Tales of a New Rome - A Ruma Dark Continent AAR

[SouthernKing]

Prologue: The Great Mortality

1395 AD

The foul stench of death proliferated through the air. An eerie quiet settled upon the city of Rome, pierced only by the occasional toll of a bell. No outsider had entered the city in weeks; all contact had been lost. It was almost as if an impenetrable grey fog had enveloped the city like a ghostly barrier. Far removed from its once-great status as center of the civilized world a millennium earlier, the city seemed to be in its last days, awaiting a silent death.

For decades, wave after wave of the invincible plague had swept through Europe, killing everything it touched. In the future, perhaps, somebody would figure out why the plague never seemed to end, and why it hit Europe so badly. But to the Europeans, and everyone else on Earth almost fourteen centuries after the birth of Christ, it was no less than an Act of God.

Inside a bedroom, an old man wearing extravagant clothing lay on a bed, too weak to get up. In ordinary times he would have been tended to until his last breath. But these were no ordinary times, and the man lay there alone, coughing and straining to breathe.

Europe was in its death throes. So too was Boniface IX, the last Pope in Rome.

What hath God wrought…?

---

As you probably figured out by now, I’m playing as Ruma in MiscMod’s Dark Continent (aka The Years of Rice and Salt) scenario.

It should be mentioned here that if you’re looking for an AAR where the played country conquers the world or does some other absurd feat, this isn’t the one for you. Those kind of AARs are nice and all, and many of them are well written, but the AARs that I enjoy the most are the opposite – AARs where there are as many defeats as there are victories. I’m not playing to win, and I will be making decisions that normally would be really, really stupid. That being said, if you enjoy a good narrative, you should hopefully enjoy this one.

So sit back, grab some popcorn or something, and enjoy.

(I’ll have the first actual chapter up later today)


Table of Contents
Chapter 1: The First Rumans
Chapter 2: The Sultan

 

[unmerged(271387)]

Great AAR.Which religion are you planning to convert to?I think Ruma can convert to a sect of islam or orthodoxy.
I will be following this,as Ruma is my favourite nation on this scenario

 

[Ybakgibumpti]

Isn't the religion change completely random? As in you can't choose what to convert to?

 

[Merrick Chance']

Miscmods is the biggest temptation for me when it comes to Divine Wind, and I'm always interested by the AARs that come out of it. Bon chance!

 

[trekfan]

Yes! Dark continent! Yes!

 

[SouthernKing]

Great AAR.Which religion are you planning to convert to?I think Ruma can convert to a sect of islam or orthodoxy.
I will be following this,as Ruma is my favourite nation on this scenario

I ended up being Sufi Islam.

Isn't the religion change completely random? As in you can't choose what to convert to?

The event that pops up allows you to choose whether you want to be Muslim or Orthodox. If you choose Muslim the game chooses which sect of Islam (out of Sunni, Shia, Sufi, or Kharjite IIRC).

Miscmods is the biggest temptation for me when it comes to Divine Wind, and I'm always interested by the AARs that come out of it. Bon chance!

Yes! Dark continent! Yes!

Thanks both of you! Yeah, MiscMods is fun, especially because of the nice althist starts included in it.

Update should be up in a few minutes.

 

[SouthernKing]

Chapter 1: The First Rumans

807 AH (1405 AD)

Karim winced as he heard the crunch of breaking bones beneath his foot. He looked down to see what had probably once been a city guard, the rusted armor already beginning to crumble away and several of the bones visibly fractured or missing.

His younger brother Basir stood in front of Karim, staring up at the wooden gate marking the entrance to Rome. The city gates had been sealed long ago, presumably to keep some kind of quarantine in effect, but the wood was beginning to peel away and fall apart.

Basir reached down, picked up a thigh bone from one of the skeletons, and swung it at the door. Surprisingly, it cut through the wood as if it were cheese. It took only a few blows for a hole big enough to climb through.

The city itself had been uninhabited for nearly ten years, ever since the last inhabitants locked themselves in and condemned themselves to death. On the coast a parsang and some away, there was a small settlement, of barely a thousand people, mostly Sufi Moors. It had been established as a Sufi colony six years earlier, a haven for those who wanted to leave persecution in the established states in the Maghreb. Karim and Basir, and their now-dead merchant father, had been among the first settlers.

That morning, Karim had barely woken up when he saw Basir filling a canvas bag full of food and other supplies.

“What are you doing?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

“I’m doing something I’ve wanted to do for years,” Basir said matter-of-factly. “Today, I’m going inside the city. I want you to come with me.”

“But, the plague…it could still be there,” Karim protested. “We could be killed, or worse, come back here and kill everyone. You know what happened to those Firansi.”

“If the plague were still here, brother, we’d all be dead by now. Besides, the Firansi tried to shut themselves off from the plague, and they failed, so why is this any different? ”

Karim was still wary, but when Basir made it clear he wasn’t changing his mind, he reluctantly agreed to come along.

Basir stumbled through the hole in the gate. Karim nervously followed him, ducking through. Karim looked around at the crumbling city, beginning to be overtaken by weeds. An odd, foul stench reached Karim’s nose, reminding him of death, and he placed a cloth to his face. Basir appeared not to notice, just looking around proudly, and walked forward, past rows of decaying buildings. Karim had to scramble just to keep up with him.

For all the talk about Rome, it seemed disappointing, a mere shadow compared to glories such as Constantinople, or Cairo, or even Tunis. It was small and cramped, bisected by a small river, and the eerie emptiness only added to the bizarre feeling. In every city Karim had been to, the streets were filled with people going about; it was just wrong to see one so empty.

Basir didn’t seem bothered. As the brothers walked through the city, Karim wondered when Basir would leave the main road and look inside one of the buildings, but he just kept walking, straight towards the center of the city, and Karim just followed him. They passed buildings that appeared far older than the plague, having crumbled beyond recognition. Dozens of skeletons littered the streets, and Karim stepped on bones more than once. It was not the bodies that bothered him – Karim had seen plenty of dead people – it was the bizarre quiet and the emptiness.

“I think this is where the Pope used to live,” Basir said, pointing at a great stone building facing the river. “I’m going there.” He walked inside, into a courtyard. Surprisingly, there were no bodies here – the stone had cracked in several places, and there were weeds beginning to grow through the cracks, but if people were here Karim wouldn’t have noticed anything odd.

Basir entered the building. Inside was a great, cavernous hall, filled with neatly arranged rows of beds, some of them with skeletons atop them. It had apparently been turned into a crude hospital, abandoned in the city’s last days. Off to the side were some smaller rooms. At the far side were several tombs. “Brother, you look inside those side rooms,” Basir said. “I’ll look over by those tombs.” Karim just meekly nodded.

Karim entered one of the rooms, and saw another skeleton laying on a bed, its arms folded on its chest and still clad in posh clothing. A pointed hat lay at its bedside. Karim was no Christian, but he knew enough about them to know who it belonged to. “Come here, brother,” he “I found the Pope – or what’s left of him.”

“And I found treasure,” was the reply.

Karim rushed to another part of the building. It had once been sealed with a lock of some kind, but the both the lock and the door were missing. Inside, Basir was standing, a wide grin on his face, over an open chest, filled to the brim with gold coins. A dozen other chests lined the walls. “There’s even more in the other rooms,” Basir said. “And not just gold. Gems too.”

Karim looked around. “You could become a sultan with this wealth, brother,” he said.

---

I apologize in advance for the lack of gameplay in the first 2-3 updates; it's simply because I didn't get the Birth of a nation event until 1425. Yeah. Hopefully you shouldn't get too bored; I'll try to run through these beginning updates quickly.

 

[Aliasing]

This is looking good so far

 

[unmerged(271387)]

I think this is going to be marvelous!

 

[Seelmeister]

Very interesting scenario, and I like how you have introduced the story.

 

[DDRJake]

Dark Continent is more or less an instant sub from me. Keep up the good writing style.

 

[SouthernKing]

Thanks to everyone who has posted so far, glad to have you on board!

 

[SouthernKing]

Update 2: The Sultan

808 AH (1405 AD)

The Italian countryside flashed by as Karim rode along decrepit roads, already beginning to disappear under growing weeds. The ghostly walls of the city of Ruma loomed in the distance ahead.

Karim would have much preferred a camel. The brown horse he rode emitted a putrid smell, its hair scratched at his legs, and this particular horse and Karim did not get along well; he had already been thrown off the saddle twice in the last day. But here in Italy, where there was little sand anywhere, a camel was next to useless. He had bigger worries anyway.

Karim barely slowed his horse as he approached the north city gate, passing some fledgling farms. The gate had been replaced, and two guards in basic armor – mercenaries, presumably – stood at its sides, looking bored. The guards barely gave him a fleeting glance, although several ragged men just inside the city did. Karim raced past row after row of buildings. A few of the homes now had occupants, and Ruma was now home to several streets of shops and a recently opened small marketplace, though few traders plying the Mediterranean routes saw any reason to take such a large detour. However, most of the buildings remained decrepit, untended, and crumbling, especially at the edges of the city inside the walls.

Karim pulled the reins as he approached the old basilica where he had found the treasure almost a year earlier, slowing the horse to a trot, and nearly losing his balance and falling onto the cobblestone. The square in front of the basilica was crowded with people, although it was likely the only place in the entire city where that was the case.

He quickly dismounted and dashed into the basilica courtyard. There were two more guards blocking the door.

“What is your business?” the one on the right asked.

Karim eyed the fearsome-looking curved sword on his belt. “I need to see Basir,” he said.

“The sultan is not seeing any visitors.”

“But I am his brother.”

“Whatever, I don’t care. Just be quick with it, and don’t make a mess.” The guard

Inside, the room had been entirely cleared, and had gotten a makeover. Bright red rugs lined the floors, lit by golden lamps on the walls. Perhaps it had once been the center of the Roman Catholic Church, the seat of the pope; now, that past was gone. It was a throne room.

A throne room fit for a sultan.

At the far side of the room, Basir lay slouched on a golden throne, wearing a long robe and a turban, eyes closed. A harem girl was standing beside him, massaging him. Karim approached him, angered. “Wake up!” he shouted

The girl seemed to take no notice. Basir opened his eyes and sat up straight. “Brother!” he yelled overly loudly, smiling widely.

“Why? Why have you done this? You are unworthy of being a sultan!”

“It was I who found the treasure! I am the richest man on this forsaken continent, and I deserve to rule!”

“No, both of us found it! It should be split in half between the two of us, if anything. Besides, you are not even from a royal line! You can call yourself a sultan all you want, but nobody will recognize your rule.”

“Blasphemous talk! My good vizier, Rashid Ansari, has procured some...rather convincing documents proving my descent from Abu Bakr. The other nations will have no choice but to accept my rule!”

“No, brother,” Karim pleaded. “Listen to reason. I don’t care about the treasure. But you…you have become obsessed with your wealth, you power. You are unfit to rule.”

“You are a fool and a traitor! Guards, arrest him!”

One of the guards, who had been standing at the side of the room, approached Karim, reached for his sword, and prepared to strike. But Karim was faster. He knocked the guard over, grabbed the sword, and stumbled out the door, two other guards behind. Before the guards posted outside even realized what had happened, Karim was back on his horse and racing out of the city.

---

Karim rode for the rest of the day, until he was sure no one was pursuing him. He slowed his horse down to a trot, along barely familiar roads, until he reached a familiar cave in a hillside, the entrance well camouflaged by well-placed greenery. Karim stared up at the sky; he had barely reached there in time, for dusk was fast approaching.

He dismounted, and entered the cave. The faint light outside was just enough to illuminate the small wooden table inside.

Sitting on it was a pile of gold coins, and an adjacent pile of gems.

Karim smiled; his part of the treasure was safe, and would remain so. He picked up one gold coin, the one at the top of the pile, pocketed it, and walked out.

The question now was where to go. He could not go back to Ruma, but there was another option. Fortunately, Karim had an idea. He had seen a village, further up in the foothills. He was not sure who lived there, but it was something, and it was better than nothing.

For another three days and nights, he rode, up unfamiliar roads, more than once reaching a dead end in an abandoned village and having to turn around. By the middle of the second day, Karim realized he was going in circles, and was forced to go completely off the road, down unpaved trails into the wilderness.

By the fourth day, Karim was hungry and exhausted, his horse even more so. But as he trotted triumphantly into what seemed like another abandoned village, he saw a little girl staring up at him with hollow eyes. Her pale face was plastered with dirt, and brown rags covered her slim body. But she was alive.

Karim looked around stunned. Two others, both thin, pale, men – boys – in similarly ragged clothes as the girl, stopped what appeared to be field work and stared up at him. Their eyes were empty, as if something had sucked the life out of them.

He heard shouting in an unfamiliar tongue. To his left, he saw a man in tattered and rusteed armor, rushing up at him with a large sword. Karim tried to draw his own sword, the one he had taken from Sultan Basir’s guard, but it was too late. He fell from the horse, the curved sword clattering to the ground.

The last thing Karim saw before a tide of blackness hit him was a painted cross.

---

The village had, by some miracle of Allah, survived the Great Mortality, if only by the skin of its teeth. It had not seen an outsider in nearly three decades before Karim raced in. Not realizing that he was a heathen, the villagers gave Karim a good Christian burial, in a graveyard where untold others also lay.

Five years later, four horsemen entered the village from the same direction as Karim. They were well-armored, with tanned olive skin, and spoke an unfamiliar tongue. Had anyone understood, they would have realized that a new Roman state had been created, and that their village was to be annexed.

Of course, the villagers, not understanding who they were facing, attempted to resist. The horsemen spared no one.

---

OOC:

Basir I was a rather crappy 4-4-4 monarch – he’s what you start with, but I thought this was more interesting. I could have sworn I took a screen of his court but it turns out I didn’t. Sorry
If you're a bit confused just know that all this will have an impact on the future plot.
Anyhoo, next update will be the transition into legitimate gameplay.

 

[PanzerKrigs]

Please go on with this. I like it.

 

[Dovahkiing]

How can I resist Muslims in Rome?
Following.

 

[InvisibleSandwi]

Always fun to see more Miscmods content in the AAR forum. Whenever I play Dark Continent, AI Ruma seems to go Orthodox fairly often; in one game I played as them, I went further by converting to Catholicism in order to get chummy with a blobtastic Aragon. Of course, going Islamic in this scenario is probably easier...

 

[Arilou]

So we have two brothers arguing over the city of Rome?

Sounds familiar.

 

[SouthernKing]

Please go on with this. I like it.

Thank you!

How can I resist Muslims in Rome?
Following.

You can't
Glad to have you on board!

Always fun to see more Miscmods content in the AAR forum. Whenever I play Dark Continent, AI Ruma seems to go Orthodox fairly often; in one game I played as them, I went further by converting to Catholicism in order to get chummy with a blobtastic Aragon. Of course, going Islamic in this scenario is probably easier...

Thanks!
Aragon/Catalunya in this game got eaten by Algiers pretty early on. I'll show what is happening outside of Ruma in the coming update.

So we have two brothers arguing over the city of Rome?

Sounds familiar.

Yep!

I'd like to say that this is not dead, and I should have a new update by tomorrow, hopefully.

 

[SouthernKing]

828 AH (1425 AD)

Yusuf watched from the side of the throne room as the Sultan coughed again, doubling over and nearly falling out of the throne. The coughing fit lasted a good two minutes before two harem girls and the vizier helped him back up into an upright seated position. The vizier, whose name Yusuf was not sure - Rashid something? - whispered in the Sultan’s ear. Basir gazed straight at Yusuf with those hollow eyes of his, something which made Yusuf shudder.

Yusuf leaned back against the wall, tore off another leaf of qat, and placed it in his mouth. He looked around, at the various activities taking place inside the throne room. There were games being played, food being heartily eaten, and drinks being consumed - that last one making it a court no good imam of the south would ever step into. The Sultan’s coughing had not changed the level of noise inside. It was all rather impressive, especially for a state as minor as Ruma.

“Do you ever not chew on that leaf?” a voice spoke from Yusuf’s side.

Yusuf turned to see Khalil, the twenty-year-old prince and heir to the Sultanate, standing beside him.

“It makes me work harder, okay?” Yusuf retorted. “Look, if you chewed you would understand.”

Khalil just shook his head.

“Look at the old man.” Yusuf said, gesturing at the Sultan, who at the moment appeared to have fallen asleep. “He can’t even think for himself. That vizier, he’s the man in control. He’s the one you have to get rid of.”

“He must have chewed too much qat,” Khalil retorted.

Yusuf just spat at him. The spit, colored a sickly shade of green, missed the floor and began foaming.

There was a scream and a loud crash. Yusuf looked up to see the Sultan’s body hit the floor with a thud, rolling off the dais and onto the carpet. The entire throne room turned to stare at him. The room turned deathly silent.

Several guards rushed up to check on the Sultan. The vizier knelt down to examine him. Seconds later, he looked up, with a blank expression on his face.

“Did you do that?” Yusuf asked Khalil as he took another leaf of qat.

Khalil shrugged. “Did you?”

---

829 AH (1426 AD)

Yusuf unfolded the map on the table and clasped his hands. This map had been salvaged from . He placed his hands on the edge of the table and looked at Khalil, who was seated across from Yusuf. “My Sultan,” he said. “Our armies report great success! Most of the former Papal lands have capitulated and accepted our hegemony. We have secured the larger settlements in the region.” He pointed to several places on the map. “These settlements could be used as provincial administrative centers.

The Sultan of Ruma smiled. “Excellent. Was there any blood shed?”

“In the settlements, no. However,” Yusuf pointed to the center of the map. “there were some surviving Frankish villages up in these mountains. Most of them capitulated without a fight, on the promise that they would be protected under the jizya. But a few villages did resist, and we had no other choice to kill those ones. There was one other thing, though.”

Khalil leaned forward. “What was that?”

“In one of the villages that we had to kill, one of our soldiers who knew a few words of the local language heard an older villager pleading for his life. It was something about a Muslim and gold."

"So?"

"There is a tale spread among merchants of your father's brother, Karim."

The Sultan looked up. "Of the treasure?"

Yusuf nodded. "Yes. As you are no doubt aware, the tale says that Karim managed to secure a significant quantity of the treasure your father found, and before he was banished, hid it somewhere in the mountains. Perhaps Karim managed to reach this village, or the villagers found the treasure? But while our soldiers were searching the village, they found no large amount of gold."

"I thought that was just a story. Could it be true? But we have more pressing manners."

To their left, Rashid Ansari attempted to get up from his kneeling position on the ground, only for a sword to be swiftly placed to his neck by a nearby soldier.

The Sultan turned, “For example, the man who would have stopped our rightful reign."

“Please, my Sultan,” Rashid whimpered. “I served your father loyally for twenty years!”

“Nonsense! You poisoned his mind!” The Sultan had now gotten out of his seat and was now towering over Rashid menacingly. “You embezzled tax money from this court! Under your own law, I should have your hands cut off!” At these words, Yusuf’s hand instinctively went to the knife sheathed at his waist.

“But, I am a merciful man. Guards, get him out of here..” Two soldiers walked up and dragged the pleading Rashid away.

Yusuf grunted. “I would have liked to cut his hands off. But shouldn't we have gone to an actual judge?”

"Thanks to him, we don't have a judge. Only me." Khalil retook his seat. “With him gone, the only threat left to my power is gone. But there is one more thing we have to discuss. What of the Sufis?”

Yusuf gulped. “My Sultan, are you sure this is a good idea? Endorsing the Sufis will mean that we are isolated, diplomatically, from the rest of Islam.”

“No, I have thought this out, and this is the path we will take. The new nations in the Frankish lands, al-Alemand and Skandistan, have chosen the Sufi path. If we do, too, we can isolate those lunatic Kharijites in Faransa, and encourage new settlers . The emirs and sultans in the south are too busy fighting amongst themselves to worry about us.”

“Fine," Yusuf said, looking down. The Sufi imams are planning to construct Sufi mosques, or more likely rebuild the old churches as Sufi mosques, if they can get your funding of course, and if you start appointing Sufis into our civil service.”

“Excellent."

Yusuf stared back up at the Sultan. "Do we even have a civil service?"

"No, we don't, thanks to that fool I just banished. But it is time to start making one, no?"

Yusuf sighed. "I need more qat."

---

Well, sorry for the excruciatingly late update, but here it is anyway.

If someone with a better knowledge of Arabic transliteration than I do is reading this, could you please tell me if my province names are correct? I did those by using Google Translate, Wikipedia, and my own judgement, so the names right now are probably a complete butchery of the Arabic language. This is a minor detail I want to get as accurate as possible.

 

[Seelmeister]

Great to see another update. The more colonies you can start, the better for your short term expansion, as you'll be creating new Muslim provinces. The political colour of the map looks excellent as well, very appropriate for a new Rome!