News

Hey everyone! It’s been a while since the last update. We’ve been hard at work here at Talsorian working on Witcher. We recently finished a trip to Poland where we got to meet with experts at CD Projekt Red about the RPG! We sat down with them and talked over  what fit well and what things we could change to make the PNP RPG feel just like the Witcher novels and games. It was a really productive talk and next week we’ll be putting up a Dev Note on a concept we’ve been working on.

Hi folks,

Another area we’re working on now is religion. How much effect does religion have on the people of Witcher. In this time of destruction and death do people hold to their religion more or less? What is the territory of a given religion?

The Eternal Fire is at its strongest in Redania, specifically in Novigrad and in the lands that Radovid has granted their order. Many of the Order of the Flaming Rose, the militant order of the church, are becoming part of Radovid’s witch hunters or have joined the Redanian army at the Temerian front. Will this affect the church’s slow spread throughout the North? Or will the idea of light out of darkness appeal to people in difficult times?

Information on Witcher says that Veyopatis, the druid like religion, and the Church of Coram Ag Tera, a tribal cult of death and sadism, are old, old religions fading away. But with the war comes legions of people who have seen and experienced violence and death. Would those people turn to Coram Ag Tera because their current churches do not have a place for them? Which churches seem relevant when everything around you is dead or burned? Will Veyopatis have meaning for the people forced to bring farms out of the ruins. They may have prayers for rain and good harvest as people must once more pull themselves together and rebuild society.

They would also pray to Melitele, the mother goddess religion? The largest sanctuary of Melitele is in Ellander in Temeria. They send out healers who travel the world. We see it often when Geralt goes to visit its high priestess of the temple, Nenneke. What happens when Nilfgard gets there? Will they wait to see if Nilfgard just ignores them, or will they disperse just as their missionary’s do, to find a better place? Of course, they could go to Skellige which has a slightly different version of Melitele worship. If you have read the novels that come before the video game there are radical things going on in Skellige in the Tower of Swallows.

We know that technically The Great Sun is the religion in Nilfgard, centered on the emperor, sort of like Rome. But is that enforced in Nilfgard? What about countries like Angren and Maecht? Is the emperor going to take the time to convert the north with sword and flame? Are other religions tolerated? Will any of the religions become a church militant to try to fight back?

As you can see, religion in the Witcher isn’t as simple as it might seem.

Hey everyone, things are quiet here. I'm waiting for approval from CD Projekt Red on the skeleton of the game. In the mean time, here's the other half of the Witcher PNP RPG team: Lisa Pondsmith. Lisa is writing all the world information and background for the book. Lisa is one of our best writers and has done work on Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads, Castle Falkenstein, The Book of Auberon and a lot of our other products.

 

Lisa: As Cody mentioned, I've been writing part of the world section country by country. Its a challenging job for a couple of reasons.

First, how best to describe a country in the Witcher world so that a person who is not familiar with the world can run a game there? How much detail and of what sort? How do you do that briefly so that the book isn't 1200 pages?

There is so much material! Cody is most familiar with the video game and the comic, and I'm most familiar with the novels, but each knows some of the other so we can discuss and decide.

What you've probably never noticed, if you have read the books, is that there are very few dates. It can be very difficult to coordinate different events.

There are some countries that have very little mention in the books, but your characters will, of course, go right for that blank spot of the map. We have to look at the location of the country, look at the larger countries around, dig all the mentions out of the sources and do our best.

I think Cody has the hardest job. He has to decide what's happened or hasn't happened yet in this timeline.

So you know what I'll be doing today!