The Continent The world of the witcher, Made for D&D

The Witcher dark fantasy setting is the creation of Andrzej Sapkowski in his The Last Wish series and given further life in the Witcher video games by CD Projekt RED.   2,500 years ago, the Continent of the known world was settled by elves, who came from overseas, meeting the gnomes and the dwarfs already living there. These Elder Races created the world’s first kingdoms and civilizations. After a period of elven-dwarven wars, the dwarves and gnomes retreated to the mountains and the elves settled in plains and forests. The magical cataclysm known as the Conjunction of the Spheres changed everything. For a time, it shattered the boundaries between the worlds, allowing new beings and phenomenon to cross over. Though 1,500 years have passed since the Conjunction, traces of that event can still be found in the world. It was then that magic entered the world, along with monsters that plague it to this day. The Conjunction also brought the first humans to the world, their arrival marking the dawn of a new era.   At first the human were nothing more than refugees an intruders, completely lost in their new and harsh environment. Faced with unknown dangers, they had to fight every day for their very survival. The last five hundred years, however, have seen a rapid expansion of that young, ambitious race. Slowly but surely, humans transformed from refugees to conquerors, seizing most of the known lands from the Elder Races with fire and steel.   Today the world is inhabited by multiple races and cultures, but for the last five centuries humans have formed an absolute majority. In the North, their lands are divided among numerous proud warlike kingdoms, which have fought incessantly each other and against their larger southern neighbor, the powerful Nilfgaardian Empire. After conquering its smaller neighbors, this rising empire in the past few decades has begun a steady march to the north, constantly seeking to expand its borders. Nilfgaard and the Northern Kingdoms have already fought two major wars, but it is the present war, the Third Northern War, that according to many will finally decide the fate of the world. The time of the other races has passed. Elves, dwarves, and other species have been forced to coexist with humans in a human-dominated world, which usually means facing discrimination, ostracism, and life in ghettos. Racial prejudice, intolerance, and hatred are their daily bread. Those non-humans who would not accept this were forced to fall back to remote forests and mountains. Pushed to the very edges of the world, to their last independent enclaves, they fight a guerrilla war to retain the final shreds of their dignity, and the numerous atrocities committed by both sides only serve to make the rift between humans and non-humans ever deeper.   Witchers came into existence a few centuries ago. Created through magical experimentation and controlled mutation, the witchers were humanity’s answer to the constant threat posed by the monsters and magical beasts which have plagued the world since the Conjunction. For years they have roamed the land as professional monster hunters, taking money in exchange for exterminating dangerous creatures that threaten humans. However, the prejudice and wild rumors surrounding this trade have also made witchers the target of persecution and outright hatred. At various time, they have been hunted down or lynched by frenzied mobs, and their schools plundered and burnt to the ground. Although the time of open hostility has ended, witchers are still widely distrusted and ostracized. Despite all this, and though they are now few in number, the last of the witchers still ply their trade, striving to remain neutral in the face of the wars and discord ravaging the world.