Mircea Progonovic: Dad, Uncle-Admiral
@diskoerekto took me to Prester John's Magic Carpet Showroom.
@Reykvolc let us take a test flight on an authentic DeLauren woven by
@uhhhscizo himself. It is a mohair shag with feathery fringe with less than 200 flight-hours and has never been higher than 100 meters or flown faster than 55 knots.
Count (consort) Dmitar: We are NOT getting a sporty flying carpet. Do you know how much I pay in premiums to
@Greek the Nick's Greece Epirus Insurance Co-Op? Besides, your mother wants to upgrade her standard straw broom to an up-time corn swifter.
Despot Vukasin of Epirus, Byzantine Empire Mystikos, greets the AAReaders upon their landing in
Constantinople aboard Thunder and Lightning. After receiving a briefing from his son on the Eastern Islamic realms (
Caliphate and Rajasthan),
Vukasin dispatches
Dmitar,
Countess Thomais and their
four children home to
Crimea aboard the dragon Charger ridden by DragonRider
@AxolotlKnight. Lt.
@Macavity116 accompanies them to instruct
14yo Mircea and 10yo Serapion on their new crossbows. Dmitar and Mac plan to spend some time hunting and fishing as well.
Overhearing some of the Readers discussing
Despot Vukasin's epithet 'the Confessor', Captain
@Chac1 of the Varangian Guard invites Capt.
@JSB217118 to observe a service conducted by
Vukasin and his Byzantine Security Agency (motto 'Be Prepared').
@Chac1 adds that several newspapermen have been invited to attend. Upon his return, a shell-shocked
@JSB217118 is asked what he saw.
@JSB217118 responds that what happens in the catacombs, remains in the catacombs. (Centuries later with careful study of
@JSB217118's notes and
Vukasin's memoirs; there is no complete record of the actual events, but one newspaper reporter moved to the
Sultanate of Rum and became the diarist for the Sultan's harem, a second joined the Byzantine Braille Boarding School and the third joined a trade mission to the Ming Empire.)
The
Basileus is currently residing at
Kaneia in Krete's mountains (modern Greece). Citizen Rocky 'the Bull' Winkle shepherded the Livestock Protection Act through Krete's Assembly. The Act bars dragons from Krete.
Despot Vukasin has arranged for the AAReaders to sail with Captain A and her female crew aboard the
Siren's Song. Captain A finds Admiral
@Bullfilter at the rail and asks if anything is wrong.
@Bullfilter responds that his tummy is producing higher waves than the Sea of Marmara. Captain A says that she will have Miss V, the cook, bring a pot of ginger tea to his stateroom. Aboard ship,
Despot Vukasin briefs the Readers on the current status of the
Byzantine Empire.
26September1399 35yo @alscon (
Athanasios GAVRAS (Vukasin's first cousin)) was
elected Basileus (Athanasios II) of the Byzantine Empire.
60yo Basileus @alscon died in his sleep (
natural causes)
26August1424.
58yo @Idhrendur (
Leon MAMALIS) was
elected Basileus (Leon VIII). The
Empire has
increased from 332 to 448 holdings this quarter-century. The major event was
Basileus @alscon acquiring his birth-right, the Kingdom of Jerusalem from its
boy-king. His (and Vukasin's) grandmother had been
forced out as
Queen of Jerusalem. (The
boy-king had been
facing a rebellion. The
rebel scum went from kicking the snot out of a
boy-king to being steamrolled by the mighty
Byzantine army.)
58yo Greek Catholic Basileus @Idhrendur is
Midas touched and diligent, while adopting a rulership focus (7-13-21-8-5). The
Basileus has
three kings, eighteen dukes and eleven counts reporting to him, and he controls an
army of almost twenty-three thousand men.
21September1424 (less than a month into office),
attacked the
Kingdom of Bulgaria to
reclaim the
County of Tyrnovo (empire dejure claim). Anne Howe is scoring the
Empire with a
nine-point lead.
Basileus @Idhrendur is rocking
thirty-nine bad boy points causing both
Christians and Moslems to
form defensive coalitions.
At the banquet,
Basileus
@Idhrendur sat Captain
@JSB217118 to his right and would only eat and drink what either
@JSB217118 or
Despot Vukasin tried. (I am not saying that
@Idhrendur is paranoid but he has a Mystikos/heir with an intrigue score in the 99th percentile. While
@Idhrendur's
54 total stats are well above average,
Vukasin's stats are even higher.
Shout-outs:
@Reykvolc's CK2
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/in-the-land-of-prester-john.1616334/ begun in December and has run into computer problems.
@alscon recognized that the first GAVRAS ruler (late 1200s) had a Gothic name, when I researched, I found that the GAVRAS dynasty started as Crimean Goths before assimilating to Greek culture. Has anyone seen
@alscon lately?
Next: Our final stop is the Holy Roman Empire, tenth straight #1.
Thank You for reading, liking and commenting. A special thank you to all of the 'volunteers' (draftees), whose name appears. If anyone wants to be removed, please let me know and I will edit you out. Colorized items are from the game. Some events have been dramatized.
