The men defending their home eventually lose to their enemy however they made sure the Fatamids would pay in plenty.
For the Norse Jórsalheim and its inhabitants it seems lost, but they are not alone. the legions of soldiers available to the Kingdom are raised to fight this invasion.The Gleipnir Dragons assemble with the survivors in Tripoli to continue the fight until the Royal armies arrive. A sheikh is attacked by the Gleipnir commanded by the highly skilled Scanian commanders and reduce them all to dust in the desert.
This sudden spurge of determination and strength from the Norse believers make the Muslim coordination fall apart as they thought they had already won and it causes a lot of issues with supply and movement with their armies. But eventually the Gleipnir are caught and forced into combat. However the surviving Jórsalfarare in Damascus are moving to reinforce them.
But it is not enough and it is a humiliating defeat. Luckily though the Scanian armada is just outside the coast of Aragon Africa.
They make landfall to the south of Ascalon and immediately engage two Sheikhs. The Fatamids are slow to respond and as the larger force comes closer, the Scanian commanders use clever movements to make their enemy to move into territory where they can not supply their soldiers and slowly kill them by using the desert against them. Another Sheikh is engaged by the other army while the other one waits in Monreal however hey are being encircled by the two larger Jihad armies.
To not let themselves be encircled the Scanians decide to go full force and eliminate the other large force quickly before the other one can walk around the Dead sea and reinforce their brothers. Thanks to the skilled commanders of the Muslims they manage to stall the Vikings in Umm ar-Rrasas but because of heavy attrition from marching recklessly to get there in time they've taken too much casualties.... and loses
But alas in one of the smaller skirmishes a lucky warrior manages to get in a heavy blow that pierces through Fylkir Helge's armor. Three days later he dies from fever thanks to the wound and his place in Asgard is surely safe. This causes a ton of confusion within the realm as they are in the middle of a critical point in development and war. Hjalmar decides he is better off ruling his land alone and declares himself King of Damascus.
The Fatamids circle Jerusalem as they hope to find an opening to engage the Norse army guarding it. Hjalmar of Damascus agree to join the defense of Jórsalheim which gives the Scanian troops some time to breath out as the Fatamids has to face a new front. But the fatamids decides to instead end heir quest for the holy city and agrees to a white peace with King Ludvig.
But just a mere days after their defeat the Caliph decides to attack his new neighbour, the King of Damascus. But King Ludvig has no idea what the Caliph was thinking, maybe it was just out of pure spite or he really believed that Skåne wouldn't answer the call to a state who split off them. The Fatamids now without support from their lower nobility has not enough troops to fight even just the Jórsalfarare armies. It doesn't become better when the Pope declares another Crusade.
It doesn't take long before the Fatamids surrender. Shortly there after the Egyptian Crusader State is reinstated as the Egyptians fall to the Kaiser's armies. However this time it is not a Salian placed as King in Egypt but the Kaiser's half brother Rudolf.
It is a strange world we are moving against. The Vikings have returned and reclaimed themselves as the dominant power of Europe. The Aztecs have attempted a large scale invasion to feed their vast empire in a distant world however they were repelled by the Scanian Kingdom and the Holy Roman Empire. In its wake a new Kingdom was formed, the Kingdom of Milsarikí belonging to the von Marienburg family once the proud rulers of the Romuva Empire of Lithuania that so long held out against the Catholics advances on them until they got destroyed internally by converted local nobles.
While most of Europe is entering what we today call the Renaissance, the Norsemen follow a similar path were being a Scholar and Borger are starting to become a prominent and more common member of the realms making the Scanian's discovering science and philosophy instead of rediscovering. "The Kingdom can not exist on warriors alone" is a phrase that is commonly used but also started quite a lot of tension in Scandinavia. In Ireland, Skotland and Arymôr the practices are starting to differ from the faith preached in Uppsala as some of the local populace take inspiration from their Catholic roots and neighbors. And as was shown with Damascus keeping a tight control of the distant realms of Skotland Arymôr and Jórsalheim might prove difficult...
Also as the wars of Jórsalheim and Damascus have showed us that professional training, veteran commanders, placement, movement and supply trains of armies is starting to become much more vital in the grander scheme's of war.
This is last chapter in the Crusader Kings II part of this LP but tomorrow I will put up a summary and look around the world and the state of it which is why you aren't getting the maps right now. I will also start the process of conversion to EU4 and writing some cool unique stuff for this world. If you have suggestions then let me know.
