Kaer Morhen Interior


 * Ciri’s chamber was a faithful copy of the witchers’ quarters. It was empty like them, virtually lacking furnishings save a bed nailed together from several boards, a stool, and a trunk. Witchers adorned the walls and doors of their chambers with the hides of animals killed during hunts – deer, lynx, wolves, even wolverines. Upon the door of Ciri’s chamber hung the hide of a mammoth rat with a repulsive scaled tail. Triss resisted the desire to tear the stinking skin off the door and fling it out the window.

Andrzej Sapkowski, The Blood of the Elves

Inside Kaer Morhen, Geralt recovers his strength and with his friends’ help recalls the basics of battle and casting Signs. As a young boy, Geralt was transformed into a witcher in the fortress laboratory. Years later, he returns to Kaer Morhen to begin life anew.

For a while now, Kaer Morhen has been an occasional home to a handful of witchers, none of whom bother with the fortress interior. They occupy only a few rooms – the wind occupies the rest. The kitchen is the most important chamber at Kaer Morhen. It is there that the witchers prepare their meals and gather in the evenings to warm their bones by the fire. On especially dreary winter nights, they might also indulge in drinking White Gull, a mildly hallucinogenic potion.

The witchers hardly fret about Kaer Morhen’s declining condition. The few left know all too well that they are members of a disappearing caste and rebuilding the fortress would make little sense. Holes and rubble litter the interior – signs of the riot and the passage of time. In the game’s prologue, Geralt can move about Kaer Morhen freely, finding signs of the past glory of the witchers’ stronghold and home. Its vast size is revealed as one ventures through its labyrinth of stairwells, corridors and levels.

Kaer Morhen’s residents occupy few of its chambers and care little for comfort. This is a witcher’s room. Most of the furniture is rotting while animal hides and weapons are the only decorative accents. Several other chambers are located on the level the witchers still use, and each is furnished differently. These spaces include an evening hall, library and armory. The names are outdated as the rooms no longer fulfill their functions. The sorceress Triss Merigold occupies by far the best chamber, the only one to contain a solid bed and a few comforts.

The space above Kaer Morhen’s gate was designed for its defenders, thus the presence of siege cauldrons and oriels with cruciform openings. Barrels that once contained provisions and ammunition for the garrison now lie smashed, littering the floor. A catapult projectile has knocked a large hole in the chamber wall.

Gallery
Concept arts and drawings of Kaer Morhen interior