On Britain

In 3000 BC, Britain begins as a Neolithic bunch of obscure folk, chilling in the isles and making ditches and stuff for future archaeologists to find. Agriculture came to Britain from the continent two thousand years ago, but in places the hunter-gatherers still remain.

The government type map looks like this:

Connoisseurs of British neolithic history, feel free to shout at me about how wrong I am in the comments section.

 Where brown is tribal (the new tribal, not chiefdoms), and yellow is hunter-gathers. Ignore the France in the bottom right corner. The method to decide on these was simple: I looked at the maximum number of baronies in each province, and if it was three or less, I made them hunter-gathers. The exception is Orkney, since they are the home of the grooved ware culture and are therefore more advanced than their primitive British counterparts.

Orkney is technically part of Scandinavia according to the de jure map, and hence not British, but whatever. It's ours now, go team Britain.

Britain of the third millenium BC will all have an as-yet unnamed religion (anyone know any pre-Beaker neopagan restorationist groups?), representing the native religion of the pre-Beaker British peoples, with its five holy sites located around the islands. The map of holy sites will look as such:

These are, for posterity, the counties of Gwynedd, Kildare, Dublin, Orkney, and Wiltshire

This corresponds to a few holy, or at least suspected or theorised to be holy, sites that actually existed in Neolithic britain:

• Bryn Celli Ddu
• Hill of Tara
• Newgrange
• Ring of Brodgar (I know this was built in 2500 BC, 500 years too late. I don't care. I'm an Orkney nationalist now.)
• Stonehenge

On Iceland

Today's blog post is going to be about everyone's favourite duchy of Iceland, the Duchy of Iceland.

In Existing Media
In Stock CK2, Iceland is inhabited by norse germanic tribal rulers right from the start (769 AD), split into the two counties of Vestisland and Ostisland, the first containing the tribal barony of Reykjavik as their capital holding and the second containing the tribal barony of Husavik.

This is obviously flawed: Iceland wasn't settled until 874 AD, over a hundred years later. The When The World Stopped Making sense mod is even worse for this, having it be ruled by the feudal Paparia inspired by the Paper monks, which even if it did exist as an actual kingdom in Iceland probably wasn't around at the time of the fall of the Roman Empire.

And, even if that's accepted, going back further to the BC years and still having Iceland be part of a kingdom or tribe becomes more and more absurd.

Settlement
Consequently, up until 874, Iceland in Cu&Si will have no holdings, and each county will be owned by a dummy wasteland character that is unplayable. It will need to be colonised by any player - this may be useful to someone wishing to form the kingdom of Norway, since the Icelandic provinces will count towards the requirement for that.

The Papar monks will make an appearance, however, in the court of the wasteland characters, with some Gaelic courtiers chilling in Iceland. There may be an event to form a Papar state if Iceland is left uncolonised for too long, which could lead to some interesting alternate history results.

Vestisland will be settled first, with Ingólfr's settlement in Reykjavik in 874 being the first colony. After 882, Iceland will be as it is in stock Crusader Kings II - split between two counties, each with a single tribal barony ruled by a Norse chief.

Old Commonwealth
In 930 AD, Iceland unified as a single duchy, the Icelandic Commonwealth. This will be tribal up until 1000 AD, when Iceland was converted to Catholicism, at which point Iceland becomes Feudal overnight as God uses his deific powers to convert tribes into castles. The barony of Alftanes will also be added to Vestisland at around this point.

Really, they were castles the whole time, and the adoption of Christianity means moving away from tribal customs and towards the traditional monarchies of western Europe or something, but that's how I imagine it going down. I'm not a historian.

During the time of the Old Commonwealth, Iceland will be ruled by the Ingólfid clan, my new clan OC representing the descendants of Ingólfr Arnarson, who was traditionally the first settler on Iceland. In reality, they weren't strictly the leaders, Iceland instead being a decentralised federationy-thing, and were instead just Allsherjargoðar, but it's close enough to count probably. I'll just give them minimal crown authority or something.

This means that I can just use this wonderful list here, and be done with it. Those gaps from 1055-1160, and from 1160-1197, and from 1234-1262, will be filled in with fictional rulers, possibly based off the descendants of Ingólfr though historians actually lost track during those times. Oh well, I can do better through the power of bullshit.

Any other major clan leaders during the time of the old commonwealth will probably get a county in Ostisland or a barony in Alftanes depending on how good they are. This will especially be useful when it comes to the Sturling Era.

Sturlung Era
The Sturlung Era began when Snorri Sturluson became a vassal of Norway in 1220. This will be modelled in game by, wait for it, the Mongols Snorri Sturluson becoming a vassal of Norway in 1220. At this point, he will be the count of Austisland, with the duke of Iceland controlling the barony of Alftanes and Vestisland being controlled by the Haukdælir clan.

In 1234, following the death of Magnús, the full duchy of Iceland is gained by Árni óreiða Magnússon, a fellow Sturlung. In 1258, the title passes to Gissur Þorvaldsson. He swears fealty to Norway in 1262, and the duchy of Iceland becomes a vassal of the kingdom of Norway.

A clusterfuck of epic proportions, in other words.

The Scandinavian Yoke
Yep. I went there. I called it a yoke. In the following years, Iceland will be a vassal of the kingdom of Norway, which in varying times is owned by the kings of Denmark and Sweden, and in 1380 it is transferred to be a vassal of the Kingdom of Denmark, where it stays until Iceland becomes "independant" under a personal Union, in this case being a duchy vassalised to no other titles and owned by the king of Denmark. In 1944, the government type will change to a republic and it will become fully independant, and thus concludes the saga of the duchy of Iceland.

Since it's still de jure Norway, it gets invaded in like three minutes, but that hasn't happened historically yet.

Lessons to Learn
Fuck the Sturlungs.