European Settlement of Aquitayne
The indigenous people of Aquitayne, the Vikairuge, are believed to have migrated from western Asia around 2,000 to 5,000 years ago. The Vikairuge developed the five needs for a civilization; government, stationary territory, culture, religion, and written and spoken language. When the European Vikings began settling Aquitayne, tens of thousands of Vikairuge succumbed to death. This was due to a combination of large scale warfare between the conquesting Vikings and the defending Vikairuge, as well as the invasion of European diseases such as smallpox that the Vikairuge had no antidotes for.
Aquitayne was originally found by Vassili Aquitas, a Roman explorer who wanted to find new lands to claim as Roman territory, and expand their borders even further than the known world. Leaving the Mediterranean, he believed he was heading westward, but rather he went eastward and eventually came across what is now known as Aquitayne. His journal entries placed him there for about a year before he sailed home to Rome to report his findings to the Senate, who had funded his expedition. He effectively fell in love with the place, calling it his home and the place he was destined to live for the rest of his life.
The Senate, however, was displeased with what Vassili had brought back with him. They believed that the land he described to them was too immaculate to be true, and that many months at sea had driven him insane. As such, the Senate voted for Vassili to be convicted of treason in 204 A.D, with the belief that he was going to incite rioting and discontent among the people of Rome in an attempt to bring colonists to what the Senate called 'Vassili's Godland'. While the Senate voted in favor for Vassili's indictment, there were Senators who believed what Vassili said to be true. In Gaius Laroticus' journal entries from the same year Vassili was convicted, he stated that "Vassili describes this land too vividly for it to be a false place of imagination. His writings are too thought provoking and intoxicating for something so believably real to be such a fantasy."
During Vassili's life sentence in prison, he began to draw paintings of the land he had supposedly traveled to. Some Senators provided Vassili with paint and canvas because they enjoyed the artwork he produced, irregardless of whether or not they believed in what he was painting was real or fantasy. Vassili found painting to be his only salvation in his time in prison, saying that "if this work of mine does not create believers out of the Senate, that they cannot fathom why I would go to such lengths to persuade them of this place's existence, I can no longer take part in the god's will for me in this world. I know I am not insane, I've been to this place, I've felt the grass on my feet and the fruit in my hand; if only I could transfer such emotion to the canvas."
In 212 A.D, Vassili came to the Roman Senate to seek freedom. When he was denied, after a long and spiraling depression, Vassili committed suicide in 215 A.D.
Word of Vassili's discovery, and the location of the map he had made to guide explorers to his discovery, would not come around until 325 A.D, when Jarl Lars Erikson located the maps. He sought to go locate the land that Vassili spoke of, and claim it for his own. Assembling his allies, he and twelve other Jarls began to sail to what they were calling 'Aquitayne'. The expedition carried what was estimated to be 20,000 people, and consisted of hundreds of longships. Most of the ships were for militaristic purposes, with most of the others consisting of colonists and essential supplies.
When the Vikings landed on the shores of Aquitayne, they were met with open arms by the Vikairuge. According to some of the last remaining texts from the Vikairuge civilization, "the foreign men in their heavy metal suits were greeted as brothers and friends, but with their steel they tore that bond and became the demon." After the first encounter with the Vikairuge, the Viking settlers began to take over town after town of Vikairuge; eventually leaving nothing of the indigenous people left except for some artifacts that were saved. Most surviving Vikairuge fled to the midlands, where they believed they would be safe from what they called the "human plague".
The thirteen Jarls were content with their victory, and decided to stay in the fertile land.