aka my island-slash-principality-personified-as-people original characters.
i know that's a mouthful but it will make sense, promise.
.♡｡ﾟ:｡.✧.*｡:ﾟ.☆
While the islands of course still exist today, I will focus on the first settlers and the first rulers of this area, as well as other things that play an important part in their history.
The name I chose for him is Theo, short for the frankish name Theodomir, also spelled Theudomer or Theodemer. The frankish dialect belongs to the germanic language, and I thought it would be fitting if he gave himself a germanic name after Germanic settlers populated the island, especially after the Danish conquests. more about that below.
because this is already long enough, i will link back to the original design for Rügen and the OC post (originally made for Axis Powers Hetalia Amino) here.
i also go over the name for him there, since it's what 2016 nik had in mind
funnily enough i could find a whole wikipedia article on the raid and siege of the fortress, while a separate entry for it doesn't exist in German
sources for Rügen and the Danish uprisings
･｡ﾟ:｡*.
some key notes on: Rügen
1168 until 1325
Fürstentum Rügen, or Rugia, or the principality, formerly a duchy and belonging to the House of Wizlaw, or whatever you want to call it. Consisting of the island of Rügen and the adjacent mainland. Throughout history it wasn't always a part of the Holy Roman Empire, but always a fiefdom of Denmark.
The main conflict happened when the danish King Valdemar ordered a siege of the fortess that belonged to the Rani/Rujani, a west slavic tribe as part of his conquest in the baltic region.
1168 or 1169: the slavic Arkona fortress taken under siege and plundered, the statue of slavic god Svandavitz destroyed and burned. The slavs who first settled in the region had their own pagan gods and beliefs, obviously the church didn't like that, so the danish ordered that their temple will be looted and razed, which happened as part of the late 1160s raids when King Valdemar and Bishop Absalon set out to conquer Rügen.
Obviously this crusade proved that the northeastern pagans of Europe could only be christianized through subjugation.
Which is just what happened and was the logical thing back then, but personally I would have loved to learn more about the pagan beliefs when I was in school.
During the uprising of 1169, King Valdemar was determined to eradicate the idol cult that was the center of Arkona. What followed was that Jaromar I was named prince of Rügen and Valdemar its king.
While I want to focus on that when I write and post art of the characters, I'm also interested in the time periods after that, and how the region ultimately ended up under Swedish rule.
