The Witcher Website Relaunched

In anticipation of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, CD Projekt has relaunched the official website for The Witcher with a spiffy new look, as well as the expected dose of screenshots, concept art, sketches, and wallpaper. We also learn more about Geralt and a bit about two characters – Zoltan and Dandelion:

Zoltan Chivay is among the few who can consider themselves Geralt’s close friend. They met years ago and very much by accident, when Geralt, pursuing his destiny, was seeking Ciri, and Zoltan was looking for a fight and a chance to get rich. Amidst the turmoil of war, they saved each other’s skins many times, which transformed their chance acquaintance into a friendship that endures to this day. In breaks between bloody melees, Zoltan strives to cultivate beautiful dwarven traditions that include picking fights in taverns, losing his coin at cards, or getting drunk as if there was no tomorrow. Invariably curious about the world, Geralt has often joined in these rituals, usually regretting this the following morning, when a hangover obliterated any doubts as to what had happened the night before. Despite all, Geralt values Zoltan’s friendship as well as the edge of dwarf’s battleaxe, mindful that it is always better to wake up with a splitting headache than to wake with no head at all.

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The world needs heroes to protect the innocent from evil just as heroes need bards to ensure that their names are remembered, to sing ballads about their heroic exploits and noble, albeit dopey demises. Though roadside taverns are full of home-grown buskers who call themselves minstrels, only a few actually matter, and Dandelion is arguably chief among them. Calling him the greatest artist among lovers hardly does him justice; calling him the greatest lover among artists, well… dozens of seduced women can’t be wrong. Dandelion has been travelling with Geralt for ages, and though it’s impossible to say how it all began, it’s hard to imagine them going their separate ways. Dandelion has a foul tongue, a jester’s sense of tact, and an ego the size of a small kingdom. These are the traits that would lead the two companions to the scaffold were it not for the swiftness of the witcher’s sword. Such is the price of friendship…