Crossroads of Ravens

Crossroads of Ravens is the groundbreaking prequel novel by Andrzej Sapkowski, expanding the early history of the Continent long before the events of the main saga. Moving away from the veteran, world-weary monster hunter we know, this book takes readers back to the year 1229 to witness the very youth of Geralt of Rivia as an idealistic, 18-year-old fresh graduate from the School of the Wolf.

Armed with his two newly forged witcher blades, Geralt steps out of Kaer Morhen and onto the brutal trail known as ‘The Path’. When a naive act of heroism violently backfires in Kaedwen, Geralt finds himself convicted of murder and facing the noose. He is saved by Preston Holt, a cynical, aging veteran witcher who reluctantly becomes his mentor. Under Holt’s weathered guidance, the young Geralt is forced to learn the harsh, economic realities of the trade—including navigating agents, dynamic cuts of contract profits, and the shattering realization that the world fears and hates his kind regardless of his moral intentions.

For the Witchersaga.com database, Crossroads of Ravens is a vital piece of foundational worldbuilding. The core plot dives deep into the dark aftermath of the historical Kaer Morhen pogrom and the genesis of the anti-witcher hate literature known as Monstrum. By exploring the gritty, unromanticized daily struggles of a novice monster hunter, this novel perfectly bridges the gap between Sapkowski’s original writing and the atmospheric item-hunting and contract systems that players navigate in The Witcher 3.