Chapter One: The Lilac and Gooseberries of It All
This blogger's tale begins near White Orchard, with the witcher Geralt of Rivia wandering the Temerian countryside at wartime to find his raven-haired lover, Yennefer of Vengerberg.
PLEASE BE ADVISED: This blog series (obviously) contains major spoilers for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
This blogger's tale begins near White Orchard, with the witcher Geralt of Rivia wandering the Temerian countryside at wartime to find his really really ridiculously good looking raven-haired lover of yore, the sorceress Yennefer of Vengerberg. You may recognize her from such hits as being totally hot in your bedchamber during the cutscene at the beginning of the tutorial. That's also where this avid fan of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt began their first-ever Death March run of the game over five years after buying it.
“But wait, Nat! You've been playing Witcher since 2017; why haven't you done Death March until now?”
Honestly? I'm a baby who does not like my video games frustratingly difficult, and tbh, I kind of think that's okay? Like, I'm not knocking anyone who does enjoy that, but I've sunk enough hours into this game that I don't feel like it drops my credit as a fan of the game just because I haven't beat it on the hardest difficulty. Also, walking into this game with zero understanding of how to play it five years ago was difficult enough, and I definitely put it down for months a few times because of that. I picked it back up as an escape, and lately, I've been using Witcher as an escape mechanism again, so I thought I'd give Death March a whirl with this playthrough.
Now, let's get down to business. I have to say, I didn’t do as badly as I thought I would.
What did we do?
After riding into the village in White Orchard with Vesemir and shooing off a griffin that was enjoying a nice entree of workhorse before moving to his dessert of the merchant riding it, Geralt spoke to Gaunter O'Dimm, in all his ominousness. But hey, the man knows Yennefer has been here and that she visited the Nilfgaardian garrison, and he also knows who Geralt is and all about their love story by the grace of the bard Dandelion. Off to the garrison while Vesemir drinks schnapps and plays Gwent at the inn.
On the way to the garrison, I helped one of my favorite NPCs in the game and definitely my favorite in White Orchard (a hotly contested title). This old woman had her only frying pan stolen by a soldier, who, upon Geralt’s investigation of the abandoned hut the soldier’s corpse is locked inside, needed the soot from the blackened frying pan to make ink and write letters. The woman is amazed by the transformation of her previously gunk-caked pan and sends you on your way with 5 baked apples. It’s not much, but it’s honest work.
At the garrison, Geralt spoke to the Nilfgaardian Commander, Captain Peter Saar-Something. The guy is smedium relatable to the point of almost appearing human, and tells Geralt that he’ll tell him of Yennefer’s whereabouts if Geralt kills the griffin that’s been prowling the area and snacking on merchants and horses like we saw on our way to the village. Geralt needs some things first: to talk to the hunter who found the bodies of Captain Pete’s dead soldiers, and a lead on where to acquire some buckthorn to bait the beast.
I always go to Tomira the herbalist first, even though I like her and the hunter pretty much equally, because frankly, she’s hot. She’s tending to a victim of the griffin and tells Geralt where to find his buckthorn. He presses her about the victim and ends up brewing her a dose of Swallow for her wounds—it’s not a guaranteed shot at helping, Geralt explains, but it’s better than doing nothing, and Tomira likes that.
Then it’s time to see the hunter, Mislav, so he can lead us to the site where he discovered the bodies. First, he asks if Geralt minds a quick detour to kill some of the man wild dogs that roam the area. I always agree, because that’s how I found out that Mislav is also lowkey my favorite because he’s the victim of a gay romantic tragedy. After pressing him about being “a freak” (and Geralt saying a little too smoothly that he’s a freak too), Mislav admits that the wild dog victim on the ground in front of them is the guy who caught Mislav and his noble lover in the stables together, ultimately causing the lover to hang himself, his Lord father to become an inconsolable alcoholic, and Mislav to be driven from the village. Oof, I feel for you, bud.
The actual finding of the necessary tools and information is a bit more formulaic; Geralt finds footsteps leading from the site where the bodies were found to the griffin’s nest, where he discovers the corpse of a female royal griffin, killed in her sleep presumably by the soldiers the male later killed. He skedaddles on over to the river to find the buckthorn of the riverbed and yippee, we’re ready to catch us a royal griffin.
Except, then, because I was barely level 2 and didn't want to get eaten by a royal griffin, I went to find Dune Vildenvert's brother alongside him and his brother's dog. Bastien was hiding in a hut with a Nilfgaardian who saved his life. It was kinda cool; I stumbled upon their farm for the first time later in my exploring and the Nilfgaardian was there making stew for everyone.
And then I still wasn't level 3 (this leveling rate is BRUTAL) and I'm not about to go into a large boss fight underleveled, so I hit up some points of interest. My level-up plus a few places of power allowed me to acquire gourmet and fully upgrade my exploding shield. I marginally upgraded some armor and weaponry after finding things in the wild. Knocked down a bandit camp at Amavet Fortress and got the Viper steel sword diagram (which, the leader of that camp was level 5, so not bad at all).
I liberated a few abandoned sites, and then I had been able to loot or buy enough alchemy materials that I could finally craft bombs and I took out some monster nests. I actually really dipped into alchemy because I found some formulas with a hidden treasure, and then some guy in the White Orchard fields got mad that I picked his herbs. Bro, they're plants; they’re gonna grow back. Calm down please.
The rest was mostly treasure; some bandit camps and some guarded and hidden ones. I did, overall, fuck up some pretty strong enemies at level 2 (a few level 5 humans/creatures and a level 6 bear). [Geralt voice] Not bad. Oh, and at some point, I somehow became overencumbered by an old goat hide????
In the spirit of the level grind, I also investigated my good friend, the Devil by the Well, Claer the noonwraith. After diving into her well to retrieve her bracelet from the bottom and setting it on fire with her bones, I drove her out of there, freeing the well for the contract giver who didn’t want any more people drinking corpse water out of the river and getting incredibly sick like his daughter. Ordinarily I let him keep her dowry, but I really need the money tbh. Sorry, guy.
Having mostly run out of things to do, I went to tell Vesemir about the griffin contract arrangement and went right to the field to set the trap. Then, I somehow killed the griffin on my first try with a surprising amount of help from Igni—and with almost no help from my starter silver sword, which is pretty terrible! There were some close calls there. Having just come off a playthrough where I’d totally maxed myself out to the point of being overpowered, I definitely got a bit too confident sometimes.
And with the dead griffin comes Nilfgaardian money and the famed Yennefer! Vesemir is going to peace out now, because he doesn't think The White Flame Dancing on the Graves of His Foes would like it very much if he went to Vizima with Geralt and Yen. After pursuit by riders of the Wild Hunt, the pair makes it safely to Vizima, where Geralt promptly has his clothes removed, limbs bathed, facial hair shaved off (sad, tbh—I like him with a trimmed beard), and Witcher 2 exploits tied in without importing a save file. I usually keep everyone alive except for Síle (too hard to see Yennefer's reaction to seeing her nearly dead in Deireadh later on), and I side with Roche. After dressing up in a stifling black and white doublet and Geralt's confirmation for the chamberlain that he can, in fact, bow, we're off to see the emperor.
Then we get to the good stuff: Emperor Emhyr wants to talk to Geralt about his biological daughter, Cirilla, aka actually Geralt's daughter on all levels except biological, who has returned from another world, and Yennefer has leads on her whereabouts. They have to split up, regrettably, and Geralt gets his clothes back (smelling of citrus and cloves—thanks bunches, Mr. Chamberlain) and heads off to Velen.
What did we learn?
Combat strategy: Since probably 60% of combat instances are more than one enemy, lure enemies away to isolate 1-2 of them and make it harder to be ganged up on. Try to land strong attacks whenever you can do so without making yourself vulnerable to a huge hit.
Weapon strategy: Switch out weapons for better ones where you can; it goes a longer way than I expected. I'm seeing the direct contrast between my starter silver sword and my looted steel one. I cut bandits into 8 slices of deserteroni but almost get killed by ghouls of the same level.
Bandit camps: When every bit of vitality matters (and now it always does), taking out the low-level crossbow dudes first is an essential strategy so you can focus on the big guys without having to dodge bolts.
Death Count: 3
Unprepared for the first monsters of the game; killed fighting ghouls.
Walked into a group of drowners guarding a treasure by the Ransacked Village; grew overconfident and was killed in under a minute.
Accidentally cast Aard instead of Quen walking into a bandit camp, alerting the entire camp to my presence without time for me to get ready to actually fight; knocked to low health with a battle axe and finished off with a crossbow shot.
NOTE: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is the intellectual property of the appropriate copyright holders, including the screencaps from the game I have included in this essay. I have no official affiliation with CDPR or anyone else associated with the game/books/universe; I’m just a fan who plays Witcher to cope.