Eredin Bréacc Glas

The ruthless Aen Elle elf who leads the Wild Hunt and the main villain of The Witcher 3, determined to seize Ciri’s power.

Eredin Bréacc Glas is an elf of the Aen Elle and the King of the Wild Hunt, the ghostly riders that people on the Continent fear as an omen of war. The truth is less supernatural but no less frightening: the Hunt is a unit of elite elven warriors who wear skeletal armour to look like wraiths and cross between worlds to take slaves. Eredin once led these Red Riders for King Auberon, and later took the throne of Tir ná Lia for himself. The unicorns call him Sparrowhawk.

Eredin in The Witcher 3
Eredin is the main villain of the game. His world is dying under the White Frost, and he wants Ciri’s Elder Blood to open a way for his people to conquer the Continent. He hunts her relentlessly with his two generals, Imlerith and the navigator Caranthir. In Skellige he ambushes Ciri and Avallac’h, cursing the sage into the pitiful creature later known as Uma.

When Ciri flees to Kaer Morhen, Eredin attacks the keep in full force. In The Battle of Kaer Morhen he freezes the courtyard with a single spell, and when Imlerith kills Vesemir, Ciri’s grief unleashes a burst of power that forces the Hunt to retreat. From then on his position crumbles. Imlerith dies on Bald Mountain, and Geralt and Avallac’h prove to the viceroy Ge’els that Eredin murdered King Auberon, so Ge’els holds back reinforcements.

What happens to Eredin?
Eredin always dies. Lured to Undvik by the Sunstone, the Naglfar lands in a trap of Nilfgaardian and Skellige forces. In On Thin Ice Eredin cuts down the jarl Crach an Craite on the deck of his ship, then faces Geralt in a duel that spills through portals into other worlds. Geralt finally kills him, and with his dying breath Eredin claims that Avallac’h manipulated them both to get Ciri for himself.

In the earlier games
In The Witcher 2 the King of the Wild Hunt appears only in flashbacks.

In the books
In The Time of Contempt the Hunt first tries to catch Ciri near Gors Velen. In The Lady of the Lake Ciri meets Eredin in the world of the Aen Elle, where he makes no secret of his contempt for her. When the old King Auberon fails to father a child with her, Eredin gives him an aphrodisiac that poisons him, and so becomes king himself. He chases Ciri as she escapes, but the unicorns help her get away.