'The Witcher: Blood Origin' Casts 'Vikings' Star in Leading Role

Netflix has cast a high-fantasy veteran in its upcoming prequel The Witcher: Blood Origin. According to a report by Deadline, Laurence O'Fuarain will play a character named Fjall — the second leading man in the series. O'Fuarain is known for roles in Vikings, Game of Thrones and Black 47, among other things.

Blood Origin is the second prequel to The Witcher that Netflix has announced. It will be set 1,200 years before the events of the main series, and will explore the origins of magic on The Continent, and of the Witchers themselves. Little is known about the plot of the series so far, but O'Fuarain's character Fjall is reportedly a gifted warrior who has sworn to protect a king with his life. However, the death of a loved one in battle has left him with scars that he can never make peace with.

O'Fuarain joins Jodie Turner-Smith, who has already been cast as Éile in The Witcher: Blood Origin. Éile is also an elite warrior, who was blessed with "the voice of a goddess." Éile's clan protects the queen the way that Fjall's clan protects the king, but Éile has left that calling to follow her heart as a nomadic musician.

The Witcher is based on a series of books by the same name published by author Andrzej Sapkowski in the 1990s. The books were popularized in the English-speaking world when they were adapted into a series of video games, and since then English translations of the books have become bestsellers.

Sapkowski's books have only hinted at the setting in time which Blood Origin is going to tackle. In his fictional world, the Continent was originally home to gnomes and dwarves, then to elves from overseas. Sometime after that came a magical event called "the Conjunction of the Spheres," which blurred the lines between worlds and allowed monsters to inflitrate the Continent. His writings make it intentionally unclear whether humans arrived before or after the Conjunction of the Spheres.

Blood Origin will be set during the Conjunction of the Spheres, centering around the creation of the first Witcher to hunt down the invading monsters and make the Continent safe. Sapkowski will serve as a creative consultant on the series, while writer Declan de Barra will serve as showrunner. De Barra wrote on the original Witcher series under showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, who will be an executive producer on Blood Origin as well.

More details are still emerging, but it is not clear when fans will get to see The Witcher: Blood Origin for themselves. The series does not yet have a release date, but it will likely come after The Witcher Season 2, which is expected later this year.