I'll write my AAR in a PoV style. Most of the events in this story will be based on pure dialogue between key-figures in the realm and its political significants concerning Oldenburgian affairs. However, I will only release each chapter after each ruler's life has ended IG. Since I missed the first session of the game, I came in to see a wounded marshal of Saxony, fathering four sons, dying only a few months into the game. He has no significant marriages at all, has no claims on anything, so most that you read will be an introduction to the story and what will happen during his son's reign, or well, what I concentrated on doing during that session. I'm trying to keep to the RP status and describe the characters and their actions out of their traits and attributes. Hope you will enjoy it!
Eglimar, count of Oldenburg of the house of Oldenburg
1040-1096
"Worthless peasants! I almost lost my good sword arm!" Eglimar, known for his gruff attitude, was in a bad mood today.
"Which arm is that, my lord?" The page watched him with careful eyes, trying to find the wound from the stray arrow. Shocked by the intrusive question, the count was contemplating whether he should smack his servant in the face, giving him a good iron-plated knuckle-sandwich, or if he should just stab him in the knee. But after giving it some thought, Eglimar came to the conclusion that that's exactly what he'd expect.
"Both my arms are my best sword arms." he answered cunningly. The threat to his life was over... For now...
As marshal of duke Magnus I of Saxony, Brunswick and Gelre, Eglimar had the great honour of being not only the leader of the North-German army, but also to train and shape them into decent imperial soldiers. This was no easy task, to say the least. During the day's archery lessons, he had positioned himself too far up the target range. One of the serf's bows was defective, a string had broke and sent the arrow right towards his marshal's chest. This angered Eglimar somewhat. With an arrow still sticking out of his chest-plate, not realising the stream of blood sipping down his belly, down his leg, out through his boot while leaving a grizzly trail as he walked determined and with his sword drawn over the field, he cut off the arm of the poor serf.
"Throw him into the river! And make sure he stay down there! You be glad, peasant, we live in the modern age, or you'd be stoned instead. The old Romans didn't tolerate attempts on a Noble's life like I do!" After realising the arrow had pierced the skin and almost made it through the cartilage between his ribs, the count retired to his tent for the day. The servants had called for the medico immediately, who quickly concluded their lord was in no serious threat. This didn't anger Eglimar as much.
It was 1096, the dusk of a century. The Holy Roman Empire was shaken by the calls for rebellion. The courts of Germany questioned their reason to meddle with Italian affairs, as Duchess Matilda, the Unready, of Tuscany raised her levies to depose the mighty Kaiser Ruprecht the Great. While every other count, duke or king within the empire had been sent to deal with the problem, Eglimar was stuck in Lünenburg training arrow-fodder. He was content with this. Bored of staring into the canvas of his tent, the count decided to go outside into the field-sty. He enjoyed himself immensely by kicking pigs over on their back, hearing them squeal and squeal and squeal. It reminded him of his dungeon back home. A figure appeared from behind, and the count, slowly, drew his sword...
"Father?"
"Oh, it's you." Eglimar decided to keep his weapon out. He felt safer holding sharp objects around people.
"I heard you were wounded."
"Who told you that?! Who else knows?!"
"The whole camp, and a rider was sent to inform the court of the incident."
"Damn it! I shall have them all slain for this treachery! Telling all of my enemies that I am struck, this is treason! Someone must be mutilated for this."
"Father, relax. Noone is trying to kill you. In fact, most of your vassals loves you. Why would they try to harm you?"
"You should ask that question to the assassin who shot this bloody arrow my way." Luitpold, the son and heir, shook his head, feeling safe doing so in the cover of darkness.
"I have been looking for you. A message arrived from your councillor today. He has been making some family research, and he found that the records carry a most peculiar anomaly. Four generations ago, our family had close ties to the Stade family in Bremen. Apparently, there was talk of a marriage between count Garulf, our ancestor, and the daughter of Baron von Stade. His only son died three years later, and the betrothal was broken, fearing a great succession crisis with Oldenburg. She was married off to a commoner, the mayor of Beverstedt it seems. However, eight months after the weeding, she had a son, and the betrothal was only broken a week before her wedding with the mayor. Do you understand what this means, father?"
"Has anyone ever told you what an ugly sod you are?" Count Eglimar loved his son.
"You've reminded me of that since I was six years old. Probably even earlier..."
"...yeah."
"...if I had only remembered that far back. But please, the information..."
"What about it?"
"Count Garulf was still courting the girl, only fourteen years old, for three weeks before the marriage was cancelled! It was even said he stayed for the wedding, as an act of good faith and friendship with Baron von Stade. It would be so easy to claim, that the child that was born, was seeded by a von Oldenburg! As the Baron grew older, he never produced any more children. The duke of Saxony decided to relinquish the baron his rights to the county, and made bishop Arngruff the provincial ruler of Bremen, instead of the seat of Stade, as he didn't trust a woman to take the title as countess regnant. We are the rightful heirs of the bishopric of Bremen, as barons of Stade and Counts and Lords!"
"Are you insane?!" Eglimar was fuming, barely able to stand from all this rage. "You wish to mark us as bastards and ungodly, desecrate the laws of the holy church and stealing its titles?! Claiming my great-great-great grandfather was a fornicating rejected love struck boy-ruler, smitten by a pubescent girl, barely gifted with any mammal glands to feed a child given to her outside her marriage?!"
"Father..."
"I will not hear more of this! The Oldenburgs are a proud family, reaching generations of rulers of our castle in the past, too far back to count. We withheld the Norse pagans as they burnt the coastline, and we've been the stalwart protectors of our lands for centuries. We need not any other soil to prove our worth. And here you come, twisting around like a snake, speaking with cloven tongue, trying to defile our ancestry as aggressors and intruders, whoring their way through northern Germany? If you were any other man but my boy, and if I didn't love you as my own son..."
"...I am your son."
"Quiet! If you weren't, I would had whipped you, drawn you, cut off your hands and ripped out that... That... black tongue... that..." With a hollow sound from the very end of his lungs, the count fell over into the dung of the sty.
Two months later, Count Eglimar died from his wound, 56 years old. He never woke up, from the day of his wound, to the day of his passing. His son spent lavishly on a funeral feast for his father, a beloved count in the three duchies, and many guests arrived to show their respects. The dukes of Brandenburg, Ancola, and the tri-Duke himself were among the more esteemed guests. A man of great prestige, and a witness and contributor in many past wars, had left his mortal flesh.
