Foltest

The decisive, scandal-plagued king of Temeria whose assassination by Letho sets The Witcher 2 in motion.

Foltest was King of Temeria, Prince of Sodden and holder of a long string of other titles, and in the games he is the monarch Geralt serves most closely. The son of King Medell and Queen Sancia, he was clever, decisive and handsome, and under his iron rule Temeria became the strongest of the Northern Kingdoms. His private life was another story. An affair with his own sister Adda produced a daughter who was born cursed and later rose from her tomb as a striga, and his long secret romance with Baroness Maria Louisa La Valette gave rise to rumours that her two younger children were his.

Foltest in The Witcher 3
By the time of The Witcher 3, Foltest is dead and Temeria has fallen to Nilfgaard. What is left of his army hides out as partisans under Vernon Roche, still fighting for an independent Temeria. If Geralt brings Letho, the witcher who murdered the king, to Kaer Morhen, Roche and Ves are furious that he has invited Foltest’s killer to the keep. The king also leads the Northern Realms deck in Gwent, with several leader cards, one of which Geralt can win from Bernard Tulle in High Stakes.

In the earlier games
In the first game Foltest is away for most of the story, leaving Vizima to others, and only returns in Chapter V, in the middle of street fighting between the Scoia’tael and the Order of the Flaming Rose. Geralt deals with Adda’s curse once more, and in the end saves the king from an assassination attempt, becoming one of his most trusted men.

The Witcher 2 opens with Foltest besieging La Valette Castle to claim his children, with Geralt at his side as a kind of lucky charm. In a monastery during the siege, Letho, disguised as a monk, cuts the king’s throat and escapes, leaving Geralt to take the blame. Foltest left no lawful heir, and his death plunged Temeria into chaos.

In the books
In The Last Wish, Foltest hires Geralt for 3,000 orens to lift the curse on his striga daughter, begging him to cure her rather than kill her. In Blood of Elves he attends the secret meeting of northern kings at Hagge and vows to clear the Scoia’tael from Temeria and Sodden within six months. In Time of Contempt, after Nilfgaard overruns Aedirn, he signs a peace treaty with Emhyr var Emreis and drives his court mages out of the kingdom, Triss Merigold and Keira Metz among them.

Across the games

The king’s main role in The Witcher comes late in the story. In Act III, in All the King’s Men, Geralt wonders whether the king ordered Velerad to declare a state of emergency in the Trade Quarter, and finds out that Princess Adda, the king’s daughter, forged her father’s edicts. The king is also the last opponent in A Game of Dice, and beating him at dice poker makes Geralt a legend.

In Act V, in Sweet Revenge, Foltest asks Geralt to deal with Salamandra once and for all, and Velerad passes on the king’s hint about the Old Manor. The quest ends with Geralt sailing to Vizima to warn the king.

In the Epilogue, in Her Highness the Striga, Adda has become a striga again. Foltest leaves Geralt with Triss, Velerad and De Wett to consult, and sets clear terms: lifting the curse brings a reward, letting Adda suffer means his friends pay for it, and a quick kill brings neither gain nor loss. In The Ashes of Vizima the king offers Geralt 8,000 orens to kill the Grand Master.