Line #63 NightmareFuel/TheWitcher3WildHunt


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6	[[caption-width-right:350:Everything about the Crones is just... Wait until you hear about what they do to a child.]]
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10	[[foldercontrol]]
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12	[[folder:Main Game]]
13	* Geralt's dream in the prologue segues into this as the Wild Hunt assaults Kaer Morhen, leaving Yennefer, Ciri, and the witchers present frozen in ice, trapped and unable to do anything but [[ForcedToWatch watch]] as Eredin motions one of his warriors to kill Ciri...
14	** The moment Geralt realises something is wrong is when he spots the practice dummy Ciri was training with is ''bleeding''. He goes to investigate... [[DecapitationPresentation and finds Yennefer's severed head stuffed inside it]].
15	* The White Orchard tavern fight at the end of the prologue, from the point of view of the onlookers. They see a group of men, who are most likely drunk, accost two strangers, who then proceed to kill all of them with little effort (depending on how well you play, it could be over in less than ten seconds). Do they say "thank you for taking care of those ruffians"? Of course not, they're absolutely terrified, and tell Geralt and Vesemir to get out and never come back. No wonder witchers are so feared. Also, there's no way to avoid this fight. In a bit of dark irony, this is one of the first opportunities in the game to get the "Butcher of Blaviken" achievement, for killing 5 opponents in 10 seconds or less. It seems Geralt can't escape his reputation wherever he goes.
16	* The events on Fyke Isle in Velen is huge for two reasons - first is that the peasantry decided to RapePillageAndBurn the place because the Lord and his family had fled there, but even worse is that the mage had given Annabelle, the daughter, a potion to drink if she were found. Rather than poison, it was a sleeping potion - but this [[AndIMustScream kept her paralyzed]] as [[FateWorseThanDeath the rats devoured her alive]].
17	** Which isn't to say the tower's inhabitants were entirely innocent. The mage Alexander conducted experiments with plague rats, then with live human subjects, while researching the Catriona plague, and the Lord was fully aware of this. So the peasants did deliver some sort of justice... for entirely the wrong reason.
18	* The Botchling, which is a thing straight from real-life fairy tales. A miscarried child which was abandoned without proper rites coming back from the dead to haunt the family which abandoned it.
19	** And 'haunting' translates to causing miscarriages or even murdering pregnant women and infants.
20	* The entire concept of the ''Ladies of the Wood''. The all-seeing, all-hearing god-like entities who capture and eat children are like something out of the very darkest fairy-tales.
21	** The tapestry scene is one of the most unsettling scenes in the entire game. From the tapestry being made of genuine human hair, to it being surrounded by candles and skulls as a bastardized religious object, to [[https://www.pcgamesn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/the-witcher-3-witches-tapestry.jpg the tapestry itself]] showing the Crones as beautiful women in the act of implied human sacrifice, it's incredibly eerie. The Crones use the tapestry to communicate; this is done by having a villager touch the tapestry, in which the Crone instantly possesses them and talks through them, and the villagers are ''completely fine'' with this. Close-up shots of the unmoving faces of the Crones on the tapestry while they talk in their creepy, creepy voices is far more unnerving than a moving painting. Finally, [[SchmuckBait shoot Igni on the tapestry after the Crones give you their dagger.]] You'll hear a woman screaming. [[NoSell Geralt might not be frightened by the entire scene at all]], but the player certainly will be.
22	** The horrifying realization that ''you can't rescue the children you just met'' if you refuse to let an EldritchAbomination out of a tree. If you do, it destroys a nearby village and can lead to the Bloody Baron's suicide, if you aren't careful in your dealings with him.
23	*** Later, you come across the Ladies of the Wood in their nubile young female forms, [[FanDisservice covered in blood and eating human flesh.]]
24	** The orphans in the swamp are handling their situation quite well. But you really should think twice about asking Johnny's friend what happened to his parents.
25	** What makes things arguably worse, is that the Ladies are the closest thing this region has to a BigGood; it is noted, throughout the region [=NPCs=] chatter and dialogue, that the Ladies do keep their bargains and promises, although sometimes with a dash of JackassGenie thrown in. [[SarcasmMode All they ask in return]] is offerings, usually of [[{{Squick}} ''severed ears and children to consume.'']]
26	* The witch hunts in general but also what happens to Keira Metz in particular if you let her go seek amnesty from Radovid with Alexander's research. You later find her on the streets of Novigrad, impaled on a stake with the bloody tip starting to stick out from her mouth.
27	** Sile, the proud Sorceress and villain from ''The Witcher 2'' is found in the dungeons of Temple Isle if you spared her. She's been shaved, tortured, beaten, and possibly sexually abused to the point of death. ''She begs you to kill her.''
28	** Even those involved in the hunts aren't safe. Radovid cheerfully tells Geralt [[DisproportionateRetribution what he did to would-be bounty hunters who wasted his time]] with false information about Philippa Eilhart's whereabouts; one who presented him with a dead owl missing its eyes [[EyeScream got his own pulled out]] before [[KillItWithWater being thrown in a lake with a rock tied round his neck]], while a postmaster who claimed to have a letter from Philippa [[{{Fingore}} got his fingers cut off]] and [[TongueTrauma his tongue pulled out]] so he could never write nor speak a lie again.
29	* King Radovid explaining why he plays chess: he imagines that the pieces are living and breathing human beings (more specifically, his real-life subjects and enemies), which he then "kills" in order to, in his words, "squeeze the truth from them" and "reveal the game's secret". This is your first encounter with the ruler of the free North, and it's already plain to see that he is ''completely insane''.
30	* Whoreson Junior's residence's upstairs which contains almost a dozen freshly-murdered prostitutes whose blood he's taken to bathe in.
31	* The scene where Yen uses forbidden, arcane black magic to reanimate a terrified, pain-wracked corpse in order to extract information from him on Ciri's whereabouts is chillingly disturbing -- even Geralt is visibly shaken by the experience. Yennefer herself describes the experience as feeling like she had stuck wriggling cockroaches inside her mouth.
32	** Worse, Yennefer shoots down the attempt by Geralt to calm his wounded spirit. She doesn't believe it's really a person after all.
33	* The "Concerned Citizen" serial killer from the Carnal Sins sidequest in Novigrad tortures his victims in ways so brutal even Geralt, who is no stranger to horror and brutality, is visibly disgusted. Even in this CrapsackWorld, it still manages to be one of the darkest quests in the game.
34	** The killer's MO is to bind the victim, gouge out the eyes to replace with burning coals, their heart carved out and replaced with a salamander egg, and pouring formaldehyde down their throat. RuleOfSymbolism is in full force as well, as the killer is on an extreme version of a ScareEmStraight campaign in the name of the Church of Eternal Fire. It bears mentioning that all of this is done ''while the victim is alive'', with the killer taking pains to keep them that way until the torture is finished.
35	** The RedHerring in the form of the ObviouslyEvil former torturer church official is equally scary as a brutal sadist who enjoys torturing helpless women, claiming no higher purpose to it beyond his own pleasure and satisfaction. Made worse by the fact that if, after catching him red-handed torturing a prostitute, you leap to the obvious conclusion that he's the killer and kill him without talking to him, the actual killer may continue with his work.
36	*** The worst part? Even after killing the actual murderer, other "Concerned Citizen" sermons can be found in Novigrad, indicating that he had, indeed, lit a spark.
37	** An extra layer of horror is added when you learn, in ''Blood & Wine'', that higher vampires can't be truly killed except by another higher vampire. All it would take is another vampire like Detlaff to bring Hubert Rejk back to life.
38	*** It might not be that bad, however. The distinction made between 'higher' vampires and Higher Vampires only shows up in Blood & Wine. Bruxae, alps, and other stronger vampires are all officially higher vampires though none are said to have the same qualities as a Higher Vampire. In all likelihood it was meant for Rejk to identify as a stronger vampire, as he's still just a katakan, as opposed to someone on the level of Detlaff or Regis.
39	* A Hym possesses people that have committed horrible crimes and forces them to hurt themselves. Even horribly mutilating themselves in the later stages. One might think that wouldn't be bad, but they only latch on to guilt. Meaning [[TheSociopath sociopaths]], psychopaths, and [[ObliviouslyEvil people who honestly don't believe they're doing anything wrong]] won't attract it. It's highly likely that [[TheAtoner someone that would do anything to make up for their actions]] would be the most susceptible to possession.
40	** It's worse than that, even. You don't actually have to commit the crime, you just have to believe you did. While this comes in handy for tricking the Hym away from its victim (by making someone believe they've done something horrible, and then showing them the truth once the Hym's let the first victim go), it means the Hym's haunting isn't necessarily deserved. For Udalryk, his "crime" was [[SurvivorsGuilt failing to rescue his brother]], because he couldn't hear Aki drowning until it was too late. The guilt over this accident made Udalryk the Hym's victim for years, causing him to eventually [[EyeScream gouge out his own eye]]. It's basically PTSD in demon form, at least for some of its victims.
41	* We finally get an idea of what Geralt and the other Witchers went through in order to become Witchers. Yennefer uses only the first stage of the Trial of the Grasses, the Trial that allows their bodies to accept mutations to try and Cure Uma into his true form; the poor recipient of the potions used is in absolute agony for ''hours'' as their body essentially breaks down to become more malleable, and made even worse when you remember a few facts about Witchers. Firstly, over half to three quarters of the boys who underwent this ''died'', and secondly most of them were barely teens to young adults when they went through it.
42	* After completing the mission 'Witcher Wannabe' if you go inside the small building with two angel statues on either side of the door you can find a small chest. Then, when you leave... the angel statues have moved to stare at you and are in the middle of the cementary. Walk past them and then rotate the camera to look at them; they have turned AGAIN to stare at you. Do it one more time and they are GONE. There are [[Series/DoctorWho Weeping Angels]] in Velen.
43	* When Geralt takes a number of potions in a short span of time, his Toxicity level rises high enough to show dark splotches and veins on his face. However, many of the most heartwarming scenes are immediately after major boss battles. It's difficult to say "aww, Geralt does love Ciri" while he looks like a Sith Lord. This is worse on a New Game+ where you use Euphoria, a skill that nearly doubles your damage so long as you have high toxicity, and so you look like that constantly.
44	* The Next Gen update adds a new quest called "In the Eternal Fire's Shadow" which is pretty creepy. Three hundred years ago the Church of the Eternal Fire used the Devil's Pit salt mine in Velen to quarantine (meaning "leave to die") plague victims. These turned out to be ideal conditions to create a disease spirit called a Red Miasmal, then they made things worse by hiring a Witcher named Reinald to kill it. See, the Miasmal's main ability is controlling plague victims to do its bidding, but they gradually die due to PossessionBurnout. But Witchers can be possessed indefinitely, so now Geralt has to deal with an army of [[PlagueZombie plague zombies]] and a PlagueZombie Witcher as a boss. [[spoiler: Most frightening of all is that if he loses, the Miasmal will actually ''possess Geralt's corpse.'']]
45	[[/folder]]
46
47	[[folder:Hearts of Stone]]
48	* Everything to do with Gaunter O'Dimm. The man is the [[SatanicArchetype closest equivalent to the ''Witcherverse'' version of the Devil]].
49	** Best summed up in the following exchange:
50	---> '''Gaunter:''' Do you really wish to know what I am?
51	---> '''Geralt:''' Yes.
52	---> '''Gaunter:''' ''No,'' Geralt. You '''don't.''' This one time I shall spare you and ''not'' grant your wish.
53	*** For context, Gaunter ''never'' passes an opportunity to grant a poorly worded wish for some poor soul. For him to show restraint in this context suggests [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow just how out of bounds that knowledge really is.]]
54	*** In addition, when Gaunter tells Geralt YouDontWantToKnow, it looks like [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou he's staring right at the player.]]
55	** Seeing him steal Olgierd's soul by aging him and reducing him to ash before nonchalantly tossing about his skull is particularly chilling.
56	** Even people who don't make pacts with Gaunter can suffer terribly. The professor you meet has gone blind from simply learning about Gaunter and spent years inside a protective circle out of fear. When knocked out of the circle he immediately dies due to a misstep.
57	*** Just before you leave the room, [[SchmuckBait extinguish the candles]] around the circle. The moment the lights are out, you hear the terrifying sounds of ''something'' escaping from inside the circle. [[NothingIsScarier Something that even as a witcher, Geralt cannot see but only hear]].
58	*** You can read the blind professor's memoirs which reveals something terrifying and tragic in equal measure: The professor was tormented by horrible nightmares, until he saw his daughter in his dreams - he didn't actually have a daughter in real life, but he came to believe he had one in his dreams. She was beautiful and intelligent and he loved her dearly, and over time he came to look forward to sleeping so he could enjoy watching her grow up. And then one day she caught a sickness, withered and died in his arms, filled with boils and pus. Even when Master Mirror has taken everything away from you, he can find ways to take even more.
59	** Another victim of Gaunter's sinister DisproportionateRetribution: as Geralt arrives for a meeting at a tavern, O'Dimm waves him over from across the room. Before Geralt can approach, he's accosted by a ''very'' inebriated fellow who wants the Witcher to share (and presumably buy) a drink with him. Gaunter freezes time so the two can finally be free from harassment, but as soon as business is concluded, he walks over to he drunkard, chastises him for interrupting, and ''drives a spoon handle through the man's eye socket''. He's dead instantly as soon as time starts back up.
60	** If you choose to best him in a battle of wits, Gaunter decides to let the mask of human form [[http://witcherhour.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/gaunter.jpg slip off]] partially, revealing his HellishPupils, his face crawling with TaintedVeins and is now babbling in BlackSpeech. And that otherworldly scream when he's banished, it only hammers in that Gaunter is something... [[HumanoidAbomination wrong.]]
61	** In certain endings of the main game, the dwarves you meet on the Isle of Mists will discuss how they were hired to steal a chalice by a certain "Mister Mirrory." This can happen ''after'' you've finished Hearts of Stone, and if it does, Geralt will do an alarmed little [[DoubleTake double-take]]. Gaunter O'Dimm was right - [[InvincibleVillain he'll always be back]].
62	** His Leitmotif is pretty creepy. The OST version has lyrics, [[SarcasmMode for added enjoyment]]. Even better, they're sung like an IronicNurseryRhyme.
63	--->"His smile fair as spring, as towards him he draws you;
64	--->[[FauxAffablyEvil His tongue sharp and silvery as he implores you.]]
65	--->[[DealWithTheDevil Your wishes he grants, as he swears to adore you,]]
66	--->Gold, silver, jewels - he lays riches before you.
67	--->Dues need be repaid and he will come for you
68	--->All to reclaim, no smile to console you.
69	--->[[DraggedOffToHell He'll snare you in bonds, eyes glowing afire]]
70	--->[[FateWorseThanDeath To gore and torment you till the stars expire!]]"
71	* Both scenes in which we learn about Olgierd's CompleteImmortality. If Geralt choses to fight him to save the man he was about to have executed, Geralt ends the fight by slashing Olgierd's neck, nearly severing it and causing it to dangle at his back. Cue Olgierd applauding and complimenting Geralt's skill completely nonchalantly ''as his neck stump spews and gurgles blood'' before he reattaches his head.
72	** If, on the other hand, Geralt lets the execution go through, Olgierd is impaled with a sword by the daughter of the noble his men murdered. Olgierd simply has one of his men remove the sword, and his complete indifference can be chilling.
73	** In either case, Olgierd's men show no reaction whatsoever to the seemingly fatal wound. In fact, in the scenario where the noble's daughter attacks him, one of his men removes the sword for him completely straight faced.
74	* Everything about the Von Everec estate and the haunting atsmosphere that lingers around it.
75	** Right before you enter the estate, you encounter a thief. Moments later Geralt and the thief watch a hooded figure draw a corpse towards the backyard. Geralt follows the trail. After a run-in with a seemingly possessed cat and dog who warn you, you run into the figure. It appears to be digging graves with an absurdly large spade that doubles as blade. When Geralt gets closer, the figure removes its hood, revealing it to be what seems to be an animated, stitched together body with [[TheFaceless no face]]. The creature [[Film/{{Smiley}} invokes the image of a certain smiling character...]]
76	*** A particularly unnerving thing regarding the Caretaker is that Geralt, the pre-eminent witcher, who knows the traits of so many monsters both common and obscure with the bare minimum of information, [[NothingIsScarier has no idea what the creature is or where it came from.]] And all he is told is that it came from "very far away".
77	** The wraith of Iris which calls out to Geralt as he enters the building, occasionally popping out of Paintings to scream at him and has objects drop and fall in an attempt to hurt him as he explores the mansion. Then in one room the doors to a dim hallway open rather ominously on their own. Upon entering, all the lights go out, a green glow appears in the distance and the wraith appears to do battle.
78	** The world within Iris' dream, depicting the history she and Olgierd had together. Geralt has to solve some minor puzzles to piece together the various memories. As he does so, you discover the SanitySlippage on Olgierd's part, ultimately culminating in him killing his father in law, locking Iris into the mansion with the haunted cat and dog and the Smiley expy, who serves as her ''caretaker''. Finally, you face Iris' Nightmare: a collection of deranged and physically twisted manifestations of Olgierd, who ominously speak to you as you fight them - the personifications of what Olgierd has become under O' Dimm's pact.
79	* In one of the new areas unlocked by the DLC, Geralt comes across an abandoned old chapel haunted by a particularly vicious wraith. After dispatching the wraith, Geralt finds a journal on a nearby body that reveals the wraith was the wife of the dead man, who'd apparently been [[IWasQuiteALooker a great beauty in her youth]], but slowly sank into [[GreenEyedMonster jealousy]] of the couple's three daughters as her looks faded. The journal says that any mention that the girls had inherited their mother's looks was enough to [[BerserkButton set her off in a jealous rage]]. The penultimate entry states that the guy came home one night to find the bodies of his drowned and mutilated daughters in the chapel grounds and his wife standing on a stool under a tree with a noose around her neck, [[ItsAllAboutMe raging that the girls had taken her beauty, the one thing she cared about]] before [[DrivenToSuicide jumping off the stool]]. The final entry (implied to have been written before the unfortunate husband's own suicide) reveals he'd sold everything he owned to the Church of the Eternal Fire in a desperate effort to gain his wife's forgiveness in the afterlife, as well as blaming himself for not seeing the warning signs. A particularly scary quest for anyone who's seen or experienced the effects of postnatal depression.
80	* Another of the new areas in the DLC brings Geralt to an abandoned castle haunted by an ancient leshen. After dealing with the monster and exploring the ruins, Geralt discovers the castle belonged to an [[EvilOldFolks elderly count]] who [[ImpoverishedPatrician tried to restore his diminished fortunes by]] [[IHaveYourWife taking the children of nearby nobles hostage]] and demanding a ransom. The last girl they kidnapped turned out to have been marked by a leshen, which moved into the forests around the castle and killed anyone it caught in the woods. When only a handful of people were left alive, the count heard killing a person marked by a leshen could destroy it, [[WouldHurtAChild driving him to murder the girl in desperation]]... which did nothing because, as any witcher knows, killing one marked by a leshen doesn't destroy the monster, only allows it to be destroyed. Geralt finds the count's body amidst the ruins; it is implied that after killing the girl, he and his surviving staff left the castle, confident they were safe, only to be killed by the leshen anyway.
81	[[/folder]]
82
83	[[folder:Blood & Wine]]
84
85	* The spotted wight's curse is strongly hinted to be caused by Gaunter O'Dimm, as all she can remember of the vagrant she had slighted was "that he sold mirrors". Gaunter's spoon fixation is also an element of the curse placed upon her.
86	** Also, if Geralt removes the curse, Gaunter O'Dimm's theme song plays while he's telling the wight's story to Barnabas-Basil.
87	* Regis' GameFace is straight out of nightmares. The torture he forces himself to endure the first time he shows it in order to help Geralt and Dettlaff, doubly so.
88	* Seeing Regis and Dettlaff go through Dun Tynne in search of Rhena, they butcher the enemy like something out of a horror film. Fast, powerful, and unstoppable. And Regis is the one who views himself as a pacifistic humanitarian! To compare, Geralt is at his peak at this point of the game, a walking one-man army, and you are barely able to keep up as the two vampires slaughtering everyone in front of him.
89	* Although Dettlaff isn't actively malicious, he is incredibly emotional and impulsive, and his anger is all but directionless, lashing at anyone in his vicinity. When he learns that the love of his life had used him as a pawn, he promptly declares war on Beauclair itself, swarming the city with lesser vampires in a massive temper tantrum, filling the streets with blood and death, just to force her to show herself one last time.
90	* The Unseen Elder is an ancient, extremely powerful vampire who is basically a demigod in terms of power and difficulty to kill. Even Regis, a higher vampire himself, is scared shitless of the Unseen Elder. Upon meeting him, he paralysis Regis and effortlessly knocks Geralt to the brink of death with a single strike. You then must find your way through his lair, an EldritchLocation where the laws of physics have been warped. When you finally convince him to speak with you by presenting him an offering, you only get ''one'' side question before requesting his help. Asking a second question will cause him to lose patience and kill Geralt. After he agrees to help you and allows Geralt and Regis to leave his lair, Regis comments that the meeting went ''better'' than he expected because the Unseen Elder didn't simply kill the two of them.
91	* The final confrontation with Detlaff is both awesome and terrifying. After damaging him enough, he will unleash his OneWingedAngel form and it is downright hideous, resembling a demon-like monstrosity with a very long neck and claws, no facial features besides a monstrous mouth, wings and hooked appendages. His attacks aren't anything to laugh at either, dealing massive damage. If pushed even further, he creates a dome of flesh, hiding in a core while attacking you with amorphous blobs of blood with his likeness, which he controls.
92	-->'''Detlaff:''' [[LetsGetDangerous If you acknowledge any Gods]]... [[UnstoppableRage start praying now!]]
93	* When Sylvia Anna says that being told of the curse was a blessing to her parents as it gave them the excuse to abuse her. In a game that otherwise specializes in supernatural monsters, that bit of human psychological insight strikes much closer to home.
94	* If you let Syanna die in the finale, then during your subsequent imprisonment the guards arrange for you to witness a gruesome execution just to prove to Geralt that the prosecution is playing for keeps this time.
95	* The vampire prison of Tesham Mutna is a terrifying location, so much that Geralt senses evil hanging in the air. Originally built by vampires to trap an exceptionally AxCrazy member of their kind, it turned into a horrific torture chamber for humans as well. Human prisoners were left in cells and forcibly bled to let the disgraced vampire suffer as he could smell their blood, but never taste it. There's even a library filled with books that essentially talk about ''breeding and maintaining humans for vampire consumption''. [[SinsOfOurFathers Regis finds the entire place disgraceful]].
96	[[/folder]]

Context NightmareFuel / TheWitcher3WildHunt