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Background

Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon, known as Ciri, is the protagonist of The Witcher IV. She is a princess of Cintra by birth, the adopted daughter of Geralt of Rivia and Yennefer of Vengerberg, and a carrier of the Elder Blood gene. In The Witcher IV she operates as a fully fledged witcher, having undergone the Trial of the Grasses at some point between the events of The Witcher 3 and this game.

Ciri was a playable character in select sequences of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, where she could teleport using her Elder Blood abilities. In The Witcher IV she is the sole playable character throughout the entire game.

Witcher training

Ciri received sword training at Kaer Morhen under Geralt, Vesemir, and other witchers of the School of the Wolf. Her magical education came from Yennefer of Vengerberg. In The Witcher IV, she has completed the Trial of the Grasses, which is confirmed by her cat-like eyes and her ability to use witcher signs and witcher potions.

She belongs to the School of the Lynx, a new witcher school introduced in The Witcher IV. She wears the school's cat-like medallion around her neck. Game director Sebastian Kalemba described her as "about to form her own codex on her own terms," suggesting the School of the Lynx may be her own creation.

Equipment

Ciri carries the silver sword Zireael, the same blade Geralt can give her in The Witcher 3's witcher ending. She also carries a steel sword for human opponents, following standard witcher practice.

Her secondary weapon is a chain weapon, replacing Geralt's crossbow from The Witcher 3. The chain can be imbued with Igni to light it on fire. Ciri uses it to grapple, restrain, and pull enemies. The weapon appears to be a callback to Geralt's chain usage against the striga in the original game's opening cinematic.

Abilities

Ciri's combat style relies on speed and agility. The developers describe her fighting as "liquid" compared to Geralt's more grounded approach. Her lighter build and flexibility allow for rapid strikes and evasive movement.

She has access to standard witcher signs like Igni, but her magical abilities go further than Geralt's. In the cinematic trailer she channels water from a cave wall into an electrical blast, a form of elemental magic that reflects her training under Yennefer. She can also perform short-range teleportation dashes during combat.

Her Elder Blood powers, which allowed space-time manipulation in The Witcher 3, appear to be limited or inaccessible in The Witcher IV. This addresses what would otherwise be a significant power-scaling problem for the game's difficulty curve.

Horse

Ciri rides Kelpie, a black mare who first appeared in Andrzej Sapkowski's novel The Tower of the Swallow. Kelpie was shown alongside Ciri in the Unreal Engine 5 tech demo from June 2025, traversing the mountains and forests of Kovir.

Appearance

In The Witcher IV, Ciri has shorter ashen hair compared to her appearance in The Witcher 3. Her cat-like eyes confirm the Trial of the Grasses. She wears practical witcher armor rather than the regal or casual outfits seen in earlier games. A prominent scar runs across her left cheek, carried over from the books and previous games.

Canon considerations

The Witcher IV follows the Witcher 3 ending in which Ciri survives and becomes a witcher, rather than the empress ending or the ambiguous "bad" ending. CDPR's franchise and lore designer has stated the game won't "break any canon" and pointed out that even in the ending where Ciri seems to die, there are strong hints she actually survived.