Flotsam

Flotsam is a fortified river port and trading post on the upper Pontar, hemmed in by thick forest close to the border between Temeria and Aedirn. It is not much to look at: a wooden palisade, a harbour, a gallows square, a tavern, a brothel and the walled estate of the town’s commander, Bernard Loredo. What it lacks in charm it makes up for in tension. Loredo runs the place as his private fief, nonhumans are treated as suspects by default, Iorveth‘s Scoia’tael lurk in the woods, and when Geralt arrives a river monster has the harbour bottled up.

Flotsam is the setting of Chapter 1 of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, and the place where the game’s biggest choice is made. The surrounding area includes the Flotsam forests, the village of Lobinden, the old elven baths and the brothel by the square.

In The Witcher 2

Fresh out of the La Valette dungeons, Geralt sails to Flotsam with Vernon Roche and Triss Merigold on the trail of the kingslayer. The welcome is a hanging: Zoltan Chivay and Dandelion stand on the scaffold beside a group of elves, and Geralt has to talk or punch them free. Loredo then invites him to his estate and asks him to capture Iorveth.

The headline job is the kayran, a huge tentacled beast that has been wrecking ships near the docks. With the sorceress Síle de Tansarville as an ally and the elf Cedric supplying local knowledge and trap diagrams, Geralt fights it in the swamp northeast of town. Meanwhile the trail of the kingslayer, the Viper witcher Letho, leads to the elven ruins, and back in town Letho forces Triss to teleport him to Aedirn near Vergen.

The chapter ends at a crossroads. Side with Roche and the Blue Stripes, and Geralt kills the corrupt Loredo in his mansion before heading to Aedirn with Roche. Side with Iorveth, and he joins the Scoia’tael raid on Loredo’s prison barge, where he must choose between saving the captive elves from a burning tower and chasing down Loredo. Either way, the story moves to Vergen or King Henselt‘s camp outside it.

Quests in Flotsam

• A Rough Landing
• By the Gods – Stringing Up Sods
• Indecent Proposal
• The Kayran, with A Matter of Price and Ostmurk
• The Rose of Remembrance
• Where is Triss Merigold?
• At a Crossroads: Vernon Roche and At a Crossroads: Scoia’tael
• Death to the Traitor! (Roche path) or The Floating Prison (Iorveth path)

Side quests include A Sword for Monsters, The Scent of Incense, Little Shop of Dreams, Hung Over, The Ballista, Malena, In the Claws of Madness, Troll Trouble, Margot’s Disappearance (Roche path only) and the contracts The Endrega Contract and The Nekker Contract.

Good to know

• The lower level of the tavern is the place for minigames: One on One: Flotsam (fistfights), Poker Face: Flotsam (dice) and Bring It On: Flotsam (arm wrestling). Win enough fistfights and Fight Club opens up.
• The monster contracts are posted on the notice board in front of the inn, and the town chancellor Louis Merse takes a “monster tax” off the payout.
• The dwarven blacksmith Berthold Candeleria works in town; on Dark difficulty he forges the cursed gear from The Blasphemer’s Outfit.
• Killing the kayran gives the diagram for Kayran Skin Armor, the best armour available in Chapter 1. One kayran trap ingredient is only found inside Loredo’s compound.