That went very much as expected. Revenge against Karelia is something every Fylkir shall pursue!
Though I may remind the Fylkir that if they desire to siege unreformed pagan lands, they will take high attrition as long as they do not build forts.
Jorvik looks to be in a good state. Murdering Þorbjörn is certainly an option - but before that, Eilif can simply ask him for a NAP, as their siblings are married.
Ch127 Q1: Dorpat to Styrbjörn. He was due to inherit this anyway and Styrbjörn didn’t have a very good opinion of Eilif, so I ‘what the helled’ and gave it to him. Fair enough, or a mistake? One thought was he might be made King of Finland in time, but will cross that bridge when I come to it.
Generally, if you want to control your heir, keeping him unlanded is the wisest choice. If he's landed, anything is possible. He may achieve great victories if given the chance, may make friends across the whole realm, be in a happy marriage with great children of his own.
Or he can become a crippled, drunk failure of a man, constantly attempting to seduce your vassals' wives and daughters, his children in useless marriages.
He can die in a raid, be a tyrant, waste his inheritance...
Anything's possible. That's the beauty of CK II.
Ch127 Q2: Kingdom of Finland. Eilif now has the cash and piety to do this now. Should he, or maybe hold off? If he does, should he keep it, or perhaps give it to his heir (ie like an early inheritance)?
Finland is quite poor, so it shouldn't be too powerful even if unified. Still, giving Styrbjörn the kingdom might enable him to move against the remaining Finns, which would turn into priority targets for him.
Besides, he's going to return the kingdom into the empire's hands once he takes over. Might make for a nice family tradition (until it's inevitably screwed over during some inheritance).
Keep in mind that if you do this, then there would be complications for an Estonian merchant republic.
Ch127 Q3. Merchant Republic. I quickly read Wiki the Red on this, but have never done it before. It seems to be something like first create the duchy, and then allocate it to a lord mayor of/in a coastal county? Or is it more complicated than that? If that’s pretty much it, do people think it should be a higher or lower priority than founding Finland?
To add my opinion to the previous discussion: A mayor becomes lord mayor if he gains a county title.
A merchant republic is created if a coastal lord mayor gains a duchy title. If the title is Venice or Ikh Bogd (in Mongolia) doesn't matter in that moment, but it might later on. So all you need to do is give a coastal mayor lordship over the county in which his town is located, then whatever duchy you've got at hand. Problems arise if he loses his capital though, as it will then revert to another part of the duchy, the de-jure capital if possible. If that other county is inland, then the merchants suddenly disband and you've got a normal republic with little use. As the Russians are quite fond of infighting for now, it might be a good idea to give your chosen mayor more than one coastal town to hold.
Giving a coastal mayor an inland county (without the associated town, or that becomes his inland capital!) and then a random duchy
should work, too, but no guarantee for that.
Giving him a random duchy will annoy the people who think it is theirs, while giving him Estonia would make him de-jure vassal of Finland - then it might be a better idea not to create the kingdom, for either your new merchant republic will annoy the king of Finland and he'll slowly take the initially very weak republic over or you'll have to transfer it to Finland, where it offers no benefit for the Fylkirate.
