There won't be major incest in the main branches of the main family of the main country I am playing. Smaller nations will see a lot of incest due to a lack of nobility. Which countries will see incest has yet to be decided.
Now, the conquest of Aquitaine and Septimania, and then Catalonia.
In the early years of Karl der Grosse, their was a lot of unrest in the south of Gaul, due to Basco-Aquitani people as well as Occitans. These people eventually revolted, seizing the southern Latin parts of Gaul. This crippled the economy of France (but not the rest of the Frankish state) because the only intact Roman roads, along with all the Mediterranean ports, lay in those areas. The Ebro march, now cut off from Frankish domination, also revolted. With Muslim unrest, the nascent beginning of the Catalan people began in that revolt.
Anyways, at this point, Boryk's son Orsten had died, leaving his daughter married to the Vandal Thrasamar. In the will of Orsten Odvacerius, political control fell to Thrasamar on the condition that his people became pagans. Thrasamar and his Vandals, disillusioned with the pro-Frankish pro-Visigoth church, agreed, and the states were unified into one Vandalo-Viking union. The armies of Thrasamar then marched on the new Occitan lands, disparate and still weak. The peoples and cities quickly fell, and Thrasamar, in his brutality, sacked, burnt and utterly destroyed Avignon, La Rochelle and every monastery he could get his hands on. The Viking cleansings continued in these lands, making way for Vandals, a few Basques, and the Odvaringas Vikings after the conquest, which lasted from 787 to 791.
All the Aquitaine territories below the Garonne were annexed into the Kingdom of the Pyrenees. The other lands of the Southern rebellion returned to Karl der Grosse in fear, and the Pope issued a bull condemning the Vandals. Karl, not willing to fight Thrasamar just yet, thwarted Swedish invasions in the Baltic lands of Germany, and he pushed backed pagans on the German frontier. In Provence, fleeing Occitans and Umbrians formed a Provencal territory, wherein Karl set up castles to preemptly thwart any future expansion of Thrasamar into his territory.
However, Thrasamar was not slaked of conquesting thirst. He turned his barbarian gaze to Catalunya, where the earliest Catalans were setting up a state. After consolidating his rule, Thrasamar, known to history as "The Great", gathered an army of Occitan knights, Viking huscarls, Basque infantry and Vandal elite soldiers to march on the lands of the Catalans.
According to Sunifred of Andorra, a historian of the time,
"The armies of Thrasamar marched into Catalonia, searching yet again for plunder and land to settle and own. They first attacked Perpignan, which foolishly resisted conquest. Visigoths displaced by the Muslims, complemented by a few Suebians, fought quite valiantly, but Thrasamar is a great general. He ordered Frankish hostages to dig tunnels under the city, and the did so. Thrasamar then set wood and straw in the tunnels, along with explosive naptha, and set the tunnels ablaze. The walls foundations exploded, helped by the armor shrapnel of the dead Franks. The walls, now weakened, crumbled in a crucial point, and Thrasamar and his army charged into Perpignan. The city was sacked, the cathedral burnt and ramsacked, the beautiful virgins abducted, the clergy and unworthy stampeded, and for some, the livestock raped. The city was left as ash, akin to La Rochelle and Avignon in France. The remaining citizens fled to Empuries, and Thrasamar followed. After capturing and burning the city, Thrasamar set up a new settlement for the winter, and the Catalans not yet murdered were settled in the ruins of Emporion. Using materials from old Roman buildings and Greek buildings, Emporion was rebuilt on the coast, and walls were built. The people were given material for houses, and at this point the people were placated. The nobility had let them fall, but the cunning Thrasamar gave them new lives. Of course, they still hated Thrasamar, but they did not contemplate rebellion as before.
As spring rolled around, Thrasamar marched further into tiny Catalunya, smashing towns and monasteries, and killing the unwanted and the lower clergy (except for the beautiful amongst the nuns). Finally, he reached Barcelona. After besieging the northern part of the walls, he marched into the city of the Barcids, burning the sections of the city built after Constantine the Great. The slaughter was horrific, but the mercantile and artistic sections, as well as the Jewish ghetto, were spared, and the city moved on. Thrasamar then made Barcelona his capital, and the craftsmen and Roman ruins of his realm were made to turn Barcelona beautiful once more. A palace was made out of Carthaginian ruins, and the walls were strengthened. The conquest had ended in 793, sixteen years after Boryk the Rapacious crushed the Basques during the Viking invasions. The year is 795, and I am living in Barcelona, renamed Barqaluna by Thrasamar. May God and Jesus Christ help whoever next crosses Thrasamar, conqueror of Tarraconensis, Septimania, and Aquitania.
