The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Reach Kaer Morhen and Get Wolf School Gear

The key point first: Where the Cat and Wolf Play… does not unlock Kaer Morhen, and it does not directly lead to Wolf School Armor. These are two separate tracks in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. The Honorton quest is a free DLC side quest in Velen tied to Cat School themes and the silver sword Teigr. Kaer Morhen, by contrast, is locked behind the main story quest Ugly Baby – Das hässliche Entlein in German. If the goal is efficient progression, treat them separately: clear Honorton for its rewards and narrative choice, then advance the main story until Kaer Morhen opens and the Wolf School gear hunt becomes practical.

Where the Cat and Wolf Play: where to start and what it actually rewards

Where the Cat and Wolf Play… was added as free DLC and is now included in the Complete Edition. You can begin it in one of two reliable ways: pick up Contract: The Beast of Honorton from the notice board at Crow’s Perch, or simply enter Honorton itself, south of Crow’s Perch in Velen. The area is balanced around a stronger midgame Geralt, so level 25 is a sensible baseline. If you arrive underleveled, the opening fight against alghouls is still possible, but the quest stops being efficient.

This matters because the quest is often lumped together with Cat or Wolf School gear discussions due to its name. In practice, the reward structure is narrower. You complete it for Teigr, crowns if you spare Gaetan, and one of the tighter side stories in Velen. You do not complete it to open a route to Kaer Morhen.

• Start location: Honorton, south of Crow’s Perch
• Recommended level: around 25
• Main reward: Teigr silver sword
• Conditional reward: 250 crowns if you spare Gaetan
• Not a reward: access to Kaer Morhen or Wolf School armor

The Honorton investigation route that avoids wasted time

Once the alghouls are cleared, the efficient approach is not to sweep the village at random. Use Witcher Senses and work through the four clue locations that actually advance the quest. The village is small, but the scene is spread out enough that players often miss one trigger and assume the quest is stuck.

• Large northern house: examine the dead woman with the slit throat and nearby signs of struggle.
• Western huts: inspect the blood trail and the bodies around the smaller homes.
• Southern barn: check the interior for evidence even though no monster is waiting inside.
• Ealdorman’s hut: this is the critical reveal, because the Cat School medallion on the corpse shifts the investigation away from monsters and toward another witcher.

The structure of the quest becomes clearer after the ealdorman’s hut. The massacre was not caused by the alghouls overrunning the village first; the alghouls are only feeding on the aftermath. That distinction is why the quest remains memorable. Honorton is a crime scene, not a monster nest.

After the clue chain, a cutscene shows Millie fleeing. From there, follow the marked trail out of the village. This section is straightforward if Witcher Senses stay active. If the tracker seems vague, return to the last confirmed blood trace rather than circling the entire village. The game expects a linear read of the scene.

Tracking Gaetan and choosing kill or spare

The trail leads past a stone circle and onward to the injured Cat School witcher, Gaetan. There may be wolves on the route, but they are only a delay, not the real difficulty. The real decision point is the conversation. Gaetan claims the villagers refused payment for a contract, attacked him, and triggered the slaughter. The game does not remove the ambiguity. It only forces a judgment.

From a pure reward standpoint, sparing Gaetan is the cleaner outcome. You still receive Teigr, but through the follow-up objective Take What You Want, and you also receive 250 crowns. Killing him gives Teigr immediately from the body, but no crown bonus. If the priority is maximum loot from one pass, sparing is the better result.

• Kill Gaetan: immediate duel, immediate access to Teigr from his corpse
• Spare Gaetan: additional crowns and Teigr from his stash through the follow-up objective

If you do choose to fight, treat it as a fast one-on-one duel rather than a normal bandit cleanup. A defensive sign like Quen and short dodges are more reliable than greedy combos. The arena is small and the exchange is brief. The larger practical warning comes after the confrontation: do not wander off to loot the countryside or resume exploration immediately. Finish the immediate objective chain and remain close to the quest flow around Millie until the quest fully resolves. This sequence is known to punish players who move too far away too soon.

Kaer Morhen: when the region unlocks and why fast travel does not work earlier

Kaer Morhen is story-gated. There is no secret mountain pass, no boat route, and no early detour that bypasses the lock. The region opens when the main story reaches Ugly Baby (Das hässliche Entlein). Before that point, the world map behaves as intended by keeping Kaer Morhen unavailable. If you have been searching for a manual route from Velen, Novigrad, or Skellige, that search can stop there.

The efficient plan is simple: keep advancing the main quest until Ugly Baby begins. Geralt is taken to Kaer Morhen through the story itself. Once there, activate the local signposts. After the first visit, Kaer Morhen becomes a normal fast-travel destination, which is what makes its scavenger hunts and later revisits practical.

• No early access: Kaer Morhen is not open from free exploration
• Unlock quest: Ugly Baby / Das hässliche Entlein
• After arrival: activate signposts to enable normal fast travel

Why Wolf School gear is one of the most flexible armor sets

Wolf School gear is valued because it sits in the middle of the game’s armor logic. It is neither as narrowly aggressive as Cat School light armor nor as committed to durability as Bear School heavy armor. Wolven gear is medium armor, which makes it a natural fit for hybrid builds that alternate between sword pressure, sign use, and steady stamina management.

That flexibility is the real reason players look for it as soon as Kaer Morhen opens. If a build uses Quen regularly, mixes fast and strong attacks, and does not want the sharp specialization of other schools, Wolf gear stays relevant for a long stretch. On current Complete Edition installs, the hunt content is already included. On older versions, make sure the free Wolven gear DLC is installed, otherwise the treasure hunt may appear to be missing.

How to start finding Wolf School gear once Kaer Morhen is open

After Kaer Morhen unlocks, the Wolf School scavenger hunt becomes the correct gear objective. The basic set is tied to Kaer Morhen locations, which is why the region matters so much for this armor set. Depending on version and progression, the hunt can begin from the proper treasure-hunt paperwork or by discovering the relevant notes and containers while exploring the stronghold area.

The practical point is that the base Wolven diagrams are not sitting in one obvious chest beside the keep. Expect a multi-step treasure hunt across ruined structures around Kaer Morhen. The area that most often slows players down is the ruined signal tower section, where magical crystals and portal interaction are part of the route. If the path seems blocked, the usual fix is not combat; it is environmental interaction, especially using Aard to activate the required mechanism.

Search method matters here. Use Witcher Senses constantly, loot notes from skeletons and abandoned workspaces, and do not leave after finding a single diagram. The basic Wolf School set is distributed across several containers and sub-objectives in the Kaer Morhen valley. Missing one paper trail can make the rest of the route look incomplete when it is actually just unfinished.

Once the diagrams are collected, the set still needs to be crafted. That means the hunt is only half the job. Bring the diagrams to the required craftsmen, and remember that later upgrade tiers are not all confined to Kaer Morhen. The base set anchors the school in the region, but enhanced and higher upgrades continue the scavenger structure elsewhere, and grandmaster work belongs much later if Blood and Wine is in the save.

Common problems and the shortest fix for each one

• Kaer Morhen is still inaccessible: progress the main story to Ugly Baby. There is no earlier exploration route.
• Fast travel to Kaer Morhen does not appear: arrive through the story first, then activate a local signpost.
• Where the Cat and Wolf Play is not starting: read the Crow’s Perch notice board contract or enter Honorton directly and clear the opening combat.
• The Honorton investigation will not advance: revisit all four clue zones with Witcher Senses, especially the ealdorman’s hut.
• Teigr is missing after sparing Gaetan: complete the follow-up stash objective rather than expecting the sword immediately.
• Wolf School gear hunt seems absent on an older install: verify that the free Wolven gear DLC is installed.

That is the correct separation of systems in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt: Where the Cat and Wolf Play… is a Velen side quest for Teigr and a moral choice, while Kaer Morhen opens only through Ugly Baby and then serves as the proper entry point for Wolf School gear and permanent fast travel.