Roughly 2000 years after the Elves first sailed their white ships onto the continent east
of the great sea, the conjunction of spheres allowed both primitive and intelligent beings
to travel between worlds, leading some to enter and populate the lands of the Elder
races.
After the First Landing of Nordling settlers in 760 AR, humans quickly spread throughout
the continent, establishing their realms and slaughtering any who stood in their way.
Though this led to war with intelligent races like the Elves, organized military expeditions
were too costly and inefficient to succeed against roaming beasts and monsters, who did
not pose a serious risk to their borders but were nonetheless a grave threat to their people,
attacking villages, farms, wandering travelers, as well as the occasional town and city.
In order to deal with these terrible creatures, humans created the order of Witchers, young
boys trained as expert warriors and minor magic users under brutal conditions.
Whereas soldiers were taught traditional fighting styles, Witchers were specialized champions
dedicated to acquiring knowledge about beasts and monsters.
Sometimes this meant learning specific combat techniques to kill their target, while other
situations might call for a spell or ritual to end the threat.
Yet beyond their specific abilities, Witchers were most notably distinguished by their physical
and emotional transformation, which occurred through a diet of natural stimulants and the
Trial of Grasses.
Created primarily by the sorcerer Alzur, the Trial of Grasses was a highly secretive ritual,
which exposed young boys to dangerous poisons and mutagenic compounds which often claimed
their lives.
However, if the student survived, they gained superhuman speed, strength, agility, night
vision and sensory perception, along with longer lifespans, resistance to disease and
the ability to drink potions which temporarily increased their skills.
These transformations also gave Witcher’s cat or snake-like eyes, a raspy metallic voice,
and limited emotional range.
Trained in one of several Witcher Schools spread throughout the continent, those who
survived the Trials were sent out into the world wielding a sword of steel and another
of silver to slay monsters for coin, enduring the scorn and ridicule of others, who treated
them like freaks and mutants.
Although training facilities, like the Cat and Griffin schools, each had their own unique
characteristics and specialized fighting styles, the most famous and reputable of these institutions
was the Wolf School of Kaer Morhen, located in the kingdom of Kaedwen, though they were
not affiliated with that realm or any other, as most Witchers upheld a policy of political
neutrality.
Taking its name from the Elder Speech of Elves, Caer a’Muirehen or Kaer Morhen, meant Keep
of the Elder Sea, as the Witcher fortress was built upon on an ancient castle once surrounded
by water.
Yet throughout the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries it served as home of the Wolf School, gaining
a mighty reputation for the fearsome Witchers they released into the world.
Located deep in the forested mountains of the north, Kaer Morhen was inaccessible to
all but Witchers and sorcerers, as the sole Trail leading to its location was extremely
difficult to find and even more treacherous to pass through, littered with so many obstacles
and deadly creatures, those of the Wolf School named it the Killer and used it as training
course.
Though they were considered dangerous, unnatural creatures throughout their history, anti-witcher
fervour reached its peak by the late 12th century, inflamed by the publication of Monstrum,
written by an anonymous sorcerer, which cast them as rogues without virtue and diabolic
creations.
This growing wave of hysteria ultimately led a human mob to attack Kaer Morhen, reaching
the fortress with the help of dishonourable mages.
Killing every Witcher they found, only those lucky few not present at the time, survived
the slaughter.
Though this terrible pogrom was publicly condemned, Kaer Mohen’s population was devastated and
never recovered, beginning its slow descent into oblivion.
Though most with knowledge about the Trial of Grasses were lost, some few lived on, and
so the Wolf School continued to train students for a few more decades, but by the mid 13th
century, they too passed away, leaving Vesemir as their leader and sole remaining Witcher
of the old order.
While Vesemir was a great warrior and trainer, he did not possess sufficient knowledge about
mutagenics and the trial of grasses to produce more Witchers on his own, therefore no more
students were accepted into the school.
Nevertheless, Vesemir continued to maintain Kaer Morhen as best he could, providing a
home for the last generation of Wolf School Witchers who saw him as a beloved father figure.
Of the three remaining Witchers under Vesemir, who survived into the second half of the 13th
century, the youngest and the least reputable among them was Lambert, a cynical and sarcastic
man who deeply resented the suffering he endured throughout his life.
Possessing little tolerance for sorcerers or politics, Lambert despised his nature and
was happy no more Witchers were being produced, yet continued on in his profession because
he knew no other way to live.
A friend of Lambert, though very different in demeanour and personality, Eskel was a
reliable, professional Witcher of great repute throughout the North.
Known to be quiet, mature and respectable, he was beloved by his father figure Vesemir
and saw Geralt of Rivia as his brother, since they underwent the trials and trained together
in their youth.
Yet while Eskel was well known in some parts of the north, his reputation could not hope
to match that of Geralt, the White Wolf, who’s famed life and adventurers were legendary
throughout the continent.
Given to the wolf school by his sorceress mother Visenna, he proved exceptionally resilient
to their normal poisons and mutagenics, and so was exposed to a more rigorous and deadly
trail, which pained him terribly and turned his hair white.
But in the end Geralt’s skills and abilities far outmatched his peers, becoming the greatest
Witcher of Kaer Morhen.
Seeing Eskel as a brother, and Vesemir as a father, his mother figure was Mother Nenneke
from the Temple of Melitele, a school where Geralt studied for a time, growing close to
the wise archpriestess.
Gaining both positive and negative renown throughout the years, Geralt was unjustly
titled the Butcher of Blaviken, when accused of killing a group of people without provocation.
However in truth, he was actually defending the town from a gang of ruffians who were
threatening slaughter.
Fortunately for Geralt, this was not enough to sully his name entirely, thanks to the
efforts of his friend Dandelion, a famous bard who immortalized his more honourable
adventures through songs and poetry.
The White Wolf even became a great figure of romantic love, for his tumultuous relationship
with the sorceress Yennefer of Vengerberg, a cold calculating woman who caused him much
pain and suffering, yet was unquestionably the love of his life.
Geralt’s greatest and most impactful contribution to the continent however, came from his relationship
with the girl Ciri, his adopted daughter and child of destiny.
Born a princess of Cintra, Ciri lost her homeland and royal family in the First Northern War,
and so was taken in by Geralt of Rivia, who once invoked the law of surprise after saving
her father’s life, and thus was granted that which the man had but was not expecting.
When they learned the man’s wife princess Pavetta was pregnant with Ciri, the girl became
his child of destiny.
Though he did not intend to take Ciri away from her family, the events of the First Northern
war left her a helpless orphan, and so Geralt took her to Kaer Morhen where she was embraced
by Vesemir, acting as her grandfather, and the other Witchers who were like uncles, teaching
her their ways.
Though she excelled in her training and was fed natural stimulants, she did not undergo
the trial of grasses, and was eventually revealed as a source, meaning she had a natural affinity
for magic.
Unable to help her with this condition, Geralt brought in Triss Merigold, who was like an
older sister, before sending her study under the archpriestess Nenneke, acting as a grandmother
and Yennefer of Vengerberg, her adoptive mother.
After years of training and hardship, Ciri became a Witcher Sorceress so powerful she
could travel between worlds.
A refuge for Wolf school graduates and their allies, Kaer Morhen occasionally hosted friends
from other lands, like Coen of Poviss who stayed at the fortress for a time, a good
natured Witcher who helped train Ciri in sword fighting, playing an important role in her
development.
As Ciri’s source abilities made themselves known, she once fell into a trance and spoke
a prophecy of doom, foreseeing the deaths of Coen who would die from two teeth, and
Geralt who would fall to three.
After leaving Kaer Morhen, Coen, who did not value neutrality like his wolf school allies,
volunteered to defend their lands from conquest during the Second Northern War and was slain
during the decisive Battle of Brenna, killed by two teeth in the form of a two pronged
pitchfork, just as Ciri foresaw.
In addition to taking in friends and allies like Coen, Kaer Morhen also denied entry to
disreputable Witchers like Brehen of the Cat School, who gained infamy for a massacred
he committed in the town of Iello.
Though many Cat Witchers were known as ruthless killers, Brehen was particularly loathsome,
leading him to be exiled from the Cat school and banned by the wolves.
Although Kaer Morhen was eventually abandoned and the last of the Wolf School Witcher’s
lost, their legacy endured through the lives of Geralt and Ciri, who’s actions not only
affected the outcome of the second northern war, but the future of the entire continent.