Graveir

Graveirs are necrophages, a species of ghoul. The bestiary describes ghouls and graveirs as humanlike but deeply inhuman: they have arms and legs like a person but move on all fours, and their faces look strangely familiar while showing no sign of feeling, reason or even awareness. All that drives them is an insatiable hunger for human flesh.

They gather wherever there are fresh dead: near graves, around animal carcasses and on battlefields. Graveirs also appear in the Witcher books, in The Last Wish and Blood of Elves, and they were full enemies in the first Witcher game. There, the bestiary warns that a graveir tries to knock its victim down and eat them alive, and that its teeth carry cadaverine, so its bite can poison you.

The Witcher 3 doesn’t give graveirs a quest of their own. They belong with the game’s ghouls and turn up in the same kinds of places: cemeteries, crypts and battlefields in regions like White Orchard and Velen, where packs of corpse eaters and their alghoul leaders gather.

Across the games

In The Witcher, graveirs turn up in Act III. The contract is posted in Vizima‘s Trade Quarter by Velerad, who will reward anyone who kills five of them.

Velerad accepts graveir bones as proof, so Geralt needs to collect five. The contract can only be completed once the Bestiary has an entry on graveirs, so learning about them first matters. After bringing the bones to Velerad, Geralt receives 200 orens and 5,000 XP.

The Graveir Contract (Act III, monster contract)

Combat strategy

Fight a graveir the way you’d fight any ghoul. One on one, it’s no real challenge for a trained witcher, but it gets dangerous when wounded: it can fly into a frenzy, attacking wildly and ignoring its injuries, and ghouls can regenerate during a fight. Take groups apart one at a time and don’t let them surround you. Necrophage oil is the one weakness every source agrees on, so keep your silver sword coated. Watch for poison from its bite.

Coat your silver sword with necrophage oil.
Back off when a wounded graveir goes into a frenzy, then strike once it calms down.
Kill one at a time so several can’t regenerate at once.
Avoid fighting packs at dusk or at night, when ghouls are most dangerous.
Dodge rather than block its lunges; it tries to knock you down.
If an alghoul leads the pack, kill it first and the rest fall apart.