Imperial Blood: A CK2-Stellaris Megacampaign
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Part Two
Sons and Servants
"Father of all, King of all. Some it makes gods, some it makes men, some it makes slaves, some free."
Sons and Servants
"Father of all, King of all. Some it makes gods, some it makes men, some it makes slaves, some free."
At the dawn of the 12th century, the Fylkirate fumed. Christian Europe had adapted well to the expansive pagan Empire, and taking land was not so simple as it was in the times of Sigurd or Elisabet. By this time, the nations of Europe had become organized and centralized, and the core foundation of every modern-day Empire was already in place. Aside from the still-disunified and bickering Irish chiefs, no man or woman in Europe was without a King, Emperor, or Tsar. The days of Jarls and Chieftrans had ended, and the Kingdoms of Europe had well since adjusted to the politics of large Empires.
The Imperial Union was not the first modern Empire in Europe - that credit goes to Byzantium by a longshot - but it most certainly was the biggest threat to the Christian states of the continent, and upon the ascension of the hotheaded and militaristic Aleksandr in the wake of the Polish annexation of a significant chunk of then-Pommerania, it seemed obvious a war was on the horizon. A pact went up almost immediately between the nations of Poland, Scotland, Burgundy and the League, signed on the 17th of January in 1116 ER, known today as the Alliance of Poznan (for the polish name of the largest city in the annexed territory).
The Grand Assembly's proceedings of 1116 recorded a near-even split on the decision to declare war against the Polish; it was, at that time, already privy to the whims of the Assembly whether or not the Union was given to declare war. Some of this represented simple political opposition to Aleksandr, but a larger part was concerns about the ability of the plague-recovering Union to handle a large-scale European war that would, potentially, span the entire length of its southern border. The Jarl of Sweden, then designate regent for the Union, transcribed a speech decrying the move as 'dangerously ambitious' and 'unrealistic', albeit thoroughly saturated with praise for the new Fylkir. The Assembly eventually comes out in favor of the war - albeit by a margin of less than seven votes.
On the twentieth of January, a state of war is declared against Poland, marking the beginning of what was would come to be called the Bleeding Years.
Fig 1.1; Alliance of Poznan
Fighting is near immediate; written reports on the Polish-Imperial border report skirmishes begin as early as the third of February as the League of Dreitelig, alongside the Kingdoms of Burgundy and Scotland, declare war in defense of the Polish nation. On the twenty-sixth of March, the Kingdom of Italy joins them, supported by a papal decree. Nearly the entire southern border of the Union, from Lithuania to Alsace-Lorraine was compromised, creating an enormous front - not to mention the Scottish armies preparing to siege Imperial fortresses at Orkney and the northern highlands. In a letter to a political ally at Copenhagen dated to early May, Alkesandr wrote that he 'feared he may have made a dear mistake'. There is no evidence of any sort of early attempts to stop the war, even as Europe completely erupted in flames.
The War of the Alliance of Poznan served as something of a trigger across Central and Western Europe, which positively erupted in violence. France, in the midst of considering joining the Alliance, was wracked by a violent civil war as a claimant from the Burgundian throne promised a great deal of rights to the French nobility should they help him seize power. In the warring states of the Alliance, there occurred, for various reasons, a near-constant stream of peasant rebellions as most of Central Europe became a warzone, particularly in disaffected regions like Bohemia, Bavaria, and Imperial Burgundy.
Aside from a few minor skirmishes, the war began in earnest - interestingly enough - in the Union's heartland.
The Scottish had sent only small forces to the minor Imperial holdings in Britain, diverting the majority of their army (at 9,000 standing, a respectable force at the time) to a landing against the capital at Jafnadgr. Though a flanking force of three thousand was intercepted and destroyed by the Imperial Guard while advancing upon Oslo, the main force, six thousand strong, annihilated defenses at Vestfold, entrenching themselves outside the Imperial capital. With only roughly five thousand elite guardsmen to match the entrenched Scottish force of seven thousand, and not a man to spare from the southern front, these two weathered, veteran fighting forces would pitch some of the most intense battles of the War of Poznan, clashing with one another over the course of the entire conflict - some of which took place in Oslo itself. While suitably dramatic and a well-executed move from the planning table, the Scottish siege failed to have any real effect over the course of the war (other than spawning a handful of surviving mock poems about assemblymen being forced to fight), as Fylkir Aleksandr, along with the overwhelming majority of important Imperial nobility and military figures, spent the entire war in Germania and Poland.
The first serious battle on the southern front sparked on September of 1116 ER, over half a year into the war. After a handful of smaller individual losses against Northern troops, a combined division of Polish and League soldiers engage a split detachment of Union soldiers less than a third of their size. The battle of Ciezsyn, a devestating two-to-one rout for the Union against fifteen thousand opponent seems to have woken up Aleksandr up to the impossibility of waging war in the southern front with barely twenty thousand men in total; past September, the troop counts in the war as a whole rise dramatically in the wake of a proclamation of conscription.
Forced conscription across the Union were met by similar acts in Poland and the League, which turned the irritating buzz of peasant rebellion in Central Europe into a roaring flame. Small-scale revolts occurred nearly every day from 1117-1119, and at least four large-scale, coordinated peasant uprisings of a thousand or more men are known to have occurred during the 'Bleeding Years'. Dissatisfaction with the campaign on both sides became exceptionally high, particularly as taxes begin to dramatically spike; the first records of the Union having difficulties finding the funds to pay and feed soldiers in the feed occurs in early 1117 ER, and by 1118 the Northern Empire was wracked by crushing debt. The League wasn't far behind, hiring a sizable number of mercenaries alongside extensive conscription efforts. Scotland and Burgundy avoided most of these troubles by keeping their homelands out of the warzone, although Poland, the location of some of the most critical battles of the war, was significantly more stable during these years than either of its neighbors, owing perhaps to a feeling of unity from Imperial occupation of important cities like Krakow and Poznan.
Scenes of the War of Poznan became exceedingly disjointed and chaotic by the year 1117, particularly in Bohemia, which was faced with the unfortunate predicament of being completely surrounded by Poland and the League of Dreitelig, with little support from their Germanic brothers - to say nothing of the Scandinavian aristocracy. Here, the most critical battle of the war would be fought: The battle of Meissen, on the very edge of what was then the League's border with the Union. In January of 1117, an Imperial force seven thousand strong engaged a Polish-League division of roughly nine thousand outside of Meissen. The first few engagements resulted in a tactical stalemate that lasted weeks, and forces around outer Poland and the League's borders flocked to the conflict - by mid-February, more than ten thousand men were engaged on either side. The stalemate gave enough time for Aleksandr to reposition a group of five thousand Imperial soldiers around Silesia, who arrived on the twenty-seventh of February from behind Alliance lines, pinning them between Imperial cohorts on both sides and the Elbe river. Deep divisions between the entirely separate and mostly uncoordinated Polish soldiers and those from the League resulted in a chaotic slaughter, which Imperial historians of the time celebrated as a massive victory, claiming a number of ten-to-one deaths on the Alliance side as fact. Modern estimates anticipate roughly two thousand Imperial deaths compared to eight thousand on the Alliance side, though the battle in any case represented an enormous and deeply symbolic victory for the Union.
Most of the Fylkirate's remaining efforts turned to the Scottish force in the mainland, fighting in a race against time and keeping their generally unpaid army going off morale from the victory at Meissen.
The level of entrenchment and the natural extreme defensibility of Oslo, surrounded by coast, deep rivers, and high mountains (for which it had been picked as the location of Jafnadgr in the first place, and a large part of the reason why the Scottish had had no success in penetrating the palace despite being manned by only a few hundred guards) made driving them out a precarious situation, even with the fact that the Union had over twice the Scotsmen's numbers ready to fight. Battered, out of supply, and heavily outnumbered, the Scottish forces surrendered on the fourth of May, 1117 ER, in exchange for safe passage home.
Aleksandr went almost immediately to work drafting up a peace resolution. It was clear the Union did not have the resources to continue warring against the mostly still-strong force of the Alliance, but the position of negotiation was a strong one in the wake of the Scottish surrender and the battle of Meissen. Surviving transcriptions of negotiations between Aleksandr and the powers of the Alliance of Poznan show a short exchange - with both parties deep in debt, neither the League nor the Union seemed keen on prolonging the conflict. A settlement - in which the Union begrudgingly conceded a defeat, but offered no other terms - was reached by August.
The end of the War of the Alliance of Poznan would prove to be only the beginning of the Bleeding Years. The debts incurred by the overblown war on both sides aggravated the existing trend of uncertain political winds into all-out warfare, marked by a huge number of peasant rebellions (albeit most of them barely large enough to register). This was particularly aggravating in the Imperial Union, where many trained members of the semi-standing Leidangr, after returning to their villages. went with their government notices for months of missed wages unpaid. Disgruntled and unpaid soldiers would proceed to use their military training to lead angry militias for various causes, sometimes against the government and sometimes as violent raiding bands, both of which were quickly - and messily - put down by those still in the service.
The English King of the time, Onorio Bonifazi, brought the British Isles into the leading years by an invasion of Scotland at its beginning. With the ravaged state of the official Scottish military from their time in Norway, the Scottish formally capitulated on 23 September of 1117, but would launch periodic revolts for the next few centuries, the most brutal and bloodthirsty of which occurred in the two-year window of the Bleeding Years.
The intensity of the bloodshed and violence in Europe, including large-scale political revolts in France, England, and Italy, began to die down with the formation and rapid expansion of the Knights Templar at the turn of 1118 ER, who dedicated themselves to restoring order and stability in troubled areas of Europe. This work made the Templars quickly popular amongst European circles in both nobility and peasantry, though they understandably refused to work within the boundaries of the pagan Imperial Union. By 1119 ER, the Bleeding Years drew to a slow, uncertain close with the resolution of the constitutional crisis in France, although a generally heightened state of uncertainty and paranoia would continue to hang over Europe for at least the next few decades, particularly in the wake of the plague. The Bleeding Years birthed an intense religious revivalism in much of Christian Europe, particularly more stable states like the Spanish Empire, who believed that the ruthless warring was a marker of the second horseman of the apocalypse - war, the red horse, splitting the corrupt and degenerate pagan and irreligious Empires asunder.
The Bleeding Years had little tangible effect on the borders of Europe, and none on its direct balance of power, certainly - but the mindset it represented and the hostility it planted between 'southern' Christians and 'northern' ones, separate from catholic and orthodox, would be felt for years to come. As a hallmark of the apocalypse, they weren't too far off.
- George Hills, A Concise History of the Growth and Development of Modern European Relations, Chapter Three: The Bleeding Years. Circa 1886 ER.
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A less serious one than Catholic-Orthodox, but indeed a schism of sorts!
So the temporary solution of just console-stopping my vassals from constantly winning wars is slowing down the pace of updates to an absolute crawl. Ten years of gameplay I normally could have done in ten minutes is now taking multiple hours, because every handful of months I have to check all my neighbors for wars, then transfer to the head of that country, then imprison war leaders, then enforce demands, then transfer back. Going half a year without doing this results in the Union owning most of Poland, the League, and Eastern France, since vassals spam the Holy War causus belli relentlessly. If anyone has a fix for this, please do let me know - it's getting to the point where I think the mechanic may be bugged.
No advice on keeping the vassals in check, but I hope the hardship it doesn't put you off continuing this amazing AAR.
...How is it possible that I have missed this AAR? I've spent the last hour or so just binge-reading it all..fantastic stuff!
Hah,no, but it may take a while before the next update comes out as I figure out a more permanent way to deal with the problem.
I'm glad you're enjoying it! We'll be going all the way to Stellaris here.
Wow.
That is one incredibly good AAR. Both in term of writting and gameplay. And looking at how clean your broders are, I can't help but to think you also spent a lot of time with the console command to ensure that the gameplay did not affect negatively your storytelling.
Quite a good idea I think.
That is one incredibly good AAR. Both in term of writting and gameplay. And looking at how clean your broders are, I can't help but to think you also spent a lot of time with the console command to ensure that the gameplay did not affect negatively your storytelling.
Quite a good idea I think.
Part Three
The Last Norseman
The Last Norseman
"It's a Gods-damned disgrace, is what it is."
The broad-shouldered man exhaled sharply, shaking his head to the side. "The last time the Union lost a war was the fourth Crusade, nearly a century ago. And now - mine. What king of a legacy is that, Asbjörn?"
"It was not a loss." The bald, shorter man behind him said sharply. "The war was ill-conceived from the start, and the forces arrayed against us were not winnable. To have exited the war was not dishonorable, it was rational - and we are not a scrap of land poorer for it."
"Besides Poznan, you mean. And the money we had to pay to those filthy fucking Bavarians." The Fylkir exhaled heavily, voice quaking with barely-restrained anger. "I was appointed by my father and confirmed by you because the Union believed I had the strength to lead them. What was this, then? A fluke? Sigurd could have won this war."
"You are not Sigurd." Asbjörn emphasized, stepping forward towards his liege. "You are not the Dragon, or the Jackal, or the Wolf. Sigurd was great because he was Sigurd, and none other. So long as you try to imitate them, you will not be the Fylkir I hoped to confirm."
Aleksandr exhaled again, shaking his head. "Agh... I suppose you're right. But it's not an easy thing, what you're saying. Not so simple as you make it out to be."
"Of course not. But what is life without struggle? The fiercest battles are not fought in the field, my Fylkir, but in the mind."
Aleksandr was a particularly troubled Emperor. Though acutely intelligent and personable, letters from within the Empire portray him as surprisingly weak-willed and easily manipulated, being particularly troubled in the matter of personal identity. His early loss in the War of Poznan, by all accounts, had inspired a severe sort of inferiority complex within him, sparking an obsession with ancestry and, in particular, the three founders of the Imperial Union, a condition which would haunt him for the rest of his life. An inclination towards what he considered more 'traditionally' Northern activities, most prominent among them hunting, and a refusal to partake in many evolving elements of high society in the North that he viewed as unmanly and unnordic led to the development of Aleksandr's reputation as a simpleminded brute, incapable of understanding or appreciating fine art or literature. In truth, of course, he was simply a misguided conservative. The comparison can perhaps be made to Julian the Apostate of roughly a millennia earlier - though the two men were of dramatically different pedigree and personality, they are perhaps the most classic strawman to criticize the modern conservative man, perfect representatives of individuals clinging onto a past that no longer exists because of an inability to cope with an ever-changing world.
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It is perhaps ironic, then, that Aleksandr's rule after the War of Poznan oversaw a period of tremendous internal stability and peace for the Union, one which lasted through practically the entire 12th century. The distinction between 'Norseman' and 'European' all but dissipated during Aleksandr's reign, and states like the catholic League of Dreitelig often found more in common with the Imperial Union, which hosted significant communities of both Catholic and Orthodox Christians despite its majority pagan demographics than states like the monolithically Orthodox Russia, whose distance and strange semi-European status detached it from the majority of western regimes.
With Russia embroiled in wrestling with the still-powerful nomadic tribes of the plains and its own neverending civil wars and France and England once more facing down one another, the only potential enemies of the Union are the stable and idle League and Poland, neither of whom Aleksandr has any particular intent of reengaging in the next few decades. The new Emperor embroils himself in governing, feasts, and personal hobbies, and the North prospers for it.
Despite the admittance of defeat in the War of Poznan, few in the Union remain upset about it, both in the peasantry and nobility. The reparations paid were minor at worst, and the Union lost no claimed territories; the purely symbolic defeat is forgotten quickly as the gains of peace flow back into infrastructure across the Empire. Despite his reactionary cultural standards, Aleksandr is sharp-witted, well-liked, and by all accounts a good governor. His proclivity towards hunting and drinking even wins him the unique respect of the Union's freemen, as much as it isolates him from the educated aristocrats of the Grand Assembly.
A stable internal peace is maintained throughout nearly the entirety of Aleksandr's rule, and over the thirty-year period a variety of extensions are written onto the ancient governing code of the Union. The balancing act of autocrat and aristocratic council is quite carefully maintained and refined, most notably in a document known as the suðrgøra, which officially proclaims the Av Sverdklydige as the chosen representatives of the Gods in Midgard, and therefore the only eligible pool from which a Fylkir can be picked - which, as the title of Fylkir was previously tied to the Imperial throne, makes them the only candidates tor appointment as Emperor. While it was simply force of personality and a string of highly capable leaders that originally kept the Av Sverdklydige in the Imperial seat of an otherwise open election, on the third century of Sverdklydige emperors it had become increasingly obvious that the two were fully entwined, and that the likelihood of anyone holding the throne other than a member of the exceptionally symbolic family was embarrassingly slim.
The Assembly itself concentrated its power even as the Imperial throne did, requiring oversight to the shift of land or honors between its members from the throne. Where England's parliament grew increasingly in power as Russia and France concentrated autocratic seats of strength, the Imperial Union kept a strange stasis of genuine power in both an almost unchallenged Emperor and the influential oversight council that scrutinized their every move. In many ways, the Assembly represented the check of the citizenry before such a thing was even a theoretical concept, allowing effective Emperors to work with little red tape or restrictions and bogging down malicious and incompetent leaders. It was testament to the very tangible power of the Grand Assembly that it was so effectively able to pressure Helge to abdicate, even if through violence - the system as it was worked in a shockingly effective format, and iterations of the unique political structure of the early Union would continue to define it for centuries to come.
Much of Aleksandr's time is spent in his hobbies. Particularly, he becomes obsessed with rumors of a powerful white bear, the hunting of which consumes years of his life and a great deal of his attentions, to such a degree that month-long hunting expeditions become quite standard fare. The realm is run efficiently even without Aleksandr's presence, and he holds court in Jafnadgr often enough to keep the administration of the Union smooth, but his frequent absence causes no small amount of distress to the Assembly. And those concerned about the young Emperor's health.
Aleksandr's problems compound with the birth of his first son, Oddr. The name means 'spear-point', but by his second birthday, to call the boy 'sharp' seems more like a mocking insult than anything else. It is not that the boy is stupid - he instead developed a deformed, disgusting hunchback, bending his spine nearly in twain.
Whispers of curses and evil Seidr almost immediately surface. Having such a visibly and hideously deformed creature as one's first son is an exceptionally disturbing omen, and one that rattles Aleksandr to the bone. Oddr is rapidly hidden away from the world, kept far back and privately tutored in Jafnadgr - but the damage is done. Suspicions and grumblings about Aleksandr's level rule become a roaring flame with the fire that Oddr provides.
As with most gossip, it is, however, ultimately a short-lived fire indeed.
The 'scandal' of Oddr's birth fades quickly enough, but it proves to be only the first in a long, long flight of social faux passes. Few of these are Aleksandr's fault, most ostensibly in the rejection of the Finnish Queen Hellia Tsuudit, a drunkard twice his age aptly named 'the fat' and already married to an influential Prussian duke. The Queen's advances (and Aleksandr's blunt rejection of them) cause significant stir in Imperial society, both for the audacity of attempting to seduce a married Emperor and the offensive nature of the whole sordid affair.
In the end, it matters little, as nothing becomes of the ultimately timid scandals.
Aleksandr returns to hunting, supported by a small handful of his closest friends (Most notable among them Asbjörn, the Jarl of Sweden and Patriarch of the Gautsuke family, who had a feud with the reigning Sverdklydige for almost a century earlier). The political dynamics of Europe as a whole enter a period of stability virtually unknown since the time of Rome, as even the wider wars of the European theater stagnate.
That's not to say the global tides aren't changing, of course.
In the near east, the Fatmid finally reconsolidate their power, crushing the upstart Shi'a in Persia and reclaiming most of the Arabian peninsula from the hands of mercenaries and minor upstarts. As the Byzantines finally manage to crush the Hashashin's mountain stronghold after over a century of the secret society's careful manipulation of Byzantine society, destabilizing the Eastern Romans and splitting their efforts for just long enough for the Tulunids and Fatmids to recover. With the Assassins out of the picture and a three-way conflict brewing in the east, the region seems sure to be the hotbox of the next few decades.
Back in the North, Aleksandr's scandals and aristocratic unpopularity, having peaked at the birth of two acknowledged bastard twins, culminates with a plot to murder Erik, the Emperor's third-born son - and the only one born to his legitimate wife other than Oddr, making him the most likely candidate for succession. The event induces an intense paranoia in Aleksandr, and dozens of prominent figures are arrested on flimsy evidence almost immediately.
The 'plot' turns out to be an almost entirely baseless rumor, supported in the theoretical by a tiny circle of unimportant lords. Aleksandr has most of them put to death for positing the idea.
In 1135 ER, in 'traditional Northern fashion', the aging Fylkir raises a runestone detailing the Leper King's saga and the early years of his own rule.
Erik grows into a sharp-witted scholar, shrewd and charismatic but ultimately a timid and erudite soul. Though an unexceptional governor, his status as the first 'legitimate' son of Aleksandr and his friendly, charming demeanor earn him appointment in front of the Grand Assembly and the governance of Hedmark, given symbolically over to appointees of the Union as long-standing tradition to train them for the ultimate responsibility of managing the Empire. By all accounts, Erik seems the perfect candidate to inherit the peace and stability that his father had wrought. Indeed, the educated, well-spoken and highly cultured Erik seems a sharp relief to the cultural antithema of Aleksandr; his classic teenage rebellion shaping the rather portly young man into a champion of modernization.
Perhaps influenced by the shy nature of his most prominent son, Aleksandr's natural extroversion fades as he enters old age. With each passing year, the length of Aleksandr's hunts grow longer and longer as his obsession with finding the White Bear grows deeper. Still highly physically capable even in advanced age, the hunts become less of a social event or an imagined masculine responsibility and more of a genuine, intense drive, pushed forward by the delusional idea that to find his White Bear would be to be - happy, perhaps. Or remembered. Or even simply fulfilled. Less and less are invited along on his hunts as they progress into an intensive personal quest, and Erik often sits at Jafnadgr while his father is away. Between Aleksandr's narrow, obsessive hunting and Erik's natural scholarhood, the Union is blessed with nearly a decade of complete quiet and internal peace.
On the first of January, 1156 ER, Aleksandr sets out for a hunt with nothing more than a handful of servants and two of his closest friends.
They do not return.
Will Eric prove worthy of the Dragon Crown? I severely hope so, if the Europeans are getting uppity.
Haha, thank you! It's great to hear that you're enjoying the AAR, and yes, I do have to spend a ton of time fiddling around with the console (especially since my vassals are so uppity and prone to taking half of Poland without my knowledge at random times). I let the gameplay dictate the storyline overall, but bizarre, nonsensical wars and bordergore get cleaned up with console so that France doesn't become Islamic Aquitaine with a capital in North Africa.
A highly competent Empire given to a particularly unfortunate situation he could never let go of. In another life, he might have been a second Elisa.
He may be shy and timid, sure but Felix the Smiling Fox was in some regards just as quiet and introverted, yet his reign stands as one of the greatest periods in Imperial history. Then again, Tjudmund, the pathetically weak 'lamb' was much the same...
Part Four
Tomorrow Comes
The transition to Erik's rule is peaceful. There is no small amount of opposition, but the voices of discontent are quelled with little conflict. A third son of born to Erik less than a year into his quiet rulership, a particularly healthy, large, and sharp-eyed young boy, aligned with good omens read by the Seiðr at Köln. In recognition of this prodigious event, Erik does something that his father, and most before him, would consider absolutely unthinkable: he names the boy Sigurd II. The decidedly Christian tradition of naming future children after ancestors had been violently resisted off the precedent set by the first few Emperors of the Union. The tradition had been growing in the Union for some time, but the gesture, to many of the traditionalists of the Union, represented a dangerous break from tradition and precedent.
Erik's stability is further threatened by how strikingly little he is at court in the first two years of his reign. The somewhat reclusive Emperor sponsors an extensive community of intellectuals in science and the art in the Union, particularly around Oslo, many of which praise and respect the new Fylkir deeply - but that wins him no favors with the mistrustful and increasingly disassociated nobility.
By the end of 1157, these two factors begin to cause considerable strife within the upper echelons of the Union. Still, while support for some form of change grows mostly unchecked by the inattentive crown, Erik is far from tyrannical or incompetent, but merely negligent. And regardless, the Fylkirate is the most powerful and consolidated it has ever been, vastly outweighing any single lord. Even the collection that pledge their support towards a comprehensive and potentially violent reorganization of power, among them the crown authorities of Finland and Estonia, remain much weaker than the organized and collected Imperial state.
Instead, the collected voices of dissent privately plot. There are few direct grievances to bring to Erik; what they want is power, and in the inattentive, charming academic, they sense the ability to grab it. The carefully cultivated network of spies and informants created by Bård had fallen into disrepair under Aleksandr, and most of the last cultivated vestiges are pulled back under Erik's rule.
That is, of course, far from due to incompetence or stupidity on Erik's part. The Empire prospers under Erik's careful management, attentive to even minute details of budget and administration. Even his political affairs are fairly well-kept, with well-trained agents representing the interests of the Crown in every corner of the Union. What he lacks is the attention or ability to administrate the unspoken underbelly of Imperial politics.
A dangerously easy mistake to make.
Erik's reputation reaches its lowest point in early 1158, upon the outbreak of a strange new type of disease in the North and whispers of a second coming of the dreaded Plague.
Though the new plague is only spoken of in hushed whispers, the second disease, St. Vtius' dance, is a very real and immediate affliction. Incidents pop up in a few of the largest wheat-growing regions of the Union, most predominantly in Niedersaschen, a few choice areas of Sweden and Norway, and the League's Bavaria. Academics, under the direction of Fylkir Erik, flock primarily to the Union to study this curious event, though many are quickly scared off after reports that the 'dancers' are infecting those who come within close proximity. The initially harmless disease begins to claim its first fatalities a few days after it begins, when dancers collapse from exhaustion and heart failure.
Erik's popularity is unhelped by a further retreat into his observatory for intense consultation with a number of respected national and foreign scholars and physcians. The public perceives this as a simple retreat from the situation. Some go so far as to compare Erik to Balder's infamous closing of the gates of Jafnadgr during the Black Death, an unfair accusation that bitterly chips away at the Fylkir's respectability.
Two weeks into the plague, after attempting a handful of conventional and unsuccessful treatments, Erik speaks with a passing academic from India, who recommends the use of Ginger root to 'calm the heart strenuation'. The Emperor proceeds to spend a tremendous amount on buying and importing enough of the rare spice to administer in small amounts to several thousand people, convinced by the argument after hearing of the spice's usage in herbal medicines for similar conditions. By the third week of the dancing plague, the Imperial Guard forcibly administrates the tincture to hundreds of the affected in quarantined areas, holding them down and making them swallow concoctions.
To the amazement of the public, over half of the treated calm themselves and recover in the span of a few days. Hundreds of lives are saved, and the plague is effectively stopped before it becomes uncontrollable, ended with less than five hundred dead. Erik's failing reputation immediately skyrockets amongst the fickle public, who take to calling him "Erik the Able". Much like Erik's introduced trend of honorary naming, the nicknames of the Union have increasingly become single, 'civilized' adjectives instead of the harsh animal-naming of times past.
This reputation is somewhat sullied by a scandal in 1160 where a distant relative of the av Sverdklydige house, married to Erik's own brother, publicly flirts with the Fylkir at Jafnadgr. Incestuous relationships are not terribly frowned upon in the North, but the bizarreness of the situation captures the public interest for a short period of time, and sparks some short-lived debate about the virtue of keeping a bloodline 'pure'. By the same time next year, the whispers of the situation have already dissipated, replaced with the next piece of fashionable gossip and no permanent blotch on Erik's capable public image.
Much of Erik's research and a good deal of Imperial funding go up to building a comprehensive modern medical network. The North, though advanced in its mercantile practices, had traditionally lagged behind England and Italy in fields like medicine and the natural sciences, a situation that Erik seeks to change. A few new universities are opened in Denmark and Germania, and a lavish amount of funding is dedicated to a branch of the Imperial University at Oslo for the opening of the semi-attached College of Medicine. The College of Medicine at Oslo becomes the third-oldest medical university in the world, behind the Latin College opened in the 11th century in Rome and the University of Surgeons at Oxford, established three decades earlier.
Erik's campaign of modernization goes remarkably well, and the framework for a national healthcare system, designed with heavy influence from the English model, is in place by 1164 ER. The rise of a significant middle class, begun in the aftershocks of the plague, appears all over the world; the creation of specific medical colleges stands as testament to the rapidly rising number of doctors, lawyers, and merchants in the feudal economies of the West. By the dawn of the 13th century, no major Western state is without a medical college.
Erik in particular has a separate motive for his focus on medical modernization. In 1162, his health begins to deteriorate, culminating with a diagnosis of smallpox in October. The disease is terrifying in reputation and lethality; though it is nowhere near as infectious as most diseases, treatment is sporadic and often ineffective against the disgusting, painful, and enormously lethal affliction. Though Erik is blessed with a hardy constitution, being tall and broad as most av Sverdklydige tend to be, his ability to govern and manage the Union drops significantly due to the relative severity of his illness.
A major incursion from the east in 1164 disrupts Erik's isolationist modernization. With Russia deep into yet another civil war, nothing stops the eastern hordes from rampaging through European Russia. The hordes had been growing larger and stronger in recent years; the worst that the Union had ever seen was four, five thousand people reaching into Estonia and Finland. This incursion features over twenty thousand men sieging cities in Kraelia and inner Finland on the spin of a dime.
As if that weren't enough on its own, Gudrun, Erik's wife, is diagnosed with cancer in August and dies less than two months later. The lack of a reasonable regent makes for an extremely precarious situation; Erik, in his mid-thirties, has only three sons, the eldest merely sixteen and the youngest his apparent nomination, at age eight. Though he appears healthy and distinguished despite his smallpox, which is skillfully covered up by makeup and clothing for all public appearances, the fact remains that the respected Emperor could theoretically die at any moment, which would leave the Union without a clearly distinguished successor of any sort or even an applicable regent to hold the title until one can be appointed.
A significant force of the Imperial army is mobilized in response, equal in pure numbers but supported by a significant amount of cavalry and heavy, elite Huskarl infantry. Erik stays back from the actual fighting, delegating the majority of his forces to a few influential lords and generals. Instead, he takes the time to continue his management of Jafnadgr, working privately in his study and taking some time to himself. The forces in the east see quick success with the easterners, and most of them are dealt with by April.
One month later, in the care of the Empire's best surgeons and doctors, Fylkir Erik succumbs to smallpox. The Union all but implodes.
A few still hold to Sigurd, who retains power in Oslo - the critical site of both Jafnadgr and the Grand Assembly - mostly due to the fanatical and unwavering loyalty of the av Sverdklydige Huskarlr, increasingly known popularly as the Imperial Guard. The elite force immediately declare their support for Erik's choice in Sigurd and force Anund out of the city, massacring some of his supporters as the claimant barely gets away with his life. The backing of the powerful House Guard, who hold exclusive reign over the policing and guarding of Oslo, lends the boy king a great deal of legitimacy and military force. The sides opposing Sigurd amass forces rapidly, readily understanding that diplomacy would do no good here. The first legitimate challenge to the internal stability of the Union since its founding with Maximilian rears its ugly head. From the first few days of the factionalization, it is clear to all that this is no mere revolt.
It is a civil war.
Attachments
It was bound to happend soon or later, it's CK2... And the plague is coming...
Yeah, look good, gl & hf Sigurd!
Yeah, look good, gl & hf Sigurd!
Came back to this after so long, to see that the fun times have just begun. Great.
Certainly possible! The Burgundians may be more of a target for the French, Italians, or League now that the Union is so heavily distracted...
As they always do. Though this is perhaps the first true roadblock in the Union's path, and threatens to destroy it entirely!
The second plague was a pansy, didn't even hit Russia. It's totally faded out by now, haha.
Oh yes.
Thank you! Always good to see people enjoying it
Part Five
Disunion
Disunion
The Successor Wars: Map of Central and Eastern Europe, circa 1169 ER
The Imperial Union of the North, more than anything else, has always been characterized by stability.
To the east, the Russian Tsardom constantly breaks down under threat from Imperials and Pechengs, only to piece itself back together a decade or two later. To the south, the League and Italy barely hold on in the face of more prominent powers, constantly guarded both from powerful states like France and Byzantium and the neverending, often nonsensical intrigue Mediterranean courts are so well-known for. And even the supposedly powerful states of England and France constantly swap dynastic rulers, holding uneasy alliances of culturally disparate nations, each striving to rule the greater state. But the Union, with a single dynastic line for three hundred years and without a single major internal war since its founding, has always been the metaphorical bedrock of Western and Central Europe.
With the death of Emperor Erik, that comforting illusion is shattered.
Roughly a month is given to grieving as the freemen of the Union come to terms with the complex political situation, but the first serious skirmishes between the self-proclaimed Fylkir Anud (Whose name, perhaps ironically, means protected by the sword) and those forces loyal to the boy Erik had indicated as his successor, Sigurd II. Sigurd is barely eight years old in 1165 ER, and though undoubtedly eloquent for his age, decidedly unable to defend himself against Anund's claims that Erik had, in reality, appointed Anund as his successor moments before dying.
The truth of Anund's claims matter little, in the grand scheme of things, because the Union as a whole did not believe him.
The 'Black Fylkir', Anund.
Kurfryste Eigil - a lower noble made a húskarlr in parallel sometime around 1155 ER, Eigil became recognized as "Fyrhúskarl", or the First housecarl, by Sigurd II in 1171 ER. By 1200, the office had become known as Fyrgavörðr, or the First Guard, with authority over the rather expansive húskarlr.
Regardless, the skirmishes around Telemark rapidly increased in intensity. As forces loyal to Anund and Sigurd clashed, control of Oslo enabled Eigil and his imposing blackshirts to launch a fairly comprehensive recruitment campaign within and around the city, levying an estimated three to four thousand - about the same as Anund had been able to recruit in the southwestern provinces. Unfortunately for Anund, this number was on top of the thousand blackshirts already headquartered in Jafnadgr, who, as the personal bodyguards of the Imperial family and sole policing force of Oslo, had access to the largest and most modern armory and stables in the North. Eigil wasted no time pressing the advantage on Anund, and organized a large cohort to bear down on Telemark in August of 1165.
Anund never stood a chance. Even if it had just been the Blackshirts alone, the av Sverdklydige had meticulously picked their Huskarls from the most prolific soldiers of a state that spanned practically all of central and northern Europe, often men who had seen a decade or more of combat in the Leidangr, with ambitious and intensely cunning officers in the vein of Eigil himself. There's good reason to believe Eigil could have decimated Anund's four thousand freemen with his thousand blackshirts, fed by a wealth of experience, vastly superior equipment, and well-trained cavalry. With enough levy support to provide a numerical advantage over Anund, Eigil's forces stormed through the southwest with astounding ease.
That is not to say that Anund made it an easy fight, by any means.
Though the Alsverk and the levied men of Oslo knew the southwestern provinces well, the terrain of the North Way is notoriously good for guerilla fighters. Breached constantly by formidable rivers and impassable fjords, regions like Telemark and Vestfold frequently yield to sloping hills and mountains, and even the gentle plains can be coated with oppressive fog at a moment's notice. When one knows where to hide and how to move, finding someone across the provinces becomes a task akin to finding a needle in a haystack, which was just the frustrating experience that Eigil and his blackshirts were faced with in 1165. After a resounding victory as Anund's army tried to engage them at Skiringsal, his soldiers scattered to the winds - but by no means ceased to be a constant nuisance.
The campaign of rooting Anund and his armies out of the southwest provinces, taking it from the first major battle at Skiringsal to Anund's final capture, lasted well over a year and a half. This is particularly impressive given that the conflict's breadth spanned from the outskirts of Oslo to Oddernes, an area of less than 200 kilometers total. But Anund's inexperienced command and meager army left him without the slightest chance of actually beating Eigil's blackshirts, and over the course of 1165 and 1166 popular support in the southwestern provinces shifted quite dramatically over to Sigurd's side through grandstanding by the blackshirts and Anund's string of military defeats.
By September of 1066 ER, Anund was captured in the mountains of Vestfold with the shriveled remains of his loyal supporters.
Shortly after Anund's arrest, a formal document forfeitting all claims to the Fylkirate and acknowledging Sigurd as the rightful Fylkir of the north, appointed Emperor in just bearing and sound mind by the Fylkir Erik. Anund is held in the dungeons of Jafnadgr, and eventually banished to the new world - but he is, by far, the lesser problem facing Sigurd. With Anund out of the way, the attention of Sigurd, as directed by his loyal older brother Aleksandr and Eigil with his blackshirts, turns to the true power currently holding court in the shattering Union - Harald Knytling, King of the Danes.
Anund's claim had had little legitimacy and rested on unknowable hearsay. Harald, though he consents the title of Fylkir as a heraldic 'spiritual advisor' to Sigurd, presents a far more compelling case. At the time of Erik's death, Sigurd had not been officially brought before the Grand Assembly for a vote, as is required by law to approve appointments by the Emperor. If a monarch should die without presenting a candidate for appointment, as Erik had, to give the crown to their chosen successor, without vetting them through the Assembly, negates the whole point of having the Assembly affirm them. Sigurd, despite his clear young intelligence, was far too young at the time of Erik's death to actually assume responsibilities of governance, and to pass the title to him at Erik's death, so Harald argues, would in effect make the Union no better than any other petty heraldic monarchy like England or France.
The genuine legitimacy of Harald's argument forces Sigurd's faction to engage him politically. While Harald's practical argument wins him less public support than Sigurd, who still holds the title of Fylkir and therefore, by law, divine mandate over the Imperium, many of the nobles that choose to remain in the Union support him, either because he offers them greater autonomy or because they agree with his argument for a separation of the Fylkirate and Empire. The extensive political infastructure behind Harald places him squarely in control of the Leidangr, the official standing armies of the Union, of a significantly higher caliber than the average levied freeman. Though they pale against the force of the elite blackshirts in Sigurd's faction, the Leidangr is roughly twenty thousand strong, and Sigurd is forced to turn to levying large amounts of serfs and freemen to serve in his army under rushed training conditions. While his popular support ensures a significant amount sign up to support the av Sverdklydige they have always known as divinely-inspired monarchs, the end result is a military stalemate, and neither side is willing to immediately engage in armed struggle.
The state of political quagmire drags on and on. Neither side is willing to give ground even when invited back into Oslo and the Grand Assembly for debates, and the stalemate ties up the entire military infastructure of the Union - a status that allows the independence-minded Jarl of Bohemia and Storhertug of Finland to quietly secede from the Union, while the quasi-Polish counties of Danzig and Olsylzn are absorbed into the wide Polish state. Prussia and Lithuania, though they remain in the Union, become isolated and minimally defended, only prevented from being absorbed into the Finnish or Russian states by the begrudging agreement in 1168 ER between Sigurd and Harald's political factions to unilaterally defend the Imperium's borders if attacked. Even French provinces in Alsace-Lorraine are re-absorbed into the French Empire, though a written rejection from the Sjef of Lothriginia causes the French king to back off in fear of a unified Imperial reaction.
Portrait of Aleksandr and Sigurd II in 1069 ER. Aleksandr had played a marginal role in outing his older brother from the southwestern provinces with Eigil and the Blackshirts, but would not prove his military mettle in earnest until the Successor Wars began. Intense pressure remained on Sigurd to demonstrate the ability that Erik had believed he had in the pitched political struggle leading up to the wars.
Sigurd II and his older brother Aleksandr are raised in this trying environment. Sigurd appears formally before the assembly for the first time at the age of twelve, by far the youngest to ever appear in a formal session (Although Elisa held an assembly at the age of fifteen). The appearance of Sigurd himself instead of a loyalist representative does a great deal to sway political opinion in the assembly; at the age of twelve, Sigurd speaks maturely and eloquently, pleading with the Assembly for a unified Imperium not in the naive style of childish impotence, but in the well-bred fashion of a politican. His clear prodigal intelligence is immediately apparent, and were it not for the squeaky, high-pitched voice asking for a reunification between the two currently-held offices, the script might have been mistaken as being written by a thirty-something Jarl.
Despite that, Sigurd's speeches are never particularly charismatic. Nor does he prove to be enough of a master of the political arena to effectively oust Harald over the six-year period of political stalemate during his youth.
What Sigurd does manage to do with his increasingly apt political navigation is popularize his rhetoric.
The common people of the Union generally stood behind Sigurd; the view in most of the loyal provinces of Harald is that of a powergrubber, challenging the legitimate authority of the av Sverdklydige purely for personal political gain. Despite this, he remains in control of the majority of the Leidangr, and a considerable force of levies from minor dukes and Jarls across the Union. By 1172, it had become clear that the political deadlock was not going to break, and Sigurd was not going to be able to dislodge the standing Emperor's deathgrip of the armies of the Union.
In November of that year, the idealistic and high-hearted Sigurd yields to the demands of Eigil and his brother, and an army marches south from Jafnadgr once more.
Primary regions of conflict in the Successor Wars. Darker blue areas were generally loyal to Sigurd, lighter blue to Harald.
While this stage of the war is technically known as the Fylkirate-Imperial War, it came to be known as the term for the wider conflict, including Anund's rebellion and the six-year political stalemate: The Successor Wars. The two years of conflict involved in the clash between Sigurd and Harald's political factions involved more than 100,000 Union men on both sides, and cost over 40,000 Union lives in total - nearly half the number that participate in the war as a whole, a stunningly high casualty rate that left regions of the Imperium depopulated for decades.
The war opens with a practical invasion of Denmark. The Leidangr were primarily stationed in central Germany, and while loyalists in Germania attempted to rally up an army to meet up with Eigil and Aleksandr's command in the north - the Alsverk, supported by seventeen thousand levied freemen and semi-trained soldiers, conquered Harald's political capital and and the Knytling castle in Sjaeland. Minimal resistance is presented; no major political leaders remain outside of the field, and Harald's actual army is preoccupied in stamping out the gathering army of the loyal German dukes, who form a bloc in west Germania. This is acomplished with relative ease, as Harald is generally more popular than Sigurd with the German dukes and electors, and those who opposed him form more isolated circles. His cause is little helped when the Kappeidsman in Colonge declares his support for Sigurd as the heir to the Empire - though popular support is already well stilted out of his favor.
A serious of minor, if intense skirmishes follow, as dukes loyal to Harald contest Sigurd's advancement into Germania proper. The tactic seems a confusing one; forces of one or two thousand men engage at chokepoints, accomplishing little other than wasting bodies and slowing the main army's advance. Five thousand men die over nearly six months of this, with no word from the movements of Harald's main army - until they're spotted moving through Finnish territory by a scout loyal to Sigurd. The purpose of Harald's delay tactics become quite strikingly clear - he means to advance on Jafnadgr, where Sigurd himself still remains.
Eigil and Aleksandr immediately stake north to intercept.
Had they missed Harald's advancement for another month, it's likely they wouldn't have had the time to stop him from reaching Oslo. But as it were, the two armies meet at the border of loyal Imperial territory - just outside Uppland, faithful capital of the Jarldom of Sverige.
Harald's army is slightly smaller than the assembled forces of Sigurd, with seventeen thousand Leidangr to match Harald's nineteen thousand. While Sigurd's men have the benefit of the elite Alsverk and their veteran commanders, the majority of Harald's men are the better-trained professional soldiers of the Leidang against Sigurd's mostly-levied army. And worse still, Sigurd's forces are made to engage with the lake Malaren at their back, lest they allow Harald's army to continue unimpeded. Over forty thousand men take the field, both evenly-matched and led by fearless and utterly ruthless commanders.
The fighting starts on the eight of January. With intermittent breaks, the two camps continue fighting for two full months, skirmishing back and forth to probe the other side for weakness, looking for any opportunity to shatter the defenses of the other and rout their assembled forces wholesale. By the time that opportunity finally comes on the first of March, only twenty thousand soldiers - half of the original numbers - remain on either side of the field.
The slaughter outside Stockholm is the single most brutal battle in the history of the Union, and one of the worst massacres of the whole medieval world. Discounting sieges and small-scale, localized campaigns, the Battle of Stockholm has the verifiable highest death count of any battle fought in Europe to date. The blackshirts make their legend here - with Eigil at their head, the relative incompetence of the levy makes the visually-distinct Alsverk look like Gods on the battlefield, each one capable of killing as many men as his blade held for. On the first of March, a core of Blackshirt cavalry fracture the center of Harald's ranks, and the infantry that fill the gap widen it until Harald's troops are divided and fighting like cornered dogs, cut off from orders and facing down the seemingly unstoppable shock force of the Alsverk. All it takes for a single man to shout and run - and Harald's army is finally routed.
Through six years of political stalemate and the bloodiest and most destructive civil war ever faced by the Union, the Successor Wars finally come to an end. With his army shattered and unable to again match the still mostly-intact Blackshirts, Harald submits himself to Sigurd's court at Jafnadgr a few months later, claiming to wish no unnecessary bloodshed for the Imperium. Regardless of his intents, the damage has long since been done.
The levies and Leidangs that remain after the Battle of Stockholm are not dismissed from service.
After all, they have work to do.
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