it is a standalone prequel to The Witcher Saga. In 2020, Sapkowski stated that he had "some plans" for a new entry in The Witcher, but "My future plans are vague, nothing is fixed yet". Non-Witcher anthologies Coś się kończy, coś się zaczyna (Something Ends, Something Begins) is a 2000 collection of short stories by Sapkowski, including two from The Witcher: "The Road with No Return" and "Something Ends, Something Begins". Published in 2012, Maladie i inne opowiadania (Maladie and Other Stories) is another Sapkowski short story collection that includes "The Road with No Return" and "Something Ends, Something Begins". Chosen by Fate: Zajdel Award Winner Anthology is a 2000 English anthology by SuperNowa, in cooperation with the Silesian Club of Fantasy Literature, that includes a translation by Agnieszka Fulińska of "The Witcher" short story entitled "The Hexer". 2010's A Polish Book of Monsters is an English anthology edited and translated by Michael Kandel that includes a translation of "The Witcher" entitled "Spellmaker". Maladie and Other Stories (not to be confused with the above Polish book of the same name) is a 2014 English e-book sampler with translations of "The Witcher", "The Edge of the World", and the first chapters of Blood of Elves and Baptism of Fire. Spin-offs With Sapkowski's permission, the Polish publishing house Solaris published a collection of eight short stories entitled (Tales from the World of The Witcher). Written by Russian and Ukrainian fantasy writers (including Andrei Belyanin and Vladimir Vasilyev), they are set in the world of The Witcher and feature its characters; Vasilyev story is part of his The Witcher of Grand Kiev universe. Szpony i kły (Claws and Fangs), a similar collection of eleven short stories by authors chosen through a 2016 competition by the Polish magazine Nowa Fantastyka, was published in 2017 by SuperNowa. Setting When he first created The Witcher, Sapkowski had not thought up any background on the world of the series, "I began with short stories; you don't create universes in short stories, there is—literally and metaphorically—no place for them". But when he switched to writing full novels, "the necessity of some coherent background became imminent. And slowly, step by step, something resembling a universe started to emerge. But it's only in the background, so it plays a secondary role in the story". Although admitting to using Slavic mythology often due to it being "very rich" and abundant, Sapkowski