META
House Ma'danid, the last bastion of the Balochs
My father never spoke of how he came to be Marzoban. When he departed this world and the title passed to me, I searched through the documents in our keep in Al-Haur, wondering if he might tell me in death what he would not tell me in life. He first signed his name Marzoban in a document dated 936; before that, I find next to nothing. Makran was held by Marzoban Amr Saffarid - some distant relative of my current Shah - in 861, and before that by Emir Uways Midhhalbid in the time of Caliph Al-Mansur, 765. Records of our grandfathers' times do not keep well on these desert coasts.
One can, of course, make inferences. Were our house the scions of great Sultans and Caliphs, I suspect my father would have been rather less silent - he was an just and erudite man, but humility was not one of his virtues during my childhood. And what man yearns to admit that he came from low stock? Once, perhaps, I imagine he and my mother Naazbibi were but Balochi commonfolk, walking through the streets of the city of Kiz, haggling for dorr and speaking with neighbours like any of the other hundreds I see from my window now.
To compound the mystery of our rise to minor nobility is also my parents' awakening to the true faith of ash-Shurah - or, perhaps, together these mysteries are less mysterious than they are apart. The Ibadis across the strait in Oman may be the most horrendous blasphemers, but their texts do at least agree on the caliphate of Abd Allah ibn Wahb al-Rasibi. If my father collected an Ibadi book from a trader, and divined what meaning the heretics tried to obfuscate... then might the truth of his revelation not have drawn other men to him as a leader? A Balochi leader in a Balochi land; might the smallfolk not have preferred him as their sovereign rather than the Persian Shah?
I cannot know. Inshallah, I shall ask him in Heaven.
- Marzoban Isa Meeranani Ma'danid of Makran, 945
The briefest of freedoms: 936-940
God has seen fit to grant me an independent Makran; but God has also seen fit to grant me the wisdom that it cannot survive as such, while the kufr tower mightily beside us. My choice is only to whom to swear fealty; the Sindhi Maharaja Umar, or the Sistani Shah Ahmad? The latter path, it seems, holds within it the greater opportunity, for within the fief of Sistan lies also the Satrapy of Makran, a greater title to which my house might aspire.
- Marzoban Meraan Ma'danid of Makran, 936
Meraan spent his first year of fealty busily finding wives for his court, and being promoted to spymaster and commander of the Shahdom of Sistan. This included for himself a second wife Golshan Parvizdokht, the shy 23-year-old daughter of Marzoban Parviz of Jask some ways north in Zabulistan, a woman who would later become rather macrohistorically important. In 938 the Shah recreated for himself the Satrapy of Makran, somewhat aggrieving House Ma'danid that they would no longer be able to do so themselves. In 939 Meraan left for the Hajj, and was wounded in a boarding action against pirates, although this would heal without issue into a nasty scar. A third marriage to the daughter of Marzoban Ardavan of Tis in 940 was formally elevated into a full Tis-Makran alliance, put to use immediately to declare a conquest war against Marzoban Fereedun of Bost. Alas, while Tis did formally declare on Makran's side, Meraan was a trusting fool not to check first that Ardavan would actually help; in fact Tis' army was busy in Fars and therefore never came to aid Makran at all. Fereedun therefore easily defeated us and made off with most of the ladies of the court as captives. Disaster.
I wanted to do a Kharijite run for a while, and after getting bored of a previous game that had devolved into Francia blobbing again I thought it was a good time.
In planning this game I'm essentially trying to balance three somewhat contradictory objectives:
In planning this game I'm essentially trying to balance three somewhat contradictory objectives:
- Be at least vaguely reasonable RP, so no cheesing religion changes ad nauseum. For a MAXIMALLY Kharijite RP run I suppose one would start in a position where both the character and the province has that religion, but no such case seems to exist in 769.
- While I’ve been playing CK2 for about 6 years I basically never played on Ironman before (not because I like savescumming, but because in 2013 had a toaster PC that kept crashing and killing my ironman saves), and so I could do with a game where I get a few cheevos. The maximally adventurous Muslim-only achievement seems to be Great Indian Sultanate (convert all provinces of Rajastan to Muslim, which according to the wiki means “the sovereign of all the de jure provinces of the Empire of Rajastan must be Muslim”).
- I'm hoping that this is interesting enough to convert to EUIV and do a megacampaign, and in aid to that objective I should actively aim against blobbing all the way across 4 empires from the Kharijite heartland in the Maghreb to Rajastan.
House Ma'danid, the last bastion of the Balochs
My father never spoke of how he came to be Marzoban. When he departed this world and the title passed to me, I searched through the documents in our keep in Al-Haur, wondering if he might tell me in death what he would not tell me in life. He first signed his name Marzoban in a document dated 936; before that, I find next to nothing. Makran was held by Marzoban Amr Saffarid - some distant relative of my current Shah - in 861, and before that by Emir Uways Midhhalbid in the time of Caliph Al-Mansur, 765. Records of our grandfathers' times do not keep well on these desert coasts.
One can, of course, make inferences. Were our house the scions of great Sultans and Caliphs, I suspect my father would have been rather less silent - he was an just and erudite man, but humility was not one of his virtues during my childhood. And what man yearns to admit that he came from low stock? Once, perhaps, I imagine he and my mother Naazbibi were but Balochi commonfolk, walking through the streets of the city of Kiz, haggling for dorr and speaking with neighbours like any of the other hundreds I see from my window now.
To compound the mystery of our rise to minor nobility is also my parents' awakening to the true faith of ash-Shurah - or, perhaps, together these mysteries are less mysterious than they are apart. The Ibadis across the strait in Oman may be the most horrendous blasphemers, but their texts do at least agree on the caliphate of Abd Allah ibn Wahb al-Rasibi. If my father collected an Ibadi book from a trader, and divined what meaning the heretics tried to obfuscate... then might the truth of his revelation not have drawn other men to him as a leader? A Balochi leader in a Balochi land; might the smallfolk not have preferred him as their sovereign rather than the Persian Shah?
I cannot know. Inshallah, I shall ask him in Heaven.
- Marzoban Isa Meeranani Ma'danid of Makran, 945
The briefest of freedoms: 936-940
God has seen fit to grant me an independent Makran; but God has also seen fit to grant me the wisdom that it cannot survive as such, while the kufr tower mightily beside us. My choice is only to whom to swear fealty; the Sindhi Maharaja Umar, or the Sistani Shah Ahmad? The latter path, it seems, holds within it the greater opportunity, for within the fief of Sistan lies also the Satrapy of Makran, a greater title to which my house might aspire.
- Marzoban Meraan Ma'danid of Makran, 936
Meraan spent his first year of fealty busily finding wives for his court, and being promoted to spymaster and commander of the Shahdom of Sistan. This included for himself a second wife Golshan Parvizdokht, the shy 23-year-old daughter of Marzoban Parviz of Jask some ways north in Zabulistan, a woman who would later become rather macrohistorically important. In 938 the Shah recreated for himself the Satrapy of Makran, somewhat aggrieving House Ma'danid that they would no longer be able to do so themselves. In 939 Meraan left for the Hajj, and was wounded in a boarding action against pirates, although this would heal without issue into a nasty scar. A third marriage to the daughter of Marzoban Ardavan of Tis in 940 was formally elevated into a full Tis-Makran alliance, put to use immediately to declare a conquest war against Marzoban Fereedun of Bost. Alas, while Tis did formally declare on Makran's side, Meraan was a trusting fool not to check first that Ardavan would actually help; in fact Tis' army was busy in Fars and therefore never came to aid Makran at all. Fereedun therefore easily defeated us and made off with most of the ladies of the court as captives. Disaster.