The Witcher 3: Wild Huntfeatures a variety of monsters. Many of which started appearing after the Conjunction of the Spheres. Others, however, are victims of terrible circumstances, their mind and physical features twisted by cursed magic. One such creature is the Botchling.
To encounter a botchling, the player must progress through the main questline ofThe Witcher 3: Wild Huntuntil they trigger “Family Matters.” Here, Geralt will be tasked with tracking down Baron Phillip Strenger’s missing family members, and Geralt believes a botchling will be able to help.
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The Wrath of an Unborn Soul
A botchling is a cursed creaturethat comes in the form of a malformed fetus, the product of an improper burial for an unwanted, stillborn infant. As such, the creature’s skin appears raw and slimy as it had never fully formed on the once-human child. Much of the botchling’s other features are also misshapen. Its eyes have grown dark, and rows of sharp teeth have sprouted in its mouth — an effect of the curse and its twisted magic.
Botchlings are angry, hateful creatures filled with an insatiable hunger. When they awaken at night, these creatures hunt for pregnant women from whom they can feed. At first, they merely prowl close to the soon-to-be mother’s bedside, draining her and her unborn child of their strength. This causes the motherto experience frightful nightmares.
As the feeding continues, the woman grows weaker and more delirious. Finally, when she is at her most vulnerable, the botchling feeds directly. The creature sinks its teeth into the woman anddrains her body of blooduntil both she and her unborn child are killed.
When a botchling has had its fill, it canchange into a more fearsome monster. Its torso will grow, and its limbs will extend until the creature is the size of a small human. However, it will not stand upright and, instead, carry itself like an ape, attacking with fangs and claws. In this larger form, the botchling is much more difficult to deal with. Depending on the player’s decisions inThe Witcher 3, it may come to this.
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The Botchling in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
The quest “Family Matters”has Geralt traveling to Velen to ask the Bloody Baron if he’s seen Ciri. He has, but in exchange for his information, the Baron asks that Geralt find his wife, Anna Strenger, and his daughter, Tamara Strenger. Geralt agrees, and his investigation reveals that the Baron’s family life isn’t as clear-cut as it initially seemed.
When the Baron left for war some years ago, Anna and Tamara were left in their home. During this time, Anna had an affair with another man, sending the Baron into a fit of rage when he returned. He ended up killing the other man and taking his wife and child back home. Since then, Anna has resented him. It’s also when the beatings began.
The Baron became a violent drunkard who beat his wife whenever she taunted and prodded him. He didn’t relent, even when she was pregnant, and this supposedly led to a miscarriage (though Geralt later learns this isn’t the case). Following the miscarriage, the mother and daughterdecided to leave Crow’s Perch. Upon learning this, a fight broke out between the Baron and his wife, but Anna and Tamara still managed to escape.
When things calmed down, the Baron went to his and Anna’s bedchamber. There, he saw bloodied sheets and the body of his miscarried daughter. Not wanting to look at it any longer, the Baron wrapped it in a cloth and buried it. Before long,it turned into a botchling. When Geralt learns of the existence of the Baron’s unborn daughter, he seeks it out.
Geralt believes that the botchling’s blood ties are a strong enough bond to lead him to the Baron’s family, which is whyhe convinces the Baronto take him to its burial site. Once there, the player is given a choice between attacking the botchling and attempting a ritual to calm it.
Kill the Botchling or Summon the Lubberkin?
If the player decides to attack the botchling, the creature will change into its larger form and attack. This will end with the player killing it and the Baron berating Geralt for his actions. Thequest then prompts Geraltto take a vial of the creature’s blood to a pellar who can perform the ritual to find out where Anna and Tamara are. Thus ends the botchling’s short life.
The alternative is to try and calm the botchling to turn it into a lubberkin. This is commonly regarded as the “better”option among theWitcher 3community. Even the Baron himself requests that Geralt refrain from killing his cursed daughter. To do this, Geralt has the Baron pick the botchling up and carry it back to his home. Once there, the Baron must recite an incantation before burying it beneath the threshold of his home.
One interesting thing to note here is that the incantations for both the calming ritual and the blood ritual are similar. They begin with the same lines — “by the powers of earth and sky, by the world that was to be your home,” but deviate in vastly different directions in the following verses. The calming ritual has the Baron asking for the botchling’s forgiveness, naming it, then accepting it as his daughter. Meanwhile, the blood ritual is much more morbid, with the pellar calling for the child’s spirit with names like, “Blood Unborn,” and “Blood Never Named.”
After the botchling has been buried, the curse will be lifted, and it willrise again as a lubberkin— an ethereal guardian spirit that watches over “the house it never could call home.” This allows Geralt to summon the unborn child’s spirit and ask that it lead him to Anna and Tamara. This, again, is where the botchling’s life ends, but unlike in the other option, something kinder rises in its place.
Botchlings are simply unborn children who yearn for the warmth of family but never got it. They’re tragic monsters, twisted and distorted by hatred and malice. And they’re a blunt reminder that not allmonsters inThe Witcher 3are monstrous.
The Witcher 3: Wild Huntis available now on PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
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