West Africa
Tauregs – Where there are caravans crisscrossing the wide deserts of their homeland, the Tauregs are there. The introduction of the camel several centuries earlier has made their jobs easier, and even with the rise of maritime trade lanes facilitated by the Andilanders (Canary Island Norse) trans-Saharan land trade still is a valuable and indeed crucial part of the West African economy.
Accordingly, the Tauregs have something of a mixed reputation among their fellows. Traditionally they are somewhat few, living on marginal land where the climate does not favor substantial agriculture. However, they are also disproportionately wealthy and powerful, and the vastness of the desert and their importance to the trade networks of the region keeps that wealth safe. But the Tauregs are also outsiders – their distinctive blue veils and unique, “mysterious” customs keep them from ever being fully integrated into the societies they trade with.
Christianity, especially Christianity mixed with Berber polytheism, is well-known to the Tauregs, as they work with many Mauri merchants. However, even among the moderate percentage of Tauregs that have adopted Christianity, outwardly they are much more inclined to identify as members of a tribal group than by religious identification. Uniquely within the time period faith for the Tauregs is a more personal matter, and accordingly for a population of travelers they have produced remarkably few missionaries. The cult of the Supreme Being also has some devotees, but these are few and far between, given the religion's relatively explicit Mande cultural context.
Ghana – The streets of Ghana are not, as they are in legend, lined with shimmering gold. Indeed, the gold of Ghana is mostly hidden. Her kings have always been notoriously stingy with their vast wealth, and this has proven to be an excellent strategy now that the gold and salt mines are lost to her and political power is shifting south to Niani.
The population of Ghana is perhaps half of what it was in her peak, and the foreign quarter is reduced to a few groups of less successful Tauregs and some lingering Mauri mendicants who seek to preach their faith to the King. They whisper that if only the King accepts the true God he will be rewarded as the men of Kanem have been rewarded for their rightly guided faith. Ghana could become great again, they say, if only he would be willing to take up the sword of the Votive warrior.
This is not true, however. Ghana’s days of glory are long behind her.
Djenne – recently, Djenne has grown vast as Ghana has sunk into irrelevancy. Now, Djenne sits at the head of a steadily growing empire which has incorporated much of the river’s length into itself. Indeed, even Gao, its onetime ally, has fallen into its orbit. With Ghana cast into the dustbin of history as the sands advance, Djenne along the river rises to claim its place as first of cities in the Sahel.
The Djenne religion is at least notionally the new paganism of the Mande peoples, the cult of the Supreme Being which holds so much sway among the urban elites and so little sway outside of that small niche. The Supreme Being cult provides a strong justification for the practice of divine Kingship. Just as God rules above with his host of divine servants, the lesser gods, so too does the king rule, and his host of servants answer his will without question.
Niani – The city state of Niani has grown into a sizable empire in its own right, owing to the unification of many Bambara tribes around a single great king, or Mansa. Ruling the southern half of the Mande world, Niani is a fierce rival of Djenne, but the two states have much in common. Both economically depend on the gold and salt trade. Both worship Ngala-Nyama, the Supreme Being, in his manifold forms, as taught by the great Poet-Historian Nakhato.
However, Niani is closer to the sources of wealth, and in recent years they have been seeking a path to undercut the Djenne Empire’s overland trade by turning west. The city of Takrur, one of the largest ports on the coast of Africa, is their path to this. The Fula kingdom there does trade with the Andilanders, and increasingly the Niani think that this maritime route might in one fell swoop cut the Djenne and their Taureg allies out of the equation as middlemen.
However, there is a careful balance to be struck. If trade declines too precipitously, the Niani know that the Djenne will turn on them, seeking to seize the productive land of the south for themselves. So their goal has been to slowly starve their northern rivals, subsidizing merchants to bring smaller and smaller quantities of precious trade goods north each year, while pleading ignorance as they build the “salt road” across the continent to Takrur.
Kanem – roughly a century and a half after their glorious “Votive” victories, the Kanem rule an impressive land empire, and one which is religiously unified to a remarkable degree. As an important stop on West African trade lanes with the Ukwu Empire to the south and the Mande kingdoms to the west, whosoever controls Kanem cannot help but prosper.
Kanem is still a theocracy ruled by the Kay and the Dalai “Students” but it has moderated significantly. Without the zeal of new converts, their religious activities have become subdued – they are now content to send embassies across the continent to preach the good news, but these embassies are generally laughed out of court. So instead Kanem has turned inwards. Beautiful copies of the Bible, written in the Kay language, and enormous churches of clay and roughstone are the legacy of their rule. The artisans who once crafted idols now craft iconography of Christ and the Saints.
East Africa
Gidaya – the story of Gidaya is that of a vacuum that was never filled. The collapse of the Hawiya Empire left Egypt to briefly fill its shoes, but with the fall of Egypt at the beginning of the eleventh century, there has been no local hegemon to enforce order. The Kingdom of Gidaya is a weak, coastal state ruled by the descendants of Hawiya – whose pluralistic monarchy is now nothing more than a distant memory.
The Gidayan state is a Christian one, and time, neglect, and distrust have combined to annihilate the great Jain and Buddhist universities of the North African coast. Whole libraries have been lost to the desert as changes in the climate have substantially diminished the whole region and its former position as a major producer of incense. Now Gidaya’s hinterland is a country of traveling mendicants, subsistence pastoralists, and bandits. The city itself endures as an entrepot, but in that capacity it has been surpassed by other more ideally located seats such as Adulis and Aden.
Axum – The Giramid Kingdom fell to the nomadic pagan and Jewish warlords of the Zanafij tribe in 1024, and after that defeat the ephemeral glories of the Giramid Negus of Shoa have never been restored. Axum now is curious and divided country. Jewish warlord-states sustain themselves on highland pastoralism, and fortified monastery-communities which dot the mountains and hillsides of the region are the major seats of political power. They maintain the history and traditions of Axum in spite of centuries of constant degradation, and maintain the dream of a united Axum once again ruled by a descendant of holy King Solomon.
Adulis – The ruler of Adulis, Cawil Elmidua, is a devout and pious man, and the city he rules is a garden akin to heaven in the great emptiness of the red desert. Intricate irrigation works, a legacy of Hawiya architects maintained by careful stewardship has allowed the city to remain green, with opulent hanging gardens considered to be true wonder of the world. A nominal vassal of Makuria, Adulis is mostly responsible for its own defense and affairs, and to this purpose has built high walls and a series of border forts to guard against the Zanafij.
Makuria – The greatest of the Monophysite kingdoms, Makuria has blossomed with the destruction of Egypt. Many of the greatest thinkers and intellectual works of Alexandria have been transplanted to the south, to Tungul, which is often called the “new Alexandria” and is the seat of the Patriarchate-in-exile.
The current King, Abraham II, has recently presided over a disastrous invasion of Egypt, an event which shall surely define his entire reign. Rumors at court imply that he will step down from the throne in favor of his son Zacharias, who though young and energetic is widely considered to be a rude and arrogant boy. His father however is either unaware or unconcerned with these defects, and in the several-year waiting period before he can truly retreat into monastic seclusion, he has done little to prepare the state or to repair its army.
However, Makuria is not a weak state. Ambitious generals have pushed back the warlords of the south and secured the Daju borders. The bureaucracy, modeled off of the old Egyptian system, is an efficient and well-oiled machine. The monarch’s dispassionate lethargy has not been so crippling as it might have been in another power. The simply calculus of Makurian politics have not meaningfully changed either. To become more than it currently is, to aspire to any greatness beyond the Upper Nile, it must necessarily conquer Egypt. However the Khardi, despite their general mismanagement of the province are excellent warriors – the weakness of Makuria’s armies was starkly revealed to them at the Cataracts. The Makurian army had been prepared to fight its southern foes, disorganized horse raiders and brigands. Against a heavy charge of cavalry sheeted in mail and barding, their forces were found particularly wanting. Despite Makurian skill in archery and experience facing down the lightly armored Khardi soldiery, their forces broke long before the impact of Khardi barge-pole lances, and their center was thrown into total disarray.
If they can overcome this deficiency, or if the Khardi collapse and lose access to heavy Ifthal horse, the Makurian army might sail down the Nile and rule its whole length from Tungul or Alexandria. And then, when Alexandria is theirs and trade flows freely once more, what then? Jerusalem is not so far, and the holiest of cities, the axis mundi, might be theirs.
