The timeline of The Witcher (2019). WARNING: UNMARKED SPOILERS AHEAD. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.
0
On the land known only as the Continent, previously inhabited by elves, dwarves, dryads, and other mystical species who controlled the forces of Chaos with their magic, a mysterious event known as the Conjunction of the Spheres causes a large population of humans and monsters to appear, forever changing the world.
786
Stregobor is born, and later grows into a powerful mage and the rector of the magical academy Ban Ard.
839
The Brotherhood of Sorcerers is formed to create a concrete set of rules about how to handle Chaos. Eventually nearly all the Continent’s magic users are members of it.
Klara Larissa de Winter opens the magical academy Aretuza on Thanedd Island. Unknown to any but mages, the academy is powered by students who prove unable to harness Chaos, who are transformed into eels and sent into the cavern lake that provides the island’s magical power. Its reputation soon overpasses Ban Ard, to Stregobor’s jealousy.
967
At Kaer Morhen in the Blue Mountains, under unknown circumstances a young boy is mutated to give him the use of magic, enhanced speed and strength, and a far extended lifespan, creating the new being known as a Witcher to fight the monsters that have continued to menace the Continent. More and more Witchers are created over the years, though the process is extremely grueling and only three of every ten subjects survive.
1160
In Rivia, the sorceress Visenna gives birth to her son Geralt. Just a few years later, she sends him to Kaer Morhen to become a Witcher. He never sees her again, and is left to wonder why she did it.
1167
After more than a thousand years of being taught magic by the elves, the human mages decide they have no more to learn and an attempted genocide is launched. The elves’ rebellion against it is crushed, and the few who survive are forced into hiding as outlaws. Humans go on to proudly call the event the Great Cleansing.
1192
In Vengerberg, the capital city of Aedirn, a peasant woman has an affair with a half-elf which produces a daughter, Yennefer. Due to her mixed heritage, she is born severely deformed, leading to bullying from the other children.
1206
The 14-year-old Yennefer responds to her latest bullying by instinctively casting magic, creating a portal to Aretuza where she meets the Ban Ard-trained mage Istredd. He sends her back home before Headmistress Tissaia de Vries can find her, but she’s quickly tracked down anyway and eagerly sold by her mother’s husband. Weeks go by without Yennefer able to do any more magic, unlike her most skilled classmates Sabrina and Fringilla, until Tissaia advises her that she needs to control her emotions, assigning her to steal an elven flower from Istredd to prove she can do it. She succeeds, but reveals her elven heritage to Istredd in the process, who promptly reports it back to Stregobor.
1210
As the time approaches for Yennefer’s class to ascend, Tissaia promises she’ll get her desired assignment as the court mage back home in Aedirn, where she’ll be able to rule over all the people who were so cruel to her. However, Stregobor blocks the assignment by revealing her elven blood, saying the highly anti-elf Cintra would go to war over its trading rival having one as a mage. Yennefer is instead assigned to the backwater kingdom Nilfgaard, and responds by skipping out on the ceremony entirely. After confronting Istredd about his betrayal, she’s driven to go through the agonizing ascension process while awake, including the removal of her reproductive organs. Once it’s finished, she crashes the ceremony revealing her new body cured of all deformity, and introduces herself to Aedirn’s King Virfuril who immediately agrees to take her. Fringilla is thus assigned to Nilfgaard instead, earning Yennefer the enmity of both her and her uncle, Council member Artorius Vigo. Also at the ceremony are Prince Foltest and Princess Adda of Temeria, who are barely able to keep their hands off each other despite being siblings.
1213
There is a full solar eclipse for the first time in more than a thousand years, which Stregobor takes as a sign of the prophesied sixty women who will destroy the human race for the demon Lilit. He thus insists on examining every girl born during the eclipse, which in practice means putting them through horrific experiments, with only one of them surviving: Renfri, the princess of Creyden, who eventually escapes and becomes a notorious bandit, always on Stregobor’s trail for revenge.
1216
King Dagorad of Cintra welcomes the birth of his daughter Princess Calanthe.note
1222
Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove by birthright, is born. Eventually he forsakes his heritage to become a travelling bard under the name Jaskier, becoming especially notorious for his sexual conquests with married women.
1229
After Foltest becomes King, he and Adda finally lose the battle to resist their attraction, and a daughter is born. Unknown to them, the merchant Ostrit had long been in love with Adda, and in a jealous rage he curses the child, Adelaide. She is thus born as a striga and is locked in the castle crypt, while Adda dies during the birth.
King Dagorad dies, leaving the 13-year-old Calanthe to ascend the throne.
1231
At only 15, Queen Calanthe personally leads the armies of Cintra in the Battle of Hochebuz against Nazair. She is victorious and earns the sobriquet the Lioness of Cintra, though three thousand men are lost in the process.
Geralt is dealing with a kikomora near the coastal town Blaviken in Redania when he encounters Stregobor, who explains about Renfri and tries to convince Geralt to kill her. He isn’t impressed by the story and tries to convince Renfri to give up her revenge to show she’s not a monster. She refuses to stop, and Geralt is forced to kill her and all her men, with Renfri giving him a final message that “the girl in the woods” will always be with him. When he refuses to let Stregobor autopsy her, he turns the townspeople against Geralt and leads him to be known as the Butcher of Blaviken.
1232
Calanthe marries Roegner, making him the King of Cintra.
1233
Roegner’s life is saved by Urcheon of Erlenwald, a knight who was cursed as a boy with a monstrous appearance. In return, Urcheon claims the Law of Surprise, taking as payment anything Roegner currently owns that he is not yet aware of. Upon returning home Roegner discovers that Calanthe is pregnant, thus making their child the subject of the Law.
1234
Calanthe and Roegner’s child is born, a girl named Pavetta. Roegner dies shortly afterward, and Calanthe is determined to never marry again, despite several proposals by Eist Tuirseach, an army commander from Skellige who offers his country’s ships to protect Cintra from any threat.
1237
Eight years after Princess Adelaide was born, she escapes the crypt and begins attacking Temeria, leaving the country terrified of the inexplicable and exceptionally gruesome murders for years while Foltest hides in his castle, terrified of revealing the truth.
1239
With the help of Fringilla, Nilfgaard attacks and conquers the neighboring country Ebbing, beginning a long and bloody invasion of the entire Continent.
1240
In Posada, a farming town in the former elf stronghold Dol Blathanna, Geralt encounters Jaskier just before taking a job to stop the monster who’s been stealing food. Jaskier insists on tagging along, and they discover the thief is a Sylvan named Torque, who’s stealing the food for the elf Filivandrel, the reluctant king of his people since the Great Cleansing. Filivandrel is planning an uprising against the humans who stole his land along with his second in command Toruviel, but Geralt gets through to him as he failed with Renfri and convinces him to make a new start elsewhere in peace. After witnessing the adventure, Jaskier takes it upon himself to turn Geralt from the reviled Butcher of Blaviken to a legendary hero, composing a song heralding him as a friend of humanity.
After three decades as the court mage of Aedirn, Yennefer has become completely disillusioned at constantly cleaning up petty political squabbles. Her latest assignment is to guard Queen Kalis of Lyria, at which the King himself sends an assassin after tiring of her inability to produce a male heir. Upon being insulted for her failure to defeat the assassin, Yennefer leaves Kallis behind, returning only to save her latest infant daughter. She fails, and leaves her job to become a Ronin mage.
1243
The people of Temeria hire a Witcher to kill the striga, but he isn’t up to the task and is killed himself. Upon hearing about it, Geralt arrives to take the job and meets the court mage Triss Merigold, who helps him uncover the full story about the striga’s true identity. After extracting the exact nature of the curse from Ostrit, Geralt leaves him to be killed by the striga before fighting her until dawn. Caught outside her crypt as the sun rises, the curse is broken, and she reverts to the human Adelaide.
1249
With Geralt having become a renowned hero thanks to Jaskier’s efforts, he takes as payment Geralt’s services as a bodyguard at a feast in Cintra where suitors for Pavetta will be heard. Calanthe has secretly arranged for Eist’s nephew to win out to finally satisfy him, but Urcheon interrupts and claims Pavetta’s hand by the Law of Surprise. Calanthe attempts to kill him, prompting an explosion of raw magical power from Pavetta that Geralt and the Skellige court mage Mousesack together are just barely able to control. This convinces Calanthe to agree, and Eist also shrewdly gets her to also marry him in the same ceremony. Mousesack also decides to stay to properly train Pavetta to control her magic. Urcheon’s curse is ended by the wedding, and he insists on repaying Geralt for helping him during the battle. Geralt claims the Law of Surprise himself, only for Pavetta to reveal she’s pregnant. He refuses to accept the work of Destiny and leaves despite Mousesack’s warnings of dire consequences.
1250
Pavetta and Urcheon’s child is born, a girl named Cirilla, typically known as Ciri, and also the Lion Cub after her grandmother. The results of Geralt’s refusal to claim her are quickly felt as Pavetta and Urcheon disappear at sea shortly afterward, leaving Ciri to be raised by Calanthe and Eist.
1256
Geralt has been stricken with insomnia due to his continued refusal to claim Ciri, and resorts to using a djinn to cure it. In the process, Jaskier is inflicted with a magical wound, and they go to nearby Rinde to find a mage to help. This turns out to be Yennefer, who is supporting herself with black market magic in the anti-mage town, and upon learning about the djinn plots to take its power herself to restore her ability to have children. But the assumption that it was enthralled to Jaskier leaves her unable to control it, until the true wish owner Geralt gives his last one to bind himself to Yennefer forever to prevent her from taking the power.
1262
Geralt is approached by Borch Three Jackdaws to join a dragon hunt in the Caingorn Mountains. He initially declines but then discovers Yennefer is another of the hunters and agrees. It turns out Borch is actually the world’s last gold dragon, and Geralt and Yennefer end up helping him protect the dead dragon’s egg. Yennefer also finds out about Geralt’s wish to bind them together and is outraged that her actions may not have been of her own will, declaring she will only speak to him again if he finally claims Ciri.
1263
Yennefer is offering her services at Nazair shortly after its defeat by Nilfgaard, where she meets the mage Vilgefortz who persuades her to return to Aretuza. She’s disgusted to find the Academy is now taking in daughters of wealthy families regardless of their showing any magical ability, and it turns out Tissaia has tricked her to returning to fight for the mages assisting in Nilfgaard’s upcoming attack on Cintra. Despite her help, Stregobor convinces the rest of the Brotherhood to abandon the kingdom that never let them in.
Geralt returns to Cintra to claim the 12-year-old Ciri, but Calanthe refuses to let her go and has him locked up. The same day, Nilfgaard attacks and in the Battle of Marnadal Eist is killed and Calanthe is forced to retreat, thanks to Fringilla creating a storm that prevents Eist’s ships from helping. With the Nilfgaard army breaching the castle gates, many of the citizens take poison to avoid torture and Calanthe accepts that Ciri must find Geralt to appease the forces of Destiny, telling her to find him before throwing herself out a tower window. During her escape, Mousesack stays behind to delay the Nilfgaard soldiers and Ciri is captured by the knight Cahir. The trauma awakens her magical powers, and with a scream she opens a chasm between herself and Cahir, and escapes into the forest.
After several days wandering in the forest, Ciri finds a camp of refugees from Cintra, and for the first time discovers just how hated Calanthe is by her subjects, who blame her for all their misfortunes. Cahir attacks the camp, and Ciri is saved by the elf Dara who takes her back into the forest.
Ciri and Dara take refuge in Brokilon Forest and meet the dryads who live there in hiding. Their leader Eithne has the two complete the ritual all outsiders must perform of drinking the forest’s magic water, but due to Ciri’s innate magical power it has no effect on her. At the same time, Fringilla discovers her location with a spell performed on Calanthe’s body.
Cahir hires the doppler Adonis to take the form of Mousesack to lure Ciri away from the dryads, with the real Mousesack being killed once he has no further use. Adonis turns on Cahir and escapes when he discovers Ciri’s power, and Dara frees her, though afterwards he declares she’ll only get him killed and leaves her on her own.
Ciri is reduced to stealing from market stalls, at which she’s spotted by her old friends from Cintra. Unfortunately, it turns out they actually always resented her just like everyone else and were forced into acting like her friends, and try to turn her in to Nilfgaard. Ciri responds with an unprecedented magical blast in which she gives a prophecy that the world as they know it is about to end.
Yennefer and Tissaia defy the Brotherhood and gather like-minded mages including Triss, Sabrina, and Vilgefortz to battle Fringilla and the Nilfgaard army at Sodden Hill. After the battle inflicts massive casualties on both sides, Yennefer finally puts an end to it by unleashing the full force of Chaos within her, creating a giant fire across the battlefield. Foltest arrives soon afterwards with fresh reinforcements, sending Nilfgaard running.
Geralt encounters the merchant Yurga who is burying the bodies at the Cintran refugee camp. They are attacked by ghouls and Geralt is bitten, to which Yurga takes him back home. Along the way, Geralt sees his mother cure him and confronts her about abandoning him, but is left to wonder whether it was real. Yurga offers him the Law of Surprise for saving his life, but Geralt naturally refuses. Ironically, this would have again resulted in him being linked to Ciri as Yurga’s wife Zola took her in after she revealed the prophecy. Upon hearing Ciri was there, Geralt walks off into the woods and they at last find each other.
