You're not the only one - but this is what that cataclysm looked like by the end (with the timely arrival of thirteen thousand reinforcements):
Blood on the Sand - Tales of OutremAAR (HIP)
- Thread starter Khryses
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You're not the only one - but this is what that cataclysm looked like by the end (with the timely arrival of thirteen thousand reinforcements):
And so you have been saved from the infidel by the forces of the HRE. What a brilliant read. May the De Boulogne line prosper after this war. I just got EUIV and trying to play it after years of playing CK2 is rather difficult
I can imagine! I've tried to dabble at it a few times, but so far it still feels very artificial and I always give up after a year or two. Assuming we don't die horribly before we get there, this will be the first time I've already been invested in a game when I start - and rumour (Andrezj) hints that the base tax levels of my part of the world are a mite... poor.
We'll see what that means, and how the converter translates all my CK2 buildings across. At present Jerusalem is actually remarkably wealthy, though not quite at Constantinople's level yet.
My goodness Khryses that was your best chapter yet! Truly epic. Absolutely superb and gripping. Your narrative of the war peerless. Any prizes and awards fully deserved. Can't wait for the next chapter. Well done!
Thank you so much my friend! Whenever I have a major battle I always feel that I should have put more detail into its narrative, and this one was moderately critical - I wouldn't have been wiped out if I'd lost the war, but it would have brought a resurgent and victorious Seljuk Empire to my doorstep without a handy buffer of minor states between me and it. And in the long run, that could have been fatal.
Come on the Mongols!
You definitely deserved the votes. I love the latest chapter that seems to work so well with the last minute rescue by the HRE. It's not that often you can see Christendom united together. Of course, we always have a few plotters to keep things interesting.
In addition, I nominated you as the Best Character Writer of the Week. Go and bask in the some glory
Thanks so much blklizard! I'm glad you're having fun, I'll go and check it out tonight.
After I resolve this minor civil war I'm facing, that is ^^
Hey Khyrsses, where are the paintings/ drawings from?
Oh, and I'm nearly up to date now!
Oh, and I'm nearly up to date now!
No you got just the right amount of detail in-I was genuinely gripped at the way that you told of this war-superb writing!
That last chapter was some real edge-of-seat action there. Glad to see the Twin Kingdoms came through in one peace, though. (And naturally, the great lords of the land are about as grateful for Good Queen Blanche's leadership as a herd of cats Ah well...)
Looking forward to the next chapter!
Ah well...)Looking forward to the next chapter!
X: The Legion of the Crown
"Despite their inglorious end, the legions remain to this day, a thousand years after their creation, the most pre-eminent example of how detailed organization, tight discipline, and inspiring leadership can take a group of individuals and turn them into a winning force."
-Andre de Boulogne, Crown Prince of Jerusalem
Siege of Bobbio
While the war within the natural borders of the Twin Kingdoms continued tipping very much in our favour, the same could not be said for our lands over the seas. Alone among those European lords owing me allegiance, the Comte de Bobbio in northern Italy remained loyal; though the treacherous Duc de Monferrato took him under siege, he still refused to forsake his loyalties. The other traitors showed no inclination to sail to the aid of those foolish lords who had risen against me within easy reach of my son's armies, instead preparing their defenses in some misguided idea that in time their independence would become a fait accompli. Quite clearly they still saw me as the weak and gentle woman I never was, an error I could not allow them to live in forever. Yet a war across the seas would not be an easy one, costing immense treasure and effort while rendering us ominously vulnerable to a threat from the east. The infidels there had not forgotten how dangerously close they had come to overthrowing our military supremacy in the region, and would need little encouragement to try our hand again. No, I took a more canny and economic course; rather than a hundred ships bearing ten thousand men I sent a single letter.
Within the Twin Kingdoms, Andre drew another levy up from Egypt to reinforce our forces in the siege lines across Galilee and Acre. To my dismay I found that Graf Tancred of Tiberias was one of the traitors aligned against me; a de Hauteville, we were related on my mother's side and so I allowed him to ransom his daughters back from my custody when his castle in Tiberias fell. Though his might be a traitor's house, that was hardly the girls' fault after all - to them, he was simply their father and I knew what it was to miss a father. The strength of the Crown Legion increased throughout the war and so too did that of my levies. Before too much time passed, I received a letter from Duc Guntram of Lorraine apologizing for his error and suing for a peace wherein he took all blame for his allies' sin and they would all resume honouring their vows of allegiance. But these were men who had spat upon their oaths when they thought me weak and vulnerable, regardless of all ties of family, marriage and loyalty! I was in no way minded to excuse them the price of their sins, both angry and disgusted that they would even try to wriggle away from their judgement.
The last days of the revolt in Outremer
My letter had reached its target like a fletched shaft from its bow; the French had agreed to join our war. Locally this brought a few hundred levies south from French Tripoli to assist in reducing the rebel holdings; in Europe it rang a death knell for Lorraine's separatist ambitions. Rather than what forces we could spare to fight months away from our principal seat and greatest foes, he would face one of the mightiest armies in the known world, venturing scarce over its own borders. A mite less overtly, this would also serve to dispel the very real risk that the greedy Capet might seek to enrich his own coffers through striking at the rebels in the guise of supporting his ally. Keen to prove their loyalty and their gratitude to the de Boulogne crown for its leadership, a council of the leading merchants of Jerusalem proffered a special tithe of over a hundred gold pieces to support the expansion of the Crown Legion.
To look around my council chamber now was much as it had been in the years that I first took the throne. The same faces for the most part - though I still saw the ghosts of my lover and my most trusted blade in the shadows. The same faces, just grown older and more grey. But then, weren't we all? It was late in the war when my personal chaplain Bishop Gelduin died of severe stress. He had been proselytizing in Toron when the fighting began, and had refused to leave all through the blood and mayhem of the Seljuk invasion and the revolt that followed. At the time of his death he was sheltering near a hundred locals from danger within a small church. I know of no man who should be tarred with the sin of his death; if aught it was virtue, for he worked himself to death in the service of his chosen flock. Bishop Gerard of the Monastery at Latrun was raised to take his place; a learned man, if one somewhat naive of the ways of the world outside the house of God. In May 1165 both Acre and Megedel fell to the loyalist armies. In Lorraine the French campaign was also proceeding apace; the Princesse Alix was taken captive by the King of France, and with her my grandson Ogier de Boulogne, the heir to Lorraine. My older grandson Bernard had also learned a valuable lesson from the great wars that wracked the Twin Kingdoms; many men were far too swift to wield the sword when trouble loomed. I had always found it more useful to speak with silvered tongue instead, a lesson Bernard seemed to be beginning to learn.
Founding of the Knights of Calatrava
In Hiberia the power of Christianity was waxing stronger, the armies of the Frankish King of Castile succeeding in liberating the castle of Calatrava from the Mohommetans in 1147. Located on the southernmost borders of that land, this conquest proved far more difficult to keep than to take in the first instance - with neither a strong local garrison nor powerful local lords. In part to amend this weakness, the military orders such as Knights Templars were welcomed into the land. The Templars however were my vassals, and often their martial strength was called far away across the seas. With their loyalties sworn to the Twin Kingdoms, the Templars, however, were unable to also hold Calatrava, and the king found further volunteer warriors when the Abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Fitero offered himself and the lay brothers of the abbey to defend Calatrava. These Cistercian lay brothers, not being in Holy orders, were variously employed in manual trades such as those of tending herds, construction, farm labor, or husbandry.
Physically fit, at their Abbot's recommendation they became soldiers of the Cross in 1157. Motivated by the desire for religious and financial reward, these brethren were eager to take the offensive against the Moors. When the Abbot Raymond died in 1163, a certain Don García started to lead them in battle as their first grand master. At the same time, the choir monks, not without protest, left Calatrava to live under an abbot whom they had chosen, in the monastery of Cirvelos. Only a few clerics remained in Calatrava with the new knights in order to act as chaplains, one Velasquez becoming prior of the whole community. This revolutionary arrangement was approved by the general chapter at Cîteaux, and finally, officially by Pope Gregory VII in 1164.
Ismat Yahyid, the Infidel of Toron
As the fighting came to a close in that same year, good Hashmaddin brought me word of whispers coming out of Cairo. It seemed the Duc de Qahira was actively conspiring against me, lured into intrigue by the prospect of a weak elderly woman already distracted by the war that plagued me. When would my nobles begin to look beyond my gender? Who I was could be seen clear enough from the long road of my years and deeds; would they ever learn? I sent him a letter telling him what I knew and demanding he recant his schemes. We would see if this missive bore as much fruit as my last, but for now with the collapse and utter defeat of the League of Lorraine I had a judgement to enact. One of my father's first conquests following the Crusade had been to subject the infidel lords of Toron as the rightful vassals of Jerusalem. It had been near seventy years since then, and though the people of their land had long since converted to the True Faith the Yahyid dynasty had remained dogged unbelievers and as such enemies to my father's rule and mine. That then would be the penitence for his sin of treason; his pledge of faith. Even if the man might never be my friend, his sons might become more loyal to my sons and mayhap even repay them for my mercy.
For the treacherous Duc de Monferrato a different price. Tancred de Hauteville had lands both in the Levant and in Italy, and it was the latter that led him to the fever-dream that he might be able to carve out his independence. For his loyalty and the trouble it bought him, the Comte Callimaco de Bobbio in Italy was granted the Duchy I stripped from his traitorous liege. My cousin Tancred would be freed... in time. So too my son-in-law I supposed, though I was still far too angry to face him. I allowed him to cool his heels in the dungeons below the Tour de David for now, and hoped that the lesson would sink in eventually. Chastened by my words and my total victory over the rebels, the Duc de Qahira publicly reaffirmed his loyalty to my house and privately sent an apology for his foolishness. I sensed that one day I or one of my successors would be forced to deal more forcefully with the Duc; the royal seat of Misr, Cairo, ever sat as a canker in the hearts of he and all his line.
Ransoming my son-in-law, though his treason will not be forgotten
At length Guntram managed to buy his wife and son free of the French King's keeping. While I remained deaf to my son-in-law's pleas for freedom or a captivity better suiting his station - his station was that of a traitor! - my daughter Alix no sooner returned to Lorraine than she established Ogier with a trusted friend of hers as acting regent and journeyed straightaway to the Holy Land to speak with me. She knew my moods as well as any, and for the first five days of her visit the matter between us lay unspoken. She rode with me and we would fly our falcons together as we did before her marriage and all was as it was until the Sunday morn after she returned. Then, as we left the mass at the royal chapel she turned to me and asked if I would not reconsider returning to her the man I had chosen for her to wed? I have ne'er been able to refuse my children anything, and so after a long look at her expression I relented. Provided Alix was there to keep an eye on him, I would release my son-in-law - provided he first ceded to me the funds he would need to make more dangerous mischief.
With that money in hand I was able to further fund Andre's new force; the Crown Legion was bolstered to a full projected strength of over four thousand shock infantry backed by a thousand archers. It was only right that the funds of traitors be used to fund a force whose loyalty I could trust, and with Guntram out of my dungeons I smiled and invited him to join my other vassals at a great feast in Jerusalem, celebrating both Christmas and our blessed victory over the rebels. He looked thoroughly unimpressed, but managed to muster a weak smile and agreed. While his seat at the top table at a celebration of his defeat could not have been a comfortable one, at least he could be assured that his erstwhile ally Tancred de Hauteville had a far less comfortable seat with the rats in my cell. Bishop Aubry was particularly vocal in his praise of the food on my table, and I made a mental note to commission a new shrine in his diocese. Even as we sat around the table, Comte Heinrich of Bathaniyya began plotting the formation of a new independence league, possibly driven by the hope that he could use his ties within and to the crown of the Holy Roman Empire to leverage a more positive solution than his predecessors. Happily Hashmaddin's keen hearing allowed us the opportunity to nip this in the bud, and no sooner had he murmured the suspect aside to one of his dinner partners than my spymaster was already hard at work to undermine his resolve.
Paulinus of Hebron
There was trouble also in the streets of Jerusalem, where an ex-monk from the pilgrim roads south of the city had fallen to some kind of madness. He spoke of a great darkness, an evil that threatened all good and godly men. Satan himself was rising from the depths and plotting to destroy us, but this self-proclaimed prophet would sacrifice himself to keep the beast at bay every day of his life. Called Paulinus of Hebron by those who became his disciples, he taught that only through self-sacrifice and mortification of the flesh could good men keep the devil's works at bay. For the most part I was simply entertained by the man's fevered ramblings - it wasn't as though there weren't great evils abroad in the land clamouring for our destruction, yet they hardly required the agency of Satan behind them. I had a number of my men keep a wary eye on the street-preacher and his ragged band in case they began causing trouble that need concern the crown.
My Chancelior Anthinos had been most assiduous in researching the intricacies of Normaund inheritance law as it interacted with the Frankish and the unusual circumstance of the Crusader States. As it emerged, through a quirk of the different laws, traditions and the order in which the de Hautevilles had died recently both Tancred de Hauteville and myself had claims to the county of Antioch that were arguably more valid than that of the young Prince of Antioch. As Bohemond of Antioch was already warring with Simon de Boulogne, I felt that a somewhat... forceful assertion of my rights would be appropriate. After all, Tancred hardly needed any more lands to use in causing trouble and though he was yet safely incarcerated he would undoubtedly get out one of these days. Better to bring the land into my own custody and maybe at last be able to pressure Prince Bohemond into swearing fealty to Jerusalem. The war declared, I sent Andre's Crown Legion northwards under his close leadership. With five thousand men under arms, the Legion was stronger than any of the northern powers it was likely to encounter. What we did not expect was that the Duke of Salerno would take a hand; already involved in the war against my grandson of Armenia, he decided to turn south with his allies and meet the Legion head-on at Antiochia, outside the city walls.
Battle of Antiochia - 12 January 1166
Hey Khyrsses, where are the paintings/ drawings from?
Oh, and I'm nearly up to date now!
A number of my favourite artists hosted on DeviantArt - I can find the artist responsible for any of them you're particularly interested in.
Talented, aren't they?
Glad you enjoyed it, thank you for your kind words
Me too! Such an incredibly close-run thing that I was thinking of borrowing Wellesley's quote for it, but it made me very aware of how dangerous the Persian Empire is to the Twin Kingdoms. We're big enough to be a very juicy target for them, without quite being able to hold them off on our lonesome. And all our allies are a long way away.
I just hope we get a ruler with the right traits to do something about the situation before the Seljuks catch us napping. Blanche isn't that ruler though, and I'm not sure Andre is either...
That last chapter was some real edge-of-seat action there. Glad to see the Twin Kingdoms came through in one peace, though. (And naturally, the great lords of the land are about as grateful for Good Queen Blanche's leadership as a herd of cats
Looking forward to the next chapter!
They are a lovely loyal bunch, aren't they? Glad you're enjoying it!
Just had a nasty thought though - as Blanche seems to be well on her way to living the rest of the century out, and Andre already has a son... what happens with the Senior-Gavelkind, Junior-Primogeniture situation if he dies before Blanche does?
Misr goes to Andre's son, but doesn't Jerusalem go to Blanche's second son?
:unsure:
Blanche has once again proven herself in crushing all oppositions. Though, I'm worried that Andre may struggle to do the same since he resemble his grandfather more. What effect does Founding of the Knights of Calatrav have in your game? It's interesting that a new conflict arose so soon. Guess the previous wars and internal conflicts didn't deplete the treasury that much after all.
Wow those are some complex succession laws my friend how far ahead of the game you playing?
Stability for the moment, and a little bit of expansion coming up. Some good news for now it seems!
They're a new Holy Order I can call up - albeit one that costs more piety (as they aren't my vassals) and are, as yet, significantly smaller.
Still, every bit helps!
I've played up to late 1172 at this point, and have the notes and screenshots happily logged away.
I've written up to... 1166 now, I think? I tend to try to play a few chapters at a time, so I can get more of a sense of the narrative flow (and aren't having to hold off on writing until I get another play session in).
As for those succession laws, a large part of why I couldn't change the laws in Jerusalem proper was that one or two vassals hated Blanche. The Comte de Toron for one, and the de Hauteville for the other. Assuming the Twin Kingdoms don't get divided by some untimely succession at some point, it's a general intention that the Twin Kingdoms will both operate on Primogeniture (though continuing to give land and titles to siblings of the royals where possible, upon their coming of age).
Indeed! And I had an interesting spin to put on Andre as well, so if and when I do get to write as him we'll see that come out.
One thing I enjoy about CK2 is the ebb and flow of ruler succession - regardless of character, sometimes you get a collection of 30-40 year olds who rule for a decade or two... and sometimes you get the 5-6 year old who rules for the better part of a century.
It all comes down to who dies, and in what order!
Yeah I love that too-it's why CK2 trumps EUIV for me every time. Problem I have is getting enough game time in-I tend to be hooked on trying to update whenever I have some spare time rather than playing-ah well
Yep! Although sometimes a long-lived ruler with the wrong traits can lead to short updates that take a long time to play.
It was buried in the depths of the paradox forums, this and tommy4ever's serpents of the Nile aar are both my top aars but they took a bit of searching to find, both are definitely worth a read