Vinland, the Land of Wealth and Ambition

[EmperorOfTheNorthSea]

Sorry if I wasn't able to get this out sooner, in North Carolina the biggest Snow we've had in thirty years just happened and it's only about six inches so as someone who used to live in Pennsylvania I did things with family and friends also from there. Feel bad for the people down here where this is the biggest now they've ever seen.

I just realized the whole situation in England is that it's divided between Three kingdoms, In this TL Romance of the Three Kingdoms has Vikings, Scots, and Normans fighting each other.

1077-1081

In England the army under William the first of Normandy had regained it's strength and Norwegians and Scots alike feared it's wrath, however despite it's glory the leader William the First had been bedridden for months, could hardly speak, and was very old so many were sure it would be his death. The Norwegian king Harald Hardrada had thought this the perfect opportunity and sent his army of twenty one thousand into Norman England. With the Norwegian Army utilizing the Norman Crossbow to a degree had allowed them to cut down vast swathes of enemy troops.

The Normans were able to resist but when the Scots under Thorfinn Sigurdsson begun invading from the North the King William spat blood before entering death; Naturally his son Robert Curthose ascended his father's position. But the Norman court was divided, many did not wish for Robert to be king and wanted William the Second to be king. Eventually the matter was decided and Robert left England in charge of William, but took most of the troops with him leaving William defenseless against the Norwegian and Scottish invaders. Harald Hardada was not very young himself and the court in Norway was starting to fight over successors, however he was still fit enough to lead an army and with the death of William the first he and to the north Thorfinn Sigurdsson was also invading. William the second had instead decided to flee England as many of his subjects were making deals with the two other Kings in order to escape death and defeat; He had decided to do what many Noble outcasts did and went south to Iberia to make himself a count in the Muslim lands like what many did before
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With all of Norman England split between Scottish and Norwegian forces, William the Second went south to the court of Ferdinand the first; however upon arrival he found Ferdinand had died of old age and his son Alfonso VI had wrestled the title emperor of all Spain from his various brothers. William had made a deal with Alfonso that if he were to capture a county he would be made count. He had with the help of the main Spanish army captured a county on the coast of the Mediterranean, king a hint from Rollo Olafsson had exiled all the followers of Islam. By exiling rather than outright genocide he did not incur the wrath of the Taifas of the south and by them being exiled south means that supplies will have to be expended on them, he then filled the empty farms and towns with poor peasants from all over christian Iberia and even the Franks had sent some of their population there in an attempt to lower population burden in some of their land.

In Iberia, William the second of Normandy had become a count and Rollo Olafsson had been steadily increasing his territory as Ibrahim Ibn Tanja had now been shifting focus to the other warlords such as the most recent one being William. The people of Christian Iberia were able to cultivate more land as the Emperor Alfonso had spread the population out into the newly conquered lands. It is not really known but around this time the Skraeling crop Gulurskera had made it's way into Iberia, it had been cultivated in the Heitteyjar for decades and most Scholars believe it was introduced through that; The new crops produced a much larger yield and the mead made from it quickly became a staple drink for the Spanish armies.

Emperor Alfonso had made investments into Crossbows for his armies, the new count William from Normandy had introduced the Norman crossbow to the Spanish. Crossbows were very effective in siege warfare, it was also useful in aiding melee fighters before the enemy reaches close distance. The Crossbows were too expensive to fully replace the archer, but it was seen as an effective supplement to the army. In Leifrvalde the crossbow had been introduced to some extent but meant for bear hunting which was a very large challenge without a crossbow. The Norwegians used the crossbow to enforce their rule across England and in Scandinavia as well, the armies in Denmark and Sweden that rose in rebellion every once in a while would be ripped to shreds by the bolts, the bolts could even do damage to those wearing mail and lamellar; any chance of revolt in Iceland is no more with the open ground being prime territory for the Norwegian crossbow.

In the relatively new Hviturfjaran, Hurricanes devastated the colony and many of the families had fled back north and settled in the upstart colonies in Grunnland and Thorskurland dspite orders from the new Allthing. Those who decided to stay had eventually assimilated with the local skraelings and the islands having such a small supply of bog Iron led revertion to skraeling technology, the proof can be seen today as the skraelings of the Islands have a whiter skin pigment than normal.

In Saeturland, farms were becoming more common and villages were being established inland along rivers and streams to manage the farms and also facilitate copper mining for coin minting. The ship building buisness was very large in Saturland, large ships incorporating Andalusian sail techniques to allow better sailing against the wind. The ships' height was also changing as it was getting taller and taller to face the rougher waves of the southern oceans. A full crossing of the Atlantic was possible but jumping to Iceland was preferable.

In Frelsiland, the population had increased dramaticly and the stockpiles of grain were nearly endless. Grain exports were high and people as far as Iceland bought their grain due to the sheer abundance of it, so much grain that the Paramount Chieftain of Leifrvalde Birger Bjarnysson had initiated something of a Welfare policy in which no man was left to go hungry; Although with the abundance of the land this was unneccasary and anyone willing to work could recieve food. Fired brick which started in Nawahlid had made it's way to Frelsiland, it was instantly popular with how easy it was to build with and the final products building with it produced. Three story houses were common in the larger settlements and the local town Halls were much more luxurious than those in Iceland or Scandinavia with higher ceilings and a much larger space.

In Thorkellsborg mining new techniques from Europe allow them to dig deeper and mine the Iron ore more extensively. The burning of limestone into lime had traveled to Thorkellsborg and the process of "lime casting" in which quicklime was mixed with water and aggregate and then poured into wooden containers and allowing the lime to react with carbon in the atmosphere and revert back into Limestone in a desired shape, usually in the shape of a brick. Limestone was stronger and heavier than Fired clay which was used for churches and other large projects. Thorkellsborg also had a revival in fish trade with salt being exported to Bjarnystad allowing them to ship salted fish in much larger quantities to all over Leifrvalde and to Iceland.

In Greenland the people there slowly began immigrating south to the warmer lands but many still remained. Skraelings from the west one again began attacking some of the western settlements, many caught unprepared and unarmed perished; Not willing to have troops from the south sent north Birger Bjarnysson left the Greenlanders to fend for themselves. Eventually the men from the eastern settlement were able to drive the Skraelings off but at the cost of nearly three hundred lives.

 

[EmperorOfTheNorthSea]

After more than a week of waiting here's the next update, I hope you like it.

1082-1086

Harald Hardrada was nearly ninety years old, his successors were already trying to achieve power after his death. His empire was beginning to crumble as well, the Swedes seeing how old he was rebelled and managed to gain their independence; The Danes followed suit in rebellion but where able to be suppressed. All men must eventually die and Harald Hardrada who built an empire that nearly overshadowed the one of Canute had died in his sleep. His Empire was dived into three rulers: Magnus Haraldsson who ruled over Norway and Iceland, Olaf Haraldsson who ruled over the portion of England conquered by Norway, and Olaf Sweynsson (or Olaf Hunger was his nickname) who ruled Denmark and the Swedish territories. Olaf Sweynsson had married Hardrada's daughter Ingegerd as this was his claim to king of Denmark and ruler of swedes.

Magnus Haraldsson who ruled over Norway and Iceland had thought it a good way to increase income by forcing many people to immigrate to Iceland, making money by confiscating the land left behind and the taxed on wood and salt that were exported to Iceland that they could not produce themselves. When sources of wood began to come into Iceland from Leifrvalde and Scotland he had banned imports of wood and salt from anywhere but Norway, then soon after he banned all imports of any material; this was detrimental to the many merchants in Vinland and Markland who sold large amounts of nearly everything ranging from dried fish to furs to quality Iron. This was harmful to the Economy in Leifrvalde and Birger Bjarnysson who had been respected by the masses during his rule, but everyone thought he would never live up to his father Bjarny Leifsson and he thought this the perfect opportunity.

The Paramount Chieftain Birger Bjarnysson had ordered fifty of the Allthings blacksmith and craftsmen slaves to get to work constructing Crossbows and "Great Bows" which were mentioned around this time which seemed to incorporate maple and oak woods. It was planned to be kept secret but somehow lost to history Magnus Haraldsson had learned of the mass production of Crossbows and Bows and raised a small army of Icelanders and took fifteen ships to Greenland where he attempted to confiscate all property there. When Birger Bjarnysson heard of this he cared little of Greenland but knew of the threat this could pose to both his territory and his reputation and had forty seven well stocked warships with well armed men to Iceland and twelve well stocked warships to Greenland also with armed men.

When the ships arrived in Iceland they used momentum to quickly bring every farm under their control, however little resistance was made as many accepted the intrusion as the rich landowners were losing money with the harsh taxes and regulations Magnus Haraldsson had been imposing on them. Birger Bjarnysson had gained alliances with many of the rich landowners and with it raised two thousand troops from the local Icelanders and then intercepted the main Norwegian fleet that had taken Greenland and begun to attack the settlements the Norwegian army took refuge in. The battles were very bloody with usage of advanced bows and crossbows whizzing by took the most casualties, while the Norwegians had more Crossbows the men from Leifrvalde had better armor and most times the bolts would bounce off. The battles wore both sides but in a short moment the Norwegian king was able to slip past Birger's fleet and went south along the coast of Markland, in the large town of Leifsfjord (OTL Happy Valley Goose Bay). Due to the large Fjords resemblance to the Nidaros fjord Magnus had it fortified the same way.

Months went by and only by the Skraeling allies did Birger Bjarnysson manage to breach the walls, while at first the people of Liefrvalde celebrated the event as the first time in history of a trans-Atlantic war (albeit it was not a very large one compared to European conflicts) and also the first trans-Atlantic war where the Leifrish won; However the celebration stopped when the walls were breached and the atrocities the Norwegian army committed against the civilians inside. Still, the victory over the King of Norway was a boost to morale and local pride to the people living in Leifrvalde. Birger Bjarnysson had the King executed but many thought this to be a poor idea but Birger did it anyways. After this the Icelandic Allthing was rebuilt and reformed to be as it was before the first Norwegian invasions, however there was one difference where every four years a Paramount Chieftain would be elected. The Paramount Chieftain would have many restrictions so not like the Paramount Chieftains in Leifrvalde by a long way.

In Norway with the absence if the King for so long, Olaf Sweynsson had taken the opportunity to invade and annex Norway where he had little resistance and even support from the people wishing to be free of Magnus' many trade laws and restrictions. With very little trouble at all Olaf Sweynsson had taken most of Scandinavia, he had then used the momentum to invade the Kingdoms of the Wends and more of Sweden establishing new villages in the interior and spreading Christianity to the inland villages still entrenched in the fertility cult. He had already envisioned a new city for Norway that would be a Primary seat of power, he had decided to expand the little town of Bergen into a city rivaling Nidaros allowing for increased trade and revenue.

In England Olaf Haraldsson had attempted many times to beat back the Scottish tide in England, Thorfinn Sigurdsson was getting too old to rule and Olaf Haraldsson was hoping to take advantage of his death. To the surprise of Olaf, Thorfinn Sigurdsson had ceded his throne to his son Malcolm the Third due to him being to senile. Malcolm was only a quarter Norse and three quarters Scottish so many Scots saw this as a revival of the Scottish rule as he had a Scottish name and already had children to a Scottish woman. Olaf Haraldsson was not pleased with this and sought to poison and assassinate Malcolm but failed in all attempts.

In Leifrvalde, Birger Bjarnysson had decided on his successor to be a man named Erik Herjolfsson who was a close adviser to his brother Gudbrand. Erik Herjolfsson had married one of Birgers daughters and was thirty-one years old at this point, he had been to Miklagard (Norse name for Constantinople) and back. Birger Bjarnysson also worried about how people would remember him as being nothing more than the son of Bjarny and the grandson of Leif.

The people of Leifrvalde had been expanding the technology of shipbuilding from that of traditional Norse Knarrs and Longships, started by Bjarny Leifsson and expanded greatly by Gudbrand and Birger Bjarnysson Ships made from the quality trees of Saeturland and Hnetaland were able to construct ships of such massive proportions to the point where there are larger than normal storage compartments underneath the floor. There were even a few ships so large that they could cross the Atlantic. Their masts were so large they could not be taken down and with a second hull layer of thin planks on the inside that make it much more resistant to shoals and much easier to make emergency repairs on a ship. The results of this was ships being able to transport larger amounts of cargo at cheaper costs of transport resulting in loads of dried fish being transported to Iceland in exchange for things such as cloth and artworks even if such things were available in Leifrvalde it was much cheaper and profitable to buy and resell such products in the Markets of Thorkellsborg or Nawahlid.

In Hnetaland, the mountainous terrain had made logging hard but through many years of hard work the Area around Olafstad had been cleared and was continued being cleared with the Introduction of goats who would eat every single plant that it could fit into it's mouth. Like Vinland north of the Bjornsvirke the land in range of Olafstad was cleared to such a degree that livestock had thrived so much so that wool was exported to other communities. It was also in Olafstad that the first widespread attempt at domestication of Musk oxen took place.

In Nawahlid the city itself spread along the mouth of the river. Known as the city of Brick and Lime, church steeples tower above the houses. The crown Jewel of the Lands west of Iceland, with trade being prosperous and it's goods being traded as far as [1]Holmgard and beyond. The city was a center for sending colonists, the maple trade in Saeturland was never larger.

In Iberia the last of the Muslims Taifas were destroyed, the hero Ibrabim ibn Tanja had fallen in battle and with him the last hope of a Muslim Iberia. The Pope and even the Byzantine Emperor who had made time to witness the demolition of the last Mosque in Gibraltar which was also the last Mosque in Iberia, a feast was held afterwards where many Norse from the Spanish Army celebrated with the Norse Varangians of the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos who was also there to Strengthen relations with the pope so he could propose support from the west as the Muslim Hordes in the east were wearing down on the Old Empire. The pope had agreed partially, he had declared the Normans in Italy under Robert Guiscard to be heretics and proclaimed false accusations of Satan worship but Guiscard died from a fever later that year where the Byzantines launched an offensive spearheaded by the elite Varangians to reclaim Byzantine southern Italy.

The Emperor of Spain Alfonso VI saw Alexios as an equal and also respected the Byzantines greatly, he sent Rollo Olafsson and his Norse warriors to support Byzantine authority in the eastern Mediterranean by sacking villages along the coast and up rivers along the Levant and the Byzantine government was generous enough to provide the Norse warriors with Greek Fire weapons to give them an advantage in sea combat. The opening of Gibraltar attracted many Norse warriors who were given sanction from the Pope to be able to raid and pillage the Heathens to the south. The use of 'Privateers' such as these allowed the Christian powers some leverage over the Arab nations, however soon after many Arabs followed a similar strategy of encouraging Pirates to raid Italy and Europe more than they have ever before. This resulted in a bloody proxy war between the two civilizations resulting in much bloodshed.

In Iceland, the economy rose greatly after the end of Norwegian Authority. The mass amounts of Imports from Leifrvalde were so cheap and in bulk that they could sell it on the mainland for double the price. The large imports of fish and grain meant that no matter how cold a winter was there would always be something to eat, many only kept sheep in order to have fresh meat and to sell clothes to the merchants who could sell them for large amounts of money in Leifrvalde. Another mass immigration from Iceland to the Nyrfold took place, nearly a third of the population of Iceland had moved into Leifrvalde and contributed to the expansion of settlements greatly.

[1] ashamed that no one got this reference

 

[EmperorOfTheNorthSea]

Guys, we got ten pages. More pages (and quite a bit more content) than any other Vinland TL on the site(at least that I know of). That's good I guess?

Also, how would you rate the past couple updates or so? What do you like/not like about them?

1087-1091

In England, Olaf Haraldsson had been selling many unruly peasants and nobles to the Lands west of Iceland as Slaves where he had made quite the profit. His men sent to sell the slaves also brought back many of the magnificent Saeturland Ships, he prized the ships and used them to show off his wealth to many of the wealthy in England. There were only twelve of them and their uses were limited, but still they succeed in beating other ships in naval battled. Olaf Haraldsson had made headway in a new project of his to preserve some Forests in England in order to protect the wildlife and hunting that nobles desired so much. He also built many Motte and Bailey forts across the northern borders with Scottish England.

In Scotland, Malcolm the third had also been establishing key fortifications along his English territories and in Scotland itself that were complemented by the terrain. His territories in England were essential, as they were the largest producer of food that fed the army while poor Scotland could barely feed itself. While many countries began to use the Crossbow, the Scottish did not have enough money to utilize the Crossbow largely and instead settled for using large bows made out of a single piece of Yew wood that had larger range than the Crossbow but less accuracy, the Longbow also required less maintenance and could handle rougher conditions. The Longbows also needed training to use, to combat the problem Malcolm III had every boy in the area around Edinburgh train with Longbows for an hour after church.

In Scandinavia Olaf Sweynsson had been building up the new city of Bergen and he was also sponsoring the settlement of the interior of southern Sweden. While for the past few centuries Norse Warlords south to expand west Olaf Sweynsson had his eyes on the vulnerable East instead. He had already defeated the Wends and claimed himself King of Wendland. The Holy Roman Empire had supported him in this as he had enforced Christianity into Wendland and Scandinavia. He had made investments in crossbows for his army so that he would have an advantage over the poor enemies he would typically fight.

In Leifrvalde, the Paramount Chieftain Birger Bjarnysson had gotten very sick and eventually coughed out so much blood that he had died. His son in law Erik Herjolfsson had taken the Role of Paramount Chieftain of Leifrvalde, his first act was to erase the title of Paramount Chief to the more European term: King. This caused a small amount of outrage to the point where the chieftain of Nawahlid had risen up in revolt against him, the Free men of Markland also declared independence. The Territories of Vinland, Hnetaland, Frelsiland, parts of Saeturland, and the rest of Leifrvalde had decided to side with Erik Herjolfsson for any number of reasons.

Erik had focused his assault on Saeturland at the moment, however he had a few dozen men attempt to retake Markland settlements one by one. The Walls of Nawahlid stood firm, however Erik focused on its meager defenses on the river banks where the defenses were poorer. The Navy the people of Saeturland were able to conjure up were able to beat off the navy of Erik Herjolfsson for a time, but when one of Erik's men suggested attacking the walls with enormous siege ladders with weights on the end so they could not be pushed off. This was actually a distraction from the nighttime river assault which led sixty ships into the defensive ships formation that had the front and back tied and chained to another ship's front and back allowing the broadside of the ships to face the attacking ships. It had turned out they were expecting a diversion tactic like that, Erik who had now become infuriated had said that any man who could come up with a strategy to be able to defeat the enemy would be rewarded with seven beautiful women from all over the world and ten ships.

However Erik himself came up (or so he/the Saga claims) with the idea of putting large wooden frames to shield the front of their ships while they shot arrows and bolts tipped with birch oil and lit with fire to ignite the enemy ships. This had kept the men on the defensive pouring water to put out the fire allowing the fleet under Erik Herjolfsson to concentrate their forces on a few ships and allowed them to burst into the walls while the main force had climbed the walls and took the great city of Nawahlid. However the defending army under Bjorn Einarsson was able to retreat into the settlements upstream, burning many houses and food stores in Nawahlid as possible, and was able to fend off the army of Erik Herjolfsson. Erik had decided to send a message to Bjorn Einarsson that since he had the upper hand that it would be wise for Bjorn to surrender peacefully. Bjorn had made it on the condition he was able to leave Leifrvalde with two hundred and fifty of his best men with all their weapons and supplies and the ships to transport them across the Atlantic. Erik Herjolfsson had agreed to Bjorn's terms, Bjorn took his two hundred and fifty men and headed for the Heitteyjar and from there he went to Spain looking to find work under Spanish Emperor Alfonso VI.

The rebels in Markland were then swept up easily and were given the option of peaceful surrender where a full pardon would be granted. This had worked and the rebuilding of the damage to Nawahlid begun, at first many had despised the coming of a King but they began to respect Erik Herjolfsson as an individual. Many at the time though remember that the position of Paramount Chief was essentially king but no one wanted to admit it, only now it was official. Erik did take a hint however and decided to be a King but not have a coronation and allowed the Allthing to exist and continue to function as the court and main governing body. Though there are still many in Markland and elsewhere unsatisfied with the new King's rule.

In Iberia with the Arrival of Bjorn Einarsson, the Emperor of Iberia had decided to send him to North Africa to lead large organized raids on towns and villages along the coast and up major rivers. After accomplishing this he was allowed to station and govern his troops on the Island of Ibiza in the Balearic Islands that was recently captured. Rollo Olafsson was growing old and had retired to his mansion in Lisbona that was actually originally built in the time of the Romans but had been remodeled by the Moors when they had ruled. Rollo Olaf's son Magnus Rollosson however, leads his father's forces into battle in North Africa and has scored major victories but also just as many crippling defeats with the territory in North Africa under their control only really being Tangiers. The forces of Rollo Olafsson were originally from Scandinavia but now many of them were half Norse when whose fathers were of the original force and took Spanish wives, some had come from Scandinavia to make money fighting in the armies in Iberia.

In Rome, the Pope had issued a decree that encouraged lords and Knights from all over Europe to launch a major offensive into the Holy Land. His reasons for doing this was to hopefully mend the east and west schism of Christianity. Urban turned to his homeland of France to recruit men for the expedition where, according to the various speeches attributed to him, he gave an impassioned sermon to a large audience of French nobles and clergy, graphically detailing the fantastical atrocities being committed against pilgrims and eastern Christians. There were many different versions of the speech but all versions, except that in the Gesta Francorum, generally agree that Urban talked about the violence of European society and the necessity of maintaining the Peace of God; about helping the Greeks, who had asked for assistance; about the crimes being committed against Christians in the east; and about a new kind of war, an armed pilgrimage, and of rewards in heaven, where remission of sins was offered to any who might die in the undertaking.

Pope Urban was able to support the crusade with the help of two of the most powerful counts in southern France and the various youngest son's of many lords across Europe who would get little inheritance. He had thought it would include only the Nobles who joined and those they brought with them but surprisingly many peasants with little fighting ability sold all their possessions to make the campaign to the Holy land. Most of the knights and nobles who went were from Mediterranean areas like southern France and Italy with the occasional German and Slav, however one Norwegian made the heeded the call; A noble with claim to the throne. Magnus Olafsson, better known as Magnus Barefoot. Not to be confused with the two previous kings named Magnus one of which also bore the name Magnus Olafsson, He led three hundred men with the main allied force into Acre taking along his one year old son Sigurd. After losing nearly two thousand men in total the Crusaders were able to take the city and some of the surrounding area, The Arab forces were able to take back the surrounding countryside and lay siege to the City. The cities defenses were holding enough for the Saracen forces to pull back, the port was well defended with Emperor Alexios sending some of his ships and extreme amounts of Greek Fire. The year had ended with the Saracens maintaining a presence near the city but the Crusaders maintaining the city, it's port, and as it was described at the time "The land as far as an eye sees".

The Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire later renamed by historians as the Byzantine Empire at the time, Emperor Alexios had been making dealings with the Pope and Emperor of Spain, Alfonso VI. Alexios and the Pope had both agreed that it would be in both of their interests to mend the east and west schism, the Byzantine Emperor had already allowed Latin Churches in his territory to be allowed to practice their form of Christianity and Pope Urban II also allowed eastern Christianity to be performed in Papal territory, although followers would be very few outside the Byzantine and Eastern European area. The Pope and Alexios also agreed to crowning Alfonso VI the Western Roman Emperor would be beneficial to their causes. The Pope wished to retain a good relationship with the Spanish, however the newly reclaimed territory was devoid of papal ownership. Traditionally the Papacy owned a third of all farming land in Christendom, but in Spain all the land was already claimed and this did not bode well with many of the higher ups in the administration of the Papacy. Although with the Spanish Empire defending the "Western Gate" of Christendom they were in not much of a place to denounce them.

 

[EmperorOfTheNorthSea]

sorry for the shortness

Wrote half of it but then updated destroyed a whole lot of unsaved parts so thats why this is a little late. I'm also finding it hard to write and IRL things are going on.

Also, with the Crusades going on writing time is going to be much longer along with research needed to go with it. On the Matter of the Crusades I'm not going to mention them in this update and will sum up what happened in the next update given how loong this is taken due to multiple reasons preventing me from writing alot.

1092-1096

In Saeturland, the people were able to make an economic comeback from the chaos caused by Erik Herjolfsson's claim to Kingship over Liefrvalde. Warships were being built in larger quantities than ever before, the technology of shipbuilding greatly increased as well. There were ships that had two masts due to how long they were with Hulls being very tall able to take some of the large open ocean waves that would sink ships in Europe. Shipbuilding had always been a proud Saeturland Profession, but a new job was filling the time of the Craftman living there and that was the creation of Bows. The Crossbow had been large in Leifrvalde due to it being the only reliable weapon for killing bears and Mountain Lions. It was being implemented into the army somewhat however it was expensive to create and it did not take well to poor conditioning, this lead to the creation of the Great Bow. Large bows had been made before out of Oak and Maple, but with the widespread native Yew found all over Leifrvalde yielding a much more effective bow that was much cheaper and more robust than a crossbow. The Army began to utilize both, however they are both effective in open space which makes them useful around the coast and on cleared farmland the shorter bows still ruled supreme for conflicts in the forest with Skraelings that happened regularly in the less tamed areas.

On the Bjarnystad Islands, many farms were being torn down in favor of salt mining. Slaves from the land just east of Wendland had introduced more advanced salt mining techniques. Much of the Mined Rock salt was Blue and was sold as far as Iceland as precious stone, salt had become worth it's weight in Silver. Entire ships were sold for bags of it. However it's value steadily dropped as mining got more and more extensive, the technology of salt pans from Iberia had also made it's way there and while it was poorly efficient it was beginning to be done.

In Iberia, Emperor Alfonso VI was in a stalemate with his opponents around Tangiers. He had offered some support to the Crusade but he could not make any headway in North Africa, the resistance was much too strong. His armies were used to fighting the poorly equipped and starving Taifas but now he was fighting against a large and powerful force, it took many resources just to hold onto Gibraltar. Alfonso had learned from previous examples of the effectiveness of using foreign warriors as counts in newly conquered territory, specifically those of Norse decent. Emperor Alfonso VI had decided on having Rollo Olafsson's son, Einar Rollosson be the newly appointed count of Gibraltar while having his brother Ragnar Rollosson stay in Lisbona. With Gibraltar open, trade could come and go from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic without having to cross overland or along the rivers of the Rus. Alfonso was also thinking about the succession that would follow his death, he had decided on keeping his domain under one ruler as he had all to well known the devastation caused by dividing a great nation when he had killed many of his brothers to reunite Iberia.

Erik Herjolfsson had been a military man, he had made many taught to local warriors his own set of tactics in dealing with Skraelings. He had taught many tactics such as: Burning down forests, consuming maple sugar to make up with around five thousand calories lost a day when fighting; And his most favorite method of fighting Skraelings, hiring other Skraelings. Most Norse settlements had made peace with the local Skraelings, even intermarriage and assimilation for the older ones; But wars did break out and the Norse in the Nyrfold were at war with Skraelings somewhere along their massive territory. Erik Hrjolfsson had won many men's respect by constantly travelling to the places threatened by Skraelings, many of the allied Skraelings were recruited into the Army as light infantry and scouts.

In the Area around Leifsbudir north of the Bjornsvirke had many bogs and small bog like lakes, the area had been raising sheep and other livestock for the past few decades and exporting mostly wool ,other animal products, and Wine as it was poor for wheat and for many other crops. The sheep had thrived for a while, and they kept growing in number until the population of sheep had grown to a large amount and mosquitoes in the bogs had been giving them many diseases, along with drinking the foul water of these bogs the sheep were becoming sick. However, a freed slave from Germany had learned of draining bogs in his homeland and introduced the techniques about it. Given permission by local chiefs he had round two hundred farmers with shovels dig trenches and artificial water containment lakes that emptied into rivers and streams that emptied into the ocean, it took four years for it to be completed in a small area around Leifsbudir and it was beginning to be done in other places as well. The soil and clay dug were mostly used to plug up the bogs and swamps and the rest were put onto giant mounds that can still be seen today.

In Grunnland the colonies there had thrived, Bjartestad (OTL Matinicus Island and surrounding islands) had been the largest colony in Grunnland and it was beginning to adopt the fired brick architecture from Saeturland and Frelsiland and using cut down wood to turn limestone into quicklime that was then aggregated and mixed with water to form a mortar and plaster to construct the three story buildings that were highly desirable among the Norse. Grunnland was also growing Gulurskera in large quantities. Several other colonies were surviving in Grunnland but the distance from the main hub of the Nyrfold in the Gulf of the Nawa River made troop deployment to deal with skraeling threats much harder and hostile skraelings have burned down and pillaged many upstart colonies in Grunnland and Thorskurland.

In England, Olaf Haraldsson had sent some support to the Crusade effort, but with his enemy in Scotland and the threat of Scandinavia he could not allow any large number of troops leave. He was busy training troops to take back the parts of England under Scottish control, he had used Crossbows against the Scottish in open fields which worked marvelously. However the area he wanted to reclaim was not entirely open and flat, the Scottish had used this to their advantage who built Motte and Bailey forts along key positions where they were most effective against English forces. Malcolm the Third had been using warriors from Orkney as his vanguard and quickly a stalemate had occurred between the English and Scottish forces, both sides were preparing their troops for a large scale war on a scale that hadn't hit the Isle in many years.

In Scandinavia, the City of Bergen had turned into a wealthy city with large scale trade with Iceland and the Isles of the North sea that had no local sources of wood and no fuel to heat Iron which had to be imported from Norway as well. Olaf Sweynsson did not make the mistake of Invading Iceland or regulating trade affairs there like the previous kings of Norway had and decided to encourage free trade between Iceland and Norway, he did however have eyes on other lands. The Christianization of the inland settlements of Sweden still entrenched in the Fertility cult was hard but eventually was making large headway, with the Temple at Upsalla being forcibly converted into a church that had resulted in a small battle where a few dozen men were killed attempting to kill the King and his men in the night.

Olaf Sweynsson had many workers refurnish the former temple. With news travelling slow at the time for those away from the coast, the refurnishing had happened around the time many people gathered at Upsalla to worship the Norse gods and many going there did not know of the conversion of the temple into a church. When the people had found out and more local people had risen up in arms and with the visitors joining them expanding their ranks even further a large battle was about to take place. The Army under Olaf Sweynsson had crossbows, many of which used to be in possession of the Norwegian army under their last two kings. The Crossbows had given the army an advantage on the open field, the only time the pagan army posed a threat was when the army under Olaf Sweynsson had run out of bolts and they had engaged the pagans in melee combat. Olaf Sweynsson had won, but at the cost of nearly a third of his men and with having control of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Wendland this was very detrimental. With fear of a revolt in Denmark he took half of his men there to suppress any uprisings, he had little to fear of an uprising in Norway though with their new found wealth and trade being responsible for him. Olaf Sweynsson had his eyes on the lands of the east Baltic, the rich trade from the land of Rus had made the lands very profitable as of late and he had wanted to exploit it.

Greenland had been at the decision of the Allthing of Leifrvalde and the King that it would be given over to the Allthing of Iceland. This was because the Greenlanders hadn't taken lightly to a King ruling over them, Erik Herjolfsson didn't see Greenland as worth the effort to maintain and control and much of the Allthing agreed. With Greenland under the Icelandic Allthing had allowed the current elected Paramount Chieftain of Iceland to make claims at Helluland, while of not much worth in colonization there had been many outposts there for hunting the Animals there and even looking for the fabled Northern Gold that was supposedly discovered by Olaf Thorgilsson in days nearly a century old at this point. Erik Herjolfsson had immediately ordered that the Allthing renounce it's claims on Helluland, the Allthing was hoping that nobody would care but now that the most well equipped army in the Norse World was threatening them they had yielded to his demands. After this event the Icelanders had developed a small hatred for Erik believing he was superior to them, this was fueled even more so as they could do little about it because if they decided to war on Leifrvalde the outcome would be most certain to be a loss on their side.

 

[EmperorOfTheNorthSea]

Regarding the Crusades and all, I meant this TL to be about the new world and maybe some action with Scandinavia and England. I'm going to keep doing the Crusades and they will be as large as they were OTL but they won't be mentioned as much if thats alright.

1097-1101

The Voyages of old Olaf Thorgilsson had been told a many times, how he had traversed the Hellulands discovering vast amounts of gold, how he had traveled south and found a city of stone, and some others. The legend of him seeing the city of stone was thought to be either a lie or exaggerated heavily, when explorers explored south they rarely found Myriland (OTL southern Georgia/Florida/coastal Alabama/Louisiana). However new technology in sailing technology had allowed people to travel farther than ever before. Sigurd Ivarsson, a descendant of Olaf Thorgilsson had gotten a few new ships in Nawahlid and vowed to discover what his great-grandfather supposedly found.

He had traveled at the end of winter, using triangular sails to use the westerlies to push him south extremely quickly, he had gone around the large peninsula described by Olaf Thorgilsson and he had eventually found the mouth of the enormous river that was said to be the largest in the world. Sigurd traveled further south raiding small villages as he went until he found something resembling what the sagas describe. Important men wearing large feathers on their attire and women not bothering to cover up their breasts, many things here were strange to the Norse; And many things were even stranger to the stone age Midja Bondi civilization. The Party under Sigurd had left after four days of being there, the men wanted to head back north and while Sigurd had wanted to go further south he had conceded to his men and began to row North; The Winds had a different plan however and the ship had been blown far eastward. The party was blown to the sea where there were ludicrous amounts of islands, Sigurd Ivarsson had decided to name the groups of Islands in general Avextirland (sometimes known as Avextireyjar, eyjar being the plural for Islands). The people had been much less advanced than the Midja Bondi on the mainland , however Sigurd had seen gold on them.

The Norse party under Sigurd Ivarsson had discovered the Islands of Avextirland, and now they were trading paltry iron and cloth for gold. They had discovered so many Islands and they had decided to turn North and eventually after months of rowing they came across a Large Cape in Thorskurland, the party landed on the Northern tip of the cape and Sigurd Ivarsson had declared a new settlement of Sigurdsvik to be established. Many had tried to colonize Grunnland and Thorskurland. While Isolated colonies on Islands or defensible positions in Grunnland proved habitable, uncountable numbers of settlers were killed from Skraeling attacks. Even if a local Skraeling tribe was peaceful to a group of settlers there would be many more tribes looking to make the strange pale men's possessions theirs, the Population of Skraelings this far south is much more than the Northern parts the Norse have been in for nearly a century. Sigurd Ivarsson faces the challenge of trying being able to fight against the Skraeling Hordes with little to no outside assistance, first he goes to Hnetaland and preached of the great stone temples he had found to the south and how much gold was there; The Sagas make it out to seem he had exaggerated about the Midja Bondi, many people at the time believed the Midja Bondi people he had talked about were the same people as the ones along the rivers of the Great Lakes. But the majority of people tossed it off as a tall tale, a monk at the time had even written: "How could they have gold Ornaments when they can't even smelt Iron or Copper?".

The newly established town of Sigurdsvik had been populated with the men that ventured with him and their families, some merchants had come by and settled but it was shown they were ready to pack up and go at the slightest hint of conflict. Many Skraelings tried to attack but Sigurd Ivarsson had made investments into Thorkellsborg made Crossbows, with them Skraelings could be picked off reliably at an incredible distance away and they were good at killing bears which would have been much more difficult without the firepower of a Crossbow. Sigurd Ivarsson had been trying to promote Agriculture in Sigurdsvik but the ground was much too sandy for wheat or barley, even the Gulurskera that was being grown in some parts could not thrive well in the sandiness of the soil. The Town depended on Fishing and the hunting of Seals and forest Animals, however he had thought it wise to sell forest goods in exchange for imported Grain from Hnetaland. Although the Skraelings seemed to have no problem farming, Sigurd Ivarsson had wondered how they could grow the Gulurskera so well in such sandy soils.

England had been a hot bed for war ever since Sweyn Forkbeard had invaded it, while mostly under Olaf Haraldsson the border with Scotland was still drenched in blood. Malcolm the Third of Scotland had gone to great lengths to try and harm England, there was suspicion the Normans would attack again, fear had filled the hearts and minds of the people for decades now and hope seemed something only a child would even think of. All across Europe however many conflicts between countries and Nobles were coming to an end, when the Pope had called for the Crusade many looking for wealth and for their religion had joined. The Englo-Norse had not sent many men due to the Hostility between them and Scotland, however when Scotland began sending much of it's army to the Holy land the Englo-Norse were less paranoid and sent some more of their troops to aid in the campaign. The people on the Isle of Britain were rejoiced, both at the though of their Sons and Brothers fighting for God and for the new found peace on the Isle.

The Crusades had been something of a stalemate for ten years, they had increased their territory for short bouts of time before being pushed back by the Saracens. Many had taken to the Tactic of raiding whatever Saracen settlement there was that wasn't undefended, even going as far to raid along the coasts as far as Egypt. The Goal was the Holy land but Egypt was an appetizing target, if Egypt could fall under Crusader control the fight for the Holy land would be much easier. The Crusaders in Acre had been demoralized and needed an advantage to beat back the Saracens; the Byzantines had been supplying the Crusaders with Greek Fire as gifts. Magnus Barefoot, also known as Magnus Olafsson had introduced a new strategy that used Greek fire; by having it stored in throw able clay jars and using large rectangular fire resistant shields similar to that of the old Romans with the wielders equipped with Spears and using Crossbows as support to aid the infantry and to take out the cavalry. It was first used by the Norwegians under Magnus but then it spread to the other regiments as well, a Frankish noble even stating: "The Normanni(Norse) have used the Romans fire fluid to increase their savage fighting potential against the Saracen infantry and the Saracen Cavalry. They even have a delicacy of Horse meat that was burned to death by the Roman Fire. "

Thorkellsborg had been the center of Iron mining and production in Leifrvalde since it's existence, while that was still true and Thorkellsborg Iron is higher quality than bog iron there were new sources of high quality ore being found on the coast of Markland just North of Bear Island. The small village of Thorgilsminn had been expanded into a prosperous mining town; many miners, smiths, and charcoalers were moving to Thorgilsminn to exploit the new rich Iron ore veins. This however did not mean Thorkellsborg was dead however, the Mines of Thorkellsborg were still open and producing metal ore and the ideal location for fishing the grand banks still belonged to Thorkellsborg along with it being the only suitable place on the isle of Vinland for large scale farming. The result in the competition was Iron goods being cheaper than ever with nearly every farmer owning a plow.

In Nawahlid the business there had been booming, settlements upriver providing wood and food. The scale of Lime usage had gone down with the city no longer expanding as fast a rate as it did before, however the people who burnt lime for a living had learned after using the leftover ash from the large furnaces to fertilize fields that Lime has a positive effect on acidic soils and increased the productiveness of the fields. The Lime industry had also resulted in enormous amounts of forest being cleared, much of it had been cultivated but the area was so vast that it was impossible to cultivate it all and eventually forests of saplings had sprawled all across Saeturland. The Jews in the city had played the roles of money lenders but some Jews had gone into the countryside and taken up agriculture, the Norse opinion on Jews was like that of the Pagans where they were tolerated but scoffed at.

In Iberia Alfonso the VI was on his deathbed, he had only his daughter Urraca. Urraca had however proved to be an effective monarch, she had agreed to web Einar Rollosson who was count of Gibraltar. While this had technically made Einar the Emperor, he had left many of the administrative duties to Urraca while he was at the head of the defense against the Arab powers. Urraca's reign over political duties was necessary but it was still treading on thin Ice, with many Spanish nobles wishing to declare independence for their own counties or usurp the Throne altogether, Einar's brother Ragnar however was supportive of his brother for the most part but was clearly jealous of him.

In Scandinavia, Olaf Sweynsson was dealing with the political fallout that came with converting Uppsala into a church. He had resorted to systematically relocating villages that had risen against him in Sweden or Bergen under his watchful eye. Other than that he was making headway in expanding his realm in Sweden further north into the lands of the primitive Tribes. He was even thinking about conquering the lands of the Finns which were dis unified at best, he had openly stated he dreamed of a: "Norwegian Lake", obviously based off of the idea of the Roman Lake. The Icelanders were in a peaceful relationship with the Scandinavians, Olaf Sweynsson had taken a peaceful approach to interactions regarding Iceland unlike so many previous rulers did. The Trade with the Icelanders had allowed him trade with a far off land called Leifrvalde, many of the Nobles had heard exaggerated stories about the wild and wicked lands on the other side of the ocean but few actually knew anything real about it.

 

[EmperorOfTheNorthSea]

Haven't been able to write much lately, had to deal with a funeral recently.

1102-1106

Along the Nawa River the major city had been Nawahlid, there were many smaller settlements and towns along it but with the bulk of trade being Ocean based many people seeking wealth lived along the coastline. However around now a new town was gaining prominence: Gifurflud. The town had originally started as a small portage settlement around the rapids, then Nawahlid's insatiable lust after fuel for lime production had allowed the town to float mass amounts of wood downstream; This deforestation had left much room for new developments. The Town of Gifurflud had been originally put on a single large island, but then spread to other islands near it and eventually onto the mainland. Development on the Great Lake was near non-existent, due to most of the trade and fertile lands being near the Ocean, most of the Portage towns simply lost much of their population to Nawahlid after it began to grow at such a large rate. However with Nawahlids demand for food and wood the small populations up river having the trade advantage over other sources due to proximity and River current. The Town of Gifurflud had a large strategical location, it was at then point where another large river empties into the River Nawa making it a central point for trading with the Skraelings in the Area.

The Small town of Storfoss had been at the edge of the Norse world for decades, most people in Leifrvalde never even heard of it. However with the rise of the town of Gifurflud it was becoming somewhat more known to the People of Saeturland, to the few merchants who were able to sail across the enormous lake to the Hitvur River found the huge waterfalls that were in the small town of Storfoss. The amazing sight of such a thing was thought to be a myth to many but it was now known as fact. The agricultural produce of the land was better than anywhere else north of Grunnland, however it's distance would not make it reasonable to export food. As the small settlement on the far end of the Norse world was beginning to garner more attention there were beginning to be startup settlements along the first Lake which had thrived with the Skraelings apparently knowing and being on good terms with the Norse. The Norse had sometimes attacked Skraelings unprovoked, but the Allthing had decided that attacking Skraelings unjustifiably would be punishment enough to be sold into slavery due to many hostile natives being the result of colonists looking for things to steal.

On the Bjarnystad Islands the salt mines were growing and many farmers had to be evicted in order to supplement the growing mines. The salt had been worth it's weight in literal gold, however the salt mines were under threat from an extreme threat to mines: flooding. Flooding had been a terror in the mines, there had been no apparent solution to it and using buckets continuously was only a temporary solution. Some had thrown thousands of rocks heated in fires into the water to cause them to steam out of the mines, while this was very inefficient it allowed the usage of less manpower compared to using buckets. A side effect of this method had evaporated the water leaving small amounts of sea salt where it would evaporate, this was a clean sign that sea water was getting in and it wasn't just rain water. A new source of salt was needed.

In Leifsbudir, the drainage canals were doing well with new ones being dug constantly to accommodate more grazing grounds. The Wine production was also thriving the high quality wine being shipped to Nawahlid and Thorkellsborg, the Vinnish Grape had been going through a die off by the end of the year however; And the prices for Vinnish wine skyrocketed when it began to grow in short supply. The shortage of new wine had greatly hurt the economy in Leifsbudir, causing a major migration of merchant families to the south who formerly sold wine and other items in Iceland. However the large scale sheep herding was nearly unaffected and continued to thrive, the never ending supply of raw wool from the land was exported feverishly to other settlements and it was considered cheaper to make clothes out of imported wool from Leifsbudir than raising sheep.

In Britain there had been peace on the large isle ever since the pope called for a crusade, without any war the people had thrived and opened up trade to Scandinavia and Iceland. The King of Scotland Malcolm the Third however was ambitious, with aid from Icelandic mercenaries launched a war on England taking Mann and various Islands under English control while still venturing south into the English heartland. The Scottish was well timed as Olaf Haraldsson was old and sick, his sons were already planning to divide England among themselves; But when news of the Scottish invasion reached them Jorvik had already been taken. The exact boundaries the Scottish managed to push into England is unknown but given the records of Jorvik and several other towns being taken a rough idea had been made by modern day historians. After two years of bitter war the Englo-Norse had lost half of their territory to the Scottish King. King Malcolm the Third had moved his capital into Jorvik and could now field a much larger army with richer agricultural lands under his command, but at the cost of having to maintain one due to many in his newly conquered territory being hostile to his rule.

In Scandinavia, Olaf Sweynsson had taken the Gulf of Finland officially and had many new villages established in the far reaches of his empire but his reach there was little and relied on his sons to command armies to maintain his rule. His sons had commanded armies to maintain his rule, but when Olaf Sweynsson had died his three sons divided his Empire into three. Rolf Olafsson who was the crown prince had taken Norway ,Denmark and parts of Sweden while Ragnar Olafsson had taken most of Sweden while Thorfinn Olafsson ruled the far off end of the Kingdom in Northern Sweden and Finland. Rolf was angry about his brothers' betrayal and refused to any alliances or the like from any of the two.

Leifrvalde had had a 'King' for a while, many had gotten used to the idea, others accepted the rule of the King, while others stewed in anger and disappointment. Erik Herjolfsson had been known as a fair ruler by many of the land, but the idea of a Kingless country was still in the hearts of many. Such a man was Ketil Bjornsson, he was the child to a second cousin of Birger Bjarnysson and held a high position in the Allthing. He had considerable wealth as his family was from Iceland and gained significant amounts of money through trading and his position in the Allthing had also given him a large stipend. He had ambitions of becoming the leading figure in Leifrvalde, but Erik Herjolfsson begun to suspect him of treason. Ketil Bjornsson had plotted with other men in the Allthing and arranged a recreational hunt with all of Erik Herjolfsson's children including his five sons and three daughters.

Hired Skraelings had hidden in the foliage and with Crossbows every child of Erik Herjolfsson had been given a fatal blow. When Erik Herjolfsson had rallied the local army and the Allthing (who were also commanders in the army) to attack the local Skraelings that did it, in a scene that would be romanticized in many things including a few plays in later eras; Ketil Bjornsson had gone behind the king and with his sword in one slash decapitated him and announced a speech that would forever be held in the Sagas and even in church documents: "The Tyrant is dead. While he may be slain many would leap at the opportunity to establish themselves the next King and continue to order men to work while laying fat and lazy, but I stand here before ye with the declaration that this will not happen! I take it not for myself, but I do take it upon myself to declare in the name of the Almighty God and the lineage of the Great Leif in my blood that from here onward our people shall not be ruled by a fat man in a adorned chair but by those appointed to represent by all Free men."

The New reformed Allthing would be made up of representatives elected by free men, these representatives would elect people to positions in the Allthing, the Paramount Chieftain would then be elected by every member of the Allthing and would have a term of eight years but could be elected multiple times with no restrictions. The Paramount Chieftain however would not have nearly as much power as they once did, but could hold absolute power for a limited time during a time of emergency if the Allthing allows. Naturally Ketil Bjornsson was elected Paramount Chieftain due to his initiative acts, the rest of the country were either happy, indifferent, or upset by this but did not take any initiative other than a few minor rebellions that were put down.

The Crusades had been successful so far for the Crusaders, they were conquering further and further down the coastline and they had dominated the plains. Along the Mountains however the Saracens were proving a strong resistance, this was problematic for the Crusaders as Jerusalem was their main target. The Main force had tried to cross into the Jordan valley and cut off the Saracens in the mountains west of the Valley from any outside support. The Crusaders had been initially successful in managing to conquered the coastline of the Sea of Galilee; of which was a huge morale boost to the Crusaders who had reclaimed such an important place in the Bible, while this had been a relatively easy feat the conquest of the valley would have torn down any morale boost from the earlier conquests as the battles in the valley were described in documents as: "The largest and most Gruesome battles since the times of Charles Martel."

When the Crusaders finally managed to arrive on the coast of the dead sea the town that was believed to be on the ancient site of Jericho was finally conquered, and in an act of piety the Priest accompanying the army had just as in the bible, everything in the town killed. They held onto the area but were under serious threat from armies coming from the east, the costs of the Crusade were high too and it looked like it would all go down horribly; but the Dead Sea offered a solution. The collection of salt from the dead sea was taxed by the church and was vital in funding the Crusade, the Saracens were desperate to cut them out of the valley and off of their new money source.

 

[EmperorOfTheNorthSea]

Wanted to do more but I got everything covered and I reeeaaaly don't want to have to go into Rus vs. Mongol territory. Although then again if I'm willing to do Iberia then Rus shouldn't be so hard (Right?).

Before you people freak, there is evidence that the league could have been established at around 1000 A.D. give or take a decade or two, so it's still relatively new.

(People also keep saying that it happened at an eclipse, but I find it more likely that the "Darkness" described was most likely thick clouds or something).

1107-1111

Some of the Haudenosaunee had known of the Norse, although contact was very little and most of the Haudenosaunee had lived so far inland that only those close to the Lake had ever made contact with them. The Seneca tribe who guardians of the 'western door' had made nearly all the contacts, many of their chieftains had Iron daggers or other trinkets as a sign of power. In recent years with the rising popularity of Storfoss, more attention has been paid to the land of the Lakes and with the other tribes making contact with the Norse eventually with many travelling men going down the Nawa River and speaking of the huge settlements on it. The Great Council, or Rotinonsionni in the official language of the full council; had decided to make further contact with the pale skinned men. The Seneca were not fond of the decision at all and wanted to keep their monopoly on contact and trade with the Norse, however with the tribes to the east making contact with the various portage villages along the River Nawa it was inevitable.

The Chieftain of Storfoss had greeted the Skraeling 'emissaries' and even had translators who knew the various dialects that the Haudenosaunee used. The Skraelings were then told to venture down the River Nawa until it reached the sea to find the center of the Western Norse world. When the Paramount Chieftain of Leifrvalde Ketil Bjornsson had spoke with the Skraelings they had discussed many things that the Haudenosaunee were interested in, Ketil Bjornsson agreed to trading pacts and wished to travel back to their lands to meet with the Rotinonsionni to get more things agreed on. When he had traveled their lands he brought with him various missionaries who knew of the Skraeling tongue, by the time he went before the Rotinonsionni many of the villages had been visited by Missionaries and converted a significant amount of Skraelings. The Rotinonsionni had asked Ketil Bjornsson many things; how was Iron made? How do you bake bread? How do you get Lime from Limestone? All these things he said he didn't know exactly but would be eager to form trade deals for them.

The Haudenosaunee may have been primitive, but they were not stupid and could easily see the intentions of Ketil Bjornsson and the meeting ended with a few trade deals but nothing significant done. When Ketil had found that many of the Missionaries had been killed by the Skraelings who claimed that many of the things they preached had gone against the words of the "Great Peace Maker", in response Ketil went to Storfoss and with some of the Town Guard along with the warriors escorting him he attacked and burnt down several of the villages thought to have killed the missionaries. He brought back to Storfoss loads of food and even some slaves, he had called to Gifurflud for reinforcements and Skraeling Auxiliaries. The Rotinonsionni had then agreed that the Norse were enemies and that all converts were to renounce their new faith or be killed.

To Ketil Bjornsson this was the perfect casus belli and he had defeated many Haudenosaunee villages, after nearly a century the Norse had learned to fight against the tactics employed by Skraelings, the Crossbow had shredded down many Haudenosaunee fighters with its superior range. The Norse were not the only ones fighting against the Haudenosaunee, the Skraelings to the east had long been enemies of the Haudenosaunee and were taking advantage of the Norse attacks and invaded the Haudenosaunee territory as well. Eventually the Rotinonsionni had surrendered to Ketil Bjornsson's army at the end of a sword and the conditions for peace were: that they would submit to the authority of the Allthing, every prominent member would have to give a hostage from their families, and that they would accept the teachings of Jesus Christ. To further cement the deal (no pun intended,(okay maybe a little)) Ketil had a church built out of stone with mortar and plastered with Lime brought from Storfoss, a Priest would remain with fifteen bodyguards to man the church and spread the gospel into the Skraeling lands.

In Leifrvalde further advancements into shipbuilding took place, multiple masts had been around for a while but now they were being heavily used and with the widespread use of 'heavy' ships which there was no chance of portage because they had been approximately as long as five and a half standard knarrs that were being used in Scandinavia and four times as wide, and they were also much taller with storage and crew quarters under the deck. They were capable of crossing the Atlantic from Vinland to Ireland with no need for stops; However this was still uneconomical and the Heavy ships were designed to travel south along the coast much faster and to be able to successfully make regular trade with the Heitteyjar which has been mostly disconnected with the rest of the world other than Iberia. However the 'heavy' ships came at a price that it would take large efforts to properly dock them where separate docks had to be built to support them.
Along the Nawa River the the first Great Lake however ship technology was taking a different turn. The old longship used in Scandinavia for generations had been ideal in swimming up rivers and portaging, however along the new lands they needed to be able to hold more cargo while still being able to be easily portaged. The result of the need was something people did not expect, given how little sails were used along the lake and along the river the mast had been sacrificed for poles holding up small decks that were able to carry baggage. They also had a strange modification for portages, the hull had two large horizontal grooves along the bottom that were able to accommodate wheels and an axle to pull it across short distances and whatnot.

In Britain, Malcolm the Third had been preparing for a great campaign to take the rest of England. Olaf Haraldsson had been bedridden for years and his son Sigurd had been ruling in his stead and had proven to be a fair ruler and a mighty warrior, seeing an opportunity Malcolm had an assassin poison Sigurd with a non-lethal poison and spread rumors that it was his brothers seeking the crown. With the brothers rising up in rebellion merely to save themselves is when Malcolm begun his great invasion of England, however his acts in poisoning Sigurd had been a poor idea as the brothers rebellions had made the English prepare for conflict and he was not able to use the advantage of surprise as he had wanted to. Malcolm was able to fight and kill two of the brothers that rose in revolt leaving only one who surrendered to Sigurd and joined forces that were able to fight back the Scottish army. In the end the Scottish were able to make small territorial gains but was largely seen as a waste.
Malcolm then had the Idea to ally with Welsh nations, he then supported the nation of Deheubarth and gave them support against Gwynedd. With Crossbows the Welsh of Deheubarth had managed to conquer Gwynedd, Powys, and Morgannwg and was well on the way to unifying Wales. The King, Hywel ap Rhys had already claimed to be the rightful king of all Wales and had proclaimed he and King Malcolm were in the process of "Establishing the Celtic people to the position of the rightful owners of the Island once more." Malcolm had approved of this and used it as a reason for having taken such vast amounts of land from England, although with his Quarter-Norse heritage and his mainly Orkney Norse army many saw this as hypocritical. Hywel eventually was able to take Cornwall and a portion of Mercia. With England in it's current state Wales wasn't at as much a disadvantage anymore with Scotland as an ally and being more or less unified.

In Iberia, many Crown endorsed privateers had raided Arab settlements in North Africa. However some had gone down the Atlantic coast and found an archipelago of islands, they were named the Runnieyjar. The Islands were inhabited by a primitive people similar to Skraelings of Leifrvalde, but little attention was paid to the land and other than some trade for things like Iron and cloth in exchange for loads of fish or other everyday material but in bulk.
The Iberian Emperor, Einar Rollosson was a mere figurehead for his wife Urraca. While Einar led the armies plenty, it was Uracca that handled all political matters, this was an asset because many of the Norse mercenaries in Iberia had been thrilled with a Norseman being Emperor but the Iberian nobility were content with the rule of Urraca. While Einar may look like a brute from this angle, it is no small feat to be able to hold onto the small bit of land in North Africa and to keep the Muslim Hordes away, it was just as important as managing the realm that the straits of Gibraltar stay Christian.

The Crusades had been somewhat successful, the Jordan River valley was more or less under Christian control; However the Saracen strongholds in the mountains west of the Jordan River were still holding and Jerusalem was still under Muslim rule. The Crusaders were desperate after years or fighting to take back the Holy City, however the best strategy to retake the holy land would be a strategy that was used to retake it once before. With using strategies employed by Joshua in the Old Testament, a group of Crusaders originating mostly from France and Italy were able to cut off enough supply routes that the Mountains were easier to take. The City of Jerusalem held strong however despite other towns in the area falling, however the other than Jerusalem the last Saracen Stronghold remained. The Ancient Fortress of Masada was famous for only Thirty or Forty Jews being able to resist the Romans for three years within it's confines before committing suicide, this time it would lay host to a defending army of around two hundred and fifty.

When the Crusaders tried to breach the fort they quickly found the reason why the army of thousands of Romans didn't take it so easily, the Fort of Masada is quite the piece of engineering and with the fact there was little to no wood nearby to build scaling ladders or even just to simply light fires the Crusaders had to do as the Romans once did and wait for the enemies food stores to run out. This was not as easy as it sounds, the mountain which Masada is based on is host to nut and fruit trees as well as being large enough to contain it's own aquifer; while they had sufficient water eventually the food was going to run out and the Nuts and Fruits would only delay the inevitable and after two years the Fortress had fallen to Crusader forces.

With Masada out of the way nearly all Crusader forces were aimed at the siege of Jerusalem which fell after a Year and Three Months. The News of the reclamation of Jerusalem was a welcoming prospect for many men in all of Christendom, as did the notion that most of the Holy Land was under the rule of Christianity; However much reclaimed by the Egyptian army. With this it was clear that the hold on the Holy land was still vulnerable and new key defenses would have to be put in place with the various Italian city states (most notably Venice) being responsible for the defense of Acre and the Northern border, while many of the various small time lords from the Holy Roman Empire were stationed along the Jordan Valley to stop any invasion from the east, the Norse (many were former members of the Varangian Guard),Normans, and even Anglo-Saxon Lords who escaped the fighting in England were put along the border to the south to defend against attacks from Egypt while also being gifted many fine horses to add to their cavalry forces. New Soldiers from Europe would be stationed in Jaffa and Caesaria, and new soldiers came plenty along with many pilgrims to see the holy land.

 

[EmperorOfTheNorthSea]

Also sorry about it taking so long, I'm having to help set up a business and it's going to get more time consuming as time goes on.

1112-1116

In Iceland, a great famine had erupted with the combination of a terrible winter and a disease killing much of the sheep. The door to Leifrvalde was always open for more colonists, however many could not afford to go there and while the Allthing was always willing to pay for colonists it meant that they would be forced to settle wherever the Allthing had chosen and it would be mandatory for them to settle for a varying period of time which was usually over twenty-five years. Ketil Bjornsson had convinced the Allthing to have these new and desperate Icelandic Immigrants settle within the interior of Vinland as the area was populated mostly with European Skraeling mixes, usually the descendants of Skraelings and escaped slaves but there was a portion of Norse.

The Allthing of Iceland allowed this given that they take no livestock with them as what little sheep was rare and the populations were needed there. The new settlers settled along the many huge lakes in the interior of Vinland along with other settlers from various places and survived mostly on fishing, hunting, and raising Cattle on a massive scale. When gold was found however it caused much exploration and settlement along deposits causing a massive increase in the wealth of the town of Karlsfjord which was connected to the large lakes. There had been no large source of gold found since Elgurland's deposits dried up, along with the new sources of silver found in the former lands of the Haudenosaunee where the soldiers paid by the Allthing had forced the Haudenosaunee people to mine it at a sword point had allowed along with the copper mined in Saeturland allowed a more proper and widespread use of currency instead of the everyday barter than had been so dominant.

Olafstad's surrounding terrain had made it hard for urban growth and it had remained a trading town unable to compete with the great Cities of Nawahlid, Gifurflud, and Thorkellsborg. However with lime burning making the production of cast stone and fired clay brick had been known to the Norse in Leifrvalde for some time, the area outside of Olafstad had many trees cut down and this was causing mass amounts of erosion and this was affecting both was little crops there were and the grass that livestock fed on as well as making the local waters bad for fish.

The Chieftain of the town, a descendant of Olaf Thorgilsson had issued a large scale usage of brick and mortar to create enormous raised beds for farming that were essentially something like terraces along the uneven countryside. The Paramount Chieftain Ketil Bjornsson had privately funded the construction as the same problem was evident is other places and if the engineering was able to bring a mountainous terrain around Olafstad into a crop growing settlement then it would be worth looking forward to. The result after three years was truly a testament to the new branch of Norse civilization on the other side of the Atlantic, the terraces had been huge with hundreds of workers creating flat fields over a thousand square meters large giving life to wheat and barley. There were still new terraces being built but the finished ones were already bearing crops, the fuel for burning lime and heating the bricks was not wood however; to the North of the Island there had been the burnable coal that was much more efficient than wood and much less demanding to collect than trees and did not cause erosion which was becoming a large threat; Along with the smoke not containing as much carbon as wood allowing the limestone to not resoak the carbon from the smoke causing the time to turn the limestone into lime was much shorter. With this the town of Olafstad was beginning to grow to be a much more important settlement.

Along the large interior lake of the eastern island of Hnetaland there was a small entrance to it along it's northeastern coast. There had been a settlement known as Throngtain here for a long time but only recently has it begun to hold influence as it was beginning to build shallow mines for the coal that was shipped to Olafstad for lime and brick production. The increased productivity shown by using coal instead of wood was noticed and the large town of Thorkellsborg was already using coal for part of it's Lime needs being mostly accompanied by peat. The new demand for coal had brought money to Throngtain and soon it was getting migrants from Thorkellsborg willing to work in the mines for the loads of cash that accompanied it, it was not long before the affects of black lung were deduced to be connected to coal mining. Still some were willing to work a few days in order to get quick cash, but for the most part the work had to be done by slaves.

The ownership of slaves had been on the low for decades, however with the boon of coal mining needing workers where freemen did not work for very long or at all had made a resurgence in the great chain of slaves. However the local church authority had made the Allthing ban the usage of Christian slaves, and then had many restrictions on slavery making a very big hassle for a worker that's going to probably get sick and die within a few months.
However in the Heitteyjar the merchant Ragnar Snorrisson who frequented Iberia and went to Leifrvalde as well for trade had struck a metaphorical goldmine; in Christian Tangiers there were 'converted' (the crown heavily limited Muslim's to be able to trade within Tangiers, however many simply threw on a Rosary necklace when they wanted to trade only to go back to reading the Quran back home) slave merchants selling good slaves from the south, African slaves.

Ragnar had bought some slaves and after a voyage across the sea sold them in Thorkellsborg for a high price, the black slaves were able to get through all the regulations perfectly and were very proficient in the mines. Although the law required that if they converted to Christianity then they must be let free, this lead some masters to learn Arabic which most of the slaves had learned in Arab captivity and never let them learn Norse or any European language. Even so, many of the slaves that were freed were not accepted by Norse society and were forced to live in the outskirts; Some even migrating to Skraeling settlements and assimilating into them. However it was not too bad, they would be hired as auxiliaries in the Army as the Norse saw them as very physically strong and they could be hired as laborers on many farms, as well as manning the Oars on ships. These Africans would be known to the Norse as the Kolhud,literally translating into 'Coal skin' coming from the saying; "You cannot tell the difference of whether or not they have coal dust on them from mining or are completely clean."

In Scandinavia, Rolf Olafsson had invested much money into attacking his brothers, he was finally able to get his brother Ragnar to surrender where he was exiled and had to take an oath never to return. While Rolf was doing this however his brother Thorfinn had taken most of Sweden formerly under Ragnar, using many Sammi Finns as the Vanguard he was able to take most of Sweden where he then crowned himself King of the Fins (many 'Fins' had lived in Sweden) and at this time it seems he had supported Finnish culture over Norse, with Finnish traditions being in the government; This is probably due to his father's slave who was in charge of educating and raising Thorfinn was a Fin. Rolf was in much debt over the cost of his armies and had to disband most of them leaving him unable to do much about Thorfinn. Thorfinn Olafsson was also improving relations with Kiev and had a steady alliance with them, albeit the Rus would never be able to scrounge enough resources for a large war like those in Scandinavia.

In Britain, King Malcolm the third was on his deathbed. His son William had succeeded him as King, his younger brother tried to make a claim to the throne but was put down easily. He had invested much effort in defending the territory his father had conquered, the however he had no Intention of expanding any further. The Welsh however were preparing for a campaign to take the rest of England not conquered by the Scots, the English had been so impoverished and affected by war that they could not stop the halt of the Welsh that had cut through them like a scythe through wheat. King Hywel ap Rhys was known for his harshness, tens of thousands of Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Norse were sold into slavery; Through extreme military power the people of England were not considered free men under the law.

Many English were deported to the Scottish territory of England, some even ending up in the Lands west of Iceland. Due to the need for a large army and wales having less than desirable manpower caused nearly every household to have a member in an army, along with some Irish mercenaries they were able to hold the country under pacification. A notable act under Hywel was the exile of all former residents of London and repopulating it with Welsh Celts then turning it into his new Capital. Many revolted against the Welsh rule, but the standing army was large enough to be considered a fielded army. The Rebels were never given a chance to surrender where they and their entire families were killed, it is known from documents from the time that Hywel ap Rhys was most likely insane and at the very least cruel. King William of Scotland considered dissolving their alliance and attacking Hywel simply because of the atrocities he was committing, but due to the size of his armies was hesitant.

Sigurdsvik was beginning to become the largest colony in Thorskurland, it was an essential port for exploration to the south. Sigurd Ivarsson in charge of the colony had led several diplomatic missions to the nearby Skraelings and more or less secured trade and peace with all tribes within a large area. Sigurd was however looking to organize a large raid unto the southern lands, he dreamed of leading such a long distance raid as Bjorn Ironside did in legends. Sigurd traveled first to Olafstad and then to Bjarnystad, Karlsfjord, and Thorkellsborg where he organized a joint effort by many of the wealthy in the towns and raised over sixty ships and their crews. He then led them back to Sigurdsvik for resupply and repairs. After many months sailing along the coast they had finally reached the land of the Midja Bondi, Sigurd then came across the same town he had seen nearly twelve years before and after a battle that lasted half an hour the town was taken.

For nine months the Norse had been attacking and taking the rich towns and it soon appeared there was no one left to raid. They then tried to travel North but the weather was constantly pushing them south, they had been forced to go east along the many Islands where they turned north and managed to find their way back home. While they did not make as much a profit as they hoped to they had definitely established there was prime raiding territory to the south, some even thought of doing more than just raiding but vassalizing and conquering the land. Obviously this was way out of the picture as the distance was so great that the only reliable method of navigation was following the coastline. Nevertheless the raid had drawn much attention to the southern lands and people were now aware of the potential riches such lands held.

In Iberia, Einar Rollosson died from poison in his wine. The Norse and even Iberians under his command were enraged by this and the army marched north and captured the court in a quick attack, local armies were ordered to stop them but many commanders did not wish to attack the Castillio-Norse army. At the court the Norse had decided that the Lord of Lisbona Ragnar Rollosson become Emperor of Iberia, Ragnar allowed Urraca to keep her power under the title Sister of the State. This new Norse dynasty of Iberia had begun; The reign of Emperor Ragnar the first had begun, his first move was to immediately reinforce Gibraltar as the inner conflict in Iberia had rallied the Southern Heathens into a frenzy and took two years to beat them back. Ragnar would then show his resourcefulness and strategy where he led three hundred and fifty of his elite Cavalry to harass the enemy forces for three weeks before luring them into an open valley with no trees or shrub for miles with open ground and no large stones to hide behind, however as the sun began to hang in the western sky as it turned from afternoon into evening a small light infantry unit of around seventy along with another light unit of crossbowmen of around forty crossed from deep in a ravine on the other sides of the mountain and hiding in the sun and holding the high ground were able to catch the enemy by surprise and with the elite cavalry decimate and slaughter all five thousand enemy troops. The battle of Paeia valley is now regarded as one of the most famous victories of a smaller force against a larger one. Iberia expanded much more into North Africa after this devastating defeat with other enemy generals retreating or being so moral shaken by it all that their troops were easily swept up, it was said Ragnar's dream was to conquer Carthage and make it the new Capital.

 

[EmperorOfTheNorthSea]

Sorry for taking so long, writers block and all.

Also this is probably going to be the last update before the new board happens. Had to get it done before then so it was also kind of rushed so sorry.

1117-1121

In Gifurflud, the town was expanding to be nearly the same size as Nawahlid. Using the same lime technologies that were used for Nawahlid, however now using more efficient methods the primitive cements were now able along with fired brick to be able to build massively tall buildings. For the first time in the history of Norse architecture the Idea of apartment buildings with multiple stories had become possible with the use of primitive stone masonry on Limestone being used to support the brick and mortar.
The problem of sanitation and proper sewage control was becoming a problem however, Nawahlid expanded slowly and had relatively little issues with it. The problem was temporarily solved with using transportable buckets that would be thrown into the river to be washed, a city wide service that had transported sewage buckets from housing into the river to be washed clean by workers and transported back to the houses. Urination was still done in the dirt and still posed an issue.
An unlikely solution had hit the town, the land that the town was expanding into was swampy and local farms were limited to their expansion by swamps and bogs. By digging drainage canals leading into the river being near residences they had allowed some degree of sewage control, these drainage canals became a very putrid smelling place due to the sewage amassing in it with only the rain and decomposition being able to get rid of the waste, they became a center of disease and people began avoiding them as much as possible and people who had been exposed to the sewage or gotten it into wounds had been known to get very sick and often die.

In Iceland the Allthing was growing to be more like the Leifrish Allthing by creating something of a militia to defend their gifted colonies in Greenland and were having interest in Helluland. Helluland was still very much in control of Leifrvalde or at least on paper given that there were no known or recorded permanent colonies in Helluland with it mostly being inhabited by Skraelings and Norse camps looking for gold, Ivory or other goods. Iceland had tried to buy the territory from Leifrvalde but were denied at a moments notice, the Leifrish most likely feared losing Elgurland and Markland to the Icelanders who were gaining more political and martial power from their near monopoly of trade between Leifrvalde and Europe with the only exception being the Heitteyjar route with Iberia.
The Icelandic Allthing had benefited from the large free amounts of land that came from the immigration to Leifrvalde of many Icelandic people but was now beginning to suffer for it and banned immigration to Leifrvalde from those within their territory, after people began illegally immigrating to Leifrvalde through various methods the Allthing then took much more intense measures to stop any immigration and had allowed outside merchants to only trade within certain places. This new federalist era of Iceland that followed these years had lasting consequences on trade and politics of Scandinavian nations at the time.
Leifrvalde did not take kindly to this near forced Isolation the Icelanders were forcing, the Paramount Chieftain Ketil Bjornsson (who had been re-elected time and time again) had enough with these anti-Leifrvalde policies coming from paramount chieftain on Iceland Bjorn Eriksson and his Althing had made him decide to show a display of force and with ninety seven ships and their Crews landed in the de facto capital of Iceland and 'convinced' the Icelandic allthing to change it's policies regarding limiting trade restrictions. This had re-opened trade with Europe for the Northern route but there was still a very large anti-Leifrish sentiment within Iceland.

The recent Years within the British isles had been relatively peaceful in terms of warfare, Scottish rule had improved the living condition of many of their new English subjects and William the first of Scotland had been seen as a benevolent king that had encouraged trade with lands near and far leading most of the Isle to it's most prosperous point in more than two hundred years; However in the England under the Welsh things were much different.
Hywel ap Rhys had continued his oppression of Anglo-Saxon people and even decreed "Child limit Laws" that states that if an Englishman and woman has more than two children that the third or more will be taken away and the family would have taxes doubled on them for life. The Papacy nearly excommunicated him but didn't for unknown reasons that were probably bribes, threats, or Blackmail as many Scholars wouldn't put it past Hywel ap Rhys to try it.
William was afraid of the size and utter efficiency of the Welsh army that he did not dare invade, but he did hear the pleas from the English living under welsh rule and had at the very least accepted refugees and allowed them to till unused land.

In Ireland the King of Dublin Domnall Gerrlamhach had been afraid of the two great nations on the main Isle of Britain, however he too had a bit of power with his grandfather initially leading a conquest that resulted in him owning a third of Ireland which had kept him feeling at a level of security; However history would show him to be a fool for trying to predict the madness of Hywel ap Rhys when in 1118 the Welsh fleet arrived at the capital that was Dublin completely unexpectedly and managed to take nearly every important figure in the state and conquering what was left in little under six months. The Welsh King then started a campaign to conquer the whole of Ireland, due to a lack of roads and such it took three years before the Interior was fully conquered. In the conquest many atrocities had been committed but it had been considerably less harsh then that of the conquered English.

In Scandinavia, Thorfinn Olafsson self titled as 'King of the Finns' had been waging a campaign on the Sammi tribes in the North of Norway eventually conquering them and encroaching on Nidaros from the North. Rolf Olafsson was worried and had stationed most of his army there; But from the North is not where Thorfinn would invade from. The troops of Rolf Olafsson stationed in Sweden near the border found themselves rushed by Finnish troops that had been much larger in Number and quickly rolled through on finnish horses and a new larger crossbow carried on a wagon whose bolts are the size of small spears managed to pierce through any shield at a distance that a normal crossbow could not penetrate. The Finnish Army would have been annihilated by the armies of Rolf Olafsson but they were distracted by large naval attacks on Sweden and Denmark allowing nearly all of Sweden to be taken.
When Rolf who was in Oslo when he had heard he had gathered funds from many rich families who willingly donated in order to not have all their riches and assets destroyed by the invading Finns and used said funding to raise such a large army that they were able to retake more or less all of Sweden that had been in his possession leaving the Finns in defeat but returning home with much loot.

In Iberia, Emperor Ragnar Olafsson (or Ragnar the first as he would be known in Iberian records) had monks and other clergy translate many Roman works such as that of Gaius Julius Ceaser and Tacitus, it was known he was very interested in all the Roman ruins in Iberia; most notably the Aqueducts and had gathered what passed for engineers in that era and had a few Aqueduct repaired. Ragnar had also broken the stalemate in North Africa by convincing the papacy that a stronger Iberian christian presence in North Africa would aid the Crusade effort as well as further ensure Gibraltar stays open. With forces meant to be sent to the holy land now temporarily aiding Ragnar his new territory gained spanned from Casablanca to the South and Oran along the Northern Mediterranean coast. This also meant however that enemy forces would be more spread out and harder to deal with, although he did eliminate most local power so most resistance from the south would be small but the west parts of his territory did pose a threat. The Papacy did however aid the Emperor by having any Crusading force raised from North or west of Italy must station in North Africa for at least three months aiding the Iberian forces before heading to the Holy land unless given permission from the Pope otherwise.
Emperor Ragnar also realized the inefficiency of European forces in the desert, he had realized that a light armored army selected from people that didn't mind the heat as much as others and supported by a highly organized water supply routes. He had started by recruiting mainly from those born in the hot conditions, mostly Spaniards born in Tangiers or converted Bedouins/Arabs. He had then set up intensely detailed maps showing water sources and terrain across his North African Domain along with recruiting Generals who knew just the intense need for water supply.

Storfoss had been growing into a large town, with a military presence in order to watch after the subjugated skraeling confederacy to the east as well as oversee the Silver taxes that said confederacy was forced to mine. Much of the silver found its way into Storfoss and used by merchants to sell into the large cities along the Nawa River or the coast making Storfoss a perfect town for trade, Lime technologies allowed it to build towers and many delightful things that had been seen in the large cities of Gifurflud, Nawahlid, Thorkellsborg, and Leifsbudir. With Storfoss gaining popularity again attention once more turned to the cities to the West along the great rivers and great lakes.

In the Eastern Roman Empire, the Emperor Alexius the First had been able to concentrate his forces against threats now that the Crusaders to the south had been a magnet for any Heathen armies. The empire had a good relationship with the Crusaders, if they keep fighting and holding their ground against the attackers allowing the Byzantines to be more at peace then they would be supplied with the highly secretive Greek Fire and things like grain, arrows, armor, and things of that nature. The Byzantines with their massive armies now being able to focus on removing the Rum Seljuk threat as well as expanding into the Balkans and further fortifying their Italian Territory. Alexius' predecessors had agreed with the Pope to name the Emperor of Iberia to be Western Roman Emperor and now that the title had been inherited by a Norseman it had instilled a large rise in prestige among the Varangian Guard.

In The Holy land the Crusader forces had been fortifying the mountains and valleys, but the Saracen hordes still held onto the deserts and southern plains. Acre had become a prosperous trading hub with merchants from Iberia, Italy, Byzantium, even Kiev had come to sell their wares to the pilgrims and others coming into the Holy Land.
A new campaign to take the city of Damascus was being prepared and many nations were pouring in their resources for the coming attack.

 

[EmperorOfTheNorthSea]

As a treat I'm releasing this little bit about whats going on in Britain early, the next update will include the other places and will still be at the same time and this is just a portion of what I've been writing so far.

1122-1126

In Britain, an event that would come to be known as 'The Death of Two Kings' happened where William the first of Scotland and Hywel ap Rhys had both died in the same week. Hywel ap Rhys was succeeded by Gruffydd ap Hywel and William was succeeded by his only son Edmund the First. Gruffydd was a wise man while Edmund however was lame as well as dumb and wasn't fit to rule.

In Scotland many that had royal blood in them sought to take away the crown from Edmund and announce themselves King, however Gruffydd had just become Edmund's father in law and with a Welsh army marched North to 'protect and ensure the proper ruler of Scotland stays on his Throne.' The Welsh army then killed any who got in it's way and killing nearly every single person who had even the slightest claim to the throne. When the Welsh managed to secure and protect Edmund from usurpers Gruffydd had Edmund sent to London for saftey until the political turmoil in Scotland ended. After a campaign of blood Gruffydd had managed to clear any who would have contested Edmund's rule.

Edmund had been convinced while in London to allow both Kingdoms to merge with the two as co-rulers. It was through this merging that the Kingdom of Britannia had been formed. With Edmund's disability making him unfit to rule he had essentially gave the Scottish Crown to Gruffydd with him being only a ceremonial figure. According to records however Edmund was quite happy with this and lived his days in luxury in London, however Gruffydd held a close on on Edmund and made sure that he didn't do anything out of line. With Wales, England, Scotland, Orkney, and Ireland under his fist, Gruffydd was later known as 'Ironfist' for his strict rule over his territories.

The English peoples who had avoided the harsh oppression under Welsh rule by leaving for Scottish ruled England had nowhere to escape. Gruffydd had special facilities built that were of large rooms meant to fit forty to fifty people standing up, with a special vent system that was able to fill the room with smoke from burning leaves he was able to commit genocide on thousands of people. He had gone through much work to eliminate all records of this and had blamed the people's disappearances on the political turmoil. For the English that had what would be considered useful to the Welsh they had allowed some to settle Ireland and Wales where Welsh had gone to settle England.

Gruffydd was able to gain authority over a large army in Scotland and he had used it to launch a campaign to conquer Brittany, he had managed to beat Conan the Third in battle many times but he found himself unable to conquer the duchy entirely. He had to wait until the year was over for him to continue with the assaults, after two and a half years he had managed to take the duchy but at heavy loses. This had greatly pleased Gruffydd, now he was finally King of all Celts and he had the entire British isles and Brittany at his disposal. At this time he had decided to focus more on peaceful trade, although he still did have to maintain his armies to stop any would be rebellion from rising up. He even sent ships all the way to Thorkellsborg in Leifrvalde for peaceful trade.

 

[EmperorOfTheNorthSea]

Now the later part:



In the Allthing of Leifrvalde, Ketil Bjornsson had enacted several decrees that had established permanent outposts in Helluland in order to stake their claim in the land and also look for gold. He had also taken actions to develop Elgurland as it was falling into disrepair and it was barely inhabited by Norse at this point with most of the gold consumed people had left for warmer and more fertile lands. He had populated a large amount of these lands with Ango-Saxons seeking somewhere to settle that wasn't under the Tyrannical Welsh. It didn't matter if it was the freezing Helluland or the empty Elgurland, they were completely happy to have somewhere to live without harsh taxes or oppression. The future Leifrish Language would be influenced heavily by these Anglo-Saxon immigrants.

In Iberia, Emperor Ragnar had been running an intensive irrigation projects in North Africa and had several researchers study other nation's irrigation systems as well as looking through old roman records of irrigation. He had been interested in the idea of flooding the Chott El Fejaj which was only fifteen miles from the coast with sea water, however the area was not in his domain. It should be noted that due to the roughness of hand drawn maps he had thought that the Chott was much closer to the sea then it actually was.

The Iberian conquests of North Africa had been going swell, by having the heavy Infantry and Cavalry armies stationed closer to the coast and having a light armored swift force in the interior often creating a "Hammer and Anvil" where the light Infantry and Cavalry would push enemy forces to the coastline where the more numerous and heavy armored units would crush them. Another tactic Emperor Ragnar had employed was to prioritize farmland and water sources, both because his army needed water and that given enough time the enemy army would either have to flee to a distant land or fight them head on because they could not go on forever without food or water. These tactics were so successful that by the year 1125 his army had finally seen the city of Carthage on the horizon.

After taking the city Ragnar had been ecstatic and he had immediately called for large numbers of immigrants from Lisbona and Leon and had them populate the city while forcing the Arab Muslims in the city out into the desert. The policy of forcing the Arab Muslims under his control to either convert, become a slave, or just killed had still been in effect and he was very frustrated at how hard it was to organize such policies. He then had the Idea to butcher pigs and give the Arabs two choices: Eat in the feast of pork or have your entire family butchered. This had very good results in his eyes as it had many Muslims lose much of their pride and live in shame. Ragnar's view on the Arab Christians were much different from their Muslim counterparts, he bestowed nobility on many of them and to the others gave them the finest of the conquered farmlands. Some of his most loyal vassals were Arab Christians who had gained wealth and status through him. He was not only conquering west but his son Olaf Ragnarsson had been leading a few armies south along the Atlantic coast taking city after city with little resistance, Olaf was considered to be an even better tactician then his father was and his policy on Muslim Heathens were much more brutal than his father's.

The Crusades had been going very well, the large army in the south of the country was getting weaker and the Heathens in Egypt had been reinforcing their allies to the east to fight against the Iberians. After a final push that was aided by Byzantine forces the Holy land west of the Jordan Valley was reclaimed. The Pope had decided on naming Sigurd the Crusader as King of Jerusalem for his brave epics in battle that no one leader in the entire crusade could have matched. The Crusades also gave the Byzantines the opportunity to take back much land where they had been able to border the new Kingdom of Jerusalem to the north. The Seljuks of Rum had also been nearly pushed out of the peninsula at this point.

Thorfinn Olafsson was preparing a campaign to take the whole of Norway from his brother Rolf. When he attacked he found the enemy armies weak and had not been in maintenance very well and very quickly he was able to take Norway, it was at this point in time due to bad harvests in Denmark the Empire under Rolf Olafsson was very weak and Thorfinn had not expected for the conquest to go so smoothly with enemies either being weak or willing to defect. When Rolf Olafsson was killed in battle trying to retain his crown, all of his subordinates had turned to Thorfinn had made him King of all of Rolf's former domains. Thorfinn Olafsson was very old however and he died not long after conquering such vast amounts of land where his son Bjarny Thorfinnsson had risen to the throne.

 

[EmperorOfTheNorthSea]

A short update, after all not every year can have exiting things happening.

TsarSaucybottom is now also making a Vinland TL, and he's putting effort into the development of the Language (unlike me) and into other things, So go check it out.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/alphabet-for-the-vinlandic-language.384106/

1130-1134

In the growing outposts of Helluland the people there had been hunting Seals and Walrus, Fishing, and most notably looking for 'Ice Gold' that they had heard about. Some gold had been found but not enough to justify the outposts on their own. The Ivory from Walruses and the bones of a large variety of animals had given the colonists a form of large export, in Leifrish History it should be noted that around this time is when much style of furniture and other artistic items had implemented large amounts of Ivory and Bone. The Helluland Outposts had grown in number by Anglo-Saxons seeking refuge from their Welsh oppressors.

In Brittany, Gruffydd ap Hywel spared no time in running the tin mines to pump out the rare material. He was also preparing a very large army of Scots and Irish for an Invasion of Normandy and possibly Flanders. With Gruffydd's less than unknown desire for territorial expansion clearly evident to the nations of the world the various powers of the area banded into a coalition against the 'Brittania Imperium' as the Welsh had called it. With the combined forces, Gruffydd was not willing to jump into a large war and he rather had only stationed a standing army in Brittany to oversee things and a few other armies close to Englands southern coast ready to cross the channel. He had also at this time gotten a small force of Orkneyan mercenaries and Welsh soldiers to attack and Annex the Shetlands and the Faroes and had done so with little trouble.

In Storfoss the natives that were being forced to mine silver ore had been dying from diseases brought by rats, with them being unable to keep up with the silver production it was decided that European immigrants would settle any of the places needed to support any mines. However they had little idea where any silver deposits were and they did not want to drop colonists into Skraeling territory with little protection. So expeditions were held where men had traversed the newly named land of Skogiland where they had searched very far inland in search of silver deposits and ways to more easily access and get the silver to Storfoss. Eventually after one of the expeditions they had found the Frosinn River that had flowed south into the Ocean. A small colony would in a few years be built at the mouth of the river that would later be known as Hofnborg. The silver expeditions had yielded no silver and the only productive thing it had created was that the Norse had intimate knowledge of the interior of Skogiland.

In Iberia, Emperor Ragnar had been almost forcefully imposing immigration to the newly conquered territories and had been exiling, enslaving, and murdering native Berber and Muslim Arabs who did not convert to Christianity. He had started mines in the Atlas mountains that had been worked by the conquered Muslims, he had also had them work in Galacia to the North in order to mine the precious mineral of Tin and compete with the Welsh who had a monopoly with Cornwall and Brittany under their control. He had also started to work on irrigation projects that had channeled rain water and mountain runoff into irrigation canals that had allowed the extremely efficient and pest resistant Gulurskera to thrive. The Emperor had moved the capital to Valencia so that he could monitor his North African lands more easily.

The Crown Prince Olaf Ragnarsson had been leading the campaign against the heathen cities and towns along the Atlantic Coast. He had known of the large islands off of the african coast. He had considered conquering them but had decided against it, he had enough on his hands having to manage his area of North Africa. After putting down so many towns and cities he had finally pacified the region, unlike his father he had decided to simply tolerate non-Christians and only killing when and where there was a threat of revolt. Compared to his Father he had looked like a Saint to the Muslim peoples.

In Scandinavia, Bjarny Thorfinnsson had been working on retaking nearly the entirety of the Baltic shores and he finally did achieve his grandfathers dream of the sea being under the rule of one nation. Bjarny had made alliances with the Kievian Rus that through his aid were able to expand into the territory of the Polotsk, Smolensk, and Novgorod making it into a local superpower, and it had ambitions of expanding into the territory of the Cumans and gaining territory on the shore of the Black Sea.

 

[EmperorOfTheNorthSea]

Sorry for not updating in so long, I used to pride myself on how much I could pump out this TL but I suppose it's not been as easy as it once was.

1135-1139

In Britain, Gruffydd had been increasing trade with far off foreign countries. He had detailed accounts of Russia, Scandinavia, Iberia, North Africa, the various German countries, and even Leifrvalde. It appears he put off any ambition of conquering Normandy and used most of the military to keep rebellions down, he had also increased the Genocidal programs against "Un-Celtic Germanics." He had also appointed his brother Rhys ap Hywel Lord of all Ireland and under Rhys' supervision many agricultural developments were worked on to make the land more easily cultivated.

In Iberia, Emperor Ragnar had been building forces to be sent to defend his North African territories. The Iberian Empire had been experiencing the weight of over extension, Emperor Ragnar had tried to move a mass amount of his Iberian citizens into his newly conquered territory but that had in some ways worsened the bureaucracy by having to enforce taxes and such over such a vast distance. Many would have simply adopted a more Feudal approach but unlike Charlemagne and many others that bared the title of Western Roman Emperor Ragnar did not take it as a mere title and tried his best to keep the state from relying to much on local authorities. In his words: "We Cannot let (ourselves/us) to become reliant on the Local lords, else we walk the Path of the Empire of Germans." However in 1038 Emperor Ragnar the First had died of a disease, his son Olaf Ragnarsson had inherited all of his father's empire but had decided to allow his half brother Robert to govern the Iberian Peninsula with Olaf ruling over the African frontier on the condition that Olaf could still recruit soldiers and settlers as well as the supplies necessary to feed both.

The Capital of Iberia woud be relocated to toledo and the Capital of the new 'Christian Kingdom of Africa' would be in the city of Bizerte, just a days ride north of Carthage. Olaf had wanted to fulfill his father's dream of making Carthage a proud Capital once more but it was just too close to the front lines while Bizerte was close enough to the frontlines to manage war affairs while at the same time far away enough that it would be safe from the battles on the front lines, the city also had a very defensible position with steep mountains and the freshwater lake Ichkeul and the Lagoon of Bizerte making any invading army could attack from only a few positions of which could be easily fortified. It was also Ideal for trade as it being the farthest north city on the African continent and close to the Byzantine controlled region of Italy.

In the Kevian Rus, Mstislav the First had married his daughter Eupraxia to the Scandinavian King to strengthen their alliance. The 'Baltic Empire' of Bjarny Thorfinnsson had been closely linked to Kiev and had relied on it for it's trade with the (Byzantine) Roman Empire to the south. The Close ties had been beneficial to all three countries. Trade along the Russian river routes had been greater than they ever had been before with the guarding and patrolling the rivers and portage routes for Bandits and Thieves making the once hazardous and unnavigable journey into a safe and well traveled route.

However the tribes of Cumans on the north shore of the Black Sea had begun to threaten this Eastern Triumvirate, with both the dominion of Bjarny Thorfinnsson and the Byzantines realizing that a stronger Kiev would mean safer trade and a means of protection from the Nomadic Barbarians which threaten to draw the Byzantines attention away from the Turkic barbarians to the east and the Bulgars to the west. With very little kingdoms willing to fight against him, Bjarny Thorfinnsson had raised a large sum of money taken from Pirates and the like and sent it as a gift to the King of Kiev who used it to unite the remaining principalities and forming the large and centralized Kingdom of Rus. Something that had happened shortly after this was Byzantine road builders were hired to build roads able to withstand the muddy soil of Russland as well as being able to allow armies to swiftly respond to invading attackers. The Rus had also allowed various German, Scandinavian,Baltic, Hungarian, and even Greek peoples settle in the vast unused land near the southern end of the Kingdoms territory and on some occasions did so if said immigrating group had some of their young men be inducted into the military. The war that would follow would determine the future of Eastern European politics forever.

In Leifrvalde, Ketil Bjornsson had died and for the first time since the historic killing of the first King of Leifrvalde someone else would have to take the title of Paramount Chieftain. A man by the name Thorkell Sigurdsson had been chosen by the Allthing to become the next Paramount Chieftain, he formerly had the title within the Allthing of Master of the Treasury and had served in Leifrvalde's standing army just south of Nawahlid. He was chosen due to his knowledge of the results of certain interactions between different lands, he was also knowledgeable in the fields of logistics and while serving in the army he was able to increase it's effectiveness against hostile Skraelings. He was however considered a coward to some degree in that he would be uneasy in a battle even when the odds are very much in his favor and only if every man in the army spat could drown the enemy would he be confident in victory.

He was also interested in expanding the Valde to the South down the coast and the West along the Lakes, so interested that he had convinced the Allthing to make the new post of Master of Colonies in which said Allthing member would supervise the construction, defense, logistics, and economy of the frontier colonies as well as try and convince people to pak up and settle said colonies. He had considered making them two separate offices which one would oversee the Lakes and the other the Coast.

In Helluland, the people there had made trade with the northern Skraelings giving iron and copper for pelts, ivory, meat, and most importantly pieces of Gold. While boat manufacturing techniques had made new ships of towering size that can take the open ocean, the old ships used to navigate the icy archipelago of Helluland had been the same for nearly a hundred years and rumors of Gold to the west along the Northern sea being just as old. Finally a group of men, half of which were of mixed Norse and Skraeling blood had manages to make their way so very far west. Winter had made it impossible to move but according to the sagas the group of men found a Skraeling village that spoke a language they knew of and were able to stay with them throughout the winter. They told them of how further west there had been a great river that came from the south and with it came dead tree trunks and the ever enticing gold.

When spring came there was still enough ice left that heading back home eastwards was impossible leaving them with the option of either staying with the villagers or heading further west, the chance of being the richest man alive outweighed the risk to the travelers. After weeks of rowing they had finally found the River of gold spoken so highly of (Mackenzie River), and it had brought driftwood which was an eternally pleasing sight to the weary travelers. The leader of the expedition had decided that they would head further west and then come back to the river and sail up it some then return home. When they had found the coast dipping ever so further south it had beggared at the imagination, scholars had assumed the shape the ocean was just a central pool in the Atlantic with another pool to the near Arabia; But this could prove that the world was much larger then they could ever imagine. When the group had asked a native of how far the southern sea could go, he replied by saying that it went as far as possible. Indeed the large amounts of migrating whales seen indicated that it could not have been a small sea. Perhaps Gold could be found along this newer new world.

The Men were able to return to their homes in Helluland with only three of them dying and bringing back enough gold for them to live comfortably the rest of their lives. They had not been satisfied however, with the amount of gold they had on them they had convinced several rich ship owners to acquire colonists from Norwegians coming from the north of Nidaros to settle the mouth of the river of Gold and form a significant Norse Presence in the Northern Seas. They had found good land up the river; Enough for good hunting, livestock and hardy crops. With Paramount Chieftain of Leifrvalde himself giving support of the exploration and exploitation of the Northern Seas and this new apparent western Ocean. The Historical significance of this discovery would lead to what would later be considered by historians a huge turning point in Leifrish history.

In Storfoss, the men had been enriched by the silver mined by the Skraelings to the east. Their progress was lagging behind usual and it was considered buying Kolhud from Iberia in order to keep up production. The Skraelings had endured years of Norse oppression, there was a planned revolt but then emerged a single skraeling man. Called a traitor by his own people for converting to the White Man's faith and embracing their ways he could not even stay in his own cousins house without being attacked; This man was known later as Saint John the Skraeling. He had gone before the Paramount Chieftain and pleaded for him to allow the Skraelings of his land to live freely, when the Paramount Chieftain refused he left and came back the next day and asked again and again for months until Thorkell Sigurdsson said (according to the sagas which are most likely construed): 'Enough! Who are thou to bugger me day in day out, when you apparently have nothing better to do other than beg me for you're people's freedom! Be gone else the guard will flay your skin from your flesh!'

However the last time was seen by none other than the Bishop of Nawahlid who had offered the Skraeling a position in the church as he was still young. When he became a monk he had gone with other missionaries to convert many Skraelings that had worked in the Silver mines. However in once incident a skraeling supposedly said: 'You speak so highly of this god of theirs, all while wearing those clothes and never lifting a heavy tool in your life. If you can mine so much as half of my quota then I will listen to you're god.' And then acording to the story John had mined more than eleven times the quota in just under a day. After Gaining a significant Christian minority among the Skraelings and with the support of the Church they were finally able to get the Allthing to give freedom to the Skraelings and pay them for whatever labor needed in coin. John was never canonized by the Papacy but many Leifrish today consider him a Saint.

 

[EmperorOfTheNorthSea]

Yeah, sorry for not updating yet.. again...
Been slicing my writing time in half with one half writing this and the other the ISOT I'm working on. Oh who am I kidding, I've been slacking on that too!
I may make another small TL or something of the like in order to try and end this writers block I've been forcing myself to trudge through.

But that Brings me to this question, have the latest of these Updates been not as good as they used to? I get the feeling they might but I can't say for certain.

1140-1144

In Britain, Gruffydd ap Hywel had been working on consolidating more power in Scotland. He had the backing of the figurehead king and could do as he pleased in Scottish territory but he wanted it official, of course doing so would cause large amounts of revolts among some of the Scottish nobility that would already be very unnerved by the Welsh domination. Then came a brutal campaign of assassination of Scottish nobles in one night after which the King of Scotland had died a natural death supposedly and a Welsh army moved into Scotland and Gruffydd had declared himself a descendant of Coel Hen and High King Arthur deserving of the title Emperor of all Brittania. He had even created a day of celebration where the 'reconquest' of Britain and many traditional Celtic celebrations would be held, even reviving some that hadn't been in use for centuries.

In the land far to the Northwest were a group of brave men who discovered the vast north flowing river and the entrances into the great Pacific ocean. With funding from the Allthing many resupply stations were created along the Hellulands to allow easier passage along the North waters, many of these resupply stations had also acted as trading areas in which Skraelings had traded many things in return for Iron, cloth, copper jewelry, and other assorted things. Said stations had slowly grew with Allthing sponsored relocation of Icelandic refugees after a winter storm left many poor.

At the mouth of the great Northern river as it was soon called there had been a large station with forty-seven people inhabiting it. However up the river a new Monastery was established that had acted as a center for converting native Skraelings. The man Thorkell Ivarsson who had been part of the original voyage to the great Northern river and the great Western ocean had been interested in the Western ocean. At the same time a well educated priest at the Monastery had knew of the roundness of the Earth and with the discovery of the Western ocean could it be that it connected with the Ocean near the lands of Arabia and India that stretched so very far? The Priest whom's name has been lost to history had openly discussed this with some of his colleagues and monks. With the monastery having some contact with the station it had found it's way to many of the more adventurous men's ears'. It would be discussed as idle imagination for many years.

In Storfoss, the silver mining had given an economic boost to the town. while being one of few Leifrvalde territories being capable of growing Gulurskera in large amounts land was being cleared at a very large rate to support the very efficient and nutritious crop. Cats had to be bred in large amounts to keep rats and mice away.
The town was also beginning to become a popular site to visit from Merchants and the Wealthy to gain a look at the Falls which was the Largest waterfall in the Known world.

In Rusland, much weaponry had been bought from Scandinavia much of which was mined from Sweden's vast Iron supply. However it was here that the first largely deployed units of Cavalry equipped with a new type of Crossbow that allowed easier reloading on a Horse given that metal stirrups are used.
It was inevitable but the tensions with the Cumans were about to spill over, and when war had finally broke out the Cumans were able to sweep through southern Rus taking severe casualties on both sides, however the defenders of the city of Oleshye were able to hold the city and the Dnieper river and it's western bank allowing them to resupply via the river.

However as the more the Cumans tried to pierce north the much more harder it became for their style of nomadic-horse dependent warfare as their horses were less effective in the forests and had little defense against men armed with crossbows that have been theorized by historians albeit not proven to engage in a form of guerrilla warfare in addition with the open battles. After months of fighting the Cumans had found too little food to pillage and while they had been trying to pierce further North to get into a tactical position to cross into Western Rus they had been exposing a weak spot to the south due to lack of stable supply routes and most of the military's focus being to the North.

When the army of Oleshye managed to break through the Cuman forces on the eastern bank of the Dnieper river supported by recently hired Lithuanian and some Gothic Mercenaries that would be promised lands near the Volga River. Swiftly retaking land the Rus forces then had decided to turn their attention to the main Cuman forces to the North, however while weakened the Cumans still managed to beat back any attempts to attack their positions albeit they couldn't take any more ground.

Eventually what defeated the Cumans were not the Rus warriors or their mercenaries but fellow Cumans that had ended the war. With Promises of high position within the confederacy many Cuman chiefs betrayed the Confederation. The War soon ended and the Promises to the rebel chieftains were never fulfilled with some of them dying in combat and the ones who made it out alive had been silenced by the Rus with knowledge of these promises only being made known to the world in modern times after archaeological findings.

The remaining Cumans had been devastated, they had lost much of their Men and Horses which were a matter of life and death on the Steppe. The Rus in their victory had taken a large amount of their territory and also made them Vassals, however the Cumans had not been overly mistreated under the Vassalazation and While all chieftains and major political figures had to have political hostages in Kiev. The military might of Rus ha never been stronger and after one year they sent a force out to conquer the Volga Bulgars which had varying degrees of success. With the Cumans being able to directly link the Rus into the Silk road the Byzantines were about to gain a competitor for Asiatic goods in Northern Europe.

 

[EmperorOfTheNorthSea]

You: "Wait you're saying He can actually make a map? His last attempt were terrible!"

Me: "Enough Hours in MS Paint and anything will look like Mona Lisa."

But yeah, I'm only really showing the major factions that play an importance worth noting, one day I might get into the brain-smashing complexity of Burgundy vs France and the HRE

And here are the colors for people that haven't kept up

Lavender: Leifrvalde (Vinland)

Gold: The Russ

Purple: Scandinavia

Dark purple: Byzantine Empire

Green: Brittania Imperium

Light Yellow: Kingdom of Iberia

Blue Grey: Holy Christian Kingdom of Africa

Brown: Icelandic Allthing

Blue: Mayan City states

 

[EmperorOfTheNorthSea]

Haven't really been updating a lot, I've been playing around with the idea of sending Spanish colonial Phillipines back into the Chinese Three Kingdoms era and seeing how that goes. Also another reason is I'm working as of late so not a whole lot of free time I guess.
But with the researching needed on both the Philippines and China in their respective times I'm tempted to just throw it all out and just do a Viking Age Orkney ISOT near to the end of the western Roman Empire and such .The Orkney part I did research on for this TL so that makes it not so hard. Which would be better or should I keep working on things I have already started?

Also sorry for the shortness.

1148-1152

In Saeturland, Maple foodstuffs had been undergoing a revolution around this point. A form of hardened creams had become popular in Nawahlid, and many Icelandic merchants had prized the material as well as becoming popular with children. Another invention was the adding of honey to the maple sap while being boiled. Aside from sweet maple products the Ship building industry was still very strong, albeit with a rival industry starting up in Grunnland.

In Hnetaland and Frelsiland, a new export was becoming popular: Nuts. A great many kinds were being used along with Maple Syrup in religious celebrations. The Farming was also producing a surplus that had sold at high prices in the City of Nawahlid that had begun to outgrow Saeturland's agricultural output.

In Scandinavia, Bjarny Thorfinnsson had been engaging trade heavily with the Rus and the Lapps(Sammi) to the North. However in 1149 when he had died of stroke his Empire had begun to fall apart, a trend that was very popular among the Kings that united Scandinavia after their deaths, however unlike the rest Bjarny Thorfinnsson had a plan for his favored child Karl Bjarnysson and had anyone who would attempt to seize the Throne or try and declare independence have spies willing to report on their actions and take their life should it be needed. While after two years of cementing his rule Karl had managed to keep his Father's realm but at the loss of it's former military and economic strength. The Tribes in the Baltic that he subjugated and the ones inland that he did not had begun to show signs of potential hostility.

Karl's response to this was to split his empire into two, With him governing the Western half which included Denmark, Norway, and Sweden while the other half would be governed by the Crown prince and when the Crown Prince would ascend the throne then the next Crown Prince would assume power over the eastern Empire. Technically the divide was purely administrative and it was still one Empire and was to be used as a way to efficiently handle the threats all across the Baltic and Scandinavia.

The Crusades at this point were beginning to go downhill, with Jerusalem becoming lost to Christian control but a center of control still remaining around Acre, Caeseria, Tyre, and Antioch. The Papacy had then looked to the west where the Kingdom of Africa had been waging war against the followers of Islam, however they had been under stress over dealing with powers in Libya and Egypt gaining strength. A plan was set in motion to set up a separate crusade to take out the North African Heathens.

In the Rus, the Cuman auxiliary force had shown potential as they were able to dominate the Volgans; they also were shown their usefulness when Astrakhan had fallen to the Rus and when a huge campaign to conquer the western side of the Volga had been initiated. The Threat of steppe hordes from the east were growing and attempted settlement of vast swathes of land along the frontier were hindered by raids. The state had begun to support a rise in population which had allowed further trade. Large barges carried grain from the south up the river to the central part of the kingdom and many of the large cities. Said grain barges also went south along the sea to the Byzantine Empire where grain was bought at a good price and then the barges would return home with Asiatic goods bought in Constantinople.

In Byzantium, the trade with Rus was very beneficial as it led to the new cheap price of grain which had saved the army much money and allowed for a much more sizable military which had led to a campaign of reclamation of lands taken from Turkic hordes.
The Italian province had also been a source of Grain for feeding the cities of Greece and the army. The Empire was going through an era of rejuvenation as old Roman patriotism among the upper class begun to become popular once again with the prospects of conquering parts of the old Empire being supported by some members of the aristocracy.

In Iberia, King Robert had been ambitious but also a quite unsatisfying ruler with many wanting to depose him and wanting Africa and Iberia to become reunited once again. When Robert had died from poisoned wine King Olaf had marched an army into Iberia and arrested the perpetrators, what happened afterwards is somewhat of a mystery but we know that afterwards Olaf Ragnarsson had recreated the crown of the Western Roman Emperor and drawing inspiration from both Karl Bjarnysson in Scandinavia and the Roman Empire's method of putting the crown prince in a place of power. By making the Crown Prince Lord of Hispania/Iberia (he had tried to use as many Roman names as possible to help cement his legitimacy) it had the benefits of making the title of Western Roman Emperor less of an empty title as well as eliminating the negative effects of a large empire.

 

[EmperorOfTheNorthSea]

Okay considering it's been nearly a month since last chapter I might make a map after this given what I said as well about the political changes. Also sorry about the shortness and the lack of anything Vinland/New world and Rus related as there is not a whole lot going on. I'm hoping the extreme changes will be able to sate peoples desires.

Also hooray for the TL being close to it's first birthday (my account has already experienced this).

1153-1157

In Britain, Gruffydd ap Hywel had died with his immediate heirs dying only days after. Immediately crisis plagued the Isles with Scotland regaining independence at least to a small extent with having only a fraction of Scotland proper centered around the North of the country and on Orkney and the Hebrides. it is speculated that only forty three percent of the pre-Welsh domination Anglo-Saxon population were still alive with the majority of them being either being women, the old and the young with only a very little group of men of fighting age leaving Britain with many numerous Celtic kingdoms popping up around the country with the kings being the generals tasked with overseeing the Genocide and Oppression of the English people who then declared independence. The new Kingdoms had been reminiscent of the Celtic Kingdoms that sprung up after the retreat of the Western Roman Empire.

On the Island of Ireland however, a new superpower would arise. Cecil ap Merfyn, the man who had taken control of Ireland through a campaign of blood, betrayal, and trickery was now one of the most powerful men in the British Isles with only the King of Great Ebrauc being more powerful taking control of most of Scotland and all of what was formerly Northumberland, Lancashire and Cumberland. Another Kingdom to rise up in power was the Kingdom of Dumnonia with their west border being the River Severn and the Western border being the Thames, with the city of Londinium being split in two with no crossing the river allowed meant entire families were separated by one river.

In Byzantium, things had been going fairly well for the Empire; Anatolia was slowly being reconquered, the western border with the Bulgars were secure enough, the people were well-fed and the city of Nova Roma was a greater hot bed for trade then it had ever been in hundreds of years. However things in the Italian territory were looking problematic, building of relations with the west and the pope that had been building up for decades were slowly fumbling down. The native Catholic population were unhappy with the Orthodox rulers, so in the Court of Constantinople a decision was made that would change the political demographics of the Mediterranean sea for years to come.
The Isle of Sicily was sold to the Iberian Empire provided the Byzantine merchants would not have to undergo tariffs, would allow people of the Orthodox faith to go unmolested, would enforce a extremely large tariff on all Venetian merchants wanting to trade in Sicily, on certain weeks of the year which would be in the time of perfect sailing all Venetian Merchants would be banned from entering Sicily,and that these terms would have to be uphold for seven years.
The Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire was very reluctant to give up perfectly good land but was convinced by his advisers to do this with Sicily as an experiment and then sell the rest of the Italian territory to the Iberians. However the Emperor had believed that Sicily would be all that was necessary and that he could win over the Natives in Italy in due time.

In the Iberian Empire, the purchase of Sicily was a great boon. One would think that it would be uneconomical to not be able to trade with Venice, however it had been very profitable as the Venetians would make contacts in Africa who would buy Sicilian goods for them and then sell them again at a slightly higher price. The Iberians were also making a fortune off of the Salt trade by mining salt from the Chotts in African Territory. With all this income coming in from the territory all along Iberia and North Africa that had once been many years before hard to trade with given the Heathens controlling it but now that Christians were inhabiting the land it was ready for trade with Europe at large.
When an Empire such as this had money it was usually used for a certain purpose: Conquest.

The Islands of the Runnieyjar had been inhabited by Primitives like the Skraelings of Liefrvalde, and for decades have been in trade with the Empire on the Mainland. However when a Christian missionary had gotten killed by one of these savages in gave Emperor Olaf Ragnarsson (who at around this time changed his name to Charles to appease the more conservative of the native Iberian hierarchy, the exact date when he did this is unknown but many during and after his reign still called him Olaf) a perfect excuse to invade. Sending his son Conrad to conquer the Isles
With Sailors used to the open Atlantic he had easily conquered the Northernmost Island and immediately began building a base of operations. These included the building of farms, smithies, wells, rudimentary roads, docks, and varying things. After five months of overseeing the development of the North Island he then gathered reinforcement from the mainland and even mercenaries from the Norse world and began the conquest of the other Islands. The Natives had heard of this and formed a sort of coalition and each island contributed an amount of soldiers to the Island closest to the North one; Conrad was in fact glad for this as it allowed him to annihilate their largest force and garner fear among the other Islands. When he fought the coalition force he was able to defeat them with crossbows that gave the Iberians an advantage in range over the people who had not even used bows; however he sustained much more casualties than he had expected but kept the exact number of deaths secret and then gave the other Islands an ultimatum: Surrender and accept Jesus Christ or be annihilated. The threat was successful with the Islands laying down their arms and then Conrad began colonizing the islands with Iberians.

Around the same time as the Iberian conquest of the Runnieyjar the Iberians had gotten a hold of a certain plant from the east, Cannabis.
The plant had been initially used as a form of recreation and as a medicine to calm down hysterical women. It grew in popularity among the cities of the Empire and many had thought of the plant as a stress reliever, however the Church disliked the crop as it was supposedly observed those who used it had shown hedonistic tendencies such as extreme Gluttony and Lust.

 

[EmperorOfTheNorthSea]

Okay so there won't be as much places in this update and it's mainly going over things that need following up.

1158-1161

In Leifrvalde, reports of an open ocean along the west from Helluland traders had brought forth the Theory that Leifrvalde was situated on a very large Island. For a few years mappers had discussed how the Island was shaped or if it was an Island or if the sea these men had seen were only a large bay with a narrow opening in the northern waters or a saltwater lake. However there was only one way to prove this, when a rich member of the Allthing had become interested in this and petitioned the Paramount chief to order an expedition to the south. An Expedition led by Ulf Haraldsson and fifteen other men, these men were noted to be unmarried and specifically chosen for that as it was expected it would not be a short voyage.

When Ulf had begun his venture he had immediately noticed that the further south one goes the more densly populated the Skraelings are, This of course is the primary reason why no major Norse settlement had occurred south of Thorskurland.

When Ulf had rounded the Peninsula of Myriland he had already thought to examine the highly rumored Aurdreki that was within the southern lands. After taking a dozen pelts and skulls of the beasts he continued on his voyage.

Ulf had eventually stumbled upon the Skraelings that built so great stone temples and had vast amounts of gold. The Norse had decided to peacefully trade with the Skraelings before leaving to go even further south, they did have ambitions of raiding these particular Skraelings but didn't want to drag gold with them along their journey. With replenished food stocks Ulf had ventured south where the coastline dipped straight south, hoping that this was what they were hoping for in that it would curve west showing a peninsula proving that Leifrvalde was situated on a large Island rather than part of the continent connected to Europa and the Orient. They were soon proven wrong as they continued and the Land was still in sight, some of the men wanted to return home but Ulf had forbade it refusing to return home empty handed with only paltry discoveries that had been known for nearly a century now.

At this point the story gets convoluted and the distance the party traveled is unknown but they did secure the small pelt and skeleton of a "Man-Squirrel" which they deemed an interesting discovery as Ulf had believed it to be the offspring of Squirrels and a Woman. Apparently according to one variation of the story it had walked up to the Norse travelers and attempted to steal food nonchalantly, one of the crew had been enamored with the creatures as they reminded him of small children; they had even attempted to take it with them alive but it could not survive off of fish and other Human staple foods. Thinking no one would believe him he had the creature skinned and the skeleton encased.
The story goes on to say that he went even further south to a great bay. At that point however Ulf and the crew had given up on finding any western ocean and begun to travel back home, however they did bring back several Aurdreki pelts and skulls from Aurland and Myriland.

In Britain, an Alliance had begun to form between the Kingdom of Ireland and the Kingdom of Dumnonia. In an effort to deny the Kingdom of Great Ebrauc from conquering petty warlords to the south and thus gaining more power to conquer both Ireland and Dumnonia the King of Ireland Cecil ap Merfyn would have troops stationed in Ulster and would raid the shoreline if any large amount of troops went south and the Dumnonians slowly began conquering petty warlords slowly becoming a power to be reckoned with.

The reaction of Ebrauc however was not to sit back and wait for an opportunity but to launch an outright invasion of Ulster. The goal was not to conquer but to eliminate the armies in Northern Ireland, with Dumnonia not yet being sufficiently powerful enough to make any bold moves had begrudgingly allowed Ebrauc to ravage Northern Ireland into the state it was in before the founding of the various Norse towns. However this did buy them enough time to conquer and expand their power base across southern Britain eventually taking up all of the original Welsh homeland after the self proclaimed Prince of Gwynedd surrendered. The Scottish enclaves in the far North managed to lay low and stay out of Ebrauc's attention biding their time.

 

[EmperorOfTheNorthSea]

Welp I think the update I did before was written better but its essentially the same story.

1162-1165

In Rome, a new pope was to be elected after the previous one had passed on in his sleep. Pope Gregory the fourth had gotten his position through lies, bribes, threats, and blackmail. He had been wishing to expand the church's power and influence. In Europe proper the papacy had owned a quarter of all agricultural land and enjoyed wealth and influence over the entire western half of the continent, in Iberia and Iberian Africa however the church had less than a percent of the agricultural land and Papal influence was very low. When Gregory had decided to inquire about getting some of the unused land in the hands of he church Emperor Olaf Ragnarsson/ Charles I, but in his response letter he had proclaimed that they were needed to grant men who fought 'for the sake of all Christendom' land to live and prosper as well as produce the next generation of men to fight for Christ.

Gregory had taken this as an insult and a complete disregard of his authority, but given the general praise that the Iberians had gained through their largely successful reconquest as well as their enormous political influence they were for all intents and purposes untouchable by anyone within the Church.
However, when Olaf Ragnarsson's youngest son Ferdinand had been in Byzantium he had converted to the Eastern Orthodox Church. Gregory had exploited this to make the Papacy suspicious of the Iberian Royal Family even when there was no evidence any of the others had anything to do with the Orthodox church. This had seriously soured relations with the Papacy with many looking at the good relations between Iberia and Byzantium as a sign of the Iberians moving away from the Papal Authority.

On the Isle of Vinland, the many towns and settlements along the interior had been isolated for the most part from the rest of the Western Norse world given that trade and communication was primarily vessel based. From these regions came a man named Ivar Thorkellsson who had gotten wealthy by producing crossbows and selling them to the locals as a reliable means to hunt Bears and other beasts that simple bows proved ineffective against. He had ambitions to open up trade into the various interior settlements, however given the dense forests it was very hard and one had to limit the wares they would sell to what they could carry on their backs. However when Ivar had been trading in Thorkellsborg he had realized the importance of well built roads and how essential the Brick and Cement roads were to getting Iron and Grain from Miles away to the city were. However when the roads were built closer to the mines were there was uneven ground some of them were prone to sinking or getting damaged from erosion and the such.

Ivar had talked with many of the Lime Workers and Brick masons within the city and had devised a new form of road that could be built over a long distance; However, these roads required much brick and lime as well as large amounts of labor and capital. Ivar had went to many wealthy chiefs and such to gain a loan so that he could create an experimental road that would only be about twelve kilometers long. Eventually Ivar had gotten a loan and began building a road between some of the towns along the coast into the interior. It was a huge success and he had built more roads connecting many of the towns of the Interior. After he had raised his own personal wealth to a substantial amount he had started plans to build a road from Leifsbudir all the way to Thorkellsborg. Ivar then sought the aid of the Allthing; specifically the chief of public works who had taken in interest in Ivar's scheme but had been unsure, trade had been a primarily done via ship and the only case roads would be useful is for portage points and linking inland communities, Ivar however made the argument that a new way for the common man not wealthy enough to get his wares on a ship could transport them a ways away easily which would add competition and lower prices on goods.

The Allthing had discussed this in a meeting, it was argued that Leifrvalde should remain a Sea based nation that relied on naval trade and communications; Others argued that a large system of roads would lower the price of most goods and allow for better settlement and trade Inland. Finally it was decided that they would give Ivar the labor and materials to build roads all along the Isle of Vinland linking Thorkellsborg to Karlsfjord and Leifsbudir. After years of work Ivar had completed part the road system that allowed for easy travel between the three main cities of Vinland. The project had taken up more money than the Allthing had expected and they were loath to spend more money on the project; while not totally completed it had fulfilled its goal of linking many of the interior settlements and linking Leifsbudir and Thorkellsborg.

In Scandinavia, the son of Karl Bjarnysson: Erik Karlsson had died of a fever leaving the eastern half of the Scandinavian empire unprepared for the streams of rebellions that followed. Karl had not been able to react fast enough and once his Armies had arrived there simply wasn't enough men to put down all the rebellions nor enough funds to support such a massive endeavor. After three years of conflict Karl Bjarnysson died of a cardiac arrest; the main Kingdoms that came out of this war was the Kingdom of Great Wendland Which had taken all of the former Scandinavian possessions on the southern coast of the Baltic sea, another kingdom to arise was the Kingdom of Finland which had been envisioned for years, then the Kingdom of Norway that included nearly all of Sweden, and finally the paltry Kingdom of Denmark. This had largely been beneficial to the Rus as more smaller nations with little influence wanting to get rich of the eastern trade shifting large amounts of influence to the Rus within the Baltic.

Colonization southwards had been a very hard endeavor as large numbers of Skraelings had made going problematic, however around this time a strain of influenza had rocked the Leifrvalde killing two percent of it's entire population; It was even more of a tragedy to many of the Skraeling populations that had gotten into trade relations with the Norse. The Norse had established Large trade routes all around Grunnland and Thorskurland where Thorkellsborg Iron, Leifsbudir cloth, Frelsiland Ale, or Saeturland copper had been traded extensively; allowing an easy path for disease to spread all the way down to Aurland along the coasts and all the way to the Inland to the far west end of the great lakes then down along the various rivers and city states down to the sea. The effects of it were most notable in the Skraeling populations under Norse rule as well as in Grunnland and Thorksurland which only small outposts along the coasts had marked any Norse presence. However now the threat of large numbers of Skraelings were starting to lower, and now many of the upstart colonies were starting to grow massively, while the coastal soil was very sandy in Thorskurland and hard to grow crops it was good for grazing animals as well as paving the way for more inland colonies in the future.

Getting to the south of Hnetaland however was not an easy feat, one could pass through the straight near Olafstad but that would require a circumnavigation of all Hnetaland. However there had been several points where portage over an isthmus in Hnealand could allow faster travel around the peninsula as well as sailing south to Grunnland and Thorskurland. However, land cannot be colonized without any colonists; it had been a long standing act to gain settlers from the Frigid Islands of Iceland, Faroe, and Shetland. However gaining further colonists from them was near to impossible after tales of plague in the Land had spread with many docks refusing to allow Leifrish to stay longer than necessary to repair their ships and resupply or outright not allowing them to dock at all. The Allthing had decided to take a risk that could potentially profit them immensely, the new King of Norway had been on the verge of ruin given the amount of famine within his country due to so many men fighting when they should have been in the fields; when an emissary came offering an amount of gold in exchange for three thousand settlers, the same offer was given to the King of Denmark. A third of the settlers were used to bolster the upstart colonies in Grunnland and Thorskurland and the rest were settled all over Leifrvalde.

The rejection of Leifrish ships had been the least strong in Iceland who relied on Leifrvalde for a large amount of its trade, it was still there however with half the docks denying entry to Leifrish ships. The Leifrvalde Allthing had been offended by this immensely, and had demanded the Icelandic Allthing do something about it; The Icelandic Allthing had responded by saying that the owners of the docks were well within their rights to deny entry to any they feel necessary. While many may argue the Ethics of it there was no denying that the Leifrish had seen it as a needless precaution that had damaged the recovering economy of Leifrvalde since the large outbreak of disease.

 

[EmperorOfTheNorthSea]

I may restart the Timeline. I mean, I just don't have as much enthusiasm about it as I once did and I don't just want to churn out uninspired bland updates that let decades go by without anything major happening. I may also just hand over the timeline to someone else who might be more enthusiastic about it then I am and I'll threadmark their posts (also check out the new Threadmarks) that or I'll go halfway and maybe let someone take over for a few updates until I can get my enthusiasm back and churn out updates like I used to. Sorry to people like President Benedict Arnold whom this is one of their favorite timelines.

I really wanted to get into the World War era with this alternate world but only a hundred and sixty two years have passed in the TL and I'm already getting tired.

I mean I still have more content then all the other Vinland TLs on this site except for maybe TsarSaucyBottom's TL and have gone into detail more than most so I suppose I win in that category.


1166-1170


In Leifrvalde, a series of Pirate raids had swept the Markland coast and even some of Vinland's coastline being raided and sacked for quick wealth. The Allthing's Navy forces were quick to intercept and around two thirds of the prpetrators were thought to be caught but a third had managed to flee to Iceland. Eventually the Allthing's forces led under Karl Jonsson had tracked them down to a fishing village on the south coast of Iceland, the port had tried to deny the Leifrish using the excuse of the outbreaks in Leifrvalde to try and keep them out. However Karl Jonsson was determined, he had simply told the people they were coming in if it meant killing them all.


The small village was found out to have been harboring the Pirates and said Pirates were hoping to take advantage of the embargo that the Icelanders had so they could steal loads of wealth. Karl Jonsson had ordered all remaining Pirates were to be impaled on long spikes and to take back with them the men of the village to Leifrvalde to stand trial to see whether or not they were innocent.


The Icelandic Allthing was furious, they had sent word to the Leifrish Allthing that the actions of Karl Jonsson were illegal and needed answering to. The Leifrish Allthing responded by stating that the fact that the Pirates were in said port as well as the fact as said port had tried to deny the Leifrish access was proof that Karl Jonsson was completely justified in his actions and that the men in charge of the village knew full well about the Pirates and could not be trusted to hold trial within Iceland given the rise in anti-Leifrish sentiment. This had resulted in Leifrvalde Icelandic relations to become even more bitter.


In the city of Corinthus under the Byzantine rule a secret meeting was held, while there were some who could not come in person and sent a representative there were still a many of important figures present. Among them were Byzantine Emperor John Komnenos the third, Iberian Emperor Olaf/Charles the first and his son Ferdinand, and many other lords of the Iberian, Byzantine, Italian, and Frankish courts as well as emissaries from the Rus and the Kingdom of Norway, and most mysteriously the one known later as Joseph of Alexandria. The meeting was held to discuss the inclusion of the varying nations and their armies into the attack on the Fatmid controlled Egypt that the Iberian and Byzantine courts had been planning together for close to three years.


It was not technically going to be a Crusade, as the Papacy under Gregory the fourth had become corrupt and lethargic more willing on building monuments then financing crusades; together with the fact that the Iberians had a growing distance between the Papacy, and many courts throughout Europe were getting wary of the Papacy as it had been slowly getting more and more corrupt as the years went on. The Byzantines which had for a long time desired to mend the schism with the Papacy but with Gregory on the throne they had no such wishes. Slowly all of Europe was beginning to distrust the festering wound of corruption and political plays of Rome.


The agreements for the attack would be as follows: the Iberians would send a force of six hundred battle hardened men and one hundred cavalry trained for desert warfare as well as a second force of one thousand men trained in siege tactics. The Byzantines would send a small force of two hundred heavy infantry who specialized in using Greek Fire within battle formations, as well as defending the Egyptian coastline from any enemy reinforcements coming by ship as well as a fleet of boats and their crews trained in river naval combat that will be able to move supplies and troops from other nations up down and along the Nile as well as stop enemy movements travelling along or going across the river. The Venetians would promise transport to the various other nations involved in the plan as well as transporting supplies and reinforce the Byzantine navy in countering naval forces under the enemy. The various Frankish courts sent in total two thousand men and six hundred cavalry, and the various Italian city states put together had agreed to employ at least three hundred and fifty mercenaries in total and hoped to send more after the initial attack. The Norwegians could not send any troops for the initial attack but promised to send a fleet in the future, the Rus too like the Norwegians could not any troops but had agreed to begin building a large fleet and aiding the Byzantines and Venetians on the Naval Front; while it had seemed to be an empty offer the Representative of Rus seemed quite enthusiastic about it, it was unknown to the people at the meeting but the representative of Rus was actually the heir to the Throne; one who would later be known as Yaroslav the Clever.


The mysterious Joseph of Alexandria was a very mysteriously shrouded figure with apparently only the Iberians and Byzantines having any prior knowledge of him. He had apparently been an Alexandrian Christian who's father had been a leader within the local Christian community, due to the Iberian's expansion into North Africa the former tolerance the Fatmids had for 'People of the Book' had been deteriorating. Going so far as to kill Joseph's father, due to being suspected of communicating with the Byzantines about an Invasion of Egypt and planning a Christian rebellion. Ironically he had done no such thing but his death had led his son Joseph into doing just what his father was accused of, Joseph could not get a definitive number but he had proposed that at least three thousand Christians in the city of Alexandria would rise in revolt.


The Invasion would take place on the twenty sixth day of April, the initial target would be none other than the massive port city of Alexandria. The amount of Christians that rebelled was surprisingly around the exact same number Joseph of Alexandria had predicted. With fighting on the inside enough to keep the cities defenders occupied the city walls and naval defenses were taken much more easily than expected. The allied forces then decided to force all non-christians that were the elderly, women and children within the city out with only the clothes on their backs, the Heathen men were not so lucky. It was decided because women and children would only be extra mouths to feed whereas men could fill the ranks of the military. Joseph of Alexandria had contacts all over northern Egypt, with it he was able to start several minor rebellions all across northwestern Egypt in areas where Christian populations were high. Many Christian families had migrated into the walls of Alexandria for protection at this time, as well as to repopulate the city.


A Large Fatmid army who was just across the delta had begun to march on Alexandria, however they had to deposit portions of its army along the other coastal cities to withstand any other attacks. The army had to retreat to the city of Sais because of defeats at the hands of Christian rebels alone, at the end of the year the Allied Christian forces had taken a large portion of the area in and around Alexandria.


It had been nearly forty years since the colony of Ulfvik was founded at the mouth of a large river(Mackenzie) pouring into the Northern seas of Helluland. Many explorations up the river and it's tributaries, some gold had even been discovered which had prompted many to stay. More expeditions into the "West Sea" had occured but many did not wish to stray too far from Ulfvik and would have to return home before the Northern seas froze. However around this time it is said that Harald Bjornsson the Grandson of one of the Original explorers who was present at the founding of Ulfvik had a dream of a sprawling sea that went as far south as one could imagine. This is most likely legend as he probably believed that the Western sea hooked up with the Atlantic somewhere to the south. He had decided to to gather three ships and forty men and set sail.


It is unknown exactly how far they went but the Sagas did describe the following: 'Harald and his men sailed south for many a days with the coast to their left. They came upon a bend that led to a chain of many Islands, one of which Harald had wintered on while living with the natives. He had left one ship on the Island as well as some of the crew who had wished to stay and ventured forth with ambition and courage in his Heart.'


Harald then came across a 'Land of strange Pines.' This would be the first time in History a Leifrish or even European had stepped foot on the continent of Asia going west from Europe. The Saga's say he followed the coast northward and then came to the conclusion that it would be faster to get home by following the Land of strange Pines which he named Haethfurland North and then going directly west. He then went back home to Ulfvik and next spring he brought supplies, tools, livestock, and settlers and headed to the Island where one of the ships was left at and named the site Haraldsvik. One interesting detail was that around this time was when the Highland cattle was being introduced to Leifrvalde and it's cold resistance was almost as strong as those of Reindeer as well as being considered having superior milk and meat compared to the typical small lightweight cattle the Norse had preferred also having the ability to defend itself against predators like Wolves and even Bears.


Harald however was still not satisfied and desired to explore even further; However there were now two seperate directions to explore. He had decided that he would travel south along the west coast of Leifria[1] and his son Olaf Haraldsson would travel west along the coast of Asia.


Olaf had left first, eager to establish his own fame outside of his father. He had elected to follow the coast. After many days of travel he came across something that disturbed many of the crew, there had been Skraelings that had somewhat a knowledge of Iron working. After spending the winter in one of the Skraeling villages Olaf had learned a little bit of their language and them some of his. He had learned there was an advanced people to the south only a weeks sail or so, when spring was over he had taken his ship and sailed south as fast as possible.


When he came across what he called the 'Kingdom of Gorjoland' (Norsinization of it's native title of the Kingdom of Goryeo, In Norse nations the J sounds like a Y in case people didn't notice) and the name of the people the Norse would use would be then on the 'Gorjothjod.'


He had came across a Village in Goryeo where they could not communicate but was able to motion peaceful intentions. They had used a currency which was of note to the Norse at the time. Olaf had decided that he had gone far enough and decided it was time to go home to Haraldsvik and was planning on traveling back to Gorjoland and lands possibly further south. His father was quite embarrassed because he did not find anything of note and had caught a fever and had to turn back early.