Forefathers' Eve is a secondary quest in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
Walkthrough[]
After completing A Towerful of Mice, the pellar will contact you at one of two possible locations, depending on whether the botchling part of Family Matters has already been completed or not. If it was, he will contact you at Crow's Perch near Fergus Graem's forge, otherwise the pellar will be outside Keira's hut. In any case, the pellar will ask you to help protect him and a group of villagers during the Forefathers' Eve ritual on Fyke Isle.
You must meet him at the stone circle on the isle at midnight, however this really means just at night, so as early as 10pm will work. You'll know you can start when the pellar is chanting as you approach him. Talk to him and you can start. Once you do, you'll need to fight off all the monsters that will attack during the ritual.
The Ritual[]
Once the ritual begins, it'll start to rain and the pellar will lead a chant. Once he says "Let's begin Forefathers' Eve" a water hag with several drowners and a couple drowned dead will appear and attack you. Note that Geralt's vitality is fully restored once the water hag and drowners are defeated.
Once you defeat them, the pellar will summon a ghost, who turns out to be his father, Ambros. However he is interrupted by three witch hunters who believe that the ritual is a rite of necromancy. You can either chose to keep defending the pellar and peasants or you can leave (which will end the quest). Whichever choice you make, you'll get 200 
, either after declining to fight them or after the second part of the ritual. Note that choosing to not help the pellar here will make him unavailable as a merchant in the future.
If you choose to defend the pellar, kill the witch hunters, which will unfortunately taint the ritual grounds with blood, thus unintentionally calling the ghosts of men who seek to kill. In this case, it means wraiths will appear and the pellar helps you fight them. Note: the amount of witch hunters and wraiths appearing can be up to 4 each, but depends on difficulty level.
Burn the body[]
After the confrontation, Geralt will inform the pellar he needs to permanently destroy his father's body to prevent his wraith from returning and the pellar will say it lies in the swamps. Thankfully your marker is a bit more precise and will show a location west of The Orphans of Crookback Bog. Make your way out here and use your Witcher Senses to find it. You'll most likely run into some rotfiends, so take care of them, then head towards the very center of the search area, and you should find the remains. Once found, examine it then ignite the corpse with Igni to destroy it and its ties to the world.
Return to the pellar's hut and tell him that you took care of the body. Doing so will finish the quest, earning you 50 + 50 
, and unlocks a 10% discount with all merchants (regardless of type) in Velen and White Orchard. However, be aware that this also reduces the selling price of items.
Journal entry[]
- During his travels through No Man's Land Geralt ran into the pellar once more. The strange fellow had a favor to ask of the witcher. He wanted Geralt to help him perform a cherished local peasant rite known as Forefathers' Eve. During this ritual, he explained, lost spirits are summoned and their deeds judged - fantastic material, by the way, for a poet looking to make his name with an atmospheric ballad. This Forefathers' Eve was set to be held at midnight on Fyke Isle, and Geralt, having no other plans and his curiosity piqued, promised to attend.
- On Fyke Isle the pellar led the witcher through the arcane rites that marked the opening of Forefathers' Eve. Alas and alack, uninvited guests then arrived and threatened to break up the ritual before its conclusion. The witch hunters considered what the peasants practiced on Fyke Isle to be vile necromancy, and demanded they stop it at once.
- If Geralt helps the pellar:
- Abandoning his rule of not taking sides in others' affairs, the witcher chose to defend the ritual's participants. Predictably, this did not please the witch hunters one bit. A bloody fight broke out on Fyke Isle, and though it ended in victory for Geralt, it had a disastrous effect on the rest of the ritual.
- Geralt had defended the peasants from the witch hunters' persecution, but spilled much blood in order to do so, sullying the sacred ground. Forefathers' Eve could not continue, but the pellar had one more request for Geralt. He wanted him to find and burn the body of Old Ambros. This man was the pellar's father, a cruel brute who returned from the dead to continue tormenting his son. Burning the body was a way to resolve the pellar's issues with his father and send the ghost of Old Ambros into the nether realms for good.
- If Geralt doesn't help the pellar:
- Witchers do their best to remain neutral, and so Geralt felt he should not get involved in what was, in the end, a dispute between humans. He thus did not lift a finger as the witch hunters scattered the peasants and brought the ritual to a premature conclusion.
- As you can imagine, the pellar was not pleased by Geralt's indifference in the face of the witch hunters' persecution. Many a bitter word was uttered and then each went his own way.
Objectives[]
- Meet the pellar in the stone circle on Fyke Isle at midnight.
- If you said you need to prepare:
- Talk to the pellar and prepare for Forefathers' Eve.
- Protect the ritual's participants.
- If you choose to side with the pellar:
- Defeat the witch hunters.
- Defeat the wraiths.
- Find the body of the pellar's father in the swamps using your Witcher Senses.
- Burn the pellar's father's body.
- Talk to the pellar. (50
)
Notes[]
- In the Pellar's hut, a letter begging him to perform the ritual can be found.
Trivia[]
- The original Polish name of the quest and the ritual is Dziady, which was a Slavic pagan ritual commemorating the dead, held twice a year. The rhyme the Pellar and the mob chant in the game bears similarity to a fragment of the poetic drama Dziady (Forefathers' Eve in its English translation) by 19th-century Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz. The plot of the poem also involved summoning ghosts.
Videos[]
