The Chronicles of the Golden Cross Redux

Kurospidey: Thanks, and welcome! I hope you enjoy CK2.

Deaghaidh: Well, as I said to Kurt_Steiner above, I tried declaring war in my first playthrough and failed miserably because of the impenetrable Hashishin base at Alamut. Masyaf is already taken and occupied, Raymond just can't seal the deal and secure peace. So, barring the impossible idea of invading Persia, I was trying to influence an end to the war through the use of my councillors -- trying to see if hitting them with the Chancellor and Spymaster would make any difference. But beyond that, I just wanted to see if I could succeed at it. It's not like the in-game Hashishin are anywhere near as much of a threat as they were in real life.

2Coats: Thank you very much and welcome back to Chronicles!

Chief Ragusa: Haha, I'm sure if Guy was my king this time around I would already have lost. As for war with Saladin, I would not be surprised to see one in the not-too-distant future, albeit we're at peace for the moment.

loki100: Thanks very much! I must say it's both an exhilarating and intimidating prize. As for adding icons, I have absolutely no idea how to do so. The Paradox Complete pack only comes with one registration code. <shrugs>

SplendidTuesday: Thank you very much, my friend. I'm glad you're enjoying it and I hope to continue to please.

The_Shepherd: Thank you, kind sir! Glad you're enjoying it. Welcome to the AAR.

Chief Ragusa: Alliances have been really streamlined in CK2. As it stands, the only way to gain allies in CK2 is through marriage into your family. As for reckless allies trying to run off to Persia, cousin Raymond already did that and failed miserably. Re: Norman Sicily, I regret to inform you that history in this alternate timeline has not been kind to them. In real life, Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa married his son off to Sicily's last heiress and consolidated the two realms, but in this timeline the future Heinrich VI has married some French duke's daughter... so Sicily was left to be torn apart by all the rival claimants to its empty throne. Right now it's a hodge-podge of independent counties embroiled in a huge succession war. There is a titular king, but due to his lack of land and influence his title may as well be "Count."

koningtiger: Thank you sir!

funktopus: You're welcome, I'm glad you're enjoying it. Within the next ten years of game time (about the next 5 updates or so), there'll be some big happenings with the rest of the world. In the meantime, most places are proceeding as usual (at least, usual for CK2). The Spains are fighting the Moors and each other, the Byzantines are still going strong and holding off the Turks, and there's a lot of fighting going on with the eastern pagans up north.

HASHISHIN’S CREED​

1188

Whether with the dagger or the sword, engaging in protracted wars as the Kingdom of Jerusalem is quite perilous. Maintaining an active belligerency with a Muslim faction for long enough will cause your other Muslim neighbors to view you less as a latent nuisance and more as an immediate threat. I desperately needed peace on the northern frontier to avoid the waves of raging Jihadists that I was sure would be pouring across the border at any minute.

Incidentally, it does not seem to matter in-game if your Muslim enemies are Sunni or Shi’ite, Nizari or Druze, the rest of the community of Islam seems to view a threat against one as a threat against all. So if you don’t want every Muslim from Casablanca to Khwarezm screaming for your blood, it’s best to make your holy wars quick and decisive.

It was time to put an end to Raymond’s war with the Hashishin before the rest of the Kingdom of Jerusalem got pulled into it.

I replaced Sibylla’s slain spymaster with a younger, less experienced courtier, unfortunately taking a small intrigue hit in the process. I assigned him to guard against plots in Jerusalem and decided to stay put for the time being, to avoid any additional provocation. The next few months were strangely uneventful as I waited for Sinan to make the next move.

Then, without warning, the killings began again. At first it seemed as if the victims were simply dying of accidents or disease, with the untimely deaths of various unlanded courtiers and the occasional minor mayor or baron being reported every few weeks. Only when Queen Sibylla personally caught a would-be assassin poisoning her wine did I decide this could be no coincidence.

This murderous onslaught could not be permitted to continue, not when Sibylla had a new baby daughter to protect. Sibylla’s mother Agnes had suggested naming the child Isabelle, in honor of Sibylla’s lost half-sister. In the middle of this new war of blades, the irony was not lost on the queen.

It seemed that one small murder had started an avalanche of deaths.


As it turned out, the assassins’ next mark was Reynald de Chatillon, who narrowly escaped death at their hands but received a grievous wound that festered, afflicting him for quite a while. So maybe the Hashishin weren't all bad. Yet even this dire portent was not enough to turn Reynald from his reckless and sinful ways. Curse my luck that the one person in the whole kingdom that I would have liked to see dead actually survived the attack on his life.

There appears to be very little one can do to shield against assassins in CK2, other than doing your best to keep a high-intrigue spymaster performing counter-espionage at all times. There’s a lot more murder and bloodshed going on behind the scenes than in previous games, or at least one is left to assume that there is. When perfectly healthy people in the prime of their lives drop dead without cause, neither from illness nor combat, then what is one left to think?

And the war of knives was still far from over. Worst of all, the assassins struck next in a place that was all too close to home, as well as to the heart of the queen, for the young Prince Godfrey was the next to be targeted. The boy was playing with his toys in the private quarters of the palace when a poisonous serpent slithered out of the shadows and bit him. Fortunately, one of the child’s nursemaids heard his cry and rushed to suck out the venom while a guardsman dispatched the snake.

No one could tell from whence the deadly serpent had come.


This near-fatal assault upon the royal heir sent the Haute Cour into pandemonium, although the young lad was resilient and swiftly recovered from the serpent bite. Many courtiers panicked outright, picturing invisible enemies hiding in every shadow and endlessly searching under their beds each night. By attacking an innocent child, the Hashishin had demonstrated that they were utterly without remorse and without pity, though if anyone had ever doubted that then he or she was a fool.

Anyone could be next.

Sibylla’s spymaster had a far more sensible thought. If the Old Man of the Mountain had wanted the boy dead, why had his agent not used one of the more deadly serpents that infested the desert, such as the cobra? The poor boy would surely have perished before any aid could have reached him. No, Sinan must be making a statement; he could easily kill the defenseless child if he really desired. Instead, the Master of Assassins was toying with them -- and sending yet another potentially lethal warning.

But for King Richard, this insult could not be borne. Enraged at this assault upon his only son and heir, the king mustered the army and marched north to claim his vengeance. Tiberias’ feeble garrisons had once again been driven out of Archa by hordes of filthy rebels, numbering in the thousands. Nevertheless, these poorly armored peasants were no match for the Lionheart’s heavily armed and mounted band of killers. The battle, if it could be called such, was truly just a quick rout followed by a long coward chase. Confronting Raymond of Tiberias afterwards, Richard backhanded the dour lord across the face, not for provoking the conflict in the first place, but for failing to bring it to a swift and victorious close. After all this wanton slaughter, Raymond finally made a white peace with the Hashishin. Meanwhile, the captive insurgents were all put to the sword. Thus did Richard Cœur de Lion slake his thirst for blood.

Fortunately, Queen Sibylla took a more prudent approach to resolving the situation. At this point in the game, I had enough left over in tax revenues that I could dispatch a suitably small golden gift to Masyaf, hopefully to raise Sinan's opinion of my king and queen from utter loathing back to simple hatred. With any luck, that would be enough to pacify the Hashishin Grand Master into withholding any further assassinations, if not to actually curry his favor.

It never hurts to make amends with gold.


Honestly this was just my way of explaining a rather odd string of deaths and attempted murders that happened about the same time as my non-martial intervention in Raymond’s prolonged conflict with the Hashishin. The game can be strange like that. While it is possible that the Hashishin were responsible for the bulk of these assassinations, it is just as likely that Maria Komnena, Saladin, or even Raymond himself could be among the perpetrators.


1189

So peace was once again restored to Outremer, after a fashion. The Hashishin soon turned to fighting other infidels. The Emir of Aleppo, the first unhappy victim of their retribution, immediately perished from a strange and sudden illness and was succeeded by his younger brother. All purely a matter of coincidence, I’m sure.

At Acre, the fastness of the Krak du Lion was finally completed. Richard immediately began to augment its defenses with some additions of his own design: arrow loops and murder-holes, boiling oil emplacements and a very nasty oubliette. His banner of three golden leopards fluttered from the stronghold’s parapets, defiantly daring any fool who sought to take its walls to just come and try.

And this was not the only good news. The court chaplain happily reported that some of the locals had at last seen the light and had converted to the true faith, and the chancellor reported that the king and queen were now more popular than ever with their barons.

Despite his brush with death, the young Prince Godfrey began to display the beginnings of what could be considered to be a very kindly and charitable disposition.

Most importantly, word came from the Holy See that the King and Queen’s request for papal absolution for their many transgressions had been granted.

Yet despite this renewed opportunity for peace, the brief respite from battle and bloodshed was not to last. Word soon arrived that Raymond of Tiberias had gone to war yet again, this time to press a territorial claim on fellow Christians. His new target: the Most Venerable Order of the Knights of the Hospital of Saint John.

Some people must be born crazy.

(MOOD MUSIC FOR THE MYSTERIOUS EAST)​