Greetings and salutations! Couldn't help but notice we're currently woefully lacking of everybody's favourite nonsensical alternative-history mod. Naturally I can not let such an injustice stand and promptly got this old gal working with the current game after messing about with it for my own ends many moons ago.
A bit of History, if you care.
The premise of this mod is rather obvious if you're familiar with Vinland, but if you're not: The first Europeans to set foot in the Americas were, in fact, Viking explorers. The story begins with Leifr Eiríksson's father Eiríkr who was forced to leave Norway as a child due to his parents' committing manslaughter and moving to the new colony founded in Iceland. Later in life, 982 CE, Eiríkr would face a three year exile from Iceland due to a feud and left for Greenland, where he founded the first permanent European colony (which survived up into the 15th Century). He was the one to deceptively name it "Greenland" despite it being quite harsh, with the intent of attracting settlers, though it should be noted it was more hospitable back then than it is currently. The population of Greenland boomed, rising to over 5000 inhabitants come to escape the overpopulation in Iceland. This sudden increase had consequences, however, as an epidemic circa 1002 ended up taking Eiríkr's life.
Meanwhile Bjarni Herjólfsson, a merchant-captain from Norway, was about to have a fateful encounter. His parents lived in Iceland and he visited them every year, so this particular year was no exception.. but when he arrived it turned out that they had gone with Eiríkr to Greenland, and so he decided to follow them. But during the summer of either 985 or 986 he, sailing with neither map nor compass, was blown off course by a storm. Eventually he sighted land, but that forested mountainous land was not Greenland and so, despite the pleas of his crewmen, he refused to land there and look around. While none of the crew had ever been to Greenland before and they were in strange waters they did eventually manage to regain their course. Once he had arrived in Greenland Bjarni decided to settle there with his parents. Although he reported that he had seen land further west no one took an interest.. that is, until his father died and he returned to Norway and he met Leifr, son of Eiríkr, born 970.
Leifr bought Bjarni's ship from him and gathered himself a crew to set out for this new land, in the hopes the stories told were true and that there was land beyond Greenland. He asked his father to lead the expedition, but after his horse stumbles on the way to the ship and hurting his foot he declines, considering it an ill-omen, stating that "It is not ordained that I should discover more countries than that which we now inhabit".
Leifr set sail and arrived in new world, traveling southward and seeing the land become more and more inviting. Many days pass sailing this coast and they reach good fertile soil where the days and nights are more equal than in Greenland or Iceland and where fruits and berries grow freely. They decide to stay the winter there, making the first Norse settlement in North America. Once spring came they sailed back to Greenland with a ship loaded with wood and foods. During the voyage home they encounter and rescue a group of ship-wrecked Norsemen, after-which Leifr is called Leifr hinn heppni ("Leif the Lucky").
The voyage is discussed extensively in Brattahlíd, the main city of Greenland. Leifr's brother Thorvaldr thinks Vinland should be explored more extensively and Leifr agrees to take him with on another voyage, which they gather 30 more crew for. The new expedition returns to the settlement built on the previous journey and stay the winter, feeding themselves by fishing. In the spring Thorvaldr's expedition sails westward to go exploring, finding no signs of human habitation apart from one corn-shed. Returning to their camp for the winter, the next summer they set out to explore to the east of Vinland where they at one point embark into a pleasant forested area, where Thorvaldr remarked that he would like to raise his dwelling there. When returning to their ship they saw three canoes with nine skraelings there, so they attacked them, but one got away and later the Skraelings returned with a larger force and attack Thorvaldr and his men, fatally wounding him with an arrow. He is buried in Vinland. Thorstein Eíriksson, determined to go there for his brother's dead body, never reaches Vinland as he dies from a disease during his journey.
Thorstein's wife Gudrid went back to Greenland where she would meet Thorfinnr "Karlsefni" Thórdarson, a rich man recently arrived from Norway, whom she would later marry after he falls in love with her. Listening to his wife's suggestions Karlsefni would invest in an attempt to settle Vinland properly, sending many ships and hundreds of people to establish colonies. They establish trade with the Skraelings, although he forbids them to trade weapons. By their second winter in Vinland the Skraelings come again to trade, but this time one of Karslefni's men kill one of them for trying to steal his weapons. Fearing that they would return in larger numbers to fight, Karlsefni makes his preparations for battle and when they do return the Norsemen fight them off, despite having fewer warriors. During their stay in the colony Gudrid bore him a son, namned Snorri, that is the first child of European settlers in the new world. Having made good profits on his journey west Karlsefni returned to Greenland the next spring.
..And here we are. While in reality they had some hard battles with the indigenous peoples and gave up on the new lands, in this mod the up-to-300 settlers would see themselves triumphant against the Skraelings and end up attracting more settlers, reaching a stable population and having founded a new Norse country. Growing in population and territory over centuries and unlike his father, who remained staunchly Ásatrú, Leifr had converted to Christianity and thus there is both Ásatrú and Christianity in Vinland, struggling over who will define the character of the Norse people.
While they are a faded memory in Europe and have lost contact with their ancestral homes in Greenland & Iceland, they flourish in their new homeland. Building strong trade and expanding their colonies ever outward.
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Originally Posted by majortopio
