Chapter 13: We're back (again)!



Currently leading the Fylkirate boldly into the future is Fylkir Asbjörn. In addition to granting leadership of the Varangian Guard to his wife, he also became the first member of the Hermetic Society in the af Munsö dynasty (accomplished via a brief and fraudulent stint of Islamic conversion down in Nubia).

The rest of the world has changed dramatically in the last 91 years: Fylkir Sigurdr vassalized Mali via a claimant war, and within 30 years arranged for them to reform the West African religion, extended the kingdom to it's current borders, and released it as the independent Empire of Mali (though the Fylkirate has been plagued by Old West African secret cults ever since). Same story in Egypt (which also controlled most of Nubia), though in that case the result was a spree of revocations, akin to the infamous Greek Purge in the former ERE. The land was given to Zunists, along with the Kingdom of Afghanistan after it was taken in a Great Holy War, again triggering a reformation.An interesting result of my harboring the last Zunists for so long was that by the time I was able to set them up to reform, the only ones left in the world were all Estonian. While a courtier of Egyptian culture spawned quickly enough to recieve that Kingdom, the other lands got Estonian lords, leading to such interesting things as this:Yes, that is the same House Zarbil that controls Zaranj at the 769 start. House Zunbil converted to Islam and died out, so this was the only original Zunist dynasty I was able to invite over. The future consequences of an Estonian-speaking nobility and clergy (the High Priest is also Estonian) in the region are certainly interesting to contemplate. At any rate, I'll be releasing Nubia and Afghanistan soon as well.In the more familiar northern Baltic, the Republic of Suomi (Finland) has, both through it's own wars and conquests by the Fylkirs, ballooned rapidly to encompass all of Perm and slightly over half of Rus, loosing only the Duchy of Livonia, which was revoked to form a border march on the north edge of Lithuania. Upon independence, which will likely come in the next ten years, it looks poised to take a similar path to the historical Novgorod Republic. With the Republic's capital across the bay from Uppsala itself, and further expansion in the Baltic firmly blocked by the Republic of Gotland, the next few centuries should be interesting indeed.In the British Isles, most Norse lords had their titles revoked and given out to native Irish or Scottish nobles, and the lands have started to revert back to those cultures. Wales and Scotland are now consideredpart of the Fylkirate, though they have not yet themselves assimilated the new territories they were assigned last chapter. England was fully conquered about 20 years ago, and is ruled by a collection of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Frisian Jarls. No king will be appointed until the other kingdoms assimilate their land.The Umayyad Empire has been pushed back to Burgundy and the north coast of Iberia, and is slowly being devoured by Aquitaine, Suebenreich, and Andalusia. Serbia and Bulgaria have emerged as powerful Slavic kingdoms holding back the expansionist desires of the Visigothic republic in Kreksland (Greece). My vassal Jew in Israel now holds most of the kingdom, and will soon be able to restore the Temple. I'm also considering installing a Yazidi kingdom in Syria, just to give more variety in that part of the world. What do y'all think?Edit: Just as an experiment, I tried writing the Estonian for "Church of the Sun" (Püha Kirik) in the Coptic alphabet, with a Younger Futhark rune (ᚢ) standing in for a vowel sound that Coptic apparently doesn't have. Came out like this: Ⲡᚢϩⲁ Ⲕⲓⲣⲓⲕ. The Near East is going to have a lot of fun...