The Path

The Path, otherwise called the Trail or the road, are terms witchers use to describe the period of time between leaving their school's keep in spring to travel the various parts of the Continent, hunting down monsters, and eventually returning back for winter.
Occasionally, a witcher returned from the road with a new recruit in tow. If such adept managed to get through the grisly Trials, they would earn the insignia of professional monster hunters—silver medallions and two swords. Thus equipped, they themselves took to the road for the first time. School of the Griffin and School of the Wolf would have their members help one another from time to time, even encouraging it during the Trials, forming a firm sense of fraternity and friendship. The Bears, on the other hand, preferred solitude. Hence their encounters on the road rarely ended without bloodshed.
Since the earliest of times, the winter was a time when witchers shared tales around a roaring fire. They would also train, restock, and celebrate another year alive. Albeit not often, witchers could winter at other school's seat. Still, not all may enjoy a hearth's warmth after the Path. Renegades, such as Brehen of the Cat School, were denied entrance at Kaer Morhen and other castles for foul deeds committed. Deeds which brought infamy on the witchers in the public eye.
==References==
Category:Witcher culture