When Hróar Loðbrók led his people to Craviter, he was not sailing blind. Earlier vikings from Andrenne, some of whom were clans loyal to Hróar's family himself, had spoken of the distant lands to the east. Settling in what is now Prydania allowed these vikings to launch further east, with Prydanian vikings reaching as far as Great Aria in the eastern Aurorias.
Almost two hundred years later, in 1014, forces loyal to Hróar's descendent Vortgyn Loðbrók brought the viking clans of eastern Prydania to heel, enforcing their feudal obligations of loyalty. Vortgyn, still a teenager at the time, directed the vikings to focus their efforts on subduing the Bayardi. That campaign, which lasted until 1029, ended with Vortgyn crowned as King of all Prydania in Býkonsviði on Christmas Day.
Vortgyn's unification had a profound effect on viking life. The conversion of the Nords under Vortgyn's grandfather Kaldor had not immediately affected the viking way of life, and even a freshly converted Messianist Kaldor sent viking bands into Auroria and down south to the rest of Craviter. By Vortgyn's time, however, the shift in morality associated with Messianism had weakened the cultural underpinnings of viking life, and Vortgyn's forging of a feudal realm we would now identify as a nation-state signalled its death-knell. It was imperative that the new King secure his borders and keep his bannermen in line, at least within Craviter. Viking raids were discouraged by Vortgyn's court.
Still, old ways died hard, but opportunity for innovation would arise. Vikings had done more than raid, and many Prydanian viking clans had established trade networks across Craviter. And vikings were not the sea's only marauders, as pirates had been an ever-present threat.
The viking cans of Haland had decided that if the King would not let their warriors raid, and if raiding itself was becoming more and more discouraged in the Messianic-centric moral paradigm, then their warriors would find honour in protection. They began to offer their services to the city's merchants, and the towns they traded with in Ephyra, Korova, Norsia, and Caminia, protection. Trade would flow, and the vikings of Haland's clans would protect not just their ships, but the ships of their Norsian and Caminian partners.
This allowed for a melding of cultural values. The aggressive, offensive raiding that was discouraged by Messianism still allowed the Nordic Thaunic belief in honour be obtained via protection, seen as a pious act by the Messianic Church. And the presence of vikings protecting trade routes allowed all of the cities along the Auburn Coast to flourish economically.
This arrangement began shortly after King Vortgyn I issued his edict on eliminating viking raiding within Craviter in 1033, and by 1129 it was being referenced as the Ganze League.
Growth
By 1129, however, the Ganze League was much larger then the sliver of cities along the Auburn Coast. Multiple cities across Prydania's coastline had joined, as well cities in Korova, Ephyria, Noria, and Caminia, as well as the Stan Yera, Khastenia and Maloria.
The league was not so much a confederation of these nations, but was a confederation of cities within them. By 1129 the vikings of Prydania had long stopped being the only defenders, with each city providing its own forces to protect trade amongst the various league members.
1256 marks the next major milestone in the League's expansion, as negotiations to establish ties in what is now Triple Collandria and Dorivera invoked the wrath of the Syrixian Trade Federation. The Syrixian Empire, long unified by this point, had grown wealthy via its Trade Federation in western Craviter and Collandris, down the Iterian coast. It saw the Ganze League's expansion into Collandris as a threat, and raised the spectre of the Craviterian Crusades of a century prior. Thus began the Trade Wars, an informal conflict that lasted around one hundred and fifty years where League and Federation ships treated each other as hostile forces in the seas around Craviter.
The Ganze League even extended into Meterra. The Santonians proved to be willing allies in attempting to counter the mighty Syrixian Trade Federation, and the Ducal family of Sillans formally brought their own vast trade network into the league. Their seat of Bâle joined the League, as did their Craviter outpost of Norvalle. 1583 saw the Ducal family of Sillanais in Saintonge flee to their merchant outpost of Norvalle in Craviter as the result of the Bastards War in Saintonge. Bâle would leave the League when Saintonge closed their ports to foreign ships.
The Sillan-Santonian entrance into the League allowed for further expansion. Though no Ishiyama cities formally joined the League, the Ishiyama Realm became a valued ally in the mid-13th century. The Ishiyama had tossed off the Khyerkhen yoke, and had looked to expand on the old Ikoa and Khyerkhen trade routes. The mutually beneficial arrangement gave League cities an outpost as far south as what is now Skanda, and the Ishiyama gained an ally to expand their trade to the north.
Decline
The League remained informal in a sense, even as it grew. It was governed by a series of agreements between cities, merchants, guilds, and privateers. The first major blow to the League's prestige and influence came during the Prydanian-Norsian War of the 1320s, when Robert I of Prydania invaded Norsia against the wishes of the Prydanian League cities. It was only after the failure of Robert I's siege of Luscova that the War ended, but it both demonstrated the League's limited ability to stop a war that threatened their profits, as well as straining relations between Prydanian and Norsian cities, both of whom were some of the League's oldest members.
In the end, it was the march of centralization that doomed the League. Cities in feudal states, even relatively centralized ones, retained much independence and were able to forge their own trade agreements and provide for their defence, which built the backbone of the League as an organization. As the feudal era of Craviter faded and the nation-states of the continent began to further modernize and centralize, the League began to be redundant. Professional navies and unified national trade policies rendered the League and its series of inter-city agreements unnecessary.
The Ganze League attempted to avert this, and formed a Diet of representatives in 1498 to act as a centralized body, and elect a formal officer as its head to represent the League in international matters. The nation-states that League cities were a part of, however, rejected this extra-judicial authority, and restrictions on what the League Diet could regulate were severely limited.
The League faded in importance, with the last Diet meeting recorded in 1669. By 1700 the rise of mercantilism had rendered the last remnants of the League- free trade agreements between various cities- obsolete as protectionist national trade policies superseded them.
Legacy
The Ganze League had a quiet legacy for a number of years. In Prydania it was mostly remembered as an outgrowth of the viking era, and associated with prosperity and trade. To this day the League's birthplace, the city of Haland, flies a green and white flag to honour the League's heritage. Though some insist it was the League that got its green and white banner from Haland, not the other way around!
Green and white, the league's colours, dot the heraldry of various cities that were members. And the League has been cited as a medieval and early modern predecessor of the ideals of the Craviter Economic Association, a free confederation of Craviter dedicated to free trade and mutual cooperation. It has also been cited as another case of Prydanian-Santonian connections, a relationship that goes back to the First Craviterian Crusade in Syrixia.
The flag of the League also serves as the logo for Austurland Shipping, which traces its origins to League trading out of Haland and Darrow.
Nations with a Ganze League Legacy
Prydania
Ephyra
Norsia
Korova
Caminia
Khastenia
Maloria
The Stan Yera
Triple Collandria
Dorivera
Sil Dorsett
Saintonge
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