Epics & Romances Scenario Idea

[Jestor]

Epics and Romances CK Mod

Arthur Pendragon: (Breton culture)
-King of the Bretons
-Based in the County of (Under Debate)
Vassals
-Launcelot du Lac: Count of North Cumberland (Norman or Irish culture)
-Erec: Duke of Dumnonia (Somerset, Dorset title provs)

Court
-Gawan de Orkney (Lot’s Son)
-Gareth de Orkney (Lot’s Son)
-Gaheris de Orkney (Lot’s Son)
-Agravaine de Orkney (Lot’s Son)
-Galahad du Lac (Launcelot’s son)
-Bors de Ganis
-Bedivere
-Kay (Saxon culture) or if we use Cai then Welsh culture
-Lamorak de Gales (Welsh culture)
-Parzival (I’m suggesting using the von Eschenbach spelling so we can introduce
Anfortas and possibly Fortinbras or whatever it was that Parzival’s half-
brother was called)
-Tristam
-Guinevere de Cameliard (wife of Arthur)
-Morgan le Fay
-Mordred
-Yvain

Other English nobles:
-Mark: Duke of Cornwall? (Or whatever title fits) (Cornwall/Devon/Exeter title provs)
-Lot de Orkney: Duke of Lothian (Lothian/Orkneys/Caithness/Sutherland title provs)
-Margwase de Orkney: Wife of King Lot
-Leodegrance de Cameliard: Duke of Something that includes Lancaster

Rest of Europe
-Epic of Beowulf (Denmark)
-Dwarves and Giants (Inner Norway)
-Elves (Forests of Sweden)

Asia
-Presbyster Johannes (King of Really Really Rich Kingdom)
-Really Really Rich Kingdom’s Provinces
-Dihistan
-Merv
-Turkmen
-Bukhara
-Kara-Kum
-Maveannahr
-Usturt
-Khwarizm
-Emba
-Mangyshlak
Vassals (Set to break free a la Mongols from Prestor John or his heirs’ rule and based on the West side of the Caspian and around the Georgia area)
-Gog
-Magog
-Anie
-Agit
-Azenach
-Fommeperi
-Casbei
-Alanei
-Befari
-Conei-Samante
-Agrimandri
-Vintefolei

Some more details and discussion to toss out. Where exactly is Corbenic located? I’m thinking of putting Anfortas there and giving something to do with the Holy Grail eventwise if possible

Another event person to consider is the Lady of Shalott. Granted, this post-update is getting a little event-heavy but I’ve been playing around a bit with Corvuz’s nifty Seven Kingdoms mod a bit, so it got me thinking about this.

We may want to start thinking about names lists too, if possible.

Also, concerning Greece and Rome, I’m very tempted to use the ancient Greek/Roman myths there, but my only concern is that it would create too divergent a time span and it’d be difficult to create comporable units.

Thoughts on that? I know I had more ideas, but I can’t think of them right now, so I may go ahead and just start work on compiling a names list since that’ll be considerably easier to do.

 

[Sarmatia1871]

All seems good. Looked at the provinces for the Caucasus/Asia, and this looks like a reasonable (if possibly a bit sketchy!) draft setup for Prestor John & associated territories:

This way, you have Gog and Magog (bound in red!) as two duchies in the Caucasus, with the 10 other tribes being their vassal counts (Gog and Magog are actually the only ones mentioned in most sources), both under the initial vassalage of Prestor John. Prestor John's on-map Kingdom is outlined in yellow: his own (extremely rich!) province is the one with the yellow circle by the Aral Sea, the three religious ones have the blue circles in the middle, and the remaining 7 are for the 7 Kings (Dukes...).

***

I've quickly gone over Prince Igor, and the main characters are:

Russians

Igor (Prince of Novgorod Seversky)
Yaroslavna (Igor's second wife - still alive)
Vladimir Igorevich (son of Igor - Borodin makes him son of Igor's (unnamed?) 1st wife)
Vsevolod ("Fierce Bull") - Igor's brother, seems to rule somewhere as well

Sviatoslav (Son of Oleg) Igor & Vsevolod's father - still alive and ruling in Kiev
Iaroslav of Galich (not much about him in the poem, but Borodin makes him into Igor's scheming drunkard brother-in-law, who wants to usurp his throne while he's imprisoned by Konchak)
"Wild Riurik"
David
Iziaslav, who fought & was killed by Lithuanians (had 2 brothers- Briacheslav and Vsevolod; there's also a Msistislav, who has 3 sons)

Pagans

Konchak - Polovtsian ruler
Gzak (seems to be Konchak's son/lieutenant)
(Borodin also adds "Konchakovna", Konchak's daughter, to create a romantic liason for Vladimir...)
Kobiak - another pagan ruler
Ovlur - another pagan

As well as the Polovtsians, who live around the Don, the other pagan tribes are the Khinova, Lithuania, the Iatviagy, and the Deremela.

There's also an evil wizard called Boian mentioned at the beginning.

A big theme of the poem is that Rus' is weakened because all the princes are divided. So, a possible starting setup could be similar to Russia in the 1066 scenario, eg. a few independant principalities whose rulers are all closely related, occupying a claimable (but currently dormant) Kingdom of Rus (which is actually more similar to the original Kiev Rus' given the location of all the above princes, eg. Ukraine)


***

For Ireland, I'm not sure how "contemporary" Leprechauns actually are - what would possibly be better is to use Irish epics to stake out the various Kingdoms and countries there. If I remember correctly, according to tradition Ireland was originally controlled by the Fomorians, who were a kind of evil monstrous race, then taken over by the Tuatha deDanaan (very powerful elfish faeries), who then retreated to live underground when the humans (Irish) arrived. The main Irish hero is Cuchulainn, who was from Ulster, although I'm not sure if he was actually a king, or just a Celtic super-warrior. There must be a resident Celticist to help out with this?!?

One possible setup therefore would be to have human kingdoms in the East or Ireland, which I think was historically the more densely populated area, have the Tuatha represented solely by events (or maybe as a nation, with Mide representing the underground realm...), and have the returned Fomorians (under the leadership of the fantastically named Balor of the Evil Eye!) still lingering on as a possible threat in the West.

 

[Ayeshteni]

Good point. I can't believe I forgot that Mark shows up in Gottfried's Tristram and Isolde. It's something I'm going to wrestle with a bit more, though. What I may do is shift Arthur out of Somerset to somewhere else, so I can have both the Duke of Cornwall (or whatever would be best for Mark's title) and the Duke of Dumnonia as titles. In which case Mark's title would have Devon, Exeter, and Cornwall, and Erec's title would have Somerset and Dorset. While Dumnonia only actually ventured into the western part of Somerset and Dorset, I think in this case it's enough to justify it so that we can have two Ducal titles in the region and let Mark and Erec both have their rightful places.

A grand idea.

I'm tempted to make Lot an actual King, since that would give him control of Scotland, but then we would run into the problem of Gawaine breaking away from Arthur (or whichever of Lot's sons it is) when he inherits. Therefore, I'm thinking another Duchy, with the Kingdom of Scotland a creatable title. Maybe we should sneak a few Picts in there too somewhere? Or is that getting too much away from the epics and romances theme and getting too historical? I do agree with the distribution of territory though and when I post a layout update later tonight, the changes will be in there.

I think Duke will be best (or a duke level King?). Having Gawaine or one of his brothers become seperate to Arthur ia a little troublesome. Of course it would take the fun out of King Lot and his wife that you only have to wait 10-20 yeas and that problem is solved (when Gawaine inherits).

Pict Lords in Argyll, Atholl, Ross and Moray (to represent the vast Pictish Highlands)

King Uriens of Gorre in Carrick and Galloway (or held directly by Arthur to give to a knight). Uriens was one of the round-table (originally opposed Arthur when he drew the sword from the stone in the film Excaliber -I dont know how close this is to Morte d'Arthur). My earlier set-up in my first post would have the remaining Scottish provinces of:

Buchan and Marr - King Carados de Escoce (independent duke)
Angus and Fife - Duke Ansirius de Benoic (count to Arthur) -or directly held by Arthur
Strathclyde - King Brangore de Strangorre (a count vassal of Uriens de Gorre)
Berwick - Queen Elaine de Garloth (duchess to Arthur)

However I do not know if these characters existed in the Arthurian legends.

The thing about the Arthurian legends is that there is some truth and true history attached so we shouldnt be too worried if some 'historical creep' finds its way in here or there.

Leodegrance in Lancaster? That sounds fair enough unless evidence is dug up that proves otherwise. I'll keep looking around myself to see what I can find on him.

please keep looking. But Lancaster sounds as good a place as any.

As far as the tags go, I was going to wipe out all the titles that are in vanilla and just create the titles from scratch. Is this feasible?

it will require a lot of work in the province.csv file to match the tags to the land layout (but as there will be a lot of name changes anyway I dont see why not. I really wish there was a proper moddir facility in CK so you dont have to have a complete seperate install for this to work (or change a lot of files in your ordinary install abck and forth to play this or vanilla)

With regards to Launcelot, I was actually considering making him French or Norman, because to me, with his name and being from a distant land across the sea would imply Normandy rather than Ireland, given his personality, name, etc. Plus, every depiction I've seen in film of Arthur running across Galahad on the beach on his way to mistakenly find Launcelot, the beach has looked more like France than Ireland.

True. Another version has Lancelot coming from Aquitaine (the whole lady of the lake and du Lak thingy) Cant remember where I read this (a book about the Holy Grail IIRC), so Norman or Occitan is good (possibly better than Irish - but I was just keeping this region localized)

So Arthur will need shifting, I've decided. I like the two Duchies idea a lot, especially since it makes Mark the more powerful Duke/King as would seem to be the case from the body of stories. I'll take a look at the CK map again after I get done reading The Lais of Marie de France for Medieval English Lit tomorrow and hunt around with where precisely to place him.

Then I would CERTAINLY put him in a Marcher region (Wales or Scotland) with Wales being my first choice. (though putting him in the borders of Scotland (Berwick on CK Map) would make me smile )

ayeshteni

 

[Sarmatia1871]

The thing about the Arthurian legends is that there is some truth and true history attached so we shouldnt be too worried if some 'historical creep' finds its way in here or there.

True. Another version has Lancelot coming from Aquitaine (the whole lady of the lake and du Lak thingy) Cant remember where I read this (a book about the Holy Grail IIRC), so Norman or Occitan is good (possibly better than Irish - but I was just keeping this region localized)

Yes, yes - the Arthurian legends are pretty much a tradition developed continuously for about a millenia and a half, based on an (apparently) real British leader, but with considerable French, English and German input (and probably others as well!). So, you could either pick one particular version to base the setup on, or you could plunder as many details as you can from a number of stories, to make a setup which would be interesting to play (probably the best idea...). I believe there's one French version which has him ruling the whole of Europe, then reuniting the Roman Empire and retaking Jerusalem, but that's probably a bit excessive!

The Picts seem about the best thing to put in the Highlands, as I'm not if there is a comparable set of strictly "Scottish" legends to use (unless you want to start using Ossian, which is, ahem, ever-so-slightly dodgy...)

Also, if you're having Arthur fight Saxon invaders, their mythical leaders were two brothers called Horsa and Hengest (literally meaning "Lady horse" and "man horse", or "Mare" and "Stallion", depending on how poetic you want the translation to be), so you could possibly having these two ruling Duchies in Kent & East Anglia.

There were also pagan Saxons living in central Germany around this sort of period who had long (and semi-mythologised) wars against Charlemagne - their leader was Wittikund, and they worshipped a demonic idol called Irmensaul.

 

[Jestor]

All seems good. Looked at the provinces for the Caucasus/Asia, and this looks like a reasonable (if possibly a bit sketchy!) draft setup for Prestor John & associated territories:

This way, you have Gog and Magog (bound in red!) as two duchies in the Caucasus, with the 10 other tribes being their vassal counts (Gog and Magog are actually the only ones mentioned in most sources), both under the initial vassalage of Prestor John. Prestor John's on-map Kingdom is outlined in yellow: his own (extremely rich!) province is the one with the yellow circle by the Aral Sea, the three religious ones have the blue circles in the middle, and the remaining 7 are for the 7 Kings (Dukes...).

Superb idea! I like that there's some buffer area between the Gogs/Magogs and the Kingdom of Prestor John as well, at least in the beginning, so that when things go bonkers with the unleashing of the Gogs/Magogs, the core of the Kingdom has time to prepare for it.

***

I've quickly gone over Prince Igor, and the main characters are:

Russians

Igor (Prince of Novgorod Seversky)
Yaroslavna (Igor's second wife - still alive)
Vladimir Igorevich (son of Igor - Borodin makes him son of Igor's (unnamed?) 1st wife)
Vsevolod ("Fierce Bull") - Igor's brother, seems to rule somewhere as well

Sviatoslav (Son of Oleg) Igor & Vsevolod's father - still alive and ruling in Kiev
Iaroslav of Galich (not much about him in the poem, but Borodin makes him into Igor's scheming drunkard brother-in-law, who wants to usurp his throne while he's imprisoned by Konchak)
"Wild Riurik"
David
Iziaslav, who fought & was killed by Lithuanians (had 2 brothers- Briacheslav and Vsevolod; there's also a Msistislav, who has 3 sons)

Pagans

Konchak - Polovtsian ruler
Gzak (seems to be Konchak's son/lieutenant)
(Borodin also adds "Konchakovna", Konchak's daughter, to create a romantic liason for Vladimir...)
Kobiak - another pagan ruler
Ovlur - another pagan

As well as the Polovtsians, who live around the Don, the other pagan tribes are the Khinova, Lithuania, the Iatviagy, and the Deremela.

There's also an evil wizard called Boian mentioned at the beginning.

A big theme of the poem is that Rus' is weakened because all the princes are divided. So, a possible starting setup could be similar to Russia in the 1066 scenario, eg. a few independant principalities whose rulers are all closely related, occupying a claimable (but currently dormant) Kingdom of Rus (which is actually more similar to the original Kiev Rus' given the location of all the above princes, eg. Ukraine)

I agree that we could use something similiar to 1066 with the setup. The only question is what to use for a main dynasty name. Using a patronymic as in the case of Konchaknova would obviously only work for one generation. Furthermore, becuase these are the mythical heroes themselves, Ruirik doesn't enter the picture here.


***

For Ireland, I'm not sure how "contemporary" Leprechauns actually are - what would possibly be better is to use Irish epics to stake out the various Kingdoms and countries there. If I remember correctly, according to tradition Ireland was originally controlled by the Fomorians, who were a kind of evil monstrous race, then taken over by the Tuatha deDanaan (very powerful elfish faeries), who then retreated to live underground when the humans (Irish) arrived. The main Irish hero is Cuchulainn, who was from Ulster, although I'm not sure if he was actually a king, or just a Celtic super-warrior. There must be a resident Celticist to help out with this?!?

One possible setup therefore would be to have human kingdoms in the East or Ireland, which I think was historically the more densely populated area, have the Tuatha represented solely by events (or maybe as a nation, with Mide representing the underground realm...), and have the returned Fomorians (under the leadership of the fantastically named Balor of the Evil Eye!) still lingering on as a possible threat in the West.

Ahh, now I know where Whitewolf stole the term Fomori from. I love the Balor of the Evil eye concept in the west and Cuchulainn sounds familiar to me. Unfortunately, all my books are at home and I'm at school 1,500 miles away or so. Because there I have Irish Legends and Folktales as compiled by Yeats and Lady Gregory that we could draw from, along with Gottfried von Straussburg's Tristram and Isolde and Wolframm von Eschenbach's Parzival, from which we could draw, if nothing else, at least more character names and get a better sense of what statistics and traits should be.

Oh yes, that reminds me of something I thought of in the shower this morning. If possible, we could have an event where a country bumpkin turns into this really brave and grand knight, a la Parzival. My thinking here would be that it would check to see if you had a courtier whose stats were really sucky like all 1s and 2s or lower, and then the event could fire to make them a really good courtier, like maybe some combination of 9s and 10s or higher? Just a thought, since it would add a bit of strategy, too. i.e. Do you kill off your really sucky heir (though that would be very unheroic!) or do you keep him around in hopes that the Parzival event fires?

Along with the events theme, when Gog and Magog break out, it'd be awesome to have the possibility of other forms of Armageddon break out, such as Launcelot declaring war on Arthur or the Giants getting some super units in Norway to fight whatever heroes are there (like maybe a big bad Fenrir unit?) That way the entire map could be plunged into chaos, as in each area, their version of the end of the world is breaking out.

That may not be plausible, but it's just a thought to consider.

 

[Jestor]

I think Duke will be best (or a duke level King?). Having Gawaine or one of his brothers become seperate to Arthur ia a little troublesome. Of course it would take the fun out of King Lot and his wife that you only have to wait 10-20 yeas and that problem is solved (when Gawaine inherits).

Pict Lords in Argyll, Atholl, Ross and Moray (to represent the vast Pictish Highlands)

King Uriens of Gorre in Carrick and Galloway (or held directly by Arthur to give to a knight). Uriens was one of the round-table (originally opposed Arthur when he drew the sword from the stone in the film Excaliber -I dont know how close this is to Morte d'Arthur). My earlier set-up in my first post would have the remaining Scottish provinces of:

Buchan and Marr - King Carados de Escoce (independent duke)
Angus and Fife - Duke Ansirius de Benoic (count to Arthur) -or directly held by Arthur
Strathclyde - King Brangore de Strangorre (a count vassal of Uriens de Gorre)
Berwick - Queen Elaine de Garloth (duchess to Arthur)

However I do not know if these characters existed in the Arthurian legends.

The thing about the Arthurian legends is that there is some truth and true history attached so we shouldnt be too worried if some 'historical creep' finds its way in here or there.

The initial setup for the Scots sounds *very*good, but for the rest of it, I'm trying to see if I can get some sort of Saxon presence in there for Arthur to drive out for the greater glory of Breton. Would it be wrong to have them based in the southwest part of England, where the Kingdom of Mercia traditionally was? Because the way the map is shaping itself out to be now, it's dominated by the Bretons with a pocket of Picts.

Also, where do the Welsh figure into this? Do we leave them out completely or do we squeeze them in somehow?

please keep looking. But Lancaster sounds as good a place as any


it will require a lot of work in the province.csv file to match the tags to the land layout (but as there will be a lot of name changes anyway I dont see why not. I really wish there was a proper moddir facility in CK so you dont have to have a complete seperate install for this to work (or change a lot of files in your ordinary install abck and forth to play this or vanilla)

Too true. One thing I'm not going to try and do is change the province names on the map. That's way, way too much work for far too little reward in my opinion, since I'm given to understand it's a pain in the butt to try and pull off. I think pretty much everything else is fair game (titles, cultures, etc.)

And so far Google hasn't given me anything on Leodegrances that could be helpful, but I'll check Questia to see what it turns up.

True. Another version has Lancelot coming from Aquitaine (the whole lady of the lake and du Lak thingy) Cant remember where I read this (a book about the Holy Grail IIRC), so Norman or Occitan is good (possibly better than Irish - but I was just keeping this region localized)



Then I would CERTAINLY put him in a Marcher region (Wales or Scotland) with Wales being my first choice. (though putting him in the borders of Scotland (Berwick on CK Map) would make me smile )

ayeshteni

I don't have a problem with cultures bleeding over into domains where they traditionally aren't if there's evidence in the stories to support it. I think here there's certainly evidence to support it. Launcelot and Galahad *do* sound more Occitan than Norman in flavour to me as far as names go, now that I think about it. So I think the decision there will be based on whichever culture group of names we can find that matches L and G better.

Re: Arthur in Wales or Scotland. Scotland is going to be pretty much occupied by the de Orkneys and the Picts, so there isn't really going to be room for Arthur there.

Wales I was hoping to get some Welsh legends in, if possible, and of course there's still the question of the Saxons.

Right now, here's the setup of kingdoms in Britian I'm imagining:

King of the Bretons (Arthur)
King of the Welsh (creatable or possibly given to Arthur, since he figures prominently in Welsh legends, too, but Bretons would be his primary title)
King of the Scots (creatable)
King of the Saxons (either creatable or given to a Saxon lord)

Are four kingdoms in England too much, do you think? I think it'd more accurately reflect the situation in both the time period and the epics/romances myself. My only wish is that we could create a fourth tier title that reflects what would happen in the case of a unified Britian, such as High King of _____ (Insert name here) but that's a CK2 wishlist item, I think. But even without that, I think a player would get a major sense of accomplishment out of uniting all the thrones of Britian under one crown.

 

[Jestor]

Yes, yes - the Arthurian legends are pretty much a tradition developed continuously for about a millenia and a half, based on an (apparently) real British leader, but with considerable French, English and German input (and probably others as well!). So, you could either pick one particular version to base the setup on, or you could plunder as many details as you can from a number of stories, to make a setup which would be interesting to play (probably the best idea...). I believe there's one French version which has him ruling the whole of Europe, then reuniting the Roman Empire and retaking Jerusalem, but that's probably a bit excessive!

The Picts seem about the best thing to put in the Highlands, as I'm not if there is a comparable set of strictly "Scottish" legends to use (unless you want to start using Ossian, which is, ahem, ever-so-slightly dodgy...)

Also, if you're having Arthur fight Saxon invaders, their mythical leaders were two brothers called Horsa and Hengest (literally meaning "Lady horse" and "man horse", or "Mare" and "Stallion", depending on how poetic you want the translation to be), so you could possibly having these two ruling Duchies in Kent & East Anglia.

There were also pagan Saxons living in central Germany around this sort of period who had long (and semi-mythologised) wars against Charlemagne - their leader was Wittikund, and they worshipped a demonic idol called Irmensaul.

All excellent information and advice. I'm planning on stealing from as many different sources as possible here, so as to get as precise a representation of the characters and situations as I'm able to given the parameters.

I think we're all pretty much in agreement with putting the Picts in Scotland, then. As far as those two Saxon leaders go, thank you for giving me that, since it gives me justification for having the Saxons in the southwest of England, which is where there's currently room for them.

Pagan Saxons in Central Germany sounds like a possible idea, but I want to see if I can dig up a copy of the Nieb. first, so as to ascertain what all of Germany gets filled up by their national epic first before I commit to that. So I'll put them in reserve along with Megolias (sp) as the Count of Leon and vassal to Duke/King Mark.

 

[Ayeshteni]

I think we're all pretty much in agreement with putting the Picts in Scotland, then. As far as those two Saxon leaders go, thank you for giving me that, since it gives me justification for having the Saxons in the southwest of England, which is where there's currently room for them.

South East surely (Kent would be Horsa - thats where the coat of arms of Kent originates; that of a horse). Hengist could be Norfolk and Suffolk (Anglia)

I am sure I have a book somewhere on Celtic Mythologies, I will have a rumage for it and have a nosey.

Will get back to you on that.

Ayeshteni

 

[Jestor]

South East surely (Kent would be Horsa - thats where the coat of arms of Kent originates; that of a horse). Hengist could be Norfolk and Suffolk (Anglia)

I am sure I have a book somewhere on Celtic Mythologies, I will have a rumage for it and have a nosey.

Will get back to you on that.

Ayeshteni

Thank you. Southeast is what I meant... I just got my directions crossed up there.

Looking forward to hearing about the Celtic mythologies. There was brief mention of them today in Medieval Lit, but not enough for me to steal anything from unfortunately.

 

[Jestor]

Just a quick update. After about three hours of hunting around, trying to pinpoint where exactly Cameliard is, I came across the following passage on a site:

From the castle towers, Leodegrance's knights saw Arthur's bold performance and were inspired to join him. Together they chased the retreating enemy troops deep into the hills of North Wales.

Now it doesn't say if they were driving them south, in which case Lancaster would make sense, or north, which would mean that Leodegraunce would be somewhere in North Wales.

Everything else I searched for came up with Leodegraunce being somewhere in Scotland, but since Scotland is already pretty busy with Lot and the Picts, I think what I'm going to do is situate Leo in either Lancaster or one of the Welsh counties.

I'll provide my larger update later tonight. I'm feeling hungry so I'm going to go see if any places are open that have food.

 

[Sarmatia1871]

I agree that we could use something similiar to 1066 with the setup. The only question is what to use for a main dynasty name. Using a patronymic as in the case of Konchaknova would obviously only work for one generation. Furthermore, becuase these are the mythical heroes themselves, Ruirik doesn't enter the picture here. .

Yeah, just looked over Igor again, and the reference to Riurik and David are historical in the context of the poem. So, they wouldn't be characters.

Dynasty names would be a bit tricky, as I don't think Russian and Slavic princes in this sort of period used second or familial names - they tended to use patronymics to differentiate people (eg. Vladimir Igorevich - Vladimir, Son of Igor, Konchakovna, Iaroslvana, etc...) - and these are impossible to code in. But, the main uniting feature that the Russian princes (who do seem to all be related anyway) are stated as having is that they are all "of Rus", so this could serve as a sort of dynasty title. It would also fit in with the 3 brothers story, so all the Polish dukes would be "of Lech", and all the Czech ones "of Czech."

So, there'd be four Russian principalities, which is probably enough (Galich - Iaroslav; Novgorod-Seversky-Igor; Kiev - Sviatoslav; and another one for Vsevolod - I'll check the province borders and post another map when I've finished the real research I've got to get done today!).

Ahh, now I know where Whitewolf stole the term Fomori from. I love the Balor of the Evil eye concept in the west and Cuchulainn sounds familiar to me. Unfortunately, all my books are at home and I'm at school 1,500 miles away or so.

Tell me about it! All but five of my poor books are all alone in boxes in London! Not quite 1500 miles away (distances are a bit shorter in Europe!) but there's still a sea in the way...!

 

[Jestor]

Yeah, just looked over Igor again, and the reference to Riurik and David are historical in the context of the poem. So, they wouldn't be characters.

Dynasty names would be a bit tricky, as I don't think Russian and Slavic princes in this sort of period used second or familial names - they tended to use patronymics to differentiate people (eg. Vladimir Igorevich - Vladimir, Son of Igor, Konchakovna, Iaroslvana, etc...) - and these are impossible to code in. But, the main uniting feature that the Russian princes (who do seem to all be related anyway) are stated as having is that they are all "of Rus", so this could serve as a sort of dynasty title. It would also fit in with the 3 brothers story, so all the Polish dukes would be "of Lech", and all the Czech ones "of Czech."

So, there'd be four Russian principalities, which is probably enough (Galich - Iaroslav; Novgorod-Seversky-Igor; Kiev - Sviatoslav; and another one for Vsevolod - I'll check the province borders and post another map when I've finished the real research I've got to get done today!).




Tell me about it! All but five of my poor books are all alone in boxes in London! Not quite 1500 miles away (distances are a bit shorter in Europe!) but there's still a sea in the way...!

Excellent idea. So maybe for the Polish and Czech we could find out what the closest designation to "of" would be in Polish or Czech and then use that in the respective language? I know it'd be nitpicky, but seeing the "of whatever" in English always drives me nuts.. and even if it's only something like "de Whatever" even though I know it's only "of Whatever" in another language, at least it *feels* like it's an actual dynasty name.

Since Russian has no "of" to speak of really, we'll have to figure out something.. maybe like "Igor Russka" or however Russia is in Russian (Sadly enough, I'm taking Russian I this semester and even have a quiz in it today, but I'm floundering badly because I'm having huge problems getting around the cyrillic. It's much easier when I transliterate it into the Roman alphabet. Makes me wish I was taking French instead)

Sorry I haven't updated recently. I've just been insanely busy lately. I should be able to get a chance to update either tonight or tomorrow night at the latest, though.

 

[Sarmatia1871]

Excellent idea. So maybe for the Polish and Czech we could find out what the closest designation to "of" would be in Polish or Czech and then use that in the respective language? I know it'd be nitpicky, but seeing the "of whatever" in English always drives me nuts.. and even if it's only something like "de Whatever" even though I know it's only "of Whatever" in another language, at least it *feels* like it's an actual dynasty name.

Since Russian has no "of" to speak of really, we'll have to figure out something.. maybe like "Igor Russka" or however Russia is in Russian (Sadly enough, I'm taking Russian I this semester and even have a quiz in it today, but I'm floundering badly because I'm having huge problems getting around the cyrillic. It's much easier when I transliterate it into the Roman alphabet. Makes me wish I was taking French instead)

Hah! You're finding cyrillic tricky? Wait till you start trying to work out all the different cases (and adjective/pronoun agreements), genitive plural endings and verbs in perfective aspect - then you'll wish you were doing French!

My Russian and Polish are currently very rusty (too much in German and French recently pushing it all out...) and my Czech is totally non-existant but anway:

The equivalent I can currently think of in Russian for "of Rus'" would be the genitive plural of "Rus" (which would mean literally "belonging to the Rus"). That would be "Russki" for a man, and "Russkaya" for a woman.

In modern (or at least recent...) Polish, the place plus the -ski ending is also generally used. However, I think in the early middle ages the form "z + place (in the genitive case!)" was used to designate "of/from somewhere." So, I'd imagine theirs would be something like "z Lechi."

Still, would be good to have help from friendly Poles, Russians, or Czechs, to stop us from brutally butchering their languages!

 

[Cuke]

The equivalent I can currently think of in Russian for "of Rus'" would be the genitive plural of "Rus" (which would mean literally "belonging to the Rus"). That would be "Russki" for a man, and "Russkaya" for a woman.

In modern (or at least recent...) Polish, the place plus the -ski ending is also generally used. However, I think in the early middle ages the form "z + place (in the genitive case!)" was used to designate "of/from somewhere." So, I'd imagine theirs would be something like "z Lechi."

Still, would be good to have help from friendly Poles, Russians, or Czechs, to stop us from brutally butchering their languages!

As far as I know, the only way to escape "-ski/-skaya" problem is to use the "Polish" solution, which will be "iz + place in whatever-you-call-that case" in Russian. Note that there is no such thing as "from Rus";(I'd say it's too large to conform with the rules ); something like "iz + town or region/tribe" has to be used. Anyway, I suggest to stick with Rurikovich-like dynasty names (patronyms?) for each distinctive branch (for example, in 1066 scenario there are three: Kiev-Novgorod, Pereyaslavl and Chernigov; you seem to have four or five).

 

[Ayeshteni]

IRELAND

A little bit more info here.

Cuchulain was a Red Branch Knight under the King of Ulster Conchobar descendant of Ross the Red. The finest of the band wanted to know who was the greatest warrior and the King (not wanting to court one above the others) asked the Queen of Connaught (the Malevolent warrior Queen Maeve) but he didnt like her judgement and the elusive magic-using King of Munster could not be found. It then emerges that a giant called Uath the stranger enters the hall and asks if there is a champion present that will behead him this night and the next night the giant would return the blow.

Of the band three vied for the honour; Loegaire the Triumphant, Conall of the Victories and Cuchulian.

Loegaire takes the challenge but his heart fails him the following night and does not turn up for the return strike (the giant picks up his head and leaves on the first night, much to the surprise of everyone). Conall turns up the next day as the Giant enters and he also takes the compact -and he too fails to turn up the next day.

The next day Cuchulain is in the hall and he refuses to accept the trickery bargain and is called a coward by Uath. This doing the trick, Cuchulain storms over grabs the ax and severs the giants head and then proceeds to pummel it on the ground. The giant gets up, picks up his pulped head and leaves.

The next day Cuchulain is back in the hall. Tight-lipped and white-faced, but present. The other knight avoid him as a man condemned, and sure enough Ulath returns to fulfil the bargain. Cuchulain lowers himself and kneels to take the blow, trembling. The giant prepares to strike and the axe descends..... and nothing happens.

Ulath the stranger has disappeared and in his place stands Curoi of Munster, the King of that place. The King of Munster had come at Conchobars behest to settle the question and as Cuchulain had first not accepted the fools bargain and then had the valor to appear for the return stroke, Cuchulain was Ulsters champion.


So...

Conchobar King of Ulster
his kinsman Fergus MacRoy (a cousin perhaps)

Maeve Queen of Connacht

Curoi King of Munster (side-note: Ulath is an form of Ulaidh - Irish for Ulster)

Cuchulain in the court of Ulster
Loegaire in the court of Ulster (coward trait)
Conall in the court of Ulster (coward trait)


Ay.

 

[Sarmatia1871]

As far as I know, the only way to escape "-ski/-skaya" problem is to use the "Polish" solution, which will be "iz + place in whatever-you-call-that case" in Russian. Note that there is no such thing as "from Rus";(I'd say it's too large to conform with the rules ); something like "iz + town or region/tribe" has to be used. Anyway, I suggest to stick with Rurikovich-like dynasty names (patronyms?) for each distinctive branch (for example, in 1066 scenario there are three: Kiev-Novgorod, Pereyaslavl and Chernigov; you seem to have four or five).

Aha - many thanks!

The way the Slavonic countries are probably going to be modelled is through the Polish "3 brothers" story. This would make all the Russians the descendants of a single ancestor, called "Rus." So, would a general patronymic for all the Russian princes (like Rurikovich) be workable? I'd imagine it would be something like "Russovich," although that doesn't sound quite right!

 

[Jestor]

Hah! You're finding cyrillic tricky? Wait till you start trying to work out all the different cases (and adjective/pronoun agreements), genitive plural endings and verbs in perfective aspect - then you'll wish you were doing French!

My Russian and Polish are currently very rusty (too much in German and French recently pushing it all out...) and my Czech is totally non-existant but anway:

The equivalent I can currently think of in Russian for "of Rus'" would be the genitive plural of "Rus" (which would mean literally "belonging to the Rus"). That would be "Russki" for a man, and "Russkaya" for a woman.

In modern (or at least recent...) Polish, the place plus the -ski ending is also generally used. However, I think in the early middle ages the form "z + place (in the genitive case!)" was used to designate "of/from somewhere." So, I'd imagine theirs would be something like "z Lechi."

Still, would be good to have help from friendly Poles, Russians, or Czechs, to stop us from brutally butchering their languages!

Russki/Russkaya seems to me a modern notion, so it's something I'd prefer to shy away from.

The 'z Lechi" example for the Polish sounds like an excellent idea though, and perhaps it's one we can use to pattern the rest of the Slavic-related languages after.

 

[Jestor]

As far as I know, the only way to escape "-ski/-skaya" problem is to use the "Polish" solution, which will be "iz + place in whatever-you-call-that case" in Russian. Note that there is no such thing as "from Rus";(I'd say it's too large to conform with the rules ); something like "iz + town or region/tribe" has to be used. Anyway, I suggest to stick with Rurikovich-like dynasty names (patronyms?) for each distinctive branch (for example, in 1066 scenario there are three: Kiev-Novgorod, Pereyaslavl and Chernigov; you seem to have four or five).

Patryonyms would be correct, though I'd like to explore the possibility of the "iz place/tribe" solution if at all possible, simply to differentiate it from the vanilla setup if nothing else.

 

[Jestor]

IRELAND

A little bit more info here.

Cuchulain was a Red Branch Knight under the King of Ulster Conchobar descendant of Ross the Red. The finest of the band wanted to know who was the greatest warrior and the King (not wanting to court one above the others) asked the Queen of Connaught (the Malevolent warrior Queen Maeve) but he didnt like her judgement and the elusive magic-using King of Munster could not be found. It then emerges that a giant called Uath the stranger enters the hall and asks if there is a champion present that will behead him this night and the next night the giant would return the blow.

Of the band three vied for the honour; Loegaire the Triumphant, Conall of the Victories and Cuchulian.

Loegaire takes the challenge but his heart fails him the following night and does not turn up for the return strike (the giant picks up his head and leaves on the first night, much to the surprise of everyone). Conall turns up the next day as the Giant enters and he also takes the compact -and he too fails to turn up the next day.

The next day Cuchulain is in the hall and he refuses to accept the trickery bargain and is called a coward by Uath. This doing the trick, Cuchulain storms over grabs the ax and severs the giants head and then proceeds to pummel it on the ground. The giant gets up, picks up his pulped head and leaves.

The next day Cuchulain is back in the hall. Tight-lipped and white-faced, but present. The other knight avoid him as a man condemned, and sure enough Ulath returns to fulfil the bargain. Cuchulain lowers himself and kneels to take the blow, trembling. The giant prepares to strike and the axe descends..... and nothing happens.

Ulath the stranger has disappeared and in his place stands Curoi of Munster, the King of that place. The King of Munster had come at Conchobars behest to settle the question and as Cuchulain had first not accepted the fools bargain and then had the valor to appear for the return stroke, Cuchulain was Ulsters champion.


So...

Conchobar King of Ulster
his kinsman Fergus MacRoy (a cousin perhaps)

Maeve Queen of Connacht

Curoi King of Munster (side-note: Ulath is an form of Ulaidh - Irish for Ulster)

Cuchulain in the court of Ulster
Loegaire in the court of Ulster (coward trait)
Conall in the court of Ulster (coward trait)


Ay.

Superb work! So I'm guessing we can use MacRoy as the dynasty name for Conchobar?

I'll try and update the list tonight if I can, but I have to be up in 6 hours for a tournament I'm covering for the student newspaper, so I may not get to it until tomorrow night as mentioned in a previous post.

I hope no one's mad at me for my slowness in this. I really appreciate the help everyone's given so far.

 

[Cuke]

Aha - many thanks!

The way the Slavonic countries are probably going to be modelled is through the Polish "3 brothers" story. This would make all the Russians the descendants of a single ancestor, called "Rus." So, would a general patronymic for all the Russian princes (like Rurikovich) be workable? I'd imagine it would be something like "Russovich," although that doesn't sound quite right!

It can be "Russich" or "Rusich" which in this case means "the Russian" as a nickname. It is also similar to several tribal names, so it might mean "of Rus" as well. Probably russki is relatively modern, after all.