Geralt of Rivia is the White Wolf, the most famous witcher on the Continent and the man at the center of Andrzej Sapkowski’s saga. He is a mutant trained to hunt monsters for coin, yet the stories keep dropping him into situations where coin is the least of the problems. He is calm, dryly funny and far more thoughtful than his reputation as a cold-blooded killer suggests. He also insists, often, that he stays out of politics. He almost never manages it.

As a boy, Geralt was taken to Kaer Morhen, the mountain fortress of the Wolf School, where he went through the Trial of the Grasses and the mutations that turned him into a witcher. The process gave him his speed, his sharpened senses and his white hair, and it left him unable to have children of his own. He learned to fight with two swords, steel for men and silver for monsters, to use the five Signs (Aard, Igni, Quen, Yrden and Axii), and to brew potions and oils that would poison anyone else. Vesemir was his teacher, and Eskel and Lambert became something close to brothers.

His reputation was shaped early, in the town of Blaviken, where he killed the bandit leader Renfri and her gang to stop a bloodier confrontation and was branded the Butcher of Blaviken for it. He has carried that name ever since. The real turning point of his life came with the Law of Surprise. After helping to lift a curse from a knight named Duny, Geralt claimed as payment whatever the man already had at home without knowing it. That turned out to be the unborn child of Princess Pavetta of Cintra, the girl who would become Ciri. Fate handed Geralt a daughter he never asked for, and much of the saga is about his attempts to keep her safe.

Two women define his life more than any monster. Yennefer of Vengerberg is the love of his life, a relationship that began with a djinn, a wish and a fight and has never been simple since. Triss Merigold is a friend and, for a time, something more, a thread the games explore in greater depth. Along the way he also collects loyal companions: the poet Dandelion, who follows him for material, the dwarf Zoltan Chivay, the Higher Vampire Regis and, in the novels, the archer Milva and the soldier Cahir.

In the books, Geralt is badly wounded during the coup on Thanedd and spends a long stretch recovering, then sets out with an unlikely band of companions to find Ciri. The games pick up his story afterward. The Witcher begins with Geralt suffering memory loss after an attack on Kaer Morhen, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings sees him framed for the murder of King Foltest, and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has him searching for Ciri while the Wild Hunt is hunting her. The Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine expansions add two more self-contained stories.

What ties it together is his personal code. Geralt claims neutrality, but he keeps choosing people over principles, and he has little patience for anyone who claims that a lesser evil is still good. That stubborn decency, hidden under the dry humor, is why the world keeps dragging him back in.