And pay no attention to this infidel! The Messiah speaks only the truth!
Ironic, considering Im a Brotherhood fanatic
But clearly this chain of events is not going to end up good for our dear Count. You know this as well as everyone else.
In the Shadow of Certain, Painful Doom: Abyssinia
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Ironic, considering Im a Brotherhood fanatic
But clearly this chain of events is not going to end up good for our dear Count. You know this as well as everyone else.
Ironic, considering Im a Brotherhood fanatic
But clearly this chain of events is not going to end up good for our dear Count. You know this as well as everyone else.
Business as usual, I guess.
Daughters marrying without their fathers approvals, wives wanting to murder their husbands, and mysterious orders linked to goat herding... another great series of updates.
I hope the succession change works out well...
I hope the succession change works out well...
What? Of course tej isn't people. It's Gelada Baboons! How else can anything made in Sennar not be horribly bad?
Anyway, this is a really awesome ARR, without doubt the best I've read. And it's good to see the knucklebone return. All hail the One-natured God and his champion Severus!
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Yes, soon all (or rather, precious little) will be revealed. Mwahahaha! (Please click here for the proper laugh... LOL, I couldn't stop pressing this when I first found it.)
Mwahahaha!
Yes, and it may soon get curiouser and curiouser...
LOL It all fits!
No, unfortunately he's not converted. He still thinks they are heretics. But potentially useful heretics at least. It would have been kind of fun if he had also converted to the Monophysite faith, too.
The Gelada Baboons are gaining in power. Fortunately they don't eat meat... yet.
Tell me, did one of these Brotherhood men happen to have a scorpion tattoo, or look something like this?:
If so, I got bad news for you...
I looked up this character and the game franchise he takes place in. Very interesting. I had never played those games before. I like the coherent, long-developed back story across the several games and the biblical allusions. Very nice.
Yes, you pretty much have hit the Zagwes' tendencies on the head.
The One-Natured God seems to enjoy messing with you. After so much effort, your daughter decides she wants you and the rest of the Zagwes locked in Sennar. Time to find yourself another Duchess I suppose.
And pay no attention to this infidel! The Messiah speaks only the truth!
Yes, you are right--he could find another duchy opportunity with one of his next children, painful as that would be to walk away from Armenia. I probably should have been doing this all along, to hedge bets on Armenia. Goodness knows Tesfaye III certainly had enough children to get more things set up.
Ironic, considering Im a Brotherhood fanatic
But clearly this chain of events is not going to end up good for our dear Count. You know this as well as everyone else.
Business as usual, I guess.
Exactly.
Thanks! Succession? Hmm? What--cough, cough--succession change?...
Thank you! I appreciate your kind feedback!
And tej from Gelada Baboons? That would explain their ill temper towards Sennarians.
Chapter 68
After being taken down the hole, through an underground corridor, and then finally through some groaning, massive-sounding door, my blindfold is finally removed. I am shocked to see that instead of some dimly-lit, underground chamber, I appear to be in a pleasant flower garden, which fills the enormous crevice floor on which I find myself. Instead of a ceiling, we are at the bottom of some large rocky crevice which narrows slightly but eventually ends far above, revealing a moon-lit sky. The floor of the crevice is covered with vegetation—vegetable plants, fruit trees, flowering bushes—and by the light of the moon and stars I can see quail, rabbits, and other small animals scurrying about. Instead of rock, the floor of the crevice is covered with spongy soil, which is clearly fertile, given all the greenery growing everywhere. I even hear a waterfall somewhere. The hooded spokesman from my bedchamber notes my surprise and comments that it was goat herders that found this crevice. Hence the name, Order of the Coptic Goat Herders. Still slightly stunned at all of it, I am gently guided to a group of huts in the center of the crevice floor.
In the largest hut is a central room with about twenty high-backed wooden chairs all facing each other in a large circle. All the chairs are empty except for the one farthest from the door. A hooded, stooped figure sits there, and when she begins to speak her voice sounds vaguely familiar, although her voice is so gravelly it is barely understandable. She welcomes me and asks me to sit. She repeats what I had been told earlier, about this group being committed to protecting my blood line. A fundamental tenet of their beliefs is that only with a return of a Zagwe to the Abyssinian throne will the Monophysite religion blossom and spread its fruit across the civilized world. “I know you hold our faith in dim esteem,” she croaks laboriously, “But at least you can appreciate that your and our goals are one and the same: to put your line once again on the throne in Gondar. We will do everything in our power to protect you and move towards that goal.” I thank her, and ask what they can do to help me field larger armies to take back this throne. She tells me that while they are much more powerful than their mere numbers would indicate, much of their energy is spent in protecting my line from hostile forces both internal and external to my county.
I notice on a little pedestal in the center of the circle a small wooden tray and what appears to be a bone piece lying on it. The hooded woman tells me that this is the holy relic of the Abyssinian Monophysite faith: the knuckle bone of Severus the Unwashed, Patriarch of Antioch. They believe that the safety of this knuckle bone is essential to the safety of my blood line. If it was ever destroyed, my blood line would die, she says. I ask if my blood line’s safety is assured as long as this bone stays safe. She tells me no, probably not. I think to myself that this group might be more useful if they didn’t spend all their energy protecting useless bits of long-dead people, but I think better of pointing this out to them.
As I am about to leave, the woman says that a goat herder brought me a journal some time ago, while I was on campaign in Byzantium. I nod, and she continues to tell me that I should keep this journal safe. I should have this journal passed down through my blood line. “If you read the journal,” she says, “You will understand everything. It is vital that you understand everything.” I mention that I’m not too big on reading long texts, could she give me the abbreviated version. The unseen face beneath the hood stares at me for a few seconds, before turning to another hooded figure. “This will be your contact with the Order. If you need help, talk to him.” The indicated figure removes his hood to reveal Chancellor Demetrios, who nods at me solemnly, before replacing his hood.
After leaving, they again blindfold me at the entrance to this green world and follow the same process in reverse to bring me back to my bedchamber. Standing by my sleeping mistress with the blindfold in hand, I hear the nearby city dogs starting their early morning barking and I wonder what the hell to do with this new found information.
Oh crap.
I do not have long to think about my midnight adventures, however, because the first business of morning is a horrifying shock. The unthinkable has happened. My daughter, the Duchess of Armenia, has declared independence from Byzantium and is rebelling against my liege. What on earth was the girl thinking?
This puts me in a horrible dilemma. If I do nothing, Empress Ioanna will in all certainty quickly crush the rebellion and strip my daughter of a title. Even worse, my daughter will be imprisoned. She could very well have become pregnant by that time, so she will have an heir with her husband, but being in prison she will be unable to change the succession laws. The Zagwes’ hopes will languish with her in prison until she likely dies, at which time her duchy would pass from the Zagwe line to that of her husband. We would lose everything. But if I join her, could I not also lose my title? Even if I join, unless several other Doux rebel as well, there is little likelihood that we can be successful. In the end I decide to join in the hopes of reaching a White Peace with my liege. Before my daughter rebelled, Empress Ioanna had already been dealing with another Doux rebellion, so perhaps if we cause enough damage quickly, we can make squashing us more trouble than it is worth.
Planned makeup of the army
I have my pathetically puny army form up and move out without delay, not even waiting for my daughter’s letter accepting us into her fight. I need to remain behind briefly to prepare for the campaign, and so I will need to catch up to the army as it moves towards Byzantium.
As frustrating as Laurentios is, I desperately need his military acumen now, so I summon him and tell him he is being moved from his steward post to that of general of the army, handling the central column. He is a mediocre steward at best, so I assume that he will prefer the post at which he excels anyway, with his excellent martial abilities. But I am wrong. The man clearly has become quite enamored with the steward role, and is visibly shaking with rage as he promises that one day soon I will see that I heaped one too many insults on him, but it will be too late on that day. Then he storms off. I continually insult him? In any case, I don’t worry too much about his threats. He will cool off once we get the army marching.
The hopeless optimism of youth.
I receive word from my daughter that she officially accepts my invitation to join her cause. “We will cause our enemies to tremble”—Foolish girl! I will have to find out what caused her to rebel. Perhaps there are forces at work here that that I am unaware of that make this necessary. Or perhaps the one hope of the Zagwe line has gone stark raving mad.
I'll keep it simple, daughter: Attack at the flat places, defend at the rocky places. And hire some mercenaries, for the love of the Dual-Natured God!
If my daughter has any military ability at all, she will have her forces stay in the mountainous regions of Armenia when she needs to defend. Not that it will likely change the outcome, but it will at least slow the approaching doom.
Some success in the war!
The morning arrives when I am ready to catch up to the army by carriage. My mistress Konstantine is beside herself. She tells me that she had a deeply disturbing dream in which she was attending funeral rites over my dead body. She begs me to stay in Sennar and let Laurentios handle the campaign. I scoff at this—Laurentios is good, but he is overconfident. He needs me to keep him in line. Besides, why would I place any stock in dreams about dying? I do seek out Demetrios to ask if there is anything he can tell me about my joining the army, but I cannot find him. Nobody has seen him for several days. I decide to wait another day to see if Demetrios shows up. Instead, the next day a messenger arrives with news about my daughter: she is having some immediate success sieging neighboring territories. This is excellent! If she can rack up enough quick hits, perhaps Ioanna will decide it is easier to let Armenia go. At the very least, perhaps we can reach the White Peace agreement. I order my carriage to be made ready to set out immediately. I must not hesitate any further—my dynasty needs me to help win this war.
The carriage driver tells me that the supply of tej for my journey did not show up and asks if I would like to stop at the merchant to pick this up. That route will take us to a town that I don’t normally see, and my subjects there would be delighted at my appearance. “Yes, yes,” I say, “Just hurry. We must catch up with the army as soon as possible.” I settle back into my carriage and fetch Ganet’s journal from my bags. I begin to read.
As I read more carefully this time, I become quickly interested at the things she writes about. I read about the places where she did research in Russia while she was married there. About the people she met there, powerful people in the Monophysite religion, people who revealed to her mystical powers that alchemy would unlock for her and for her faith. She saw the powers of alchemy as closely in line with the beliefs of Monophysitism, and as she learned the knowledge of alchemy, she began to conduct experiments herself. I am amazed at the things she claims to have done through her experiments and the capabilities that she says it gave her. Surely she could not have done all this? Many of these things sound humanly impossible. Yet there was some tone in the writing that rang true, in spite of the incredible content. I resolve to finish this journal while we are catching up to the army. It is a shame that it took me this long to start it, but the damage can now easily be repaired.
I read through the morning as the carriage moves on, until we come to an abrupt stop. I look out and call out to my obviously bored chief bodyguard. He tells me that the driver of the carriage stopped and then ran away abruptly, they are not sure why. The wind stops, and I see a Black-Chested Snake Eagle land on a leafless branch of a nearby tree. The bird has caught a snake, which is writhing in its beak. For some reason I find it intensely interesting to watch the snake as it tries to twist and turn to bite the eagle. Despite how it twists, that snake is surely doomed.
And then everything changes.
"Suspicious accident" is a bit of an understatement.
After being taken down the hole, through an underground corridor, and then finally through some groaning, massive-sounding door, my blindfold is finally removed. I am shocked to see that instead of some dimly-lit, underground chamber, I appear to be in a pleasant flower garden, which fills the enormous crevice floor on which I find myself. Instead of a ceiling, we are at the bottom of some large rocky crevice which narrows slightly but eventually ends far above, revealing a moon-lit sky. The floor of the crevice is covered with vegetation—vegetable plants, fruit trees, flowering bushes—and by the light of the moon and stars I can see quail, rabbits, and other small animals scurrying about. Instead of rock, the floor of the crevice is covered with spongy soil, which is clearly fertile, given all the greenery growing everywhere. I even hear a waterfall somewhere. The hooded spokesman from my bedchamber notes my surprise and comments that it was goat herders that found this crevice. Hence the name, Order of the Coptic Goat Herders. Still slightly stunned at all of it, I am gently guided to a group of huts in the center of the crevice floor.
In the largest hut is a central room with about twenty high-backed wooden chairs all facing each other in a large circle. All the chairs are empty except for the one farthest from the door. A hooded, stooped figure sits there, and when she begins to speak her voice sounds vaguely familiar, although her voice is so gravelly it is barely understandable. She welcomes me and asks me to sit. She repeats what I had been told earlier, about this group being committed to protecting my blood line. A fundamental tenet of their beliefs is that only with a return of a Zagwe to the Abyssinian throne will the Monophysite religion blossom and spread its fruit across the civilized world. “I know you hold our faith in dim esteem,” she croaks laboriously, “But at least you can appreciate that your and our goals are one and the same: to put your line once again on the throne in Gondar. We will do everything in our power to protect you and move towards that goal.” I thank her, and ask what they can do to help me field larger armies to take back this throne. She tells me that while they are much more powerful than their mere numbers would indicate, much of their energy is spent in protecting my line from hostile forces both internal and external to my county.
I notice on a little pedestal in the center of the circle a small wooden tray and what appears to be a bone piece lying on it. The hooded woman tells me that this is the holy relic of the Abyssinian Monophysite faith: the knuckle bone of Severus the Unwashed, Patriarch of Antioch. They believe that the safety of this knuckle bone is essential to the safety of my blood line. If it was ever destroyed, my blood line would die, she says. I ask if my blood line’s safety is assured as long as this bone stays safe. She tells me no, probably not. I think to myself that this group might be more useful if they didn’t spend all their energy protecting useless bits of long-dead people, but I think better of pointing this out to them.
As I am about to leave, the woman says that a goat herder brought me a journal some time ago, while I was on campaign in Byzantium. I nod, and she continues to tell me that I should keep this journal safe. I should have this journal passed down through my blood line. “If you read the journal,” she says, “You will understand everything. It is vital that you understand everything.” I mention that I’m not too big on reading long texts, could she give me the abbreviated version. The unseen face beneath the hood stares at me for a few seconds, before turning to another hooded figure. “This will be your contact with the Order. If you need help, talk to him.” The indicated figure removes his hood to reveal Chancellor Demetrios, who nods at me solemnly, before replacing his hood.
After leaving, they again blindfold me at the entrance to this green world and follow the same process in reverse to bring me back to my bedchamber. Standing by my sleeping mistress with the blindfold in hand, I hear the nearby city dogs starting their early morning barking and I wonder what the hell to do with this new found information.
Oh crap.
I do not have long to think about my midnight adventures, however, because the first business of morning is a horrifying shock. The unthinkable has happened. My daughter, the Duchess of Armenia, has declared independence from Byzantium and is rebelling against my liege. What on earth was the girl thinking?
This puts me in a horrible dilemma. If I do nothing, Empress Ioanna will in all certainty quickly crush the rebellion and strip my daughter of a title. Even worse, my daughter will be imprisoned. She could very well have become pregnant by that time, so she will have an heir with her husband, but being in prison she will be unable to change the succession laws. The Zagwes’ hopes will languish with her in prison until she likely dies, at which time her duchy would pass from the Zagwe line to that of her husband. We would lose everything. But if I join her, could I not also lose my title? Even if I join, unless several other Doux rebel as well, there is little likelihood that we can be successful. In the end I decide to join in the hopes of reaching a White Peace with my liege. Before my daughter rebelled, Empress Ioanna had already been dealing with another Doux rebellion, so perhaps if we cause enough damage quickly, we can make squashing us more trouble than it is worth.
Planned makeup of the army
I have my pathetically puny army form up and move out without delay, not even waiting for my daughter’s letter accepting us into her fight. I need to remain behind briefly to prepare for the campaign, and so I will need to catch up to the army as it moves towards Byzantium.
As frustrating as Laurentios is, I desperately need his military acumen now, so I summon him and tell him he is being moved from his steward post to that of general of the army, handling the central column. He is a mediocre steward at best, so I assume that he will prefer the post at which he excels anyway, with his excellent martial abilities. But I am wrong. The man clearly has become quite enamored with the steward role, and is visibly shaking with rage as he promises that one day soon I will see that I heaped one too many insults on him, but it will be too late on that day. Then he storms off. I continually insult him? In any case, I don’t worry too much about his threats. He will cool off once we get the army marching.
The hopeless optimism of youth.
I receive word from my daughter that she officially accepts my invitation to join her cause. “We will cause our enemies to tremble”—Foolish girl! I will have to find out what caused her to rebel. Perhaps there are forces at work here that that I am unaware of that make this necessary. Or perhaps the one hope of the Zagwe line has gone stark raving mad.
I'll keep it simple, daughter: Attack at the flat places, defend at the rocky places. And hire some mercenaries, for the love of the Dual-Natured God!
If my daughter has any military ability at all, she will have her forces stay in the mountainous regions of Armenia when she needs to defend. Not that it will likely change the outcome, but it will at least slow the approaching doom.
Some success in the war!
The morning arrives when I am ready to catch up to the army by carriage. My mistress Konstantine is beside herself. She tells me that she had a deeply disturbing dream in which she was attending funeral rites over my dead body. She begs me to stay in Sennar and let Laurentios handle the campaign. I scoff at this—Laurentios is good, but he is overconfident. He needs me to keep him in line. Besides, why would I place any stock in dreams about dying? I do seek out Demetrios to ask if there is anything he can tell me about my joining the army, but I cannot find him. Nobody has seen him for several days. I decide to wait another day to see if Demetrios shows up. Instead, the next day a messenger arrives with news about my daughter: she is having some immediate success sieging neighboring territories. This is excellent! If she can rack up enough quick hits, perhaps Ioanna will decide it is easier to let Armenia go. At the very least, perhaps we can reach the White Peace agreement. I order my carriage to be made ready to set out immediately. I must not hesitate any further—my dynasty needs me to help win this war.
The carriage driver tells me that the supply of tej for my journey did not show up and asks if I would like to stop at the merchant to pick this up. That route will take us to a town that I don’t normally see, and my subjects there would be delighted at my appearance. “Yes, yes,” I say, “Just hurry. We must catch up with the army as soon as possible.” I settle back into my carriage and fetch Ganet’s journal from my bags. I begin to read.
As I read more carefully this time, I become quickly interested at the things she writes about. I read about the places where she did research in Russia while she was married there. About the people she met there, powerful people in the Monophysite religion, people who revealed to her mystical powers that alchemy would unlock for her and for her faith. She saw the powers of alchemy as closely in line with the beliefs of Monophysitism, and as she learned the knowledge of alchemy, she began to conduct experiments herself. I am amazed at the things she claims to have done through her experiments and the capabilities that she says it gave her. Surely she could not have done all this? Many of these things sound humanly impossible. Yet there was some tone in the writing that rang true, in spite of the incredible content. I resolve to finish this journal while we are catching up to the army. It is a shame that it took me this long to start it, but the damage can now easily be repaired.
I read through the morning as the carriage moves on, until we come to an abrupt stop. I look out and call out to my obviously bored chief bodyguard. He tells me that the driver of the carriage stopped and then ran away abruptly, they are not sure why. The wind stops, and I see a Black-Chested Snake Eagle land on a leafless branch of a nearby tree. The bird has caught a snake, which is writhing in its beak. For some reason I find it intensely interesting to watch the snake as it tries to twist and turn to bite the eagle. Despite how it twists, that snake is surely doomed.
And then everything changes.
"Suspicious accident" is a bit of an understatement.
Darum's on the Mediterranean coast, just south of Ascalon. Was your army moving through there when you got the event?
So are you able to change the succession laws now to avoid Dionysia's father succeeding? Will Dionysia be exiled to Sennar? What about Genat's diary? Will the Order of Coptic Goat Herders intervene?
So are you able to change the succession laws now to avoid Dionysia's father succeeding? Will Dionysia be exiled to Sennar? What about Genat's diary? Will the Order of Coptic Goat Herders intervene?
Why would you want that? If she dies now with the current succession laws, a non-Zagwe inherits everything!
This could be a blessing in disguise, dynastically speaking. Apart from the empresses legions about to knock on your door
I never saw that particular event. Back and to the left... Tesfaye rhymes with JFK.
Holy shi-... This one has just gotten intense. But, of course, I think you're extremely fortunate this happened when it did. You can fix all the dumb mistakes your daughter made.
Ha!I never saw that particular event. Back and to the left... Tesfaye rhymes with JFK.
act one: white peace
act two: elective monarchy
this shoudlnt be TOO hard to do. if you werent a zagwe. i'd consider converting back to monophsite and hoping on mor elove from your god.
act two: elective monarchy
this shoudlnt be TOO hard to do. if you werent a zagwe. i'd consider converting back to monophsite and hoping on mor elove from your god.
Perhaps finding a clause in Tesfaye's will legitimizing little Konstantinos? (Save game edit/console trait removal/craft a custom event) Then you could have the daughter assign Sennar to her half-brother.
It's definitely going to be interesting, for the first time we will have a female perspective informing us of the horrible lifestyle of Sennar... thought I doubt the duchess of Armenia will make many journey's to the land of her fathers...
No one willing to step up and be a pretender huh? Are Caesar's sons willing to fight for their tej?
Suspicious accident? I thought with the Byzzies dying in a plot was called "natural causes"...
This is an amazing, AMAZING After Action Report. You nearly had me fired by making me laugh so much at work (and also, as a side effect, doing no valuable job whatsoever for several hours). It has even inspired me into writing my own AAR. Not nearly as funny as yours, but then you have to give yourself realistic goals. I hope your dynasty survives for many centuries or that, failing that, you make other AARs.
You really should ask Paradox to pay you for the amazing publicity!
You really should ask Paradox to pay you for the amazing publicity!
The only thing suspicious about that accident was that it was in broad daylight, Greeks are usually much more careful to hide these things. What was Tesafaye's wife's intrigue again? It shouldn't matter too much now but I'd keep an eye on her if I was you.
Apart from that keep up the good work mate
Apart from that keep up the good work mate
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