My god what a badass grandma, I bet her grandkids would enjoy her war stories too 
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Imperial Blood: A CK2-Stellaris Megacampaign
- Thread starter Firespread
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Part Five
The Axles Turn
The Axles Turn
The Imperial Union, as it has always done after the bursts of heat and activity its Fylkirs initiate, cools once more. Sigrid's hair turns gray and her face grows wrinkles, tending to children and policies long ignored in favor of the Union's flurry of aggressive expansion. The warriors of the Union, excepting the now-standing corps of semi-trained Leidangr that the Union can afford to pay, finally return to their homes.
A brief insurgency rises after Karlmann, a German duke, goes mad in his castle, but the Leidangr put down the mad duke and his unenthusiastic soldiers in a matter of months. The recently-subjugated Czechs attempt to ride off Karlmann's raving war, but their pitiful forces put up barely any resistance. The king of the Czechs is replaced without pomp, and Sigrid is finally given the chance to sit back and take a breath.
She is right.
The next few years are a sleepy lull, caused in part by an unspoken agreement throughout Europe that the Imperial Union can be allowed to advance no further. No plots such as Giselbert's fourth-crusade stir - at least none that SIgrid's extensive spy network are able to detect - but wars quiet down as nations return to internal plotting, many of them ready to combat any perceived aggression from the Northern wolf.
Sigrid, therefore, sets out on domestic improvements and redesigns. The Sjef, ancient tribal chiefterns, are finally purged from the official Imperial hierarchy, consolidating ancient tribal chieftains into Kurfryste - electors - and stripping noble rank entirely from many of the smaller core villages and provinces. Chiefdom themselves become structured from the top-down, with the region's Hertug - or duke - appointing non-noble Sjef to each village and town within their province. The restructuring briefly angers the peasants of the Imperium, but Sigrid quickly calms their outcries with guarantees that the Thing will be made more powerful to compensate for weakening their democratic systems. Indeed, Sigrid is true to her word; laws passed at local things become unrepealable save to Hertugs and above.
A scant handful more plots arise and are dealt with summarily. A few ragtag rebels are put down, accompanied by mercenaries and soldiers of fortune; most from France or Burgundy, seeking excitement and a rising, vague concept of 'chivalric Justice', encouraged by a new stem of writings from England and France on the virtues and nobility of the upstanding Christian man. The literature and sentiment of the North remains unchanged, though semi-formalized under court Skalds and official offices: the diversion formed between the two's ideals grows ever more hardened. Where the Christian west speaks of self-sacrifice and conviction, the North praises self-reliance and ambition. The hero of the West is the Knight who justly kneels to his Liege and serves his people; the hero of the North is the Húskarl who carves out his own Jarldom, bringing himself to ever-greater heights and goals. Sigrid has a much more difficult time managing her vassals.
The concept of the hero is aided by an ever-increasing importance of cavalry. The Union's cavalry is among their strongest aspects - the Northmen have always prided themselves on being early adopters of the cavalry corps, used as far back as the prodigal Goths to bring down mighty Rome, over-reliant on its infantry, half a millennium ago. Under the last few Emperors, particularly Helge, cavalry in the Leidangr had lagged; part of the success of the Fourth Crusade stemmed from France and England's early adoption of heavily-armored horsemen, extremely expensive but capable of extensive disruption to supporting pikemen and archers, pinning down elite Húskarlr to be mopped up. Sigrid formalizes the cavalry corps in 1063, modeling their leaders off the French design - though most of the cavalrymen are drawn from Húskarlr themselves, they are labeled "Hestrngill", roughly "Horse Champions" or "Horse Lords". They are more popular in the Christian west than they are in the North.
Silently, the last Romuva go extinct under Sigrid. What few communities remain in now-Catholic Prussia flee to provinces of Catholics and Norsemen in Imperial territory to the West. The Germanic peasants of Mariengburg, they find, are even less welcoming than the Teutons and Prussians to other Pagans. On both sides of the border, some convert, others are killed. The final Romowe of a once-great faith is converted to a chapel in 1066. Two religions remain in Europe.
Even as the axles of Central Europe, Russia, and the Middle East spin at a dizzying pace, the Union reaches stability. Sigrid's reach is consolidated and respected enough to calm the quarreling Assembly and lull its dukes and Jarls into a national peace. As it has in ages past, crops flourish, poetry booms, and wealth flows into the Union from merchants on every corner of the known world. Goods from as far as Perisa can be found in the homes of Imperial nobles, and far-off spices adorn the tables of Northern lords. Life is peaceful, and life is quiet.
Unfortunately, neither trait suits the warlike Northmen very well.
In late June of 1068 ER, Sigrid's many injuries finally catch up to her. She passes away peacefully, likely, the Physcians claim, from infections or perhaps some untreated scar to her internals. Succession passes peacefully to Trond - the fourth child of the Fox to become Fylkir of the Union. At fifty-four, barely three years younger than the now-departed Sigrid, he will also almost certainly be the last.
Hardly a month after Trond is crowned, news arrives from the southern border; specifically, malcontent young Matthias. The kingdoms of Pannonia and Croatia form a 'league' with the larger, more powerful Bavaria, surrounded by threats in the Byzantine and Bulgarian states to the south and east. Matthias is superior to them both, ordained as a Kaiser of the 'Dreitelig' - or the three-party state.
The axles turn once more.
Sigrid was an empress deserving of the av Sverdklydige name, she shall be missed.
This update was fantastic to read, and I really do love the sudden appearance of the League of Dreitelig. How did this come about? Did you interfere using console commands or was it AI?
Either way it is certainly interesting and I look forward to seeing how this shifts the balance of power in Germany and Europe as a whole!
This update was fantastic to read, and I really do love the sudden appearance of the League of Dreitelig. How did this come about? Did you interfere using console commands or was it AI?
Either way it is certainly interesting and I look forward to seeing how this shifts the balance of power in Germany and Europe as a whole!
Yes well done Matthias, and good console-usage firespread. It is rather strange that I am now rooting as much for the Bavarians as I do for the northerners. That shows some good writing on your part.
I am starting to miss the Frisians though, but I'm sure they'll become important again when we arrive in the later parts of the middle ages.
I am starting to miss the Frisians though, but I'm sure they'll become important again when we arrive in the later parts of the middle ages.
Thus passes a warrior empress.
Trond will have to rely more on his military advisors when dealing with the Dreitelig. Which is a great idea. Small states near the Imperial Union aren't likely to last long.
Trond will have to rely more on his military advisors when dealing with the Dreitelig. Which is a great idea. Small states near the Imperial Union aren't likely to last long.
I really hope you end up with an openly Christian ruler some time soon, I'd love to see the court intrigue around that one lol. Also how far into Europe do you hope to expand ? Do you aim on taking on England and/or France at some point ?
My god what a badass grandma, I bet her grandkids would enjoy her war stories too
Too bad Sigrid's children aren't Av Sverdklydige! No inheriting children from her.
Indeed, it always does.
Thank you! I did use console commands to unify Bavaria/Croatia/Pannonia; felt it was appropriate. The AI rarely makes interesting moves! I let them run their course mostly, but fix their mistakes pretty often. The League will certainly drastically shift the motion of powers in central Europe; small, unaffiliated powers are rapidly drying up! The time of European expansion and nation-building is almost over, I think. It will soon be time for glorious politicking!
Oh, don't worry. The Frisians will come back soon enough.
Getting an openly christian ruler appointed by an Asatru av Sverdklydige and then elected by the Asatru assembly would be nearly impossible! But not entirely. We shall see...
Not much farther than this. I may wage wars on England and France - almost certainly will continue to, actually - but I have little intention of taking anything beyond what's basically the Union's territory now. Germanic, Baltic, and Scandinavian territories are condensed and similar enough to be manageable, but English and French not so much! Also, blobbing, ew. But since this will eventually continue to Stellaris, England and France will *eventually* be taken...
A ruler could always convert to Christianity after being appointed Emperor.
Yeah but what about a ruler who decides to adopt the almost extinct Romuva religion? Or Judaism or suomenusko. Could set in motion a nice revivalist movement to add some diversity to the religious map of Europe.
Part Six
Earth and Sky
Earth and Sky
Trond's inauguration is without issue. Few contest his rightful claim, and at fifty-four, he has been a serious player of the Imperial court for many decades; for the last two, the aging, quiet man served as Jafnadgr's resident philosopher, advising the last three of his siblings in matters of the more elevated mind. Though grey-haired and wrinkled, the old Emperor has the tall, strong frame of his ancestors, and proud scars to mark decades of military service. Yet still, the court and peasantry see an ultimately gentle, conservative man, unlikely to rock the boat or effect major changes. In the wake of Sigrid, few take offense to that notion. The Union drifts in peace.
If Trond's personality alone fails to guarantee that, the pacts and treaties left in the wake of Sigrid's wars most certainly do. Most of Christian Europe is well-insulated against further expansion by the Union through a web of promises and agreements, under provision to rush to one another's aide should Imperial ambitions flare once more. Most will be soon forgotten as kings and Kaisers change, but for the moment, the regents of Europe - mostly the east - passionately hold to one another, casting suspicious glares towards the North.
That suits Trond perfectly fine. His ambitions are domestic; the first thing the new Emperor does is to re-tie the Union to Frisia, taking a second wife from the prominent Dutch van Loons. Despite hungry glances from powerful English and French; two states well-insulated from the Union itself by the roundabout virtue of Frisia, the overbearing presence of the great Northern power has kept the Dutch secure and comfortable. The proxy nature of a mercantile state and the Dutch's close trading relations with otherwise-cold English and Frenchmen brings in a great deal of revenue for the Union; who, in turn, allow their fellow Germanics easy access to the League, the Italian republics, and Russia, albeit the Russians having been in a shaky state over the last century.
Trond proves himself soon an amicable, if not particularly clever diplomat. Ties between the Union and the Dutch are strengthened, and defensive pacts vigorously renewed. The League's immediate anger at their Northern neighbors is largely dispelled through the friendly gestures of the Union's new Emperor, and the Fylkirate under Trond clashes little with the Pope in Rome.
This comfortable state, as such are prone, is not due to last for long, of course.
Trond is an old man, and barely after a year of reigning he contracts a serious case of gout, first of many afflictions to plague his advanced age. It is well apparent to the people that Trond's fair and even hand is unlikely to last for more than a decade at the most; he is ruling on borrowed time.
That time, however, seems nothing but a boon of luck to the people of the North. In 1071 ER, near the end of the second year of Trond's reign, a great European war breaks out. The Pope in Rome, under intense pressure from the English government, sanctions Normandy as rightful territory of the English; to which Eudes III of Capet, the King of France, publishes a letter in which the Pope is referred to as an 'English puppet'. Under advice from the King of England, Eudes is excommunicated from the church, an action which sparks a massive continental war between a powerful pro-French continental alliance and the English - along with their eminently powerful Spanish allies. With England, France, Spain, Italy, and the League all dragged into the same gut-wrenching war, the merchants and nobles of Frisia and the Union are blessed with not only a newfound sense of security as previously-suspicious states turn on one another, but also enormous profits as sprawling European empires on every side of their borders find themselves with a sudden need for foreign goods and mercenaries. The war is given the affectionate nicknamed of the "War of the Damned", to the English allegation (and mocking French adoption) that the French coalition was fighting for a condemned man.
The normally restless youth prone to stirring trouble in times of peace are instead drawn to flashy mercenary companies across the Empire and whisked away to a war with battlegrounds from Ireland to Tunis. Trond's reign is blessed with the best of both worlds, given to a restful peace without the normal complications of rabblerousers such sloth arouses. And to top it off, its political caste grow rich from the arrangement.
To make matters better, the notoriously unstable Byzantines collapse once more onto themselves, as half the country explodes upon succession over support for a one-year-old child of the Makedon dynasty they consider the rightful heir to the throne, at the behest of a cunning uncle. Few checks to the Union's prosperity remain in place. Trond's rule, though perhaps not noteworthy, shapes up to be a glorious time to live in the North.
Many peaceful years ensue. The Emperor has a child, authors a book of reflections on the Asatru faith and its stoic implications, and formally absorbs the Jomsvikings as a semi-independent society not only of the Asatru faith and the Fylkir, but also of the Imperial Union and its Emperor, successfully petitioning the Warchief of the society that Emperor and Fylkir are, as set out in the original declaration of the Emperor Maximilian's reform, one and the same, and that the Emperor is ultimately the rightful liege lord of all men. Still, issues arrive, as they are always prone to do.
In the year 1076 ER, the Emperor is informed of a plot by the malcontent Gautske. Though advisor and General to no less than three Emperors, the seventy-year old King of the Swedes has long had issue with the av Sverdklydige, given his position as head of the Leiðangr by Helge in part for his tactical brilliance and in part to keep one's enemies close. A letter is presented to Trond asking for support from a powerful German duke to form a supermajority in the Grand Assembly, with the purpose of forcing Trond to appoint a successor from the Gautske.
When the Swedish King is called before the Court of the Emperor at Jafnadgr to defend himself, he flees from Oslo to Stockholm and raises as many men as he can muster in rebellion.
With Sämund caught unaware, the Swedish forces, raised on a dime, are essentially surrounded by vastly numerically superior rallies; including the centralized Leiðangr at Oslo, ten thousand of whom can almost immediately deploy into Sweden. Within the first days of the war, a thousand Swedish troops are annihilated by a detachment three times their size at Dal, barely a stone's throw from the Grand Assembly and Jafnadgr itself. Though the proximity of hostile troops spreads worry along the affluent lords and merchants that inhabit Oslo's raised towers, the rapid push of the Imperial army assuages their fears shortly. Sämund's, it only worsens.
Though the Swedish King fights with all the force of a truly great general waging the last great war of his life, he fights a war with a fraction of the troops, in their home territory, surrounded with nowhere to run. It is not a winnable war, and Sämund, bitter as he is, is no fool. He desires little to drag the Union of his birth and heritage into a long, pointless, costly guerilla war that would serve only to ravage his beloved Sweden. No; all the old general really seems to desire is one last great battle.
His wish is granted.
The Swedish forces drag the Imperial army deeper and deeper into Sweden, until finally confronting them with barely over half their strength at Sigtuna, mere miles away from the security of Stockholm's tall walls. Yet instead of leading the Imperial troops into a siege, Sämund chooses to meet his enemies in open battle, engaging them on the plains just out of SIgtuna. The Swedish forces are pushed up against the sea, with no true means of escape, and a seventy-year-old-man with a limp and a twitch at their helm.
The fashion in which both sides stand with hard-wrought Imperial discipline would have been terrifyingly unfamiliar to the King of the North Way, who conquered these lands exactly two hundred years ago. When the command comes, both sides charge forward.
It is not the resounding clash of iron that heralds the arrival of battle; it is the whistling. When horse and man take their first step, two thousand arrows fly through the air, sailing down on every side to bury themselves in the slow and the unlucky. There are no illusions about ensnarement or ambush from either side. This battle is to be as straight as it is final.
Just as the second throng of arrows descend, the great clash comes. The Imperial forces have twice as many foot soldiers as the Swedish, yet the Swedish forces refuse to allow an easy encirclement, fighting with a core of pikes on both sides to disallow the Imperial troops to disengage. The Swedish cavalry, seemingly from nowhere, slam into the back lines of the Imperial forces, ravaging archers against the lines of pikes and spears designed to halt their advance. The Imperial cavalry goes unseen, despite being nearly two thousand strong.
After a short delay, a storm of hooves heralds a great crash into the center-back of the Swedish footmen. The Swedish make them pay for every inch, unable to charge straight through due to their own men fighting furiously on the other side; yet still the Imperial forces tighten. As the elite center is gradually made to scatter and press along the sides, it becomes clear what their objective is - the King of Sweden himself, positioned at the center-front of his forces.
By the time the King's bodyguards realize this and begin beating to the side, it is too late. They are closed in between cavalry and infantry, with both sides pressing in relentlessly. Piece by piece, the best soldiers of Sweden are hacked away, run through by Imperial blades as their own men are walled off from them by impenetrable barriers of horse and iron. Sämund fights like a demon in the body of a frail old man, cutting down half a dozen of his countrymen before, from behind, a sharp smash from the pommel of a simple soldier crumples his body like a house of cards.
A great roar rises from the Imperial ranks, spreading throughout them. Once the Swedish forces realize its cause, they throw down their arms. Sämund had had his moment of glory. Now, it was over.
The King of Sweden dies under arrest scarcely months later, more peaceful and quiet than usual. Things settle back to their normal state of prosperity quickly, and Trond spends his final years buried in philosophy and literature. He publishes a second work in 1078 ER, claiming that the ideal Asatru man should accept life's difficulties and hardships only as a means to self-improvement, and never dwell on any element of bad luck the hands of fate see fit to deal him. "Like the most beautiful ring is forged through being burned and struck to perfection, so too is the most beautiful man. When the flesh is bruised and cut, it regrows stronger."
Even as Trond writes, his gout gets worse, and a clinging tightness in his chest tells him well enough that his time on this realm as the last child of Felix is not to be long. With a successor long since secured, all that is left is to add a comely note near the end of his second meditations, saying that the reader ought live life as they please - so long as they do so passionately, often, and without regret or contempt for the workings of their heart.
He dies a month after its first distribution.
Posthumously, the people of the Union nickname Trond "The Philosopher", "The Good" and "Old Man Trond", though none particularly sticks. Though not particularly remarkable to later historians, Trond stands among the most high in the memory of his people, given to one of the most peaceful and prosperous times in the early history of the Union.
His appointed successor is Balder, thirty-seven years old and the son of Trond's late twin, Torfinn. Trond's own son was far too young to take the throne, and the line of Av Sverdklydige provided few direct options other than the shy and playboy-like man. Though amicable enough with a hearty red beard and a cheerful glint to his distinctive azure eyes, Balder's capabilities begin and end in the mead-hall, becoming timid, lazy, and overly amicable. Though selected with the same quiet competence and reflection Trond was known for, the two men are of very, very different breeds. The Union shall bear the brunt.
He gave the Empire what he could: stability and prosperity.
By that last line the Empire will rue his passing.
By that last line the Empire will rue his passing.
Better keep a close watch on those sympathetic to Catholicism, they might cause trouble.
Leftovers from removing cults from the game. Almost everyone is sympathetic to Catholicism, which gets passed down through education. Irritating, but I suppose it fits with the Union becoming a society with a large Catholic minority.
He did come in when he was *very* old - the oldest at inauguration the Union has had, I believe. But he ruled justly and fairly. What more can you ask?
They always do...
New update coming soon(ish)!
With a heavy emphasis on the 'ish'.
More seriously, it is a busy time of the year, but I'm getting together the update now. Should be in a few days.
Part Seven
Eir's Mercy
Eir's Mercy
1078 was a good year to become Fylkir.
Balder was not a popular man. At thirty-seven, the prince and eldest son of Torfinn had achieved a reputation only for being a prodigious feaster, generous in his invitations, able to hold back strong liquor and a sought-after lover. But as far as stewardship? Politics? Theology? These had never been of particular interest to Balder, and everyone knew it. His disinterest in actual rule made him unpopular with the assembly and his lavish feasting made him unpopular with the people - but what did that matter to Balder? He sat at the position of the unquestionably most powerful man in Europe. Twenty thousand men stood as a perpetually raised army, standing by to fight for the Union and put down dissent. And the Assembly could do precious little without his approval. So what should the Fylkir care if he was unpopular in both Assembly and Village? If he wanted to spend his time drinking and feasting, who, exactly would be there to stop him?
Well, some certainly tried.
The extravagant feasting that Balder occupies his time with leaves little attention to basic matters of governance and administration. The poor top-level attentions allow for bandits and highwaymen to flourish across the inroads of the North, with rabblerousers and catholic dissenters left free to spread messages of treason and rebellion. Many of them result in uprisings and serious, organized attacks; none amount to anything more than massacres. For five years, the Fat Emperor gorges himself on food, drink and women, allowing the Grand Assembly to deal with almost all functions of Imperial life. When Balder appears in his own throne room - rare as that occurrence is - it is to rubberstamp whatever is put in front of him as fast as possible, that he might then leave and get back to the mead-hall.
Peasant and lord alike chafe under his gross negligence. Never, many whisper in curses under their breaths, has a less fitted men ever sat upon the Imperial throne. For the first time, the divine lineage of the Av Sverdklydige is thrown into question. How, the lords of the Assembly ask, could such a complete buffon be suited to rule over them by divine providence? Was Trond's nomination even out of respect for the Union and an attempt to earnestly appoint the most capable - or instead mere family loyalty? Disorganized and disgruntled, the Lords muse philosophy amongst themselves as peasants fight off ever-stronger groups of bandits, pirates, marauders, and dissidents. By 1084, a mere six years after the prosperous and peaceful reign of Good King Trond, many of the anointed and respected Huskarlr have deserted the Leiðangr for the purposes of guarding their insufficiently-protected villages and towns from the chaos that sweeps through the Union, its highest political and moral functions left effectively empty for the better half of a decade. Some of these respected Huskarls, the oldest of whom served in Sigrid's Miklakveð against Bavaria - now the League of Dreiteilig - go so far as to burn off the ritual tattoos of house Sverdklydige, calling themselves 'Dishonored', sullied by service to a man who openly cares more about parties and drinking than his own people. For a society so used to the generally earnest leadership of the Sverdklydige, Balder is a shock.
Some say he is a sign the Gods have turned from the line of Sverdklydige, that Odin no longer smiles upon them. Catholic preachers stomp their feet in Berlin and Rigby, claiming that the judgement of Christ has finally fallen upon the sinful and the heretic. Balder ignores the whispers of revolution from the Dishonored, the Nobility, the Catholics. He is too drunk to pay much attention.
Something stirs in the east.
Rumors start to spill in. At first, they hold little water, but they get louder and louder and louder. The parties continue and the dissidents continue to shout. And all the while, the whispers in the backs of taverns grow more prominent.
By 1087, they are being shouted on the streets. The Skræling of Arabia have been struck down by an avenging God, they say. And the Orthodox of Byzantium have not capitalized on it - for they too cower in their temples, entire villages annihilated by the fury of the divine. And every day, the preachers shout, the judgement of God inches closer. The parties, continue, but a strange air hangs over them now, dampening the mood and making Balder's drinking less enjoyable. The 'plague', as the peasants call it, was easy to ignore when it was contained to lands that only the Dragon had visited centuries ago, with its furthest tendrils in prodigious Mikelsgrad.
When women and children begin to stumble into southern Germania from Venice and Italia, coughing blood and crying of whole villages burnt to the ground in the wake of the plague, it is not so easy to ignore.
The days before the plague hits are perhaps the worse. Paranoia mounts incessantly, with more and more men joining groups of dissidents and bandits in a mounting crisis that Balder - for the first time in his life attentive to political affairs - is helpless to alleviate. Whole cities are ravaged by enormous bands of brigands or rebels, and dozens of different factions compete with one another, minor lords rallying armies to carve out land from neighbors they would be shaking hands with a decade earlier. Strife and death precede the panic of the Plague as it seeps its tendrils into the Imperial Union, Those who are not killed in the massive and senseless civil war birthed from Balder's inattentive hand and a thousand wriggling factions find that they do not have long to wait before the dreaded Plague descends upon them. The preachers scream at the top of the lungs in their street that judgement has come, from the firm hand of Christ or the disgusted ignorance of Eir. Norsemen and Christians in the Union find themselves unified at a time when none other is in one matter: The Union has sinned, and now it pays the price.
Less than a year later, the full brunt of the Plague is felt throughout Germany and Denmark, and the first marks of the Plague appear at the tip of Norway; mere miles from Oslo, the Grand Assembly, and Jafnadgr's mead-hall. Entire villages are wiped off the map as the plague sweeps through Agder; the news reaches Balder mere weeks before the plague itself does. Panicked and terrified, the Fylkir of the Imperial Union flees to the magnificent castle of Jafnadgr, and for the first time in his life takes decisive action.
On the second of march, 1090, the gates of Jafnadgr close with a few hundred people sealed in its impregnable mountainside walls. The plague hits Oslo a few months later, and neither doctor nor priest can save the mighty city from black-lunged ruin. Those who try only join the growing piles of corpses.
The administration of the mighty Imperium goes silent. The pleas and cries for help that rise up across the Empire go unheard, at first because the lords at Oslo refuse to listen - and then because, one by one, they become unable to call out any longer. Jafnadgr, stocked with enough food to support its hundreds of servants, relatives, and courtiers for years, only communicates with the outside world through its guards shooting dead any peasant who strays too close to the mountain fortress. That, and the occasional ruthless eviction of those who have the misfortune of catching the plague inside Jafnadgr's hallowed walls. Balder throws out Torfinn's only living son without a second thought, two of his lovers, and - when she comes down with the plague - has his own infant daughter killed and buried.
Anything to survive.
Well - specifically, anything so that the Fylkir may survive, at least.
Years of unchecked gluttony and decadence have made Balder an exceptionally incompetent and greedy rationer. Supplies vanish from Jafnadgr's larders at alarming speed as Balder refuses to abandon his luxurious lifestyle - many of his close friends and courtiers continue to eat lavishly with him, even with only a few years worth of supplies stored across Jafnadgr's halls. Even within the closed court of a few hundred people, the rumours penetrate; this curse is given from the Gods for such voracious decadence and unchecked hedonism.
Occasionally, a whisper from the guards somehow slips into the locked-down Jafnadgr as the pandemic outside the gates ravages through all Europe. The news is never good. Germany, they say, has been so struck by the plague that entire ancient lines have been wiped out, both entire counties and the castles standing above them deserted. Frisia, Denmark, Sweden - it is all the same. The Finnish noble line, they say, has been so thoroughly devastated that a twelve-year-old-girl has taken the throne, as there is no other eligible candidate in the entire country - after the death of three monarchs in under six months. Paranoia and fear mount with each coming days. The whispers turn away from the thought of the plague as a punishment from the divine; they are no longer whispers, but instead the accepted topic of what conversation can be had between men cowering in fear. What they whisper of now is that this is Ragnarok; the Apocalypse; the end of days. The Gods clearly have found mankind wanting, and with the plague, they seek to start again.
Only one infection stays the ruthless hand of the Lecher. In late April of 1092 ER, the only news the aging Emperor has dreaded other than his own infection comes: His first and only son, Bård, has come down with the Black Plague. He is ejected from Jafnadgr's halls without pomp or ado - but Balder, unable to stomach the thought of leaving his firstborn son to die, sends the fresh eighteen-year-old out with two of Jafnadgr's finest doctors.
The act of sending Bård away weighs heavy on Balder's shoulders. He feels, shockingly, an overarching sense of responsibility. And if his only son is dead by his decree and his decree alone - is he not to so much as know? As the food stocks of Jafnadgr dwindle at the end of almost a third year of isolation, it becomes too much for the hedonist Emperor to bear. A month of sleepless nights later, Balder throws off his sheets, alone in his great bedroom deep into the night. He must know. And, for once, he must act.
The gates of Jafnadgr open once more.
Bård proves shockingly robust. Not only has the young man survived - it seems that he has outright recovered, and that the plague refuses to host in his body once more. Balder finds him without the growing sores or cysts he had covering the whole of his body mere months back, only slight, vanishing remnants of the incurably horrifying plague. The feat is astounding - the Plague, intended to be a death sentence, with only scattered tales of survivors who fled and ran from smouldering remnants of villages, survived by the firstborn son of the reigning Emperor. Perhaps, Balder says, this is why the plague had not claimed his life. The blood is strong.
The lecher king breathes fresh air over the half-burnt, marauder-ravaged ruins of Oslo.
He is not so strong as he thinks.
Six months later, the Lecher is dead of the plague, still ravaging through the dying towns and villages of the Imperial Union. Bård is neither appointed by his father nor confirmed by the Grand Assembly - both are dead, or cowering from the reaper in their castles and fortresses scattered across the Union.
But not Bård.
In the midst of the greatest plague upon mankind, the Son of the Emperor takes the crown off his father's bloated, plague-infected corpse fearlessly. Clubfooted, homosexual, and hideously scarred from the cysted, cut-off mars of the Black Death, the Kappeidsman of Cologne does not crown Bård as has been done with every ancestor since Maximilian. He is dead - all of them are. Bård inherits an empire of skeletons and men dancing gleefully on the corpses. The surviving aristocracy emerge from their castles to an uncrowned Emperor, the Catholics to the graves of plague-bloated Fylkirs and Kappeidsmenn, and commoners to a blighted land where men with burned-off tattoos lead bands of vultures to pick at the festering corpse. In the last child of the Sverdklydige, there is a martyr, a heretic, a man to make pay for the sins of the father. The Leiðangr have long since disbanded - all that remains of the once-mighty Imperial army is a scattered few Huskarlr, old men who wearily cover the tattoos of howling white wolves emblazoned on their necks. The carrion circle inside the Union, around the child of a hated Emperor, an unpopular dynasty, a weak man with his face scarred and ruined by the popped cysts of an incurable plague.
Yet the boy who takes his rightful seat on the throne of Jafnadgr's highest steele is not so weak as they think. In him runs the blood of Balder and Helge, the Lamb and the Tyrant. But so too is the plague-scarred boy the scion of Maximilian, Felix, Vilhelm, and Sigrid. This clubfooted, hideous child bears the broad shoulders and powerful frame of the Dragon; his distinctive, clear blue eyes blaze with the righteous determination of the Wolf. To atone is never an easy thing - even for those of strong blood.
Balder is dead. The man who sits on his throne will be forced to prove it.
Well this is a suitably apocalyptically written chapter.
A new beginning, with a scarred Fylkir leading a scarred land. Poetic too.
A new beginning, with a scarred Fylkir leading a scarred land. Poetic too.