Highlights
- Not all Witchers in The Witcher franchise are as strong as Geralt. The weakest Witchers in terms of strength, morals, willpower, and capabilities include Kiyan, Berengar, Ivo Of Belhaven, and more.
The Witcher franchise is filled with exciting lore and characters who are varied in their levels of power. From the huge number of mages who have come through the gates of Aretuza to the various warriors, both human and non-human, from across the Continent, dangerous figures are everything in this franchise.
However, the Witchers themselves have their own varying levels of strength. With a lot more of them being spoken of in the lore than are shown throughout the various incarnations of the franchise, it is easy to find some Witchers that weren’t even nearly as strong as Geralt. Here are some of the weakest Witchers according to the lore.
6 Jad Karadin
Though many fans of The Witcher may not know it, there are actually different schools than Kaer Morhen to learn the craft. That is known more widely as the School of the Wolf, and Jad Karadin was instead trained at the School of the Cat. This school was eventually destroyed by humans who didn’t trust those Witchers.
Jad Karadin, though, survived this loss, having not been there for the event, and he later became the leader of a group of bandits. He left this life behind too, after killing another Witcher from his school, and when he is eventually tracked down by Geralt and Lambert, they don’t have a struggle with killing him. His weakness lay in his morals, his willpower to fight, and his actual capabilities.
5 Kiyan
Not much is known about the exploits of Kiyan before he was abducted. Another member of the School of the Cat, Kiyan was kidnapped by a mage and experimented on, eventually being transformed into something quite inhuman. Considered possibly possessed by a demon, the being was now known as Mad Kiyan, making his story one of the darkest.
When Geralt discovers him in the laboratory where he was experimented upon, which lies below Novigrad, he has the option to end all that Kiyan has been put through. Kiyan has gone insane by this point, but he was still a Witcher in battle, even using signs, and Geralt still shouldn’t have much trouble defeating him, making it seem as if Kiyan was never a particularly strong Witcher.
4 Berengar
Berengar is a name heard a lot throughout the first The Witcher game, although it is quite some time before he is actually encountered. After Geralt presumes him dead, having found many of his belongings in a swamp, Berengar later shows up, entirely alive, and challenges Geralt to a duel because of his dislike of Witchers.
Despite being a Witcher, trained by Vesemir (one of the most lovable Witchers) at the School of the Wolf, Berengar hates them for being the ones who took away his humanity. Berengar can be spared and will later fight alongside Geralt against Azar Javed, or he can be killed in a duel. Either way, he ends up dying against formidable foes, but without putting up enough to showcase himself as a stronger Witcher.
3 Brehen
Once again from the School of the Cat, Brehen was a Witcher who actually went rogue from the cause and turned out to be far crueler than anyone could have anticipated. Part of the reason that Brehen went wrong, and wasn’t as strong as other members of the Witcher corps, was that the mutagen transformation he underwent wasn’t entirely a success.
The feline Witchers were known for having side effects from their mutagens, mostly in the realm of intensifying their emotions. They made him angrier and less in control of himself, leading to his eventual downfall against the Striga which was really Princess Adda, who can surprisingly be romanced after being saved by Geralt. He was secretly buried by Temerians to help them fabricate a story about him having run away rather than face the creature, but his failure shows another Witcher not near Geralt’s level.
2 Ivo Of Belhaven
A member of the School of the Bear, Ivo of Belhaven was a weak child who constantly received beatings in training growing up. He became strong enough to survive and to make it as a Witcher, he even went on to some notable feats, but he could never get out from under the shadow of being deemed one of the weaker members of the corps.
The School of the Bear is known for being one of the weaker schools for Witchers, having not survived to the point of the games. However, there are a few known quantities of those coming out of the school, and Ivo appears to have been one of the weaker among them. His exploits are known, but his death is not, and he could still be alive, waiting to find a better name for himself.
1 Leo
In the first Witcher game, Leo was one of the residents of Kaer Morhen. He had been taken under the wing of Vesemir, meaning he was likely considered to have a bright future as a Witcher. He had just about completed his training, but hadn’t gotten the chance to take the mutagens yet and become a full Witcher.
Unfortunately, Leo never received his chance either. In the battle that took place in Kaer Morhen at the beginning of The Witcher, he was killed by the Professor, one of the leaders of the attack on the Citadel. Leo was inexperienced and this showed in the way he attempted to go after those in charge of the fight, and he paid for it with his life before he had the chance to become a full Witcher. While his story hasn't been adapted for Netflix yet, it could well be in the future.