A very bloody legacy for his daughter to follow in.
That said, I don't precisely blame him for his rage upon awakening that final time...
That said, I don't precisely blame him for his rage upon awakening that final time...
A Most Forgiving Land: A Nigerian Coast AAR
- Thread starter Cora Giantkiller
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Oh, absolutely. Honestly, he was a dream from a narrative POV; as soon as I saw that his son had been murdered, I knew exactly where I was going with him.
I hope Luwoo's reign lived up to expectations. He didn't lack for blood or drama, that's for sure.
I think that's a good read, yes.
Sa to read about this excellent AAR’s premature end. But if it fits the story told, it is as it should be.
Thanks! I'm feeling good on where it ends, and getting ideas for my next run.
I was riffing a bit on the real life Kingdom of Nri, which was an altogether different kind of place, guided by pacifism and providing a refuge to slaves and exiles. Of course, CK3 encourages a different kind of gameplay, and so the title reads ironically.
Informed consent is the foundation of ethical medical care, to be sure.
Ouch... get a minor disease, have your balls chopped off, and die as a result. A classic Crusader King send-off to the great Luwoo
Also, funny how she was familiar with Hippocrates' observations on gout, but not with the Hippocratic Oath!
Alafin Nkem III of Guinea, 1139 - 1193
Alafin Nkem III of Guinea
Born: 1107
Reigned: 1139 - 1193
To succeed amidst the bloody excesses of the reign of Alafin Luwoo, a person of independent mind would be forced to wear a mask all at times. Nkem III was, as a young woman, quite adept at doing just that. She performed the role of the pious and deferential young princess while in her private writings she was scathing about the Orisan church and even skeptical of the existence of Ọlọrun. She realized also that the way to her father’s heart lay through the memory of Agu, so she more than any of her siblings commemorated his loss--even though he had died six years before she was born. By committing herself thoroughly to the role of the dutiful daughter and grieving sister, she alone among her siblings retained her claim on the throne. But there was a private Nkem that was far different from the person she showed in the world.
One shouldn’t take this too far, of course. Some recent accounts of Nkem’s life have presented her as an essentially modern figure with 21st century notions about equality and secularism, but this is the present projecting itself on the past. Nkem was heavily involved in the running of the empire in the final decade of Luwoo’s life, she understood the methods by which her father established his will, and she would be just as ruthless when necessity dictated. The one thing that she came to regret was the pretense. The princess who pretended to be what her people needed her to be grew into a queen who could no longer pretend.
WIth the death of Luwoo in 1039, Alafin Nkem III was faced with an immediate crisis. Her brother-in-law, the Sunni emir of Toledo, had conspired to seize the throne of Guinea in his wife’s name. To find local support for this initiative, his agents had been free with their promises with disgruntled lords, specifically when it came to feudal taxes. Funanya and later Luwoo had successfully raised taxes on many of their vassals over time, and now the lords were promised a return to the status quo after the promulgation of the Nigerian Code. This message resonated the most with the nanas of Igboland, who lived close to the imperial capital in Igbo-Ukwu and thus felt the heavy hand of the alafin.
So when the warriors of Toledo raised their banners for the woman they referred to as Sultana Nkechinyere, the Igbo lords rose with them. The rebellion was stymied by the impossibility of coordinating army movements a thousand miles apart, however, while the imperial forces were, as ever, more unified and disciplined than their opponents. The emir would finally admit defeat in the spring of 1143.
With the rebellion quashed, Nkem proved what she had learned from her father. She had the Igbo rebels thrown into the dungeon. There they would be subject to the most innovative methods of torture that her father had devised in a long career. Each would be obliged in this fashion to renounce their claim to their family lands and return it to the Alafin. Those who had done so were cast off to spend their typically short lives in penniless exile.
The whole of Igboland had not been under the personal control of a single ruler since the days of Nri-Alike nearly three centuries before. Nkem took full advantage, launching a campaign of building that would put her predecessors to shame. Soon market towns and monasteries dotted the countryside. By the end of the 12th century, the whole of Igboland was as wealthy and urbanized as the Italian peninsula in the same period. This had the happy consequence of boosting the imperial income and doubling the size of the army Nkem could command, and she had ample use for both.
Nkem was dreaming of conquest, and she had her eye on the empire of Mali. Kaya Magha Bomou Cisse had succeeded in conquering nearly all of Ghana, and now ruled over an empire that extended up the Atlantic coast of Africa to the Maghreb. For all that, Mali had some hidden weaknesses. Bomou had lost too many veterans during his wars of conquest, and had replaced them with raw recruits, primarily young boys or old men. His hold on the economic heartland of Akwar was weak, and while he held to the Bidaic practices of his ancestors, Sunni Islam had a strong following in his lands.
Knowing the increasing militancy of the Orisan faith, Nkem declared a holy war for the lands in the traditional kingdom of Jenne. The High Shaman offered her enthusiastic backing, and the Orisan faithful lined up in droves to bring the light of Ọlọrun to the benighted masses. And yet even as she fanned the flames of religious crusade, Nkem was privately cynical. At a feast at the imperial palace, she was overheard remarking that the òrìṣàs must be feeble indeed if they needed so many swords to accomplish their will. The high shaman stammered in outrage, but Nkem only shrugged. “It takes a great many fools to build an empire, but I see no reason why we should be among them.”
The great holy war for Jenne was short-lived. The Guinean army met Bomou’s forces in the province of Soum for a bloody confrontation, costing thousands of lives on each side. Remarkably, however, the great warrior-prince Kaya Magha Bomou was knocked from his horse during a late afternoon charge. Out of breath with his sword knocked out of his hand, Bomou found himself the prisoner of three Yoruba farmboys. At a stroke, they had won Nkem’s war for her.
With the victory came new possibilities. A few of Boumo’s enemies among the Ghanian nobility had used the civil war to flee over the border and seek shelter in Guinea. One young noblewoman, Djenly Cisse-Bena, could trace her lineage back to the emperors of Mali via the male line, giving her an undeniable claim on the throne of Mali. Intrigued, Nkem invited her to court for a woman-to-woman chat. Djenly proved to be quite willing to marry Nkem’s son Apia and worship Nkem’s god if it meant that she could have her patrimony. The alafin proposed that she do just that.
While Nkem had freely admitted her own cynicism about religion, she was also the first to admit that it had its uses. She had continued to patronize the Daughters of Ekwensu, choosing only to restrict them to foreign potentates. In 1154, they repeated their great feat by murdering the Basileus of Byzantium. With the child Demetrios II on the throne, Raphail the Foolish, the ambitious Despot of Hellas, launched a war for the throne of Constantinople. But once again Nkem shocked the world, by admitting to the murder two years later in open court. Relations between Igbo-Ukwu and Constantinople, never warm in the first place, would never recover.
In 1160, Nkem encouraged the militancy of the Orisan church even further by funding the creation off the Guardians of Heaven, an order of one thousand holy warriors based out of Nnedi who maintained monastic discipline and swore themselves to fight the heathen wherever possible. Their Grandmistress, Ekwefi, described the order as a bulwark against the encroachment of Greek Christianity. In practice, they were primarily hired for internal squabbles, as Orisan nobles in Guinea sought to undermine their Bidaic and Akom worshipping rivals. In this way, they were a crucial part of the Orisanization of West Africa during the twelfth century.
On March 29, 1171, Nkem launched her second great war against Mali, to install her daughter-in-law on the throne of Mali. Bomou had died in the intervening years, leaving the throne in the hands of his ten year old son Cissi. Cissi could command at most a third of the men that Guinea had. Nkem was so confident that she led the initial attack herself, easily defeating the Malinese army in Cubalel near the Atlantic coast before ordering the occupation of the imperial holdings. The war lasted for two and a half years but the outcome was clear.
On October 3, 1173, Djenly Cisse-Bena was crowned Kaya Magha of Mali. Her husband Apia was Nkem’s heir, and in time their daughter Adaeke stood to inherit the whole of west Africa. The two great empires would be united at last.
While Nkem III was thrilled with this turn of events, however, many of the Malinese nobility were not. They had no interest in being ruled by a puppet empress who worshipped the Nigerian gods. Many of the Bidaic worshippers were skeptical of a woman holding the throne in the first place, much less one imposed by force by their long time rivals. A young noble, Maghan Armah Cisse, began to organize a rebellion to restore Malinese independence.
In the summer of 1174, Armah launched his rebellion. He counted among his followers the bulk of the Malinese nobility, easily outnumbering the imperial retinue. Djenly sent an urgent rider to Igbo-Ukwu, begging Nkem to ride in force. The Guinean army rode out against Mali for Nkem’s third and most destructive Malinese war.
For the first time, the two sides were evenly matched in terms of raw numbers and army quality. What’s more, the rebels were fighting in their home territory and could reinforce easily, while the Guineans were hundreds of miles from home. Accordingly, Armah sought to inflict as many casualties as possible, expecting that in time he could bleed Guinea dry. The imperial forces began the war, then, with a series of pyrrhic victories in the Malinese imperial heartland. At Namandiru, for example, they lost one thousand warriors, one out of every seven. The same happened again at Mboune. Each time the rebels retreated with Armah’s personal retinue intact, free to fight another day.
By 1178, it was plain that the imperial strategy was failing. Djenly had been too defensive and reactionary, and thus their numbers were dwindling. Prince Apia proposed a change of strategy. Taking command of the imperial army, he marched for Armah’s personal holdings and began a scorched-earth campaign. Apia had his warriors burning farms and villages and rounding up anybody of fighting age. Armah moved hastily to respond, as the prince had known that he would. The two met in the hills of Bambuk on March 13, 1179, and for once there was no retreating for rebels. That night another four thousand warriors lay dead, the bulk of Armah’s veterans among them.
That loss turned the tide, and by late summer Armah was ready to surrender. Prince Apia would not survive to see the day, however.
Indeed, by 1179, all of Nkem’s children had perished fighting Mali in one war or another. Princess Fatamouta had died in the battle of Soum in the holy war for Jenne, and Nafissa in the first push to place Djenly on the throne. In the climactic battle of Bambuk, Luwoo and Chima had died fighting rebel champions on the front lines while Apia had been shot by an arrow and died when the wound became infected. The alafin’s last surviving daughter, Ekwefi, had been held prisoner by Maghan Armah. In defeat, the rebel king had her hanged as a spiteful gesture to Nkem.
In the last years of Nkem’s reign, another concern arose. Her heir, Adaeke Nri, was approaching middle age and had yet to bear a child of her own. Once Annaeke herself died, the inheritance would have to leave the family, most likely to a Soninke relative of Djenly. Courtiers began to whisper that the conquest of Mali was the alafin’s great madness, that in her ambition, she had done nought but destroy a historic family.
The repeated tragedies and uncertainty of her last years shattered Nkem’s sense of self. Gone was the easy cynicism of her youth, and she returned to the Orisan faith with an earnest, searching attitude. As an old woman, the alafin began consulting with her shamans and communing with the òrìṣàs in a way that she once would have derided. As she slowly passed away on January 2, 1193, Nkem III prayed aloud that she would swiftly be returned to her children in the next world. It was, this time, nothing but the truth.
Born: 1107
Reigned: 1139 - 1193
To succeed amidst the bloody excesses of the reign of Alafin Luwoo, a person of independent mind would be forced to wear a mask all at times. Nkem III was, as a young woman, quite adept at doing just that. She performed the role of the pious and deferential young princess while in her private writings she was scathing about the Orisan church and even skeptical of the existence of Ọlọrun. She realized also that the way to her father’s heart lay through the memory of Agu, so she more than any of her siblings commemorated his loss--even though he had died six years before she was born. By committing herself thoroughly to the role of the dutiful daughter and grieving sister, she alone among her siblings retained her claim on the throne. But there was a private Nkem that was far different from the person she showed in the world.
One shouldn’t take this too far, of course. Some recent accounts of Nkem’s life have presented her as an essentially modern figure with 21st century notions about equality and secularism, but this is the present projecting itself on the past. Nkem was heavily involved in the running of the empire in the final decade of Luwoo’s life, she understood the methods by which her father established his will, and she would be just as ruthless when necessity dictated. The one thing that she came to regret was the pretense. The princess who pretended to be what her people needed her to be grew into a queen who could no longer pretend.
WIth the death of Luwoo in 1039, Alafin Nkem III was faced with an immediate crisis. Her brother-in-law, the Sunni emir of Toledo, had conspired to seize the throne of Guinea in his wife’s name. To find local support for this initiative, his agents had been free with their promises with disgruntled lords, specifically when it came to feudal taxes. Funanya and later Luwoo had successfully raised taxes on many of their vassals over time, and now the lords were promised a return to the status quo after the promulgation of the Nigerian Code. This message resonated the most with the nanas of Igboland, who lived close to the imperial capital in Igbo-Ukwu and thus felt the heavy hand of the alafin.
So when the warriors of Toledo raised their banners for the woman they referred to as Sultana Nkechinyere, the Igbo lords rose with them. The rebellion was stymied by the impossibility of coordinating army movements a thousand miles apart, however, while the imperial forces were, as ever, more unified and disciplined than their opponents. The emir would finally admit defeat in the spring of 1143.
With the rebellion quashed, Nkem proved what she had learned from her father. She had the Igbo rebels thrown into the dungeon. There they would be subject to the most innovative methods of torture that her father had devised in a long career. Each would be obliged in this fashion to renounce their claim to their family lands and return it to the Alafin. Those who had done so were cast off to spend their typically short lives in penniless exile.
The whole of Igboland had not been under the personal control of a single ruler since the days of Nri-Alike nearly three centuries before. Nkem took full advantage, launching a campaign of building that would put her predecessors to shame. Soon market towns and monasteries dotted the countryside. By the end of the 12th century, the whole of Igboland was as wealthy and urbanized as the Italian peninsula in the same period. This had the happy consequence of boosting the imperial income and doubling the size of the army Nkem could command, and she had ample use for both.
Nkem was dreaming of conquest, and she had her eye on the empire of Mali. Kaya Magha Bomou Cisse had succeeded in conquering nearly all of Ghana, and now ruled over an empire that extended up the Atlantic coast of Africa to the Maghreb. For all that, Mali had some hidden weaknesses. Bomou had lost too many veterans during his wars of conquest, and had replaced them with raw recruits, primarily young boys or old men. His hold on the economic heartland of Akwar was weak, and while he held to the Bidaic practices of his ancestors, Sunni Islam had a strong following in his lands.
Knowing the increasing militancy of the Orisan faith, Nkem declared a holy war for the lands in the traditional kingdom of Jenne. The High Shaman offered her enthusiastic backing, and the Orisan faithful lined up in droves to bring the light of Ọlọrun to the benighted masses. And yet even as she fanned the flames of religious crusade, Nkem was privately cynical. At a feast at the imperial palace, she was overheard remarking that the òrìṣàs must be feeble indeed if they needed so many swords to accomplish their will. The high shaman stammered in outrage, but Nkem only shrugged. “It takes a great many fools to build an empire, but I see no reason why we should be among them.”
The great holy war for Jenne was short-lived. The Guinean army met Bomou’s forces in the province of Soum for a bloody confrontation, costing thousands of lives on each side. Remarkably, however, the great warrior-prince Kaya Magha Bomou was knocked from his horse during a late afternoon charge. Out of breath with his sword knocked out of his hand, Bomou found himself the prisoner of three Yoruba farmboys. At a stroke, they had won Nkem’s war for her.
With the victory came new possibilities. A few of Boumo’s enemies among the Ghanian nobility had used the civil war to flee over the border and seek shelter in Guinea. One young noblewoman, Djenly Cisse-Bena, could trace her lineage back to the emperors of Mali via the male line, giving her an undeniable claim on the throne of Mali. Intrigued, Nkem invited her to court for a woman-to-woman chat. Djenly proved to be quite willing to marry Nkem’s son Apia and worship Nkem’s god if it meant that she could have her patrimony. The alafin proposed that she do just that.
While Nkem had freely admitted her own cynicism about religion, she was also the first to admit that it had its uses. She had continued to patronize the Daughters of Ekwensu, choosing only to restrict them to foreign potentates. In 1154, they repeated their great feat by murdering the Basileus of Byzantium. With the child Demetrios II on the throne, Raphail the Foolish, the ambitious Despot of Hellas, launched a war for the throne of Constantinople. But once again Nkem shocked the world, by admitting to the murder two years later in open court. Relations between Igbo-Ukwu and Constantinople, never warm in the first place, would never recover.
In 1160, Nkem encouraged the militancy of the Orisan church even further by funding the creation off the Guardians of Heaven, an order of one thousand holy warriors based out of Nnedi who maintained monastic discipline and swore themselves to fight the heathen wherever possible. Their Grandmistress, Ekwefi, described the order as a bulwark against the encroachment of Greek Christianity. In practice, they were primarily hired for internal squabbles, as Orisan nobles in Guinea sought to undermine their Bidaic and Akom worshipping rivals. In this way, they were a crucial part of the Orisanization of West Africa during the twelfth century.
On March 29, 1171, Nkem launched her second great war against Mali, to install her daughter-in-law on the throne of Mali. Bomou had died in the intervening years, leaving the throne in the hands of his ten year old son Cissi. Cissi could command at most a third of the men that Guinea had. Nkem was so confident that she led the initial attack herself, easily defeating the Malinese army in Cubalel near the Atlantic coast before ordering the occupation of the imperial holdings. The war lasted for two and a half years but the outcome was clear.
On October 3, 1173, Djenly Cisse-Bena was crowned Kaya Magha of Mali. Her husband Apia was Nkem’s heir, and in time their daughter Adaeke stood to inherit the whole of west Africa. The two great empires would be united at last.
While Nkem III was thrilled with this turn of events, however, many of the Malinese nobility were not. They had no interest in being ruled by a puppet empress who worshipped the Nigerian gods. Many of the Bidaic worshippers were skeptical of a woman holding the throne in the first place, much less one imposed by force by their long time rivals. A young noble, Maghan Armah Cisse, began to organize a rebellion to restore Malinese independence.
In the summer of 1174, Armah launched his rebellion. He counted among his followers the bulk of the Malinese nobility, easily outnumbering the imperial retinue. Djenly sent an urgent rider to Igbo-Ukwu, begging Nkem to ride in force. The Guinean army rode out against Mali for Nkem’s third and most destructive Malinese war.
For the first time, the two sides were evenly matched in terms of raw numbers and army quality. What’s more, the rebels were fighting in their home territory and could reinforce easily, while the Guineans were hundreds of miles from home. Accordingly, Armah sought to inflict as many casualties as possible, expecting that in time he could bleed Guinea dry. The imperial forces began the war, then, with a series of pyrrhic victories in the Malinese imperial heartland. At Namandiru, for example, they lost one thousand warriors, one out of every seven. The same happened again at Mboune. Each time the rebels retreated with Armah’s personal retinue intact, free to fight another day.
By 1178, it was plain that the imperial strategy was failing. Djenly had been too defensive and reactionary, and thus their numbers were dwindling. Prince Apia proposed a change of strategy. Taking command of the imperial army, he marched for Armah’s personal holdings and began a scorched-earth campaign. Apia had his warriors burning farms and villages and rounding up anybody of fighting age. Armah moved hastily to respond, as the prince had known that he would. The two met in the hills of Bambuk on March 13, 1179, and for once there was no retreating for rebels. That night another four thousand warriors lay dead, the bulk of Armah’s veterans among them.
That loss turned the tide, and by late summer Armah was ready to surrender. Prince Apia would not survive to see the day, however.
Indeed, by 1179, all of Nkem’s children had perished fighting Mali in one war or another. Princess Fatamouta had died in the battle of Soum in the holy war for Jenne, and Nafissa in the first push to place Djenly on the throne. In the climactic battle of Bambuk, Luwoo and Chima had died fighting rebel champions on the front lines while Apia had been shot by an arrow and died when the wound became infected. The alafin’s last surviving daughter, Ekwefi, had been held prisoner by Maghan Armah. In defeat, the rebel king had her hanged as a spiteful gesture to Nkem.
In the last years of Nkem’s reign, another concern arose. Her heir, Adaeke Nri, was approaching middle age and had yet to bear a child of her own. Once Annaeke herself died, the inheritance would have to leave the family, most likely to a Soninke relative of Djenly. Courtiers began to whisper that the conquest of Mali was the alafin’s great madness, that in her ambition, she had done nought but destroy a historic family.
The repeated tragedies and uncertainty of her last years shattered Nkem’s sense of self. Gone was the easy cynicism of her youth, and she returned to the Orisan faith with an earnest, searching attitude. As an old woman, the alafin began consulting with her shamans and communing with the òrìṣàs in a way that she once would have derided. As she slowly passed away on January 2, 1193, Nkem III prayed aloud that she would swiftly be returned to her children in the next world. It was, this time, nothing but the truth.
The beginning of the end happening here. Adaeke wasn't childless in the game; I could have handled that. She and her sisters were all partilineally married thanks to the AI, which put me in a position where I had to either give up on the Mali inheritance entirely after thirty years of gameplay setting that up OR take my chances trying to finagle a new succession. (Of course, as I was writing this up, I put together how I could have kept the claim without worrying about the patrilineal issue, but it's too late now.)
There will be one last entry, for Adaeke, which will take us into the 13th century. Hope to see y'all there.
I assume that certain things get lost in translation when you go from Greek to Arabic to Igbo.
As for it being a classic CK send-off, you are not wrong. I laughed so hard when I got that result, it was the best thing in the world.
I imagine it was a surprise for him, that's for sure.
There will be one last entry, for Adaeke, which will take us into the 13th century. Hope to see y'all there.
Also, funny how she was familiar with Hippocrates' observations on gout, but not with the Hippocratic Oath!
I assume that certain things get lost in translation when you go from Greek to Arabic to Igbo.
As for it being a classic CK send-off, you are not wrong. I laughed so hard when I got that result, it was the best thing in the world.
Quite a reign! For all his flaws, that last rage was pretty understandable.
I imagine it was a surprise for him, that's for sure.
No heir. No future for the dynasty. I take it this is the last ruler you spoke about.
No heir. No future for the dynasty. I take it this is the last ruler you spoke about.
Adaeke is the last ruler; I'm going to write her up and post her story in a day or two.
Nkem was a grand ruler indeed. Cruel blow that she should be the penultimate stop on the line, but what a way to go out. Here's to seeing what Adaeke can do before things come to an end.
Alafin Adaeke of Guinea, 1193 - 1225
Alafin Adaeke of Guinea
Born: 1150
Reigned: 1193 - 1225
Adaeke Nri’s accession to the throne was greeted by a minor political furore. She had recently traveled from her mother’s capital of Sikasso with a small collection of favorite courtiers, who had largely learned Igbo as adults. On her first formal event as reigning monarch, Adaeke’s herald identified her as “Kaya Magha” of Guinea--a Soninke term that reminded the local Igbos of successive Malinese invaders. An urgent entreaty was made to the high steward, who recognized the error and bade the herald refer thereafter to Alafin Adaeke of Guinea, of the mighty house of Nri.
It was a minor but revealing error. In the past three hundred and fifty years, the ruling class of the Niger River delta had been made up almost exclusively of that distinctive mixture of people now called Nigerian (referring to the Edo, Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa peoples). The Nri monarchs had developed this fertile land into a thriving, urbanized, cosmopolitan region that was second only to Constantinople or Baghdad. Thanks to the brutal wars of conquest under Nkem III, Igbo-Ukwu would shortly rule nearly all of West Africa, but at a price: the Nigerians would cease to rule themselves.
It would have been one thing if Adaeke herself had children, who might have been raised in Igbo-Ukwu. Adaeke however came to the throne at the age of forty-two, middle-aged and barren. A bevy of scribes had consulted the lineage and determined that the next closest heir would be one Mariam Kiffa-Sine, a distant cousin from Akwar who spoke only the Soninke tongue. As a Venetian envoy wryly observed, the Malinese had managed to conquer Guinea after all.
As a result of the divide between the local Nigerian nobility and Adaeke’s Soninke coterie, power flowed increasingly to the established Orisan faith. Over the course of the twelfth century, the Orisan clerical hierarchy had accrued greater material strength and accordingly more influence. The High Shaman did not personally command the Guardians of Heaven or the Daughters of Ekwefi, but increasingly all three institutions came to think of themselves as speaking for a common interest. With the rise of a Malinese alafin, the clerical establishment became more important than ever as a source of legitimacy for the crown. The High Shaman would see to the coronation of Adaeke immediately, knowing that she could now speak with a loud voice in the halls of power.
The first clerical endeavor under Adaeke was revealing. For centuries, Orisan kings had assumed a spiritual authority of their own. Early obas like Nri-Alike and Apia I had undergone intense rituals to attain a trancelike state and commune with the òrìṣàs. Afterward, they would present themselves to their people and make prophetic remarks that were given great credence. Following the conclave of 960, the clergy became increasingly skeptical of this practice. They held themselves as the arbiters of Orisan orthodoxy, founded in the holy texts and an expanding body of commentaries, and they were suspicious of non-clergy claiming prophetic authority in opposition to that tradition.
The High Shaman promulgated a sacred commentary. She emphasized that the mystical rites of communion with the òrìṣàs were a sacrament afforded to all faithful Orisans, while asserting that the proper interpretation of such mystical experiences was the province solely of the clergy. This was a dramatic claim, one that would relegate the prophetic authority of the monarchy to an earlier age, but Adaeke was in no position to refuse. She duly submitted her communion reflections to the high shaman.
Kaya Magha Djenly Cisse-Sissako of Mali was by this time a venerable elder, revered for her wisdom and learning. It was a wonder to pious Orisans that she maintained her good health well into her ninth decade. This was of course no small irritation to Adaeke, her daughter and heir, and yet the niceties of medieval African politics did not allow a daughter to wish openly for her mother to die. So it was that Adaeke sought instead to expand her territory westward, in the former kingdom of Kanem.
The independent city-states of Kanem were among the last places to escape the political centralization in sub-Suharan Africa. They were furthermore the last independent rulers of the Bidaic faith, which had once been the founding religion of Mali. It became the interest of both the high shaman and the alafin, therefore, to place these lands under the rulership of an Orisan monarch. Adaeke launched a series of minor wars in the waning years of the twelfth century to seize this territory, intending to raise one of her Soninke allies to serve as the Orisan oba of Kanem.
These wars led to a rapid deterioration of relations with the Coptic kingdom of Nubia, who had hoped to claim the lands for themselves. At the turn of the thirteen century, Nubia was a powerful kingdom indeed, with an army over ten thousand strong and the wealth of their native gold mines. They were in some sense the strongest native African kingdom at the time, and yet the Coptic elite self-consciously saw themselves aligned with other Christian powers like East Francia and (most importantly) Byzantium. They saw the alafins as unwashed heathens who preached nothing but superstition.
In 1212, the Nubian king declared war on Guinea. Nominally, the issue at hand was a claim for the border province of Kotoko. In reality, they meant to break the back of the Guinean army. Anxieties ran high in Igbo-Ukwu, as the Nubians held a five-to-three numerical advantage. However, Adaeke had many fine Hausa officers in her imperial retinue, and they knew the land of central Africa better than any outsider. The Nubian army got separated in the northern Congolian forests, allowing Adaeke’s army to attack only a thousand soldiers at a time in a series of lopsided victories. In this fashion, the esteemed Nubian army was shattered.
The king of Nubia died shortly after his brutal loss against Guinea, leaving a six-year-old boy as King of Nubia. With the kingdom still reeling from their loss, Adaeke and her high shaman called for a holy war to claim the lands of Kanem still under Nubian control. Anti-Christian sentiment in Igboland was at an all-time high. The high shaman declared that the Nubians had forsaken their own proper African god in favor of the ‘ridiculous sophistries of a foreign priest’. He beseeched “all true sons and daughters of Africa” to fight for the “captive lands of Kanem.” Over ten thousand warriors pledged their swords for battle, and the child king of Nubia scarcely had a chance.
In 1213, the esteemed Djenly Cisse-Sissako went to the ancestors at the age of eighty-four. Adaeke could now claim all of west Africa in her own name. She quickly renounced the title Alafin of Mali as a symbol of the divisions that she hoped to erase under the protection of Ọlọrun. She would spend the last years of her life, warring against the Muslim princes of the Maghreb, pushing the borders of the Orisan faith further than ever before.
On August 20, 1223, a great ceremony was held to mark the construction of the Grand Temple of Igbo-Ukwu. Adaeke, now seventy-two and in poor health, was in attendance; beside her was the heir apparent, Mariam Kiffa-Sine. The ceremony proved to be, perhaps unintentionally, a passing of the torch from the Nri alafin to her Soninke successors.
The Grand Temple was constructed on the traditional first holdfast of the Nri obas, where Nri-Alike first claimed his original kingdom of Yorubaland three hundred and fifty years prior. In the hall of kings inside, one can see Nri-Alike as a wise steward with a quill in his hand; Apia I, proud and true in the raiment of an African champion; and Apia II the prophet, holding above his head the holy Orisan scriptures. Ezimilo has a smaller statue in a room off the west wing, where it is easy to miss him. I rather enjoy Ezimilo’s likeness, which has him looking shrewd, but you may need to give your tour guide the slip if you want to see the great villain of Igbo-Benue. (Do be quiet, though; the temple is still quite active, and you don’t want to interrupt services.)
My personal favorite part of the Grand Temple is elsewhere, though. On the exterior wall, on the north face of the building, there is an inscription left by an anonymous stone-carver. It is an old piece of Yoruba folk wisdom, “Only the thing for which you have struggled will last.”
The great struggles of the Nri era had ended in victory. The alafins had consolidated the lands under Mali and Kanem. The Orisan faith had spread from the Niger river basin to expand throughout west Africa, and the children of the great Akom and Bidiac nobles were now Orisans themselves. Never before had west Africa been united under one throne and one faith. Mariam Kiffa-Sine would face an uncertain future, facing both an overweening church at home and the mighty kingdoms of Christendom abroad. I like to think of the stone-carver’s words as a reminder to the future alafin, that the greatness of Guinea was forged in struggles such as those.
Born: 1150
Reigned: 1193 - 1225
Adaeke Nri’s accession to the throne was greeted by a minor political furore. She had recently traveled from her mother’s capital of Sikasso with a small collection of favorite courtiers, who had largely learned Igbo as adults. On her first formal event as reigning monarch, Adaeke’s herald identified her as “Kaya Magha” of Guinea--a Soninke term that reminded the local Igbos of successive Malinese invaders. An urgent entreaty was made to the high steward, who recognized the error and bade the herald refer thereafter to Alafin Adaeke of Guinea, of the mighty house of Nri.
It was a minor but revealing error. In the past three hundred and fifty years, the ruling class of the Niger River delta had been made up almost exclusively of that distinctive mixture of people now called Nigerian (referring to the Edo, Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa peoples). The Nri monarchs had developed this fertile land into a thriving, urbanized, cosmopolitan region that was second only to Constantinople or Baghdad. Thanks to the brutal wars of conquest under Nkem III, Igbo-Ukwu would shortly rule nearly all of West Africa, but at a price: the Nigerians would cease to rule themselves.
It would have been one thing if Adaeke herself had children, who might have been raised in Igbo-Ukwu. Adaeke however came to the throne at the age of forty-two, middle-aged and barren. A bevy of scribes had consulted the lineage and determined that the next closest heir would be one Mariam Kiffa-Sine, a distant cousin from Akwar who spoke only the Soninke tongue. As a Venetian envoy wryly observed, the Malinese had managed to conquer Guinea after all.
As a result of the divide between the local Nigerian nobility and Adaeke’s Soninke coterie, power flowed increasingly to the established Orisan faith. Over the course of the twelfth century, the Orisan clerical hierarchy had accrued greater material strength and accordingly more influence. The High Shaman did not personally command the Guardians of Heaven or the Daughters of Ekwefi, but increasingly all three institutions came to think of themselves as speaking for a common interest. With the rise of a Malinese alafin, the clerical establishment became more important than ever as a source of legitimacy for the crown. The High Shaman would see to the coronation of Adaeke immediately, knowing that she could now speak with a loud voice in the halls of power.
The first clerical endeavor under Adaeke was revealing. For centuries, Orisan kings had assumed a spiritual authority of their own. Early obas like Nri-Alike and Apia I had undergone intense rituals to attain a trancelike state and commune with the òrìṣàs. Afterward, they would present themselves to their people and make prophetic remarks that were given great credence. Following the conclave of 960, the clergy became increasingly skeptical of this practice. They held themselves as the arbiters of Orisan orthodoxy, founded in the holy texts and an expanding body of commentaries, and they were suspicious of non-clergy claiming prophetic authority in opposition to that tradition.
The High Shaman promulgated a sacred commentary. She emphasized that the mystical rites of communion with the òrìṣàs were a sacrament afforded to all faithful Orisans, while asserting that the proper interpretation of such mystical experiences was the province solely of the clergy. This was a dramatic claim, one that would relegate the prophetic authority of the monarchy to an earlier age, but Adaeke was in no position to refuse. She duly submitted her communion reflections to the high shaman.
Kaya Magha Djenly Cisse-Sissako of Mali was by this time a venerable elder, revered for her wisdom and learning. It was a wonder to pious Orisans that she maintained her good health well into her ninth decade. This was of course no small irritation to Adaeke, her daughter and heir, and yet the niceties of medieval African politics did not allow a daughter to wish openly for her mother to die. So it was that Adaeke sought instead to expand her territory westward, in the former kingdom of Kanem.
The independent city-states of Kanem were among the last places to escape the political centralization in sub-Suharan Africa. They were furthermore the last independent rulers of the Bidaic faith, which had once been the founding religion of Mali. It became the interest of both the high shaman and the alafin, therefore, to place these lands under the rulership of an Orisan monarch. Adaeke launched a series of minor wars in the waning years of the twelfth century to seize this territory, intending to raise one of her Soninke allies to serve as the Orisan oba of Kanem.
These wars led to a rapid deterioration of relations with the Coptic kingdom of Nubia, who had hoped to claim the lands for themselves. At the turn of the thirteen century, Nubia was a powerful kingdom indeed, with an army over ten thousand strong and the wealth of their native gold mines. They were in some sense the strongest native African kingdom at the time, and yet the Coptic elite self-consciously saw themselves aligned with other Christian powers like East Francia and (most importantly) Byzantium. They saw the alafins as unwashed heathens who preached nothing but superstition.
In 1212, the Nubian king declared war on Guinea. Nominally, the issue at hand was a claim for the border province of Kotoko. In reality, they meant to break the back of the Guinean army. Anxieties ran high in Igbo-Ukwu, as the Nubians held a five-to-three numerical advantage. However, Adaeke had many fine Hausa officers in her imperial retinue, and they knew the land of central Africa better than any outsider. The Nubian army got separated in the northern Congolian forests, allowing Adaeke’s army to attack only a thousand soldiers at a time in a series of lopsided victories. In this fashion, the esteemed Nubian army was shattered.
The king of Nubia died shortly after his brutal loss against Guinea, leaving a six-year-old boy as King of Nubia. With the kingdom still reeling from their loss, Adaeke and her high shaman called for a holy war to claim the lands of Kanem still under Nubian control. Anti-Christian sentiment in Igboland was at an all-time high. The high shaman declared that the Nubians had forsaken their own proper African god in favor of the ‘ridiculous sophistries of a foreign priest’. He beseeched “all true sons and daughters of Africa” to fight for the “captive lands of Kanem.” Over ten thousand warriors pledged their swords for battle, and the child king of Nubia scarcely had a chance.
In 1213, the esteemed Djenly Cisse-Sissako went to the ancestors at the age of eighty-four. Adaeke could now claim all of west Africa in her own name. She quickly renounced the title Alafin of Mali as a symbol of the divisions that she hoped to erase under the protection of Ọlọrun. She would spend the last years of her life, warring against the Muslim princes of the Maghreb, pushing the borders of the Orisan faith further than ever before.
On August 20, 1223, a great ceremony was held to mark the construction of the Grand Temple of Igbo-Ukwu. Adaeke, now seventy-two and in poor health, was in attendance; beside her was the heir apparent, Mariam Kiffa-Sine. The ceremony proved to be, perhaps unintentionally, a passing of the torch from the Nri alafin to her Soninke successors.
The Grand Temple was constructed on the traditional first holdfast of the Nri obas, where Nri-Alike first claimed his original kingdom of Yorubaland three hundred and fifty years prior. In the hall of kings inside, one can see Nri-Alike as a wise steward with a quill in his hand; Apia I, proud and true in the raiment of an African champion; and Apia II the prophet, holding above his head the holy Orisan scriptures. Ezimilo has a smaller statue in a room off the west wing, where it is easy to miss him. I rather enjoy Ezimilo’s likeness, which has him looking shrewd, but you may need to give your tour guide the slip if you want to see the great villain of Igbo-Benue. (Do be quiet, though; the temple is still quite active, and you don’t want to interrupt services.)
My personal favorite part of the Grand Temple is elsewhere, though. On the exterior wall, on the north face of the building, there is an inscription left by an anonymous stone-carver. It is an old piece of Yoruba folk wisdom, “Only the thing for which you have struggled will last.”
The great struggles of the Nri era had ended in victory. The alafins had consolidated the lands under Mali and Kanem. The Orisan faith had spread from the Niger river basin to expand throughout west Africa, and the children of the great Akom and Bidiac nobles were now Orisans themselves. Never before had west Africa been united under one throne and one faith. Mariam Kiffa-Sine would face an uncertain future, facing both an overweening church at home and the mighty kingdoms of Christendom abroad. I like to think of the stone-carver’s words as a reminder to the future alafin, that the greatness of Guinea was forged in struggles such as those.
Wow, so that's it! Google Docs tells me that A Most Forgiving Land topped out at just under 25,000 words, which is by far the longest thing I've ever written for recreational purposes. I really appreciated everybody's comments and appreciation, you made this a lot of fun to do.
Nkem III was surely one of the greats of the Nri line, up there with Apia II and Chima in terms of the impact they left for successive generations. Adaeke's reign was successful enough on its own, but her grandmother cast a long shadow.
I am a little bummed that the story ended here, yeah. I had started to imagine an EU4 conversion and colonization of Brazil. Although if I'm really honest the thing that bums me the most is the border gore from the Nubian counties within my territory.
Nkem III was surely one of the greats of the Nri line, up there with Apia II and Chima in terms of the impact they left for successive generations. Adaeke's reign was successful enough on its own, but her grandmother cast a long shadow.
I am a little bummed that the story ended here, yeah. I had started to imagine an EU4 conversion and colonization of Brazil. Although if I'm really honest the thing that bums me the most is the border gore from the Nubian counties within my territory.
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A good end, even if unexpected. Not sure how they would have done past that point. Presumably, destroyed nubia and completed the conquest of sub Saharan Africa, but the iberian and especially byzantine presence in the north might prove exceptionally difficult to deal with.
A good read.
A good read.
That is a ridiculous Byzantine presence to the north. The Greeks are near enough in Burkino-Faso for goodness sake! Nevertheless, a good ending and glad to see Guinea more ores unified – even if it’s a bittersweet milestone. That EU conversion does sound tantalising, but this was lots of fun while it lasted!
They're going to have to do something for euiv byzantine empire if cj3 keeps handing the game nothing but gigantic content spanning Roman empires who are even more invincible in euiv than in ck3...
Had I continued the run, I would have absolutely looked at going after Nubia--either trying to snag a claim or just pushing my way through. By 1225, the Sunni caliph was as powerful as the Byzantines, and I would have had the ability to form an alliance once I was in diplomatic range (because I reformed the religion to be Islamic syncretist), so that would have a big help in smashing the Byzantines. My ultimate plan was to take Africa entirely if I could. Alas, that's for another time.
It was a blast to play and even more to write up! And yes, it's crazy how big the Byzantines got in Africa. I'm honestly not a hundred percent sure why, even.
Absolutely! Thanks for being part of it.
Oh man, I'd stopped getting notifications about this thread and been wondering what you've been up to. Looks like it was just a problem on my end!
Epic end to the tale -- like I said before I really enjoyed how you ended the story when it told you it was time rather than artificially extending it, I think it worked real well in this context.
I really liked the time skip forward and the little personal touch. Very cool!
I didn't think a CK3 to EU4 convertor existed yet but apparently it does, maybe I'll have to take my Egyptians into the future someday. Could be cool to see a Pharaohnic Death Cult in Stellaris, haha!
But yeah, like you ky Byzantines have blobbed hard... I'm actually not very EU4 experienced so maybe it's more likely I'll get wiped out by Roman Legions in the Colonial era....
Just think how epic an HOI4 Byzantine vs Guinea war would be, especially if you both play the colonial game during EU4!
Epic end to the tale -- like I said before I really enjoyed how you ended the story when it told you it was time rather than artificially extending it, I think it worked real well in this context.
I really liked the time skip forward and the little personal touch. Very cool!
I didn't think a CK3 to EU4 convertor existed yet but apparently it does, maybe I'll have to take my Egyptians into the future someday. Could be cool to see a Pharaohnic Death Cult in Stellaris, haha!
But yeah, like you ky Byzantines have blobbed hard... I'm actually not very EU4 experienced so maybe it's more likely I'll get wiped out by Roman Legions in the Colonial era....
Just think how epic an HOI4 Byzantine vs Guinea war would be, especially if you both play the colonial game during EU4!
What a run! What a story!
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What a Byzantine Empire.
Thanks for doing this story, Cora! It really was a pleasure to follow.
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What a Byzantine Empire.
Thanks for doing this story, Cora! It really was a pleasure to follow.