Crusader Kings II - Paradox Entertainement (02/12)

Afghanistan is Zunist! And there's a Mazdaki Satrapy in the middle of Persia! And the Sultanate of Navarre is Chalcedonian!

The religious map is a mess! Afghanistan only has one Zunist province! Same number of Buddhist provinces in their Kingdom!:p

RIP Afghanistan :p

It would be pretty cool if the religion survived to present day and became something akin to Jainism or some of the more established indigenous religions of OTL.
 
RIP Afghanistan :p

It would be pretty cool if the religion survived to present day and became something akin to Jainism or some of the more established indigenous religions of OTL.

Not really RIP, they have about some 5 religions on their Kingdom so with a bit of luck they can convert them.

Now I'm out of start ideas, any suggestions?
 
Not really RIP, they have about some 5 religions on their Kingdom so with a bit of luck they can convert them.

Now I'm out of start ideas, any suggestions?

For a new game?

Just getting these off the top of my head. :p

  • Viking Brittany
  • Hindu/other Indian Religion Middle East/Persia/Central Asia
  • Christian India
  • Hellenic India (Custom Character for this one, not to mention CKII+. Possible descendent of Alexander the Great or one of the Diadochi?)
  • Norse Constantinople ala GURPS Midgard (I ended up doing this and it ended up being VERY entertaining. Reformed Norse from the start plus custom realms is the way to go imo)
 
For a new game?

Just getting these off the top of my head. :p

  • Viking Brittany
  • Hindu/other Indian Religion Middle East/Persia/Central Asia
  • Christian India
  • Hellenic India (Custom Character for this one, not to mention CKII+. Possible descendent of Alexander the Great or one of the Diadochi?)
  • Norse Constantinople ala GURPS Midgard (I ended up doing this and it ended up being VERY entertaining. Reformed Norse from the start plus custom realms is the way to go imo)
Norse Brittany is tough. I've never been able to do it without having established a bigger Norse empire first. I installed my brother in Brittany having conquered Britain and spent the next three hundred years fighting off holy wars for that branch of my dynasty.
 
I've been writing this run as a short timeline.



Started off in 769 by knocking off an ahistorical character and starting as a Visigothic lord named Gundemar, Count of Roussillon in-game but Lord of Perpenya in-character.

A brilliant strategist and a man of towering ambition and anger, Gundemar was never fond of his nominal liege of lieges, King Karloman of Middle Francia, nor of his liege-lord, one Guillaume the Cruel, set in Toulouse as Duke over that city and Marquis of Gothia, with reign over all of Septimania. Discontent with the Frankish dominion over the lands he felt rightfully belonged to his people, he set to work expanding his control over the coast. His campaign began in 771, when Carcassonne came under his influence. Over the next decade, Gundemar extended his formidable reputation and protection to the cities of Narbonne and Maguelone. By the time he was finished, he was more influential in the region than his own overlord. With the consent of the church he established himself as the Count of Roussillon, and while Guillaume was still de jure overlord of the Marca Gothica, the nobles there de facto owed their allegiance to Gundemar.

Driven by the schemes of his nobles to support his claim to the Gothic March, and with the support of several bishops, Gundemar declared that Toulouse was by right a part of Gothia, and he marched on Toulouse with 2,000 men, besting the armies of Guillaume in the field. In 784, with Guillaume falling prisoner to Gundemar's forces, Gundemar crowned himself Marquis of Gothia and Count of Toulouse. In recognition of Guillaume's supreme martial account, he released him from the gaol and gave him command of an army, but eventually grew tired of his scheming and drove him from his lands altogether; Guillaume would eventually resurface as Count of Burgundy.

Through the 790s, Gundemar extended his reach steadily, claiming lordship over Venaissin and Gevaudan and extending protection to the Bishop of Vivarais, then wresting the County of Foix from the rebel Peranudet. It can be said that Gundemar's court was one of the earliest melting pots in which formed the culture that would be called Occitan. Shortly thereafter, the Francias came under the unified rule of Karloman after the king of West Francia, Charles the Tormentor, died without male heir, brought low by severe stress.

Karloman outlived his brother by just seven more years before being struck down in 804 by Viking raiders under Ragnarr of Helsingland. This left Karloman's 13-year-old son, Karloman II, on the throne in his infancy. Gundemar, at that point serving as the marshal of the Frankish armies, administered the defense of the Frisian coast against invading Norsemen under Hogni of Sweden, then turned back the raids of the Viking Oddr against Normandy.

The period of peace did not last long: Dissatisfied with Karloman II, Gundemar and several nobles in the south of Francia moved to recognize Gundemar himself as the rightful lord over Aquitaine and Vasconia. A stout war ensued over the next three years as Occitan and Visigothic men-at-arms routed the Franks in a series of running battles along the Garonne, then stormed the gates of Paris and sacked the city, forcing Karloman to acknowledge Gundemar as King of Aquitaine. The decree of kingship was ignored in the west, where the Basque landlords of Dax and Armagnac continued to acknowledge Karloman II as their suzerain, as did the Count of Limousin.

Two years later, Gundemar passed away in his sleep and left everything to his only son, Gundemar II - a less militarily able but more patient man with a better eye for dealing politely with his vassals.



I'm actually about seven kings in and have a bunch of these written up.
 
Very interesting!

Keep going!
AS YOU COMMAND

* Gundemar II, or Gundemar the Holy
King of Aquitaine (Nov. 11, 810 - March 8, 847)

Gundemar II rose to the throne as a less able military man than his father, but a calmer and more temperate man with more skill in administration. Most immediate for him, though, was a touch of skullduggery: He set to work drafting a series of documents known as the Cession of Pepin.

The document claimed that during the booting of the Muslims from Septimania, Pepin the Short had granted certain Gothic families rule over certain cities and keeps in perpetuity. In practice, what it amounted to was a series of spurious claims to Provence, Armagnac, Bordeaux and the Prince-Bishopric of Agen, rapidly assembled over a period of a decade by the incredible hustle and diligence of the realm's chancellor, Duke Gararic of Bourbon.

Most of the late 810s were dominated by this lead-up to Gundemar's War, in which Gundemar asserted his right to the lands he claimed by right of Pepin's donations. With Francia torn apart in revolt, King Karloman II had little hope of resisting, and Gundemar rapidly brought much of old Aquitaine back under his control, only the Count of Limousin still answering to the Franks. The conflict coincided with the brief ascent to the throne of Theoderic IV in Austrasia, with the Merovingians gaining control of part of Francia for three years before he died childless and the House of Chaumontois was raised in their stead. Francia stood truly fractured, with Karloman's realm beset by Norse raiders, namely Oddr of Nantes, known as the Conqueror, and the Saxon lord Arnd Richfriding, who gained control of a swath of land centred on Rouen.

By the early 820s, Gundemar had brought the war to a close, firmly establishing his control over Aquitaine and taking measures to increase his authority in the realm. He quickly removed his second son Artau from the line of succession by naming him Prince-Bishop of Agen.

Gundemar was also known as a lover of cats: In 821, with Gundemar's War in its latter days, he adopted a small kitten.

In the years after the war, Duke Gararic roamed the land as Aquitaine's chancellor, keeping Gundemar ever-supplied with causes for war. He found some at home: The land distribution after the war left Duke Miquel of Aquitaine infuriated over the King's holding of Bordeaux. Sick of the Duke's scheming, Gundemar retracted his holdings in Poitou and went to war with him, eventually imprisoning him and replacing him as Duke of Aquitaine.

Even that title was soon handed off, however, in 827, as Gundemar achieved a hard-fought and often narrow victory against the Umayyad Emirate of Iberia, ejecting the Moors from the northeasternmost reach of Iberia. Styling himself as Count of Barcelona and Marquis of Hispania, Gundemar established the lands south of his family's ancestral home in Rosello as a Royal March and an extension of the royal demesne, held under crown control to allow Gundemar to personally see to the defense of Aquitaine against the Saracens.

The retaking of the Marca Hispaniae brought into the Christian fold a number of well-developed fortresses and cities, larger than those in Toulouse and full of Christians willing to fight the good fight. It also brought shipyards. Gundemar quickly sent his son, Raimond-Berenguié, out to sail the seas and explore the shores of Europa. He came back with a detailed map - and scurvy, quickly dying. This left Gundemar's grandson, Berenguié-Raimond, as the heir apparent - and the young man showed signs of genuius, both tactically brilliant and diplomatically gifted. Gundemar quickly betrothed his grandson to Demetra Monomachos, a young and brilliant girl from Thessalonica in the Eastern Roman Empire - an empire now almost entirely limited to Anatolia, with Constantinople in Tengri Bulgar hands.

With the wars over for now, Gundemar presided over an era of peace and prosperity in his latter years, with building projects carried out across Aquitaine.

In the east, meanwhile, the Magyars settled down in the lands of the Slavs, forming the Kingdom of Mstislavl.

In the waning years of his life, Gundemar completed the seizure of Aquitaine from the Franks, re-establishing control over Limousin. Then, mustering his levies alongside a band of mercenaries from Transjurania, Gundemar cast a gauntlet into the teeth of Roman Emperor Anthimos Isauros, sending men across the sea to besiege the Balearic Islands. With just twelve ships - conscripted merchant vessels, Aquitaine's navy being no match for the mighty Roman navy - Gundemar could only shuttle two small armies to the Balearics, knowing that the Basileus could crush them should he take to his ships. He knew the battle would have to be waged elsewhere, on Aquitaine's terms.

Hearing word that Anthimos and the main Byzantine army were in the field crushing a rebellion in southern Italy, Gundemar's main force - about eight thousand Occitan and Catalan men-at-arms and just over two thousand Transjurane hired swords - marched overland into Italy to meet the Roman host at war in Capua. In a close battle, the Aquitanians and Transjuranians bested the Romans, and the Aquitanian host pursued the Roman army down the Italian coast and routed them. With the Romans unwilling to send a relief army west, and busy with a rebellion among the dynatoi, Gundemar's sieges in the islands went uncontested, and the Balearics were taken by the mid-840s.

Finally, in 847, Gundemar finally died of complications from the gout which had afflicted him in his old age. Perishing at age 70, he ruled Aquitaine for nigh-on 37 years.
 
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AS YOU COMMAND

* Gundemar II, or Gundemar the Holy
King of Aquitaine (Nov. 11, 810 - March 8, 847)

Gundemar II rose to the throne as a less able military man than his father, but a calmer and more temperate man with more skill in administration. Most immediate for him, though, was a touch of skullduggery: He set to work drafting a series of documents known as the Cession of Pepin.

The document claimed that during the booting of the Muslims from Septimania, Pepin the Short had granted certain Gothic families rule over certain cities and keeps in perpetuity. In practice, what it amounted to was a series of spurious claims to Provence, Armagnac, Bordeaux and the Prince-Bishopric of Agen, rapidly assembled over a period of a decade by the incredible hustle and diligence of the realm's chancellor, Duke Gararic of Bourbon.

Most of the late 810s were dominated by this lead-up to Gundemar's War, in which Gundemar asserted his right to the lands he claimed by right of Pepin's donations. With Francia torn apart in revolt, King Karloman II had little hope of resisting, and Gundemar rapidly brought much of old Aquitaine back under his control, only the Count of Limousin still answering to the Franks. The conflict coincided with the brief ascent to the throne of Theoderic IV in Austrasia, with the Merovingians gaining control of part of Francia for three years before he died childless and the House of Chaumontois was raised in their stead. Francia stood truly fractured, with Karloman's realm beset by Norse raiders, namely Oddr of Nantes, known as the Conqueror, and the Saxon lord Arnd Richfriding, who gained control of a swath of land centred on Rouen.

By the early 820s, Gundemar had brought the war to a close, firmly establishing his control over Aquitaine and taking measures to increase his authority in the realm. He quickly removed his second son Artau from the line of succession by naming him Prince-Bishop of Agen.

Gundemar was also known as a lover of cats: In 821, with Gundemar's War in its latter days, he adopted a small kitten.

In the years after the war, Duke Gararic roamed the land as Aquitaine's chancellor, keeping Gundemar ever-supplied with causes for war. He found some at home: The land distribution after the war left Duke Miquel of Aquitaine infuriated over the King's holding of Bordeaux. Sick of the Duke's scheming, Gundemar retracted his holdings in Poitou and went to war with him, eventually imprisoning him and replacing him as Duke of Aquitaine.

Even that title was soon handed off, however, in 827, as Gundemar achieved a hard-fought and often narrow victory against the Umayyad Emirate of Iberia, ejecting the Moors from the northeasternmost reach of Iberia. Styling himself as Count of Barcelona and Marquis of Hispania, Gundemar established the lands south of his family's ancestral home in Rosello as a Royal March and an extension of the royal demesne, held under crown control to allow Gundemar to personally see to the defense of Aquitaine against the Saracens.

The retaking of the Marca Hispaniae brought into the Christian fold a number of well-developed fortresses and cities, larger than those in Toulouse and full of Christians willing to fight the good fight. It also brought shipyards. Gundemar quickly sent his son, Raimond-Berenguié, out to sail the seas and explore the shores of Europa. He came back with a detailed map - and scurvy, quickly dying. This left Gundemar's grandson, Berenguié-Raimond, as the heir apparent - and the young man showed signs of genuius, both tactically brilliant and diplomatically gifted. Gundemar quickly betrothed his grandson to Demetra Monomachos, a young and brilliant girl from Thessalonica in the Eastern Roman Empire - an empire now almost entirely limited to Anatolia, with Constantinople in Tengri Bulgar hands.

With the wars over for now, Gundemar presided over an era of peace and prosperity in his latter years, with building projects carried out across Aquitaine.

In the east, meanwhile, the Magyars settled down in the lands of the Slavs, forming the Kingdom of Mstislavl.

In the waning years of his life, Gundemar completed the seizure of Aquitaine from the Franks, re-establishing control over Limousin. Then, mustering his levies alongside a band of mercenaries from Transjurania, Gundemar cast a gauntlet into the teeth of Roman Emperor Anthimos Isauros, sending men across the sea to besiege the Balearic Islands. With just twelve ships - conscripted merchant vessels, Aquitaine's navy being no match for the mighty Roman navy - Gundemar could only shuttle two small armies to the Balearics, knowing that the Basileus could crush them should he take to his ships. He knew the battle would have to be waged elsewhere, on Aquitaine's terms.

Hearing word that Anthimos and the main Byzantine army were in the field crushing a rebellion in southern Italy, Gundemar's main force - about eight thousand Occitan and Catalan men-at-arms and just over two thousand Transjurane hired swords - marched overland into Italy to meet the Roman host at war in Capua. In a close battle, the Aquitanians and Transjuranians bested the Romans, and the Aquitanian host pursued the Roman army down the Italian coast and routed them. With the Romans unwilling to send a relief army west, and busy with a rebellion among the dynatoi, Gundemar's sieges in the islands went uncontested, and the Balearics were taken by the mid-840s.

Finally, in 847, Gundemar finally died of complications from the gout which had afflicted him in his old age. Perishing at age 70, he ruled Aquitaine for nigh-on 37 years.
So the Bulgars have pushed Rome out of Europe? AND the Magyars aren't settling in Pannonia? Interesting.
 
So the Bulgars have pushed Rome out of Europe? AND the Magyars aren't settling in Pannonia? Interesting.
I'm in the late 900s now. Pannonia became largely Bohemian. The Bulgars - still largely Turkic, having not adopted Bulgarian culture - have become Catholic and have pushed the Romans into Anatolia and a few enclaves in Italy. Eastern Europe has degenerated into a mess of Khazar gore. Khazars hold Bavaria and own eastern Europe up to the Elbe.

The Middle East is an absolute gorefest after the Abbasids went through about five decadence revolts, only for factions to keep restoring them to the Caliphate. The most stable parts of the Muslim world have actually been Ifriqiya and al-Andalus.
 
I'm in the late 900s now. Pannonia became largely Bohemian. The Bulgars - still largely Turkic, having not adopted Bulgarian culture - have become Catholic and have pushed the Romans into Anatolia and a few enclaves in Italy. Eastern Europe has degenerated into a mess of Khazar gore. Khazars hold Bavaria and own eastern Europe up to the Elbe.

The Middle East is an absolute gorefest after the Abbasids went through about five decadence revolts, only for factions to keep restoring them to the Caliphate. The most stable parts of the Muslim world have actually been Ifriqiya and al-Andalus.
Eventually I am gonna need a map. That sounds mighty interesting, even if it would make my eyes bleed.
 
So I'm into the 980s and the Crusades got called early. I have about half of Jerusalem and have control of Frisia from some earlier non-Crusade action, the latter of which I intend to hand off. I don't plan to keep Jerusalem, either, at least not long-term.

I have the option to create the Empire of Aquitaine and I'm not sure I want to.



EDIT: State of the world as of 986:

z1NKQ4t.png


The Khazars used to have more of Bavaria, but Germany took it back with my help. The Bakrids and Addauids actually formed custom kingdoms, of Baghdad and Antioch respectively. The ERE has some holdings in the Balkans and Anatolia but the Addauids have been nibbling on them for decades. Abyssinia is Shia, but the Shia Revolt adopted local ways and are largely Ethiopian-cultured. Frisia, Flanders and Brabant were taken through forged claims and I've had them for a short time, while I gear up to split them off as a Dutch kingdom.
 
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I've been doing a Maelys the Monstrous game for the ASOIAF mod and if you think this guy in canon was a piece of work, wait until you find out what his alt-bloodline is like.

First off he forced Jaehaerys II's wife to marry him AFTER taking the Iron Throne and executing the last 'Daeronist' King, then that poor woman spent the entire 9 year marriage pregnant over and over again. (I will admit that one's on me, I wanted to keep the Blackfyre line 'High Valyrian' in look and Rhaella died before the Ninepenny King's War ended, so I used a cheat to keep a woman that hated me popping out heirs until Maelys died).

Then after Maelys I was assassinated (the killer never caught, but was a Baratheon looking to get closer to the crown), his son Viserys III took the throne, of all Maelys Blackfyre Kings, Viserys is the nicest one. He ruled wisely, justly, but firmly, having expanded the authority of the crown, removed the Starks, Greyjoys, and the Tully's from power when they rebelled for independence, gained land from traitorous houses in the Crownlands, colonized both Summerhall and Oldstones, and earned enough money to be called 'Viserys the Rich'.

Maelys I's grandson, Maelys II became known as 'the Dragon' because between murdering his sister-wife after she contracted syphilis, having several lords 'rumored' to be plotting against the crown arrested and their lands seized, and generally being an assbarrel, he too was assassinated and the killer never caught (it was his son).

Then we come to the fourth Blackfyre King on the Iron Throne, Maegor II who became known as 'the Black' due to a combination of his wroth personality, his kinslaying of his sister Calla to tried to usurp the Iron Throne, and like his namesake Maegor I, his cruelty, ruthlessness, and several murders and rumors of bastardy. His current heirs are his three sons, Aethon Blackfyre, Aerys Blackfyre, and Daegar Blackfyre, along with two bastard daughters.


I'm not sure if it would have gone down exactly like this in canon, but maybe the reign of Aerys II was a blessing compared to this...
 
I've been doing a Maelys the Monstrous game for the ASOIAF mod and if you think this guy in canon was a piece of work, wait until you find out what his alt-bloodline is like.

First off he forced Jaehaerys II's wife to marry him AFTER taking the Iron Throne and executing the last 'Daeronist' King, then that poor woman spent the entire 9 year marriage pregnant over and over again. (I will admit that one's on me, I wanted to keep the Blackfyre line 'High Valyrian' in look and Rhaella died before the Ninepenny King's War ended, so I used a cheat to keep a woman that hated me popping out heirs until Maelys died).

Then after Maelys I was assassinated (the killer never caught, but was a Baratheon looking to get closer to the crown), his son Viserys III took the throne, of all Maelys Blackfyre Kings, Viserys is the nicest one. He ruled wisely, justly, but firmly, having expanded the authority of the crown, removed the Starks, Greyjoys, and the Tully's from power when they rebelled for independence, gained land from traitorous houses in the Crownlands, colonized both Summerhall and Oldstones, and earned enough money to be called 'Viserys the Rich'.

Maelys I's grandson, Maelys II became known as 'the Dragon' because between murdering his sister-wife after she contracted syphilis, having several lords 'rumored' to be plotting against the crown arrested and their lands seized, and generally being an assbarrel, he too was assassinated and the killer never caught (it was his son).

Then we come to the fourth Blackfyre King on the Iron Throne, Maegor II who became known as 'the Black' due to a combination of his wroth personality, his kinslaying of his sister Calla to tried to usurp the Iron Throne, and like his namesake Maegor I, his cruelty, ruthlessness, and several murders and rumors of bastardy. His current heirs are his three sons, Aethon Blackfyre, Aerys Blackfyre, and Daegar Blackfyre, along with two bastard daughters.


I'm not sure if it would have gone down exactly like this in canon, but maybe the reign of Aerys II was a blessing compared to this...
Who replaced the Starks, Greyjoys and Tullys?
 
Who replaced the Starks, Greyjoys and Tullys?

Viserys III replaced the Greyjoys with the Stricklands, and the Iron Islands have been fighting several low-grade civil wars trying to overthrow them for an Ironborn claimant ever since.

Then His Grace replaced the Starks with the Karstarks, who by the reign of Maegor II had adopted the Stark banner as their own. :closedeyesmile:

The Tully's were placed with a minor lowborn courtier who had been a friend of Viserys III, Ser Mattos, who was granted Riverrun and the Lord-Paramouncy of the Riverlands and the King granted him the use of a 'Valyrian' surname, Saethergon. (I edited the name and banner to look good). The Saethergon's rule the Trident to this day, it helps that the exiled Tully's died out in the male line, their female-line of descendants tried to usurp the Trident but since they all decided to fight at once they all canceled each other out.
 
Since I feel like continuing to post these....


* Berenguié-Raimond I, or Berenguié-Raimond the Wise
King of Aquitaine (March 8, 847 - Feb. 27, 885)

Grandson of Gundemar II, Berenguié-Raimond was a man of some martial account when he took the throne, but primarily known as a legitimate genius and a man of incredible charm and diligence.

In 849, as Berenguié-Raimond enjoyed two years of quiet, his wife Demetra bore him the son he'd been waiting for: Young Raimond-Berenguié, a healthy baby boy with eyes just as bright as his father's. He rejoiced and settled in to raise his son - but not before mustering his men to invade the coast of Valencia, on the urgings of the Mozarabic Bishop of Alpuente.

What should have been a long and difficult campaign against a foe of equal strength was cut short in August of 850, when - at the Battle of Hijar - an Aquitanian army bolstered by Transjuranian mercenaries routed a small raiding party of Moors. The host, led by Gausbert Louping and Bishop Rainer of Maguelone, scattered the Moorish force and unhorsed several men - and captured not only the Umayyad governor of al-Andalus, Shamir ibn Husam, but his younger brother Adfuns, along with a distant relative, Muhammad of Navarra. Shamir was taken before Berenguié-Raimond, who met him at Tarragona, his one-year-old son in his arms.

Shamir, a man of no martial account but a brave man and a brilliant and kindhearted scholar, stood in chains and held his head high through the proceedings, and Berenguié-Raimond - himself a just, kind man and an inspirational leader - finally laid his hands on the Emir's shoulders and said, "I cannot kill this man. Go home, my brother. Hold high your head, for I have given it to you."

Shamir and the garrison of Valencia were allowed to live - though at a cost. The Emir and his men were placed on horses and escorted back to Córdoba under an Aquitanian "honour guard" (or rather, a body of men sure to slaughter them all should they try to escape before they could arrive in Cordoba humiliated and under Christian guard). Shortly thereafter, Adfuns was sent along behind, delivered home packed up neatly in a box carried on a wagon, but alive. The humiliating move ended the war with no further loss of life.

Valencia's cities and castles were soon entrusted to soldiers of some martial account from the Marca Hispaniae, with Hugo of Urgell ensconced as Duke of Valencia. Meanwhile, in the same ceremony, Josselin de Bearn was granted the title of Lord Mayor of the Balearic Islands and entrusted with a far-reaching trade charter, empowering him to compete with the men of Genoa in the Mediterranean trade market. The Valencians, originally of Gothic stock, were indistinguishable from the early Occitans in their ways at first, but over time began to adopt some influences from the Moors and their Mozarabic subjects, and their language would eventually become that of Lower Gathalania - or Catalonia.

In 854, Berenguié-Raimond's second son, Bartoumiéu, came into the world. Recognizing that the laws of Aquitaine would turn to his sons' disadvantage, dividing the realm between them, he moved that year to increase the prerogative of the crown, declaring some years later that Raimond-Berenguié would be his sole heir and eventual co-ruler.

Hearing tell of a rising in Valladolid by Gothic Christians, Berenguié-Raimond watched with contentment as Ranimiro the Liberator threw off the Moorish yoke, then sent men to put down a counter-revolt among the Muslim conversos of the little Christian fief at the headwaters of the Duero. Aquitanian troops aided in the staving off of an incursion from a Moorish vassal shortly thereafter, then wheeled north to aid the rump Kingdom of Asturias against the Moors.

The King's son, Raimond-Berenguié, came of age in 865, emerging from his education as the most gifted military mind in the known world, with a heart full of zeal for God, kingdom and faith alike. Berenguié-Raimond, beaming with pride, betrothed his heir to Wisigarda of the House of Gausian, daughter of Pemmo the Cruel, who stood high in the line of the succession to the Lombard Kingdom.

Soon thereafter, in the spring of 866, Raimond-Berenguié famously walked the Way of St. James, making a highly public pilgrimage to the shrine at Santiago de Compostela, then under the rulership of the Moors. He returned home seething at the taxation of the pilgrimage routes by Mukhtar the Cruel of Galicia; with that lord in revolt against Emir Jalil the Usurper of Andalusia, Raimond-Berenguié soon mustered his men to the task of restoring Santiago to a Christian claimant. By the falling of the year 867, Santiago was restored to Christian hands, the healer Veremondo granted lordship of that county. Portugal followed in 871 as the Aquitanian faction set to work preparing to turn Santiago over to a native dynasty - which he did in 877, crowning Fralenko Rechili King of Santiago. He spent his final years defending the kingdom against the Umayyads before perishing in his sleep at the age of 69.
 
I am right now writing an university exam partly about neoplatonism and emperor Julian.

Anyone interested in maybe colleborating on a mod with surviving hellenism/paganism? (Can't promise that I actually will have time for it though :p )
some points of interesst:

Start Date:
-around 800

Hellenism: (ofcourse modified from OTL 4th century version)
--- heterogenenous
--- imperial cult and sun cult are most common
--- mysterify religions
--- helping the poor
--- partly succesful in integrating Jesus (identifying him with various neoplatonic principles and similar stuff)

Christianity:
--- mostly absent west of Italy
--- dominant in North Africa, Egypt, Etiopia, Arabia?
--- church structure mostly destroyed in Europe, save some places, but still alive in Egypt etc.
--- destruction of the church (and later the lack of it) had let to the emergence of syncraticing denominations (see above)

Some other religions:
--- Samarians
--- emergence of other montheistic/henotheistic groups
--- Zoroastrism
--- Buddhism spreading west?

All in all a very fluent religious landscape with fewer hard borders, aside from the middle east.
--- Will you harmonize all the religions of the world?
--- OR
--- Will you fight for the one true God?

Politics:
--- Roman Emperor now only a figure head without political power. Mostly a ceremonial/religious office.
--- Very heridatary nowadays. And playable! (Will you restore the imperial power?)
--- Real power with Duces (read kings) rulling over quasi feudal realms.

...


...
 
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