What is a Witcher?
Witcher. Hexer. Mutant. Freak. These, and worse, are the names given to those wandering few who most believe were made monsters for the purpose of slaying monsters. Some call their entire existence a mistake, others blame them for bad crops, floods and other disasters. Some few courageous drunkards whisper they're in league with some great evil, or that they create and unleash monsters in order to squeeze their bloody wages from a town before wandering on.
Such is the lot of a witcher, travelling from town to town, their plodding monotony punctuated by moments of intense violence and sudden death as they solve the supernatural troubles that beset the land: for the right price, coin in hand. Despite all the legends and superstitions that surround them, when suffering the predations of a gryphon or moonwright, the same townsfolk who deride them will happily fork over their coin to a professional slayer bearing sword, spells and strange alchemy.
One can tell a common man from a witcher easily, for a witcher often carries marks of their victories - for survival is already its own triumph - by the gruesome nature of their collection of scars, the writing of wounds that would have spelled 'death' to any common man. Their eyes have become cat-like or sometimes even stranger, turning entirely black or otherwise, depending on what strange and toxic concoctions they might have imbibed from the choice selection of vials they carry. Sometimes they'll have thick bestiary tomes, specially crafted traps and explosive devices, but they'll always carry a medallion, its bestial shape matched to their various schools of training, and a pair of blades, one silver and one steel, for monsters and men, hung over their shoulders.
The Valley of Ribbons once held a school for witchers, the school of the Falcon, in what now is only the haunted remnants of Kaer Arkstan. The once proud edifice was destroyed in the pogrom of 1191 when the local authorities convicted the witchers of treason against the kingdoms of Verden and Brugge for collaborating with and aiding both monsters and non-human terrorists, though no trial was ever held.
Now, many years later, the local people's opinions have changed, even if only a little. The land near Kaer Arkstan had been kept relatively free from the most active and dangerous of monsters by the witcher school; now it has become wild, dangerous and untamed in their absence. These days a witcher's blade seems a sought-after commodity once again as creatures wander out of the Brokilon into the fields, or take up residence along the trade road from elsewhere. Too bad there aren't any left to claim all this paying work... or is there?
Such is the lot of a witcher, travelling from town to town, their plodding monotony punctuated by moments of intense violence and sudden death as they solve the supernatural troubles that beset the land: for the right price, coin in hand. Despite all the legends and superstitions that surround them, when suffering the predations of a gryphon or moonwright, the same townsfolk who deride them will happily fork over their coin to a professional slayer bearing sword, spells and strange alchemy.
One can tell a common man from a witcher easily, for a witcher often carries marks of their victories - for survival is already its own triumph - by the gruesome nature of their collection of scars, the writing of wounds that would have spelled 'death' to any common man. Their eyes have become cat-like or sometimes even stranger, turning entirely black or otherwise, depending on what strange and toxic concoctions they might have imbibed from the choice selection of vials they carry. Sometimes they'll have thick bestiary tomes, specially crafted traps and explosive devices, but they'll always carry a medallion, its bestial shape matched to their various schools of training, and a pair of blades, one silver and one steel, for monsters and men, hung over their shoulders.
The Valley of Ribbons once held a school for witchers, the school of the Falcon, in what now is only the haunted remnants of Kaer Arkstan. The once proud edifice was destroyed in the pogrom of 1191 when the local authorities convicted the witchers of treason against the kingdoms of Verden and Brugge for collaborating with and aiding both monsters and non-human terrorists, though no trial was ever held.
Now, many years later, the local people's opinions have changed, even if only a little. The land near Kaer Arkstan had been kept relatively free from the most active and dangerous of monsters by the witcher school; now it has become wild, dangerous and untamed in their absence. These days a witcher's blade seems a sought-after commodity once again as creatures wander out of the Brokilon into the fields, or take up residence along the trade road from elsewhere. Too bad there aren't any left to claim all this paying work... or is there?