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You were always too focused on the gold in your hand, you never looked up to see who's paying you. You see in their eyes we terrify them. The only thing keeping men from hunting us are the scarier beasts we keep away. Humans die quick so they spend their lives fearing, hating. As the dwarfs or your elf friend, men will always need monsters ... now so do we. |  | |
| - Deglan explaining his motives to Vesemir, The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf | |||
Deglan was a witcher of the School of the Wolf and Vesemir's mentor during the early 1100s.
Biography[]
Not much is known about Deglan's life prior to being a witcher, though he was raised on the Skellige Isles[1] and somehow ended up at the School of the Wolf where he became a witcher.
Meeting Vesemir[]
In 1107, Deglan was an experienced witcher, having traveled across the continent for work every year before returning to his home at Kaer Morhen for the winter. Just as winter was settling in and he was passing through Aedirn[2] on one such trip back, he saw a 12-year-old Vesemir and his friend and fellow child servant, Illyana, work together to steal some blue gum, a herb the witcher knew was meant to help with someone going mad. Knowing this could mean a good payout, he tracked the two to an alley and took the herb off Illyana. However, as he remarked on its properties, Illyana angrily snatched it back, surprising Deglan at her gall towards a witcher. He then threatened to turn the two in as thieves at the market unless they took him to the family estate they served so he could take care of the madness plaguing the noblewoman. With no other choice, the children brought Deglan to the estate.
Deglan confirmed that the noblewoman was possessed by a mahr and began to lay out traps to take care of it. Once ready, he ordered everyone out of the room so he could start but Vesemir, intrigued, asked to stay. The witcher allowed it, though ordered Vesemir to try and catch the mahr alive if he was going to stay so Deglan could study the specimen later. Deglan then began the ceremony to force the mahr out but it took Vesemir by surprise and the mahr tried to escape, forcing Deglan to kill it instead. Deglan was then paid a hefty amount and as he made to leave, Vesemir asked Deglan to take him along and train him to become a witcher. However, he declined this but tossed Vesemir a few coins for his assistance before leaving, knowing this would entice the boy to seek him out regardless.
Training Vesemir[]
Deglan made his way back to Kaer Morhen where sure enough, Vesemir managed to join him a few days later, having left the estate to seek out a new life and riches. Deglan, along with the rest of the witchers, helped train all the young boys, though some of this training came at a cost where many of the boys were injured or killed in the process, like during a trial in the Red Swamp. At one point he found a wandering Vesemir, who found the laboratories under the school and where the school's mages like Reidrich closely guarded the mutagenic secrets on how they made witchers. As he informed Vesemir a rider came by to deliver a letter to him, Vesemir angrily asked if he knew many of them would die in the swamp to which Deglan coldly responded "it's a numbers game" and pointed out they knew very few would survive the trials. Shortly after this the remaining boys were given mutagenic compounds with more dying but Vesemir survived. Once he reached adulthood, Deglan watched proudly as Vesemir set out on the path, soon earning all the money he could from contracts.
The Sacking of Kaer Morhen[]
However, by 1161, witchers had gotten too good at their job: monsters were becoming more and more scarce and now people like Tetra Gilcrest spoke out against the witchers, claiming witchers were monsters themselves and should be disposed of. Looking for a way to keep their livelihood intact and still be wanted in the world so people wouldn't try to kill them, Deglan secretly worked with Reidrich to try and engineer crossbreeds to release out into the world. In one such incident, they kidnapped a young elven woman, Kitsu, and spliced her genes with a mahr, but the experiment failed and they disposed of her body to continue other experiments.
In 1165, more witchers had fallen while out on the path so when Vesemir returned to Kaer Morhen that winter, Deglan informed his former student he would have to help pick up the slack and teach fencing to the new boys, much to Vesemir's ire. When Vesemir commented he ran into a strange leshen that seemed bewitched, Deglan hoped this could mean an uptick in witcher work, but this appeared to be a unique case and not the start of more such cases.
A short time later, he confronted Vesemir in Kaer Morhen's underground laboratories, as Vesemir had figured out Deglan and Reidrich had been creating new monsters. The two witchers briefly fought until they were interrupted by Reidrich and Illyana, who revealed Tetra was coming with an angry mob to attack the witchers' keep. Setting aside their fighting for a time, Deglan ordered the school's mages to seal themselves in the labs while he got the witchers ready to fight the mob. When they went to talk to Tetra, while Vesemir swore they'd do away with the crossbreeds, Deglan refused to give his word, causing Tetra to summon portals through which Kitsu, alive and well, used her unnatural powers to bewitch monsters in the Red Swamp to go through and attack Kaer Morhen. As they fought, Tetra disappeared, seeking out Reidrich, and so Deglan sent Vesemir to find and stop her before she could kill the mage, otherwise the ability to make witchers would be lost.
Deglan was severely injured as he fought off both knights, monsters, and peasants while watching as his fellow witchers fell in battle, but he managed to make his way to the basement in time to throw an axe at Tetra, killing her before she could kill Vesemir. As he was dying, he then told Vesemir to gather up the badly injured Illyana and go. When Illyana revealed the young boys had managed to escape and were alive out there, Deglan then gave one last order to Vesemir that "they're your boys now, young fella. Make 'em witchers. Make 'em... somethin' more. To better men." as he raised a cup to his former student before finally dying from his injuries.
Trivia[]
- Deglan is derived from the Irish name Declan, which is an anglicized form of the Irish saint name Declán, also Deaglán or Déaglán. The name is believed to mean "man of prayer" or "full of goodness".
Notes[]
- Deglan is voiced by Graham McTavish who also portrays Sigismund Dijkstra.
Gallery[]
