“As this new story finds its way to readers across the globe this year, I can’t wait for them to walk alongside a younger Geralt,” says author Andrzej Sapkowski.

Tub Geralt, just chilling in his tub.

(Image credit: CD Projekt Red)

Last year, Andrzej Sapkowski finished writing another Witcher book, marking his second return to the series. Though he declared he’d finished the Witcher saga in 1999, he returned to it in 2013 with Season of Storms, an interquel mostly set between existing stories, and left the door open for more books set before or during the saga. This new book, called Crossroads of Ravens in English and Rozdroże Kruków in Polish, will be a prequel.

According to the press release from English-language publishers Gollancz and Orbit, it’s about an 18-year-old version of Geralt. They say that most people spend their 20s figuring out who they are and their 30s trying to tell people who they are, but who knows anything when they’re 18? You’re barely a person yet.

So it’ll presumably be a more naive Geralt, not even “of Rivia” yet, who sets out from Kaer Morhen on his first mission in Crossroads of Ravens. During that mission he’ll “discover monsters, traitors, some new friends and some familiar faces, and just how deeply feared and despised Witchers can be.”

“In Rozdroże Kruków,” Sapkowski said, “I return to the roots of Geralt’s journey—not the fearless monster slayer we know, but a young Witcher just beginning to understand the burden of his destiny. Imagine Geralt, but younger, with fewer scars and a bit more haughtiness. This is a story of growth, of idealism meeting harsh reality, and of choices that forge a legend. It’s about finding your place in a world that’s constantly challenging you to be more than you thought you could be. As this new story finds its way to readers across the globe this year, I can’t wait for them to walk alongside a younger Geralt—experiencing the trials that forged him and the journey that set him on the road to his destiny.”

It’ll be released in English, and more than 19 other languages, on September 30. The translation is by David French, who translated six of the previous eight Witcher books into English. The remaining two, The Last Wish and Blood of Elves, will be reprinted with new English translations by French next year.