Cai

Prince Cai is one of the most fascinating historical figures in the history of Doma. Most interesting to this project, however, is how well his life falls in line with the trials of the Great Man.

Like the myth, Cai was born during a fierce storm near the end of the Third Epoch. Despite being smaller than his older brothers, Andrew and Edward, that birth was difficult.

Similarly, Cai became a warrior at a young age. Granted, he was more a soldier than the warrior of the myth, but still, he learnt to fight at participated in battles extremely early in his life.

At eight years old, following a scuffle with his eldest brother, Andrew, he was banished to Ardea to serve in the military there. Once at the encampment, he acquired a most unusual horse and, later, established and commanded the Black Cavalry, who were instrumental in the years and battles that followed. He returned many years later, a man. He is also credited with many of the tactics and machines of war which are still in use to this day.

If word of his exile is indeed true,** this places him at Ardea when the first major battle, where purportedly necromancers raised a revanent, of the war that ended the Third Epoch, and provides a strong argument that it was, in fact, Prince Cai who completed the first of the six tasks listed in the The Great Man cycle.

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** It should be noted here that the existence of Cai himself is put into question. He is mentioned only in the Annals of the Kings, which is itself a questionable source. It does note there, however, that Cai was exiled to Ardea, where he spent his youth, and the first of the trials of the Great Man is said to take place at Ardea when the Great Man was a youth.