The Witcher 3 Kaer Morhen Allies: Full Crew Checklist

The easiest way to keep Lambert alive at the Battle of Kaer Morhen is settled on Fyke Isle, in a level-8 Velen side quest, during an argument about plague notes. Send Keira Metz to Kaer Morhen at the end of For the Advancement of Learning and she steps in when the Hunt has Lambert surrounded. Don't, and you have to reach him yourself in time. Arrive late and the funeral after the battle is for two witchers, not one.

That is how the whole recruitment system works. The four Brothers In Arms quests only appear once Uma's curse is lifted, but most of what decides who answers them was settled hours earlier, in side quests. Steam's global stats show the result: 24.5% of Steam players have Something More, the achievement for finding Ciri on the Isle of Mists, and 19.0% have Full Crew. The battle follows the island inside a locked run of main quests, so that 5.5-point gap is roughly the share of players who sailed short-handed — a bit more than one in five of the players who got that far.

Here is every ally, what each one needs, what they actually change once the Hunt arrives, and the quests that fail the moment you sail.

Seven allies count, three more can come

The Witcher wiki's Full Crew page names exactly seven characters the achievement requires. Recruit all of them, with every Brothers In Arms objective green, and the game pays twice: 50 XP on the Isle of Mists objective to recruit your friends, then an extra 1,000 XP at the start of The Battle of Kaer Morhen, on top of the quest's own 2,700.

Three more fighters can turn up that the achievement doesn't require: Folan and Vigi the Loon, who come with Hjalmar, and Letho, who has a section of his own below because his condition lives in a different game.

One more box to tick. The battle's walkthrough defines "all possible allies" as every green mark across the Brothers In Arms quests, with Triss's Now or Never included even though she always turns up. Brothers In Arms: Nilfgaard is one of those four quests. Nobody comes from it, but it is one conversation in Vizima, so do it before you sail.

Keira decides whether Lambert lives

Keira's presence changes another character's fate, and the wiki's Lambert page lays out all three branches:

• Keira came: the Hunt nearly kills Lambert, Keira arrives in time, and the two leave Kaer Morhen together after Vesemir's funeral. This is where their relationship starts.
• Keira stayed away, Geralt got there: you save Lambert yourself. The battle walkthrough's advice is to drop straight down rather than run the walls, and kill the attackers before they finish him.
• Keira stayed away, Geralt was late: Lambert dies, and the funeral is for him as well as Vesemir.

Getting her there means clearing her whole chain before the Isle of Mists: An Invitation from Keira Metz, A Towerful of Mice, A Favor for a Friend, and For the Advancement of Learning. All four carry the Isle of Mists cutoff on their own wiki pages. Do them first and Brothers In Arms: Velen resolves itself the moment it appears.

The decision comes at the tower on Fyke Isle, where Keira is leaving with Alexander's notes on the Catriona plague to bargain with Radovid. The Kaer Morhen suggestion is offered exactly once in that conversation, and the exact dialogue path is in our romance guide. Let her go to Radovid and Brothers In Arms: Velen fails, and a later main quest called A Final Kindness shows you how that went. Demand the notes and she fights you to the death.

She is also useful before the fighting starts. At Kaer Morhen she works as an alchemist, alongside Zoltan's armorer stall.

Hjalmar takes four Skellige quests

Ermion takes one conversation. Hjalmar takes a four-quest chain, in order:

1. Possession (level 17), Cerys's investigation on Spikeroog.
2. The Lord of Undvik (level 17), Hjalmar's giant hunt.
3. King's Gambit (level 18), which starts automatically once both of those are done. After the massacre at Kaer Trolde you must choose to help Cerys or Hjalmar. Either works.
4. Coronation (level 18), where whoever you helped is crowned. Then ask Hjalmar.

The wiki's Full Crew page says either Possession or The Lord of Undvik is enough. The King's Gambit page, which is the one that actually gates this, says the quest starts after both. Do both.

Two ways to lose him. Refuse to help either sibling in King's Gambit and Svanrige takes the throne, Coronation never appears, and Brothers In Arms: Skellige sits on its succession objective until it fails. Let King's Gambit fail outright instead of making that choice, and the wiki says Cerys and Hjalmar later die in battle side by side.

Whoever takes the crown, Hjalmar comes. Cerys doesn't. If she was crowned, she says she is sending you her best warrior, her brother, but he was coming either way.

Hjalmar's two optional companions both come from The Lord of Undvik:

• Folan is in an ice troll's cauldron. Kill the trolls, or win their riddle game. The first riddle's answer is "troll". Miss it and you get a second riddle, whose answer is "rocks", and missing that one costs Folan his life.
• Vigi the Loon is caged in the giant's lair. Free him without stepping on snow and without pre-casting Quen, or the giant wakes and kills him. Our boss fights guide covers the giant itself. Vigi's journal entry is blunt about how Kaer Morhen goes for him: he fights well, and he falls in battle.

Crach an Craite won't fight either. Once Possession and The Lord of Undvik are done he gives you Winter's Blade instead, a steel sword that has scaled with your level since Patch 4.0, as long as you carry it. The wiki points out the irony: it is no use in the battle it was meant to help with, because the Wild Hunt takes silver. Our New Game Plus guide has its numbers.

Novigrad: four recruits and two traps

Novigrad hands out four of the seven (Ves comes with Roche), and two of the recruitments come with a trap attached.

Zoltan's trap is the quest you meant to finish. He says yes the moment you ask. But if A Dangerous Game, his level-12 hunt for three rare gwent cards, isn't done when you ask, it fails on the spot, because he leaves for Kaer Morhen straight away. Finish the cards first, then recruit him.

Roche's trap is a timer. After the main quest Get Junior, talk to Roche again and he gives you An Eye for an Eye (level 12): Ves has gone rogue and is fighting Nilfgaardians in Mulbrydale. Ves can die in that fight, which fails the quest, and Roche won't come to Kaer Morhen if she is dead. Ride straight to her. The choice about the wounded Nilfgaardian afterwards doesn't matter for recruitment. The Brothers In Arms: Novigrad page also flags a bug: talk to Roche and back out without asking for help, and the option can vanish. Ask the first time it appears.

An Eye for an Eye is also one of the three assassin quests behind Reason of State, the quest that decides the North and gates Ciri's Empress ending in our endings guide. The wiki notes Reason of State can still unlock with An Eye for an Eye failed, as long as A Deadly Plot is done and you bribe Dijkstra in Blindingly Obvious. So failing it costs you Roche and Ves at Kaer Morhen, not the political ending.

Triss has no trap. She comes regardless. Finish Now or Never (level 14) anyway, because the 1,000 XP bonus wants her green mark and the quest fails at the Isle of Mists like the rest.

Dijkstra has a payout instead of a sword arm. He won't fight. But if you asked Caleb Menge about his stolen treasure during the main quest Count Reuven's Treasure, he hands over 50 XP, 1,000 crowns, a Greater Devana runestone, a Greater Stribog runestone and Diagram: Tracker's gauntlets. Skip the question and he gives you nothing. Both runestones are covered in our runestones and glyphs guide.

Letho depends on a save from another game

Letho can only come if he survived The Witcher 2, and the default is that he didn't. Start a new game without simulating or importing a Witcher 2 save and the wiki's list of developer-set choices includes Killed Letho. Ghosts of the Past never appears.

Two ways to keep him alive:

• Simulate the save. Pick the simulated option in the main menu, and during Geralt's visit to the Royal Palace in Vizima at the end of the prologue you are questioned about The Witcher 2. Spare Letho there.
• Import a Witcher 2 save in which you spared him. The wiki notes that imports sometimes fail to trigger Ghosts of the Past even when Letho lived, possibly more often in New Game Plus, and its fix is to simulate instead.

Then find him. Ghosts of the Past (level 6) starts at the trapped farmstead of Reardon Manor near Lindenvale. After the fight at the farm, go with him to find Louis and stay close, because if you stray too far the quest completes and you never see him again. At the end, whether or not you intervened at Lindenvale, choose to invite him to Kaer Morhen. Our best side quests guide covers why the quest is worth doing for its own sake.

At the battle he joins Geralt and Lambert in the woods to close the Hunt's first three portals. Your other allies are furious that you brought the assassin of kings, but it is dialogue only, with no mechanical cost. He doesn't count for Full Crew or the 1,000 XP.

The four who stay home

Four characters get asked and say no. None of them is a failure on your part.

The Brothers In Arms: Nilfgaard walkthrough lists no option to accept Emhyr's terms. Geralt walks out either way.

The quests that fail when you sail

As you near the Isle of Mists, the game offers a save, calls it a vital moment, and asks if you are sure you want to go. It isn't exaggerating. The Isle of Mists quest page lists 25 quests that fail or become unavailable once you go, and 15 of them are part of the recruitment web above. That list is not complete: two more Keira quests, Magic Lamp (the short quest before An Invitation from Keira Metz) and An Invitation from Keira Metz itself, carry the same Isle of Mists cutoff on their own wiki pages, which makes at least 27.

Berengar's Blade is the odd one. Its real cutoff is the council inside The Battle of Kaer Morhen, but Vesemir can't be spoken to once you sail, so start it before the Isle of Mists: find Berengar's notes at Kaer Morhen, ask Vesemir, and kill the chort in the cave he points you to. The same cave holds Diagram: Superior Wolven boots.

Four more things close on the way through, none of them a quest on that list:

• Free travel between regions is disabled from the point of no return until you complete Bald Mountain.
• Your stash. The battle walkthrough calls the pre-battle stop at Kaer Morhen your last chance to pull repair kits and equipment from storage for a long time.
• Gaunter O'Dimm's advice about Ciri. At the end of Hearts of Stone he can tell you how to get a better ending for her, but only if you finish the expansion before The Isle of Mists. Timing is in our Hearts of Stone guide.
• Full XP on leftover quests. The Isle of Mists walkthrough notes the locked sequence pays out a total of 10,000 XP, suggests finishing a few quests above level 22 before you go, and warns you may only get 5% XP from them afterwards.

The council: potions or traps, walls or armory

Once you are back at Kaer Morhen, fast travel and calling Roach are both disabled, so anything left in the valley is on foot. Most of your recruits can be talked to on the way to the keep, then the council asks two questions.

The Rose of Shaerrawed is a relic silver sword with three slots, +12% chance to stagger, and matching Yrden and Axii intensity bonuses rolled between 2% and 13%. That is a real pickup for a sign build short on silver. If you already carry a good silver sword, take the walls, and take the potions too, since fewer enemies means you need the traps less. Patching the walls is permanent, though. It seals Lambert's shortcut out of the fortress for the rest of the game.

After the council, two barrels of White Gull in the keep let you top up alchemy one last time, and there is an armor table and grindstone. Once Geralt nears the doorway, manual saving is off for the whole battle; checkpoint autosaves still happen. Nothing you kill in the battle gives XP, so don't farm it.

Does Remastered change any of this?

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered ships on 29 September, and CD PROJEKT RED published its patch notes today. They list two quest fixes: one for the Forgotten Wolf School Gear diagrams not showing after In the Eternal Fire's Shadow, and one for a fast-travel progression block in Wine is Sacred. Nothing in them touches the Brothers In Arms quests, the Isle of Mists or The Battle of Kaer Morhen. The gameplay changes they do list include the skill system, monster combat behaviour, movement, the camera, a new Reforge appearance service and the UI.

This page describes the quest logic of the current build and was checked against those notes, not against a playable Remastered build. CD PROJEKT RED's support article says existing saves "should work with no issues", with skills and settings reset so you can reallocate them immediately. So a save sitting before the Isle of Mists today is still before the Isle of Mists tomorrow. Our Remastered saves and mods post covers that article.

Quick Action Checklist

• Finish Keira's four quests and send her to Kaer Morhen on Fyke Isle. The option appears once, and she is what keeps Lambert alive.
• Do Possession and The Lord of Undvik, back Cerys or Hjalmar in King's Gambit, attend Coronation, then ask Hjalmar.
• On Undvik, save Folan from the trolls ("troll", then "rocks") and free Vigi without touching snow or pre-casting Quen.
• Finish A Dangerous Game before asking Zoltan for help, or it fails when you ask.
• After Get Junior, take An Eye for an Eye from Roche and reach Ves before she dies. Ask Roche for help the first time the option appears.
• Complete Now or Never for Triss's green mark, and talk to Emhyr in Vizima to close Brothers In Arms: Nilfgaard.
• Ask Caleb Menge about Dijkstra's treasure during Count Reuven's Treasure for Dijkstra's 1,000-crown payout later.
• Want Letho? Simulate a Witcher 2 save and spare him in Vizima, then invite him to Kaer Morhen at the end of Ghosts of the Past.
• Start Berengar's Blade and finish Hearts of Stone before sailing. Clear anything else on the cutoff list you care about.
• At the council, take the armory only if you need a silver sword for a sign build. Otherwise patch the walls and brew potions.