The Poisoning Priest

Olcan, the Poisoning Priest, dies at Henselt’s hands at the start of Chapter 2 of The Witcher 2 and is later tied to the plot to poison Saskia.

Olcan, known in the journal as the Poisoning Priest, is a priest in The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. He is dead almost as soon as Chapter 2 begins, but his shadow hangs over the investigation into who poisoned Saskia.

In The Witcher 2

At the opening of Chapter 2, the Kaedweni and Aedirnian sides meet to negotiate on the battlefield, and the talks collapse into violence. Olcan tries to stop the fight, and King Henselt, in a rage, smashes him against a large stone obelisk and kills him on the spot. His death is followed by strange events, including an eclipse, as the curse Sabrina Glevissig laid on the battlefield is fully unleashed.

On Iorveth’s path, Olcan’s name comes back in Vergen once Saskia has been poisoned. In The Walls Have Ears, a prisoner named Willy Oblate reveals that he overheard a suspicious conversation between Prince Stennis and Olcan. Cecil Burdon knows where the priest lived, and in Olcan’s room Geralt finds designs for a goblet matching the one Saskia drank from. Later, in Suspect: Thorak, a receipt from Olcan for the replica goblet turns up in the chest of the runesmith Thorak.

The evidence marks Olcan as an accessory to the poisoning, but it does not solve the case on its own. With the priest already dead, he can never be questioned, and the trail leads on to Stennis in Royal Blood.