Novigrad

Novigrad sprawls along the northern shore of the Pontar delta like a city that never learned when to stop building. Behind a ring of massive stone walls that have never been breached, tall, narrow townhouses with steep gabled roofs stand shoulder to shoulder along canals and cobbled lanes, their brick and timber fronts leaning over the water. The harbour bristles with masts, the market squares are a roar of traders and street preachers, and above it all rise the spires of the Great Temple of the Eternal Fire on Temple Isle, visible from almost anywhere in the city. The look borrows from old Amsterdam and Gdańsk, and it works: Novigrad is crowded, loud, beautiful and slightly smelly, which is exactly what the biggest and richest city in the world should be.

Once part of Redania, Novigrad is now a free city of nearly thirty thousand people, a major port and the cradle of the cult of the Eternal Fire. On paper it is ruled by the Hierarch, the head of the Church. In practice the underworld has just as much to say, and in The Witcher 3 the streets are carved up between four crime bosses known as the Big Four: Sigismund Dijkstra, trading as Sigi Reuven, Whoreson Junior, Carlo “Cleaver” Varese and Francis Bedlam, the King of Beggars. Meanwhile the Temple Guard and Caleb Menge’s witch hunters keep the pyres burning for any mage they can catch, and nonhumans are not much safer.

In The Witcher 3

Novigrad is one of the game’s three main regions, together with Velen and Skellige, and it is where Geralt’s search for Ciri turns into a crime story. He arrives just in time to watch a sorceress and a doppler burn on Hierarch Square, tracks down Triss Merigold in the Putrid Grove, consults the dream-reader Corinne Tilly, combs the city for Dandelion and ends up in a towel at a meeting of the Big Four. Later, Triss’s plan to smuggle the mages out of the city, Dandelion’s new cabaret and Dijkstra’s plot against King Radovid all play out here.

The city is made up of very different districts:

Hierarch Square – the grand central square with the pyres, the Vivaldi Bank, the Kingfisher Inn and Triss’s abandoned townhouse.
Fish Market – the noisy trading square just southwest of Hierarch Square, with a blacksmith and a merchant.
Gildorf – the wealthy northern quarter, home to the Passiflora, Dijkstra’s bathhouse and the noble villas.
Temple Isle – the Church’s island, with the Great Temple and Electors’ Square, reached over St. Gregory’s Bridge.
The Bits – the poorest, most crowded district, with Triss’s crooked hideout and Junior’s casino and arena.
Silverton – a poor but less cramped district of market stalls and houses in the northwest.
Harborside – warehouses, quays and the docks where ships leave for Skellige.
Glory Lane – the southern district, home to Rosemary and Thyme, Crippled Kate’s and the swordsmith Éibhear Hattori.
Lacehalls – the area that hides the Putrid Grove, the King of Beggars’ sanctuary.
Farcorners – the biggest district by far, made of hamlets and farmland outside the walls.

Novigrad is also the place to be for Gwent. Gwent: Big City Players sends Geralt around the city’s best players, the Passiflora hosts the High Stakes tournament, and plenty of innkeepers and merchants are happy to play a round. Monster hunting happens mostly in the shadows: a succubus in Contract: Deadly Delights, an earth elemental under a manor in Contract: Doors Slamming Shut, a noonwraith in Farcorners and plenty of drowners in the sewers.

Quests in Novigrad

Many more side quests take place here, from A Matter of Life and Death and Carnal Sins to Novigrad, Closed City and Reason of State; the district pages above list them place by place.

Good to know

Novigrad has around ten fast travel signposts, among them Hierarch Square, St. Gregory’s Bridge, Electors’ Square, Novigrad Docks and the city gates. If you are new to the city, Hierarch Square is the best place to start: bank, merchants, inn and notice board are all within a few steps.

In the books

Novigrad appears throughout Sapkowski’s saga as the great free city of the North, with nineteen temples of the Eternal Fire. The Witcher 3 shows it in the middle of a war and a witch hunt, but the books’ Novigrad was already the richest and busiest city of the North.