So I just started playing this game despite having owned it for years. It's really good. Just to preface what I'm about to describe, I started off by leaving the eldest child with a normal name.
I started off as Olafr, chief of Ossland. His time as chief was uneventful and spent most of his time assisting his liege in fighting the Swedes. He had two children: Rognvaldr by his wife, and Nyx by his concubine. Olafr died of poor health and left Oppland to his son.
Rognvaldr's reign was the point where I started to realise what I was playing. Rognvaldr raked in the prestige and piety while he was alive and was happy to see his eldest son, Oysteinn, join the Varangian Guard. Interestingly, Oysteinn's wife gave birth days before Oysteinn returned and their daughter, Halla, had the crest of the Varangian Guard displayed in her profile. Oysteinn never had a son because he was blinded and castrated. The title of heir went to his brother, AK47. The next brother, Excalibur, was only important in the sense that he would later inherit some land from AK47.
AK47 looked like he was going to be the start of a powerful dynasty. He was a brilliant strategist, humble, patient, temperate, and zealous. He conquered the last independent cheifdoms of Norway and set his sights on the independent cheifdoms of Sweden and Denmark. He conquered the ones Sweden didn't get to first and finally found his match in Sjaelland. Sjaelland itself was easily taken but the chief of Sjaelland refused to concede, speaking of unbeaten armies. It turned out that his brother-in-law had heard of my war and had sent a doomstack across half of Eastern Europe to help him.
AK47 returned to Ossland to find no support from the other lords. In the time he had been conquering they had been talking with catholics and there were many zealots in Norway. AK47 spent the rest of his life inventing flying machines, sacrificing the prisoners he'd taken in Sweden, and organising the assassination of whoever controlled Sjaelland at the time.
AK47 eventually died under suspicious circumstances after having his liege-lord murdered by an archer on a grassy gnoll. His lands were split among his sons and his brother with Ossland going to his eldest son, Dickbutt. The first thing Dickbutt did was call his allies to conquer Sjaelland. They did it. Turns out the aging bishop had no allies to call and the pagan temple returned to the norse. One week later Dickbutts liege, a catholic child, stole Sjaelland from him.
Eventually the Swedes invaded and claimed all of what was once called Ostland. Dickbutt lived the rest of his life among the last germanic pagans, in the court of Kettil of Worcester with the crest of Sjaelland on his profile as a final insult.
I really like this game.