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Chapter 1- The Swedish Uprising (False start)

Bergil

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When I heard about the new Norse conversion events that came in with "Lions of the North", I (like many, I suspect) was intrigued. Specifically, the storyteller in me liked the idea of figuring out what something like that would actually look like, and it looks like nobody's done an AAR wit it yet, so I decided to make one. Not that due to the specific conditions required for the events, and their general unlikeliness, I won't be doing this playthrough on ironman, though I'll not reload except to get the events unless I judge that I've genuinely made a mistake.

Chapter 1- The Swedish Uprising
In the year 1444, Scandinavian politics were in a precarious position. The entire region was theoretically part of the Union of Kalmar, comprising the three kingdoms of Norway, Sweden and Denmark, ruled by one king, but each having their own internal structure.

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Fig1- the internal divisions of the Kalmar Union.

However, while this was theoretically a union of equals, in practice King Christopher III was King of Denmark and the other realms were managed for Danish benefit. Many Swedes chafed under the rule of the smaller and less populous Danish realm. While there had long been talk of going their own way, it was not until 1444 that anyone seriously did anything about it. Discussions between Swedish nobles seeking independence and wealthy merchants fed up with the focus on German trade to the detriment of the Baltic formed a sort of cabal- which they called the Stockholm Thing, for they envisioned it as the locus of the government of an independent Sweden, and even managed to pull in the Archbishop of Uppsala with promises of representation on the Thing and control over diplomacy.

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Fig2- the initial composition and division of authority of the Stockholm Thing

The Swedish Army, commanded by Swedish nobles mostly loyal to the Stockholm Thing and composed of their levy troops- was quietly expanded. Knowing that it would be vital to prevent the Danish and anyone who sought to intervene on their behalf from easily reaching the Swedish peninsula- for the House of Wittlesbach was originally German and was still deeply involved in the politics of the Holy Roman Empire - the Stockholm Thing began the mustering of a great fleet in the Gulf of Bothnia under the command of Gottfrid Alkmaar, where the Danes would hopefully not pay much attention. They also sent out feelers to the enemies of the Kalmar union. Burgundy, needing any ally in its precarious position, was eager to help. The English were also keen to aid, as they competed with the Kalmar Union for control of the North Sea and would benefit from a more eastward-facing Scandinavia. For this reason, Scotland also offered their help without even being asked. The Grand Duke of Lithuania was initially interested, but his inheritance of the Polish throne soon drew his attention to other matters.

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Fig3- the Bothnian fleet.
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Fig4- King Christopher officially declaring his son Ulrik as heir to the entire Kalmar union lent greater urgency to the machinations of the Stockholm Thing

Two men ultimately emerged as leaders of the Stockholm Thing- Johan Vasa and Johan Gyllenstierna. Vasa was an obvious candidate for leadership- he was the most experienced battlefield commander and leader of the largest contingent of troops, and as such was given overall command of the army. Ulrik Piper was considered as overall commander, but ultimately relegated to a more logistical role. Gyllenstierna’s path to power was an odder one- he was very young and less of a man of action, but had a keen analytical mind, being educated and very interested in how things worked. He had for a while studied to become a priest, but had left after seeing the inner workings of the Catholic Church, then at the peak of its indulgence-selling corruption and become extremely cynical about religious affairs. Still, he could speak with great passion about the future glories of Sweden and recruited many into the Stockholm Thing. The question of who would actually be king was delayed until independence was secured, but realistically it would be one of those two.

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Fig5- 17th- century painting of Johan Vasa, Johan Gyllenstierna, and Ulrik Piper

It was on November First, 1446 that the independent Kingdom of Sweden was officially proclaimed- Vasa hoped that the Danish armies would be reluctant to push north as winter approached, giving them time to regroup if things went wrong. The fortress of Elfsborg would be key to the entire battle- it was in Swedish land and blocked the key passage to Norway. As long as the Swedes held it, the Norwegian army could not contribute to the main battles in the south. The Danes knew this as well, so the first battle of the war was fought there, and Vasa’s army prevailed.

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Fig 6- The First battle of Elfsborg

After seeing off the main Danish army, Vasa turned north to see off the Norwegians who had been coming to try and join up with them. Both ultimately ended up fleeing south to Scania, where Vasa continued his defeat-in-detail plan, pursuing whichever was in better order Ultimately, both fled north to Norway to regroup. The Bothnian fleet was also mobilized, and sailed south into the Oresund to prevent Brandenburg from ferrying troops over. With local superiority assured, the local capital of Lund soon surrendered

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Fig. 7- Troop movements in the Scanian front

At the same time, Sweden’s British allies were making their presence known, with English troops landing in Jutland and Scots marching into Brandenburg. The small German city-state of Oldenburg, seeing the writing on the wall, promptly abandoned the war, paying an indemnity to Sweden in exchange for peace.

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Fig. 8- Troop movements on the European mainland.

The only remaining problem was the main Danish army. Cut off behind enemy lines, they had not quailed, but rather pushed on to Stockholm, hoping to end the war by killing the claimants to the throne and the entire Thing. The city was put to siege, and the walls constantly attacked- the attackers could not be supplied from Denmark, so there was a real risk of them running out of food. But the defenders did not know this, or of Vasa’s victories in the south. For all they knew, this could be the last stand of the Swedish rebellion.



This was Johan Gyllenstierna’s moment. He made it his full-time job to coordinate the defenses of the city and maintain morale, often wielding a bow from the city walls. Though fighting was fierce, with accounts speaking of entire sections of the walls being controlled from siege towers, the Danish army was not able to enter the city in any real numbers. Soon, word reached Vasa of the desperate situation. He was forced to turn around and drive the enemy from the walls of Stockholm, but after one more battle at the gates, the outcome was decided. Sweden would be independent with its pre-Kalmar Union borders plus all of Scania- Denmark would no longer have a toehold on the peninsula. It was done. Sweden was free.



For the king of their new land, the Thing chose the man whose valor they had personally witnessed, and who had been dwelling with them and protecting them. Disappointed but unwilling to risk Sweden being destabilized from the very start, Johan Vasa returned to his home in Rydbo.

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Fig. 9- 18th century painting of Christoper III of Denmary offering terms to Johan III of Sweden and the Swedish Allthing. The supplicant pose is probably ahistorical, but the mean building is not- a proper Thing-Hall had not yet been constructed
 
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It's interesting that Vasa isn't the new king, but it does open up more storytelling possibilities.

When will the Norse conversion occur? I feel that delaying it to the Reformation might be a good idea - the Christians will be occupied with each other.
 
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Chapter 2- The Norse Revival (false start)
@HistoryDude, one doesn't actually have much control oven when this event fires- I just set up the conditions to get it, and then hoped it did. As for when it did happen, well...

Chapter 2- The Norse Revival

Upon regaining its independence, Sweden immediately had a lot of problems. For one thing, the Stockholm Thing had taken a great many loans in the course of the uprising, promising to pay them back using the funds that had once been sent in tribute to Copenhagen. Secondly, it needed to carve out an identity for itself as something other than a Danish province in revolt- the Nordic languages not having far derived from Old Norse. Finally, it was in a somewhat awkward place diplomatically, allied to both England and its perennial target Scotland. Required to pick a side, King Johan of course picked the stronger, and declined an offer of a Scottish princess’ hand in marriage. The Scottish understood that that they were being ignored, and soon diplomacy between the two kingdoms petered out.
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Fig 1- A letter from king James II of Scotland to king Johan II of Sweden, accusing him of ingratitude.

This opportunistic attitude was not constrained to diplomacy, as news soon came the Muscovy had declared war on the republic of Novgorod. Knowing that Novgorod had no chance and seeing that the Swedish army was still mobilized from the Uprising, the Stockholm Thing also declared war on Novgorod, hoping to claim as much of the valuable Novgorodian land as they could, rather than allowing Muscovy to establish themselves as the hegemon of far northern Europe. The Novgorodian army tried to fend off attacks from both directions, but only ended up dividing its strength and being crushed.
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Fig. 2- the Battle of Viborg, an unsuccessful Novgorodian counterattack into Sweden.
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Fig. 3- It was at around this time that King Johan;s son Karl, the first prince of the independent Sweden was born.

The remainder of the war, commonly called the Partition of Novgorod, was something of an odd conflict, with the Swedish and Muscovite armies, who were nominally not at war with each other, attempting to outmaneuver each other. Both wanted the coastal cities of Neva and Koporye- The Muscuvites to gain access to the sea, and the Swedes to avoid their only land route to the European mainland passing through a single large and likely hostile power. During the war, the Bothnian fleet again played a major role, for the Swedes sought to ferry troops across the Gulf of Finland to take control of Ingermanland, bypassing the defenses of Novgorod City entirely. Ultimately, the Swedes were able to occupy the best lands- not only the coastline, but the great city of Novgorod itself, and the area around Lake Ladoga.
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Fig. 4- The final partition of Novgorod. It was at this time- spring of the year 1450- that the Swedish government under the Stockholm Thing finally assumed a peace footing
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Fig. 5- The Muscovites chose not to gobble up the entirely of their side of the partitions, creating loose protectorates in Karelia and Sapmi, and leaving a Novgorodian government-in-exile on the shores of the White Sea.

The Novgorod war had only exacerbated the debt situation (OOC- I messed up a bit here. I should have asked for money from Novgorod, and didn’t.) However, inspiration was soon found on the problem of defining a Swedish identity. In Italy, a craze had broken out for antiquity, with what had previously been dismissed as vile paganism being embraced as part of the land’s heritage. The Swedes would do something similar. While the Danes had, to a large degree, turned their back on their Viking past and tried to act like proper normal Europeans (and indeed were currently ruled by a German dynasty) the Swedes would embrace it. The court at Stockholm embraced folk-traditions, and sought to reconstruct as much of the “true” Scandinavian culture. Modern observers believe that much of what they came up with was, in fact, misinterpreted or fabricated, but looked cool.
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Fig. 6- The Flyting of Johan Vasa and Ulrik Piper, depicted in a painting not long after the event. The fact that such a crude art form was embraced at the highest level shows the degree to which Norse revivalism influenced elite culture of the time

Indeed, King Johan even got in into his head to actually go a-Viking! The island of Gotland, historically part of Sweden, had been so neglected by the Kalmar union that it had drifted away from the Union entirely, and ended up under the rule of the small German state of Wolgast. Johan sent the army to retake Gotland and took the city of Stolp as retaliation for Wolgast’s trespassing on Swedish land. This was also an attempt to fulfill his earlier commitments to the Swedish merchant classes (and pay off some of the debt) to take greater control of the Baltic trade, for Gotland, in the middle of the sea, was a prime trading port. This proved a step too far for some, and a rebellion broke out in Abo under Simon Lewewnhupt, promising retaliation against the “half-heathen” king Johan.
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Fig. 7- Minor military actions in the Baltic, 1452

This was not the only internal issue in Sweden at the time, as Danish loyalists rose up to try to return Scania to Danish control, hoping that Stockholm would not be able to respond promptly while the king and a significant portion of the Thing were on a diplomatic visit to Bohemia, hoping to further avoid the possibility of being completely cut off from mainland European politics, a pressing concern after the Holy Roman Emperor demanded the the city of Stolp be relinquished.
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Fig.8- the marriage of King Jiri’ of Bohemia’s brother to Johan III’s sister

Lewewnhupt’s accusations were not unfounded. The Norse revival did include a lot of rhetorical invoation of forgotten gods such at Odin and Thor, and Johan III had an immensely cynical attitude towards the church. He famously drew a cartoon mocking the increased veneration of the Virgin Mary at the time, contrasting it to the concurrent stripping of authority from abbesses.
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Fig. 9- a satirical cartoon allegedly drawn by Johan II. The text can be translated as follows- “Pope’s logic. Dead woman-silent-raised up. Living woman-might disagree with you-cast down.”

Eventually, irony became sincerity. Sweden had only been solidly Christianized in the late eleventh century, so there were still a few pagans in the backwoods, or “Christians” whose beliefs were so syncretic as to be hardly Christian at all. The contrast between the stuffiness and hypocrisy of the Christian church and the fun-loving folksiness of the backwoods pagans they met on hunting expeditions (both real remnants and opportunists trying to fill a demand for Old Norse culture) began to wear on Johan II and many of his contemporaries. Supposedly, the tipping point came when a young priest tried to convince Johan to get him a bishopric through bribery with promises of loyalty thereafter.



What happened on March Fifth, 1456 was one of the most out-of nowhere events in history. The cultural Norse Revival gives it some context, which I have tried to provide, but to truly understand why it happened, one must look to Johan III’s own history. In his youth, he had looked for God in a Christian seminary, but found only lies and hypocrisy. But it is perhaps significant that he looked at all. They say that inside every cynic is a disappointed idealist. Well, Perhaps Johan III had finally found what he had sought all those years ago. Gods who were not held back by a clergy that had been corrupted by a millennium of earthly politics, who did not scorn material existence but sought to glorify it. Perhaps that is why, on that Wednesday- Odin’s day- he made that unprecedented announcement. Converting to Christianity had been a mistake. From then henceforth, Sweden would worship the Old Gods.
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Fig. 10- Religious turmoil in the 1450s

(OOC- yes, I reset for this. I played until Johan II died and didn’t get the event chain, so I loaded my backup save and started again, and this time got it very soon).
 
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Sweden has expanded into Russia, which might provide conflict with Muscovy in the future.

The conversion to Asatru has occurred! What are their holy texts? The Eddas? The Sagas? Both?
 
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Chapter 3- The Church of the Old Gods (false start)
Chapter 3- The Church of the Old Gods
Now, while many in the Norse Church insist to this day that its structure is consistent since a few generations after Ask and Embla, with it having merely gone underground for a few centuries, more will admit that there was a centuries-long breakdown in organized worship of the Aesir and Vanir, and that with few written records surviving, Johan III and his new Norse priests- a mixture of spiritually-minded Norse cultural revivalists, backwoods shamans (some of whom are regarded by outside historians as probable con-artists), and a few low-ranking Christian clergy who converted, had to do some interpolation at the Vaxjo-moot. This is especially true as there had previously not been any one Norse holy book- or at least none that has survived. The most complete book of myths, the Prose Edda, was also demonstrably adulterated- the author, or at least editor, was known to be Snorri Sturluson, a Christian who lived well after the conversion of his native Iceland to Christianity, and it contained a prologue stating that the characters described therein were not actually gods, but rather escaped heroes from the Trojan war (Snorri had clearly read The Aeneid). Thus, there was a general policy of not including anything from the Prose Edda unless a significant amount of backwoods oral tradition consistent with it could be found.

The Poetic Edda was a more promising source, having no such obvious flaws and even containing the Havamal, a collection of moral advice allegedly from Odin himself, but it did not, at the time, exist as a collected body, though the Skalholt manuscript contained a good portion of if, so there was still some work to be done there, and some modern historian believe that the Hrafnagaldr Óðins and the Vision of Fólkvangr might have been forgeries. With regards to some facts or events that were fairly consistently present in oral tradition but in no written account, it was, reluctantly found necessary to write ‘canonical’ versions, which were penned by Henrik of Malmo, though likely with input from other members of the Moot. The resulting manuscript- the Younger Edda, is viewed by the few unbiased historians of Norse religion as a reasonable reconstruction of what the pre-Christian Norse actually believed, containing a good deal that cannot be verified but very little that is provably inaccurate.

The same cannot be said for the hierarchy and some of the doctrines also created at the Vaxjo-moot, the former being more-or-less still intact. The leadership of the church would be a council of bishops, with one for each of the major gods. The regional high-priests would answer to the bishops, and the town priests would report to them. Ceremonies would mostly be held in sacred groves, with Johan III going so far as to plant the seedling of a sacred tree from deep in the forests of Norrland outside the gates of the palace of Stockholm. This seems to have initially been a practical decision, as mass-rededication of Christian churches was unfeasible while the population was still mostly Christian, while requiring the construction of a temple for every god in every place before they could be worshiped there would be a major endeavor, but it has endured as a distinctive feature long after this became the case. Indeed, even at the time, critics noted that this new structure rather resembled what a Christian would imagine a functional Pagan church would look like, noting elements clearly based on either Catholic or Orthodox Christianity, or on the better-documented Greco-Roman paganism- the use of “Vestal” as the female equivalent of “Bishop” is particularly blatant.

What fewer people noticed at the time was how much of the doctrines and structures were engineered to survive. Everyone knew that Christianity had overtaken Paganism in Sweden once, and they did not want it to happen again. One instance of this has already been mentioned- the presence of female clergy. As has been said, there were many in the rooms where the Norse church was being crafted who had read the history of early Christianity, and how it had largely been spread by woman to children. Johan III famously said- “Like the Christians, mother shall preach to son. Unlike the Christians, the sons shall not abandon their mothers.” It is important not to overstate this- Even under the Old Gods, 15th-century Sweden was still, by modern standards, a sexist society. While Johan III seemed to be forward-thinking for his time, he was still a man of his time, and further, challenging this specific aspect of his society was not his primary objective. Beyond this, he did not work alone, and the other men involved did not necessarily agree (the common claim that it was Johan III's ‘Personal project’ is an exaggeration. Reviving the worship of the Old Gods was his personal project, and he was not totally alone. There were a few women involved, and surely they at least agreed.). Perhaps we should not judge them, as a group, too harshly. Things do seem to have slightly improved for women under the Norse revival, and even if they had dedicated all their efforts to this, high child mortality rates probably limited how much they could have reshaped society. It is impossible at this point to say whether this was an accurate reconstruction of pre-Christian practices or pure marketing. What definitely was marketing was the declaration that dying in righteous might guarantee a place in Valhalla, but it was not the only way to get there. Thus, the farmer, the miller, and the housewife, by converting, could believe that they might get a seat at Odin’s table.

Another major engineered element may have been cribbed from an unlikely source- Islam, the one religion to successfully displace Christianity from large areas, though it is not clear if anyone involved would have known enough about said faith to copy it, so it may have been an independent invention. This is a preference for positive over negative incentives to ensure conversion. It was announced that as the Norse church was the Truth, they would not need to ‘bully’ people into seeing it. However, believers were encouraged to give those who showed good character by worshiping the Old Gods preferential treatment in many things. As there was no distinction between individual and state action, this could arguably become a justification to treat them as second-class citizens, but this would hardly be a major offense in and of itself in that aristocratic age. The ultimate effect was that pressure to convert was enacted while minimizing obvious justifications that the still-Christian remainder of Europe could use to invade Sweden and restore Christianity, especially as it still had several strong alliances.


The Old Gods found some of their first converts in an unlikely location- the recently –conquered city of Novgorod (or Holmgard, as some were now causing it). During the partition, the formerly-popular Bishop of the city had been captured by the Muscovites, and was now issuing statements from his gilded cage in Moscow for the citizens of the city to rise up, not in the name of the rump Novgorodian state, but of the Muscovite conquerors who were often more brutal then the Swedes. As such, many in what was now Swedish Russia were as disenchanted with Christianity as Johan III had been, and willingly converted to a stronger faith. It is possible that this large number of early converts from Orthodox Christianity is one of the reasons for the multi-leader structure (OOC- this was achieved using the mission to conquer Novgorod, which converts Novgorod and Neva, but I felt the need to explain it somehow).
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Fig. 1- The first centers of the revived worship of the Old Gods

There were of course those who refused this new path. In Novgorod, Afanasiy Kurlyatev heeded the words of the Muscovite puppet and raised an army to expel the “heathen conquerors”, while in Stolp, there was another uprising. The Swedish army remained busy in those days, though the kingdom was nominally at peace. Already deep in debt, Sweden was unable to strain its finances further, putting down revolts, encouraging the spread of the old ways, while trying to convince the population that the massive changes of the previous decade did not represent a crisis. It is perhaps due to the instability and strained finances that the Stockholm Thing issued a decree empowering the local nobles to maintain fortifications and “bodies of huscarls”- which, incidentally, shifted some of the responsibility for
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maintaining local law and order away from themselves.

Fig. 2- Continued instability in Sweden after the Great Reversion

Indeed, Sweden’s finances were in such a poor state that at one point they resorted to sending some of their soldiers to England as mercenaries! Though some historians have interpreted this as a method to get rid of some hardliner Christians in the army without violating the principle of getting conversion via positive incentives.
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Fig. 3- Swedish troops in England

As has been said, the reversion of an entire nation to paganism on this scale was unprecedented, and none of the other European powers really knew what to make of it. Many tried to pass it off as a temporary fit of madness, assuming that surely normalcy would reassert itself soon. Many in Sweden took the same approach, simply ignoring the pagans in Stockholm and hoping that they would go away.
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Fig. 4- Left: Sacred groves in Ostra Gotland according to the records of the great Temple of Odin in 1460. Right: sacred groves that can actually be confirmed to have existed in 1460

Though Johan III did train the army to fight along more “Viking” lines, he did not send them to war for the rest of his reign. The realm’s finances were just too precarious, and the army kept too busy fighting rebels. When he passed into Valhalla in autumn of 1562, the hopes that Sweden’s flirtation with paganism were not obvious self-deception. But neither were they accurate. The old ways had fully reasserted themselves in the Swedish ‘heartland’ of the west Baltic coast. A rebirth of old Norse culture was truly starting to reappear, and interact with the classical revivalism coming n form the mainland in interesting ways.
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Fig. 5- Painting of Valkyries bearing away the soul of Johan III, unveiled at his funeral

And the new king, Karl VIII had been barely born when his father had first taken an interest in the old gods. He had known nothing else, and was well prepared to continue along the path his father had started. Due to his youth, the general chaos of Sweden at the time, and uncertainty as to what a Norse coronation should look like, there was a two-year delay between the death of Johan III and the coronation of Karl VIII, but ultimately it occurred without incident.
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Fig. 6- 17th-centure painting of Karl VIII being crowned by the Vestal of Freya. The Holy Tree of Stockholm would not actually have grown to anything like the height depicted by that time.
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Fig. 7- At around this time, gilded lead coins bearing the face and name of the nonexistent Queen Hedwig I somehow made their way into the hands of some of Sweden’s creditors. The queen mother denied any involvement in this.
 
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I'm surprised that the Christians didn't attack more.

This brings up a good point - our records of Norse Paganism are fragmented. What version of the Poetic Edda are they using? The Codex Regius? Did they incorporate any of the sagas from Iceland or Scandinavia?

Adapting the religion to the society is a good idea. What's up with Fólvangr, the other warrior/heroic afterlife that isn't Valhalla by the way? Was it dropped completely for simplicity?
 
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@HistoryDude I'm not actually too familliar with the mythology- I'm working from Wikipedia. That said, they are using the Codex Regius, but because events changed longe before it got into the hand of the king for whom it is named, I called it the Skalholt manuscript. And as for the Christians attacking- I've played up to 1550, and they did. O boy, thay did. To the point that there's a good chance I won't continue this AAR- after years and years, I'm still learning to play this game, and this run has taught me that corruption can get out of hand really fast- I've always been able to keep it low with minimal effort in previous campaigns). As you seem to be aying some attention to this AAR, I'm sorry it didn't make it to the end.

Also, I did mentioned Fóklvangr- in the name of the source that doesn't actually exist. So they kept it, but they probably got it wrong.
 
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Okay, my current run (which has reached 1550- I wanted to keep a buffer and be able to foreshadow things that would happen) is probably unwinnable with my skill level, but I think know what I did wrong in the first stages. What's more, I liked playing this and writing it up afterwards, at least one person seems to like reading it. As such, what I might do is retroactively declare what I've done so far a test game and start the AAR again. Is that sort of thing considered acceptable in this forum?
 
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Okay, my current run (which has reached 1550- I wanted to keep a buffer and be able to foreshadow things that would happen) is probably unwinnable with my skill level, but I think know what I did wrong in the first stages. What's more, I liked playing this and writing it up afterwards, at least one person seems to like reading it. As such, what I might do is retroactively declare what I've done so far a test game and start the AAR again. Is that sort of thing considered acceptable in this forum?
I’ve been enjoying it too, I was disappointed to read it was ending. It’s definitely acceptable to restart. That said, AARs where things go wrong are often the most entertaining. But of course you should do what makes it the most fun for you.
 
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@MatthewP And if I had only suffered one or two major setbacks, I'd keep playing. Even after Poland took two bites out of me, I lost all my allies save England, who was the rival of everyone who I might want to ally with, and had an actual crisis go poorly, I was still trying to think up ways to recover. It was only when I tried to look up ways to lose corruption and saw someone with less then half what I had be told that it should absolutely never get that high that I decided that the run was beyond salvaging.
 
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You could create some in-universe contraption to justify the reset (time travel has apparently been used for this before).

Restarting is definitely fine.
 
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Chapter 1- The Swedish Uprising
All right, I'm giving this another go.

Chapter 1- The Swedish Uprising

In the year 1444, Scandinavian politics were in a precarious position. The entire region was theoretically part of the Union of Kalmar, comprising the three kingdoms of Norway, Sweden and Denmark, ruled by one king, but each having their own internal structure.
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Fig. 1- the internal divisions of the Kalmar Union.

However, while this was theoretically a union of equals, in practice King Christopher III was King of Denmark and the other realms were managed for Danish benefit. Many Swedes chafed under the rule of the smaller and less populous Danish realm. The Kalmar Union was so unconcerned with the baltic that the heir to the previous dynasty had set up a government-in exile in Gotland- historically part of Sweden- which had become a den of piracy and no-one had been able to do anything about it. While there had long been talk of going their own way, it was not until 1444 that anyone seriously did anything about it. Discussions between Swedish nobles seeking independence and wealthy merchants fed up with the focus on German trade to the detriment of the Baltic formed a sort of cabal- which they called the Stockholm Thing, for they envisioned it as the locus of the government of an independent Sweden, and even managed to pull in the Archbishop of Uppsala with promises of representation on the Thing and control over diplomacy- though of course, there was some dispute as to how they should proceed.
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Fig. 2- the initial composition and division of authority of the Stockholm Thing

The Swedish Army, commanded by Swedish nobles mostly loyal to the Stockholm Thing and composed of their levy troops- was quietly expanded. Knowing that it would be vital to prevent the Danish and anyone who sought to intervene on their behalf from easily reaching the Swedish peninsula- for the House of Wittlesbach was originally German and was still deeply involved in the politics of the Holy Roman Empire - the Stockholm Thing began the mustering of a great fleet in the Gulf of Bothnia where the Danes would hopefully not pay much attention. Fortunately, the Kalmar Union had made many enemies. The English and Scottish were both keen to aid, as they competed with the Kalmar Union for control of the North Sea and would benefit from a more eastward-facing Scandinavia. The Grand Prince of Moscow shared the Stockholm Thing’s displeasure with Denmark’s neglect of the Baltic- they were involved with the Baltic trade, but being landlocked, could do nothing to protect it from the pirates of Gotland.

Finally, the Grand Duke of Lithuania saw the benefit of having another ally in their eternal enmity with the Baltic Crusaders.
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Fig. 3- the Bothnian fleet.

Two men ultimately emerged as leaders of the Stockholm Thing- Johan Vasa and Fredrik August Fincke. Vasa was an obvious candidate for leadership- he was the most experienced battlefield commander and leader of the largest contingent of troops, and as such was given overall command of the army. Bengt Toll was considered as overall commander, but ultimately it was decided that his skills were better suited to the home front. Fincke’s path to power was an odder one- he was a learned man with a particular interest in history, particularly military history. He had for a while studied to become a priest, but had left after seeing the inner workings of the Catholic Church, then at the peak of its indulgence-selling corruption. He could speak at length about Sweden’s past glories (and the future ones that were sure to follow) despite his family actually being Swedicized Finns (hence the name), but was said to be awkward and standoffish in personal conversation. The question of who would actually be king was delayed until independence was secured, but realistically it would be one of those two.
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Fig. 4- 17th- century painting of Johan Vasa, Fredrik August Fincke, and Bengt Toll

It was on October 18th, 1445 that the independent Kingdom of Sweden was officially proclaimed. They had intended to wait until the next year- the Bothnian Fleet wasn't even complete- but a peasant revolt had broken out in Scania, and Vasa planned to use it as bait to get the Danish royal army within striking distance. Initially, the Stockholm Thing was confidant- they had the numbers on their side- but the largest Swedish ally, England, was unlikely to commit its full forces, due to final stages of the Hundred-Year war still being ongoing.
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Fig 5- Forces available for the initial Swedish uprising

The initial phases of the war went very well for Sweden. Vasa’s ambush went off perfectly, attacking the Danish army as they were strung out pursuing the broken peasant mobs outside of Ronneby and destroying them utterly. He then marched west and besieged the castle of Lund, which lay near the southern point of Scandinavia Proper and could threaten any attempt to cross from Sjaelland. As this happened, the Muscovites marched through Lapland to attack the Norwegians from behind. Things seemed to be going well.
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Fig. 6-The Battle of Bleking, 18th-century painting

Until they weren’t. On the mainland, Lithuania was struggling to fight back the Teutonic Knights, Wanting no part of this and ironically citing the Stockholm thing’s own writings, the Polish Sjem decided not to maintain their personal union with Sweden’s Lithuanian allies, but rather make the brilliant Wladislaw Radzwill king. (OOC- One of my lessons from the test game was that I’d need an ally in Eastern Europe, even if I ultimately ended up not maintaining it for the entire game. If I try to let them fight it out while I prey on the weak, someone will win before I’m strong enough to fight said winner). The combined fleets of Denmark and the Teutons were mighty enough to defeat the Bothnian Fleet easily, and the British, with their divided attention, seemed reluctant to enter the Baltic, choosing instead to merely land troops on the west coast of Jutland. The Muscovites also seemed to want to avoid the hottest fighting and instead stayed in the north, occupying Norway. It eventually got to the point that after taking Castle Lund, Vasa retreated north after leaving a garrison, for the entire army of the Danish alliance had gathered on the Danish isles and there was no hope of defeating them in open battle.
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Fig. 7- Troop movements on the Scanian front, Spring 1447

By autumn of the year 1447, the Lithuanian army was finally able to win some victories over the Teutonic Knights, and the armies on Sjaelland moved south to repel them. Heartened, Johan Vasa decided to risk a crossing, ferrying his army to Sjaelland and laying siege to Copenhagen.Only then did word arrive that the English had agreed to cease hostilities to focus on defending their holding in France. With the English navy out of action, the Danes had complete control of the seas. Vasa’s army had reached Sjaelland, but they were trapped there. When minor Scanian nobles began launching raids against the occupiers in 1449, it fell to the Muscovites to defeat them
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Fig. 8- Troop movements on the southern front, Spring 1449

Trapped in Sjaelland, Vasa did the only thing he could- continue to attack the walls of Copenhagen. But when it fell, he could still not push any further. It was not until summer of 1450 that the stalemate was broken. The Teutonic Knights, realized that they had nothing to gain, and agreed to a peace that gave up only gold, no land. With them out of the war, the Bothnian Fleet was finally able to leave port and make its presence known. Seeing that their only remaining advantage was gone, the Danes then surrendered. Sweden would be independent with its Kalmar Union internal borders plus all of Scania- Denmark would no longer have a toehold on the peninsula. It was done. Sweden was free.


For the king of their new land, the Thing perhaps surprisingly did not choose the conquering hero. Indeed, the consensus among them appears to be that Vasa had underperformed, fleeing from the enemy, then getting stuck on an island for some of the key moment of the war. Indeed, many identified the Lithuanian nobleman Karolis Tiskevicus as the real hero of the war. In addition, there was a rumor that Vasa had caused a rival to be passed over for promotion, which lead some to doubt his character, whilst many believed that Fincke’s studious nature would allow hit to quickly adapt to his new responsibilities. Disappointed but unwilling to risk Sweden being destabilized from the very start, Johan Vasa returned to his home in Rydbo.
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Fig. 9- 18th century painting of Christoper III of Denmark offering terms to Johan III of Sweden and the Swedish Allthing. The supplicant pose is probably ahistorical, but the mean building is not- a proper Thing-Hall had not yet been constructed




It seems to be going better this time, and I think this version of the initial rebellion is a more interesting story- I at least had to scramble less to explain why they didn't make Johan Vasa King in-universe. Hope people still want to read it.
 
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It's nice to see this back! I can sympathize with being forced to restart an AAR (it's happened to me - Epirus Ascendant, actually)

The PLC won't occur in this universe...

Sweden is free, but a Lithuanian noble is now their king. I wonder if the Swedes will allow his dynasty to continue their reign. Will they create an elective system in the future like the Polish Sejm or the Holy Romans?

I wonder how the Bishop of Uppsala will react to the adoption of Asatru over Catholicism?
 
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Sweden is free, but a Lithuanian noble is now their king. I wonder if the Swedes will allow his dynasty to continue their reign. Will they create an elective system in the future like the Polish Sejm or the Holy Romans?
No, Fincke is still king. I just wanted to explain why they didn't pick Vasa and (acknowledge that this guy actually did a lot of the fighting).
 
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Chapter 2- The Livonian wars
Chapter 2- The Livonian wars
Upon regaining its independence, Sweden immediately had some problems. In the long term, it needed to carve out an identity for itself as something other than a Danish province in revolt- the Nordic languages not having far derived from Old Norse.

In the medium term, there was the island of Gotland. Though it has traditionally been part of Sweden, it had not been handed over as part of the peace treaty simply because the Kalmar Union had not controlled it at the end- the former ruling dynasty had set up a government-in-exile there, which was on good terms with Lithuania. Reclaiming it would require some maneuvering.

In the short term, Sweden was in a somewhat awkward place diplomatically. There was naturally a desire to turn the ad-hoc opportunistic team-up against Denmark into a proper alliance structure for Sweden, but allied to both England and its perennial target Scotland. Required to pick a side, King Fredrik August of course picked the stronger, and relations with Scotland gradually atrophied.

Diplomacy, in fact, took up a great deal of the Stockholm Thing’s early business, as Fredrik August himself lacked the talent for it. His main contribution was a marriage Princess Agafya, a cousin of the Grand Prince of Moscow.
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Fig. 1- the marriage of Fredrik August of Sweden and Agafya Rurikovitch, official painting. Note the empty seat where King James II of Scotland would have been sitting had he accepted his invitation.

(OOC- In the first run, I despaired of ever getting this mission, and this time, I got it almost immediately on independence. This bodes well.)

The limited social skills of Fredrik August were such that it was not always possible for the Thing to cover for it. On receiving a letter from the pope informing him he had chosen Sven Johanson to lead a new Swedish branch of the Inquisition, he responded (and recall that the king had become rather cynical about the church’s corruption) with a letter saying simply, “There is not, at this time, any need for a Swedish branch of the Inquisition. I hope you have not already spent Mr. Johanson’s bribe.”
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Fig. 2- letter from Fredrik August of Sweden to Pope Eugene IV, from the Vatican records. Note the slight crumpling where the reader would have held it.

That is not to say that the Thing focused entirely on foreign affairs for its first years of independence. There were also major building projects around Stockholm with hopes of turning it into a major port of the Baltic. Christian Cronstedt took responsibility for ensuring that funds were found to pay for all this.
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Fig. 3- plans for Stockholm Palace. Construction began on New Year’s Day, 1451.

Of course, not everyone was happy with things. Only a few years after the conclusion of the Swedish Uprising, a revolt rose up in Scania hoping to return to Danish control.
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Fig. 4- the Scanian Revolt

Now, during the Swedish Uprising, the Republic of Novgorod had conquered most of the land that had been controlled by the Livonian Order. However, Novgorod had few friends and many enemies, being partly in Russia, partly in Scandinavia, and now partly in the Baltic. With Sweden seeking to establish itself as the ruler of Scandinavia and great power of the Baltic and Muscovy seeking to unify Russia, and the two of them allied, it was an obvious opportunity to attack Novgorod while they were still recovering from the war with Livonia, and were distracted by a rebellion in Karelia. The war was brief but brutal, with Muscovite forces laying siege to Novgorod City and Swedes attacking Estonia with unprecedented ferocity.
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Fig. 5- Invasion routes into Novgorod

By summer of 1455, it was all over- Novgorod had exhausted itself before the war had even begun. Sweden was able to dictate terms of peace, taking Novgorod’s entire Baltic coast, but not driving deep into Russia. That would risk angering the Grand Prince of Moscow.
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Fig. 6- Swedish conquests after the Estonian War.

The Baltic was very much the focus of the Stockholm Thing’s attentions in the 1450s, funding construction on the Aland archipelago and setting standards for the treatment of oarsmen in the navy. King Fredrik August, however, was more concerned with personal matters- Queen Agafya bore him a son in 1454. Young Karl seemed to have inherited his father’s bookish nature.
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Fig. 7- Ruins of a dock on Geta, built c1455

That decade also saw the start of the political career of one Viktor Scram, a merchant from Scania who had been raised into the Stockholm Thing as a reward for leadership of local loyalists during the Scanian Revolt in an attempt to make the Danish Scanians feel less like they were being subjugated. He managed to rise to a leadership role among the existing mercantile faction, who had at the time become so powerful that there were functionally two political parties in the Thing- the merchants and the coalition of everyone else. And it was fairly even.
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Fig. 8- Viktor Scram, contemporary. Note that despite what this painting would imply, Mr. Scram was a very short man, but he commissioned the painting.

Even after the Estonian Wars, there was to be no peace in the Baltic. The Lithuanians had long memories, and though they were now mostly Christian, they did not appreciate the “encouragement” of the Baltic Crusaders. With the Livonian Order much reduced after their war with Novgorod, they took the opportunity for revenge, and Sweden was called to aid them- which they gladly accepted, as it was seen as unlikely that the Livonian remnant would put up much of a fight. The conflict did not even last a year, and ended with the Livonian Order being partitioned between Lithuania, Sweden, and rebels under Vaishvilkas Bielke proclaiming Republic of Latgalia.
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Fig. 9- Partition of the Livonian Order

It was after this that the Stockholm Thing voted to officially take Sweden off a war footing. With the Baltic finally at peace and the mercantile faction in power, Stockholm was becoming a significant trade port. Unfortunately, this was not the only way that the Swedish Uprising was slipping into the past, as Bengt Toll, one of the most prominent original members of the Stockholm Thing, died of old age in 1459.
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Fig. 10- Funeral of Bengt Toll, recreation in a 20th-century anthropological textbook. His tomb has been extensively studied, as it is one of the few examples of a pure Christian burial in early-modern Sweden

In the 1460s, a solution started to emerge for the problem of creating a Swedish identity. In Italy, a craze had broken out for antiquity, with what had previously been dismissed as vile paganism being embraced as part of the land’s heritage. The Swedes would do something similar. While the Danes had, to a large degree, turned their back on their Viking past and tried to act like proper normal Europeans (and indeed were currently ruled by a German dynasty) the Swedes would embrace it. This had the enthusiastic support of King Fredrik August, who was both very interested in local history and willing to go against convention. The court at Stockholm adopted folk-traditions, and sought to reconstruct as much of the “true” Scandinavian culture as they could. Modern observers believe that much of what they came up with was, in fact, misinterpreted or fabricated, but it looked cool. Nobles even increasingly personally trained with their retinues on foot instead of fighting on horseback as the former was seen as more Viking-like.
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Fig. 11- examples of renaissance architecture in Sweden. Note the long roofs, interlace patterns, and other local-inspired elements.
 
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A Viking revival is beginning, and the Swedish king already disliked the Papacy. This bodes well for the conversion to Asatru.

Much of the Baltic is now under Swedish control. Let's hope that this doesn't end up damaging relations with Moscow (and probably later Russia) too much.
 
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Chapter 3- King of the Northmen
Chapter 3- King of the Northmen
Prince Karl of Sweden was much shaped by the power of the merchant faction in his formative years. He is said to have taken an interest in the nations’ finances at an unusually young age. Viktor Scram was something of a mentor to the boy, and shortly after his fifteenth birthday, they went to examine the growing markets of Noteborg. Fearing the even greater ascendance of the merchant faction with the ear of the future king, the rest of the Thing took advantage of Scram’s absence to push through a law limiting the power of the mayor of Elfsborg, a key supporter of the merchant faction.
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Fig. 1- Proceeding of the Thing, August 1469

The prominent role played by the clergy in the political maneuvering to kneecap the mercantile faction only further disillusioned King Fredrik August with the church, leading him to famously draw a cartoon mocking the increased veneration of the Virgin Mary at the time, contrasting it to the concurrent stripping of authority form abbesses. He began to frequently skip mass to hunt and attend parties, many of which leaned heavily in to Norse Revival imagery, often including rhetorical invocation of forgotten gods such at Odin and Thor. The king’s enemies occasionally tried to discredit him by spreading salacious rumors about what went on at those parties, but these gained little traction, and are generally considered false to this day, even beyond the simple fact that this has long been the go-to for discrediting someone, by the fact that Queen Agafya was occasionally invited. Some modern historians suggest that they may have been having mid-life crises.
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Fig. 2- - a satirical cartoon allegedly drawn by Johan II. The text can be translated as follows- “Pope’s logic. Dead woman-silent-raised up. Living woman-might disagree with you-cast down.”

A decade and a half of peace had not allowed Novgorod to improve its precarious position, and in September 1469, Muscovy came back for another bite, calling Sweden in. The war was even more one-sided then the previous one, with Johan Vasa routing the entire Novgorodian armed forces in the forests near Soroka as they tried to regroup from being defeated by the Muscovites outside the walls of Novgorod itself. The war lasted barely more than a year and ending with the Novgorodian heartland, including Novgorod City itself being seized by the Muscovites, with most of Karelia being given to Sweden. Only a scattered rump Novgorodian state remained.
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Fig. 3- the partition of Novgorod

The rapid ascent of Sweden to a prominent position on European politics could no longer be ignored, and it was now well and truly out of Denmark’s shadow. Indeed, when Fredrik August declared himself “King of, and for, all Northmen” in an attempt to quell the unrest among the Scanian Danes, the new Danish king Christian I demanded that Sweden immediately renounce the implied claim to the Norwegian crown and acknowledge Danish hegemony over Scandinavia.. His response has often been quoted- “If that were true, you wouldn't need to ask my permission.”

This would be settled on the battlefield.
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Fig. 4- Diplomatic correspondence leading up to the War for the Norwegian Throne

Enraged, the Danish army crossed the Oresund, only to find themselves once again facing the mighty Castle Lund, and an army led by Johan Vasa, now aging but still as bold as ever. They were driven off, only to regroup, join up with their Mecklenburger and East Frisian allies, and attempt the crossing again- and again, be driven off. While the battles were being fought in Scania, Swedens Lithuanian allies, having marched around the Gulf of Bothnia, took on the more tedious but safer task of occupying Norway itself (which also minimized the resentment a conquered Norway might feel toward Sweden, with any pillagingbeing carried out by a third party)
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Fig. 5- Troop movements in the early phases of the for the Norwegian Throne

Unfortunately, Christian Cronstedt got it into his head that he should lead a unit into battle despite having no experience with that sort of thing. He fell in the Third Battle of Lund, with his role as second-in-command of the mercantile faction being taken up by, unexpectedly, Hans Sehsted, a Scanian former sea-captain previously notable mostly for having written a treatise on predicting weather by observing clouds. This undignified loss was a major setback for the age of mercantile primacy. There seems to have been something of a trend towards seamen from the Swedish periphery taking key positions in the Thing, as Otto Mannerheim, an Estonian naval officer (His German-sounding name leads some to speculate that he was a knight of the Livonian Order who had gone native), also rose to prominence at this time.
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Fig. 6- Original manuscript of ‘On the Reading of Clouds’ by Hans Sehsted

In 1473, frustrated by the lack of progress, Johan Vasa ordered the fleet to ferry his army to Mecklemburg, hoping to attack the Danish alliance where it was vulnerable, trusting in Castle Lund to prevent a Danish breakthrough into the Swedish heartland. This initially seemed to be a mistake, with Lund falling while Mecklenburg still stood, but the Danes were unable to push on to Stockholm without neutralizing the garrisons of Kalmar or Elfsborg, and Akershus fell soon, so the Lithuanian army was able to march south and see them off before they could do much damage.
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Fig. 7- The Swedes and Lithuanians outflanking the Danes on a strategic level

In November of 1474, the city of Rostock fell, and Mecklemburg ato cede it to Sweden, giving it a toehold on the European mainland, much to the ire of the Holy Roman Emperor. A Danish relief force arrived too late to prevent this, but in the chaotic battle, Johan Vasa was separated from his troops and slain. So passed the hero of Sweden’s early wars, and the man who was nearly king. What would have happened had he been chosen has long been a question debated by historians professional and amateur alike, for unlike Fredrik August, Vasa was always somewhat dismissive of the Norse cultural revival and was by all accounts a pious Catholic. It was in this campaign that the Swedes first began to experiment with the more extensive use of black powder. While the Swedish army had already had a few cannons, they had mostly been used as replacement catapults, to attack castle walls. However, in this battle a few were used as anti-personnel artillery, as the roman Scorpion catapult was said to have been. While they played a fairly minor role in this campaign, they were successful enough for some purpose-build field cannons to begin being cast for future use.
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Fig. 8- Johan Vasa’s last stand, 19th-century painting

The victorious army then marched west to Frisia, to force the last of Denmark’s allies out of the war. However, when word reached Sweden’s newly-conquered eastern reaches that the army was so far away, many saw opportunity and rose up in revolt. Additionally, with the merchants falling from prominence, the church was rising to prominence in the Thing. Some had taken the step from rhetorical invocation of the Old Gods to full-on pagan revivalism and they demanded the authority to stop this.

King Fredrik August refused this flat-out.
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Fig. 9- deepening instability on the Swedish home front

Lithuania was also distracted. The prince of Odoyev had died without issue and the Grand Duke of Lithuania had also been his closest living relative. However, the Grand Prince of Moscow had also been a close relative on the other side, and had marched into Odoyev himself and crowned himself, hoping that the Lithuanians would be too busy with their western war. A such, the Lithuanian armies were now marching east, supported by their Polish allies, to retake the crown of Odoyev. As both of the belligerants were Swedish allies, neither had tried to get Sweden to intervene, as neither wanted to risk them choosing to support the other side.

However, Swedish instability did not translate to Danish success. They were out of allies and the returning Swedish army completely routed the Danish royal army outside the gates of Copenhagen.
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Fig. 10- Lithuania redeploys eastward

As the last stages of the war raged on, Fredrik August became increasingly withdrawn, and began to isolate himself and think on matters of faith. The corruption of the church was indisputable. Their recent attempted actions against Norse revivalists had seemed less like a reaction to a moral evil and more like an attempt to remove a threat. And his wife seemed to have turned out well enough without a pope to guide her. What was the truth?
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Fig. 11- Inconclusive writings about the nature of the divine by Fredrik August, c1476

In 1476, Denmark finally capitulated. The crown of Norway would be transferred to Fredrik August. While this greatly expanded Swedish influence in the north Sea, from the Norwegian perspective, not much changed. Yet. They would just be bowing east instead of south. Shortly after, the Ottoman Empire, acknowledging Sweden as a power on the rise and swayed by decades of diplomacy trying to persuade them that they and Sweden were in similar situations- both peripheral European powers partially in the European mainland with their main centers of power on peninsulas beyond it, signed a formal alliance. Though the main similarity between the two was yet to become obvious. Perhaps Fredrik August knew what he would do, but had not yet worked up the courage to do it.
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Fig 12- Christian of Denmark surrenders the crown of Norway to Fredrik August of Sweden

(OOC- I didn’t know until now that if you maintained high relations with a nation, they might switch their attitude to ‘Friendly’ I’d just let it reach +100 from improve relations, and if it didn’t work, use my diplomat for something else Is this why I always struggled with diplomacy beyond the first few years of the campaign? Also, I spent the entire last run trying to get this alliance, and now I get it just before it really makes sense narratively)

Though the War for the Norwegian Crown was over, Sweden was not at peace. The rebels were still running wild and indeed almost immediately after the Swedish army left, another rebel force rose up in Rostock to throw the Swedish governor out. In addition, with the Lithuanians occupied in the east, they would not be willing to defend Gotland- it was an opportunity to regain lost Swedish land that might not come again. Immediately, war was declared on Gotland. At the same time, rebels rose up in recently-conquered Mecklenburg, hoping to take advantage of Sweden’s many distractions and reclaim independence.

But something would happen that would cause chaos surpassing all else. With the conquest of Norway came rule over Iceland. Likely no-one had thought much of the fate of this backwater at the edge of the known world at the time. But control of this backwater would soon change the course of Scandinavian history. Because the edges of the map would soon move. And, because it was a backwater, adoption of Christianity had been slow, and many pagan writings had survived…
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Fig. 13- A runestone said to have been visited by King Fredrik August
 

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Sweden is doing well in Scandinavia. Let's hope that they can crush those revolts...

The Catholic Church is abandoned, and those were some suspiciously Protestant views before the outright conversion...

This alliance with the Ottomans will be interesting...
 
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Chapter 4- The Church of the Old Gods
Chapter 4- The Church of the Old Gods

Swedish hopes of taking Gotland quickly were short-lived. Though the army of Gotland was soon swept aside, the Danish pretenders had spent their pirate loot to build a mighty fortress- Castle Gryf- that would require a massive concentration of force to properly besiege- a concentration they could not afford, with the main force deployed to the east to fight various uprisings- they struggled to maintain a full siege. The main army had more luck, engaging a Sami rebel army in Enare are routing it. Henrik Hastfer, the captain of this force, was judged to have proven himself a worthy successor to Johan Vasa as captain-general of Sweden’s armies. He then marched south to relieve the siege of Reval.
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Fig. 1- Henrik Hastfer’s weapons, from the Abo Museum of Military History

In Stockholm, removed from the chaos, the new Norse documents retrieved from Iceland even further excited interest in Old Norse culture, with artists painting pictures of scenes from Norse mythology and translating, expanding, and working into an organized canon the Icelandic sagas. Sweden had only been solidly Christianized in the late eleventh century, so there were still a few pagans in the backwoods, or “Christians” whose beliefs were so syncretic as to be hardly Christian at all. The contrast between the stuffiness and hypocrisy of the Christian church and the fun-loving folksiness of the backwoods pagans they met on hunting expeditions (both real remnants and opportunists trying to fill a demand for Old Norse culture) began to wear on many of his contemporaries.
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Fig. 2- ‘Thor and Loki in Utgardr’, by Karl Gustavson, 1477

Henrik Hastfer did not have time to read any of it yet. He had just gotten news that Rostock had fallen. As such, he kept marching south and is said to have considered pulling away some of the Gotland occupation force to fight the largest rebel army in Rostock, then decided to leave the rebel-held castle for the time being and take ship to Gotland to finally bring the war to an end. The army was then able sail back to Rostock and siege it down again.
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Fig. 3- Plaque near Castle Gryf commemorating the end of the Reconquest of Gotland

On September 21st, 1479, Prince Karl fell ill. It initially seemed like just a cold, but he simply would not recover, and his condition grew worse until he could not rise from his bed. King Fredrik August, still at the time secluding himself to contemplate the divine, knelt down in prayer. It is said that he cried out to the three-in-one that if his son was saved- his son, who had, for his person avarice, had always been a pious Christian and tithed his significant income to the church- then he would never again doubt. He would know for certain that the corruption of the Vatican was merely a temporary stain on the works of a loving, benevolent deity.

But Karl did not recover. Worse still, when King Fredrik turned to the Archbishop of Uppsala for support, he was told that Karl’s death was a punishment for his actions. For marrying the heretic Agafya. For expecting the church to pay taxes like everyone else. And for allowing his cousin to declare herself High Priestess of Njord.
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Fig. 4- the Death of Prince Karl, 19th, century painting. Note the mocking expression on the face of the priest

It was not what he needed to hear. It was probably done with the intent of shocking King Fredrik August out of his doubts. And it did. Just not in the way they had hoped. He came back into the public light filled with a new zeal. But not for their god. Their god had betrayed him, and he had no loyalty to it. No, he would be following in the path set by his cousin. In his youth, he had looked for God in a Christian seminary, but found only lies and hypocrisy. But it is perhaps significant that he looked at all. They say that inside every cynic is a disappointed idealist. Well, Perhaps Johan III had finally found what he had sought all those years ago. Gods who were not held back by a clergy that had been corrupted by a millennium of earthly politics, who did not scorn material existence but sought to glorify it. Perhaps that is why, on that Wednesday- Odin’s day- March First 1480, he made that unprecedented announcement. Converting to Christianity had been a mistake. From then henceforth, Sweden would worship the Old Gods.
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Fig. 5- The Temple of Freya in Stockholm (formerly the Storkyrkan)

This, of course, sat poorly with many. Some remaining knights on the Livonian Order, who still considered themselves Christian Crusaders, saw resisting this as the natural progression of their original order, took up arms against the crown in Reval. In this, some Orthodox Christians in Noteborg found common ground- they had felt like outsiders enough when Sweden was at least Christian! In addition, the opportunistic heir to the Gryf line declared that this decision invalidated his father’s surrender, and that he was still the ruler of an independent Gotland. The Archbishop of Uppsala also went underground, vowing to return Sweden to Christian rule. However, Henrik Hastfer was among the new converts, and returned to what he had been doing before- enforcing the rule of the Swedish crown on any who would raise arms against it.
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Fig. 6- Early rebellions against the Great Reversion of Sweden.

Now, while many in the Norse Church insist to this day that its structure is consistent since a few generations after Ask and Embla, with it having merely gone underground for a few centuries, more will admit that there was a centuries-long breakdown in organized worship of the Aesir and Vanir, and that with few written records surviving, Fredrik August and his new Norse priests- a mixture of spiritually-minded Norse cultural revivalists, backwoods shamans (some of whom are regarded by outside historians as probable con-artists), and a few low-ranking Christian clergy who converted, had to do some interpolation at the Kem-moot. This is especially true as there had previously not been any one Norse holy book- or at least none that has survived. The most complete book of myths, the Prose Edda, was also demonstrably adulterated- the author, or at least editor, was known to be Snorri Sturluson, a Christian who lived well after the conversion of his native Iceland to Christianity, and it contained a prologue stating that the characters described therein were not actually gods, but rather escaped heroes from the Trojan war (Snorri had clearly read The Aeneid). Thus, there was a general policy of not including anything from the Prose Edda unless a significant amount of backwoods oral tradition cinsistant with it could be found.

The Poetic Edda was a more promising source, having no such obvious flaws and even containing the Havamal, a collection of moral advice allegedly from Odin himself, but it did not, at the time, exist as a collected body, though the Skalholt manuscript contained a good portion of if, so there was still some work to be done there, and some modern historian believe that the Hrafnagaldr Óðins and the Vision of Fólkvangr might have been forgeries. With regards to some facts or events that were fairly consistently present in oral tradition but in no written account, it was, reluctantly found necessary to write ‘canonical’ versions, which were penned by Henrik of Malmo, though likely with input from other members of the Moot. The resulting manuscript- the Younger Edda, is viewed by the few unbiased historians of Norse religion as a reasonable reconstruction of what the pre-Christian Norse actually believed, containing a good deal that cannot be verified but very little that is provably inaccurate.

The same cannot be said for the hierarchy and some of the doctrines also created at the Kem-moot, the former being more-or-less still intact. The leadership of the church would be a council of bishops, with one for each of the major gods. The regional high-priests would answer to the bishops, and the town priests would report to them. Ceremonies would mostly be held in sacred groves, with Johan III going so far as to plant the seedling of a sacred tree from deep in the forests of Norrland outside the gates of the palace of Stockholm. This seems to have initially been a practical decision, as mass-rededication of Christian churches was unfeasible while the population was still mostly Christian, while requiring the construction of a temple for every god in every place before they could be worshipped there would be a major endeavor, but it has endured as a distinctive feature long after this became the case. Indeed, even at the time, critics noted that this new structure rather resembled what a Christian would imagine a functional Pagan church would look like, noting elements clearly based on either Catholic or Orthodox Christianity, or on the better-documented Greco-Roman paganism- the use of “Vestal” as the female equivalent of “Bishop” is particularly blatant. These new Goðar were initially granted all the powers and responsibilities that the Christian clergy had possessed.

What fewer people noticed at the time was how much of the doctrines and structures were engineered to survive. Everyone knew that Christianity had overtaken Paganism in Sweden once, and they did not want it to happen again. One instance of this has already been mentioned- the presence of female clergy. As has been said, there were many in the rooms where the Norse church was being crafted who had read the history of early Christianity, and how it had largely been spread by woman to children. Fredrik August famously said- “Like the Christians, mother shall preach to son. Unlike the Christians, the sons shall not abandon their mothers.” It is important not to overstate this- Even under the Old Gods, 15th-century Sweden was still, by modern standards, a very sexist society. While Fredrik August seemed to be forward-thinking for his time, he was still a man of his time, and further, challenging this specific aspect of his society was not his primary objective. Beyond this, he did not work alone, and the other men involved did not necessarily agree (the common claim that it was Fredrik August’s ‘Personal project’ is an exaggeration. Reviving the worship of the Old Gods was his personal project, and he was not totally alone. There were a few women involved, and surely they at least agreed.). Perhaps we should not judge them, as a group, too harshly. Things do seem to have slightly improved for women under the Norse revival, and even if they had dedicated all their efforts to this, high child mortality rates probably limited how much they could have reshaped society. It is impossible at this point to say whether this was an accurate reconstruction of pre-Christian practices or pure marketing. What definitely was marketing was the declaration that dying in righteous battle might guarantee a place in Valhalla, but it was not the only way to get there. Thus, the farmer, the miller, and the housewife, by converting, could believe that they might get a seat at Odin’s table.

Another major engineered element may have been cribbed from an unlikely source- Islam, the one religion to successfully displace Christianity from large areas. While it seems unlikely that if anyone involved would have known enough about said faith to copy it, Sweden and the Ottoman Empire had already established closer diplomatic ties at the time, so it may have been inspiration or an independent invention. This is a preference for positive over negative incentives to ensure conversion. It was announced that as the Norse church was the Truth, they would not need to ‘bully’ people into seeing it. However, believers were encouraged to give those who showed good character by worshiping the Old Gods preferential treatment in many things. As there was no distinction between individual and state action, this could arguably become a justification to treat them as second-class citizens, but this would hardly be a major offense in and of itself in that aristocratic age. The ultimate effect was that pressure to convert was enacted while minimizing obvious justifications that the still-Christian remainder of Europe could use to invade Sweden and restore Christianity, especially as it still had several strong alliances.

The reaction of the rest of Europe was…complex. As has been said, the reversion of an entire nation to paganism on this scale was unprecedented, and none of the other European powers really knew what to make of it. Many tried to pass it off as a temporary fit of madness, assuming that surely normalcy would reassert itself soon. Many in Sweden took the same approach, simply ignoring the pagans in Stockholm and hoping that they would go away. Others believed that this represented a real threat to Christendom, combined with the Ottomans pushing into the Balkans. The latter position was notably taken by the Holy Roman Emperor, who issued a statement reiterating the illegitimacy of Sweden’s rule of Rostock. But the greatest proponents of this view were Sweden’s former allies in Moscow. Not a year after Fredrik August officially renounced Christianity, the Grand Prince Ivan III Veliky denounced “Fredrik the Aposatate” and severed all ties with Sweden.

There are several theories about why Muscovy, specifically, had such a strong reaction. Some hold that the recent Orthodox experiance made them less certain of the inevitability of Christian victory. In the last few centuries, Catholicism had seen only victory- the Baltic Crusades, Lithuania’s conversion and expansion into ex-Mongol lands, the reconquista. It was easy to believe that Christianity was on a permanent path to sucess. However, the Orthodox world had seen the betrayal of the fourth crusade, and most of the Ottoman conquests had been Orthodox, while Muscovy itself (now the only significant Orthodox-ruled state) had been mostly subjugated by the (initially Tengrist) Mongols. Perhaps this made the appearance of a large pagan nation feel like a real threat to them in a way it didn’t to everyone else. Others point to a more mundane explanation- Muscovy had lost the War of Odoyevan succession to Sweden’s ally Lithuania. Expecting further conflicts and seeing that Lithuania and Sweden were more closely tied, Ivan may have viewed the alliance as unreliable even before the Great Reversion pushed him over the edge. One simple theory that the Swedes of the time themselves took very seriously was that the wrong diplomats had been sent. The Goðar had assumed from the Christian clergy a preeminent position in all embassies, but while this had made sense in the past when there was an idea of shared Christian values, it made less sense for a weird cult that essentially no-one outside of Sweden followed, and that he Grand Prince of Moscow was particularly affected because his cousin had joined said weird cult. The Goðar reluctantly accepted this logic.
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Fig. 7- Sketch of the Swedish diplomatic party in Moscow sent accompanying a letter from a Muscovite nobleman to his sister in Rostov. The letter states, in part, “I strain, dear sister, to describe in detail the strangeness of this group- there are so many bizarre details that I fear that in emphasizing one, I shall forget another. I have, thus, used my small talent for art to draw them for you.”

With in Sweden itself, the rapid change in course led to much turbulence. Outside of Stockholm and Karelia, Christianity was still dominant, and there was still much talk of revolt. The Archbishop of Uppsala showed an unexpected talent for populist agitation, speaking of a Great Christian Revolt to retake Sweden. The armies of Sweden, many said, were spent after the recent wars. Now was the chance. Henrik Hastfer’s anti-riot tactics became increasingly brutal, often arresting people on mere suspicion, while in Stockholm, the Thing passed an act to recruit more soldiers- anyone willing to fight- in case the rumored massive Christian revolt actually came.
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Fig. 8- a letter from Henrik Hastfer to the Stockholm Thing-“I need more men. All that matters is that they will stab who they are told to”

Others embraced the new order- though not all for the right reasons. In Stockholm, philosophers asked questions that had previously been too taboo to consider and made great strides. But some saw the removal of Christian morality as an excuse to abandon all morality, and the Goðar had to spend a lot of time explaining that only the fake rules were fake, and which ones those were. At the forefront of these efforts was Bergil, a weird holy man from the back-country who claimed to have had visions of a possible future where corruption had brought the ruin of Sweden.
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Fig. 9- “The Two Sides of the Glass”, a political cartoon from 1482, showing magnifying glasses, for which a more reliable method of production had recently been discovered, being used by an entomologist and a forger

Henrik Hastfer had little rest in those days. The revolts just kept coming, and Lithuania had gone on an offensive into the post-Livonian chaos, trying to claim as much of the small Baltic land as it could. Sweden was called in to help its ally, but was rarely able to send the army abroad for long.
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Fig. 10- Minor conflicts in the Baltic region in the early 1480s

In January 1484, Sami rebels attacked and slew the Vestal of Njord, King Fredrik August’s cousin, but were slain by a unit of local militia rallied by her son. The aging King Fredrik August, having no children and unlikely to have any more, officially named the lad his heir. He was named Gottfrid in honor of the god of the frothing sea (OOC- some checking on Google Translate implies that that does in fact work in Swedish. This nameset is not designed for a Viking kingdom. I reserve the right to reload from an autosave if I get a “King Christian” in a situation where I can’t rename him). Gottfrid moved to the palace in Stockholm, where his strong Karelian accent received some comment, but he most respected him for his valour
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Fig. 11- Prince Gottfrid, official painting

Not long after, the planners of the Great Christian Revolt made a mistake. They had gathered in Gotland for a meeting between the Archbishop of Uppsala and another Gryf pretender who had offered to serve as a Christian alternative to the pagan Finckes. However, Henrik Hastfer, having fought the Gryfs twice, was even more mistrustful of them than he was of everyone else, and had ensured that loyal, reliable troops were garrisoning Castle Gryf. The rebels were thus caught off-guard and forced to make a stand on the island, and with nowhere to run, they were promptly crushed.
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Fig. 12- Graffito on a rock outside Visby saying ‘Has God abandoned us?”

With things finally calming down slightly, Fredrik August was able to turn his attention to less bloody matters. To counter corruption, he made a great show of enforcing all rules absolutely universally. This earned his some respect from the Norwegian Christian administration, who had previously worried that they would be treated poorly, and his position as King of Norway was secured. It helped that the Norwegians had for the first time seen a potential benefit to the Norse revival, for one of the Icelandic sagas had recently gotten everyone’s attention. It had received less attention previously, as it lacked flashy supernatural stuff, ultimately ended with an undignified failure, and one of the main protagonists had converted to Christianity. However, some wondered whether the Saga of Erik the Red made some claims that, if true, could be very important.
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Fig. 13- Fredrik August holding court in Bergen
 
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I suppose that colonialism will be on Sweden's agenda?

I wonder if Sweden will become an ally of the Protestant states once the Reformation happens? Or will cooperating with pagans on the grounds of having a common religious enemy be too much?

I don't think that any OTL Kings of Sweden were named Christian, so you should be fine.
 
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