the Eagle and the Crescent: A Different Collapse of Rome
A quick detour while I grind out the next map, Britanese or Bretanais/Bretaneg, the neo-Latin descendant of the Roman settlers of Britain who intermingled with the native Britons, spoken in the lands of the Kingdom of Bretaine and the house of Cabdragoun. based on this mostly.
The Lord's Prayer in Britanese
The Lord's Prayer in Britanese
| Britanese | IPA | English |
| Nostr Padr qui es al cel, | (nɔstər padər ki ɛs al t͡ʃɛl ) | our father who is in heaven |
| Saintefigad sai tou noum, | (saintəfigad sai tu num) | sanctified be your name |
| tou rain vaine, | (tu rain vainə) | (tu rain vainə) |
| ta volountad sai faite soubr la terre coum en cel | (tə vɔluntad sai faitə subər lə tɛrə kum in lu t͡ʃɛl ) | your will be done over the earth as in heaven |
| done hoy nostr pan de çou journ | (dɔnə wi nɔstər pan də t͡ʃu d͡ʒurn) | give today our (daily*) bread of this day* |
| perdone nostres offenses, | (pərdɔnə nɔstrəz ofensəz) | pardon our wrongs |
| coum nostr perdonans a cils qui nous avent offensad | (kum nɔstər pərdɔnanz a t͡ʃilz ki avənt ɔfɛnsad) | as our pardons to those who we have wronged |
| e agisques noun laisse nous cadhair en tentacioun e delivre nous del mal. | (ad͡ʒiskəz nun laisə nuz cəðair en tɛntat͡ʃun ɛ dəlivrə nuz dɛl mal) | and do not let us fall in temptation and deliver us from evil. |
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I made some changes of course. The idea of a neo-Latin England was too cool to pass up. ITL King Arthur (Artuir) is very much real but alive in the 950s, and ITL the whole Arthurian mythos is later chroniclers attempts at a national myth and dynastic justification by equating him with sub-Roman heros.
This is a great map, and I'm glad you made it. However, I'd like a broader view on the scale of larger families like Romance, Germanic, Slavic, Indo-Iranian etc.
I know these maps take a lot of work, though, so if you can't that's OK.
The Pre-Mongol World according to the Excursio studii ad Horizontes penetrare, 1223
"I was born in the kingdom of Africa during the reign of noble king Osmondo the Good, Caesar of the Orient, King of Sicily, Africa, Egypt, and Syria, protector of the Holy Sepulcher in the year of our Lord 1173 , of the Arabs 569, and of the Hebrews 4934. My father, a trader of grain, travelled much the Mediterranean, and I accompanied him. I left Africa in the year of our Lord 1188 and did not return until the writing of this treatise. I travelled to Turquia, the lands formerly of the Hellenes, where their enlightened lords and princes rule Morea, Athens, and the Isles. I left from Turquia and passed through the Golden Gates on our way to Cumania, We stopped in the great city of Byzance, former Throne of the Goths. Through the gates I went to Tamatarcha, on the edge of the lands of the Cumans. I left there in the summer of 1190 and travelled up the Danube. I first stopped at the town of the Cathars, Nicopolis in the empire of Tocurgaria. There I met a couple of Knights of the German Order, who told me of a coming expedition from Germany and Scandinavia to the lands of the heathens of the North. I passed through the Iron Gates of the Vlachs into the lands of the Uzes. Ruled by the noble and tolerant Cagans of the Ascina clan, their Holy Law permits Arian, Orthodox, Saracen Heathen and Heretic safety in their lands. After this excursion, I returned to Nicopolis and took up the cross for our universal Church with the German Order.
I left for the Baltic sea in 1195, settling with the army of the Crusaders in Culmia. In 1196 I witnessed the baptism of the Prussians at their capital of Tvangste. I fought with their king, Herkus against the rebelling Bartians. In the year of our lord 1201, i fought with the crusaders of Ruzia, Dania, and the Varegians against the Livonians. While in Riga, I met a knight from the isle of Britain, who told me the legends of the great king Arturius and his knights. I chose to follow him home from the Crusade in 1204. I landed in the city of Londinium, a great trade emporium and the greatest city of the Isles of Britain. I returned to my profession as a merchant. For 10 years I traveled the seas of western Europe as a member of the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers. I visited neary every major city in Saxonia, Germany, Spania, and Britain that had an office of the Alnesian League. I had a short dialogue with the Kaiser of Germany in the city of Aquae, he told me of his war against the Henrician heretics of Angria and the great slaughter in his attempts to pacify the province. In the year of our lord 1215 disaster struck me on a voyage to Spartaria, I was ship wrecked off the coast of Tanga and taken into slavery by the Zealots of Marrochium. I spent 3 harsh years there, until by the Grace of God I was saved during when a great coalition of the followers of the Sacristan of Sanctus Jacobus vanquished an army of the Zealot Moors, me and my fellow enslaved Christians were set free. I spent 1 year living in the March of Vandalicia until I took a galley home to Cartaghine. I found that the great empire of the Orient was no more, and that the Kings of Sicily were now solely Kings of Africa. The world I had left 32 years prior had changed in its entirety. Upon returning, I requested an audience with the sublime king Viazaslao II, the powerful though god King of Africa. I told him tales of my adventures around the known world, and received employment with the renowned geographers of Ruspe."
- Agustinu de Cartaghine
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the Qaghanate of Uzia
The Qaghanate of Uzia was a state that ruled the Pannonian basin for a period of over 300 years. During this period, they developed an independent cultural sphere centered on the middle Danube, with an independent literary culture, political culture, and a cosmopolitan society. Ruled by the Salchuqid dynasty, a claimed cadet branch of the ancient Ashina clan, the kingdom Christianized under King-Saint Thaddeus I and transformed from a tribal khanate to a European feudal monarchy.
According the Annales Uzianorum, the first attested Uzian ruler was Arslan. The chronicle describes his progenitors being "of the Gokturk", and his forefathers being born from the mixture of a she-wolf and a man. The chronicle also claims matrilineal descent from Atilla the Hun. According to the Chronicle, Arslan led his tribe in a civil war that resulted in the succession of the tribes that would later form the Turquians somewhere north of the Black Sea. The split led to the invitation of a tribe of Chalyzians from the Khazars, and the Manjer tribe from the Majars. The new tribes declared a blood oath of permanent loyalty to the Oghuz Qaghan.
Arslan was succeeded by Salchiq I, the first true Qaghan of the Uzians to have physical evidence of existence, and also the leader who migrated the Uzes to the Pannonian Basin. The Goths paid the Uzes to attack the Tocurgarians. The raid, while successful, had lasting consequences on the history of Eastern Europe. The Tocurgarians paid the Turcs to attack the Uzes in kind, destroying their lands. This attack forced Salchiq to take a desperate measure: invade the Pannonian basin. This action, the Uzian landtaking, led to the migration and settlement of the Uzes in the Pannonian basin. The Uzes passed through Ultrasylvania and destroyed the Avars and the Pannonian Slav principality. From there, they destroyed the Kingdom of Great Moravia, conquering the Principality of Nitra.
With their position in the Pannonian Basin, the pagan Uzes set forth with a series of plundering raids of the Balkans and Central Europe.
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Thank you! Sorry for the lack of content the last month or so, ive been extremely busy with thanksgiving week followed by finals and then not being in the country the last two weeks. New content soon (hopefully)
The first of the four gunpowder empires, the Gurkani Empire ruled over Anatolia and the Balkans from the 1500s to the late 19th century. They married the Magyaro-Mongol culture with that of the Goths and the Slavs, ruling a vast territory. The Gurkaniyan dynasty, a cadet branch of the great conquerer Babur's lineage, claimed authority from the Chinggisid lineage and from divine right, basing their conquests on the unification of all Apostolic Orthodox lands under one ruler, who combined secular and spiritual rulership based on both Mongol law and Germanic kingship. Shahin (شاھین), a descendant of Babur, founded the empire as a mere child, when the expanding Vöröshfej armies of the Baha'id order conquered the domains of Ajami Iraq and Invaded Khorasan. Shahin fled westwardand gathered an army of Tarsayan Magyars in Arzalgut and adventured west, conquering Laranda. With his large army, the weak Julashegs of Anatolia fell quickly. Shahin crossed the Dardanelles in 1512, sending plundering raids into the Balkans, and rapidly conquering Tocurgaria and Greece. In 1524, Shahin conquered Miklagard, naming himself Reik of Gutestan, an unofficial name for the empire. Shahin would die in 1531 after his greatest victory, the Battle of Nicopolis, where a coalition of Christian states of Southern Europe and Central Europe were destroyed by the armies of the empire.
His successors would continue his conquests into Servia, Bosnia, Uzia, Teutonica, and Sclavenia. The empire brought Persianate art and culture into the Eastern European sphere, with Persian minatures meeting iconographic art, and Persianate architecture blooming in Miklagard. The empire also developed a large professional army recruited from ransoming youths from around the empire for service. Women also had a high level of power, as the Trem system kept an influential group of well educated women advisors (and mistresses) cloistered in the presence of the emperor. The empire peaked with the Great Mongul War under the reign of Nariman, where a coalition of European powers including Croatia, Lachia, Tartary, Rome, Lithuania, among others united to defeat the empire. The Gurkani Empire never truely recovered, losing control over Uzia and all territories in Sclavenia along with granting Teutonica true independence. Spreading nationalism, increasingly powerful regional rulers, and wars with Tartary caused rapid decline, until the Constitutional Revolution forced the exile of the dynasty and the beginning of a new Magyar led monarchy from the ashes of the Empire.
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Germany is relatively centralised under a single monarch, the subdivisions represent fiefs that were incorporated into the royal demense as provinces. Due to peerages and luck, Germany was capable of combining all of their vassals but the cities of Alsace and Westria by the 1540s, just in time for the German War of Religion . Each province is overseen by a regent and has differing laws, customs, and taxation, a problem for the Absolutist Kaisers.
To understand Baha'id Iran, one must start with the religion known to its adherents as Khorramdin (خرمدین) and to the Mu'mins as the Muhammirat (محمرة) for their traditional red turbans. The religion arose after the Arab conquest of the Sasanid Empire during a period of radical revolutionary fervor in the Azarbaygan region of the burgeoning Imamate. Combining elements of Zoroastrianism and separatist Imanic traditions, Khorramdin is usually considered the first pseudo-Imanic religion, religions that are akin to Iman but either acknowledge a differing lineage of prophets and most importantly disagree on who the true last prophet is. In the case of Khorramdin, besides believing a differing list of prophets including Zoroaster as a prophet, believe that the last prophet wasn't Mustafa, but instead one Ruzbeh (روزبه), better known to the Mu'minin as Salman the Persian. They believe that the true final revelation was granted to Ruzbeh, but was stolen and distorted.
Returning to Azarbaygan the late 700s, a prophet, al-Muqanna' (المقنع) appeared to the people claiming to hold his holy book, the Khodaname. The book of sayings besides containing moral reasoning, also contained significant theological practices and beliefs. Khorramdin believes in one god named Khoda, an omniprescent god who created a divine plan, and that all darkness and bad in the world is caused entirely by human free will and is a sin against Khoda's divine plan. Hence, death is a sin against Khoda, who guarantees the transmigration of the soul through reincarnation. Shadows in Khorramdin are the physical representation of the soul. Prophets in Khorramdin are hence all reincarnations of the same being, Keyumars, the first man. Khorramites believe that after the death of Ruzbeh, the soul of Keyumars was sent into a state of occultation until the end of time, a new epoch (زمانه) will begin after a new Keyumars, the Sushyans, wins a final judgement and will lead the world into a state of paradise and eternal life in a seven tiered heaven. Furthermore, al-Muqanna taught a complex angelology and cosmology, where Khoda's will is carried out by the Fareshtegan, angels created by the light of god who take the spot in the chain of being between God and man. At the head of the Fareshte are the 7 Amahraspand, who are essentially Archangels. Opposing the Fareshtegan are the Divan, who are fallen angels corrupted by their free will who take the form of monstrous beasts. Finally, religious practice included the consecration of wine, the uniform prayer towards the west in Eyvans, and spiritual fasting for a month to represent Rusbeh's journey to Bakkah.
After the defeat of the original movement, the religion remained a state of Taqiyah, moving to the underground in the mountains of Northwest Iran. During the Iranian Intermezzo, the Khorramites had their revenge during the Wahrizid Empire (938-1048), which began from a secret order of Daylamite slave soldiers, who entrapped the Imams in their palace in Mansuria. After their defeat by the Arpadids, the Khorramites retreated to mountain fortresses, where they lead devastating raids against caravans. In 1275, the Mongols attacked their main fortress in Alamut, killing much of the political leadership, ending the first order. One scholar, Baha'-al-din, was capable of escaping the onslaught and began a new order, the Baha'i Order in the mountains of Arasbaran. From there, the order slowly gathered recruits. The Mongols Invasions of the Near East were a devastating event, but the subsequent Wars of Babur proved to be even more disastrous for the region. Outside of the cities, most of the countryside had been leveled to pasture by warfare and plague. the Imams, who already had the Shia Revolution end their territorial dominion end in the region, had been cloistered by the Baburids and then rescued by the Mamluks of India, abandoned the region. In the wake of Babur's wars, a power vacuum developed. Magyar tribal confederations ruled over the region, but were fundamentally weak due to their dependency on dubious tribal loyalty.
Ishag I, ambitious Shahrab of Kaleiban, was secret leader of the Baha'i Order, militarized his order around a horde of Vöröshfej warriors. In 1499 he defeated his sovereign in battle and declared himself Shah of Iran. He rapidly conquered Eraq-e Ajami and Eraq-e Arabi, Pars proper, and Kerman. Unlike the Wahrizid Empire, who seemed more enticed to humiliate the Mu'minin, the Baha'ids set their goal at permanently ending all Mu'min influence in among Persian Iraq, Pars, and Kerman. The Baha'id conversion of Iran to the Khorramdin was a long and brutal process that succeeded, creating a Persian identity that stuck. Ishag's expansion came to an end with the disastrous battle of Halabiye, where an attempted invasion of the Levant was crushed by the Saracens. The subsequent Shahs set their goals at internal unity, with Khodadad the Great moving the capital to Espahan. Under Baha'id rule, arts and architecture flourished. The Tag-e Kasra was restored, and Espahan became center for a massive building program of eyvans with the construction of the monumental Takht-e Gahan Square and its ornately decorated Eyvan-e Shah.
The empire peaked under Khodadad the Great, but slowly declined afterwards due to constant conflict with their neighboring Gurkani, Saracen, Afghan, and Hazaras states. The sons of Baha'ollah proved to be terrible rulers, and a revolt by the Afghan Lodi tribe overthrew the Baha'ids, restoring the Sunnah to Iran for a period of 35 years, before being taken over by Gyevicsa Shárközi, who would unify Greater Iran into a short lived empire. The legacy of the Baha'ids remains eternal for creating a Persian identity that seperated it from the struggles of surrounding powers, maintaining a constant core of territories.
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Its the result of unclear borders to the north due to well… unpopulated tundra/taiga. Varengia controls the Pomorsky coast and the trade along the rivers, while the Tartarians have clear control of Belozero and Vologda. Vague border that I should probably redraw.