How to Marry NPCs in Crimson Desert: Romance & Marriage Guide

The Charting the Unknown DLC added marriage to Crimson Desert. There are over 150 NPCs you can marry. This guide covers how to unlock it, how romance works, and what changes once you have a spouse.

The short version (for those who are in a hurry):
Raise an NPC’s Trust to 100, Flirt with them. Chat with them and give them gifts every day until their Affinity reaches 100. Propose. You need a house in your camp before anyone will marry you, and you can only have one spouse.

What is Marriage in Crimson Desert?

Marriage allows you yo take one NPC as a spouse. The spopuse leaves their usual spot in the world and moves into your house. Every romance goes through three main stages:

1. Gain Trust: the normal friendship bar every NPC has.
2. Start Dating: starts when you Flirt at 100 Trust. A new bar, Affinity, starts to fill.
3. Marriage: you Propose at 100 Affinity, and the NPC moves in.

You can marry an NPC if the game marks them as marriageable. Each NPC page in our database shows this as Marriageable: Yes/No. You will also recognize the availability in-game by the unique icon on the Interact button. If it’s crossed, the NPC cannot be romanced. If it’s not, you can romance and marry this NPC.

How to Unlock Marriage (Requirements)

Currently, there are only human and orc NPCs available for marriage. While there are male and female from the human race, on the orc side, there are only female NPCs available for romance.

• The NPC is marriageable. Check for Marriageable: Yes on their database page.
• You have 100 Trust with them.
• You have a house. You get it from Pioneering, the first camp expansion, in Chapter III (Howling Hill) of the main story. Without it, NPCs refuse to marry you.
• You are single. You can’t already be married to and living with someone else.
• Witches only: you have finished that witch’s own introduction quest, listed in the table under How to Marry a Witch segment below.

Trust vs Affinity Explained

Trust is the normal progress bar any NPC has. After you max it out, a second bar starts filling. It overwrites the standard Trust and is called Affinity.

Affinity progress starts after you select Flirt at 100 Trust, and you need Affinity to be at 100 to Propose successfully. Witches show progress as a quest objective (“Build a deeper bond”) after the date cinematic.

The exact values for every chat topic and gift are listed on each NPC’s page in our database.

Daily Limits for Chats and Gifts

• Chat: one chat option per day. The options shown are random.
• Gifts for Affinity: one gift per day, and only a single item.
• Gifts for Trust: no limit. You can give several items at once or over several visits.
• Reset: all daily limits reset at midnight in-game time.
• NPCs who can’t be married won’t accept gifts once they reach 100 Trust.

How to Romance an NPC (Step by Step)

Every marriageable NPC has 5 main steps that you have to complete to marry them and bring them to your house. The witches have a special quest – long cinematic with some mini action in the middle.

1. Reach 100 Trust. Talk, chat and give gifts. Gifts for Trust have no daily limit.
2. Flirt. At 100 Trust a Flirt option appears in the conversation UI. It gives +10 Affinity and you start progressing through this new bar.
3. Build Affinity to 100. Chat once and give one gift every day. Use the topics and gifts the NPC likes best. Greet (Talk to) them each day, this gives +5 in addition.
4. Propose. Once Affinity is at 100, Propose.
5. Marriage. The NPC moves into your house.

How to Marry a Witch

Four witches can be romanced: Bari, Lyselia, Areciel and Elowen. Each one has a four-part questline that runs alongside the normal Trust and Affinity steps. You can only marry one of them. Marrying one ends the other witches’ romance questlines.

Here are the steps you must complete to marry a witch:

1. Get closer. Reach 100 Trust, Flirt, then answer her get-to-know questions. Every answer gives Affinity, and none of them lower it.
2. The letter. Keep chatting and giving gifts. About half a day to a full in-game day after you start Flirting with her a bird finds you and hands you her letter. You don’t need to interact with the bird, as it delivers the letter as soon as it catches you. This starts the date quest.
3. The date. Meet her at the place from the letter. An event interrupts the date and requires you to complete a quick activity such as craft something for her or fight a few bandits (different for each witch).
4. Build a deeper bond. After the date, a “Build a deeper bond” objective appears with an Affinity counter out of 100. Fill it with daily chats and gifts.
5. Confess and Propose. The final quest.

You can work on all four witches at the same time, but you can only marry one.

Each witch’s page lists her best gifts and chat topics, the answers to her get-to-know questions with their Affinity values, and where to find her.

How to Marry Other NPCs

The rest of the NPCs with romantic options do not have a unique quest. You build Trust first, then Affinity through chats and gifts, finally Propose at Affinity 100, following the same steps listed above.

What Happens After you Marry

• Your spouse moves into your house at camp and is no longer at their old spot.
• Their shop closes. If they were a merchant or offered a service, you can no longer use it, so stock up before you Propose. If you marry a witch, her workshop will be empty and you will have to do your Abyss Gear business elsewhere.
• You can’t marry anyone else. You can have only one spouse.
• Witches: the romance questlines of the other three witches end.
• Trust with any other NPC does not reset, but remains the same.
• You can keep building Affinity with other witches. This is likely a bug to be fixed soon.

There are unique interactions available with your spouse, including having them follow you around in the world.

Limitations

• You can date multiple NPCs at a time, but only marry one.
• Human NPCs currently available are only male characters. Femail characters can be of any species.
• NPCs refuse to marry you until you have a house in your camp.
• With one chat and one gift per day, going from Flirt to 100 Affinity takes several in-game days. Depending on what chat options you get to choose from and how many you have Knowledge about, this can be slightly slower or slightly faster.

Tips and Recommendations

Before You Start

• Choose carefully. Marriage is a one-time choice, so decide before you invest days.
• Mind their shop. Don’t marry a merchant whose shop you still need.
• Finish Pioneering first. Do it in Chapter III while you build Trust.

Building Trust and Affinity

• Max Trust in one visit. Trust gifts have no limit. Don’t give them the Mysterious Gift or Gold Bars, as they’re too valuable.
• Best gift for Affinity. Only one item a day counts, so give your highest-Affinity item.
• Use the midnight reset. Visit late in the day and again just after midnight for two days of progress.
• Speed things up. Use items that boost Trust and unlock more Knowledge entries.

Witches

• Pick the first answer. It always gives the most Affinity in the get-to-know talk.
• See every story first. You can progress all four romances before choosing one.

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