Those are all good ideas. The place I have in mind is an from an old RPG I used to run for "Riddle of Steel". And I just happened to dig up the notes I had wrote for the "Borders Campaign". My own back ground and I patterned the peoples of the border region and Isles off of a Norse-Gallic mishmash.
The main characters were a set up by the "civilized" nation to stop raids and to reopen the old trade routs to the east.
What occurred, were lots reprisal raid against the clans, open warfare. Rape, Murder, and prison breaks. The game ended because I was deployed to Iraq and left my old group in the US, but when last we played. The characters had subdued with ether treaty or arms most of the more infamous raiding clans. And was using them in a protection racket in order to extort tribute from the weaker clans and any merchants who didn't want to pay the extremely high price for protection.
Fun times.
So hopefully the idea of playing this on he table bares fruit.