I decided to do something crazy once I wrapped up the Plantagenet game, I looked through the historical starts a bit and found something interesting during the Third Crusade Start.
An independent Aragoness county ruled by a Basque dynasty called the de Azagra's, who have a very neat looking Coat of Arms (in game), seeing a lot of Muslim lands just ripe for holy wars and a shot at a crazy Basque Kingdom, I figured... Why not?
During the lifetime of Pedro de Azagra (Wikipedia calls him Pedro, the game calls him Piarres) the one-county land managed to grow into the Duchy of Valencia and Mallorca, just in time for the Andalusian Crusade to happen... And the victory went to a much-longer lived Henry II of England.
My plans for a custom-basque Kingdom in Iberia thwarted, I turned my attention to Africa, where the loss of Iberia, and a failed Jihad against Jerusalem, had basically set Northern Africa on fire with revolts.
By the time Pedro was in his late sixties, he was His Majesty, King Pedro I of Africa, for this he is called 'Pedro the Shrewd'.
His son, Rodrigo I of Africa was the one who finished the expansions into the remaining de-jur territory of the Kingdom of Africa, effectively recreating the core of ancient Carthage (I plan to change the name and call it 'an evolution' of the title later). His five marriages (all of which provided handy alliances against Muslim invaders) and many mistresses earned him the name 'Rodrigo the Lewd', and a whole bevy of children. His conquests let him spread the lands around, however his second-born son, Alfonso got the demon-spawn event, and his elder brother and eldest sister died in mysterious accidents.
The reign of Alfonso the Cruel would truly cement the Kingdom of Africa as a major power, a man of many appetites, both a genius and a great beauty, a lover of women AND men (when he was 50ish his demon made him realize a love for men), demonically possessed but charismatic and ambitious. Like his father, Alfonso had many wives and mistresses, the most notorious were the 'Three Witches' who appeared at his court with a small army when he was invading the collapsing Muslim Kingdom of Mauretania, after seizing the lands of Alger and Tlemcen, Alfonso joined a crusade for Anatolia, becoming notorious for his vicious tortures and horrific executions of prisoners, many of whom vanished without a trace in his dungeons. Whipsers of foul magic and Satanic rituals would haunt Alfonso's reign, but nothing was ever proven. But because of this he came to be called, Alfonso the Cruel.
The Crusade of Anatolia was a victory for Christendom and saw Alfonso become the first King of Anatolia and the near destruction of the Sultanate of Rum. However the Mongol invasion of the Eastern Roman Empire saw it's downfall and subjugation and a Sunni Jihad for Jerusalem saw a stunning reversal, the destruction of the Christian Crusader state and the Sultanate of Rum given new life... in Jerusalem.
Then the Mongol's turned their attentions to Africa-Anatolia, but didn't count on the MASSIVE coalition of nations that had formed against them. When they declared war on Africa-Anatolia, virtually every single independent state in the known world join as one to fight them back. The war lasted ten years, but in the end Alfonso was victorious. However Alfonso only lived for another decade before dying of severe stress.
Rodrigo II of Africa was his successor, his eldest legitimized son, born of one of his couplings with the witch Morgana, he inherited his father and mother's incredible beauty. Rodrigo II was a militant minded King who began to gear up for a war with Muslim Egypt. However in the fourth year of his brief reign he was invited to a party by one of his landed half-brothers and died under mysterious circumstances.
King Jon of Africa came to the throne at the tender age of 7, while the Kingdom has suffered a serious set back with it's first major civil war, three years of conflict and an attempted Muslim holy war forced all sides to come to terms, effectively an unstable white peace. The boy has inherited his father's great-good looks, but he has three younger siblings, one of whom was born a month after their father's death. His younger brothers Princes Pedro and Rodrigo, and his sister Konstantina, Prince Pedro has the same unreal beauty as his brother, while their sister is already described as being 'a new Amazon', Prince Rodrigo seems to be a black sheep with nothing special about him at all.
Time will tell what fate has in store for the little Basque family that could...