Nakonid Dynasty: The Princes of the Obotrite Confederacy

Prologue:

Welcome to Nakonid Dynasty: The Princes of the Obotrite Confederacy. My name is Sir John Paperbag and I will be your guide on the history of the Nakonid family. The Nakonid family is full of interesting characters and men who saw religion as a way to force errr… unite the Slavic tribes under one rule.


Now, to give you a little background into Guthskalco the first Nakonid ruler we will be focusing on. He was sent away to the monastery of St. Michael when he was a small child. We don’t know anything about his life at the monastery but suspect it may have been like going to Sunday school every day of your life.


The next documented record of Guthskalco was after his father had been rubbed out in a Saxon mob hit because he was supposedly cruel to his under bosses. At that time, Guthskalco renounced his Christian faith and went on a killing spree across the Saxon turf to avenge this father’s murder. Unfortunately, while attempting a cart-by knifing he was captured by Duke “Crazy Hair” Bernard II of Saxony. During his stay at the Saxon Jail Cell hotel, he found religion like most prisoners, so the paroled board sent him to a work release program for the King of Denmark in his war against Norway.


Once he was in the Danish court he started chatting up King Svend about his daughter, Sigrid. We figure Guthskalco saw a way to get his former lands back through a little royal marriage. King Svend probably saw a way of ridding himself of his bastard daughter from the little dalliance he had with that chamber maid years before. It all worked out for both of them because Svend shipped both of them off to Mecklenburg in January of 1066.

@Alfredian - I have been known to edit my court because of some of the looks. I normally edit all my start characters then see where the chips fall as to looks. Some interesting stuff can happen.

@Iain Wilson - Thanks. I will be posting my next chapter up in a few since the forum was down last night for me. I am actually quite a few updates ahead but I got sidetracked with life for a moment.

@Fookison - Yeah some of those guys could be Liberace look a likes.

Here is where our story truly begins with the last years of Guthskalco and his rule. To make things easier we will call the region he ruled the Duchy of Mecklenburg and its split into three regions: Lubeck, Mecklenburg and Rostock.


His oldest son, Budivoj was in many circles considered a bastard because he was born of a pagan mother or a Dane depending on whose version of history you are following. Either way, they weren’t married so that makes him a bastard.


Guthskalco had another son, Henrik who was born while he was still in the Danish court. Henrik was Guthskalco’s heir and there wasn’t anything Budivoj could do about it. Budivoj did have one thing going for him; his father arranged a marriage between himself and Svend’s youngest daughter, Gro. If a plague or something wiped out the whole royal family then his offspring would be kings and he would be known as Budivoj the King’s Pa.


Although there were weddings and much bachelor partying going on things were not that great in Lubeck. The peasants did not agree with all this talk of God and this mysterious book called the Bible all the churches were talking about. So, one guy throws a rock and of course, a riot breaks out that turns into a revolt. Guthskalco didn’t much care for revolts so he sent his Bishop of Mecklenburg, Johannes Scotus to smooth things over but they kidnapped and sacrificed him to the pagan gods. So, Gothskalco did the next best thing and decided to crush them like the little ants they were. He ordered all traitors hung and things quieted down really quick.


Nothing says baby making like a good old fashion revolt so of course, Sigrid announced while on her third month of morning sickness she was with child. Since she was going to be heaving her guts out for a few months, Guthskalco sent Henrik to live with some local nobles to get a taste of how the other half lives. Once King Svend got the news he was going to be a grandpa again, he started calling Guthskalco his bff. The peasants in Mecklenberg even starting working harder upon the royal announcement and for once they saw a real profit on their goods. There was only one person who was not happy about the heir and a possible spare was Budivoj.


Budivoj knew he stood no chance to ever rule over the kingdom so in the dark of night he slipped away to the Bishopric of Bremen to live under the rule of Adalbert. Even though he ran away from home, we know he made frequent visits to his wife’s bed because she kept getting pregnant.



With Budivoj gone, the duchy needed a marshal to lead the army and wouldn’t you know it, a fleeing noble happened to show up by the name of Zygmunt. He wasn’t much of a marshal but beggars can’t be choosers. Unfortunately for Zygmunt, a riot broke out in Rostock and Guthskalco expected him to deal with it.

While rioters were roaming the streets of Rostock, Guthskalco and Sigrid welcomed into the world a new bundle of joy they would name Barnim. Town criers across the land announced his birth as the region took a collective sigh of relief for the heir spare.


When not dealing with revolts and kids, Guthskalco started a program called the Real Deal program which put people to work in forestry shops across the land. The program was so popular in fact that a local fair featuring a new invention the long spear popped up in Lubeck. Things were looking up in our fledging Duchy until the cold fingers of death squeezed upon Guthskalco heart and his rule came to an end.

Iain Wilson said:

All in all, a fairly ok reign. No duress to speak of and he was beatified at the end of it. I think Guthskalco can be pleased with himself!

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For the most part, since I was dealing with revolts, looting etc. I didn't get to do much more than build improvements and watch the world fall apart in four years. Guthskalco would be pleased his little duchy didn't fall on its face.

With the death of Guthskalco, Pope Anselm instantly started the beatification process so he could add another saint day onto the calendar. Inside the Duchy of Mecklenburg, things were not all that great for the royal family because who wants to plan a funeral. Of course, it never fails, those long lost drunken cousins start coming out of the woodwork and stirring up trouble everyone else got over years ago. As always, Sigrid had things under control and the funeral went off without a hitch and no drunken cousins were killed in the production of the royal funeral.


Now that the funeral was over, the business of ruling over a pack of pagans mixed with Catholics got underway. Things were running fairly smoothly in the land. A fishing wharf was built, they reclaimed some wetlands for crops and overall people were just more productive than they had been in years. Unfortunately, someone in Rostock, we believe one of those drunken cousins who probably sobered up long enough to realize they were not mentioned in the will started a riot to stir things up a bit.


Luckily, Zygmunt the army marshal had dealt with this a few years back and having received word from mama grizzly Palin err… I mean Sigrid, he did what he did best and crushed them all. With that, the few pagans left in the region spontaneously converted to Catholicism and started asking themselves “What Would Jesus Do?”

Back in Rome, some say the news of the conversion was too much for the Pope and he died upon hearing of the mass conversion. We say it was a conspiracy by Mate Duke of Transylvania to be Papal controller because who in their right minds would let someone from Dracula’s neck of the woods have anything to do with the duties of the controller; whatever those duties may be? Anyway, the new Pope is Hildeprand from Orbetello.


While everyone pondered that question, Jadwiga von Steutzlingen the regions steward was high tailing it out of town after having embezzled royal funds and swindled little old ladies out of their dead husband’s pension check.


With the royal treasury in the hole, there were no funds to chase after Jadwiga while she spent all the money on fast horses and faster men.


You know how they say God answers prayer and wouldn’t you know it, the middle class would demand to be put on the council.


The council decided to give into their demands but in return raised taxes across the land.


With the new found wealth in the treasury, the council sent out their enforcer to break a few bones and in general, just kill Jadwiga.


Within no time, word spread across the land of the assassination so the pagans in Mecklenburg thought they could just have an uprising. Well, our favorite marshal rode into town with a few priests in tow to crush and convert Mecklenburg to the Catholic state it was always meant to be.


With all this rioting going on and since the castle wasn’t exactly in the best part of town, Sigrid sent her other son, Barnim to live with grandpa Svend in Denmark for a few years.


Things were starting to get back to normal in Mecklenburg when who should appear on the royal doorstep but Budivoj with two screaming boys in tow. With her husband back, and not knowing what to do with the boys, Sigrid and Gro came up with this plan to have the boys learn about other countries through total immersion. So Marek went to Sweden and Patryk went to Poland.


In the meantime, things around the area where starting to get interesting with Norway rubbing out the Pagans in Satakunta. Sigrid and the boys were itching for a fight but they knew they had to build up their forces. It takes a lot out of you to force mass conversions on people and now, they had a new bishop in town that had to learn the ropes. On top of that, a two-bit crime family formed a thief’s guild right in Lubeck on the eve of Henrik’s coronation as Prince.

Iain Wilson said:

Bloody Pagans! At least you showed them who's boss, eh? I enjoyed your treatment of Jadwiga - those "your steward has stolen all your cash" events really irk me!

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Thanks! I know those events always come at the worst times and I got lucky with the tax event coming a few months later. Worst part about it was she was a high stat steward :-(

Alfredian said:

Assasination for theft. Hard but fair. Certainly a step up on the Civil Recovery Scheme notices in the supermarket.

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Since Henrik has the vengeful trait, I figured he would be pretty harsh on anyone who he perceived wronged him. If the game had a way to banish someone, I would have probably taken that route for her since from things I have read banishment was quite popular in those days.

So here is Henrik sitting for his official portrait. Doesn’t he look so regal, so royal, so bowl cut! Anyway, Henrik apparently learned a thing or two in school because he was considered to be a brilliant strategist by his instructor.


While Henrik was playing war games, Sigrid was looking though a catalog of royal mail order brides to find one who wasn’t a total airhead and came with a royal pedigree. Pickings were a might slim but look here, Ms. Norway just became available.


Sigrid knew it was a longshot but she sent a letter to the King of Norway to ask for a union. Miracle upon miracle happened with this request because within days, King Torbjorn was shipping his sister over to Mecklenburg.


For that union, Sigrid demanded a little bit of compensation and once Henrik saw his new bride, he was more than willing to give his mom a few bucks to go shopping.


In no time, Henrik and Ingegerd were expecting a baby so they could be on an episode of Medieval Teen Mom.


Let’s focus on Budivoj for a moment here. Budivoj had a bit of an issue and that was Henrik. He thought he deserved to rule, not his brother. So, Budivoj hatched a plan to eliminate his brother and thought he would ask around to see if someone would help him. Two things when you are planning on killing someone are not to walk up to them in a drunken stupor and tell them about your plan. Secondly, don’t ask them for the money to buy the assassin. Henrik thought he was joking the first time but he came back a second time looking for funds.


Both requests were refused which made Budivoj a tad angry and he stormed off like a spoiled child vowing to move out.


All the stress of assassination talk caused Ingegerd to miscarriage.


Word got around about what Budivoj tried doing and the only person who would accept him was the Count of Aargua. This time Gro decided to follow her husband because she heard they had good wine in that area. How else, was she able to get through her days when he was moaning and groaning about his brother?

Since they didn’t need to worry about Budivoj any longer, Henrik and Ingegerd were like rabbits until she became pregnant again.


It’s amazing what a little birth announcement can do to the peasants because they finally learned how to make wooden ploughs in Mecklenburg and Rostock took a lean six sigma class and became more productive.


Within nine months of his inception, little Bogislaw was born. After gaining that pregnancy weight and having nothing to wear Henrik gave Ingegerd a small allowance to buy the latest fashions.


Official notice came that another pope bit the dust and the new Pope is Rodolfo with the Papal Controller being Geza, King of Hungary.

All in all, life was pretty good in the Duchy of Mecklenburg.

In the summer of 1081, a group of local nobles claiming to be royal birthers came to town asking questions of Henrik’s nobility. Henrik was reported as saying my mama was royal, my daddy was royal get over it and storming off vowing to kill any of them that questioned his royal blood again.


In the early fall of that same year, the Church came looking for a hand out. Henrik being a pious man, of course, handed over some money in return for some extra piety.


One good thing came from the Church looking for a handout, a monk from the silent order of monks came with the party and had information about the pagans next door.

We envision the conversation going like this:

Henrik: What is with the monk in the back? He keeps jumping up and down, waving his arms

Main monk: Oh Laslo? We think he is a bit crazy. He came up with this idea that monks should take vows of silence.

Henrik: Come up here crazy silent monk

The monk pushes his way up through the crowd and motions wildly.

Henrik: Timmy’s in the well

Monk vigorously shakes his head in a no motion

Henrik: Timmy’s in the mine shaft

The monk stomps his foot and glares at Henrik

Henrik: Oh I get it. Wolgast has revolted against Rugen and now they are battling amongst themselves.

Silent Monk: Finally! Oops!!!




With that, Henrik called his troops to arms. This was the chance Henrik had been waiting for. With his troops at the ready he invaded Werle and easily took the province.


Next was the province of Wolgast which contained the armies of Rugen and Brandenburg. Henrik had the superior troops and easily took the province.


The retreating troops made their way back to Werle and Henrik doubled back to defeat them again.


The war was costing him a fortune to finance and repo men were at the door looking for anything to take.


With one last push Henrik set sail to Rugen, to take that province.


Being very much in the hole and his reputation in an even deeper hole, he struck a deal with the High Chief of Rugen to take Werle, Wolgast and Rugen as his own. With the deal he gained Brandenburg as a vassal.

Iain Wilson said:

"Timmy's in the well". Love it

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Thanks!

Alfredian said:

I can only agree. Excellent.

I also offers the prospect of a new party game "Foreign Affairs Charades". What is the correct mime for "gradual enactment of bilateral trade agreements"?

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LOL. I can only imagine what that would look like.