It's a significant amount - as much as week's break somewhere hot - but it's a far bigger and more impressive operation than I expected. Witcher School costs €350 (£276) to attend, a price that includes a weekend's accommodation, food and rental of a costume, although travel's not included. Zamek Grodziec, the gorgeous backdrop for the school. CD Projekt has nothing to do with the Witcher School, incidentally, beyond being name-checked as a partner. It's all a testament to the extraordinary success of The Witcher video games, which have propelled Andrzej Sapkowski's fiction far beyond Poland.
People have come as far as from America to play, as well as from all over Europe, and for many (myself included) this is their first larp. The event ran for the first time last year, though was only open to locals this year it's international, and is carried out entirely in English. Witcher School is a weekend-long live action role-play event - or, if you will, a larp. And everyone here - everyone - is in costume. For the duration the castle will be lit by torches and candles and by fires roaring in hearths.
All signs of modern life have been disguised or hidden, electronics outlawed (except in dormitories). We have the complete run of the place: we sleep here, take witcher lessons here, eat here and fight monsters here. I'm at Witcher School, all the way over in wintry Poland, living in a centuries-old hilltop castle for the weekend.
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