Following the assassination of King Foltest of Temeria at the hands of Witcher, Geralt found himself derided as a kingslayer, a title he had to work hard to expunge. Six months later Geralt once again finds himself recruited into a plot to assassinate King Radovid of Redania. Despite Geralt’s much touted (albeit little practiced) disdain for politics, Radovid’s purges are already targeting mages, including some of Geralt’s closest friends, allies and lovers. Mages, alchemists, dopplers and heretics are already facing the pyre, nonhumans and mutants likely won’t be far behind. This page will cover the secondary quest A Deadly Plot in The Witcher 3.

Quest Objectives¶

Starting A Deadly Plot¶

There’s a lot going on with this quest, as it’s the last quest in the Radovid questline you can complete before completing the main quest The Isles of Mists, and you must complete it before the aforementioned quest. To start it you must complete every other Radovid-related quest up this point, including Redania’s Most Wanted (which in turn starts after completing Get Junior and A Favor for Radovid) and Eye for an Eye, as well as the Triss-related side quests A Matter of Life and Death and Now or Never. Complete all those quests and Dijkstra should give this quest to you at the end of Now or Never. You’re not locked into anything at this point, so don’t worry, but you do need to complete this quest to get all the Gwent cards, to complete [Gwent: Old Pals] and to earn the achievement Assassin of Kings. This questline also determines the fate of the northern realms at the end of the game, so while it’s technically a secondary quest, it’s a very, very important secondary quest.

Meet Dijkstra at the Passiflora¶

First up you’ll need to pay Dijkstra a visit, and he’s picked the town’s more prominent brothel as the meeting point for this conspiracy. Sounds a bit suspect, but talk to Marquise Serenity and you’ll find the place is actually rather well set up for such clandestine affairs… and a bit of a history with them, as you’ll be informed when you talk to Dijkstra. Eventually another collaborator will arrive and you’ll be tasked with doing some legwork - one of their co-conspirators has gone missing, and like many other political figures, they want to use Geralt to track this missing person down.

Find the Missing Co-Conspirator¶

Now that you have your charge, head to the Border Post in the middle of the Pontar (south of Novigrad) and talk to a soldier named Gregor there to get a better lead on the co-conspirator you’re looking for. This co-conspirator - disguised as a cobbler - has gone missing, but his cart was found on the road nearby. Follow the road southeast from the Border Post and you’ll eventually stumble across a cobbler’s cart - the big shoe is… quite an interesting touch.

Use your Witcher senses to detect signs of a scuffle, then track a trail of… shoes… leading into the forest. These lead southwest to another road, where you’ll find a Rock Troll standing out in the open. Talk to the troll and he’ll tell you that, upon seeing the large shoe atop the cobbler’s cart, the trolls decided the cobbler could make troll-sized shoes for them so they could be all fancy-like. Anyways, your cobbler is in a nearby cave to the southeast, the site of a [Monster Den], in fact, that previously housed Nekkers if you visited before this quest (they’ll return after the quest, too, if you drop by again for whatever reason).

Find the Superior Ursine Armor Diagrams¶

Be sure to loot a chest on a scaffolding outside the cave, and another just to the right of the cave entrance, then head inside. You can also grab a Candle Lantern off a wooden post near the entrance of the cave - if you equip it, it’ll provide some light for you. In any event, make your way south into the cave’s interior and search an alcove to the left (northeast) to find several chests, including one containing the complete Superior Ursine Witcher armor set (armor, gauntlets, trousers and boots). No harm in grabbing these now, even if you can’t craft them until you first find the normal [Ursine Witcher set] and the enhanced variants. Not that you’re likely high enough level for them even if you could craft them, anyways.

Free Thaler from the Rock Trolls¶

Continue to the end of the cave to reach a large cavern, where two Rock Trolls are busy abusing the foul language taught to them by their captive, Thaler, a Temerian spy from the first Witcher game. The trolls want shoes and are loathe to give up their pet cobbler until they get them… and they’re also jealous of Geralt’s fancy shoes, as well they should be. Being trolls, however, they’re not that bright, and you can talk them into letting Thaler go by picking the following dialog options:

• “I need this man. He’s coming with me.”
• “Need him for a minute, no more. He’ll be back.”

If you pick a fight instead you’ll have to put down three Rock Trolls (Lv16) - presumably the one outside comes back in when he hears the commotion. This cavern is fairly large, but with three Rock Trolls things could still get hectic. Be prepared to dodge-spam, try to keep a troll between you and a distant troll so they’ll hit each other with the rocks they throw, use the strong attack + dodge combo to whittle down their health, and use Quen to negate the odd hit. It may take a bit of doing, but they’ll fall eventually. Aside from the somewhat rare troll materials they drop, however, there’s not much incentive for killing them.

Search the cavern for another generous chest, then leave the cave and escort Thaler back to his cobblermobile. Once back at the cart talk to Thaler and deplete his dialog options to learn about his life since Foltest’s death, which will complete the quest and earn you 25 EXP in the process.

Play Gwent with Thaler¶

Before you leave, talk to Thaler again and now that the quest dialog for A Deadly Plot is gone you’ll be able to challenge him to a game of Gwent. Do so and best his unremarkable Scoia’tael deck to win the Geralt of Rivia card from him, a 15 strength hero card that can (and arguably should) be used in any deck. Thaler is one of the players you need to defeat during Gwent: Old Pals, and you don’t need a recommendation or invitation to challenge him, so get it out of the way now.