Erdrik

Erdrik's custom-made battle mask

Erdrik (pronounced "AIR-DRIK") was a king of the Eagle Tribe in the Chima Roleplay continuity. He was the successor and younger brother of King Elrond, and is known for his accomplishments in rebuilding the Eagle Tribe after the Gorilla—Eagle War. He died of natural causes, but Galvanor eventually donned Erdrik's battle mask, and deceived the Eagles into believing that he was King Erdrik, returned after faking his death.

## Biography

### Early Life

Born well over thirty years before the events of the Roleplay, Erdrik was the younger of two Eagle Princes. While he supported his brother's rise to power and was confident in Elrond's leadership ability, Erdrik harbored private doubts about the Eagles' monarchy, and the idea that a King's eldest biological son would always be his successor (there could be an incompetent or corrupt king because of this). Acknowledging the flaws of a monarchy system, Erdrik believed that a King's successor should be selected based on merit, rather than being born into the role. Erdrik hoped he could eventually convince his tribe of the effectiveness of this idea. In terms of exterior threats to the tribe, though, Erdrik was lucky enough to spend over half his life in peace.

### Gorilla—Eagle War

In the year 31 BR, under Elrond's orders, Erdrik partook in the Eagle Tribe's territorial expansions into the neutral region of Southernfell, in addition to reclaiming mysterious artifacts from an unknown people in said region, near the Southernfell-Gorilla border. Since both of these actions directly violated and ignored the terms of the previous Gorilla—Bear War treaty, the Gorilla King, Gortphiik, declared war on the Eagles. In light of this, Erdrik had a fully head-covering battle mask forged for him, which he wore into every ensuing battle.

#### Defeat

Leading his brother's armies on the front lines, Erdrik proved to be a solid General for the Eagles, winning a number of battles against even the most renowned Gorilla Generals across the year, end early into the next year. However, one brutal defeat left Erdrik himself heavily injured, and incapacitated for the rest of the war (though his impressive mask was still intact). This may have been one of the contributing reasons for the Eagles' eventual defeat and surrender.

#### Aftermath

After recovering from his injuries, Erdrik worked on rebuilding the Eagle Tribe, both figuratively and literally, in wake of the war. Erdrik would also speak with the Eagles' gorilla "hostage", former General Gen Kai Shek, about current events, as the Gorilla Tribe went through a war with itself from 30 to 27 BR. Erdrik and the Eagles soon sustained another crushing loss with the passing of King Elrond, who died from a mysterious illness (this may have been the Vulture Plague, but luckily, another major resurgence did not occur) in the year 26 BR.

### Kingship

Since Elrond did not have any offspring, Erdrik became the new Eagle King. Determined to bring the Eagle Tribe out of this apparent dark age, Erdrik worked on fixing as many of his tribes' problems as he could. He appeared to already have challengers to his peace, however; in 25 BR, a small rogue band of eagles began aggressively attacking trade routes all throughout the eagles' lands. This issue was quickly put to rest, however, when Erdrik sent a squad of his newly-formed Special Ops eagles to find the raiders' base and eliminate the threat. After doing so, the Special Ops eagles returned to the Eagle Spire with a three-month-old eaglet, who Erdrik promptly adopted. Knowing the eagle population wouldn't soon accept this departure from the age-old system of succession, Erdrik and his Spec Ops kept his new son's adoptive status a secret, for as long as they could.

#### The Dark Age

Unfortunately for Erdrik, more rogue groups would continue to take advantage of the Eagle Tribe's weakened state following the war. Notably, in 24 BR, a Lion General who'd gone rogue with a legion of soldiers loyal to him fled to the Eagle territory, arrogantly annexing land under the assumption that the Eagles wouldn't be able to attack a "Lion military force" without risking a war with the Lion Tribe.

Erdrik, however, promptly arrived before the rogue General's base, requesting that the group of lions leave the region. When the General refused, Erdrik, fed up with the strife his tribe had been enduring for almost a decade, immediately launched a swift and brutal assault on the base, killing all of the rogue Lion soldiers during the battle. However, Erdrik found a lion cub while storming the base, and took the child with him before having the base burned down to (seemingly) erase the evidence of lions being in the region.

##### A Deal

However, not long after the battle, the Lion King at the time (Lionel's father) contacted the Eagles, revealing that the Lion Tribe had known about the General's location while planning to capture the rogue group. The Lion King used this opportunity to demand reparations of some kind from the Eagles (despite the slain lions no longer being part of the tribe), lest he tell the public that the Eagles murdered a group of Lion Tribe soldiers, reinvigorating the bad image the tribe had after the Gorilla—Eagle War, and possibly starting another war.

Determined to prevent this, Erdrik made a deal with the Lion King; he explained how they'd found a lion cub in the base, and that the Eagles would teach the lion everything to know about aircraft for the entirety of his childhood, before nudging him to return to the Lions as an adult, so that the Lion Tribe would finally have the knowledge to build a competent air force of their own. The Lion King agreed, promising in return to keep the Eagle-Lion battle a secret from Chima's general populace forevermore. Erdrik had the large Egalane family adopt the cub, and the Eagles kept their end of the deal.

### Passing the Torch

Meanwhile, as Erdrik, who'd been well past middle-aged at the time of the Gorilla—Eagle War, steadily neared his end, he raised his son Eeran across the next fifteen years (starting from 25 BR) to follow his ideals, his way of life, to be a fair ruler and judge people by their merit, and not by their bloodline. Erdrik passed away from old age in the year 10 BR, and was buried near the Eagle Spire, as his brother, father, and other Eagle Kings had been.

## Legacy

Erdrik's idea of kings being selected for the role based on their qualification and competency, rather than having a birthright to lead, had a massive impact on the Eagle Tribe going forward (as well as, possibly, the philosophies of the Lions and Scorpix in regards to the selection of leaders, shaping Chima's future even beyond just the Eagles).

Another influence Erdrik had on Scorpix was the Eagle Spec Ops he created, which inspired the founding of the Scorpion Supreme Leader's Praetorian Guard after he arrived at Eagle Spire. If the Praetorian Guard hadn't been founded, Sirius and Scarabus wouldn't have met, removing the Scorpion Tribe of two prominent political figures through cause and effect.

The Eagle Spec Ops also played an important role in the Battle of Eagle Spire during the Chima Civil War, when they were sent by Eeran to infiltrate and sabotage the MMSC. Though they didn't succeed and were discovered by the Ravens, this distraction allowed the Bats to launch a full-force invasion into the MMSC, and eventually capture it.

Erdrik's illustrious battle mask, iconic among the eagles, was placed delicately in one of the Eagle Spire's historical museums after his death. Even Galvanor, despite having seized the mask to impersonate Erdrik, respectfully placed the mask back in the museum after his cover was blown.