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Vaftrudner

Sergeant
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Jan 9, 2008
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Now with a brand new index:

The Prologue is in this post.

Chapter 1: In order to truly hate, you must first learn to hate yourself
The journal of Georgios of Dongola, King of Nubia (1066-1084)
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5

Chapter 2: The Lost Years of Nubia
Or: No event is so horrible that it can't get worse (1084-1106)
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6

Chapter 3: Murder in the Sand
Or: Who Dares Wins But Eventually Dies Too (1106-ongoing)
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

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Over a thousand years of chaos and struggle have gone by since the fall of Kush. Blood has been shed, dynasties have fallen and tears have endlessly watered the shores of the life-giving Nile. However, the Nubians have grown strong through the hardships, and now stand united in faith and hope. Since the Nubians accepted the one true God five hundred years ago, the Lord has granted them nothing but strength and prosperity. Trade has grown and all corners of the known world now connect through Nubia. The Arabs, misguided in faith but mighty in arms, met such fierce resistance from the united kingdoms of Makuria and Nobatia that the seemingly unstoppable tidal wave of Islam was pushed back. The price was steep, however - the baqt was signed, where Nubians were pledged to send slaves to the muslim rulers of Egypt. The humiliation of this peace would not last. In 1066, with the Fatimids losing all of their land north of the Sahara and west of Egypt, and with the Shiite rulers isolated from most of the muslim world, the ruling class of Nubia was reminded of the blood they shared with the kings of old. It was true that Kush had once ruled from the Blue and White Nile all the way to the Mediterranean Delta. How fearsome the ruler of a united Nubia must be, when his ancestors had conquered all of Egypt and fought back the Blemmyes and the Beja! How awesome the ruler must be, when he stands at the edge of Aswan, knowing that Islam was never allowed to pass this point! Behold the glory of the true King of all the Nile, chosen by the Lord Himself to lead his people to victory:

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He is.. Well, he is, err, a bald guy with no friends and a tendency to solve diplomatic conflicts by hurling blunt objects.



Crap.​
 
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Frequently asked questions (or rather questions I myself want to answer, since no one here knows me nor cares enough to ask them)

What are you playing?
Normal/normal, CK: DV 2.0 since I was too stupid to remember to patch it before I started playing, and now I don't know if the save games would be compatible. Go ahead and ridicule me.

Why Nubia?
Because Ethiopa isn't in the game!

Aren't you just stealing all your material from phargle and anonymous?
Why yes, I am. Moving on.

Will this be continued?
If the readAARs (they came!) want to, I'll continue in IN or MMP, whichever causes the least amount of hassle. I'd love a Nubian North America. But for now, I'm concentrating on survival.
 
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Thanks for the interest! I've lowered the quality of the pictures for this update, to save people some bandwidth. The first post can keep standing megabytely grand though.


Chapter 1

In order to truly hate, you must first learn to hate yourself
The journal of Georgios of Dongola, King of Nubia
Part 1

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The wonderful land of Nubia! How my heart is filled with pride every morning, when I wake up and see this country all around me. It may not be all that prosperous, but at least it's true in its faith! Well, except for a small part of it. About one third. We haven't quite developed fractional mathematics yet, so I'm not completely sure how much that is, but it can't be too much!

The hill forts may not look like much neither, but they - wait a minute, they actually aren't that much. And our troops...

Sometimes I don't get out of bed.

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Egypt is, well, slightly larger. And maybe a bit richer. I'd better get working on those slaves...

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The one good thing about life is that I can go to school and just pick up a wife.

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Except we don't have schools, which someone should probably have told her.

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At least we find a proper way to celebrate her eighteenth birthday and imaginary graduation from the Primary School of Random Sand Hill with a Dirty Goatherder Claiming to be Aristotle Reborn. There is nothing creepy about this.

Oh, by the way, we don't have goats neither.​
 
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I will read this provided you can survive Egypt and provided that your household name remains Dongola.
Never doubt a dynasty called of Dongola. I have played a bit ahead, guess which family makes a cameo?

By the way, I'd be overjoyed to have you as a reader. You are one of my favourite writers!
 
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Lovely!

Nubian stuff. (Assembly required)

Honestly, though, I'd be more riveted if you ditched the Dongolas and went with using elective law to pull off traditional Nubian inheritance: ruling king to his eldest sister's son.
 
Lord Valentine: Glad to have you here!

Llywelyn: Thanks for the links! I'll just give you my view on the subject since it's relevant to the AAR:

Since Crusader Kings effectively destroys all plausability in about a month, I'm not that concerned with historical correctness. Having said that, of course the Nubian society matters to me, but in my limited research, it's been hard to find reliable facts. It would seem that Solomon reinstated the unique Nubian succession order around the time the game begins, but I haven't found any exact dates. Also, Paradox haven't bothered to give Georgios any family at all, so even if I reinstate the correct succession order, it will have to wait a generation. However, I probably won't. In my alternate history scenario, Georgios keeps the patrilinal order and reinforces it by holding up the Byzanthine Empire as a model. This suits my objectives, to advance northwards, towards Europe. This will be reflected in societal change in Nubia in the same direction, even if it is only this. Dongola was also the capital of Makuria, and I choose to believe that Makuria is still the administrative center at this time, which gives his surname a historical basis.

This is of course only justifications to keep the name of Dongola. It's way too cool.

On the subject of the name Dongola, I've gone with what seems to be the English custom as far as spelling goes. This is a very confusing subject though. The current Sudanese Dongola is called دنقلا in Arabic, which would be transliterated as Dunqula or Dunqulah. The qaf, the q in Dunqula(h), is a sound that resembles a k in standard Arabic, but interestingly, in Sudanese Arabic it is rendered as a [G], which is the voiced equavilent of the qaf and as such closer to a g. So with some justification from modern spoken Sudanese Arabic, I will keep writing Dongola.

It's way too cool not to.

But to conclude, I will keep writing in a way I think is funny with some disregard for history, but the subjects above interest me and thank you for the links :)
 
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I'm posting my third update right away, since I want to get the boring first few years out of the way and get to the good stuff. I've lowered the quality of the jokes for this update, to save me some brainwidth. The second post can keep standing humourifically grand though.

In order to truly hate, you must first learn to hate yourself
The journal of Georgios of Dongola, King of Nubia
Part 2

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Our finances have been hit quite heavily in 1066. I'm not completely sure what happened. First of all, the trade that kept my ancestors rather wealthy has magically disappeared. In addition, I am fairly certain that the provinces of Sudan and Nubia did not end in a straight line together with the world half a year ago. My theologians have told me that this is due to a very complicated trial of God, called the Map. I tried to have it explained but I couldn't follow what they were saying. Apparently it had something to do with a paradox which doesn't sound promising.

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Well, the first heir to the throne of (Half of) Nubia is finally - wait, that's not right.

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Back to work.

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Having finally collected enough money to claim the title of Prince of Aswan, I give it to the one theologian I trust so that he can deal with this Map trial. He tells me that some farmers have complained about losing loved ones, friends or even worse, cattle, who were on the wrong side of the Map. They were quickly executed of course. Obvious blasphemy and lies.

We still have no cattle in Nubia.

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A minor revolution takes place in Sudan! Surely a sign of God! Although I'm quite sceptical when it comes to this new fancy stuff called proteins. I'd rather stay away from it. One has to be careful with fads.

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The Patriarch offers us a new bishop to tackle all the theological difficulties in Nubia! It's an honour to prove our faith to this man of God...

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..who is lustful.. sceptical.. and seems rather apt at backstabbing..

We are truly loved by the Patriarch....

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At least the court is starting to fill up with some fairly competent people.

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And a son is finally born!

Well, you have to celebrate it somehow.

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He'll probably even survive. With that name, he's untouchable.

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In June of 1069, another daughter is born. I guess I should love her but I'm busy trying to figure out where I can send her in 16 years for the maximum amount of money. If you can't have moral, at least you should have standards.

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Well this can't be good.​
 
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I question whether Dongola is a better name than Phokas.

I do hope you will convince me.
 
Heh@Map.

Llywelyn: Thanks for the links! I'll just give you my view on the subject since it's relevant to the AAR:
Yeah, afaik, they still haven't excavated enough to be sure whether Solomon was Georgios's successor (and therefore son) or precessor (and therefore uncle.)

Aladdin seems popular, but I added the links in case you wanted to mod in the culture. For me it's just too bizarre to play them with Arabic names (besides the fun of having every other woman in your court having a name ending in -nasti or -suko).
 
phargle: What did I say about doubting the of Dongolas? :mad:

Lord Valentine: God offered on sale, only now, this amazing son, with not one, not two, but three a's in his name! I placed my order instantly! What could possibly go wrong?

Kanil: I'd totally missed the Phokas one, thanks for the tip, unfortunately it seems to have ended prematurely :(

Llywelyn: Unfortunately I have already played a bit ahead, so it's a bit too late for changing the names. I appreciate the advice, though. I considered making fun of the fact that the Nubians are Arabs in the game, but I couldn't squeeze in even more bashing of the fourth wall.

Update coming up now!
 
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I've lowered the quality of my English usage for this update, to save me some goodlanguagisticismwidth. The third post can keep standing grammaticalificly grand though.

In order to truly hate, you must first learn to hate yourself
The journal of Georgios of Dongola, King of Nubia
Part 3

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When the Sunnis of Cyrenaica broke away from the Fatimids, I had hoped that they would be too busy holding the Shiites back to actually march on any Christian nation. Instead, they peacefully march right through neutral Egypt without a care in the world. I hear that they even stop for peaceful worship, local festivities and friendly rape along the way.

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We're not completely unprepared, though. Not because I really have any affection for Nubia, nor myself, but simply because I refuse to go down in history as That Guy Who Sired a Lot of Girls, Brought Hens and Died Hiding in His Tent of Dongola.

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Since I obviously feel no desire to get out of my tent, something else had to be done.

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I have carefully lowered the taxes for burghers and peasants to be able to make the clergy and nobility more powerful. I have also focused our research (no longer monopolised by the Sand Hill University) on heavy armour. In return, I now have a more professional army slightly more focused on heavy infantry. The arabs, expecting our traditional Nubian archers, were fought back quickly. I think. I heard cheering from outside somewhere. Go out and check, sweetheart!

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Is there blood? Eww!

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Al'a'addin has apparently already learned to kill nannies with a growl. Progress.

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If at first you don't succeed...

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...fail horribly again.

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Take that, future history writers!

God, I hope they give me hair.

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Aswan is impassable, as it always has been and always shall be, but the war has taken its toll on our armies. However, the Cyrenaicans agreed to go home with all my money, which is fine. Also, my wife died, and there's this irritating fly in the tent that I can't get rid of. Maybe I should have done something about it. The fly situation, that is. Such things really bother me.

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The Aegeans agreed to actually pay me for a new one. A wife, that is, not a fly net. This one's fairly good with money too, and since she'll be so well treated here in Nubia, I trust that she will do a good and honest job as my new steward!

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Dongola really sounds like some shady italian-mafia family.

And the steward will do just fine :)
 
Ah yes, Nubia, our favorite loner Orthodox/Muslim punching ball realm of unfortunately named, cattleless misfits. You did manage to fend off a realm that's at least twice as big - twice as much sand, at least - so kudos.