Are there any known "renegade" witchers?

Question

Witchers are raised and trained to be monster hunters. Once they training is over they leave Kaer Morhen (or whichever other strongholds they held in the past) and it's up to them to make their living by killing monsters.

Not an easy life. Even in the story "The Limits of Possibility" we see how the town folks start to split for themselves Gerald's possessions because he is taking "too long" to deal with a monster (and they believe him dead).

I remember from reading the first books how much Gerald (and probably any other witchers) was told to deal with monsters and not to deal with any other affair, but it seems that once their training is over is pretty much up to them to stick to the "witcher code".

Are there any known witchers that said "enough is enough" and "rebranded" themselves to any other profitable profession (such as assassins, bodyguards or sellswords in general)?

Answer 1

As far as the original (i.e. pre-games) books go - no, not really.

We don't ever really see much of the other witchers outside of the chapter in the first book and a few flashbacks later. But they do seem to stick to the thing they were created for, which is hunting monsters for coin even if they themselves get labeled monsters by the common folk. Might be that's a testament to how good their conditioning really was.

One notable exception is Coën, who took part in the battle of Brenna apparently as a common soldier. There's nothing to suggest that he gave up on being a witcher, though.

Outside of the original books there are quite a few renegades:

1) In 2002 TV series, the main antagonist Falwick is a renegade witcher turned knight of the Order of the White Rose. While Falwick appears in the first short story collection, he's not a witcher and overall a character of less stature there.

2) The games greatly expanded on the concept of witcher schools - one of them, Cat School, was notorious for giving rise to assassins and murderers. At least one of them appears as a quest boss, several others are mentioned. In 2012 novel "Season of Storms" Geralt encounters a rogue Cat School witcher Brehen - making it more or less book canon.

3) As far as games go - Letho and his companions are hardly doing a proper witcher's job either.