Children of the Fatherland: MP conversion game

It is the renaissance! The dawn of new era shines upon the weary souls that have slept trough the darkness and now opening their eyes in the wake of these new wonderful times!

It is the beginning! The awakening, the enlightenment!

But behold!
Times are still dark and despite the new morning await us; the black clouds are there to shade the light of the day. Because the dark mass has been spoken! Out from the very Minarets of the holy city!
And the Christian people of Rome are stumbled under the heavy feet of the Saracen yoke. Who would hear their pleas and cry? Who would listen the begging of the good folk from every true believer of Jesus and the holy mother should take heed and listen?
“Save us!”
“Liberate us!”

The world looks dim and cold. Would the new morning that awaits us be not lighted by the sun but by the evil crescent of the dark side of the moon?
Is there any sanctuary left for the people of Christ? Are all things sacred and holy to be given to the Saracen scum that loiters in the halls of once noble and proud congregations? Is world just destined to bend under the shadow? Will the eastern gloom over take us and place the world into 1000 years of rule of Satan himself?


And King Susi Dôn looked down to the map and shook of his head. France had fallen. The mighty Rome had been brought down and the holy city burned, raped, pillaged and defiled by every possible means that the Saracen’s would know…and the Kings of Denmark knew very well the vile nature of the infidels. … Such believers of anti-Christ must have been experts of all sorts of ways to molest the Christendom.

Now when the East-Rome had also fell, no power laid there in the south to oppress and guard the true faith of Jesus Christ. The believers of the world needed their savior, their defender, their champion to bear the armor of Christ and hold the sword of god with holy mother’s shield on their arm and stand in front of the darkness that keeps spreading down from the south… Soon it would creep into the north. Soon would no soul be in safe. Soon… Unless someone would stood out and stand up.

Susi Dôn looked himself from the mirror. Could it be me? Could the Dôn family, the one with elf-blood to take their stand in role that no one seemed to take? No king of the west or east had stood firmly against the Muslim-darkness. Not even Danish Kings since the Von Knausling dynasty had fallen.
Were Dôn’s up to such task? Were our shoulders board enough for the heavy cloak it required?
Susi didn’t know the answer. But he did know, that unless someone wouldn’t stop the infidels, the world he knew and loved would become to its end. There were times when someone would need to look selfishly just after his own good and concentrate onto the happiness of one’s own subjects.

Such times had passed.

Susi stood up. He looked to the mirror and the man who looked back had a question:
Will the Dôn’s look other way when the next Christian prince would face the Saracen hordes?
“NO!” And he struck the table with his arm.
Will the Dôn’s turn their another cheek when the next slap from the arrogant caliphates would be served to entire Christendom?
“NO!” And he struck the table so hard that the ink fell and the quills flew away and fell back like he had just killed a chicken.

And He looked one more time from the mirror and smiled. Anger made him look proud and handsome indeed. He saw not only a king and noble prince. He saw the defender of the entire faith.

OrangeYoshi said:

You have no connection to the true emperors.

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Bloodline was never necessary for legitimacy. Neither was ethnicity. The crown was granted by the senate/divine will, depending on century. As you may or may not have noticed the peoples of the western and southern and eastern parts of the Empire agree I am Holy Roman Emperor and Caliphapope. It is only in the Northeast that there are other contenders for the crown. Nothing new of course, there have been divisions with multiple Emperors/Augusti/Caesars before and they got along fine. I'm just poking fun at your's and KoM's propaganda.

From now onwards, the Kings of Denmark shall be called the defender of the catholic faith

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So the Greek Emperor or the Russian Tsar would have to prostate himself before your bishops, renounce his idolatrous ways, burn the icons, cut their beards and convert to Catholicism to be safe? Do the Averronians count as Saracens?

So the Greek Emperor or the Russian Tsar would have to prostate himself before your bishops, renounce his idolatrous ways, burn the icons, cut their beards and convert to Catholicism to be safe? Do the Averronians count as Saracens?

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I think "golly plrrrrssss help me!" would do

Do the Averronians count as Saracens?

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Unless they denounce all their heretic claims that holy seal exist in egypt, denounce the both Khaliphates as imperialistic warmongers and cut all their alliances and return the france under rule of babtised De Flandre's, I would say they look pretty saracen to me...

I don't know how you did it, but this specific page of the thread is getting filtered by several web security services because of "its content" .

FrozenWall said:

Bloodline was never necessary for legitimacy. Neither was ethnicity.

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Sorry Frosty I have to agree with OY here. The Eastern Roman Empire was the Roman Empire not due to the particular borders of territory it held, but political continuity. What made the various Western successor states (including HRE) not the Roman Empire was not a lack of territory they held, but a lack of political continuity with ancient Rome. I don't see any Fatimid connection to it either. And while ethnicity rarely mattered and bloodline only sometimes mattered, continuity always did.

OY's derivation, otoh, is lulzy.

I don't know how you did it, but this specific page of the thread is getting filtered by several web security services because of "its content"

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oh yeas, i forgot that the internet hates good crusading role playing...

[Since Eu3 is fast coming up, and, fates allowing, I will be playing Ethiopia, I shall keep the machinations of everybody's favorite Egyptian necromancer for another AAR, and instead take a look at the history of those lands.]


The Horn of Africa

And she gave the king an hundred and twenty talents of gold, and of spices very great store, and precious stones: there came no more such abundance of spices as these which the queen of Sheba gave to king Solomon.
And the navy also of Hiram, that brought gold from Ophir, brought in from Ophir great plenty of almug trees, and precious stones.
And the king made of the almug trees pillars for the house of the LORD, and for the king's house, harps also and psalteries for singers: there came no such almug trees, nor were seen unto this day.
And king Solomon gave unto the queen of Sheba all her desire, whatsoever she asked, beside that which Solomon gave her of his royal bounty. So she turned and went to her own country, she and her servants.

Kings 1.10-13

The wealth of the Horn of Africa has always been dependent on trade and the freedom of the sea. The Horn is cut off from the Mediterranean world by formidable geographic barriers on land: nigh-impassable, bone-dry deserts and mountains, penetrated only by the Nile River. And the upper Nile itself was famously impassable, having baffled successive Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Arab explorers for a dozen centuries, with its maze of marshes and a thousand twisting channels and tiny islands with no clear course or banks. From the other great locus of civilizations, Eastern Asia, the Horn is divided by the Indian Ocean, ever treacherous with its unpredictable currents and powerful monsoon winds.

Hemmed in by such natural barriers to movement on the land, it is no wonder that the history and fortunes of the Horn of Africa civilizations have always been linked inextricably to trade and travel by sea. From the ancient Red Sea trade between the Egyptians and what they called the Land of Punt, to the Queen of Sheba's famous expedition to Jerusalem, to the Axumite trade with the Roman and East Asian worlds, the people of East Africa have always looked to the sea to provide links with the outside world. Indeed, the very foundation of the Axumite Empire (which produced the first actual Ethiopian attestation of the word Ethiopia, although the name Αιθιοπία in Greek appears as far back as Homer) was the vast wealth of the southern Silk Road, the Romans' hunger for Asian goods and the Asians' hunger for Roman gold. The southern route passed from the Indian Ocean through Axum's Red Sea, and its cargoes went to or from India in Ethiopian ships. As long as the trade routes remained open, the kings and the peoples of East Africa grew wealthy.

Decline of Axum

"In that day shall messengers go forth from me in ships to make the careless Ethiopians afraid, and great pain shall come upon them, as in the day of Egypt: for, lo, it cometh."

-Ezek. 30.9

The reverse, however, was also true; when trade suffered, so did the East African kingdoms. When trade with Pharaonic Egypt died, Punt vanishes from the historical record; when the decline of Rome led to less robust European markets, Axumite coins become rarer in the archaological record; and when, with the rise of Islam, Arab piratical emirates disrupted the vulnerable sea route to India along the south Arabian coast, the empire of Solomon's descendants entered a long period of contraction and decline. Despite friendly links to early Muslims (the Axumite Empire having been the first in the world to offer sanctuary to Muslims fleeing pagan persecution in Mecca) and even despite Mohammed's own praise of Ethiopian justice and tolerance, later Arab rulers attacked the Empire, driving Ethiopian traders from the Indian Ocean and raiding Red Sea ports. The Empire retreated inland; it was never overrun, the highlands of Ethiopia being eminently defensible, but after abandoning the old imperial capitol at Aksum in favor of strongholds in the highlands, Ethiopia lost contact with much of the European world. The Emperors remained in close contact only with nearby African rulers, and maintained sporadic correspondence with the mighty Fatimid Caliphate to the north*


*Interestingly, surviving correspondence from the Emperor to the Caliph several times addresses the Caliph as "የአጎት ልጅ" (cousin) among various other titles; presumably this amounts to an acknowledgment on the Emperor's part of the Fatimid claim to descent from Mohammed, and thus through Ishmael from Abraham. The ruling dynasty of Ethiopia also traced its line directly back to Abraham - through Solomon to Abraham's other son, Isaac - though in such case the kinship claim, with the connection between the two lines lying so far back in history, must have been viewed more as a diplomatic form than a claim of close blood relationship.

The medieval Ethiopian Empire

"Come up, ye horses; and rage, ye chariots; and let the mighty men come forth; the Ethiopians and the Libyans, that handle the shield; and the Lydians, that handle and bend the bow."

Jeremiah 46.9

For centuries the closure of the southern Silk Road has meant stagnation and isolation for the Ethiopian nation, and a gradual loss of knowledge from and about the outside world. But midway through the long fourteenth century, changing conditions in Europe will once again resonate in distant corners of the world. Where for half a millenium hostile Christian and Muslim kingdoms had fought each other across the Mediterranean, and strangled trade, now Muslim victory brings peace - and commerce - back to the wine-dark waters. Once cut off from the East by religious enmity, the cities of Western Europe, now under Islamic rule, clamor for the trade of the Orient, and the great demand is more than the tortuous land route across Persia can supply. In Arabia, the piratical emirates have fallen one by one to the Abbasid and Fatimid Caliphs; free of their predations, the Indian Ocean trade route is stirring once again.

And in the highlands, still not far off from the Red Sea shores, a series of vigorous and effective Emperors may be poised to return power and prosperity to the Horn of Africa once again, and see the Earth's most ancient Christian nation once more take a place among the great kingdoms of the world.

Gollevainen said:

Unless they denounce all their heretic claims that holy seal exist in egypt, denounce the both Khaliphates as imperialistic warmongers and cut all their alliances and return the france under rule of babtised De Flandre's, I would say they look pretty saracen to me...

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You make baby Averronian Jesus cry . Especially considering those self-same Averronians liberated France from the heathen yoke!

oddman said:

You make baby Averronian Jesus cry . Especially considering those self-same Averronians liberated France from the heathen yoke!

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Heathen! Infidel! Saracen! Moor! American! Heretic!

There is no baby Jesus in infidel world! There is only one baby Jesus and that is the Christian baby Jesus bred by Crom and Mariah Carey. He also had a twin brother Allah but he was so deformed that he was locked up in a mosque in the dessert!

OrangeYoshi said:

If that is the only problem you had with that, I will take it as a compliment.

However, what is wrong with that part anyway? I know I'm not stating a wrong fact, so what is it?

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Of course it is the part I have a problem, I leave it to pedants to split hairs about the various lineages of eastern dagoes and wether there is a real difference between Greeks and Slavs. Celts and Franks on the other, now there is a real difference.

There is no baby Jesus in infidel world! There is only one baby Jesus and that is the Christian baby Jesus bred by Crom and Mariah Carey. He also had a twin brother Allah but he was so deformed that he was locked up in a mosque in the dessert!

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Halleluhja!!

Irsh Faq said:

but a lack of political continuity with ancient Rome.

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According to the Byzantine version of history. Catholics have had a different story.

I don't see any Fatimid connection to it either.

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Clearly you are unfamiliar with my famous personal brand of ad baculum legal reasoning. Riding into town with a victorious army and having the senate crown you Emperor is a time honoured and very Roman tradition that the Fatimids have upheld as often as we can. Remember that the majority of the suposedly arab popultaion of the Caliphate are the decendants of Romans, most the byreaucracy, architecture and science is built directly ontop of the old Roman tradition. Indeed much of Rome is unscathed underneath the top layer of Arabization.

FrozenWall said:

Clearly you are unfamiliar with my famous personal brand of ad baculum legal reasoning. Riding into town with a victorious army and having the senate crown you Emperor is a time honoured and very Roman tradition that the Fatimids have upheld as often as we can.

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Well that is the point right there, though. The last remnants of the Senate of the Western Roman Empire disappeared half a millenium before the start of CK. Lack of political continuity.

And, alas that it is so, but I fear it is a severe exaggeration to say that much of the Western Empire was intact under a veneer of other civilizations at this point in history. That may have been true in 500, but not in 1350 (or 1066).

Irsh Faq said:

Well that is the point right there, though. The last remnants of the Senate of the Western Roman Empire disappeared half a millenium before the start of CK. Lack of political continuity.

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The Caliphate may hold Italy and the crowns and titles associated, but the Roman cultural and intelectual lineage of the realm is traced from Egypt and the Levant, areas more closely linked to Byzantium. All the Patriarchs are still around, and christian copts would still be a majority in many areas.

Kuipy said:

Of course it is the part I have a problem, I leave it to pedants to split hairs about the various lineages of eastern dagoes and wether there is a real difference between Greeks and Slavs. Celts and Franks on the other, now there is a real difference.

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Then blame Fasquardon/Jakalo, not me.

FrozenWall said:

The Caliphate may hold Italy and the crowns and titles associated, but the Roman cultural and intelectual lineage of the realm is traced from Egypt and the Levant, areas more closely linked to Byzantium. All the Patriarchs are still around, and christian copts would still be a majority in many areas.

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Cultural and intellectual heritage from the Roman Empire does not equate to political continuity with it. Else, all of Europe would be the Roman Empire, even many of those parts that never saw a single Roman soldier or administrator.

The Eastern Empire is much reduced though still extant. The Western, sadly, is gone, and has been for about eight hundred years. All other states are other states, with their own merits or lacks thereof.

However, I am glad to hear that the Copts remain. Perhaps with such an example of individual Muslims living in harmony with their Christian neighbors, the Fatimid Caliph will feel inclined to live in harmony with the Solomonid Emperor as well.

Irsh Faq said:

I am glad to hear that the Copts remain. Perhaps with such an example of individual Muslims living in harmony with their Christian neighbors, the Fatimid Caliph will feel inclined to live in harmony with the Solomonid Emperor as well.

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And we are in turn happy to hear the Ethiopians find the arab-coptic arangement one to strive towards themselves.

A pair of happy neighbors - truly a situation the other rulers of the world ought to emulate!

Of course, there is no doubt that those who claim intellectual descent from such great masters of the subtleties of language as Cicero or Virgil will have noted that words used compared (and not accidentally) the ideal relationship of Caliph and Emperor to that of one neighbor living in peace and harmony with another, not to that of a master to a servant or a ruler to a subject.

The Awakening of Gregori Rasputin – Text Update I

Spring. It was spring.

A gentle breeze was blowing across the land.

The sun was shining and slowly melting the snow into nothingness.

In a few weeks there would be no memory left of its passing.

The trees still leafless, the grass still dead and rotten.

The water of the Volkhov river was still bracken and murky its waters gently lapping against the shores of the city of Novgorod.

The Court of Yaroslav the Wise was visible in the distance, quiet and grim.

A sacred place to Russian wizards the pulse of magic flowed strongly through the ley line crossing there.

Years ago a troika of mages performed the penultimate sacrifice to protect the magic that they loved anc cherished. They allowed themselves to be burned at the stake for the Art. Doing so completed a very powerful ritual that would forever hide the Novgorod Tower of High Sorcery forever from the sights of non-mages.

“And who was one of the mages who took part of that ritual...” A voice called out from across the threshold.

The voice was cold. The siberian winds felt warm in comparison.

“You were Master Koschei.” A voice calmly answered back.

The room was the private study of Koschei, Archmagi of Novgorod, Magister of the Novgorod Tower of High Sorcery. It was an emotionless room, every shelf was exact. Every book meticulously placed. Not one item was not where it should.

Except of course for the desk in the middle and the boy who sat there.

The boy was no one other than the young Gregori Rasputin, it is hard to possibly see how could he ever have grown into the great and powerful wizard he is today.

With his round face spotted by freckles, his mangy dark hair and scrawny features it is hard to see any trace of formidableness.

But Koschei knew better.

“Magic. Magic is everything, it is our souls, our lives.... Our one true parent, spouse and child.”

Rasputin nodded eagerly taking notes.

“Magic is unrelenting in its standards, it can lay low mountains. Humble kings and destroy nations. Underestimate it at your own peril. Fail the Test Arcana and you will die, for magic has no use for fools.”

Rasputin paled for a moment... Koschei smiled.

“Yes, that's a good reaction... Every wizard worth his salt is scared of his own power, too many charlatans and fools flippantly misusing what little magic they have and making a mockery of us. There is a high cost to our profession, to our science and it is designed that way to weed out the weak and the foolish.”

He continued.

“When magic is abused it is a danger to the wielder and to everyone around them, luckily there's a strong inverse correlation between the blast radius of for when things go Pompeii on us and how foolishly flippant the wizard is but the danger is too real to the normals and to even those of us caught by surprise.”

Rasputin nodded. Not daring yet to speak or ask questions until specifically allowed to do so.

“After you take the Test though... Assuming you pass... You will be At One with the magic and at peace with yourself and it, any doubts, any uncertainty will be resolved by a new profound understanding between the relationship between yourself and the magic. Until you pass the test your forbidden by our highest laws from accessing or utilizing magic more powerful than what I am going to teach you...”

A flash of disappointment went across Rasputin's face.

With what could be said to be a grin Koschei continued.

“That's another good reaction, you want the learn, you desire it, your motivated I understand that.

So I will teach you, I will be harsh and unrelenting, I will not tolerate mistakes or failure and will thirst for knowledge just as much as you thirst for sustenance.

I promise it.”

Koschei paused, Rasputin hanging off of every word excited for the real lesson to start...

“What do you want?”

“Power.”

Koschei nodded, but inside his heart as black as obsidian he smiled in anticipation.