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In Progress Odin demands blood! Let's revive the Viking Age in Crusader Kings 2!

Luzur

Good Sir
Joined
Feb 12, 2009
Messages
41,392
Location
Swedish Empire
Tribal Unification CB "cuts red tape" for pagans, allowing a means of expansion that isn't limited to fabricated and de jure claims. It also has an improved Lithuanian version that makes life better for Lithuanians and much more likely to resist Christian crusaders.

well i steamrolled them lithuanian pagans one after another with a small levy army and a crusader merc troop after they had broken out of Poland.
 

Vaarna_Aarne

Notorious Internet Vandal
Joined
Jun 1, 2008
Messages
34,585
Location
Cell S-004
MCA Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2
Tribal Unification CB "cuts red tape" for pagans, allowing a means of expansion that isn't limited to fabricated and de jure claims. It also has an improved Lithuanian version that makes life better for Lithuanians and much more likely to resist Christian crusaders.

well i steamrolled them lithuanian pagans one after another with a small levy army and a crusader merc troop after they had broken out of Poland.
Well that's largely due to Holy Orders being obnoxiously overpowered. I should probably do something about them.
 

jonnypolen

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 11, 2007
Messages
271
31496894


X-treme vikings are x-tremely disappointed in lack of updates.
 

Cornflakes

Novice
Joined
Feb 20, 2012
Messages
24
Location
The Internet
Even if you don't do the full LARP thing I'd like to at least know the ploys you used to survive... you hinted at some fun things to do and I want to know! :D
 

Kayerts

Arcane
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
883
Sorry for the delays, bros. The ruler after Mjolnir is a lot of fun, but Mjolnir's own reign was both long and boring in-game. (I played it while I was too sleep-deprived to be devious, so there will be more cünning brütality and very little brütal cünning.)

I had therefore planned to make this write-up short. Unfortunately, I started liking the update once I started writing it, which means it's taking longer. It'll hopefully be done by the end of the week; it looks to be low on gameplay and to involve more tomfoolery than metal-as-fuckery.
 

Kayerts

Arcane
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
883
This update will cover the reign of Mjolnir. The gameplay isn't that interesting, and the narrative is less EXTREME, but I liked it. If you don't, there's a summary at the end; the next one should be a return to form.

VII. WHEN ALL YOU HAVE IS A HAMMER

1. Ecce Homo
Soundtrack

Mjolnir said:
My brother is dead. The greatest man the North has ever known, struck down by fleeing cowards. The ground is red where he fell, a smear on dirt and grass the only testament to the strongest blood ever to water the earth.

I have planted there a tree of ash. One day it shall spread its shadow over all the North, and it shall grip the kingdoms of the Christ-Men with its roots.

Now I stand before a strange city, one I have vowed to set ablaze. I wear a crown I never wanted, and am looked to as a father by men who yesterday were my brothers. Tyr sent me here to speak the words of honor and to silence those that would gainsay them, not to rule land or make promises to men. But now that is my duty, and I owe it to my brother to do it well. It was not why I was born, but it is why I must now live.

Here's Mjolnir.

ck2_1159.jpg


Quality stats all around, but he's got one weakness I didn't notice until he took the throne: dude likes dudes.

Having a gay king isn't actually that big a deal, mechanics-wise. There's a hit to fertility involved, but no more than what you'd get for having an interest in theology. This is reasonably historically accurate; in an era when bloodlines were so important, most gay nobles manned up and dutifully boned their wives until a son emerged from their wangs. It is sweet and fitting to fuck for your country.

Mjolnir's pretty pragmatic about the whole issue and tries to make the best of it. He even writes erotic poetry for his genius wife, to try to drum up some enthusiasm for their arrangement:

I am not upset at all
about how your tits are small.
When I bang you from behind,
You're almost like a dude, I find.

See? That's catalectic trochaic tetrameter. Not an easy meter to write in. That shows he cares.

Anyway, the only other disadvantage of being gay is that straight dudes (i.e., all our vassals and rivals) don't respect him as much. They also refer to Mjolnir by hurtful names, such as "the Hammer of the Butts."

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Although most of them avoid doing so within his hearing. Because one time someone tried that, and he is now known as "that guy whose skull got pounded into his ribcage," an even more hurtful name.

Mjolnir's high martial score is presumably due to the huge number of fights he got into, growing up as a gay Viking. It was a hard youth, but it made him what he is today: a sociopathically belligerent fucker with a deep-seated grudge against the world.

You would think this would make him perfect for my playstyle, but unfortunately Mjolnir is a follower of Tyr and comes with weird notions of honourable conduct. (This is partially for LARP reasons, and partially because I was too tired to be devious during his reign.)

2. In the kingdom of dicks, the gay man is king.
I'd been hoping for Gungnir to live quite a bit longer. Vassals are normally very grateful when you hand out land, as he'd been doing, but that gratitude doesn't carry over to any successors. Add in the gay issue and the fact that he's an objectively worse ruler than Gungnir, and our realm is a lot less stable than it used to be.

Gungnir's son Thord, for example, is plotting to have one of our titles changed to "Dick of Norrland:"

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And the commoners in our new capital at Uppland unleash such devastating insults as, "Norse? More like worse!"

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The Finnish count of Narke calls Mjolnir "his royal Homoness."

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On the upside, some of Gungnir's old enemies don't bear a grudge against the new king. Princess Astrid, for example, celebrates his ascension with the most patriotic possible act she can undertake: she dies.

Count Eskild the Holy shows similar levels of patriotism. Count Azur (the former Patron of Templars) selfishly does not die; however, he makes up for it by renouncing Christ, and all his pomps, and all his works. We don't restore his title, but Mjolnir does let him out of prison.

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These developments are less helpful than they might have been, since Gungnir had already reduced all three of these chucklefucks to irrelevance, but it shows that Sweden is becoming increasingly safe from Swedish people.

Finally, there is the matter of the Skanians who killed our best bro. Mjolnir vows to shatter the Skanian duke's skull and slaughter every last Skanian soldier. His nephew the marshal informs him that Gungnir already killed the duke, as well as most every Skanian man, as well as some Catalans who were in the neighborhood and looked feisty.

Mjolnir assembles his advisors in the hopes of discovering a way to take vengeance upon Skane, since killing their men and raping their women has apparently been done. His finest generals are at a loss: Marshal Ingemar suggests killing their plants and raping their dogs, while Thord votes that they all simultaneously take a dump on the palace lawn, but no consensus can be reached. Exasperated, Mjolnir decides to just turn Skane into a black stain on the earth that nothing will ever wash out.

He tears down Skane's castles, burns its cities, salts its farmlands, salts its beaches, reflects that salting saltwater beaches is probably redundant, salts its salt, peppers its pepper, debases its basil, and erases its thyme from all time. He also takes a dump on the palace lawn.

After this formidable display of pooping, Halfdan II (a.k.a. Wholedan) sues for peace.

ck2_1163.jpg


We get a massive amount of gold in reparations, and Mjolnir is free to turn his attention to domestic matters. Mjolnir sets his super-hot wife Zehra up with a fake beard and mustache long enough to get her pregnant:

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Ha! All the Vikings who kept calling Mjolnir gay can eat a big bowl of dick. This will shut them up. This will--

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Okay that could happen to anyone--

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This is the worst day of my entire life.

All the Viking bros laugh manly laughs and say that it's Mjolnir's gayness that's causing him to father girls (the gayest possible gender). And he can't even tell them why that's stupid, because he's a dirt-eating medieval dude who thinks science is for pussies.

3. Feudal Family Feud
Instead he decides to use his royal power to work out his rage. With the Skanian invasion defeated, the traitorous Thord is thrown in jail and the Narke revolt is violently squelched. Mjolnir's impressive ability to kick his own people's ass does not go unnoticed:

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At least, not by Mjolnir. Losing his ambition makes Mjolnir quite a bit worse as a king; I'm not actively rooting for him to die yet, but I wouldn't be too crushed if The Crusher got crushed.

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Which is awkward, now that I think about it. Our nephew Thord, despite being a traitor, is the best candidate for heir at present. He's currently rotting in the dungeon. Add that to his already poor health after losing his hand last update, and his life expectancy isn't looking great.

I don't want Thord to die, and the peerage of Sweden doesn't exactly leave Mjolnir with the luxury of being able to waste talent. After some soul-searching, he decides a little treason between family is nothing to get huffy about and releases Thord from the dungeon.

Flip-flopping on this actually improves Mjolnir's relations with almost all his vassals, since you incur no general penalty for imprisoning a traitor but gain a bonus with the culture group (in this case, all Swedes) for releasing a prisoner. The one exception is Thord himself:

ck2_1170.jpg


whose level of consternation has reached the theoretical upper bound of outrage as exemplified by Blobert when confronted by unbroly behavior. We already have a relations penalty with Thord because he's got a claim to the kingdom, plus there's the fact that he's ambitious. There's a pretty good chance he's plotting our death right now.

Mjolnir has a plan to make him stop, though. It seems the heir to the pussy mayor of Uusimaa has somehow become independent of our rule, without a war, no less. I'm not sure how this happened, but Thord has a claim to the county, and he'll like us a lot better if we send men to kill in his name.

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Mjolnir gathers up his bros and gets ready to own some nerds.

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The Zemigalians have been honoring their alliance in virtually every war Gungnir or Mjolnir has fought in the past decade. This kind of loyalty deserves extremely moral support in return. Anyone who attacks them in the future should expect to receive a VERY stern reprimand. Mjolnir sends the king of Poland a letter saying "watch it," as part of his doctrine of Preemptive Reprimands.

Anyway, the actual war is boring; Mjolnir and da boyz stomp the Finns good and smash their city, too. Thord gets the county and starts to hate us a little less.

The honorable Mjolnir has been feeling guilty about of screwing his nephew out of his inheritance, so he resolves to give him even more land.

ck2_1183.jpg


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Much more land. Giving our largest duchy to the angriest man in the kingdom is a surprisingly not-stupid move. It gives a massive bonus to our relations, to the extent that Thord actually considers us to be his best bro now. Aside from implying odd things about our family tree, this presumably means he'll stop plotting, and the goodwill we've incurred ensures that he'll deliver his full levy as jarl. Since Finland is poor, we aren't losing out on much gold, and if he or his heir ends up inheriting the throne after Mjolnir dies, we'll get all the territory back anyway.

Finally, now that Thord is jarl, he has a de jure ducal claim on the four other provinces in the duchy of Finland, currently held by the Satakuntans (Kunts) and the Kakisalmians (Kaks).

We have a score to settle with the Kunts, since they backstabbed us in our darkest hour, back when Anund was shitting all over our homeland during the Vidar War. We press Thord's claim on Suomi, hoping to win fame and glory by oppressing Finnish people. (Mjolnir suddenly has a strange craving for borscht; I'm not sure what caused that!)

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The actual war is extremely one-sided and not interesting, but note that Mjolnir is planning a tournament.

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Tournaments tend to have fairly terrible effects on all involved; those who aren't injured or killed become drunks or start liking dudes. This is part of Mjolnir fiendish plot to silence all the jerks who call him gay by turning them gay, too.

A few months after we win the war, the single-county chief of the land we just took starts plotting against Thord.

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Is there anyone in this kingdom who isn't a complete fuckup?

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No. No, there is not. Toward the end of the war with the 'Kunts, the Duke of Uppland says, "Odin? More like bonin'! Dudes! Because you're gay!" We quickly move to shut down this villain and his cumbersome misuse of slant rhyme.

(I'm pretty sure I'd given the duchy of Uppland to a Norseman, but it looks like his son converted to Catholicism and therefore hates us.)

Anyway, Uppland's war against ten times as many Viking warriors goes about as well as you'd expect.

Mjolnir is over this shit. He has had enough of incompetent invaders, asshole vassals, unruly family members, and flip-flopping dukes. When Ingemar brings the leaders of Kol's rebellion before him, he digs out Gungnir's old Bible and begins to read.

May God have mercy upon them, according to His unfailing love.

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According to His great compassion, may He blot out their transgressions.

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Lord, wash away their iniquity, and cleanse them from their sin.

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Because Mjolnir is making a point here, he then gives the seized property to another Catholic lord:

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Which makes him very grateful. We leverage that gratitude by telling him to renounce his corpse god and swear fealty to Bloody-Handed Tyr.

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He obeys. Mjolnir has destroyed Christian Uppland and remade it in the image of the True Gods.

Unsatisfied by the combination of blasphemy, blood sacrifice, and apostasy, Mjolnir looks for other ways to screw over Christ-Men:

ck2_1194.jpg


Since the Doux of Paphlagonia is still holding the entire royal family of the ERE hostage, Mjolnir marries his nondynastic half-sister to another imperial prince. This time it's less about getting an alliance and more about being a dick to the Emperor, since he refused to help us in the Skanian war. Fine, you cocks, see if we let you have any other allies.

Mjolnir doesn't even attend the wedding, he just sends a letter to the Emperor saying "eat shit," telling the court scribe to draw stink rays coming off of "shit." Upon receipt, the Emperor's lip quivers, and his courtiers can barely hear him murmuring "good god, do they mean to marry us all?"

4. Rage, Ruinous Thing

Back in Uppland, Mjolnir readies his armies to sail back to the east, to press Thord's claim against the Kaks. This time they seem likely to put up more of a fight; the Kaks' own levies are at full strength, and they're calling in allies.

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The Finnish alliance is strong, but none can stand before the One-Handed God. And when this war is over, we will have Thord's loyalty for all ti

ck2_1206.jpg


Oh for fuck's sake. Thord's opinion of Mjolnir is at 100--he theoretically loves us as much as it is possible to love anyone--and we're fighting a war on his behalf, and he is still plotting treason against us. Also we've already thrown him in prison once for this bullshit.

Still, we've got a war to fight. Mjolnir gives an inspiring speech to Thord and his other nobles ("I hate all you fuckers and look forward to your deaths"), then sails for Finland. The war itself isn't that interesting; the Sami manage to storm our castle in Kemi, but it ends up being irrelevant when weighed against our gains in the south. Mjolnir and da boyz crush the Finns and their ridiculous bear-worshipping religion, whereupon his berserkers set up a temple dedicated to their completely logical turning-into-a-bear religion. Eventually, the Kaks kakpitulate.

Toward the end of the war, our competent but horrifically awkward little bro Skidbladnir, who we made Lord Admiral and jarl of one of the richer parts of Sweden, comes asking for a handout. We patiently explain that we would love to give him money, but that would interfere with our plan to not give him money. Then we call him an ugly fuckface and give him a noogie. Come back when you can report something besides failure.

We do quash the rebellion in his territory, though, since apparently he's too much of a pussy to manage that on his own.

Since everyone in the kingdom except Mjolnir seems to be infected with stupidity, Mjolnir attempts to have a son, which would double the non-useless population of his realm. After some pleading, Queen Zehra agrees to Mjolnir's request that she yell out a particularly alluring phrase in bed. ("Man, it sure is good to have a penis.") The result:

ck2_1219.jpg


While waiting for our kid to hatch, Mjolnir finally manages to lay plans for his tournament. This is an extremely prestigious event, so prestigious that the King of Poland offers him a magazine in tribute. ("Watch it," Mjolnir graciously replies.) Indeed, Mjolnir has become so prestigious that he is now known as Mjolnir the Great.

The day of the tournament arrives. The in-game soundtrack gets really good at this point, with the sweet sound of nobles screaming "ARRRGH" as they die playing for a full month. Also, Mjolnir suspects that a fair number of his nobles inexplicably turned gay, which brings him no end of amusement.

"Eat dick, you jerks."

And eat did they did.

Finally, Zehra manages to have our so

ck2_1221.jpg


Goddammit.

"More like Mjolnir the Gay," two of his lords laugh, then high five and make out with each other.

5. Always angry, all the time

Mjolnir is so angry at his dysfunctional kingdom that he begins laying plans to invade Norrland, which is confusing, because he personally owns all of it. It is at this point that his nephew Ingemar reminds him of the one thing he hates more than the people in his kingdom: the people outside his kingdom. In particular, the Norwegians.

Fighting Norway makes sense for a number of reasons:

1. The Christian kings of Sweden managed to lose two Swedish counties; we still have de jure claims on them, though.

2. Norwegian king Harald Hardrada was the last Viking king outside of the Eketra line. Defeating his scions will establish beyond question that the Vikings are returned and Mjolnir is their standard-bearer.

3. Speaking of standards, Hardrada had a raven banner called the Landoyoan ("Land-waster"). It was said that the army that fought before this banner could not be defeated by any men who walked the earth. Since the Norwegian army was known to have had the banner with them when the English shat all over them at Stamford Bridge in 1066, I assume the English army used some diabolical women or hobbits-based strategy to defeat them. Regardless, as the inheritor of Odin's favor, Mjolnir wants the Norse flag back.

vikingbanner2.jpg


4. Norway is the weakest rival we have right now. If we beat them here, we'll weaken them to the point where we can farm their crappy kingdom for easy land whenever we want.

5. Norway is currently ruled by a little girl, which are known to be extremely deadly to people named Thord. If our ingrate nephew takes a teddy bear to the head, so much the better.

This list is actually five items too long, because Mjolnir does not actually need a reason to kill Christ-men. War is declared. Levies from border provinces are brought into two main stacks and begin sieging inland Norway, while Mjolnir sails with over five thousand men to crush the main Norwegian army at Skiringssal.

ck2_1224.jpg


We capture the queen's uncle and spymaster in the first battle. Mjolnir offers the Norwegian prince food from his table and his choice of arms, duels him honorably, and after he is dead, hacks off his hand and offers it to Tyr as thanks for this victory.

And that's the only major battle of the war. We came here looking for a good fight, but we're not going to find one. We manage to siege enough provinces to force a surrender within a year, with minimal casualties on our part. Mjolnir demands the Raven Banner as part of the peace settlement, thinking this will outrage the Norwegians enough to make them show a little backbone, but they agree quite readily. (They certainly have no use for artifacts of a barbaric age.) Indeed, shortly thereafter, Kaiser Poppo of the Holy Roman Empire sends him a letter: "Nice war you guys had there. Too bad you forgot to make it not gay."

Mjolnir prepares his rebuttal.

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Death to the false emperor!

This fulfills the first part of Eketra's blood oath against the Reich. There is still the matter of exterminating the Corpse of Bamberg's entire lineage and then conquering the largest Catholic country in the world, but we're taking this one step at a time.

The HRE responds to the Kaiser's death with a succession crisis so bitter that it makes the Valhallans look stable and high-functioning. When the dust clears, it is over ten thousand German bodies.

The honorable Mjolnir's first and last act of assassination, as well as the slaying of their most hated enemy, finally manages to garner some respect for Mjolnir among the Viking people. Even Queen Zehra starts to give the king coy eyes, although that might be attributed to this:

ck2_1237.jpg


Or this:

Mjolnir said:
Shall I compare thee to a handsome man?
I like thee less in every single way.
Thy chest has pointless little cans;
thy ass is less manly, I have to say.

As you can see, Mjolnir is a highly skilled pickup artist, using an advanced form of negging that involves expressing his contempt for the Target's entire gender. Zehra is overcome with lust for his alpha-ness and throws herself at his junk.

Mjolnir also sentences some random commoner to death, and the people love that:

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Finally, Mjolnir is getting the respect he de

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A letter arrives from the King of Poland the same day. The despairing Mjolnir woodenly breaks the elaborate seal, unfolds the gilded parchment, and reads the single word in the message:


THAT MOTHERFUCKER NEEDS TO WATCH IT.

6. Maximum Fuck

Our family continues to be a source of incoherent fuckery:

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The lady to the left is our nephew Ingemar's wife. She's plotting to kill Thord, presumably to clear a path to the throne for her husband. We politely ask her to fuck along.

The gentleman in the center is our little brother Skidbladnir, whining for a handout again. He wants a county in his duchy. We compromise by giving him a wedgie.

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Ingemar also wants a duchy. As it happens, we want something from him, too: we want him to shut the fuck up. We agree to meet him halfway, and specifically on the half that constitutes our way.

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Mjolnir becomes a scholar. "Only a scholar of butts," Thord remarks darkly.

"Seriously, is there anything gayer than reading?" Skidbladnir agrees.

"Maybe he could write a book about having daughters," Ingemar chuckles. "How to be gay: The book."

Three noogies later, the steadfast Zemigalians call us into battle in their war to claim Lithuania.

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Mjolnir provides his full moral support, moving swiftly and decisively to establish moral superiority over the foe. He uses his new scholarly vocabularly to unleash sick burns on the enemy: "More like Paleolithuania," he writes in a letter to Duchess Boleslava. "Because you're so backward."

"I don't understand that insult because I'm borderline illiterate," she retorts.

Norse morality proves too much for the Lithuanians to handle, and the Zemigalian victory seems inevitable. In Uppland, Mjolnir reflects that it's a shame that there is nothing for his fearsome, 8000-man-strong army to attack.

"Your majesty, I beg you, please send aid!" the Zemigalian ambassador says.

"Literally nothing for me to do with all these warriors," Mjolnir ponders. "Perhaps I could have them beat their axes into utility axes."

"The war could still go either way! We are counting on you for support!"

"Wait, I've got it," Mjolnir says, brightening, "There's a hostile pagan power to the east, one that blood and honor both demand that I destroy."

"Yes!" the ambassador says, jumping up and down.

Mjolnir rises and claps him on the shoulder. "Tell your chief I'll be unavailable for the next few months. Tomorrow, we march to war against the Satakuntans! For Tyr and honor!"

Much like all Mjolnir's other wars, the fight against the Satakuntans is extremely one-sided. Apparently CK2 thought it was a titanic struggle, though. Behold Mjolnir heroically fighting against a much weaker person!

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Apparently our king has become an angry man. I had better start characterizing him as such!

For winning an unloseable battle, Mjolnir is hailed as a hero throughout the realm, granting him an intimidating +5 to his prestige score.

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Not long thereafter, the High Chief of the Satakuntans very politely surrenders. Since this is his last holding, the Satakuntan tribe has been fully absorbed into the Norse kingdom. Pleased to have vanquished one of his father's foes, Mjolnir begins referring to himself as "'Kunt-Destroyer," hoping to end the gay jokes once and for all.

"You can't just make up your own nickname," Ingemar objects.

"And frankly, that's disrespectful to women," Skidbladnir adds.

"Gay nickname," says Thord.

In contrast, the people of Uppland decide that any man so flagrantly misogynistic is probably right about the rest of the world, too.

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We've had our chief diviner in Uppland for almost thirty years; this is the first conversion we've had. Our chancellor hasn't brought us any claims, either. Even the gods are being dicks to Mjolnir.

Incidentally, in the background of that screenshot, you may note that Rus and Hungary have united under the Arpad dynasty, becoming an imperial power capable of fighting the Holy Roman Empire to a standstill. This is probably unimportant and beneath our concern!

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Back to what really matters: our dickhead family. Skidbladnir brings us grave news that Ingemar is plotting to call Mjolnir gay.

Skidbladnir's proof said:
THE KING IS A HOMO

PASS IT ON

--Skidblad Defenitly Ingimarr!

As much as Mjolnir would love to throw both of these pricks in jail, the fact that they are plotting against each other means that they are not plotting against him, which has a certain charming novelty at this point. Their heirs probably won't show the same forbearance, so we're going to try to keep them both healthy.

Apparently we should have tried harder.

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Mjolnir gives the eulogy at Ingemar's funeral: "Farewell, nephew. You were a whiny asshole but not as bad as these other shits, several of whom probably murdered you." He gestures into the crowd of mourners, some of whom seem to be about to nod before they catch themselves. "You deserved a better end than that." He then sets the body into Skidbladnir's flagship and torches it, to the cheers of everyone but Skidbladnir.

Ingemar's son Markus succeeds his father. He has the brown skin and curious headgear of his mother's people, but soon shows himself to be a true Eketra noble:

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By framing his cousin Thord for treason. Awesome work, Mark. All you have to do now is come up with a new way to call Mjolnir gay, and you'll be one of us.

6.5. Will no one rid me of this turbulent jarl?
Mjolnir informs Thord of Markus's plot to frame him. "Thanks for the tip, uncle-bro," Thord writes back. "Since you're handing out advice, I was wondering: do you have any idea how I could have four fucking daughters in a row? I tried but it turned out I wasn't gay enough." Mjolnir shakes his fist and shouts, "Will no one rid me of this turbulent jarl?"

Apparently someone will, because Thord dies shortly thereafter.

(I assumed at the time that it was one of the many pricks in our family who wanted to climb over Thord's corpse to the throne, but I checked the game on my 1.05 install (which reveals cause of death), and it says he died of natural causes at about 50. Which is pretty young, but remember that he was an amputee.)

As with Ingemar, Mjolnir presides over Thord's funeral. He stands up before the grieving friends and family of the beloved jarl and a hush comes over the crowd. Mjolnir gives his eulogy; it consists of yelling "Awesome!", then shotgunning an entire flagon of mead and making out with his lame female wife in front of everyone.

7. King in the North
While Mjolnir's reign has been low on glory and high on incompetence, his accumulated conquests have tipped the balance of power in the northlands. The War of the Raven proved that. The contemptuous ease with which Mjolnir scattered the Norwegian armies showed beyond doubt that there is a new power in the North.

Twenty-six years into Mjolnir's reign, he fights a war to establish the Norsemen as the dominant kingdom in Scandinavia, once and for all.

Soundtrack

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Viken is the last Swedish province under Norwegian yoke. If we drive them out, we'll have unified Sweden[1] and the duchy of Finland. This will be more interesting than the war for Varmland, though. Queen Sigrid has forged an alliance with King Gregers of Denmark. This will be a Pan-dinavian war.
__
[1] Minus the duchy of Smaland, since the False Emperor claimed two of its provinces.

ck2_1284.jpg


We start with the same opening strategy as before: the inland provinces mass, then march into the Norwegian hinterlands. This time, though, we divert our western armies toward the coast, both to seize the target of the war (improving the war score) and to provide accessible reinforcements if we need. Mjolnir brings the main Norse warhost from the pagan lands by sea, again landing in Vestfold to slam the hammer against the Norwegian backbone.

Once it's shattered, we turn toward their Danish allies. As with the Skanian war, the Danish's greatest enemy is their coastline. Well, that and the thousands of screaming Viking warriors swarming over it. But the coastline doesn't help.

ck2_1285.jpg

STRIKE FROM THE SEAS!

As before, our longships carry us to into the heart of the Danish host before it can join with the body, giving us easy victories over a divided foe. Note that Markus has inherited his father's position as Stallari of Norsemen; with a martial score of 22, he's an even better commander than Gungnir was. For reference purposes, that puts him on par with legendary historical badasses like William the Conqueror, El Cid, and Alp Arslan.

It's somewhat moot in this instance, though, since we've got a big fucking army and are essentially playing 10-pin Dane Bowling. Soon thereafter:

ck2_1289.jpg


Victory seems imminent. To make matters worse for the Norwegians, with the defeat of the queen's main army and the slaughter of her most powerful ally, the Duke of Trondelag decides this is the best chance he'll get to cast off royalist oppression.

ck2_1290.jpg


This proves fortunate, because a few months later, Sigrid manages to recruit the Knights Hospitaller.

ck2_1294.jpg


The knights are still completely capable of overrunning our entire military. We prepare to evacuate our forces by sea the moment the knights move. Fortunately, the queen gets confused and sends the knights against the Tronders. This isn't very effective, since the Tronders are Catholic and thus the knights refuse to fight them . . .

ck2_1291.jpg


The knights get confused and wander off. With them gone, the war's been reduced to a matter of waiting. While we do that, our Chief Diviner is torn apart by Christian savages.

ck2_1292.jpg


His replacement soon faces a similar fate. I didn't get screenshots of it, but this sort of thing went on every few months for a year or two. Being a Norse priest is substantially more dangerous than being a Norse warrior. This is probably the right incentive structure, since we need a lot more warriors than priests.

ck2_1296.jpg


In the closing day of the war, Zehra writes to us, overcome with passion. She begs us to hurry home and tell her how much we'd rather be banging dudes. We settle for sending her some nice earrings we looted from Sigrid's palace.

ck2_1300.jpg


Corroded from without and from within, Norway crumbles. We've defeated the forces of Christian Scandinavia with relative ease.

Word of our prowess travels quickly; within weeks, the Eastern Emperor begs us to aid him against a rebellious doux.

Mjolnir's reply said:
Nikephoros-in-Death, Equal To The False Prophets, Emperor of Romans,

Tyr demands that I honor our alliance. As my god is not a weakling who permits his faithful to act like honorless dogs, I must obey. I pledge to slaughter every single Aegean rebel who dares cross the Baltic. We shall show no mercy to them.

Nor to you.

Regards,
Mjolnir

P.S. Eat shit. [Stink rays are drawn here.]

Mjolnir's inspiring words spur on the Greek loyalists to victory.

Things are looking good for Mjolnir. He's finally had a mildly interesting war, he's conquered a lot of land, he is the dominant power in the north. He commissions a painting of his father (one of the two relatives he actually liked) to celebrate this glorious time in his reign.

ck2_1307.jpg


Naturally, he dies a few months later.

ck2_1308.jpg


His successor is Jarl Maer, youngest daughter of Thord the Younger. The Viking nation is now ruled by a 24-year-old woman.

8. Synopsis

At this point we rule a near-unified Sweden and a majority of the Kingdom of Finland. The Valhallans are solidly established as the most powerful Scandinavian kingdom. However, the death of Mjolnir means the end of our alliance with the Eastern Empire, and the proximity of three very powerful countries makes that loss uncomfortable. The King of Poland is no longer watching it, and Rus or the HRE could ruin us. Also, now we're being led by a small lady.

The next update should be a lot more interesting, since Maer is awesome, and unlike Mjolnir, I actually liked playing her.

e:added section 6.5 as per mondblut's question
 
Self-Ejected

Ulminati

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Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

























:thumbsup:

the amount of :x Mjolnir faced made this a truly codexian experience to follow. I'm also wondering what a succession-style CKII LP would be like
 

CappenVarra

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Having a gay king isn't actually that big a deal, mechanics-wise. There's a hit to fertility involved, but no more than what you'd get for having an interest in theology. This is reasonably historically accurate; in an era when bloodlines were so important, most gay nobles manned up and dutifully boned their wives until a son emerged from their wangs. It is sweet and fitting to fuck for your country.

...

Mjolnir assembles his advisors in the hopes of discovering a way to take vengeance upon Skane, since killing their men and raping their women has apparently been done. His finest generals are at a loss: Marshal Ingemar suggests killing their plants and raping their dogs, while Thord votes that they all simultaneously take a dump on the palace lawn, but no consensus can be reached. Exasperated, Mjolnir decides to just turn Skane into a black stain on the earth that nothing will ever wash out.

He tears down Skane's castles, burns its cities, salts its farmlands, salts its beaches, reflects that salting saltwater beaches is probably redundant, salts its salt, peppers its pepper, debases its basil, and erases its thyme from all time. He also takes a dump on the palace lawn.

...

Shall I compare thee to a handsome man?
I like thee less in every single way.
Thy chest has pointless little cans;
thy ass is less manly, I have to say.
:lol: :salute: (I suggest PMing that first paragraph to HHR for extra credits)
 

Norfleet

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Great update. Question: Why exactly was Thord in jail again? Was it JUST for the plotting thing? I find it practically purposeless to imprison a character merely for plotting...they can't help themselves, it's their peabrained AI that forces them to do it, and they are fundamentally incapable of changing their ways, or really, even holding any real malice about it, so you just periodically tell them to cut that shit out. It's when they start trying to assassinate each other that they need to be put in the slammer, since they'll never cut that shit out and there's no other way for you to make them quit it.

The other thing I would resist is giving out multiple duchies to one character, particularly if they are large duchies: The sheer number of holdings will exceed the character's demesne limit, causing him to spawn a bunch of annoying little subshits, which just escalates your problem of control even more, and making it that much harder to clean up the mess even when you reinherit the territories back. I acquired a preexisting structure with this kind of setup in my game, and that place was an endless pain in the ass until I finally managed to round up all the offenders together in one province and have them all murdered. Another thing I really loathe is "Duke of X, Count of some other place that isn't part of the Duchy", resulting in the Duke of the place that it DOES belong to being annoyed by this, and all the attendant fuss as above...I like everyone neatly partitioned in their proper boxes, which is probably why my realm has never had these problems with people constantly revolting. Just them trying to stab each other.
 

Jaedar

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Nice update. Chuckled a few times. Looking forward to the day when the glorious viking sweden crushes the pitiful danes under their mighty bootheels.
 

Kayerts

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What happened to Turd the Younger himself though?

Whoops. I wrote up a description, edited it out for flow, and then apparently never replaced it. This was shortly after Markus accused Thord at the end of section 6.

Mjolnir informs Thord of Markus's plot to frame him. "Thanks for the tip, bro," Thord writes back. "Since you're handing out advice, I was wondering: do you have any idea how I could have four fucking daughters in a row? I tried but it turned out I wasn't gay enough." Mjolnir shakes his fist and shouts, "Will no one rid me of this turbulent jarl?"

Apparently someone will, because Thord dies shortly thereafter.

(I assumed at the time that it was one of the many pricks in our family who wanted to climb over Thord's corpse to the throne, but I checked the game on my 1.05 install (which reveals cause of death), and it says he died of natural causes at about 50. Which is pretty young, but remember that he was an amputee.

As with Ingemar, Mjolnir presides over Thord's funeral. He stands up before the grieving friends and family of the beloved jarl and a hush comes over the crowd. Mjolnir gives his eulogy; it consists of yelling "Awesome!", then shotgunning an entire flagon of mead and making out with his lame female wife in front of everyone.

Why exactly was Thord in jail again? Was it JUST for the plotting thing?

That, plus the fact the at the time, imprisonment seemed easier than getting him to actually like me. (He had something like a -100 relations modifier when I took the throne.) It wasn't until later that I took stock of my kingdom and realized he was one of the few men who was good at anything.

I generally agree with you about it not being their fault, but in-game, imprisonment opportunities are less about punishing the wicked and more about a chance to get rid of some jackass who might cause trouble. If you can use one to head off a rebellion you'd rather not fight, I generally find it's worth it.

The other thing I would resist is giving out multiple duchies to one character, particularly if they are large duchies

Agreed. The one exception is for very large states, and then it's just about making the command hierarchy scale.

Conquering territory does tend to result in awkwardness in the political structure of your realm, especially as the game goes on and the AI allows duchies to become more fragmented. If you ever gain a kingdom-level title, the mess of multiheaded dukes ( :mhd: ) quickly becomes less than heavenly.


Still a better story than Homoousia vs. Homoiousia.

I think what makes the history of early Christian heresies so great is that a lot of the prominent figures sincerely seem to have believed that the conflict was about the stated, infinitesimal doctrinal differences, and not the natural social divisions that arise in an intercontinental religion. To quote a brolier bro than I:

The Judge said:
The willingness of the principals to forgo further argument as the triviality which it in fact is and to petition directly the chambers of the historical absolute clearly indicates of how little moment are the opinions and of what great moment the divergences thereof. For the argument is indeed trivial, but not so the separate wills thereby made manifest.
 

Kayerts

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I'm also wondering what a succession-style CKII LP would be like

The game is pretty well-designed for it, as far as I can tell; after the starting turn, it's hard for any one player to irrevocably break your dynasty, and having a wider spread of experience among rulers would actually make it a lot more fun. The only actual way to ruin it would be if some powergaming mofo like me or Norfleet were to make our dude emperor in the 12th century, thereby eliminating all challenge for the rest of the game, but you could probably work around that with house rules or by sorting the turn order w.r.t. familiarity with the game.

I'd participate, if you wanted to run a game like that.
 

Gondolin

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Kayerts said:
I think what makes the history of early Christian heresies so great is that a lot of the prominent figures sincerely seem to have believed that the conflict was about the stated, infinitesimal doctrinal differences, and not the natural social divisions that arise in an intercontinental religion.

Indeed. It amused me to realize that Julian, who rejected Christianity, went down in history as an apostate, while his predecessor, Constantius II, a devout Christian, is still known as a heretic for supporting "the wrong brand".
 

Vernydar

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I'm also wondering what a succession-style CKII LP would be like

The game is pretty well-designed for it, as far as I can tell; after the starting turn, it's hard for any one player to irrevocably break your dynasty, and having a wider spread of experience among rulers would actually make it a lot more fun. The only actual way to ruin it would be if some powergaming mofo like me or Norfleet were to make our dude emperor in the 12th century, thereby eliminating all challenge for the rest of the game, but you could probably work around that with house rules or by sorting the turn order w.r.t. familiarity with the game.

To be honest, I think in this game assassinations as a mean of conquest or ending wars are wayyyy too convenient. I am really enjoying your LP here, but if a succession game was started, I think there SHOULD be some kind of rule limiting assassination. And possibly, also removing elective succession. It's too easy to become ruler of the HRE from what I've seen. If a succession game were to try and get the empire, it should be by conquering it one piece at a time :)

Assassinations should still be allowed to remove unwanted family members, or unwanted retainers / vassals, or in extreme cases to marry someone (no, not in order to get the only successor of some king, refer as above. I was thinking more to marry some superwoman for our dinasty, or at most to get some minor claims like counties or duchies 1-2 generations down the line).
 

Vaarna_Aarne

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If you had asked I could have tried to make it possible for Thord, Skidbladnir and Ingemarr to actually plot to call Mjolnir gay. This was by far the best update in the LP, absolutely hilarious. Too bad you didn't make it not gay.

EDIT: Btw Vernydar, in my mod I already did succeed in towing HRE back in line. First move was to remove the bonus relations from Elective, then make it impossible for HRE to NOT be elective, and finally limiting the crown authority to a maximum of Low, at which point the Emperor is really a nominal leader as the vassals can conquer each other without trouble.
 

Vernydar

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If you had asked I could have tried to make it possible for Thord, Skidbladnir and Ingemarr to actually plot to call Mjolnir gay. This was by far the best update in the LP, absolutely hilarious. Too bad you didn't make it not gay.

EDIT: Btw Vernydar, in my mod I already did succeed in towing HRE back in line. First move was to remove the bonus relations from Elective, then make it impossible for HRE to NOT be elective, and finally limiting the crown authority to a maximum of Low, at which point the Emperor is really a nominal leader as the vassals can conquer each other without trouble.

Yes of course, mods will set that straight :p But in the vanilla game, HRE and to a lesser degree, byzantium, are simply overpowered. I was supposing that, in an possible succession game on this forum, the vanilla version would be used :)
 

Vaarna_Aarne

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In my experience Byzantium is far more overpowered than HRE in vanilla prior to the latest patch that made the starting point better for Turks. The reason for this is because Byzantium has an absurdly massive de jure.
 

mondblut

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Also, the last update was hysterical and made my day. Nothing could be a better distraction in the midst of a 16-hour shift of comparing russian and english localization tables in excel. Thanks! :bro: :gayhonourblade:
 

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