Novo Ordo Mediterraneum

[Hannibal X]

Islam and The Barbarian Age 600-1066
Section 1: The Viking Conquests
I. The Traveling Groups
a. The Heruli Exodus
b. The Cimbri
c. The Geats and Gotlanders
II. The Exodus Conquests 777-1066
a. Flight of The Vandals
b. The Conquest of The Basques
c. The Conquest of The Occitan Peoples
d. The Conquest of The Ebro March
e. The First Cultural Synthesis
f. The Rejection of Christ
g. The Conversion to Al-Haruri Sufism
h. The Sultanate of al-Pirnaei
i. The Absorption of Emirs
j. Thrasamar al-Geiseri el-Fatih vs. Karl der Grosse
III. The Scandinavian Conquests
a. St. Patrick the Martyr and the Survival of Druidism
b. The Danes of Northern France
c. The New Paganism
d. The Norse-Gael Expansions
e. Kingdom of Yorvik
f. The Conquests of William the Conqueror
Section 2: Islam in The World
Author's Notes: Changes to Islam
I. Ctesiphon or Baghdad?
II. Kharijites in Europe

The rest of the AAR, aka 1066-1400, will be a mix of styles. However, the above is a history books of events that did not occur in our timeline.

 

[Hannibal X]

Hate to double post, but I'd much rather put non-story stuff here.

This story is not based off a game. For one, I suck, and I tend to wholly rely on the sweet calls of F12 and/or Alt-21. Two, the AI, especially in CK, will f*** up the world, and the historical trends of our history will either be omitted, seen in new places, or changed. Thirdly, the sheer number of tiny nations will not be seen; decentralization will be seen, but separate nations only occur in civil wars here. There will be cultural and theological changes that do not mean to offend but that instead serve the purposes of the story. S1 Chapter 1 (Traveling Groups) will be up ASAP.

Thank you in advance for reading, commenting and/or lurking. I appreciate it immensely.

 

[Enewald]

A AAR without incest?

 

[iain_a_wilson]

This story is not based off a game.

Fair enough - as long as you're entertaining I'll read

 

[Hannibal X]

Yes, Enewald, no incest in certain countries, mainly the large ones wherein they have enough princes to rotate marriages. A.K.A Romanion. However, I will work in things seen in game, like incest in certain countries and other CK phenomena.

I hope the AAR will be entertaining. The years 1066-1400 will generally be a mix of styles, with a lot more narrative. The book mentioned in the first post is just running down a few alt-history countries that exist prior to 1066.

 

[Hannibal X]

Section 1, Chapter 1

Section 1: The Viking Conquests
Chapter 1: The Traveling Groups

The Heruli:

The Heruli originated in Scandinavia, and then traveled across Europe as subjugated warbands under the control of other barbarians. After Odoacer, a Heruli, sacked Rome, the people returned unto the North, and settled in Jutland. The Heruli stayed close, and their main clan was House Odvaringas, or the descendants of Odoacer, conqueror of Rome. As Jutland fell under Danish rule, the Heruli, along with other groups, began to coalesce into a single culture, driven from Jutland. Instead of the Isles or Northern Europe, stomping ground of the Norse, the Heruli, along with other groups, traveled to the South.

The Cimbri

After their defeat in the 100s BCE, the Cimbri, depleted in number, fled back unto Jutland, their homeland. They remained their, eventually forming tight-knit group, albeit lacking in major nobility. After the slow establishment of Danish hegemony from Aarhus, the Cimbri took to the sea, and went south, along with other groups, united in political and economic unity through intermarrying.

The Geats/Gutnish
After losses to the Swedes over their lands in Scandinavia, the Geats split into two groups. One group, covered later on in this tome, moved to Denmark (Halland) and became Northern Vikings. Another group, coming from the island Gotland and descended from actual Goths, fled unto the South, coming under the rule of clan Odvaringas through the rein of king Odolrik, son of the king of the Heruli and the daughter and only child of the king of the Gutnish, Gizur.


These sea nomads, all groups of antiquity, would once again ride into Latin areas, pillaging, and staying in their conquered lands. Well adapted to mountain warfare, and with strong infantry, they would carve out a piece of land for themselves, and expand, using sea prowess to keep their three groups, merged into one Viking entity, untouched and unbothered by other marauders searching for southern plunder.

 

[Enewald]

Odovacar sacked Rome...
Evil!

 

[Hannibal X]

Indeed he did, in 476; in fact, his sacking was the watershed for the end of Western Rome. After sacking Rome, the Heruli were subjugated, and in this time line fled back north to the "comfort" of Scandinavia. However, no one says they couldn't sack Rome a second time

 

[Hannibal X]

Section 1: The Viking Conquests
Chapter 1: The Exodus Conquests 777-1000

Flight of The Vandals

After the fall of the Vandal Kingdom of North Africa in the 530s, the Vandal people quickly scattered, many being enslaved and sold unto Byzantine soldiers in North Africa or the Iberian Visigoths and Suebians. From here, however, the fierce Vandals fled unto the central Pyrenees, unbothered by Vascones, Aquitanii or the Goths. Although the relatives of Gelimer did not flee, the secret lineage of Hilderic, penultimate King of the Vandals and direct heir to Geiseric, ended up leading the newly Catholicized Vandals (albeit weakly. The Vandals never truly got fully Christianized, and would thus easily convert to new faiths.

The small Vandal state existed in the Pyrenees, yielding to Islam prior to Tours, and then shunning the Frankish Empire to maintain independence. Their influence and magnanimity towards the Muslims, along with the prevalent usage of late Roman maps amongst the Arabs, led to the entire peninsula being called al-Andalus, flanked in the North by House Geisyric (Later Language).

However, in 777, a new neighbor appeared when the Cimbri, Heruli and Gutnish arrived, all led in battle by Boryk Odvaringas (Boiorix Odvacerius to Latins), who would carve out a kingdom from neighboring lands, ignoring the diplomatically skilled Vandal king Digselmund, whose grandson, Thrasamar, would marry the one daughter of the one son of Boryk, leading to a stronger, new nation...

 

[Enewald]

Historical so far???

 

[Hannibal X]

Historical so far???

Nope- The Vandals never had a Pyrenees state, nor was there Heruli and Cimbri refugees in Jutland eventually led by the ahistorical Boryk Odvaringas. All made up. Hilderic never had children, and the lineage of Geiseric historically died with him. For coolness factor, I invented the small Vandalic state in the Pyrenees. In addition, Vikings never set up statelets past Normandy, so the founding of Viking states in the Pyrenees is ahistorical in and of itself.

 

[Hannibal X]

Before the Frankish counterstrikes towards the Moors of the 9th century, the Vikings under Boryk and his descendants consolidated their control over the region through conquest of Christian peoples, the first being the Basques.

Chronicles of the Odvacerii Conquest, Bishop Gurutz of Pamplona

In the year of our lord and savior Jesus Christ 777, the scourge of Europe and servants of Satan, the incorrigible Vikings invaded the good lands of the Christian Basques, conquering the land in a manner most rapacious and cruel.

The longships, with heads of dragons, each held at least 50 men of Boiorix Odvacerius, and the fleet sailed through the Bay of Biscay into the Basque rivers of the Pyrenees, disembarking to conquer. They immediately sacked small riverside towns, killing the ugly women and the weak and stupid men striking those people with axes and bows. They snuck through the forests and mountains, striking with much cleverness. The armies of the local leaders met the Vikings in the passes of the mountains, and the righteous Basque armies of Christ were felled effortlessly by the huskarls of the Viking group. After they conquered most of our fair municipalities (and after burning some and looting all), they marched on the property of Mother Church, killing every student at every seminary, ransoming all high-ranking church officials to the Franks, and killing a good 75% of the nuns. As for relics, they kept secular things, as well as priceless secular books. Religious items were sold, and religious tomes tossed into their pagan flames. In Bilbo and other large cities, the former cleansing occured on much larger scales; the beautiful, smart and strong were kept, albeit stripped of their families, possessions and well-being. Churches were sacked and burnt if small, and sacked and vandalized if large and important. In Pamplona, the poor parts of the city, the churches, and the non-Roman sections of the city were all set ablaze. Our relics are gone, our people reduced by 10%, and our independence stolen. We now serve Boiorix Odvacerius, Krigleder of the Southern Vikings and King of the Pyrenees. Now our men march on to war, to crush our Aquitanian brothers in faith. I die as I write this, and I pray that the carnage ends soon, for else these murderers shall conquer all that is holy and proper.

 

[Enewald]

Vikings striking through mountain passes?
Why such a effort?

 

[Hannibal X]

Vikings striking through mountain passes?
Why such a effort?

The Vikings under Boryk quickly secured parts of the Pyrenees as home/defensive position for conquests. The Basques attacked these mountain passes, and were slaughtered in the meatgrinder. Imagine if that guy at Stamford Bridge was fighting in the mountains and didn't die. Thats what it was like. The Vikings also strike from the mountains due to surprise tactics and the fact that they can dissapear back into the mountains. Sort of like modern terrorists who hide in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan

 

[Enewald]

But why would they set up anything when moving hither and thither and plundering ought to be far easier?

 

[Hannibal X]

But why would they set up anything when moving hither and thither and plundering ought to be far easier?

They were pushed out of Jutland by Danes, Germans, cold weather, and a lust for silver. With permanent settlement, they have a protected base whereby they can constantly raid the Christians around them (being pragmatic towards the big bad Caliphate). They then use plunder to build forts and set up society. This worked for our Normans, who went on to kick the Saxons' sorry butts.

 

[iain_a_wilson]

Seems a very sensible decision!

 

[Tommy4ever]

a aar without incest?

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

 

[Hannibal X]

There won't be major incest in the main branches of the main family of the main country I am playing. Smaller nations will see a lot of incest due to a lack of nobility. Which countries will see incest has yet to be decided.

Now, the conquest of Aquitaine and Septimania, and then Catalonia.


In the early years of Karl der Grosse, their was a lot of unrest in the south of Gaul, due to Basco-Aquitani people as well as Occitans. These people eventually revolted, seizing the southern Latin parts of Gaul. This crippled the economy of France (but not the rest of the Frankish state) because the only intact Roman roads, along with all the Mediterranean ports, lay in those areas. The Ebro march, now cut off from Frankish domination, also revolted. With Muslim unrest, the nascent beginning of the Catalan people began in that revolt.

Anyways, at this point, Boryk's son Orsten had died, leaving his daughter married to the Vandal Thrasamar. In the will of Orsten Odvacerius, political control fell to Thrasamar on the condition that his people became pagans. Thrasamar and his Vandals, disillusioned with the pro-Frankish pro-Visigoth church, agreed, and the states were unified into one Vandalo-Viking union. The armies of Thrasamar then marched on the new Occitan lands, disparate and still weak. The peoples and cities quickly fell, and Thrasamar, in his brutality, sacked, burnt and utterly destroyed Avignon, La Rochelle and every monastery he could get his hands on. The Viking cleansings continued in these lands, making way for Vandals, a few Basques, and the Odvaringas Vikings after the conquest, which lasted from 787 to 791.

All the Aquitaine territories below the Garonne were annexed into the Kingdom of the Pyrenees. The other lands of the Southern rebellion returned to Karl der Grosse in fear, and the Pope issued a bull condemning the Vandals. Karl, not willing to fight Thrasamar just yet, thwarted Swedish invasions in the Baltic lands of Germany, and he pushed backed pagans on the German frontier. In Provence, fleeing Occitans and Umbrians formed a Provencal territory, wherein Karl set up castles to preemptly thwart any future expansion of Thrasamar into his territory.

However, Thrasamar was not slaked of conquesting thirst. He turned his barbarian gaze to Catalunya, where the earliest Catalans were setting up a state. After consolidating his rule, Thrasamar, known to history as "The Great", gathered an army of Occitan knights, Viking huscarls, Basque infantry and Vandal elite soldiers to march on the lands of the Catalans.

According to Sunifred of Andorra, a historian of the time,

"The armies of Thrasamar marched into Catalonia, searching yet again for plunder and land to settle and own. They first attacked Perpignan, which foolishly resisted conquest. Visigoths displaced by the Muslims, complemented by a few Suebians, fought quite valiantly, but Thrasamar is a great general. He ordered Frankish hostages to dig tunnels under the city, and the did so. Thrasamar then set wood and straw in the tunnels, along with explosive naptha, and set the tunnels ablaze. The walls foundations exploded, helped by the armor shrapnel of the dead Franks. The walls, now weakened, crumbled in a crucial point, and Thrasamar and his army charged into Perpignan. The city was sacked, the cathedral burnt and ramsacked, the beautiful virgins abducted, the clergy and unworthy stampeded, and for some, the livestock raped. The city was left as ash, akin to La Rochelle and Avignon in France. The remaining citizens fled to Empuries, and Thrasamar followed. After capturing and burning the city, Thrasamar set up a new settlement for the winter, and the Catalans not yet murdered were settled in the ruins of Emporion. Using materials from old Roman buildings and Greek buildings, Emporion was rebuilt on the coast, and walls were built. The people were given material for houses, and at this point the people were placated. The nobility had let them fall, but the cunning Thrasamar gave them new lives. Of course, they still hated Thrasamar, but they did not contemplate rebellion as before.

As spring rolled around, Thrasamar marched further into tiny Catalunya, smashing towns and monasteries, and killing the unwanted and the lower clergy (except for the beautiful amongst the nuns). Finally, he reached Barcelona. After besieging the northern part of the walls, he marched into the city of the Barcids, burning the sections of the city built after Constantine the Great. The slaughter was horrific, but the mercantile and artistic sections, as well as the Jewish ghetto, were spared, and the city moved on. Thrasamar then made Barcelona his capital, and the craftsmen and Roman ruins of his realm were made to turn Barcelona beautiful once more. A palace was made out of Carthaginian ruins, and the walls were strengthened. The conquest had ended in 793, sixteen years after Boryk the Rapacious crushed the Basques during the Viking invasions. The year is 795, and I am living in Barcelona, renamed Barqaluna by Thrasamar. May God and Jesus Christ help whoever next crosses Thrasamar, conqueror of Tarraconensis, Septimania, and Aquitania.

 

[Hannibal X]

Culture and Faith​

After the initial conquests of Thrasamar Geiseringas, a new culture, known as Old Pyrniac, began to germinate in the three cities of the area; Barqaluna, Emporion and Bilbo. Thrasamar, in addition to being a bloodthirsty conqueror, was also a man of culture; he could read and write Latin and Arabic in the diplomatic tradition of his forefathers.

Thrasamar was enthralled with the Latin architecture of the ruins in his lands, and thusly, new buildings in his three cities saw Roman columns, with touches of Arabic influence as interior decoration. In addition, Thrasamar also viewed bathing, a Roman practice picked up by the civilized Arabs, as fun, relaxing, and beautifying. Ergo, the Barqaluna baths were built later in his reign, they themselves a mix of Arab and classical Greco-Roman design.

In 797, two years after the Catalan campaign ended in Thrasamar's victory, the Pope Leo III, who ascended to the throne of St. Peter after Hadrian died at the end of the campaign, devised a stratagem to fix the Vandal issue. Leo sent a letter to Thrasamar, asking him, in his wiseness, to become baptized once more, to accept the Pope's authority in clergical matters, to give back Aquitania, Septimania and Tarraconensis to Karl der Grosse, to be a King and vassal of Emperor Charlemagne of the Franks, and to accept the title Rex Pyrnaei et Navarrum in the name of Christ.

Thrasamar, although once a Christian, rejected Leo III. First, Thrasamar had no intention of giving back his hard-earned conquests. Thrasamar also detested the idea of having to submit to both the Pope and Karl der Grosse on different levels of authority. Thrasamar sent back the messenger's head, writing to Leo, "I shall not accept thee nor Carolus Magnus, and both of you can fight me for the souls of my subjects". The diplomatic fallout of this blatant failure caused Leo III to succumb to the diplomatic endeavours of Nikephoros I Phokas, who overthrew the empress Irene. Ergo, the plans of the West to create the "Holy Roman Empire" had been dashed in one of the greatest diplomatic coups of all time. The loyalty this inspired in the nobles led Nikephoros to become one of the greatest Emperors of all time, one who brought victory to the East once more.

Yet Thrasamar was not yet done. From Arabia came the Shurat (Kharijite) sects as well as the Sufists. An al-Haruri Sufi Muslim came to Barqaluna, and spoke with Thrasamar. (In this timeline, just for note, alcohol is allowed, and women are only modest in action, not in thought or dress. Concealing dress is cultural) The allowing of drinking and the relative spiritual calm of Sufism appealed to the pagan apostate, and he brought his highest nobles, commanders and merchant leaders to Barqaluna. The al-Haruri Sufi, known to history as Rayya Juwayriyya al-Sherzadi bint Tewfik, spoke with charisma and vigor. The leaders and Thrasamar, impressed with the woman and her reasoning, and seeking to find better relations with the Caliph to the south, converted to Islam.

With this conversion, Thrasamar found reason to convert his new subjects. Rayya and her fellow female and male imams went and converted all of the Vandals and Vikings, most of the Basques, and a bit more than half of the Occitans and Catalans in 3 years. In response to this budding religious unity, the inspired Thrasamar wrote the first seedlings of Old Pyrniac. The base grammar and wording came from Basque, Vandal and South Viking. Then, a layer of Latin and Arabic influence came into the language. The first dictionary is still kept in the Barqaluna library, written in the Latin script used by most of the subjects of Thrasamar.

It was 800; Leo was diplomatically humiliated, the West lost the Pyrenees to Islam, the Shurat (Kharijites) had found a major state in which to reside, Nikephoros Phokas was riding high in the East, and the first year of the ninth century after Christ would see even more change and more turmoil than the decades before.