This was... versions ago, from 2014, but still my most memorably brutal game... I posted about it at the time, but didn't want to drag up the old thread.
A game started as a custom Norse ruler in Brittany that went on to found a Norman dynasty spanning the western continent from within Germany to North Africa.
It was 1400 and Buliwyf X died young, after being maimed on a Crusade. The realm had gone primogeniture in the 1200s, so this left four year old Fredesende to serve as queen. I sent Fredesende to tutor with mom - Queen of Sicily - figuring mother, correct dynasty (she was in the same family, though distantly related), etc. would be helpful - I couldn't go traitless after all - but Fredesende became wroth, greedy, and perhaps envious.
Then factional pressure began to mount. My spymaster was busy as a bee, scheming people to behave. I had a nice bank of cash, and used it to keep mercenaries on staff, delaying factions. Then the first revolt, but I could see it coming and moved the retinues and mercenaries there preemptively and rapidly destroyed the faction leader's forces and then chased the others to ground.
Another, more dangerous, faction then developed to install an uncle on the throne. I was concerned enough that I undertook to see him dead, and he was murdered. But my plot was discovered, and Fredesende was named Kinslayer.
Another faction, another family member. Another murder.
Then another faction leader met his death "mysteriously".
A revolt, nearly unseated me, but was put down with liberal use of mercenaries.
The Pope offered to cleanse me of the kinslayer sin... Fredesende refused (out of spite). But gave him back papal investiture to buy off any excommunication.
A faction proposed a family member to rule in my stead. Then another. I couldn't 'scheme' fast enough. I turned to murder again, and they all fell to the knife, heading off each faction as it formed.
Finally married and gave birth... to a daughter.
Malus for queen, malus for female heir, malus for dishonorable, malus for kinslayer with dynasty members on every throne that mattered...
Bribe after bribe. Murder began to follow murder.
I knew there was no turning back when the game gave Fredesende the nickname of 'The Devil'.
And the murders piled up, one after another after another. Family members of all ages from Egypt to Aragon to Alba - dying green and bloated - old men, children in their minority, cousins so distant I barely knew why they even had a claim, nephews, nieces (once even the young girl I had as a ward to keep her father in line - I almost stayed the knife that time, just picturing her putting down the note from the spymaster and looking across the throne room at the poor child). I pictured each of them crying alone and begging as their relatives pushed them forward one by one onto the knife simply by whispering their name for the throne... I had to get a new, non-dynasty spymaster when I couldn't keep the current one from joining the very factions he was battling. I started scanning the claimant list, anticipating who would be next.
She was excommunicated, but rapidly paid to have that go away. The murders continued.
In all my games I have never seen such an orgy of violence. Without exaggeration it was easily dozens and dozens of murders. I lost count. For year after year, day after day, it was simply a matter of who to kill next.
But she was not going to let the unbroken line of rulers end before 1444 (and EUIV export) and Fredesende was a domineering angry woman who would not be put aside (yes, role playing this had firmly taken hold).
She finally had a son, but that hardly mattered anymore. The hate she had sown was too deep and too broad.
A powerful 70% faction was presenting the claim of her aunt - the wife of the King of Ireland & England. The fighting would start at any moment and all of Europe would rally to the cause of the rebels. It would be unwinnable. I was amazed that things had gone on so long, but she would not surrender. The order was made and the aunt died, as had all the others, and her name was again revealed.
The King of Ireland and England would not be denied, and in turn Fredesende was foully murdered to die cursing his name.
The coronation of the 2 month old King Joscelin of Aquitaine in 1426 was a healing balm on the nerves and sanity of all of Europe and the extended dynasty.
And that is the tale of Fredesende Smiðring, the first of her name, Queen of Aquitaine, and 'The Devil'.
