Side Quest: Pathway to the Witchlings

School of the Wolf

It will take a quarter of a day’s travel to reach the School of the Wolf. Each subsequent school is a full day’s travel.

You reach the end of the passage, leading to a giant opening. You see a castle resting in a large ravine, bearing a banner of a wolf. In the courtyard, you see a group of four boys training with wooden swords on some practice dummies, with an older man keeping watch on a balcony. Occasionally, you hear him bark out a mistake one of the boys made as they train.

The man on the balcony is Mevesir, is the only Witchling at the keep, however, he is very old and trained extremely well in combat. He has a gray mustache and balding gray hair. He was born after the Battle of the Planar Gems, but has learned the horror stories associated with it. He trains witchlings, like his predecessors before him, to combat the surge of monsters that have invaded the world.

School of the Bear

Witchers of the Bear School, unlike the Wolves, tend to be loners and do not forge strong bonds with their brethren. Meeting between them on the Path can even lead to a bloodshed.
They wear heavier armor, favoring defense over agility. Along with the Cat School, they are the only known witcher schools to use crossbows in their hunt.

School of the Crane

Skilled in both swords and early guns, the Cranes prove to be the best remedy to monsters of the air and the sea which can be encountered on long routes between Cherdian and Novigrad.
While expecting to fight a sea monster, a witcher of this School prepares a long rope, one end of which they binds to the mast of a vessel and the other to a close-fitting protective suit covering their whole body except for hands, feet and the head. When not expecting to fight such, they prefer to wear no significant armor, just belts for swords and guns.

School of the Cat

The Cats developed fighting styles focusing on speed, precision, and agility. As a result, Cat school witchers as well as their equipment do not deal a lot of raw damage, but can inflict deadly critical hits. By extension, their gear was designed to maximize flexibility and provide the greatest possible range of motion.
Unfortunately, members of the Cat school proved as flexible in terms of morals and politics as their armor. Over time, they became pariahs even among their fellow witchers due to taking contracts on not just monsters but humans as well, with the latter going against the witchers' code. One of the possible reasons for their leniency was the mutation process, which tended to create an abnormal number of psychotic witchers from their school.

School of the Griffin

Griffin School equipment is of medium weight and amplifies the intensity of the wearer's Signs; as such, it is heavily implied that the school and its disciples may have specialized in the use of magic. Griffin witchers may also possess higher standards of social etiquette compared to other schools.

School of the Viper

The Vipers were trained on twin small blades and an assassination-based approach to killing monsters. Their fighting style featured sinuous, unpredictable movements using the two blades ("fangs").

Parent Plot

Vur Dural