Setting/Situation

The setting is Denmark of the mid twelfth Century AD, a land torn by strife and different loyalties, a land where Christianity has gained a firm foothold and the old Norse Gods are almost forgotten; except perhaps by a few, thralls, "Wizards" and "Witches". I have taken the liberty to assume it is so, but we do not know. We must but assume that Christianity has a firm hold on religious life in Denmark. I will gladly discuss this, but not here. Before I ramble too much and get sidetracked I shall forthwith leap to try and set the mood for the campaign.


It is a time of strife in the North, both Norway and Denmark has been wracked and torn by civil war for generations, and Sweden is hardly united yet with the various regions' populations eying their new kingdom-mates suspiciously. Most changes of Kings are accompanied by murder, feuds, strife and risk of war or outright war. In Denmark the many descendants of the fertile Sven Estridssøn (Monarch 1047- 1074 AD and remarked even in his own less sensitive time to have been fond of women and siring many a child from a horde of concubines) is still fighting for the throne with shifting alliances of magnates each attempting to put their own pretender on the it.

For the people it has been ill times indeed. Ruthless magnates as well as more benevolent ones has worked to further their own ends while the power struggles has raged, and only rarely has a King had enough power and backing of those magnates later evolving into the nobility to actually ensure prosperity. Meanwhile the Vendish Vikings from the south coast of The Baltic has taken advantage of the weakened defences of the realm and has pillaged, plundered and settled in traditional Viking style, themselves being under heavy pressure from the German expansion eastwards. Their sea rovers as well as local magnates exploiting the situation to take up their forefathers'' Viking ways has smothered trade, just as robber knights/magnates, outlaws and local feuds has made the lot of the commoner uncertain at best. Law rarely reaches further then the sword or spear, and the willingness to use it, and though a time of church-building and prosperity it is also a very violent and turbulent time. And a time where heretics and witches thrive uncontrollably as those responsible for controlling it and supporting the church are busy killing each other. Most commoners duck their heads and try to get by as well as they can, praying fervently to White Christ that a King strong enough to ensure peace will soon come, and struggling to build local defences and structures to defend themselves, but so did their fathers…

Currently the summer sun is shining on a nation nominally at peace with itself, the three pretenders, Svend Erikssøn, Knud Magnussøn and Valdemar Knudssøn have been forced to a nominal ceasefire by threatening intervention from Duke Heinrich der Löve of Saxony, a Prince and Duchy more powerful at the moment than Denmark, and a dominant factor even in Frederich Barbarossa's Holy Roman Empire. This intervention and threatening takeover has forced the Danish magnates to unite and enforce a peace between the pretenders, but for how long? Rumours speak of all three gathering forces, building alliances and gathering resources for another attempt at winning the throne.

In effect Skaane is ruled by Svend, Sjaelland and Fyn by Knud and Jylland by his ally Valdemar, a division they shall later agree to continue at a meeting in Ringsted in early August that is already agreed upon.

This tense situation is where the game begins a game which stakes on a smaller scale reflects the Great Game for the throne…