Toussaint

Toussaint is the Witcher world at its most sun-kissed: a small duchy far to the south, ringed by mountains, where the war that tears through Velen never arrived. Vineyards cover the hills, little castles and chateaux sit among the vines, knights-errant patrol the roads and the locals seem to be permanently a little tipsy. On paper it is a vassal of the Nilfgaardian Empire, but the Empire mostly leaves it alone, and Toussaint keeps no real army of its own, only a handful of knights-errant to guard the borders and the wine caravans.

The duchy is ruled by Duchess Anna Henrietta from Beauclair, a capital full of elven monuments and ruins. Life revolves around wine, festivals, tournaments and a code of chivalry that Sapkowski wrote half as a fairy tale and half as a parody. Underneath, things are less innocent: the land is riddled with caves, mines and old elven ruins, and vampires have been living quietly alongside the vintners for a very long time.

In The Witcher 3

Toussaint is the setting of Blood and Wine, the second and final expansion for The Witcher 3, released on 31 May 2016 with a map roughly the size of Skellige. Two of the duchess’s knights, Palmerin de Launfal and Milton de Peyrac-Peyran, track Geralt down in Velen and bring him south to hunt a monster that has been killing knights. The trail leads to the higher vampire Dettlaff van der Eretein, brings back Geralt’s old friend Regis, thought long dead, and ends with Syanna, the duchess’s exiled sister. Geralt’s choices decide which of three endings the story gets.

The region is made up of the city of Beauclair and areas such as the Sansretour Valley, Sansretour Marsh, Caroberta Woods, the Gorgon Foothills and the Champs-Désolés. Places you will get to know well include Geralt’s own vineyard Corvo Bianco, the Tourney Grounds, Mère-Lachaiselongue Cemetery, Dun Tynne, Toussaint Prison, the fairy-tale Land of a Thousand Fables and the ruins of Tesham Mutna.

Quests in Toussaint

The side content is just as rich: There Can Be Only One leads to the sword Aerondight, The Warble of a Smitten Knight puts Geralt in the tournament, Knight for Hire pays him to clear threats across the duchy, and Wine Wars: Belgaard and a string of vintner’s contracts drag him into the wine business.

Good to know

Mutations: Turn and Face the Strange unlocks the mutation system, which only exists in Blood and Wine.
Grandmaster gear: the diagrams for the grandmaster witcher sets are scattered across Toussaint through scavenger hunts.
Gwent: Blood and Wine adds the Skellige deck. Gwent: Never Fear, Skellige’s Here collects it, and the Pheasantry in Beauclair hosts the gwent tournament.
Places of Power: there are five in Toussaint.
Money: the Cianfanelli Bank in Beauclair exchanges florens and orens for crowns.
Find your way around with the Toussaint interactive map.

In the books

A large part of The Lady of the Lake takes place in Toussaint. After failing to find Ciri, Geralt and his company, including Dandelion, Regis, Cahir, Milva and Angoulême, spend the winter there. Dandelion, known at court as the Viscount de Lettenhove, becomes the lover of the duchess, Anna Henrietta, better known in the books as Anarietta. Geralt hunts monsters for the vineyards and falls into an affair with the sorceress Fringilla Vigo, who has been sent by the Lodge of Sorceresses to keep him there. When he finally learns where Vilgefortz is hiding, he leaves. Dandelion stays behind, and only at the very end of the saga is he pulled away from the executioner’s block after one affair too many.