So the Gotland run has gone from amazing to imploding to amazing to imploding and back to amazing again. All in a short space of time.

The Hel follower hit 66 and all was going well. He had siphoned life from some of his (many) kids. It turns out the bonuses don't stack but do renew sot he most you can get is +3 health. Between that and family man he was rocking +4 health though, which I though would last a while. Then he suddenly became infirm and that can't be cured by dark healing. He died shortly after from the effects of it, before he could off enough sons. His kingdom split up into three parts.

Then his son and heir died pretty much straight away in his mid forties and gavelkind ripped the heart out of what remained. Thew new ruler was reduced to just a single chiefdom, the family's old holdings of Gotland, and a couple of vassals. The rest of the once powerful nation was shared out between brothers and uncles and he was too weak to be taking all of them on. But he wasn't about to lie back and take it. In true viking tradition he went ahead and conquered, subdued and forced tribute from other weaker tribes until he was in a position to take back the old family land. When he passed on pretty much all of Sweden, Denmark and Norway was under his rule and he had even added the Jarldom of Kent to the nation.

His death saw his 16 year old grandson elected to take over, a strong, shrewd, patient man. Gavelkind only hda a modest effect on his inheritance, and that was quickly fixed.

At just 26, now also brave, he started to search for immortality. As it was the first time I'd gone through the chain, I didn't know what I was doing so failed it when I gave money to some drunk. If he couldn't live for ever, he could at least make his name do so and he set about on a massive plundering spree, from Pommerania all the way to Flanders. Over the course of a number of years at least a dozen temples and a similar number of towns were sacked, seeing hundreds of gold pouring into Gotland.

All of it raised the moral authority of old germanic enough that he could reform the faith.

And things started to go bad again. I'd forgotten how bad the pagan attrition penalty was, and how much it had been protecting me. His first target was a holy war for Estonia, a tiny two chieftain nation with barely a thousand men to its name. Yet as the armies gathered, word game back than now it had an army 10,000 strong. Somehow it had picked up 9000 event spawned troops and I know he didn't have the money for that many mercs or the prestige for that many tribal warriors.

Needless to say that between an army now larger than mine and attrition it ended badly.

While that disaster was going on, near ever Catholic man and their dogs declared holy war. Somehow despite loosing three holy wars, two personal counties, going into debt, having the army decimated and prestige gutted, he survived and pulled through. After a couple of years of rebuilding the army, he went on another massive plundering spree, the last stage of which was the sacking of Rome itself.

With that done, he set up the Serene Republic of Gotland.

It has been a few years since that and the gold has been pouring in. While the army remains weak he has banked up enough that he can throw mercenaries at the problem for a while.

But his life is now drawing to an end and his heir stands ready to led the Republic on, secured by a large war chest (and a couple of assassinations).