Placeholder: The TemplAARs

[Norgesvenn]

NB! NB! This is a placeholder for a future AAR

One of the greatest things about this fantastic game is the way you can easily mod it to suit your particular wishes. (Well, most of them... I still haven't managed to script an event for the Midnight Rose actually appearing in my bedroom)

My wish is to play as The Knights Templars. So, I will. Using one of the U00-U19 tags (the user defined tags) and my twisted imagination, I will start a new solo AAR after the current Danish one. Rest assured, this won't mean I am abandoning the Denmark AAR, far from it. It's just that I needed to get this idea out before someone else does it.


How will I set up all this then?

Given that legends have it that many Templars fled for Scotland, the Templars will have one starting province; the Highlands.
This won't be a national province, though. The only national province of the Templars will be Judea (or wherever Jerusalem is).

I'll give myself max quality, max offensive doctrine, 15.000 knights, a fleet, and 500 ducats to boot. I'll be a Scottish vassal, but without alliances. Relations will be at -100 at the best, except with Scotland.

Events? Oh, yes. But I'm not telling you now, am I?

Cultures... oh... I need to think about those. An international organization like the Templars could have several cultures.

CBs? Temporary CB against the king of France until 1819, and the same against those blasted Knights of St. John and the Pope.


Feel free to post any suggestions, criticisms, etc. When the day comes, I'll ask LD to either delete this thread or rename it.

Deus volt!

 

[unmerged(8576)]

No suggestions, no critique, just sounds like a brilliant idea.

I´ll be waiting.

 

[thames]

COOL!

Suggestion:
French culture - most were French I think.
Start with ability to have monopolies - they were excellent traders.

 

[Pedrito]

Must be funny...

Remember to put casus belli against Ottomans and Mamelukes.

And please, please, make an event about the twisted swings of the Pendulum... I hope that, sooner or later, you'll reach fabled Agarttha!

Ciao

Pedrito

 

[Rictus]

Dude, you have got to STOP STEALING MY IDEAS! (well, not exactly, but I had something eerily similar in mind to this )

Still, Going to be following this one closely

EDIT: Re: Cultures, IIRC didn't they originate in the Balkans? I think their original purpose was to help pilgrims to the holy lands, so maybe a few (or one or two) balkan cultures would be present.

 

[Deaghaidh]

According to one legend I heard, the Templars had the Grail. They sailed over to America with it and set up a monestary/colony/castle around it. But since they were celebate and got no aid from home, the colony died out long before Columbus...

One of the more charming "lost pre-columbian contact" legends I've heard

 

[Norgesvenn]

The first Grand Masters of the Templars were "Franks". That could mean anything from German to French, really. I've mostly read about the Crusades as seen from the point of view of the Arabs, and some of the most speculative works ever published: "The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail" and its sequels by Michael Baigent, Henry Lincoln and Richard Leigh.

I've settled for French and Anglo-Saxon cultures. Anglo-Saxon will be lost if the Templars conquer the Holy Land and relocate there.

And, of course... there are the Hashashins...

Thanks for the feedback so far!

 

[Apebe]

If you're right and I bet you are, "Franks" had a German culture. Mixing their population with the Gallo-Roman gave France, but originally they're a germanic Tribe. There is still a Franken in Northern Bavaria.

 

[Cat Lord]

Templars were French at the beginning:
Hugues de Payns, the founder of the order, was a knight from Champagne, and his first templars were his friends, also french knights.
I won't give them any other culture.
What are the culture of the knight of St John by the way ???

I think your relation should be 0, but with France (-200) and papacy (-100 at least).
For the other orders (St John, Teutonic), I don't know: They inherit the Templars' wealth and goods most of the time, but they also have sometimes taken the Templars knights in their order for them to escape the French.

That would be fun to hate France, but be a vassal of the Scotts, which are French best ally against england...

Final warning: You better do a lot of historical research Norgesvenn, because everybody would be waiting for you on this one...

Cat

 

[Norgesvenn]

Originally posted by Cat Lord

Final warning: You better do a lot of historical research Norgesvenn, because everybody would be waiting for you on this one...

Cat

Aye. They were outlawed in 1307. Then, 112 years later, they suddenly appeared in the Highlands.

Well, French is obvious to me too. Scotland sure is far from the Holy Land. Need to travel through the Continent, perhaps?


This will of course be alternative history at its best or worst.

 

[Apebe]

The 22 Masters of the Order :

Hugues de Payns 1128
Robert de Craon 1136
Evrard des Barres 1149
Bernard de Tramelay 1150
André de Monbard 1153
Bertrand de Blanquefort 1156
Philippe de Milly 1169
Odon de Saint Amand 1170
Arnaud de Torroge 1180
Gérard de Ridfort 1184
Robert de Sablé 1191
Gilbert Errail 1193
Philippe de Plaissiez 1201
Guillaume de Chartres 1209
Pierre de Montaigu 1219
Armand de Perigord 1232
Guillaume de Sonnac 1246
Renaud de Vichiers 1250
Thomas Berard 1256
Guillaume de Beaujeu 1273
Thibaud Gaudin 1291
Jacques de Molay 1294

They were all elected.

Philippe le Bel decided that the order was a threat ( secret state within the state = danger) that had to be eradicated. On Friday 13th of October 1307 (since that day Friday 13th is suppose to bring bad luck) all members of the order were arrested in the same time in all France. On the 138 Templars that were arrested and brought to confess under torture (in Paris), 110 confessed that they had renied the Christ (Jasques de Molay himself confessed), 3 accused themself of Homosexualité, 25 died during torture.
Hem, nice torture ...

The fun about the malediction :
Jacques de Molay's sentence was Prison to Life. But he prefered to die by the fire. As he was brought on the "bucher" he took of his clothes (the Order had not to be burned) and said :
you the pope and you the king of France I assigne you to the judgment of God, you Clement in 40 days, and you Phillipe within the year.
And indeed Clement died one month later and Philippe le Bel November 29th same year.
There is where the Mystery begins ...

In other countries it went better, the Templars just changed their name... like Portugal, they became the order of the knights of JC


Now, the link to Scotland is probably just romance (by Baron Charles de Hund, a german one) as he wanted to link them to free masonry...

 

[unmerged(6528)]

Now this is a fascinating idea Norg, not certain if someone mentioned this, but they probably wouldn't like the pope to much either, since I believe he gave the King of france permission to stel all the Templars gold .

RJ

 

[Apebe]

They were protected by the Pope, as he didn't like at all that the king of France was conducting religious affairs . But the Templaar were then interrogated by popes agents with no torture and mpany confessed again their crimes !!!! Something went wrong somewhere....

 

[Craig Ashley]

Let me speak for those of us who are ignorant of this order's history. Give us some serious back story! Even a link to some real history of the order would be cool. No matter what, this seems like a really cool idea. I'll be watching.

 

[unmerged(1996)]

On Culture: Give yourself Gaelic as well as French...

On Events: The discovery of 'Merica', the quest for the Ark of the Covenant (last heard of in Ethiopia), the Voyage of Prince Henry the Navigator... all good clean fun...

 

[Norgesvenn]

I'll base the history past 1307 on what really happened and on what those crazed authors of "The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail" came up with.

Of course, the Pope and our good king of France are my mortal enemies. And, I intend to keep a high tolerance for Moslems.


Thanks for very useful suggestions.

Anyone know why Columbus had a huge Templar cross on his white sails?



Aaah... the easiness of speculation.

Ariel, I think you need to fill me in on those events.

 

[Norgesvenn]

Originally posted by Craig Ashley
Let me speak for those of us who are ignorant of this order's history. Give us some serious back story! Even a link to some real history of the order would be cool. No matter what, this seems like a really cool idea. I'll be watching.

Craig, have a look at this one:
Who where the Templars? (ps. not 100% reliable site...)

 

[Nikolai II]

Cultures, how about French, German, Gaelic and Anglo-Saxon or Iberian.

Or make that Anglo-Saxon and Iberian, and maybe Italian

Seriously, since they are going to be semi-mythological, either take all christian cultures, all staunchly catholic cultures or all cultures who had a member who was head-master of the order.

An interesting twist would be to use the culture of the master of the order, and then when a new master is placed, add his culture and remove the previous one

 

[Norgesvenn]

Found a site listing "Grand Masters" after 1307. Interesting. My monarch list is quite ready, then.

Given that I'll start out as a one-province minor without a national province, I think I'll hand myself a few useful cultures.

 

[unmerged(255)]

Originally posted by Norgesvenn
CBs? Temporary CB against the king of France until 1819, and the same against those blasted Knights of St. John and the Pope.

Awesome idea! Not sure if you'll go all the way with this but I'd end the Temp CB against France before 1819 if I were you ---French revolution avenged the Templars in a big way (there are even conspiracy theories & urban legends about Freemasons being behind the Revolution and we all know that FMs are the Templars right? )