Ugly Baby is a main quest in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. To start it, one must first follow all of Ciri's trails in Velen, Novigrad and Skellige.
This is an "umbrella" quest, incorporating the following sub-quests, all of which must be completed:
The first three may be completed in any order, although Disturbance is intended to set the scene for the other two, so it makes sense to complete it first. It is also not advisable to leave Disturbance for last, as in that case the quests triggering after it cannot be delayed. Completing the first three unlocks No Place Like Home, which is then immediately followed by Va Fail, Elaine.
During this quest, the Kaer Morhen region unlocks for exploration.
Important: collecting Uma during this quest is a cutoff point for the secondary quests The Last Wish and Following the Thread, because at that point Yennefer and Lambert move to Kaer Morhen.
Walkthrough[]
Go to Crow's Perch and talk to Sergeant Ardal to tell him you are taking Uma. After some "persuasion" he agrees to surrender Uma and directs you to the Stablemaster. After taking Uma from him (125
), Geralt heads for Kaer Morhen, but will be stopped on the road by Nilfgaardian Soldiers and taken to Vizima to see the Emperor. Once there, Yennefer will appear too. Emhyr will be displeased with Geralt at first, but then awards Geralt half of the promised money (4000
) when all details around Uma are revealed.
After the audience, Geralt will give the Phylactery to Yennefer and continue with Uma to Kaer Morhen. Once there, he will be greeted by Vesemir, who will update him on what's been going on while he was gone. After the conversation, you are free to explore the Kaer Morhen region and the first three subquests will start.
Kaer Morhen[]
One of your tasks is to find Lambert in the keep and you'll likely see him first, but go see Yennefer in the northern wing before that, as she will better set up the scene and will initiate the first step for Disturbance.
Note: If you decided to romance Triss, you can ask Yen about the bed and annoy her. If you push it too far, she will teleport Geralt away up in the sky and have him fall into the lake to the north. After returning you can annoy her again by saying you had a "nice view" from there, to which she will reply she should have teleported him a few miles higher, but Geralt tells her it's enough arguing.
Refer to the separate pages for Disturbance, To Bait a Forktail... and The Final Trial before the story can progress further. Each of them completes a task that Yennefer needs before she can attempt to lift Uma's curse.
Important: While in the progress of all this, note that there are two items to be found within Kaer Morhen's walls, which have limited time to be used:
- Triss' earring can be found on the broken bed Vesemir mentions. The earring itself is hard to spot, but you'll manage once you find the bed, in the northeastern part of the fortress. While you can find it at any time, it should be done so early enough that you don't miss the chance to give it back to Triss, after Blindingly Obvious and before the main story completes.
- Berengar's notes can be found in the ruins of a cell-like room, near the western wall and inside the middle courtyard. Reading them will start the secondary quest Berengar's Blade, for which you need to talk to Vesemir before setting off for The Isle of Mists.
When you're done with the first three subquests, it's time for everyone to gather together and Vesemir will decide to take Uma for 1 day to try to remove the curse himself. While they are away, you get to have fun during the No Place Like Home quest. Yen will eventually leave you with the boys for it, but not before revealing that in order to lift the curse, she will have to perform the Trial of the Grasses on Uma.
When Vesemir returns in the morning, he'll share he learned a little bit, but ultimately couldn't lift the curse himself, so you're moving with Yennefer's plan in the final subquest Va Fail, Elaine. The ritual ultimately succeeds and the curse is lifted, revealing that Uma is Avallac'h who will tell you how to find Ciri.
The quest then finally completes (1,500) and The Isle of Mists (quest) starts, with its own subquests:
- Brothers In Arms: Nilfgaard
- Brothers In Arms: Novigrad
- Brothers In Arms: Skellige
- Brothers In Arms: Velen (may auto-complete if finished Keira Metz' questline)
Make sure to review the cutoff point section for the newly acquired The Isle of Mists quest as many other quests may be impacted.
Journal entry[]
- Geralt knew Uma currently resided at Crow's Perch. The baron's bandits, hungry for a bit of unrefined entertainment, had made Uma their jester. Geralt knew he would have to put an end to this farce, take the unfortunate being from Velen and, with Yennefer's help, try to lift the curse that held him.
- Before this could happen, however, Geralt once again had the honor to face the emperor of Nilfgaard. Emhyr had run out of patience and demanded that Geralt report back on any progress he had made in his search for Ciri. Geralt present Uma to the emperor and explained the unsightly fellow's role in the investigation. The emperor had hoped Geralt would return with someone other than a demented monstrosity, but ultimately recognized the creature as a solid lead in the search for his daughter Cirilla and handed over a portion of the reward he had promised the witcher. Geralt never revealed exactly how much that amounted to – he never did place much value on coin – but I wager, dear reader, it considerably exceeded the standard fees witchers received.
- During the audience Yennefer hit upon an idea for lifting Uma's curse – though, not for the first time, she refused to share any details with Geralt. She merely told him to ride as fast as possible for Kaer Morhen, the famous keep of the witchers of the Wolf – the home Geralt had not seen for some time, save in his dreams.
- It turned out to be Avallac'h - a powerful elven Sage whom Geralt had encountered during his previous adventures. Breaking his curse proved extraordinarily difficult and, though the treatments succeeded, they had deposited the elf on the brink of death.
- Luckily, he still had a sound mind in his tattered body and was able to pass on the message they had waited so long to hear - Ciri was alive. Avallac'h had hidden her from the Wild Hunt on the Isle of Mists, a place tucked outside of time and space.
- Yet even there she was not truly safe and, sooner or later, the wraiths would find her. It was clear to everyone that fleeing and hiding once more would only delay the inevitable. Geralt thus decided to fetch Ciri from the Isle of Mists and, with her and his friends at his side, give fight to her pursuers.
Objectives[]
- If you have completed Family Matters before Nameless:
- Tell the baron's sergeant you want to take Uma.
- Tell the person minding the stables that you are taking Uma.
- Collect Uma (125
). - Talk to Lambert about journeying to the Circle of Elements.
- Find Eskel and help him hunt the forktail.
- Help Yennefer fix the megascope.
- Spend the evening with the other witchers.
- Remove the curse afflicting Uma. (1,500)
Notes[]
- Interestingly if one manages to reach Kaer Morhen prior to starting this quest, via console command or mod, they will reach a slightly altered version of the area. The main difference is that all quests taking place there will be unavailable and some quest-related objects will be missing, like the obelisks from Greenhouse Effect or the destroyed bed with Triss' earring.
- The only exception are the scavenger hunts involving Wolf School Gear, which will work perfectly fine. And since The Bastion quest cannot be started yet, the diagram for Wolven steel sword can be retrieved without fighting any wraiths. However, one will still have to fight 2 level 23 wraiths which spawn at the locations of diagrams for the Wolven silver sword and armor respectively. Thus if one wishes to obtain the gear already at level 14 using such methods the 2 wraiths may pose a real challenge.
- Prior to Patch 4.0 the "Forktail" that would greet you apon reaching Kaer Morhen would actually be a Wyvern.
- If returning to Kaer Morhen after having completed this quest and then left, but before The Isle of Mists, Avallac'h can be found on a bed in the room where Yennefer initially was. If interacted with, he'll just turn to look at Geralt, but says nothing. Similarly, if Eskel wasn't talked to about the katakan in the main hall, the conversation about it is slightly different after he already told the story of slaying it, during No Place Like Home.