King Sigismond II of Aquitaine, 1140-1153 AD
What's up fam? Incest.
(Previously on Royal Dispatch.)
While all my wartime focus is on accumulating more French counties in order to eventually create the Empire of Francia (currently at 77 of 95 required), my restive vassals to the south have taken to doing holy wars into Spain to slake their own lust for land. One manages to take over all of Valencia, which is great in some ways but also means I have a potentially threatening superduke down there to keep an eye on.
My daughter Aurengarde comes of age. I betroth her to the 12-year-old Prince Dietmar Emenon of Bavaria, acquiring another weighty ally to use in future (and be used by).
Given my relatively secure position, I decide to also make another big legal change: moving the realm up to High Crown Authority. This comes with a vassal opinion penalty, but there are many other benefits that make it worthwhile. More troops and money get kicked upstairs to yours truly, I can make changes more easily to succession laws, it’s harder to lose titles inheriting outside the realm, and it’s harder for vassals to legally attack each other.
My sister Charlotte’s husband Godwyn ab Alfred Emlyn is now the count of Argyll over in Britain, and since we’re allies he calls on me to aid in some foolish war over some patch of land way up north on that island of his.
We’ve no sooner crossed the channel than I’m summoned by another ally, this time Moldavia, to fight in their war stuff too. Everyone wants a piece of me!
While I try to quickly finish the British invasion, my second son Yves comes of age, ready now to finally marry his Bavarian princess Beatrix. My would-be rival Amédée dies in the dungeon just as the British war ends in victory, and I begin the long trudge over to Bavaria.
Smallpox invades my court, which is Very Bad in these times. My 11-year-old daughter Denise is among the first afflicted, and I decide on drastic treatments in order to try and save her while also protecting the health of the court. It does not go well.
Poor girl! I didn’t even know they made those masks in child sizes. I’ll try and make it up to her marriage-wise or something. My son Yves also gets smallpox, and once again I choose drastic measures. He has a much better result.
Not bad! Okay doc, next time? Do that thing instead of the other thing.
I manage to help crack the war way over in Moldavia, and a good thing too because my army is severely depleted by all the roaming around. Got to get them in shape for the next real war.
My daughter Bourgogne comes of age, and I marry her matrilineally to a young bastard gentleman named Þórólfr Ingibjörgsson because he has the Beautiful trait. Maybe in the Robert Pattinson sense, but what do I know.
But did you know that the Old English/Norse character Þ is called a “thorn”? If you’re wondering how to say it, “in modern Icelandic, it is pronounced as a laminal voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative.” Just as I suspected.
My mother asks if an old family friend of hers, Adelinde Karling-Tonnere, can come live at our court. Let’s take a look!
Hmm, an inbred albino described as an “Insane Antagonist”? How about no. No thank you indeed.
While rebuilding and setting up for the next war, I check in with my son and heir Sigismond. I’m surprised and disturbed to see he doesn’t have any children yet. Ten prime breeding years wasted!
My daughter Aurengarde recently made good on her betrothal to Prince Dietmar of Bavaria, but she dies in childbirth (as does her child). With my smallpox-disfigured Denise coming of age, I marry her to Dietmar to put some sort of cosmic balance back in order, somewhere.
My capable archbishop is cinching up the last of the claims I want up in Normandy in preparation to warring with the petty kingdom of Kent, when he hits the jackpot (forgery-wise) and puts forth my claim to the entire duchy. That will make for some good fighting! I throw a pre-war feast to burn off stress, and you know what’s not good? Incest!
My son and heir Sigismond has been having an affair with my sister, his aunt Charlotte. Might explain why he doesn’t have any kids of his own. Christ.
Incidentally, I started to ask Reddit if incest seemed more common in Crusader Kings 3 than I remember in Crusader Kings 2, and it turns out someone already asked the exact same thing. General consensus seems to be that it is more common because it’s what the fans enjoy, and for some in the medieval eugenicist community, the penalties for inbreeding may be offset by reinforcing positive traits. Ick.
ANYway, I’m just going to ignore all that for now and focus on my first expansionist war in a while, which will be no simple matter. I intend to pursue my claim on the northern Duchy of Normandy by declaring war on the petty kingdom of Kent, which holds five counties there.
It’s common by the this point in the game for British and/or Norse adventurism to produce several footholds and rump states in northern Europe. Fortunately Britain hasn’t produced a single major nation to present an extinction-level threat to the continent. Even so, Kent is no pushover, with an army about half the size of mine, lots of gold, and a couple allies of note. Petty King Conmac MacÁindle is also a giant.
They do grow em big up there. I haven’t lately called upon my own allies in these wars, but this time I’ll do so to throw more warm bodies at the problem. King Conmac’s realm is split on both sides of the English Channel, while I just have to take over the half near me in France. My foolish kinsman and alleged friend King Rorgues of Brittany joins the war as an enemy once again. This time he will not be spared!
King Conmac obligingly brings his entire army across the water, and we are soon engaged in a big ol’ fracas. Lots of dead and wounded nobles, particularly on my side it seems (including a miscellaneous English half-brother of mine I didn’t even know about, courtesy my lecherous mother’s post-Aquitainean exploits).
This launches a series of bloody and protracted battles all over the north of France, as Conmac keeps hiring mercenaries to fill out his army, which I keep defeating but at increasing cost. I can win the war of attrition, especially with my allies pitching in. But there are a lot of dead and maimed gentlefolk littering the fields. Conmac himself gets repeatedly maimed, losing both an arm and a leg, and looks likely to die before the war ends.
My daughter Almodis comes of age, and I wed her to Prince Stefan Chatenois-Luxembourg of Lotharingia. That nation has come down at the heel considerably since they embarrassed me militarily as a young king, but still could be a useful ally. The Pope launches yet another crusader for Jerusalem, and I dutifully pay the Pope Tax to avoid participating.
King Manfred of Lotharingia immediately calls me to war to aid his own expansions. I’ll attend to that when my own are achieved, thanks so much. And then my other ally King Ekkehard of Bavaria calls me to help fend off a rebellion in his own lands. Get in line.
Just as an aside, through a combination of bonuses and lifestyle perks, I’ve increased my diplomacy skill to 35. Given that the normal range is 1-20, with 20 considered high, this is probably the most socially adept sovereign I’ve ever played.
King Conmac finally dies of his many wounds and afflictions, replaced by his heir Petty King Lóeguire MacConmac. In an extremely annoying and unanticipated (by me) development, due to the laws of partitioned inheritance, Lóeguire now only controls two of the four counties in Normandy I was after. His young sibling Máel-Column MacConmac inherited the newly independent duchy of Normandy, which is the title I really want. Now I have to go to war with Máel-Column separately to grab that territory.
Grrrr. Well, best wrap this war up so I can deal with my allies’ dumb conflicts. But then my daughter Helvis dies in childbirth, and I obviously had not been managing my personal stress well enough. Grief pushes me into mental break territory.
I choose to deal with my grief by confiding in my wife Iouliana, which seems perfectly natural and healthy. For now! This somehow precipitates me becoming Obese, which seems less healthy. At least my son Sigismond 3 finally had a child with his non-incestuous wife, and it’s even a boy! His name is Raynaud, breaking the chain of Sigismonds but perhaps that’s for the best considering his father’s behavior.
This stupid war over Normandy has gone on for so long and drained my armies to the level where one of my own vassals actually replaces me as head of the Thouars dynasty. Surely temporary, but concerning—a depleted army often leads to factional angst.
Fortunately the war finally ends, and for all that waste and death, I end up taking over precisely one (1) county due to all the more inheritance-claim folderol. What a waste. And I still need to go to war against the new petty king of Normandy before I die in order to keep that ducal claim alive, once I help out my allies and regenerate my forces. No wonder I’m stressed out.
Just to remind him who’s the big cheese, I sack my pal King Rorgues’ capital along with West Francia’s to close the war for my ally Lotharingia. The problem with being at war for this long is I can’t take advantage of the various stress-relieving activities. An estranged half-sister of mine herself dies of stress, which in turn causes me to stress out. Shouldn’t a dead half-sister only cause me half-stress?
In the sideshow department: during various wars I often capture courtiers while sacking castles. If they’re unattached and interesting, I’ll recruit them to my court as a condition of their release. So it was with a Greek Orthodox nun named Zenobia, who despite being a nun, is described as a “Godless Empath.” She agreed to become Catholic, and it appears her awakening was not merely spiritual.
Well at least it isn’t about incest! Still, not my kink, Sister. No sooner do I close in on ending an ally war than Lotharingia calls me to help with a French Catholic uprising? Seems kind of contrary to my interests, as a French Catholic myself? But, sigh, FINE. Fortunately, that war ends almost immediately, as is typical when peasant rabble face hardened soldiers. And for the first time in a long while, the realm is at peace.