. You have the option to join him and help him save his family. Do so.
The Witcher 3 Return To Crookback Bog walkthrough
The Baron decides to head off to the swamp immediately. Go with the Baron to the swamp. During the entire mission, you want to ensure that you stay within a reasonable distance from Baron and his men, or you will fail the quest. You must ensure that you help the Bloody Baron and his men kill all the monsters and resistance they face without taking too many casualties.
The Bog
Slowly, you will push with the Baron and his men to the Orphanage of Crookback Bog. Here, you find one of the Baron’s kids, Tamara, fighting drowners. You again join the fight and help kill all the monsters. Your dialogue with Tamara after the fight might vary depending on whether you interacted with Tamara in Oxenfurt. Still, they need to gain weight as far as the progression of the quest.
After your interaction with Tamara, the Baron will order you and all his men to look around for Anna. You can find Anna in one of the buildings in the area that has the tapestry. Here you can see the first consequence of your decision to save or kill the Spirit under the tree.
After you find Anna, you will hear howls outside, and Drowners will attack you. Kill a few of them, and a Fiend will come out to attack you. Here, keep killing the drowners and the Fiend to end the encounter.
Anna’s fate – What if you killed the spirit?
If you had killed the Spirit, you would find Anna still in Human form. Baron is quite pleased to see her, but Anna has lost her sanity due to the events she has been through. The Baron is sympathetic to her condition and takes Anna with him. You receive 100 Crowns for your help in saving Anna.
The Baron takes Anna to a hermit to help her heal, ending the mission. If you decide to return to Velen again after this side quest, you won’t find the Baron again. Instead, the sergeant has taken over and is one of the cruelest rulers of the region.
Anna’s fate – What if you freed the spirit?
If you had freed the Whispering Hillock spirit before the mission in TW3, you would have had a different outcome. The Spirit traveled to the Orphanage of Crookback Bog and punished Anna for not looking after the orphans. The orphans from the swamp of Crookback Bog eventually end up in an orphanage in Novigrad after the spirit punishes Anna.
You will find Anna turned into a monster, a water hag. Seeing this, the Baron is heartbroken, and Geralt thinks if there is anything he can do to help lift the curse. This leads to new objectives for the Return to Crookback Bog quest in Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
Find Anna’s doll and remove the curse
To remove Anna’s curse in The Witcher 3, Geralt decides to visit Johnny, who might have some knowledge. Head off to the Burrow to meet Johnny, but he is absent from his house, and you find a few drowners and fiends there, nothing new. Kill them and use Witcher’s Sense to find and follow Johnny’s footsteps.
You will find Johnny in a small shack, sleeping peacefully. Talk to Johnny, and he will point you toward a basement where you might find something to help you. With this knowledge, return to the Baron and inform them of the information you have. Here, Graden decides to come with you to help you go to the basement and find a cure for Anna.
Inside the basement, you find several dolls, one of which holds Anna’s curse. Graden explains what these dolls are, and you need to pick the Doll that hold’s Anna’s Curse.
When given the option to select the dolls, pick the Doll with the violet hollyhock bloom. This is the Doll to which Anna’s curse is attached, and selecting this Doll will lift Anna’s curse. If you pick any other doll, Anna will be immediately burned alive and die. This immediately ends the quest, and you get your reward, 100 crowns.
Ending
Once you lift Anna’s curse in The Witcher 3, she reunites with the Baron and Tamara, but the reunion is short-lived. Crones predicted that someone might lift Anna’s curse, and they placed a failsafe. Anna will die shortly after you free her from her curse.
Although Anna dies in this mission variation, the Baron, Tamara, and Anna will have some time to reunite and reconcile.
After Anna’s death, the Baron becomes depressed, and a few days later, he is found to have hung himself from a tree. Either way, you get your 100 Crowns reward, ending the quest and the Baron’s story once and for all.
In this ending, the sergeant takes over, similar to the other ending, and proceeds with his tyranny over the Velen region of The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt.
