The Heirs of Rome

[Chaincat]

I've been writing stuff like these for my friends every now and then, so I decided to get really into character here and I'll be posting these on a character by character basis sort of like biographies on them and their actions, written by a scribe that observes nearly their every action. Will edit this post with a mod list later since I'm using a lot of mods. Also I noticed a lot of AARs use screenshots. It'd probably make reading these a lot easier, so I'll try to take relevant screencaps in future characters, but I completely neglected to do so for my first character.

All DLCs active, sunset invasion turned off in game rules. Count of Ferrara custom character in the old gods start.

First character's biography coming in the next post.

Edit: Mod list:

Spoiler

No Satan Masks Red Cloth (I play devilworshipers sometimes. It can be fun but hate the goat mask)
A Sensible New Family (only relevant for Aurelia)
All of Luna Assassin's cultural retinues plus a custom persian and roman one I made
Better Christian CB (I'm making a point not to use this unless I just really can't be bothered, like a single county needed to fill in a duchy that no one has claims on and I don't actually own the duchy)
Bloodline Enhanced
Multiple forgable bloodlines, courtesy of the CK2 discord society
Byzantium
Cultural bonuses
Faiterial's Buildings
Faster Council Actions
Fixed Smith Prices (exponential smithing prices don't make sense)
Four Religious Doctrines (2 isn't enough for me, and the regular religions have upwards of the equivalent of 7 doctrines, so I'd like to think this is justified)
Improved Genetics (makes eugenics actually something you can realistically manage)
Orange Wikipedia icon (only would have been relevant if I wasn't a scrub and took screenshots as Aurelia)
Rich Childhood
Ruler Designer Unlocked (I like my custom characers to be decent and not also crippled plague survivors thanks)
Sin's visit chambers
The Great Trade League
The Orders of Chivalry
The Sufi Schools
Title manager (necessary to clean up some of the weird de jures, and merge kingdoms into imperial provinces, ie bosnia serbia and carinthia into illyricum. Only allowing myself to use when I own the entire De jure)
Unique Buildings

 

[Chaincat]

Countess Aurelia Daia

Countess Aurelia's story begins in the county of Ferrara, within Italy. While the king fights wars with the muslims and vikings and his own family in the north, Aurelia focuses on expanding her own sphere of influence from within the kingdom of Italy, perhaps one day her family will rise to greatness, but not her. Her family roots trace back to the days of Rome, and perhaps, one day, her family will sit upon the throne of the Roman Empire.

But, from greatness comes humble beginnings. Aurelia owned but a single county to her name. However, the pope did not care much for her neighbors within spoleto, and happily granted her the claims she needed. With that, Aurelia set about conquering the duchy of spoleto from the inside. She married a german man named Wilhelm, a lowborn of abnormally high quality education, a genius by all accounts. Though, lacking in moral fiber. Not that this bothered Aurelia, she herself was riddled with sin. However, once she bore his son, she knew she had to do better for her new family's sake. Once she had given birth to a young genius she named Igino, she left on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to begin her path to redemption. She wished to be the best mother she could be at this point. However, this took a backseat to her ambition. While on pilgrimage, she orderd a conquest of her neighboring counts, and by the time she returned, she was the ruler of 3 counties.

At this time, she decided it would be best to join the hermetic society. She named her court chaplain her apprentice, and began her work, writing theorem papers and gathering ingredients which would find use curing her stress in the future. However, this too takes a backseat to her ambition, as she conquers further south, usurping the seats of 2 priests and a cardinal to further fuel her lust for power. In the end, she held 7 of the 10 counties within Spoleto, and demanded she become the new duchess. The regent for the infant duchess refused, and thus they went to war. But Aurelia was not afraid to play dirty, and before the war even began, she had marched her entire army to the capital of spoleto to lay it to siege immediately. The war dragged on, but, eventually, Aurelia prevailed, and was the new duchess of Spoleto.

With Spoleto conquered, she turned her attention to Tuscany. It was ruled by a child at the time, so the pope was more than happy to give a claim to Aurelia. She took it and went to war. After a short but violent conflict, she won, and became the archduchess of central italy. Now she turns her attention to the pope. She intended to take the eternal city, no matter the cost. At first she tried to fabricate a claim, but it seems because one of her vassals held a barony there, it wouldn't work. She would have to rely on a border dispute. A very forceful method that would cost her greatly, but no cost would be too great. She must reclaim her Roman heritage.

Predictably, she was excommunicated for taking Rome, but it mattered not to her. Rome was her, and she was finally able to break free from lotharingia due to the king losing his entire army practically over night. It was a tiring war, but a successful one. At long last, she was free, only to then go right back to war to be coronated by the pope. In a longer, more tiresome war, at last, she was crowned, for all to see, as Queen of Romagna, queen of the Romans. For now, at least. While this was happening, however, she had built an observatory, and had been investigating strange patterns in the stars. This lead to her ultimately finding the necronomicon, and with it she may have driven herself insane. But, regardless, she was able to further her realm's understanding of law, and institute a system of inheritance that would prevent her realm from crumbling once she was dead. Her husband has passed away already at 55, and she is now 44. It's never too early to be thinking of the future. While she did remarry, to have her excommunication lifted, she took a vow of celibacy. So her new marriage was lifeless. She will never love a man like she did Wilhelm. For now, though, she has begun penning her Magnum Opus, the culmination of her life's work, to prove that her pursuit into madness was not all for naught.

With her magnum opus complete, and a few short wars to clean up southern italy and a few wars with Lotharinga over italian provinces, there were many years of peace under Aurelia. Until, one day, a band of children began parading around the streets of Rome, swearing they would retake the holy land. Moved by the sight, Aurelia vowed to aid them in their crusade. The holy land will be retaken for Christendom! Deus Vult! Alas, once the war began, she would not live to see the end. Cancer took her in the end. Her son, a merchant named Igino, would continue the war, and her reign.

 

[Chaincat]

King Igino Daia

Upon ascending the throne, Igino quickly saw an end to the children's crusade, and helped the young Alessio ascend the throne of Jerusalem. Igino had his daughter, Maria, then betrothed to Alessio, to ensure an alliance with the new crusader state.

Igino put Alessio on the throne, and intends to see him stay there, even if he isn't a member of the great house Daia. Once that was done, the caliphate declared a jihad... For Anatolia. The Byzantinues are the last remnants of the Roman empire left, but Igino can only stand and watch, hoping the Byzantines can hold off the islamic assault.

However, there is little time to be concerned with this. Just as the children's crusade came to an end, Camp Fever broke out in Rome! Hoping it cleared up soon, Igino secluded himself away, still yet uncrowned, hoping only that he could be crowned soon. And that it did, only to then be replaced with measles. Food was running short, and it was unclear if the court would survive this without moving the capital.

thankfully, the diseases ravaging his realm cleared up, and he requested to be crowned by the Pope, who agreed if Igino would depose an antipope in Lotharingia, to which he agreed, and went to war. Upon the end of the war, Igino was crowned by Pope Benedictus the fourth in an extravagent ceremony, and the kingdom of Italy was taken from the king of Lotharingia. Things were certainly on the up and up for Igino. From there, however, Igino only had powerful rivals on all sides. Lotharingia brodered him on all sides to the north, and Byzantium to the south. Igino decided it would be best to bide his time, and maintain peace and stability, until the time came to go back to war.

This time presented itself in a rather unique way. A crusade! Pledging almost immediately, Igino pledged vast quantities of gold to the crusade, and named his grandson, Mastino, as his beneficiary. Igino was too old and weak to participate in a crusade, so left the war in the hands of his son, Davide. By what can only be described as divine providence, Romagna was deemed the top contributor in the crusade, and Mastino became the king of egypt, at 14 years old.

However, all was not well in the world. Anatolia, the heart of the Byzantine empire, was lost to a jihad from the suuni caliphate. Igino wonders if a new Basileus will be in order, if the empire does not simply fall...

Falling back into peace, Igino fabricated claims on the county of Orbetello, and used these claims to revoke the prince-bishophric and the barony he held, fillign out his demesne of the entire de jure kingdom of romagna.

Unfortunately, not all is well for the kingdom's future. The Carolingian empire managed to find a way to stitch itself back together, sandwiching Romagna between two empires, Byzantium in the south, and Francia in the north.

As disease ravages Romagna, and his courtiers eating his rations dry, Igino simply wishes to be immortalized like his grandson. He builds many cities, and becomes known as 'the Architect' and develops a deeper understanding of city planning, which he will pass down to his descendants for generations to come. 59 years old, consumptive, depressed, and stressed, Igino is satisfied with how he will leave his land, and he allowed consumption to take him. He is remembered for his dilligence, and his son, Davide, ascends the throne. A strong genius, and a crusader, he is sure to lead the realm to greatness.

 

[Chaincat]

(the screenshot of anatolia was taken after I died, forgot to take a screencap so I used a screencap tool to hide the date and stuff)

 

[Nikolai]

Some good successes in the Levant and Egypt there!

 

[Chaincat]

Some good successes in the Levant and Egypt there!

Thanks! The children's crusade really needs to be nerfed, I think. They get a really big doomstack and nothing can actually stop them, light infantry or not, 60-150k is enough to beat nearly any army by sheer force of numbers. And they're specifically programed to carpet siege, too, meaning that even if you can beat their army, they can knock out your garrisons in no time flat.

I probably could have just let them do all the fighting and they'd still have won, I think. Egypt took a reload to work, admittadly. the Duke of Sardinia somehow won the crusade despite only contributing maybe 2000 dudes to the war, since he kept being counted as the main attacker in all the battles francia won for him. I legitimately don't know how I won the crusade in the second go around though, since all I did was siege down 2 provinces and nearly lose my army in a 3:1 battle that ended prematurely.

Anyways, next character is a bit of a slow bit. He spent like 20 years in seclusion since rome got hit by like 3 minor outbreaks, and beating the byzantines as a smaller nation takes a lot of building up. Unless a character gets cut short, though, he'll be the last one I post about until tomorrow. Got class at 10 and it's 11 over here, so yeah.

 

[Chaincat]

King Davide Daia

Divide's reign started troubled. He came down with consumption, but was able to get a coronation from Pope Ioannes the Eighth for a measly sum of 200 gold. After a failed attempt at conquering land from the byzantines while they were wrapped in civil war, Davide realized he had two option: Improve his demesne to field more levies, or swear fealty to Byzantium or Francia. Desciding it was in his best interest to stay independant, he began building. The royal coffers quickly went dry, but he was determined to become the most powerful fighting force he could.

While his demesne underwent renovations and improvements, Davide joined the Hermetics society, and rose through the ranks quickly, slowed down by meddlesome disease springing up in Roma occasionally. But, none the less, it was better than simply waiting to be able to muster enough forces to topple an empire.

After nearly two decades, Davide was ready. He couldn't topple the byzantines with just his demesne, not yet, but his realm could raise an army to rival theirs. While not entirely capable of defeating them completely, Byzantium has more than enough funds to hire mercenaries, it should be enough to conquer through the southern half of italy and sicily Bulgaria also controlling Epirus meant he could then establish a foothold on the balkans. The carolingian hegemony to the north remains imposing, but the greek pretenders to the empire are wavering evermore as Davide leads Romagna ever higher!

After defending his son, the king of Egypt, from a holy war from the Arabs, and bailing him out economically, Davide penned his magnum opus, the Universal Panacea, which is sure to ensure the longevity of his descendants, and his own life.

The Lombard Band took the kingdom of Serbia and, thanks to some lucky inheritance from his vassals, Davide was bordering them and thus able to force vassalization upon them! With a personal lombard bodyguard in addition to his own levies, Davide was ready to conquer the Byzantine Empire, county by county if need be.

The second crusade began! At first Davide intended to take Anatolia for one of his sons, but then the Doge of Venice delivered a truly remarkable speech! Coupled with a nice bribe, all were in favour of heading to Constantinople, to depose the Bassilissa, and implant a new one. However, Davide had grown cruel and decietful, and realized this was a perfect opportunity to reclaim the lost parts of the Empire! He named himself as the sole beneficiary of his war efforts, and died on the way to Constantinople, old age finally catching up to him. The King of Egypt, Mastino, inherited all titles, creating a truly powerful empire. Mastino is sure to lead the Romans to greatness.

 

[Chaincat]

King Mastino Daia

King Mastino was already caught in 3 wars upon ascending to the Italian throne. To the north, a minor pagan tribe he intended to mke a tributary. And to the north, Constantinople he intended to conquer for his uncle, and the Shia caliph who intended to conquer egypt. With a combined army of over 20.000 men, he won all of his wars, and founded the Empire of Romagna. Switching to a viceroyalty system, he began plotting to conquer greece. Ultimately, however, due to an exhausted demesne, this ended in him using his extensive wealth from the trade guilds to conquer a few counties, in addition to the duchy of Thessalonika, while occasionally helping the Sultan of Africa fend off muslim invaders. He died after 20 years on the throne, and died infirm and incapable, leaving his 13 year old son, Luca, a growing, complex empire to manage.

 

[Chaincat]

Mastino was a bit of a badass, but also he was a bit of a let down. He was like 44 when he took the throne and it was a pain and a half to expand the way I wanted to. He almost formed the Alexander bloodline though, and I would have mentioned it, but he died after spending like 20,000 prestige on it and I'm pretty bummed about that. I'm sure I'll get another shot at it, but that's pretty sad. Ah well, he did found 2 bloodlines (using a mod that lets you do the found bloodline ambition so long as you haven't done it before on that character since those bloodlines basically never pop up from the AI) so yeah. I should really sleep. Things will hopefully get more interesting with Luca, seeing as he's a kid so I get a nice 50 yearsish to rule, assuming my regent doesn't kill me for some reason.

 

[Nikolai]

You've got quite a powerful Empire by now, the Greeks are all but gone. Rome has arisen from their own homeland.

 

[guillec87]

subbed

 

[stnylan]

I have to say I find the migration of Bavaria quite fun.

 

[Chaincat]

I have to say I find the migration of Bavaria quite fun.

Every 100 years, they say, the German Karling attempts to migrate further and further south. What do they do when they reach the bottom of the map? No one knows...

 

[Arnulf Floyd]

Subbed!

 

[Chaincat]

between me passing out and this character starting his reign at, like, 13, next update probably won't be until tomorrow. Expect hellenism. I'm using 3 doctrine reform, so if anyone wants to suggest how to reform, feel free. I'm thinking Heirocratic, Civilized, Enatic Clans, Ancestor Veneration, and either Cosmopolitan or Proselytizing, but I'm open to suggestions..

 

[Chaincat]

Emperor Luca Daia

Beginning his reign as a child, Luca spent 3 years simply waiting for his regency to end. Once it did, however, he was ready to ascend the throne. He betrothed himself to a young Vlach girl, who was supposedly a genius, and joined the hermetics. Unfortunately, measles broke out in italy, and he was forced to wait for the disease to pass before being crowned.

The disease cleared up quickly, and he organized his Coronation. However, due to his investments in safeguarding Rome from disease, the coffers quickly ran dry from the coronation expenses.

To offset the losses, he began taking money from the church. He was coronated in an extravagent ceremony, and his reign truly began. Once the coffers were full, Luca lead several wars against the various lords of greece, aiming to unify them.

These wars continued for some time, until the new pope, with claims on a few bishoprics, declared war on him, and subsequently excommunicated him. This was the last straw. He would have his excommunication lifted as various lords attempted to have him dethroned, but this was the tipping point that sent Luca down a path to no longer be beholden to the pope and these arduous catholic lords.

After several more wars in the balkans, a crusade was called for Bavaria, specifically a small jewish duchy that was occupied by random khazars. Disillusioned with the church, Luca did not participate. and continued his balkan campaigns. However, once that was done, a Jihad for Egypt was declared by the Shia Caliph. The whole of Christendom rallied behind Romagna, and the Jihad was pushed back. This gave what Luca saw an opportunity. Francia was weakened, and Gaul would need to be reconquered eventually. So he declared war on Francia for Aquitaine almost immediately. With a large mercenary army, the Carolingians never stood a chance.

Inspecting his new kingdom, Luca learns from the Basque people, and institutes an absolute cognatic succession, and begins researching the Roman religion. However, in the war with the caliph, he grew more invested in the church. Perhaps he is too quick to judge the catholic faith. however, his studies do not go unnoticed by his family, and the old stories begin being passed around once more, even if they are simply as stories.

From here, Luca continued to unify the balkans, pressing claims for Bulgaria, clashing with Trebezond, and even recieving a papal sanction to claim croatia from Francia. However, it was not enough. Francia held much of the balkans, and was not keen on giving their holdings up.

Toward the end of Luca's reign, he discovered, as his predecssor Mastino did, that the Daia family can be traced back to Alexander the Great! With this, he knew that his family was truly meant to restore the greatest empire the world had ever known. He began making preparations. Even as his own death approached, he knew he could not stop, could not falter. The power was now his.

Luca used this as precedent to take the kingdom of Jerusalem by force, annexing it in one go. What then followed was years of peace as Luca patiently awaited his death. he was old, and did not wish to leave a war to his daughter, Eleonora. At the age of 63, cancer finally took him. A crusade against Iraq was on the horizon. However, Eleonora was not interested in pursuing this. When Luca researched the ancient Hellenic traditions, she was the one who took the keenest interest in them.

 

[Chaincat]

After some deliberation, I decided to swap to 4 doctrine reform. Didn't mention it but off-screen Tibet managed to reform Bon, so I edited the save to give them monasticism to make up for this (Bon took Peaceful, Syncretic, Harmonious, Stability, and Temporal). Anyways, next character is like 40, so this will probably be a short chapter. But also a pretty important one since it's probably going to be where byzantium reforms and I use title manager to merge all of the de jure byzantium kingdoms out of the empire of Romagna and back into byzantium. On that note, it's like 5 am, so I'm going to post the mod list finally then go to sleep. Nothing major planned today, it's just a friday, so unless something comes up, Eleonora's story will be told in like 10 hours give or take

Spoiler

also don't worry about whatever is happening in persia. Believe me I wish I knew. Also the mongols may or may not have happened and I may or may not have simply not found a good enough way to mention them but big empire screenshots will probably be getting pretty weird in the near future.

 

[stnylan]

Francia is still quite impressive I note, if suffering a revolt it looks like.

Quite the collection of bloodlines.

 

[Chaincat]

Francia is still quite impressive I note, if suffering a revolt it looks like.

Quite the collection of bloodlines.

I think it's like 3 forged bloodlines and 2 event bloodlines. I've been working on getting the latin empire bloodline back into the main branch of the family. Currently have them set up in venice as easily accessible patricians.

Francia though has been the bane of my existence this entire run. At least I can beat them with mercenary spam since I went super hard on eco a few characters back, but it's still pretty scary fighting them. Thankfully they seem to surrender after I siege down 4 provinces and beat a couple thousand men in a battle.

 

[Arnulf Floyd]

Nice empire and dynasty