The six-episode ‘Blood Origin’ will see Declan de Barra serve as showrunner.

Netflix is expanding upon the universe of its Henry Cavill-starrer The Witcher, with the six-part limited series prequel, Blood Origin, the streamer announced today. Blood Origin will be set in an elven world 1,200 years before the world of The Witcher and will tell the origin story of the first Witcher, and the events that led to the “conjunction of the spheres,” when the worlds of monsters, men and elves merged to become one.

Declan de Barra will serve as showrunner with The Witcher boss Lauren Schmidt Hissrich as executive producer.

“As a lifelong fan of fantasy, I am beyond excited to tell the story The Witcher: Blood Origin,” de Barra said in a statement. “A question has been burning in my mind ever since I first read The Witcher books – What was the Elven world really like before the cataclysmic arrival of the humans? I’ve always been fascinated by the rise and fall of civilizations, how science, discovery and culture flourish right before that fall. How vast swathes of knowledge are lost forever in such a short time, often compounded by colonization and a rewriting of history. Leaving only fragments of a civilization’s true story behind. The Witcher: Blood Origin will tell the tale of the Elven civilization before its fall, and most importantly reveal the forgotten history of the very first Witcher.”