Zoltan Chivay

Zoltan Chivay is a main character in The Witcher 3 who appears in 15 quests, including “Broken Flowers” and “The Play's the Thing”. Zoltan Chivay plays Gwent with a Scoia'tael deck. Your first win against Zoltan Chivay earns the card “Eithné”. Zoltan Chivay also appears as a Gwent card: “Zoltan Chivay”.

From the journal

A dwarf, a soldier of fortune, a veteran of the Battle of Brenna, an unassailable optimist, a committed altruist, a lover of rough drinks and rougher songs, a master gwent player and, above all, a dear and loyal friend to me and Geralt - ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present Zoltan Chivay. We first became fast friends years ago, when Geralt and I ran into Zoltan and the band he was leading at the time across war-stricken Riverdell.

It proved our fate to cross paths many times after, and we eventually became inseparable companions, sticking together through good and ill. At our tale's beginning Zoltan and I had gone into business together running a Novigrad tavern called the Rosemary and Thyme.

By saving me from the transport taking me to my doom Zoltan proved yet again he would never abandon a friend in need. In return, Zoltan soon found himself on the receiving end of an act of friendship. Suffering some financial difficulties, he had taken out a loan from one of the Novigrad mob bosses, and as a result had made many unfortunate enemies.

He planned to repay his debt by gathering a prize collection of gwent cards - a risky endeavor, given the cutthroat nature of Novigrad gwent circles at the time, and one that would have never worked without Geralt's help.

Read on (2 paragraphs) – reveals how the story continues

In another adventure that took place during this time, Geralt asked Zoltan to distract the guards at Deireadh prison. The planned ruse proved impossible to pull off, however, and so the dwarf resorted to more reliable, direct methods. His quick thinking considerably eased the witcher's getaway.

Zoltan naturally would never have sat out the defense of Kaer Morhen. In fact, I don't think he'd ever have forgiven Geralt if he'd been left out of the chance to smash some evil heads in good company.