KCD2 Missing NPC Diagnostic: Why They Aren't There

1 — Did a story beat move them?

KCD2 relocates characters constantly as the main quest advances, and many of them have no “home” location once a region’s story moves on.

• Katherine leaves Kuttenberg after The Fifth Commandment and reappears at Sigismund’s Camp during The Lion’s Den, then later at Suchdol. If she is “missing,” check which main quest you are on.
• Rosa is moved during Taking French Leave and again during Dancing with the Devil. Her location is tied to those beats.
• Quest-givers tied to a destroyed or abandoned location naturally vanish with it. If the NPC is mid-relocation, advancing or finishing the current main quest usually returns them, often at a new spot. The points of no return page explains which beats reshuffle the map.

2 — Did a prerequisite fail or complete without you?

This is the most common silent cause, and it is permanent:

• Gules lives at Semine. If Semine burned during Necessary Evil (see the Semine choice page), Gules and his entire quest chain — The Jaunt, Canker, Casper, Handsome Charlie, Johnny the Gob — are gone. No reload, no respawn.
• Some quest-givers only exist while their initiating quest is active. If you completed or failed the parent quest, the follower NPC is retired. If the cause is a burned or completed location, the NPC is intentionally removed. The fix is a reload from before the story beat — there is no in-world way back.

3 — Is it an actual bug?

A few genuine bugs have been documented and patched. Patch 1.2 fixed a blocked room in Demons of Trosky that could trap progression if the quest was still active after For Victory started. If you suspect a softlock rather than a relocation, the standard cure is a save and reload, and confirming your game is on the latest patch. The Trosky missable page notes the Demons of Trosky timing so you can tell a bug from a missed deadline.

The habit that prevents most of this

Manual saves before every major main-quest turn give you a clean rollback when an NPC disappears for a reason you did not expect. Treat the diagnostic as: relocate first, then prerequisite, then bug — in that order.