Viduka was the Lord of Ard Carraigh in the 10th century, descendant of margraves who conquered and governed these lands for Redania.
Witnessing the rise of King Radovid I and his successful subjugations of other vassals, Viduka proclaimed himself an independent king of the entire Kaedwen, thus founding the royal Dynasty of the Unicorn.
Biography[]
Descent[]
Viduka was born into an old line of margraves who had originally conquered the wild eastern frontier of Sambuk's realm, mere decades after the First Landing. They eventually started to title themselves princes, claiming to be of royal blood and, from time to time, even rightful heirs to Novigradian throne.[1]
Lord of Ard Carraigh[]
At an early point in his reign, as attested by recognized historians including Brandon of Oxenfurt, Viduka wandered about his land when he saw a unicorn. Following it, he was led to an unusual site far from any lake or river, just in the center of the country. Here he founded his seat, dubbing it Ard Carraigh or, in Common Speech, the High Rock and made unicorn his emblem.[2]
Later Radovid the Great had been crowned the first king of Redania, a successor state of Sambuk's fractured realm, and started consolidating his power by bringing all vassals back under the crown. Aware of this, Viduka declared his dominion an independent kingdom and gave it the name which elves had used to call it for ages: Caedwen, meaning the White Forest in classic Elder Speech.[1]
King of Kaedwen[]
In order to protect his realm, the monarch formed an alliance with Aedireen, the first queen of Aedirn, promising her the fertile land of Lormark once they won. The Kaedwenian-Aedirnian alliance resulted in the astonishing victory over Royal Redanian Army. Aedireen seized Hagge with the surrounding region while Kaedwen expanded to Caingorn, Malleore, Barefield and Ban Gleán. The new border of Kaedwen and Redania proved to be exceptionally durable and became the basis for an equally unchanging peace between both realms for more than two centuries.
In Hagge, Viduka with reluctance kept the given promise and handed over the control of Lormark, since then called the Upper Aedirn. This became the beginning of the long-standing conflict between the two eastern kingdoms.[1]
Trivia[]
- He might be a nod to Vidugavia, a first self-styled king of Rhovanion in J. R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth. Rhovanion is a wild and forested realm which resembles Kaedwen in more than one way.
References[]
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Rulers
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