Who are some notable leaders in your nation's history, and why are they notable?
Vortgyn I Loðbrók
reigned 1029-1044
A descendent of Hróarr Loðbrók, viking king of Heorot. Vortgyn was born in Tempest Holm in what is now Prydania centuries after his ancestor was forced to flee from Oswald the Conqueror in Andrenne.
Vortgyn wasn’t content to be Lord of Stormurholm, though, and waged a campaign to first unify all of the descendants of Hróarr’s followers under the Loðbrók banner once more, and then to conquer the native Bayardi.
Vortgyn’s war lasted 15 years, ending with his victory in Stormhaven and his coronation of King of all Prydania in 1029. Prydanian monarchs continue to hold the title “Lord Uniter” in honour of him.
Vortgyn II Loðbrók
reigned from 1076-1102
Vortgyn II reigned following the death of his father, Tobias I.
Vortgyn honoured his father, Tobias I, and his piety by establishing the Holy Order of the Knights of the Storm. The Knights of the Storm would serve as the elite soldiers and bodyguards of the crown for centuries.
Robert II Loðbrók
reigned from 1357-1379
Robert II’s early reign was consumed with fighting rebel lords who had resisted his father, Andrew II. Robert’s campaigns against the upstart lords proved inconclusive. Yet Robert’s forces were weakened enough to force a compromise. The resulting Skipulagsskráríkisins laid the foundations for the role of the King compared to that of the Alþingi.
Harald II Loðbrók
reigned from 1544-1575
Harald II won the crown after a brief conflict with his cousin Prince Robert. Harald had become a convert of the new Lutheran movement, and the Courantist Church and their supporters feared what Harald would do when he succeeded his father Baldr III. His cousin Robert was thus propped up as a Courantist alternative. The brief conflict, the War of the Barons, saw Harald emerge victorious. His coronation ushered the Lutheran Reformation into Prydania.
Erik III Loðbrók
reigned from 1660-1697
The unification of Andrenne and Goyanes occurred during the last year of the reign of Erik's father, Robert IV. Erik considered the implications of the union, and foresaw the inevitable expansion of the new UKAG's influence. Erik, rather than risk losing his crown, travelled to Mitta and formally swore himself to the new King-Emperor of the UKAG, acknowledging him as his sovereign. Erik and his decedents remained sovereigns of Prydania within the UKAG imperial system, even as Prydania was split between Goyanes and Andrenne administratively. Erik also surrendered the title "King of Heorot" from the list of royal titles to appease the Andrennians.
Rikard III Loðbrók
reigned from 1792-1826
Richard's tenure as King began rather uneventfully. As King of Prydania within UKAG? His position as sovereign was mostly ceremonial. This changed during the Wars of the Callisen Republic. Revolutionary Callise cut northwards through Craviter, into Maloria and Norsia. Their invasion of Prydania, however, was met with fierce resistance. Richard, with only his small Prydanian army and UKAG soldiers stationed in garrisons, managed to drive the Callisens out of Prydania. The UKAG reinforcements that followed drove the Callisens out of Prydania, pushing them back southwards across the continent.
The war with Callise was followed by the dissolution of the UKAG a year later. Prydanian national sentiment was already on the rise following Prydania's successful defensive war against the invaders, and Richard struck on that following the separation of the Andrennian and Goyanian crowns. Richard declared that without a unified Nordic emperor? He was free from the oath made by his ancestor Erik VI. Richard re-asserted Prydanian sovereignty, and became the first King of Prydania to rule in his own name since 1660.
Richard VI Loðbrók
reigned from 1937-1956
Richard VI was a proud, affable, and firm man. He also had an autocratic streak and remained suspicious of the spread of liberal democratic ideals that had begun under his predecessors. Grand Duke Richard, as he was known before his coronation, became an open supporter of emerging fascist thought, personally funding the Social Commonwealth Party, Prydania's homegrown fascist political party. His ascension saw him appoint his cousin, Prince Hans Loðbrók, as Prime Minister with the support of Social Commonwealth members of the Alþingi.
Richard enthusiastically entered the Fascist War on the side of the Dominion, sending the bulk of Prydania's forces into Kanada to aid with the invasion of Cogoria. Though he did send select units to Gothis to aid the Andrennian Imperyk. Richard is more infamous than famous, however. The Dominion's crushing defeat in the war devastated popular support for the fascist movement in Prydania, and the Cogorian offensive through Kanada proved how ill-equipped the fasicsts were to actually wage this campaign.
Robert VII Loðbrók
reigned from 1956-1984
Robert VII had a far different outlook on life and politics compared to Richard VI. Robert himself studied abroad in the IA, where he became a convert of humanist and enlightenment political philosophies. Whereas Richard was described as harsh and energetic, even as a child? Grand Duke Robert was described by his friends in the IA as laid back and unassuming.
Robert was quick to dismantle the fascist government his father had built upon ascending to the throne, a task made easier with massive public support. He also complied with Allied requests for handing over Prydanian war criminals that the Cogorians and Allies had demanded, but whom his father had protected.
Robert spent his tenure as king in the background, allowing the recently re-established parliamentary democracy take its course. He dealt with Prime Ministers of all parties, Conservative-Agrarian, Free Democrat, and Syndicalist. Economic tensions in the 1970s, however, pushed the Syndicalists to the extreme left of the political spectrum and allowed the Social Commonwealth fascists to re-establish themselves as a political force. Robert would be forced to play a more active role in politics to defend the democracy he'd ushered in. How successful he could have been is unknown. He, his eldest son Baldr, and youngest son, Andrew, were the target of an assassination attempt in 1984. The King and Grand Duke of Stormurholm died.
Anders III Loðbrók
reigned from 1984-2002
Duke Andrew of Hadden, Prince of Prydania, was bookish throughout his childhood and adult life. Like his father he was drawn to political philosophy, but unlike his father he found himself drifting towards the fascism of his grandfather. He also personally resented his elder brother Baldr, considering him lacking intellectually to reign as King. Andrew conspired with rogue elements within Prydania's intelligence organization, the ÖSU, to assassinate his father and brother. He too took a bullet, but a well placed shot spared his life and guaranteed him the crown.
Andrew and Social Commonwealth leader Stephen Toft established a new fascist regime that quickly took over the country. Opposition was silenced, the Syndicalists further radicalized and driven underground, and the country re-shaped in the Social Commonwealth image. The Couratist Church was tolerated, but smaller religious communities outside of the Lutheran Church, such as the Shaddaist and Orthodox communities, were marginalized in public space. Degrees of legalized segregation were enacted in an effort to create a more "stable" and "whole" society. Homosexuality, bisexuality, and transexuality were also re-criminalized, classified by the new regime as "degenerate" and as "viruses of social decay."
Thomas Nielsen
President from 2002-2017
The fascist policies of Andrew III and Stephen Toft were not enacted at once. They were slowly phased in, the regime gaining confidence the longer it was able to hold onto power. Public frustrations with the regime, its strict social structure, and its uncompromising moral code eventually boiled over into open defiance. The radicalized Syndicalists, led by Thomas Nielsen, were in the perfect position to take advantage of the populace's frustrations with the fascist government.
The coup of 2002 allowed the Syndicalists to assume control of the country. Stephen Toft, the rest of the Social Commonwealth leadership, and most of the Royal family was executed publicly. A counter-revolution led by Conservative-Agrarian politician William Aubyn had secured the young Prince Tobias Loðbrók, but such a movement was no immediate threat to the Syndicalist Party's new grasp on power.
Syndicalist authority was welcomed at first, as those deemed responsible for the fascist regime were done away with. Nielsen, in his position as Chairman of the Syndicalist Presidium, felt as if Prydania had to be radically transformed. He rode the wave of early popularity to advocate for the destruction of historic sites in Prydania, public executions at the hands of the mob, and for the re-organization of the Prydanian economy along industrial lines. Prydania had remained largely agrarian, whereas the Syndicalists emerged from the mining pits and urban factories. They tended to distrust rural farmers, who were steadfastly Agrarian Party or Free Democrat supporters.
As such Nielsen felt as if the rural farming class had to be broken. Farmers, farm workers, and small town populations were emptied and transported to work as industrial "apprentices," uncompensated workers in factories and mines. The farms, meanwhile, would be managed by the Syndicalist government. Collectivized farming by under-qualified government bureaucrats and industrial labour bosses resulted in severe food shortages in a country that was still mostly agrarian.
This had a spiralling effect, driving more and more into the arms of Aubyn's insurgency. Which in turn drove Nielsen to crack down harder and harder in the name of upholding political orthodoxy. Nielsen's reign of terror peaked with two events. The first, the Shaddaist Pogrom, occurred in the capital of Beaconsviði. The Syndicalist Party's Beaconsviði chapter engaged in a violent attack on the city's Shaddaist population, blaming the Shaddaist community for failing to comply with the Syndicalist Republic's state atheistic policies.
The second event was the Harrying of Hadden. Small towns in the vicinity of Hadden had been supporting Aubyn's FRE insurgency in secret. When this was discovered? Jannik Leiftur, Nielsen's chief enforcer, was dispatched to make an example. He burned 90% of the crops that were ready to harvest around the city of Hadden. For a country dealing with chronic food shortages? This seemed to be a tipping point. Aubyn's FRE captured Hadden later that year. Within two years the Syndicalist Republic collapsed. Nielsen took his own life as FRE soldiers advanced through Beaconsviði.
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