What I did during my Holidays: A Dead Bastard’s view of another man’s world
Introduction:
It was Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Actually it was a few minutes before ten in the evening, but if you write it was sometime before ten in the evening in the Garden of Good and Evil, people don’t take you seriously. They don’t take you all that seriously anyway if you write things like “midnight in the garden of Good and Evil” but it sounds more poetic. In case you are wondering, my name is William, and I am Dead.
I am also a bastard, which basically means my mommy and daddy were not married at the time of my birth. Once I was a great king. A warrior who slew hundreds, a conqueror of nations, a killer of kings, a breaker of hearts, a man to be reckoned with. Now I am sipping vodka martini’s under a leafy tree in a bower filled with the smell of fruit blossom and nubile young women. Such is life. Or more to the point, such is death. I hung around my old realm for a while, but it got depressing. Not only was I accompanied by more and more fools who happened to be my descendents, the descendents of my dependents seemed mostly interested in sheep, manure and combinations of the two. Up here, I get respect. Or at least, as many vodka martinis as I can drink, as long as I don’t show up in the classier parts of the afterlife. It is sad if your offspring and descendents in the nth degree think of you as a bit of an embarrassment.
Anyway, the fact that I was alone in said garden, which come to think of it, was mostly good, at not exactly midnight but a less poetic hour meant that I was more susceptible to the offer that was made. If this had been a movie, it would have been made by some dame, but regrettably film noir is dead. Also the Vodka was running low and the ice was gone. And they call it paradise.
But like I said, I was sitting under this tree, sipping martini without ice with bits of fluff from apple blossoms feeling sorry for myself in some stupid shrubbery when HE showed up. Now normally, I have about as much to do with HIM as, well, actually I just knew HE existed from stories told by those who do get into the classier regions up here. And HE spoke to me.
First, HE asked for a drink. I think HE did it more to make me feel comfortable. I have always talked better with a glass in my hand, and when the other guy has a glass as well, the talk just flows. The problem with flowing talk is, that it tends to flow places it should not go. I was a king. I have been dead for eternity and a day. I should know these things.
I gave HIM the drink. HE made a statement regarding the fact it had no ice. I pointed out to HIM that the service was lousy. In retrospect, that might not have been the wisest thing to say.
HE gave me a look. And then HE smiled. And if you think that should have lightened my heart and made me feel the glories of Heaven, well, it made my heart drop into my stomach and my tongue dried in my throat. Then came the proposal. Well, no. A proposal is something you can refuse. Anyway, I ended up as a ghost in the Tower of London in an alternate timeline, where my line was extinct and the great Empire which spanned the galaxy and where an entire moon had been carved into my likeness did not exist and would never exist. That in itself was a nightmare. Then I was told I had to guide this nation to greatness.
This nation of snivelling morons who wanted to be able to have a say in government and felt that the king was not the font of all power and where the pope actually thought he had something to add to the whole mess. This nation with its Magna Carta, its Habeus Corpus, and its INDEPENDENT SCOTLAND!!! Ehem. Sorry. I still get very excited thinking about that.
Anyway, HE said that I was the ultimate Englishman and therefore had to expand Englishness across the globe and beyond. I pointed out to him that: A) Most people seemed to dislike the English on this world, as they had on mine and that B) I was Norman-French. C) The first time I had three hundred years extra.
He told me to stop being an idiot and to start guiding the nation. It would make for a bit of a change, a bit of a holiday. Maybe if I had not used an expletive at that point in time describing HIM, HIS ancestry, if any, HIS Son and the Mother of HIS Son and the fact that HE had not as a matter of fact married said mother of said Son, things might have gone…differently. Actually, it was more like several expletives. More like a tirade. Anyway, the story really begins in January 1419…
The game is EU II, vanilla, latest patch. Setting Normal/normal.
Very rarely I might make a game play note in green like this.
I will not save and reload unless an event fails to fire, I will not use cheats and will not use any mods whatsoever.
The country is England, though that might change if the whim takes me. The narrator is William the Conqueror, deceased. Mighty hero, Liberator of Iberia, connoisseur of Beetroot mash, Mangelwurzel wine, Hangover mouth and drunk. Previously encountered in my finished CK AAR, see the link in my signature. Any characters depicted herein are entirely fictional, except for the fact their names correspond to real persons.
Edited to add some game info, reduce typos and the glaring error of 1619… I shall go stand shame facedly in the corner now.
Introduction:
It was Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Actually it was a few minutes before ten in the evening, but if you write it was sometime before ten in the evening in the Garden of Good and Evil, people don’t take you seriously. They don’t take you all that seriously anyway if you write things like “midnight in the garden of Good and Evil” but it sounds more poetic. In case you are wondering, my name is William, and I am Dead.
I am also a bastard, which basically means my mommy and daddy were not married at the time of my birth. Once I was a great king. A warrior who slew hundreds, a conqueror of nations, a killer of kings, a breaker of hearts, a man to be reckoned with. Now I am sipping vodka martini’s under a leafy tree in a bower filled with the smell of fruit blossom and nubile young women. Such is life. Or more to the point, such is death. I hung around my old realm for a while, but it got depressing. Not only was I accompanied by more and more fools who happened to be my descendents, the descendents of my dependents seemed mostly interested in sheep, manure and combinations of the two. Up here, I get respect. Or at least, as many vodka martinis as I can drink, as long as I don’t show up in the classier parts of the afterlife. It is sad if your offspring and descendents in the nth degree think of you as a bit of an embarrassment.
Anyway, the fact that I was alone in said garden, which come to think of it, was mostly good, at not exactly midnight but a less poetic hour meant that I was more susceptible to the offer that was made. If this had been a movie, it would have been made by some dame, but regrettably film noir is dead. Also the Vodka was running low and the ice was gone. And they call it paradise.
But like I said, I was sitting under this tree, sipping martini without ice with bits of fluff from apple blossoms feeling sorry for myself in some stupid shrubbery when HE showed up. Now normally, I have about as much to do with HIM as, well, actually I just knew HE existed from stories told by those who do get into the classier regions up here. And HE spoke to me.
First, HE asked for a drink. I think HE did it more to make me feel comfortable. I have always talked better with a glass in my hand, and when the other guy has a glass as well, the talk just flows. The problem with flowing talk is, that it tends to flow places it should not go. I was a king. I have been dead for eternity and a day. I should know these things.
I gave HIM the drink. HE made a statement regarding the fact it had no ice. I pointed out to HIM that the service was lousy. In retrospect, that might not have been the wisest thing to say.
HE gave me a look. And then HE smiled. And if you think that should have lightened my heart and made me feel the glories of Heaven, well, it made my heart drop into my stomach and my tongue dried in my throat. Then came the proposal. Well, no. A proposal is something you can refuse. Anyway, I ended up as a ghost in the Tower of London in an alternate timeline, where my line was extinct and the great Empire which spanned the galaxy and where an entire moon had been carved into my likeness did not exist and would never exist. That in itself was a nightmare. Then I was told I had to guide this nation to greatness.
This nation of snivelling morons who wanted to be able to have a say in government and felt that the king was not the font of all power and where the pope actually thought he had something to add to the whole mess. This nation with its Magna Carta, its Habeus Corpus, and its INDEPENDENT SCOTLAND!!! Ehem. Sorry. I still get very excited thinking about that.
Anyway, HE said that I was the ultimate Englishman and therefore had to expand Englishness across the globe and beyond. I pointed out to him that: A) Most people seemed to dislike the English on this world, as they had on mine and that B) I was Norman-French. C) The first time I had three hundred years extra.
He told me to stop being an idiot and to start guiding the nation. It would make for a bit of a change, a bit of a holiday. Maybe if I had not used an expletive at that point in time describing HIM, HIS ancestry, if any, HIS Son and the Mother of HIS Son and the fact that HE had not as a matter of fact married said mother of said Son, things might have gone…differently. Actually, it was more like several expletives. More like a tirade. Anyway, the story really begins in January 1419…
The game is EU II, vanilla, latest patch. Setting Normal/normal.
Very rarely I might make a game play note in green like this.
I will not save and reload unless an event fails to fire, I will not use cheats and will not use any mods whatsoever.
The country is England, though that might change if the whim takes me. The narrator is William the Conqueror, deceased. Mighty hero, Liberator of Iberia, connoisseur of Beetroot mash, Mangelwurzel wine, Hangover mouth and drunk. Previously encountered in my finished CK AAR, see the link in my signature. Any characters depicted herein are entirely fictional, except for the fact their names correspond to real persons.
Edited to add some game info, reduce typos and the glaring error of 1619… I shall go stand shame facedly in the corner now.
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I might have a few proposals on what to do about Scotland.
