Let's share Witcher 4 story suggestions

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Hey,
let's share stories (themes, etc...) you would like to see in The Witcher 4.

Here is a quest I made:
Possible quest names: Place in the Sun, 'Till Spring's warms yee,...

The story:
The story takes place in a village and a surrounding forest. One day there arrives a slave trader who offers to sell slaves for money. Among them is a woman with long black hair, dark eyes, and an intense look. The trader presents her as a witch, who was practicing blasphemer rituals. She catches the eye of a local fat, wealthy, and deeply religious supplier; so he buys her. His vision is to turn her to the local religion and make her his wife who bears him a strong son, worthy of passing his business on.

He marries her, but the marriage isn't working. The woman may not even understand the concept of it. One day the man finds his "wife" praying to a weird amulet. He thinks it's some blasphemer ritual the trader talked about, so he beats her, breaks the amulet, and talks about it with a local priest. The priest is strict - he wants to imprison her, burn her alive, etc...but the man says he will turn her. He forces the wife to practice local religious traditions, be part of the local community, stay by his side, and be with a child.

Several weeks or months later there comes a great storm. The woman warns a nearby family, who live all together in a big house, that it will be struck by lighting, and catch on fire. The family gets outside, and indeed, shortly after that's exactly what happens. The head of the family accuses her of witchcraft and she runs and hides in her house. The "husband" comes in shortly afterward, shocked by the accusation, angry, and ready to deal with the guy. But to his surprise, he finds his wife writing something in a book covered in black leather. He thinks the book is related to black magic, beats her once more, and brings her to the priest, who decides to imprison, torture, and execute her in a few days, once she admits to her witchcraft.

The woman is imprisoned in an underground prison with a small window with bars, and her hands and legs are chained. She is afraid of being tortured, desperate, and is weakening with each passing minute. However, there comes one of the guards to the rescue. He unchains her, breaks the bars, tells her he will tell the locals she escaped using dark powers; and then helps her to stealthily escape the underground. He tells her to hide in an abandoned watch tower in nearby woods and that he will come the next day to give her provisions, but that she must run away because the locals will go after her. She agrees and escapes.
When she reaches the tower, she brews a pain-numbing potion, stabs herself in the belly, and miscarries. The child turns into a botchling. After that, she's about to die, but there comes a forest spirit, which offers to help her. She says she doesn't want to live until her husband lives. The spirit takes her wish with its logic and casts some sort of hibernating spell on her and moves her to some other place. Then the spirit makes deals with several animals to take care of her - e.g. some lynxes to protect her from wild beasts and give her fur to stay warm; some birds to bring food and feed her, etc...

After the woman is safe and stabilized, yet still "hibernating", the spirit asks the botchling to go to the husband and tell him that it gives him a year and a day to come for his wife (it doesn't know or understand that he was the one who turned her to the priest to die). The botchling follows the "trail of blood" (that's the term from Witcher 3, I guess) and finds the husband, but he gets absolutely horrified and runs away. However, he heard the message but misinterpreted it in the way he wanted - that his wife is alive, so she must be a witch who escaped the prison, and now she wants revenge and sent a daemon after him to kill him. That's when he starts sitting in front of their house, counting the days until she will supposedly die and he will be free of her revenge and the "daemon".

And that's when a player comes in somehow and is supposed to untangle and deal with the whole situation...
 
I think the most interesting theme is choice and the consequences of fulfilling and/or defying destiny. She's now ended the White Frost, supposedly defying Ithlinne's prophesy. She's fulfilled the law of surprise by becoming a witcher. Is the White Frost really permanently ended? Will fate return for her? Are their other worlds she needs to protect? She's defied her 'destiny' of being a ruler. What does it mean to be a child of the elder blood, a sorceress, and a Witcher? Lots of cool stuff to explore.

EDIT: Also Ciri can finally get Weavess.
 
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Toyen

Forum veteran
I am most interested to see who rules the Norhern Kingdoms now after the war.

They will definitely not be making two entirely different games based on who wins the war so there must be some sort of a narrative shortcut that could go something like this:

Regardless of who wins the war, 10 years later, the northern kingdoms eventually rebel and either push Nilfgaard out or regain their independence from Radenia.

Possible rulers for the 4 main Northern Realms:

Radenia: Radovid, Djikstra, Adda

Temeria: Anais La Valette (the only surviving heir to Temerian throne)

Kaedwen: Either remains as part of Radenia or becomes a no man's land since Henselt had no heirs. Local noble houses could be fighting for power.

Aedirn: Since both Stennis and Saskia are most likely out of the picture now, I think the best solution is for the elves of Dol Blathanna to actually take over Aedirn and make it a non-human kingdom ruled by Francesca.
 
I think the most interesting theme is choice and the consequences of fulfilling and/or defying destiny. She's now ended the White Frost, supposedly defying Ithlinne's prophesy. She's fulfilled the law of surprise by becoming a witcher. Is the White Frost really permanently ended? Will fate return for her? Are their other worlds she needs to protect? She's defied her 'destiny' of being a ruler. What does it mean to be a child of the elder blood, a sorceress, and a Witcher? Lots of cool stuff to explore.
It might be she hasn't defied or nullified it or even doesn't want to stick to it. Perhaps the White Frost still exists somewhere, perhaps she will take the throne after she's done with the main story's business, perhaps she's not a witcher (fully mutated, reversible, etc...), perhaps the elder blood is not affected, perhaps the prophecy still applies,...

I can imagine that in The Witcher 3's empress ending she could learn about some injustice happening in the north and decide to go there personally to deal with it...
 
Let me give it a try:

past events:

Lets say Ciri wanted to become a proper witcher by doing the trial of the grasses, but everyone is wary of this because she an adult female.
Then one of the main sorceresses, maybe Philippa Eilhart or Francesca Findabair or even someone else, approaches Ciri with an offer she can't refuse. This would consist of a ritual similar to what Yennefer did with Uma, that would allow Ciri to survive the trial, but by sacrificing her Elder blood powers. After a lot of thought, Ciri would agree, in part because people have always been trying to use her for her power, and she'd really wanted to follow in Geralts footsteps, and she begins her life as a witcher. (This would make it so Ciri doesn't start the game overpowered.)

The game begins:

Ciri would be on the path doing what witchers do and she'd run into strange anomalies in the form of portals or shifting realities in isolated spots causing an unusual ammount of monsters to show up.
Ciri would then seek out her friends, Geralt and yen included (maybe Yen would be pissed at her and Geralt about sacrificing her elder blood power), to try and puzzle the situation out.

The bulk of the game:

The gang would then be trying to piece together and resolve the situation, and eventually they'd discover that whoever performed the ritual on Ciri is to blame, that they actually stole the Elder blood powers to use them to their benefit.
Philippa Eilhart, Francesca Findabair, Avallac'h, or even the Weavess could be the culprit, or even part of the conspiracy.
Maybe Philippa could be completely innocent, and they'd all suspect her for a long time because she gets framed and of who she is, only to find out she's innocent, and then she joins their efforts.
Along the way there would be rituals performed, or certain bosses defeated that would allow Ciri to regain her special powers, thus slowly upgrading her back to the op way she was, including the ability to fast travel directly by teleporting, thus discarding the need for a mount.

Culmination:

As more space and time distortions keep occuring, it would eventually become obvious that whoever has the elder blood powers is trying to achieve Godhood across all dimentions, while causing another conjunction of the spheres to happen everywhere.
This would be the final battle, by the end of which Ciri would regain her power fully and stop the conjunction.

Aftermath:

So, ciri has just saved the world from another magical disaster, which would allow her to return to witchering in the places she visited before.
The sweet part about this is that since the conjunction of the spheres, the world would've been refilled with powerfull monsters and new species too, causing new dilemas to solve, new contracts, and plenty of delicious post game content.


On a side note, I really wish the Weavess makes a return and does something nasty in revenge for her sisters.
 
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Here are some of my speculative thoughts based on the mood and tropes the new Trailer offered:
Witcher 3 spoilers beyond this point

"No Gods, only monsters"

Given the whole scene and feels of the videomaterial I guess It could be something involving someone or something 'godly' in some way. Ciris way of saying "No gods, only monsters" could emphasize that, given that the phrase is even on the Development-teams t-shirts, yet I know the phrase is shaped towards the townsfolk who killed Mioni in the end of the trailer for the moment.

The 'Bauk' in the cave

I'm not sure if the Bauk-Creature from the trailer is supposed to be an actual transformed humanoid like the classic Stryga was (One that sort of 'changes' everytime a new 'Bringer of Salvation' is offered to the lair) or if it's the actual source of evil there. If it's the first, I could imagine that the misty cave could be a place of 'Evil divine power', that demands those offerings, acting as a conduit for an evil deity

What evil deities?

In Witcher 3 we have several Weapon-Runes named after deities from slavic folklore like Svarog or Dazhbog. These were merely there for flair in my experience and didn't come up yet, so there's some potential to that - yet those minor gods could even be mere pawns to the greater evil: The Goddess Melitele

Goddess Melitele=Baba Yaga?

Melitele is worshipped in the Northern Realms as a diety of fertility, targetting mainly the workers and villagers of the setting. There are even some older ties with Ciri and Geralt to the clergy of Melitele, like the Temple of Ellander and Nenneke. She's slightly represented in the games yet, the most in Witcher 1 I believe. And she embodies the aspects of "the beautiful young Maiden", "the mature, pregnant Mother" and "the edentulous, wrinkled Crone". She shares these tropes with a person of the slavic mythology: Baba Yaga. She, on the other hand, is described as cruel, power hungry, but with these same aspects in her portfolio. So what if Melitele, who demands some sort of tribute from her more devoted followers (Some less drastic ones like a vow of slience) comes out as actual evil and power-hungry. A goddess that shows those other monsters, migrated through the conjunction of spheres, that she's the boss around here.

As a child of the elder blood and a now fully fledged witcher, who despises 'gods' I couldn't think of any body more suited than a battle hardened Ciri to stop such a deity in the Witcher 4 before 'Evil Melitele' eradicates, manipulates or otherwise turn over whole kingdoms in her awakening, teased by those dark, folk-horror inspired tropes as shown in the trailer, yet as well as so fitting for the whole theme of the series. Ciri even fought the three crones at the end of Witcher 3 who could be linked to a corrupt Melitele as well (The Formular of 3 again) as they are described as some sort of 'Relic' and are deeply connected to the land itself.

So all in all these are my playful first thoughts about the new Trilogy as I'm very excited about the new game - giving Ciri the Opportunity to oppose such a mystic, enigmatic foe would sure be thrilling. I'd gladly hear your thoughts and comments about my theories, maybe I missed something in the books or the games. Cheers!
 
I'm curious to know what will be going on politically in the Witcher 4. Especially as the devs have said unlike Geralt who used to drag his feet when it came to make choices, Ciri prefers to make a choice right away, so I wonder if she will have a hand in shaping things.

The human/non-human conflict felt quite downplayed in the Witcher 3, compared to 2, and so I'd really like some more plotlines that deal with that side of things. Saskia's goal of making a state where humans and non-humans are treated equally was very admirable, it is a shame that it never came to fruition, but I'd love to see Ciri helping to create that sort of place (ideally with Saskia and Iorveth because I want to see them again so badly) since while the Witcher is a grim universe, it has always had those little bright spots amongst the dark.

On a smaller scale, I always LOVE creepy haunted house quests. Make me jump and scream and hold one hand over my eyes while I play because it's too scary :cry::ROFLMAO:
 
Regarding Weavess, I guess the assumption is that Geralt only kills her in the "bad" ending? Since Ciri clearly is alive for TW4, the bad ending never happened in game canon. But I would think that he eventually hunts her down and kills her out of story, even with the other endings. Ciri definitely owes her a good beating, but so does Geralt.
 
Before anyone forgets, Geralt should be the final Gwent boss!

If Ciri tries to challenge him before hand, he just says he stopped playing a while back due to a lack of challenge. Later, Ciri would return to Geralt stating all the top Gwent players she's beaten who recomended him, and he'd grab the northern realms deck to give her a shot!
 
Before anyone forgets, Geralt should be the final Gwent boss!

If Ciri tries to challenge him before hand, he just says he stopped playing a while back due to a lack of challenge. Later, Ciri would return to Geralt stating all the top Gwent players she's beaten who recomended him, and he'd grab the northern realms deck to give her a shot!
That would be fun. :D
 
This is just an idea of a how Ciri took on " The Trial of the Grasses ". After a time staying with Geralt and Yen, she set out on a journey to Kaer Morhen for a memorial ( time needed ) of Vesemir Death. At the arrival of the old fortress with the shattered gates she walks through where she had trained and the battle happened, remembering all her time there. She stumbles upon a Fork Tail that has made a nest in the courtyard, quickly dispatching, she makes her way through the doors into the hall. She decided to look for the old Bestiary book that Vesemir always tutored her with and found it on his desk he used to study during the cold months, next to his journal that he normally wrote in to keep tally of things needed to repair the fortress, complaining about the other's lack of motivation to work and ingredient's that needed to be restocked. Vesemir understood the struggles of the unknown Ciri would be facing going forward so the final entry was addressed to her, he knew Ciri would open it to giggle at his random entries. He being pragmatic as always, wished her the best but still lectured her handling of the sword. He also noted locations of Witcher schools, Witcher's that he considered friends and one that never became the " School of the Lynx ". The trials would have most likely been held on a small group of Skellige girls but failed, adjustments was made but never tested again. After holding her small memorial for Vesemir and thanking him all he's done, she went back to traveling. During her travels a rift opened and trackers ( mages with creatures ) gave chase after her, after all that has happened, she was still being chased for her Elder Blood. She decided losing her trackers that she needed stop her elder blood power's . This Elder Blood power can be the trade off but also open a whole era of her abilities to control as a Wtcher.
 
Hey,
let's share stories (themes, etc...) you would like to see in The Witcher 4.
I would like to see a story as good as Witcher 2. Was better then 3. To cover the whole continent from the world of Witcher universe(Redania, Temeria, Cintra, Nilfgaard, Metinna, Gemmera, Skellige Islands and so on)

The side quests be at the level of the one's in Witcher 3. Are one of the best in all my gaming experience.
Gwent surely needs to present.

The game needs to be mature: sex, gore, politics, deep philosophy subjects. No softening like we have with modern gaming(cough Star Wars Outlaws). The game needs to allow us to be evil as well as good.

The game does not need to be super streamlined. We are sick of boring, easy, super streamlined games made for like we are morons with zero attention span(cough Dragon Age Veilguard).
 
Return to what made TW2 so good - dense and intricate plot with a nuanced and morally grey villain. The Wild Hunt was cartoonishly evil and never properly expounded on like they were in the novels. Reexamine what made Letho the best villain CDPR has ever written and try to emulate that.
 
All I want to say is I want to be surprised. Trying to avoid as many potential spoilers or ideas to be hopefully immersed when the game comes out.
 
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Personally I would love to avoid feeling that the whole world revolves around the heroine. Ciri doesn't have to save the world - it would be better if she did what one person - a witcher - does. Solving some problems, some being beyond her. Whatever the plot becomes for me it's crucial for Ciri to be a part of the universe as much as any other person/woman - just physically stronger and more capable in specific situations. I am tired of most games telling stories of ultimate chosen super heroes, who are essentially almost gods that will decide absolutely anything.

I love meaningful choices and conequences - there should be plenty of those, but rather than deciding the destiny of the whole world they should be realistic and focused on players shaping their own version of Ciri. I know she has a set personality, just as Geralt had, but I would really love to see players shaping her personality - maybe not between good and evil as she is already rooted as the good one - but at least between noble/honorable/virtuous and cold-hearted/dirty/wicked approach towards problems solving. I mean Cirilla orginally was good-natured and peace-loving - sure. But she was also impulsive, reckless, sexually bold, and not really sticking to rules. She could stand up and dominate the scene but also had moments where she was scared, mild and submissive. I would love the story to be set in a way that will let us plenty of opportunities to shape her in our own way in smaller situations. I can even see how it would be easier to later transfer choices from Witcher 4 to Witcher 5 if it was more about her personality and solving smaller problems of villages and cities than deciding who will rule which kingdom...

Of course big politics is important part of the universum - it should stay this way. But the heroine should not deal all the cards.
 
Return to what made TW2 so good - dense and intricate plot with a nuanced and morally grey villain. The Wild Hunt was cartoonishly evil and never properly expounded on like they were in the novels. Reexamine what made Letho the best villain CDPR has ever written and try to emulate that.
I thought while the Wild Hunt weren't as well-developed as Letho felt, I think it would have been basically impossible to get all that character development for them without making the game another 100 hours long and spending a lot more of the game in Ciri's point of view. And since the game is already massive, and CDPR probably wanted to focus on Geralt, I get why the Wild Hunt were mostly just bad dudes we needed to kill. Because to Geralt that's pretty much all they are/were.

Compare this to TW2 which was smaller stakes/more focused on Geralt so it gave us a closer connection to Letho, particularly as he's the only other Witcher we meet in the game. To me he also wasn't really a villain, more of an antagonist that through circumstance ended up on the wrong side of Geralt. But yes, I agree it would be good to have an antagonist like that in TW4, too.
 
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