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The Witcher - IndexMain Characters (Geralt of Rivia) | Geralt's Hanse | Geralt's Other Friends, Lovers, and AlliesWitchers | Mages and Alchemists (Lodge of Sorceresses) | Vilgefortz's Conspiracy | Nilfgaardian Empire (Duchy of Toussaint)Northern Kingdoms (Redania, Skellige, Temeria) | Aen Elle | Other Characters | Bestiary

Vilgefortz's ConspiracyDesiring to rule the world, the powerful mage Vilgefortz spent decades plotting behind the scenes in both the Northern Kingdoms and in the Nilfgaardian Empire to gain allies and power. He sought Ciri in order to take the power of the Elder Blood from her and claim it as his own.

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Vilgefortz of Roggeveen

Vilgefortz of Roggeveen

"You constantly want to paddle against the current and piss into the wind. It had to end badly. Know that today, here in castle Stygga, you have pissed into a hurricane."

Appears in: Blood of Elves | The Time of Contempt | Tower of the Swallow | Lady of the Lake | The Witcher (2019)

"To you, Ciri was only a silly sentiment consisting of equal parts of the penalty of your infertility and your guilt. Yes, yes, Yennefer, a sentiment of guilt! After you had actively participated in genetic experiments, by which Ciri came into the world. Incidentally the trials failed because the experimenters lacked the knowledge."One of the most eminent and potent sorcerers in the world; though he is young (less than one hundred years, which is nothing compared to some of his elder colleagues pushing a millennium), he is nonetheless incredibly talented and powerful, traits which also won him a seat on the governing body of the Northern Kingdoms' magicians (the Council and Conclave) after he led them to victory over Nilfgaard at the Battle of Sodden Hill. His participation in the coup during the mages' symposium on Thanedd Island reveals that he is a defector with Nilfgaardian backing, aiming to deliver Ciri to the Emperor himself, although his true motives are far more sinister...

• Adapted Out: In the games. He doesn't physically appear in any of them, not even in flashbacks, though is mentioned. It makes sense enough though, given he had been dead for years by the time of the first Witcher game.
• All According to Plan: Zig-Zagged. His Thanedd plot is stopped almost instantly and things look as if under control of the "good" guys. Since he accounted for such a possibility, his political plot simply turns into a bloody coup - some setbacks, but nothing he can't get away with. The breaking point turns out to be Ciri's desperate escape through the Tor Lara's unstable portal - the resulting explosion leaves Vilgefortz without the girl and half of his face, while whatever plans he still had are derailed for good.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: An utterly egregious case of this. He opts to fight Geralt in single combat, weapon to weapon, out of desire to crush him utterly when he is capable of ending Geralt in the wink of an eye with a bolt of magic. Guess how this little stunt turns out for him. Though, to be fair, Vilgefortz used to be a mercenary and had previously delivered a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to Geralt in a previous fight, giving him some precedent to think he could best the Witcher again.
• Artificial Limbs: After the magical explosion of the portal in Tor Lara took out one of his eyes, he replaces it with a magically-cultivated artificial one made from a gem.
• Ax-Crazy: Is a pathological sadist driven to hurt others for his own twisted amusement.
• Big Bad: His plans set the Witcher Saga in motion and he's by far the biggest threat Geralt directly faces in the novels.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Despite starting out as a clear-cut Big Bad of the Saga, Vilgefortz eventually drifts to his "real" role in the big picture of events, turning to be a small fry with almost no power. At the setup, he is a full-fledged Chessmaster who has everyone playing the hand he's dealt them. Later, however, he makes the mistake of trying to con Emperor Emhyr Var Emreis. This move proves to be a disastrous setback for Vilgefortz, costing him all of the resources, power and influence. From this point on, he is reduced to operating out of a secluded ruin, having to rely on a pack of common criminals to do his dirty work. It doesn't help that the other major players hunting Ciri and Geralt include a vast empire with almost limitless resources to burn, a greatly advanced, powerful race of elves from another dimension, and a conspiracy made up of influential sorceresses, all of whom regard Vilgefortz as little more than a deviant to be rooted out and disposed of. Furthermore, after the Saga's climax, where Vilgefortz is at last defeated by the heroes when they storm his castle, that same emperor he tried to outsmart arrives at his doorstep with a legion of soldiers at his back. And judging by how things played out, they were more than prepared to do the job themselves. One way or another, this story was not going to end well for the mage.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Maybe it wasn't such a great idea to have a sword fight with Geralt when you had him entirely at your mercy, Vilgefortz.
• Contractual Genre Blindness: For the most part, Vilgefortz ranks among the smarter villains. That doesn't stop him from sparing Geralt on two different occasions where he has the witcher at his mercy. However, it's strongly implied he does it due to being a pathological sadist rather than anything else - leaving Geralt alive means he can suffer for longer.
• Card-Carrying Villain: In a series running on Grey-and-Gray Morality, Vilgefortz is black to an almost cartoonish degree. He actually relishes in it when he's no longer forced to pretend anything else than his true nature.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Delivers a brutal one to Geralt during the Thanedd Coup that left him with a broken femur. It was so bad that Geralt concluded that the biggest mistake he made during the fight was picking a fight with Vilgefortz in the first place. Though it's implied Vilgefortz won because he was cheating with use of magic, including using a magically imbued weapon and illusions against Geralt.
• Despotism Justifies the Means: All of his atrocities are committed in pursuit of world domination with himself as a god-like being.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Before he became a mage, Vilgefortz spent much of his time as a mercenary. Once he's a mage, he's a formidable Magic Knight who's capable of trouncing Geralt through martial skill alone.
• Evil Genius: The intellectually inclined, schemer and part-time evil mastermind among the bad guys.
• Evil Plan: Like that of Emhyr, it involves Ciri, but some details of execution differ, and it's for personal-megalomaniac reasons rather than imperial-dynastic and world-saving ones.
• Evil Sorcerer: Easily the most scheming and talented wizard in the North, and he has let it go to his head.
• Eye Scream: He loses an eye during the portal explosion at Tor Lara. He replaces it with a magical gem until he can magically regenerate a new one. By the time of his death, a new eye has grown back but it's not yet finished and is disturbingly smaller than his other one.
• Facial Horror: Ciri fleeing through the teleporter at Tor Lara caused the portal to explode, destroying the left side of his face and costing him an eyeball. This isn't just limited to his face either, as he lost even more flesh across his body. When Yennefer sees the ruin his face has become, Vilgefortz remarks it looked even worse before he began regenerating his injuries with magic.
• Fatal Flaw: Arrogance. Vilgefortz is painfully full of himself and it results in major errors. He leaves Geralt alive under the assumption the Witcher is no threat to him and later admits he could effortlessly kill Geralt with his magic but wants to humiliate him in a duel. This ends predictably.
• Faux Affably Evil: Even in his most evil moments, Vilgefortz remains fairly well-mannered. However, any semblance of politeness is only a facade, as Vilgefortz only cares about himself and takes active delight in his sadistic actions.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: If his own words are to be believed, Vilgefortz went from being a baby abandoned in a gutter who was raised by druids, to a simple mercenary to one of the most powerful wizards in the world in a relatively short span of time. That is pretty damn impressive.
• Gambit Roulette: His entire escape route in case of initial phase of the Thanedd plot depended on multiple characters not only acting in a specific way, but also trying to backstab each other and Philippa being as power-hungry as he predicted. On top of that, he also needed for the elves to arrive in timely fashion and Tissaia de Vries going full Tautological Templar on the absolute neutrality of magic and mages. He had no way of guaranteeing all of this coming together, making his escape plan a total gamble.
• Hammerspace: His favoured technique is to summon an iron bar out of nowhere to fight with. In the Netflix series, he's seen doing this with swords.
• Hero Killer: Geralt barely survives duel with him during Thanedd coup. Regis, a higher vampire, is literally melted into a mass of amorphous glass when trying to attack the mage.
• Hidden Agenda Villain: His motives aren't what they seem at first.
• It Gets Easier: He claims that he once felt troubled by the things he did as a mercenary, which included robbing and killing, but experience weaned him of any regrets or scruples he may have once had. In the present day, he's become a full-fledged narcissistic sadist.
• Karmic Death: Vilgefortz takes every opportunity to mock the other characters for "mistaking the stars reflected on the water's surface at night for the heavens." In the end, he is killed by Geralt because he can't see past an illusion.
• Kick the Dog: He is almost ludicrously cruel, for no other reason than his own amusement.Vilgefortz: Try to remember that though my guests may destroy furniture and artwork, steal small valuables, and dirty the carpets and facility chambers. They cannot beat or rape other guests. The last, at least until the host has finished beating and raping and signals that you can begin.
• Laser-Guided Karma: He encouraged Lydia van Bredevoort to experiment on an artifact that ended up permanently mutilating her face, then later, ordered her to commit suicide on his command to further his own plans. During the Thanedd coup, Vilgefortz attempt to pursue Ciri ends with Vilgefortz's own disfigurement from a magical explosion. He even ponders if what happened to him was Lydia getting revenge from beyond the grave.
• Lost in Translation: Part of his A God Am I rant to Ciri has a very clear context of a Blasphemous Boast in original Polish, as his prayer for protection (sans the wrath part) is the invocation done by Catholics during Corpus Christi's procession. Not all translations kept that context.
• Mad Scientist: An almost textbook example, magic in the Witcher-verse being pretty scientific in nature, but see Magic Knight below. As for the "mad" part, he's a megalomaniacal sadist who's vivisected hundreds of women in order to practice extracting Ciri's placenta so he can gain the power in her blood.
• Mad Scientist Laboratory: He has several, before he goes into hiding. When one of them, deserted, is found, cue Vomiting Cop - performed by a hardened spy who already saw everything in his career.
• Magic Knight: He was the only human to soundly trash Geralt in a one-on-one fight. Though it is implied that his skill was magically enhanced. While most mages show complete disdain for this trope, Vilgefortz runs with it, having been a mercenary before he became a mage.
• The Man Behind the Man: He turns out to be the mastermind of the Thanedd coup, as well as the one (at least with most forces disposed towards) trying to kidnap Ciri. He's also the one who convinced Emhyr to father Ciri in the first place by faking his family's death, so (figuratively speaking) he's behind Nilfgaard's actions as well by poisoning Duny with the potential of the prophecy.
• Mission Control: For Rience, whom he constantly sends out to run his errands.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Dishes out a nasty one to Geralt in the second book. The fight goes so badly for Geralt that he concludes that he never stood a chance again Vilgefortz and the only mistake he made was choosing not to run away.
• Off with His Head!: How Geralt eventually kills him.
• Orcus on His Throne: Starting with the end of the second novel, he is confined to his secluded castle and has to rely on his henchmen to do his dirty work. Justified as he has, by this point, become Public Enemy No. 1 and is being hunted by all the major powers in the world and few minor factions. Not to mention he's still recovering from his Facial Horror injuries sustained at the end of the book.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: On top of everything else, he's a sexist pig.
• Pretty Boy: Described as "classically beautiful". Later, though, he gets badly scarred in a magical explosion inadvertently caused by Ciri, ending with a freakish crystal eye of his own design replacing his ruined socket.
• Sadist: He thoroughly enjoys to torture and humiliate people, along with maiming them and causing them as much suffering as possible. Why? Because he finds it amusing.
• Say My Name: Screams Geralt's name moments before he is decapitated by him.
• Self-Made Man: And very, very proud of it.
• Stalker with a Test Tube: This example is even more sinister than you think it is (he wants Ciri's placenta). Even the other baddies are squicked, although he finds it distasteful and responds with a rant that they're hardly better.
• The Starscream: He isn't so loyal to The Emperor.
• Strong and Skilled: Vilgefortz isn't just a sorcerer. He's physically very powerful and surprisingly adept in single combat. When he faces Geralt, he absolutely ruins the Witcher in a one-on-one.
• Take Over the World: Though he hangs a lampshade, saying he's a little ashamed to admit such a down-to-earth motivation. Basically, he's in the game for the thought of being able to say "A God Am I", that people pray to turn away his wrath.Vilgefortz: I'm ashamed to admit, but I'm terribly attracted to power. It's trivial, I know, but I want to be a ruler. A sovereign, before whom all will fall on their face and glorify, only because he exists, and worship as a god if he deign to save their world from destruction – even if it is done on a whim. Oh, Ciri, my heart rejoices when I think about how I will generously reward the faithful and how I will cruelly punish the disobedient and rebellious. Whole generations will pray to me and beg me for pardon, mercy, and forgiveness. Generations of whole worlds. Listen, Ciri. Do you hear those prayers? Protect us from famine, plague, fire, wars, and your wrath, O Almighty Vilgefortz...
• This Cannot Be!: When defeated, Vilgefortz doesn't understand how it happened and that his own hubris has brought him low. He can only scream Geralt's name in protest before he's decapitated.
• Vain Sorceress: Gender-flipped. Being The Charmer who actively uses his looks to gain influence and political power, he's more pissed about loss of an eye and a hideous scar than all the other setbacks, including the fact his original Evil Plan failed spectacularly.
• Villain Decay: Downplayed. He begins his role in the Witcher Saga at the height of his power. He has a strong influence in the politics of his world, has numerous minions and resources at his disposal, successfully has both sides of the war dancing to his tune, and all while maintaining a Villain with Good Publicity image that masks his true nature. All of this goes out the window after the disastrous Thanned Coup. From this point on, Vilgefortz loses almost all influence that made him so powerful to begin with. Despite this, barring a couple instances of Bond Villain Stupidity, he remains just as dangerous and cunning as before and, remains the biggest, direct threat the heroes have to face.
• Villainous Breakdown: One that begins when his guards interrupt his sadistic games with Ciri, continues as his forces get steam-rolled by Geralt's party, worsens when Regis comes within a fraction of an inch of ending his life and reaches a crescendo when Geralt maims him and brings him to his knees.
• Villain Respect: After imprisoning her for months and (largely unsuccessfully) torturing her for information about Ciri, he admits that he's quite impressed with Yennefer's willpower and strength, despite also being somewhat confused by it.
• Villain Team-Up: In Tower of the Swallow, despite their differing motivations, Vilgefortz manages to convince Stefan Skellen and Leo Bonhart to deliver Ciri to him in exchange for furthering their own goals. In Skellen's case this means helping him eventually transform Nilfgaard from an autocratic government to democracy. Bonhart, however, reacts to Vilgefortz's proposal of world domination with a bored "No" and only agrees to the team-up after Vilgefortz buys his loyalty with a fortune and the opportunity to watch Ciri's planned vivisection as "a bonus".
• Voice with an Internet Connection: When playing Mission Control for Rience, through an artifact that's basically a magical walkie-talkie.
• We Can Rule Together: He makes Geralt the offer to join him in Time of Contempt. Geralt, being Geralt, tells him where he can shove that offer."Well, if you insist"

Rience

Rience

"With these hands, I will teach you pain."Appears in: Blood of Elves | The Time of Contempt | Tower of the SwallowVilgefortz's Dragon and errand boy, a wizarding school dropout expelled for theft and taken in by Vilgefortz to do the things not really suitable for a respectable sorcerer. His background shows he was up to no good from the start, but as merely a servant, he pales in comparison to the rest of the villains.

• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Desperately begs Ciri to pull him out of a freezing lake he's trapped in, offering information of Yennefer's whereabouts in exchange. Ciri's response is to cut off his fingers and leave him to die.
• Catchphrase: "With these hands/fingers, I will teach you pain," anytime he attempts to do just that.
• Co-Dragons: With Schirrú the half-elf, but the latter gets less screen-time. Or sort of; he is definitely The Heavy early in the Saga, until the plot becomes more complicated and his role becomes less pronounced. Ciri and Geralt also have to get through, respectively, him and Schirrú at some point in their journey.
• Dirty Coward: Rience is cocky and sadistic but only so long as he has the advantage. Whenever he loses it, his default strategy is to beg his boss for help and jump through the nearest portal to safety. Even with four professional killers at his back, he runs rather than face Geralt. He also desperately begs Ciri for his life when she decimates Rience's forces and has him at her mercy.
• Disconnected by Death: Rience has the equivalent of a magic walkie-talkie he can use to communicate with his boss. For two days it was unresponsive and by the time Vilgefortz can finally respond and demands an update, Rience is a corpse at the bottom of a frozen lake.
• Fingore: Seems to be his favorite go-to torture. Not only is he introduced interrogating Dandelion by threatening to dunk his hands in a bucket of lime, he later reduces Yennefer's hands to a mass of clotted blood. Ciri pays him back by slicing off Rience’s own fingers, ensuring he can’t keep hold of the edge of a frozen lake and drowns.
• For the Evulz: He loves his job, what's to say.
• From Camouflage to Criminal: He was formerly part of the Kaedwen secret service before becoming Vilgefortz's henchman. Though, it turns out he was a criminal even before that, having been expelled from the sorcerers school at Ban Ard for theft, and recruited by Kaedwen because of his magical abilities.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: He has a huge burn on his cheek, from Yennefer's fireball and Vilgefortz's refusal to heal it.
• Hate Sink: No redeeming qualities whatsoever, unless you really want to reach and consider his loyalty to Vilgefortz (which might very well be simple fear); notably, it's mentioned in the second book that he paid a visit to a family that took Ciri in during Something More and the results were far from pretty.
• The Heavy: He fills this role in the early stages of the Witcher Saga. He starts off as the villain who the rest of the characters are most concerned with. After the first novel, he becomes less prominent after his master decides to take a more direct role in the events of the story.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: He uses a fire spell to crack the ice of a frozen lake to trip up Ciri, who’s fighting her pursuers while ice-skating. It ends up backfiring and causing the break in the ice that leads to his death.
• Inept Mage: If you stretch the definition a bit. Most of the time, he's more a magic-using agent than a real mage. Spells that he actually casts, though working as intended, don't come out as very impressive. It might be due to the fact he was expelled from his magic school for theft before he could be properly trained. The only time his spell fails is when his fingers are too stiff from cold for proper gesture, but he pays for this with his life.
• It's Personal: With Yennefer, who burned off half his face during their first meeting.
• Karmic Death: During the battle on the ice in the penultimate book. After boasting about how he uses “these hands/fingers” to teach others pain, Ciri uses her skates to slice off his own fingers, causing him to lose his grip on the edge of an icy lake and drown. Adding to that is the fact the ice under which he drowns was only broken by one of his spells.
• Overt Operative: Not as ostentatious as most but a lot of people are amazed he's a cloak-and-dagger type who goes by his birth name, Rience.
• Pet Rat: He serves as one to Vilgefortz, doing the dirty deeds that a popular and well-respected sorcerer can’t be seen sullying his hands with.
• Psycho for Hire: To a lesser extent than Leo Bonhart, but Rience is a thug and hired killer who admits to Dandelion—as he's preparing to torture him—that he just loves hurting people.
• Sadist: The man really, really loves his work.
• Smug Snake: He loves to gloat at his victims and generally be a jerk, knowing that his boss will always support and cover him.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: When things get tough, Rience has a habit of escaping via magic portal.
• Villains Want Mercy: Despite his promises of inflicting pain on Ciri and his admission to having tortured Yennefer, when he's powerless before Ciri, Rience begs for mercy. She doesn't have any.

Schirrú

Schirrú

"Time to look death in the face."

Appears in: The Time of Contempt | Tower of the SwallowVilgefortz's second Dragon. A vicious half-elf, wanted for manslaughter and arson. In comparison to Rience, he is more of a side-character. He is responsible for killing Codringher and Fenn.

• The Brute: He is a murderer for hire, and that's pretty much the only thing to say about him.
• Co-Dragons: With Rience, though he has way less screentime.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Burned alive by the Caed Myrkvid, as an example.
• Evil Is Bigger: Is described as very large at over six-feet tall.
• Fantastic Racism: Repeatedly insults Geralt by calling him mutant. Ironic, considering he is a half-elf.
• Half-Human Hybrid: He's a half-elf, meaning he's got elf and human ancestry.
• Hate Sink: It's a toss-up which of them is a bigger piece of crap between him and Rience - Schirrú has less screentime but he slightly upstages Rience in enjoyment of what he does, and how much pleasure he derives from taunting his victims.
• Karmic Death: After deliberately going out of his way to give Fenn a cruel death by burning him alive, the druids he leads an attack on end up doing the same thing to him to send a message to any future attackers.
• Kick the Dog: He claims he burnt Fenn alive because his physical deformities disgusted him and he wanted to listen to him howl. Yennefer's also notes that he never passed up an opportunity to kick her when she was down while she was Vilgefortz's prisoner.
• Laser-Guided Karma: As mentioned above, he is burned alive. The same thing he did to poor Fenn.
• Make an Example of Them: After he attacks the druids at Caed Myrkvid, they decide to send a message that, though normally peaceful, they'll defend themselves if needed. Since superstitious peasants spread lies that they stuff people inside their Wicker Hags and burn them alive, they decide to do so for real on Schirrú and his men in front of their surviving fellows.
• Middle-Management Mook: Due to his lack of screen time, Schirrú comes across more as muscle sent out to do things that Vilgefortz or Rience can't, usually acting as an intermediary to other hired goons in the process.
• Smug Snake: Like Rience, he is far too full of himself.
• Would You Like to Hear How They Died?: He takes the time to rub it in Geralt's face how he killed Codringher and Fenn, noting that he deliberately made Fenn suffer for his own amusement.