How to the Orphans & Anna?

[Ilrita]

I've restarted the game like ten times trying different things but nothing works. Anna is always saved, the witches mention that the kids are plump, Geralt says they are gone and the orphanage at Novigrad is empty and there is no letter (like there should be if it is successful).

I have searched high and low, asked many different people, and have gotten no response. Maybe you guys have the solution? I'm pretty desperate because I want to save the kids but I don't want the Baron to hang himself or Anna to die.

Methods I tried:
1: Free the spirit before starting any of the relevant quests
2: Free the spirit before going to the Bog
3: Free the spirit while following Johnny to the nest but BEFORE he guides you back to the orphanage
4: Free the spirit after giving Johnny his voice but walking away before arriving at the orphanage.
5: Free the spirit after talking to the kids about Johnny/Ciri but before meeting Johnny

So many people say this is possible and I have seen the video of the kids at the orphanage, but is it really true? Can someone please give me a step by step guide on how to do this?

[Abdelhazred]

Publicado originalmente por Ilrita:

That's very frustrating to know after all the attempts I tried. It would have been awesome if a "third" option like that was possible though, even if it were made far more difficult to achieve than the rest. Damn those people for getting my hopes up. :(

Well, at least I discovered it was possible to free the spirit and still save Anna. I guess that's better than nothing.

But the spirit is a severe ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. The only reason to let him loose is to save the childs.

[Rafael Freeman]

It's part of the appeal of TW3 that sometimes there is no ideal outcome. Look at it this way: the spirit is evil, the crones are evil and the baron has done evil things. The villagers have sacrificed their children for decades (or perhaps centuries). Of course there isn't going to be a happy ending.

I killed the spirit because even though the spirit will save some children from the crones, the spirit is going to commit evil deeds, including killing children, when he is freed.

[Pierce]

From what I've seen, the children are screwed either way. Either the spirit takes them and does who knows what, or the sisters take them. That being said, I'm doing a new playthrough and once the sisters sent me to talk to the alderman I went and saw the spirit first. I went through her quest and when I got back to the sisters the children were gone and Anna was alive.

[♠.brT]

Publicado originalmente por BuzzardBee:

Publicado originalmente por Ilrita:

I've restarted the game like ten times trying different things but nothing works. Anna is always saved, the witches mention that the kids are plump, Geralt says they are gone and the orphanage at Novigrad is empty and there is no letter (like there should be if it is successful).

I have searched high and low, asked many different people, and have gotten no response. Maybe you guys have the solution? I'm pretty desperate because I want to save the kids but I don't want the Baron to hang himself or Anna to die.

Methods I tried:
1: Free the spirit before starting any of the relevant quests
2: Free the spirit before going to the Bog
3: Free the spirit while following Johnny to the nest but BEFORE he guides you back to the orphanage
4: Free the spirit after giving Johnny his voice but walking away before arriving at the orphanage.
5: Free the spirit after talking to the kids about Johnny/Ciri but before meeting Johnny

So many people say this is possible and I have seen the video of the kids at the orphanage, but is it really true? Can someone please give me a step by step guide on how to do this?

:sadelf:

There's a precise order to it. You need to begin Ladies of the Wood normally, as in go there, search for the orphage, follow the Trail of Treats until you find the children. Talk to them and Anna, exhaust all possibilites. When Anna takes the boy inside the house, talk to the other children and ask for their help in distracting Anna. Play hide and seek with them or give them sweets. Once Anna's out of the way, go in and talk to the boy about Johnny.

Then go find Johnny and help him reclaim his voice. Find the bottle with his voice and the feather. Give the voice to Johnny. Then when he agrees to help talk to Anna and tells you to follow him back to the orphanage, leave instead and go to the Whispering Hillock to find the Tree Spirit.

Find the bodies all around the hill (should be a man, a woman and a child). Fight and kill the wolves along the way. Should be a Place of Power there too. Activate it. Then enter the cave and talk to the Tree Spirit. Agree to do the ritual. You already have the feather. Follow the markers for the bones and find a black horse and return to the Tree Spirit to perform the ritual.

Once freed, it will possess the horse and leave. Now, go back to Crookback Bog and resume following Johnny back to the orphanage. Meet the Crones, agree to what they want which is to take the dagger to the guy in Downwarren for his offering. Return to the orphanage. The children will be gone and the Crones won't know what happened to them. Tell them that you freed the Spirit and they will realize that she must have freed them.

If you don't do things in that order, they will think Anna freed them and they will place a complex curse on her to punish her. It will turn her into a hag. Geralt can try to lift the curse but once removed, she will die. The Baron will be so despondent over her loss, that he will hang himself. You will later encounter his body hanging from a tree at Crow's Perch.

If you freed the Tree Spirit before starting Ladies of the Wood, the Crones will think Anna freed the children and curse her. If you freed the Spirit after meeting them, they won't. If you complete Ladies of the Wood without doing the Whispering Hillock, meaning you do it only when the Crones tell you to kill the Spirit and then you do kill it, the Crones will eat the children.

Once freed, the Spirit as the black horse, will go to Downwarren and punish those people for ordering a contract to have her killed. These people were not innocents. They have been offering orphans as sacrifices to appease the Crones in exchange for protection from the plague.

So with all that done, Tree Spirit freed, people of Downwarren punished and killed, children alive and free, Anna alive and safe and the Baron alive as well, it's the best possible outcome. The Baron will take Anna away to try and find a hermit who might be able to help her. The children have new names and new lives and are at a school in Novigrad. You can encounter them later on with no memory of what they've been through. And the Crones go on a diet.

but the kids are not alive though, the crones will mention eating the kids in the dialogue with Geralt, and I did not found any evidence in the novigrad school that the kids survived.
Geralt will also say in the cutscene that he killed the spirit. It's a glitch, not a "good outcome" or "best outcome" just unintended design from the fact that the game is open world allowing it to do things in a weird order.

[♠.brT]

Publicado originalmente por BuzzardBee:

No they won't if you do it in the order I specified. They'll even say "so that's what happened to them" or something of the sort. They won't say they have eaten the children if the Spirit is freed before meeting them for the first time. There is a note you can find in Novigrad that lists the names of the children saying that they are new to the school and all arrangements have been made for them.

If your Geralt is saying that he killed the spirit in a cutscene then something went very wrong, especially if you freed it instead.

It's logic not game design. They have Anna there to fatten the children so they can eat them. If you free the Spirit AFTER meeting them, the children will be missing and the Crones will think Anna freed them and curse her for disobeying them.

But if you free the Spirit BEFORE meeting them, lie to them and agree to do as they ask when the Spirit has already been freed, when you return, the children will already have been freed. Once you tell the Crones what you've done, they'll know you did it and not Anna and she won't be cursed.

The children are alive, the people of Downwarren are dead and punished, the Spirit is freed, Anna is alive and thus also the Baron. How is this not a good outcome?

What do you mean with "tell the crones what you have done"?
Do you mean the part where you tell the elderman what happened? Because in my case i just told him that he did not want to know. Could this be the cause?

Again in my case, i did it in the order you mention, i freed the spirit before following Jhonny back to the orphanage, and the game went on to be quite weird after that, with Geralt claiming that he killed the spirit, and the crones claiming to have eaten the kids, but then when geralt comes back to help the Baron, the Spirit was the one that destroyed the village.

[Ryan Gosling (literally me)]

Just kill the spirit, save the baron and ana and let the ugly unwanted children die.

[Deadbubble]

What I heard is that if you start the tree quest beforehand, before going to the Crones, you'll manage to free the kids, without getting Ana doomed.

[Ilrita]

Publicado originalmente por BuzzardBee:

Publicado originalmente por Ilrita:

I've restarted the game like ten times trying different things but nothing works. Anna is always saved, the witches mention that the kids are plump, Geralt says they are gone and the orphanage at Novigrad is empty and there is no letter (like there should be if it is successful).

I have searched high and low, asked many different people, and have gotten no response. Maybe you guys have the solution? I'm pretty desperate because I want to save the kids but I don't want the Baron to hang himself or Anna to die.

Methods I tried:
1: Free the spirit before starting any of the relevant quests
2: Free the spirit before going to the Bog
3: Free the spirit while following Johnny to the nest but BEFORE he guides you back to the orphanage
4: Free the spirit after giving Johnny his voice but walking away before arriving at the orphanage.
5: Free the spirit after talking to the kids about Johnny/Ciri but before meeting Johnny

So many people say this is possible and I have seen the video of the kids at the orphanage, but is it really true? Can someone please give me a step by step guide on how to do this?

There's a precise order to it. You need to begin Ladies of the Wood normally, as in go there, search for the orphage, follow the Trail of Treats until you find the children. Talk to them and Anna, exhaust all possibilites. When Anna takes the boy inside the house, talk to the other children and ask for their help in distracting Anna. Play hide and seek with them or give them sweets. Once Anna's out of the way, go in and talk to the boy about Johnny.

Then go find Johnny and help him reclaim his voice. Find the bottle with his voice and the feather. Give the voice to Johnny. Then when he agrees to help talk to Anna and tells you to follow him back to the orphanage, leave instead and go to the Whispering Hillock to find the Tree Spirit.

Find the bodies all around the hill (should be a man, a woman and a child). Fight and kill the wolves along the way. Should be a Place of Power there too. Activate it. Then enter the cave and talk to the Tree Spirit. Agree to do the ritual. You already have the feather. Follow the markers for the bones and find a black horse and return to the Tree Spirit to perform the ritual.

Once freed, it will possess the horse and leave. Now, go back to Crookback Bog and resume following Johnny back to the orphanage. Meet the Crones, agree to what they want which is to take the dagger to the guy in Downwarren for his offering. Return to the orphanage. The children will be gone and the Crones won't know what happened to them. Tell them that you freed the Spirit and they will realize that she must have freed them.

If you don't do things in that order, they will think Anna freed them and they will place a complex curse on her to punish her. It will turn her into a hag. Geralt can try to lift the curse but once removed, she will die. The Baron will be so despondent over her loss, that he will hang himself. You will later encounter his body hanging from a tree at Crow's Perch.

If you freed the Tree Spirit before starting Ladies of the Wood, the Crones will think Anna freed the children and curse her. If you freed the Spirit after meeting them, they won't. If you complete Ladies of the Wood without doing the Whispering Hillock, meaning you do it only when the Crones tell you to kill the Spirit and then you do kill it, the Crones will eat the children.

Once freed, the Spirit as the black horse, will go to Downwarren and punish those people for ordering a contract to have her killed. These people were not innocents. They have been offering orphans as sacrifices to appease the Crones in exchange for protection from the plague.

So with all that done, Tree Spirit freed, people of Downwarren punished and killed, children alive and free, Anna alive and safe and the Baron alive as well, it's the best possible outcome. The Baron will take Anna away to try and find a hermit who might be able to help her. The children have new names and new lives and are at a school in Novigrad. You can encounter them later on with no memory of what they've been through. And the Crones go on a diet.

This is the first time I've seen someone write out the steps, so thanks! I've got nothing better to do so I'm gonna try it right now. If it don't work, I'll just accept that it is either impossible at all or impossible on the latest patch.


I wonder though..is it possible they could have patched it out with 1.31?

[Ilrita]

Holy hell! It is working so far! Anna is alive and the Crones said the children were taken away. If you select "You used me" (after Geralt admits to freeing the spirit) one of the Crones will scream something like "It was her! She took the children!".

Now I just have to go through the Novigrad mission and see if the children are there. Crossing my fingers.

[♠.brT]

Publicado originalmente por Ilrita:

Holy hell! It is working so far! Anna is alive and the Crones said the children were taken away. If you select "You used me" (after Geralt admits to freeing the spirit) one of the Crones will scream something like "It was her! She took the children!".

Now I just have to go through the Novigrad mission and see if the children are there. Crossing my fingers. :2016popsicle:

Interesting, i guess i must have done something wrong.

When exactly do you admit to have freed the spirit? was it when talking with the elderman? or during a conversation with the crones? i only remember being able to admit this to the elderman, never to the crones.

[Ilrita]

Publicado originalmente por ♠.brT:

Publicado originalmente por Ilrita:

Holy hell! It is working so far! Anna is alive and the Crones said the children were taken away. If you select "You used me" (after Geralt admits to freeing the spirit) one of the Crones will scream something like "It was her! She took the children!".

Now I just have to go through the Novigrad mission and see if the children are there. Crossing my fingers.

Interesting, i guess i must have done something wrong.

When exactly do you admit to have freed the spirit? was it when talking with the elderman? or during a conversation with the crones? i only remember being able to admit this to the elderman, never to the crones.

After talking with the elderman. It'll automatically take you back to the orphanage and start the cutscene. After they "forgive" Anna for her transgression and toss her to the ground, you will be presented with three options; the yellow option (top), "you used me" (the middle option) and the bottom option, which is dialogue discussing how they don't look the same in person discussion. I talked to them about their appearance and then said "you used me" and it initiated the cutscene were they scream that the children were taken. After that, I just went through the cutscene normally. And then I went to tell the Baron and helped him rescue Anna. :)

EDIT

Okay, verbally/cutscene wise, you do save the children, but they aren't present at the school in Novigrad (waited until I had to visit the school on a mission). So either it is a bug (which would be odd considering the bug's voiced) or the spirit takes the kids for herself if you don't make a deal with her to save them. In the end though, it is possible to save Anna and get the kids away from the Crones—their futures are just not answered after that.

[Ryan Gosling (literally me)]

Publicado originalmente por Ilrita:

Holy hell! It is working so far! Anna is alive and the Crones said the children were taken away. If you select "You used me" (after Geralt admits to freeing the spirit) one of the Crones will scream something like "It was her! She took the children!".

Now I just have to go through the Novigrad mission and see if the children are there. Crossing my fingers. :2016popsicle:

Whoah

[Ilrita]

Publicado originalmente por A real human being:

Publicado originalmente por Ilrita:

Holy hell! It is working so far! Anna is alive and the Crones said the children were taken away. If you select "You used me" (after Geralt admits to freeing the spirit) one of the Crones will scream something like "It was her! She took the children!".

Now I just have to go through the Novigrad mission and see if the children are there. Crossing my fingers.

Whoah

They aren't in Novigrad so far though, so the spirit probably took them for herself or it was an unintentional option or maybe something that was supposed to be removed? Or maybe I'll find them somewhere in Velen...

[l'homme rouge]

how u guys know the tree spirit is evil?i dont see any clue he is evil

[Deadbubble]

Publicado originalmente por Doflamingo:

how u guys know the tree spirit is evil?i dont see any clue he is evil

Folk say they were four at first. The Mother, She-Who-Knows, the Lady of the Wood, came here from a faraway land and, since she suffered terribly from loneliness, she made three daughters out of dirt and water.

A long, long time ago the Mother was sole ruler of all of Velen. Her daughters brought her the people's requests and served as her voice. Each spring, sacrifices of grain, animals, and men were made to the Lady of the Wood on her special night. Yet as the years passed, the Lady of the Wood slipped deeper and deeper into madness. Her madness eventually spread over the land - men took to abandoning their homes and setting out into the bog, where they became food for beasts. Before long, Velen was drowning in blood.

The daughters saw their land nearing destruction and took it upon themselves to save it. When spring came once more, and with it the night sacrifices, they killed their mother and buried her in the bog. Her blood watered the oak atop Ard Cerbin, and from then on the tree grew wholesome and hearty fruit for the people. As for the Lady's immortal soul, it refused to leave its beloved land, and so the sisters imprisoned it. To this day it lies trapped beneath the Whispering Hillock, where it thrashes about in powerless rage.

Provided you think the book is factual, its worth noting that the Crones were the lesser evil in this instance...