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frywen-bumbles · 16 days ago

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Maps of Kaer Morhen

I was, as I do, rereading @inexplicifics's Accidental Warlord AU and trying to visualise the keep therein described. I also happened to be at the same time replaying the Witcher 3 (as I do), and inevitably I started wondering what the games' Kaer Morhen would have looked and worked like in the school's hayday - and thus a new project was born. I'll put my process and thoughts behind a read more for those who are interested, but first:

What these maps are: maps of Kaer Morhen based upon what we see in The Witcher 1 and The Witcher 3 plus way too much thought and analysis. They're also a proposed explanation for what the extremely ruined building you run through in the prologue with Ciri is.

What these maps are not: in any way meant to be definitive, or better than other ideas and interpretations. The games are just one of several sources, and I had to make a fair few educated guesses too during the making of these maps. It is also not Inex's interpretation, nor is it meant to be. Her work is what has given me the inspiration for this project, but I was not trying to base this off of her AU (though that is definitely a fun thought for another time).

What I hope they'll be: something useful for fic writers of the fandom, and just for fun for other map-enthusiasts like me. Take these as is, or only parts, or whatever you want - they're yours to play with now. (These are strictly game canon so they don't include any fanon hot springs, but if you're a hot spring truther like me look under the read more.)

I might one day add an 'environ of KM' map to the collection, especially if anyone other than me is interested lol. I've taken tw1 notes for it but I'd have to redownload TW3 again first. But this has been enough ado, so!

(You may notice, there are windows portrayed on the keep's map that would open up into the rock of the mountainside. How the hell that's possible, I leave up to you because I've given up, but both games are adamant that there are in fact both windows and mountain there. That's the one thought I couldn't leave behind the read more because it has driven me entirely insane.)

Important Questions.

What is the old keep?

and why that name, you may ask, and you would be right to do so. It's the deeply ruined building you run through during the prologue of the Witcher 3 if you choose to race the walls with Ciri. I spent a lot of time pondering what it might have been and despairing over the ruins left over that seemed to make little to no sense, but I absolutely love it now.

There is no indication whatsoever as to its function within the game, so everything here is purely from my analysis. Now, I want to preface this by saying that I'm relying on intentional design on the part of devs, the same devs who put windows into the mountainside, so maybe take it with a pinch of salt. But whether or not this was intended as its past function, I do think it works very well.

(The physical layout of it is based on what we see in the game, and I'm very proud of that with how little ruins are left. The only part I had to extrapolate is how high the side buildings were and where doors might have been on the destroyed or inaccessible walls. There are no windows on the map because none are visible on the standing walls, though I imagine there must have been some; maybe they all opened up towards the first courtyard.)

I thought for a while the building might have been a forge; but then why is there a small forge in the first courtyard, and it'd be very large for a forge anyway. A guesthouse, maybe, but why would they need one; a place for trainees to stay and not bother the witchers, but we know they stayed up on the other side of the valley; a place for established witchers to stay during the winter, but why have it be separate from the main keep? It opens up from the first courtyard, and there is no entry into the main part of it from that level; and there are so many staircases right next to each other??

To make it all make sense I propose that it is the first keep they built in Kaer Morhen, that the school eventually outgrew and abandoned as it expanded into the current keep. This would explain why it's so ruined: it would have had much less use or worth once the big keep was built, and it likely fell to the wayside when it comes to repairs even before the sacking. This way, we can understand the additions to the building towards the lower courtyard as an entrance building, and it makes sense why it's not accessible from the main keep - when it was built, the first courtyard was the only courtyard! The overabundance of stairs and the "random" thick wall make sense too if the entrance building was actually two separate buildings built to create a labyrinthine entrance to the keep.

This means that we get a super cool look into what the school was like at its very foundation! It is of course impossible to know what each room would have been used for, but one can imagine. My one guess is that kitchen was the highest floor of the side building (if there was an inside kitchen at all), because it being a bit separated and on the top floor makes the danger of fire less risky.

What about these hot springs??

You are absolutely right, this is a vital question. I see two possibilities for where any hot springs might be located, based on what we see of the basement in the Witcher 1.

First, it's entirely possible that one of the hallways we can't actually go into leads to them, though it would logically have to be one of the hallways towards the mass of the mountain. We also get no true indication of how far into the mountain the keep stretches (think of the left side extension of the main keep), so there could be plenty of space for hot springs. While this is perfectly plausible though, it doesn't fit in with the way the hot springs are usually written in fanon (a level all of their own), and it might be a bit strange to have to go through a laboratory or the mausoleum to get to them anyway.

So option n2 is simply that there is a second basement level underneath what we see in tw1. For sticklers to evidence like me, inaccessible levels have precedence in both games but especially tw3 - nothing was built that wasn't strictly necessary for game play. In tw1 you can get down to the basement through only one staircase out of at least two existing ones, so though that staircase doesn't go lower than the basement, the other one easily could (and it's in a more central location re: the basement anyway).

So in my mind, the hot springs are a second basement level, and you can access them through the right main tower staircase, but (god I sound like an influencer) tell me what y'all think?? If you read this far you surely have some Thoughts.

Technical Stuff.

Order of sources.

Where multiple sources contradict, I took the Witcher 3 version over the Witcher 1, because it is a later edition and presumably the devs made the changes on purpose. (Presumably.) And I took inside maps over the outside maps because otherwise I was going to go crazy. (Still not sure I haven't.) This is where that extra little protrusion to the front of the main keep comes from: there's an extra entrance room there on the inside map of the keep that's not reflected on the outside design. Sigh. Not to mention the windows literally everywhere, and the doors that open to nowhere, and the towers that have different heights from inside and out. At some point it becomes very obvious that separate teams were in charge of creating the inside and the outside of Kaer Morhen.

Immediate edit - what measurement I'm using.

I'm simply walking around with Geralt. Every step he takes is 1ft. It's a little bit unbalanced in tw3 because his walking and running step lengths differ, but I did my best to walk only when counting. Tw1 is very straightforward and reliable in this sense.

Notes of Overthinking: Walls.

We get very little indication of which sections of the walls are traversible inside and which are not. Some definitely are, because the wooden (half-circle) lean-tos could only be accessible from within the walls, and others definitely aren't because we can see that where ruins opened them up, but for most it's an open question. I took what is certain from the games, and tried to assign the rest in a way to make sense, i.e. make sure every hollow wall has an entrance point and a reason for existence. (Hollow walls are useful for safely getting from point A to point B during a siege, but they weaken the overall structural integrity of the wall.)

The height of the walls is also somewhat of a guesstimate - I tried to compare them to each other because there's no good way to measure vertical distance in the game(s). They should be at least roughly accurate, but I won't swear to that.

Notes of Overthinking: Main Keep Side Attachment.

So on the outside view of the keep, there's a big large attachment to the main keep on the left of it (viewed facing the doors). It doesn't appear on the inner map at all and so there's no indication as to how far it might extend into the mountain. It also doesn't seem accessible from the main keep, or if it is, it must be through the basement since we see the entirety of the keep's ground floor and there's no doors there. (This is what the "To Walls" hallway on the basement map is for.)

It's more likely accessible from the walls, with the possible basement access secondary (it seems kind of insane to have to go down and go up again, unless what is in this part is super protected and it's all labyrinthine on purpose). Similarly we've no ways of knowing whether it's one ginormous single room or if it isn't, what the configuration of rooms is within. I've no idea what it might have been used for; the possibilities are simply endless without any hints.

(It is, however, placed in a way that makes me think of the small council room in Inex's work that opens up from the main hall. Is this what I think is actually going on? No, but it's fun.)

Other Main Keep Fuckery.

Speaking of the main keep, some other things that have driven me to some extent of madness: towers and floors. From the inside map, both games agree that there are two floors plus tower rooms (plus basement): ground floor, accessible in both games, and the first floor, accessible in tw1 but its door visible in both games. However, and this is a theme, the outside view of both games is clearly more levels than that.

This is one of the rare cases where I prioritised the outside view, because it seems clear that that is what the devs actually envisioned. The reason it's not matched on the inside map is likely not wanting to make the tower that tall: if none of the extra floors are accessible, having to climb that much would just be annoying to the player. So I get why, but still.

Also, of course the rotation of the windows doesn't match up either, and the orientation of the tower doors doesn't either. Honestly the front tower with the balconies is a sweet relief because they were actually pressed to make it make sense there.

Last Thoughts: Grounds.

Three last thoughts. The numbers on the grounds map are all 100% matched from the game(s) except for the one titled cell. It's a small, single-storey building with a front wall made of iron bars. It doesn't seem particularly suitable for storing things: it's cumbersome to enter, and isn't placed by the gate so getting there would already be going halfway up to the keep. The one thing I can think of it being is a small cell, most likely for drunk witchers to chill out until they sober up. (Drunk tanks were very common during the medieval period, at least in Western Europe; in fact, few prisons existed outside of castles that were for anything other than storing drunk and disorderly people for the night.)

Second last thought: man, the entrance building (to the first courtyard from outside) does not make ANY sense. The inside and outside shapes are different, and there's no staircases, or space for staircases, for entering the three towers on it. Staircases from the ground up would of course be inadvisable because they'd give a quick way to the walls for anyone who's broken down the walls, but you can get to the top battlement through the walls; why not stairs from there?? The biggest of the three towers even has a partially built out interior (since it's been partially broken), but no way to get to it; neither staircases nor even a door. Come onnnn devs pls.

Last last thought: Savolla's breach. For those who haven't played The Witcher 1, Savolla is one of the baddies of the game who assaults Kaer Morhen at the very beginning of the game and steals the last of the school's mutagens. He gets into the inner courtyard by blowing a hole in the wall, the one that you go through with Lambert in tw3 on your quest to activate the philactery. You don't really get to explore the area in tw1 (you're far more restricted in where you can go there), but from what we see in tw3, there's a well-trodden path from the breach down to the lake, even a small bridge. I don't think the time that passes between the beginning of tw1 and tw3 is enough for this to have been made (the bridge yes, but the path is far too well-trodden to be only from Lambert's fishing trips, especially since he's not constantly in the keep either). There's no side door into the keep on that side in either game (and maybe Savolla would have used that if it existed - though maybe he just liked being dramatic and blowing holes in walls. He looks the type), but I argue there should be one, if the path is like it is. It could open from the back tower on that side, just like on the right side of the main keep (which is where you go through for Vesemir's funeral).

In Conclusion

I spent way too much thought on this project and an absolutely enormous amount of deeply enjoyable hours drawing the maps, and I can sadly only say I'm even more obsessed with it all than I was before. I have a lot more thoughts floating all around but I think this is long enough and I don't have anything clever left to say.

Please, please tell me your thoughts because I have been living this project for the past several months and I need to share this hole I dug. Jump in with meeeeee I promise everything is sane in here!!

(I also accidentally published this mid-writing, sorry to all who saw it and especially to Inex who was tagged superfluously that way.)

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