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Avindian

People's Commissar of the Navy
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Jan 3, 2010
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Since the laws of the universe dictate I must have at least three AARs running concurrently, here is my latest entry.

This AAR is based, very loosely, upon characters I have created and used in two previous AARs: A Descent into Madness and Chaos's Revenge. Please do go ahead and read them if you like, although they are not require to enjoy this AAR. Unlike those two AARs, there is no random element in this one.

Briefly, Order, Chaos, and Death are all PELFs -- that is, Primary Ethereal Life Forms. (They are more than gods.) They are all brothers, although Death is slightly older than the other two. Order and Chaos got a lot of time in the first two AARs. In fact, I had never intended for Death to be more than a secondary character, yet he proved to be far more popular than I anticipated. If Chaos is often infantile, short tempered, and psychotic and Order is fond of drinking (although he can't get drunk) and very rigid, Death is something of a voice of reason... at least when compared to his brothers.

This AAR will be a narrative/gameplay/comedy mix told entirely from the perspective of Death. That is, each entry will be first person. (This will avoid the troublesome typeface changes I had to make in the previous AARs). I am using the Ruler Designer to create Death and the Mini-Mod Immortality Revised by Kattion.

House rules:
1. No cheating.
2. No reloading.
3. Nothing excessively gamey.
4. I must remain Zoroastrian the entire game.
UPDATED AFTER HEROIC BONUSES ADDED:
5. Holy War may only be used against countries of five provinces or less.
6. If another CB is available, it must always be used.
7. If at any point Death loses the celibate trait, he loses the heroic bonus (but maintains the normal immortality).
8. Immortality cannot be passed on to any siblings or children.

Objectives:
There is only one objective: Conquer as much of the world as possible. I'm not the best CKII player, so it probably won't happen, and wherever possible I will eschew min-maxing if it means a more entertaining story.

I plan on making the first update, which introduces how Death ended up in 867 AD and does the usual prologue type stuff, sometime this weekend.
 
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Subbed. I didn't actually finish reading your Descent Into Madness AAR (I don't remember why), but I remember it rather fondly. I will look forward to this one :)
 
Subscribed for the greater glory of Ahura Mazda!

Also known as Death. (Death is a busy guy with a lot of names.)

Subbed! YAY ANOTHER AVINDIAN AAR!

Glad to have you along!

Subbed. I didn't actually finish reading your Descent Into Madness AAR (I don't remember why), but I remember it rather fondly. I will look forward to this one :)

Then I'm glad I could provide you with links so you can go back and finish if you so choose. ;)
 
Normally it's advisable to stay far away from Death, but I think I shall take the risk this one time :)

Oh, believe me, I will use and abuse that joke as often as possible.

I read the other two aars with the guys .. they were just great.. so i can't wait for this one to start :)

I'd better not keep you waiting then -- the prologue is ready now!
 
Prologue

Hello there. I am Death. Yes, that Death. I know, I know, I get that all the time. The guy who’s always killing people, making deals, and wears the black robe with the scythe.

If you want the answers to the unanswerable questions of the universe, I suggest you look elsewhere. I mean, they’re unanswerable. I have no idea what happens when you die, since I can’t die. I’m just the guy who kills you. Well, I used to kill people. Now I subcontract that out to any number of lesser beings.

Now, suppose you were a PELF (a Primary Ethereal Life Force). No, don’t try too hard to imagine it. Your head will explode. I have two brothers, but I don’t want to talk about them.

Hmm? How will you die? How should I know? Until the exact moment you’re ready to die, nobody tells me anything. I do know everything about you, though, even the things you’ve forgotten. Yes, I even know that. I don’t know how you even got that to work, but you’re a terrible person for even making the attempt.

I don’t wish to alarm you, but I am really old. I am slightly younger than the creation of the universe. Yes, I’ve seen a lot of things. Well, I shouldn’t say that. See, the thing is, I spend every moment of my immortal life judging people, which means I don’t get out much. My brothers can make bets with one another and travel through time and space and can even make infinite copies of themselves so that they can everything they want to at the same time. Me? I’m just me. I’m all there is.

That’s why I decided I needed a vacation. Where can Death take a vacation, you ask? In the one place where everybody is already dead. No, I said already dead. Florida doesn’t count.

The past. Frankly, I don’t know why I didn’t try this sooner.

“What are you going to do on your vacation, Death?” you ask. A fine question! A lot of people go ride roller coasters, or play games of chance, or see famous sights. That’s all well and good if you aren’t immortal. I, on the other hand, am immortal. (It is absolutely imperative you remember that point.)

The important thing if you’re on vacation is to have fun, right? That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to conquer the world and force everybody to worship me. Should be a lark, right? Of course, people get weird ideas if you tell them you worship Death. Also, it’s kind of hard to prove that you’re Death. I mean, I can kill people, but so can anybody else. If I do it really creatively, like only I can, everyone runs away, and that defeats the point of worship.

I’ve decided, therefore, to visit the past in human form, and convince people to worship somebody who is actually me but has a different name. Like, I don’t know, to make up a nonsense word, Ahura Mazda.

What, seriously? There’s already a god you weird mortals worshipped with that name? But, I just made the name up! Oh, right, never mind. I must have gone even further back into the past and created the name so that you wouldn’t guess who you were really worshipping. Why don’t I remember having done that? Because I haven’t done it yet, obviously.

So, to make a long story short, I have decided to visit the Satrapy of Merv in the year 867. So people don’t get too suspicious, I’ve taken a human form.

9482.jpg


Now, although I am immortal and Death, there are a few downsides to that. (I know, I can’t believe it either.) One of them is that I can’t reproduce. At all. To make up for it, though, I made myself a genius. It’ll all work out in the end, I think. I’ll still marry – I’ve got to keep up appearances, after all. Plus, if anybody figures out that I’m actually Death, I can just kill them.

Here are the initial members of the Cult of Death or, to make up another word, Zoroastrianism. Seriously? Man, I will have thought of everything.

5rg9.jpg


These guys will probably be important for a while, so I’ll introduce you.

r4j3.jpg


Shayan here is humble and kind. He’s the guy that goes and talks to other mortals, so that’s good, I guess. He’s also brave – always going on about how he doesn’t fear death. I’ll have to make a note of that.

xn5f.jpg


This is Zand. He’s wrathful and cowardly at the same time. That means he’s really, really angry when nobody’s looking. Seems strange, but okay. For some reason I have a coward running my army. I know! I’ll convince him that we’re the bad guys and the people he’s fighting are the good guys. He’ll run towards them in confusion, and hopefully my mighty army will follow. If not, I’ll just kill him and replace him.

While we’re on the subject of armies, I have to make a special request. Stop the obsession with the undead. Seriously. If people that I’ve killed start getting unkilled, I’m out of a job. Thankfully, nobody has actually reanimated the dead yet. If you die and decide you don’t want to be dead any more, I can work with that – you just have to challenge me. No zombies, no hunger for the flesh of the living. No drinking blood. You’re just not dead any more. For a while.

4qbu.jpg


Say hello to Dariusz. He’s greedy, but since he’s my tax collector that’s okay. That brings up another sore subject – stop saying nothing is inevitable but death and taxes! You know who doesn’t pay taxes? The dead! Yet everybody who pays taxes eventually dies.

pe80.jpg


Kambiz is my spymaster. I approve of killing people who I want dead but can’t kill myself. In fact, I’d better try to kill as few people as possible while I’m here. You know, so people don’t forget I’m death and all. He’s kind of boring, since he’s chaste, temperate, and charitable. Why did he become a spymaster, then? So he can find out what kinds of horrible secrets people have and then say, “that’s okay, your secret is safe with me?”

r867.jpg


This is Mehrzad. He’s ambitious, yet decided to become a scholar. Probably not the ideal career path if you want to rule someday. Then again, nobody will be ruling anything here but me.

Oh, I see. An ambition, huh?

ekzh.jpg


That’s a good start.


Okay, so I lied (partially) – the first gameplay update is this weekend.
 
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Hmm, why can't Death reproduce? :p
Would be really nice to have an immortal founder of a dynasty killing 10th generation offspring. :D

You've hit upon something; I'm finding the first few years of the game pretty difficult, but I don't know if giving myself the ability to have children would help or not. I'm not losing land, but I'm not gaining it either. I ask you readers -- what do you think?
 
You've hit upon something; I'm finding the first few years of the game pretty difficult, but I don't know if giving myself the ability to have children would help or not. I'm not losing land, but I'm not gaining it either. I ask you readers -- what do you think?
Well, doesn't matter, I mean, if death has children, he would have to kill them, and death doesn't want that I think right?
 
Ahura Mazda is not a made up nonsense word, its a translation of PELF into the local tongue. Ahura Mazda might be translated into English in a lot of other ways, e.g. The Arch Mede ;), but Primary Ethereal Life Form would be one.
 
Well, doesn't matter, I mean, if death has children, he would have to kill them, and death doesn't want that I think right?

A fair point. :)

Ahura Mazda is not a made up nonsense word, its a translation of PELF into the local tongue. Ahura Mazda might be translated into English in a lot of other ways, e.g. The Arch Mede ;), but Primary Ethereal Life Form would be one.

That's another brilliant interpretation!
 
Having no children will probably mess up the game a bit. Other chars will sense weakness when you have no dynastic heir. Also you might have problems with no vassals of the same dynasty to help you in some situations.

I say go for creating offspring! Game will be very problem otherwise. Leading a dynasty head whilst being the only one from said dynasty alive.
 
You modded the game to not have +thousands to relations from long reign ya?
Otherwise, entire game is pointless. ;p

That's a really good point that I hadn't considered at all.

There is another possibility -- I leave Death's avatar (i.e. the human being) as mortal but he remains immortal, just jumping from person to person. The mod does include the ability to renounce immortality at any time (which then creates that problem that I have no heirs at the moment, but I can always mod things that way too.)

What do you folks think?
 
That's a really good point that I hadn't considered at all.

There is another possibility -- I leave Death's avatar (i.e. the human being) as mortal but he remains immortal, just jumping from person to person. The mod does include the ability to renounce immortality at any time (which then creates that problem that I have no heirs at the moment, but I can always mod things that way too.)

What do you folks think?
It depends imho.
If you're pro, and never have factions/civil wars, it doesn't matter and you should play without chanigng anything.
If otherwise, well, hard to say what workaround would be the best. ; p

But subscribe from me, well looking as for start. : )