Carlo Varese

Carlo Varese, better known as Cleaver, is a dwarf and one of the four crime bosses who run Novigrad in 1272, alongside Francis Bedlam, Whoreson Junior and Sigi Reuven. He runs the Crownsplitters, a gang made up mostly of fellow dwarves, and according to Gwent lore he was once a butcher, which may explain the nickname.

A back-alley joke calls Cleaver a champion of racial harmony, in his own way. He considers himself a fully assimilated citizen with every right to run his business however he likes, and anyone who objects, dwarf, human or halfling, is simply a racist. Rumour says such people lose their fingers to his cleaver and then feed a herd of hungry hogs. Nobody has been keen to find out whether that is true. He is famously hot-tempered, and nothing sets him off faster than someone trying to cheat him.

Cleaver in The Witcher 3
Geralt meets him at the bathhouse in Get Junior, just before Whoreson Junior’s thugs try to murder the gathered bosses. Cleaver takes the attack very personally and swears revenge, even if it means flattening half the neighbourhood. His dwarves have already raided Junior’s hideout by the time Geralt gets there.

In The Gangs of Novigrad, Geralt finds Cleaver at his headquarters near Hierarch Square, torturing someone for Junior’s whereabouts. He offers his dwarves to help storm Junior’s casino and arena and pays Geralt for each location they clear together. Later, after Geralt wins the Vegelbud derby, Cleaver sends a message inviting him to ride as his entry in the underworld’s illegal race. A win earns a generous bonus, before the Temple Guard breaks up the party.

What happens to Cleaver?
Cleaver survives the story. If Geralt helps Triss get the mages out of the city in Now or Never, the witch hunters turn on non-humans, and when Geralt returns with Ciri, a slide shows a dwarf who looks a lot like Cleaver burning at the stake. Cleaver himself is still alive and can be spoken to afterwards.