Crimson Desert Romance and Marriage Guide: How to Flirt, Propose and Marry in Charting the Unknown

30-second quick start (TL;DR)

• Romance exists now. It arrived with the paid Charting the Unknown DLC on October 29, 2026. Earlier interviews, and the earlier version of this guide, said there was none.
• Look for the heart. Open Interact on an NPC. A heart means they can be romanced; a crossed-out heart means they cannot.
• Interact, Flirt. This starts an additional trust level on top of normal trust. Press reports say normal trust should be at 100 first.
• Gift and Chat once a day each. The extra level only rises once per day per interaction type. You can skip gifts entirely and just wait longer.
• At 100, Propose. Proposals can be refused, so do not propose the moment the option appears.
• Witches first finish their sanctums. Flirt tells you there is more story to uncover until each witch’s sanctum quest is done.
• One hero per NPC. Flirting as Kliff lowers that NPC’s trust with Oongka and Damiane, and the other way round.
• Get a house. The DLC adds 17 residences built by dispatch. Your spouse lives in the one you designate.

What this guide helps you do

This guide explains how romance, proposals and marriage work in Crimson Desert after the Charting the Unknown DLC: which menu the options live in, how the new trust meter fills, who you can court, what the witches need, what changes once you are married, and what the game still has not told anyone. It is written for players who searched “is there romance in Crimson Desert” and got a page from before the DLC, and for players who have the DLC and want the fastest honest route to a wedding.

A note on the previous version of this page: until October 2026 Crimson Desert had no romance system, and Pearl Abyss said so on the record. That changed with patch 2.04.00, so everything below describes the game as it is now. Where a detail is only reported by players and not by Pearl Abyss, we say so.

Requirements and prep

You need the Charting the Unknown add-on ($24.99) on top of Crimson Desert Enhanced, updated to patch 2.04.00. Romance has no story gate: there is no quest to finish and no chapter to reach before Flirt appears. The one exception is the witches, whose Flirt option stays locked until you have completed that witch’s sanctum quest line.

You do not need a house to start flirting, but you will want one by the time you propose. Residences are built through dispatch missions and cost camp funds, and the expanded housing mode itself opens after the faction quest Luke’s Request with a camp at Howling Hill. One early player believed a home was required before the wedding would go ahead; Pearl Abyss has not said so, but building one first costs you nothing but time.

Bring gifts. At launch the new Gift menu handed over one item at a time and hid quantities, but hotfix 2.04.03 on October 31 changed that: you can now select several items at once and set a quantity for each. Select the items you want to give, then focus one you own in bulk and use the quantity prompt that appears in the bottom-right corner of the screen before you confirm. The same hotfix fixed gifts being returned instead of delivered, and spouses who were not handing over their own gifts after the wedding. Players who married on day one used cheap teas for daily gifts and a gold bar for a big jump, with trust-gain gear equipped.

How the two trust levels work

Every NPC already had a trust score from 0 to 100, raised by gifts, chats and favours. The DLC adds what the patch notes call “an additional level of Trust”. It is a second meter that only exists for NPCs you have flirted with, and it is the one that leads to marriage.

The new interaction menu has three top-level entries: Interact, Chat and Gift. Chat lets you share Knowledge you have collected, which earns ordinary trust and now shows a cooldown timer for when that interaction will count again. Gift hands over an item. Flirt sits under Interact, and once you have flirted, Gift and Chat raise the romance meter as well, but only once a day each. The official line: “The additional level of trust can only be increased once a day for each type of interaction.”

That daily cap is the whole pace of the system. Two interactions a day, plus the flirt itself, means a wedding takes days of in-game time rather than one long gifting session. Players who sped it up did so with high-value gifts and trust-boosting gear, not by spamming.

New books sold around Pywel reveal residents’ preferences, so a favourite gift counts for more. Nobody has yet published which book covers which town, so buy the one for the region your intended lives in.

Who you can marry

Pearl Abyss has not published a list, and players have been finding eligible NPCs by walking up to them and checking for the heart. What is known after the first day:

• Most ordinary townsfolk. Players report flirting with a smithy, a priest and even beggars. Shopkeepers and named residents are the usual targets.
• The four witches are the deepest romances, with their own cutscenes, and they need their sanctum quests done first. See the table below.
• All three heroes can court. Kliff, Oongka and Damiane each flirt separately, and each hero’s spouse gets their own residence icon on the map.
• Same-sex marriage works. A player married Bari as Damiane on launch night, and Kliff can flirt with male NPCs.
• Not available: Oongka and Damiane themselves, the Greymane comrades, Black Market goblins, back-alley traders and children. A crossed-out heart marks anyone off limits.

Each sanctum quest line starts from the witch’s own quest, named after her title, such as The Witch of Kindness. Until the chain is complete, choosing Flirt returns a line about there being more story to uncover. Sylvia, the novice witch, and the White Crow are not confirmed either way: one player at 100 trust with Sylvia had no romance option.

Who cannot be married

The crossed-out heart is the game’s own answer, but readers keep asking about specific people, so here is what players have reported since launch. Woosa, Naira and Damiane show no romance option; Damiane is a playable hero and never could be courted, and the other two appear to be story-locked. Cordelia is being asked about since her quest and is unconfirmed either way. Among the witches, Bari is confirmed marriageable once her four sanctums are done, and she has become the most popular choice in launch-week screenshots. None of this is official; if an NPC shows the plain heart on Interact, the game will let you try.

Named NPCs readers ask about

Reader questions about specific people land here as they come in. Each row gives where the NPC stands and what, if anything, gates them. Check the heart on Interact before you start gifting: nobody on this list is confirmed romanceable until a player reports the icon.

If you went back to the Saltroad Trading Post looking for her, that is the wrong stop. The trading post is where the chain’s first quest ends. The chain finishes at the oasis, and that is where she stays.

Step-by-step: from first flirt to the wedding

Tick these off as you go. Your progress stays on this device.

1. 1Mark step 1 done

   Check the heart

   Walk up to the NPC and open Interact. A small heart on the option means romance is possible. A crossed-out heart means pick someone else.

2. 2Mark step 2 done

   Raise normal trust first

   Press reports say the romance meter opens once ordinary trust reaches 100. Chat about your Knowledge, give a favourite gift, or run their favours. The cooldown timer tells you when each interaction counts again.

3. 3Mark step 3 done

   Pick one hero and stick with them

   Flirting as one hero lowers that NPC’s trust with the other two. Decide who is courting whom before the first Flirt.

4. 4Mark step 4 done

   Interact, then Flirt

   This opens the additional trust level. For witches, do this only after the sanctum chain, or you get the more-story-to-uncover message.

5. 5Mark step 5 done

   Gift once and Chat once every day

   Each type counts once per day toward the romance meter. Teas and flowers work for the daily gift; a gold bar is the big jump if you can spare one.

6. 6Mark step 6 done

   Build a residence

   Open the dispatch menu and start one of the 17 residences. Construction takes in-game time, and this is where your spouse will live once you designate it.

7. 7Mark step 7 done

   Propose at 100

   When the extra level hits 100, Propose appears under Interact. Players have been turned down, so if the answer is no, keep gifting and try again later.

8. 8Mark step 8 done

   Attend the wedding

   The ceremony takes place under a floral arch with guests and an officiant who pronounces you wed. Your hero wears a fixed outfit; there is no attire choice.

9. 9Mark step 9 done

   Designate the home

   Pick the residence your spouse lives in. Their icon then appears on the world map and minimap, and the house shows which hero owns it.

What changes after marriage

The patch notes list the spouse features, and launch-night players have confirmed most of them.

• Map icon. Your spouse shows on the world map and minimap, so you always know where they are.
• Travel together. You can take your spouse out with you; they comment on what happens, bandits included.
• Gifts from them. Spouses occasionally give you gifts, including letters.
• New interactions. Hug and a head-pat variant appear on the spouse’s menu.
• Barber shops. New barbers in the major cities can change your spouse’s appearance, and your own, regardless of camp.
• Breaking up is possible, and it costs you. Pearl Abyss says only that it “comes at a cost”. Nobody has published what the cost is, so treat a divorce as permanent until someone does.

There is no gameplay bonus from marriage reported so far beyond the companionship features. As one player put it on launch night, so far nothing, but you get a cute wife.

Camp festivals and Honorary Greymanes

The DLC adds a camp mission that holds a festival. NPCs whose trust is high enough come to the Greymane camp for a limited time, and interacting with them there builds trust faster than visiting them at home. That makes a festival the quickest way to push several romances along at once. Some festival visitors can be hired as Honorary Greymanes and sent on dispatch missions like your comrades, with some features unavailable to them.

How long a festival lasts, which trust level earns an invitation and which visitors can be hired have not been published, and nobody had posted numbers in the first day. The director has said that non-romance NPCs attend as well, and that main-story quest givers may drop in for a meal if you run a restaurant.

Troubleshooting and common mistakes

• Mistake: No Flirt option on anyone. Fix: You need the DLC installed, not just patch 2.04.00. The free update adds Chat and Gift but not Flirt.
• Mistake: Flirt says there is more story to uncover. Fix: That is a witch. Finish her sanctum quest chain first.
• Mistake: Courting the same NPC with two heroes. Fix: Each flirt lowers that NPC’s trust with the other heroes. One hero per person.
• Mistake: Gifting a stack to speed things up. Fix: Only one gift a day counts toward the romance meter. Since hotfix 2.04.03 you can hand over several items at once, but the action still counts once.
• Mistake: Proposing the moment 100 shows. Fix: Proposals can be refused. Give it another day of gifts and chats, then ask.
• Mistake: Nowhere for your spouse to live. Fix: Build one of the 17 residences by dispatch and designate it.
• Mistake: Expecting to romance Damiane or Oongka. Fix: They are the suitors, not the targets. The options never appear on them.
• Mistake: The get-to-know-them chat closes instantly. Fix: A reported launch bug. Back out, try Gift or Flirt, and retry the chat on a new day.

FAQ

Quick reference card

• Romance system: Added by Charting the Unknown, patch 2.04.00, October 29, 2026. Gift menu reworked for multi-item gifts in hotfix 2.04.03, October 31.
• Menu path: Interact, then Flirt. Then Gift or Chat.
• Eligibility: Heart on Interact. Crossed-out heart means no.
• Meter: Additional trust level, 0 to 100. Once a day per interaction type.
• Proposal: At 100, Propose under Interact. Can be refused.
• Penalty: Flirting as one hero lowers that NPC’s trust with the other two.
• Witches: Bari, Elowen, Lyselia, Areciel. Sanctum quests first.
• Excluded: Oongka, Damiane, comrades, goblins, traders, children.
• Home: 17 residences by dispatch; spouse lives in the one you designate.
• After: Map icon, travel together, gifts, Hug, barber, breakup at a cost.
• Festivals: Camp mission; invited NPCs build trust faster; some become Honorary Greymanes.