Kashmir

The Dauran Empire now streatches from the city of Gao to the waters of Lake Chad. After Karbagari's death, his daughter, Tin Hinan II (named after a legendary Tuareg leader of centuries past) took the reins of the empire. She found herself in charge of a polyglot nation, rapidly developing and expanding. She also found herself meeting foreign envoys from a faraway land called Carthage. These people claimed to worship a deity known as "Thor", and claim that their faith hails from a land called Guthlid far to the North. In these envoys, she saw an opportunity. They had made it across the Sea of Sand, and if allowed to preach their esoteric religion, could help caravans from Daura reach the Northern lands to trade. As such, she ordered the construction of the city of Abalessa on the site of her namesake's toomb, on the Northern fringes of the empire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abalessa).


The city would lie on high ground, on the intersection of two Wadis (river valleys) in the northern fringes where the Niger River system fades into the dry sands. It would sit upon the Ahaggar mountains, and serve a tripple purpose. Its first purpose would be to serve as a cultural center for the Tuareg people. As a place for Tuareg nomads to come and trade, worship and settle down. Its second purpose is military: to remind the people of the Northern Fringes of Daura's imperial power, to house a garission, and to protect caravans moving across the Sahara. Its final purpose is comercial: It is to serve as the gateway to Daura for transsaharan traders, and the gateway to the North for Daurans. Part of the city is to be given to the Allfatherists, to build their temple, and build their markets and homes. In this way, the city would serve to facillitate trade locally (between Tuaregs) and internationally (between Daura and the North).

Strategically, Abalessa was brilliant. However, it became unexpectedly controversial. Mai'iyali, a Hausan priestess from Katsina (her mother's hometown, from which she had taken her name), publically declared that in supporting the Jews in Sao and the Allfatherists in Abalessa, the Dauran Empire was forsaking its ancestors, and making the same mistake as Pel Ma‘ir had made when it let the Jews in. The priestess preached that Sao collapsed because it had forsaken the faith of its ancestors, and that the Dauran empire was speedily headed in the same direction. Initially, many religious leaders supported her, and publically called for a vote in the Council of Chiefs to remove the Queen, and insert Mai'iyali as the head of state.


Tin Hinan responded by offering her remaining allies amongst Hausan and Tuareg priests a deal: If they codified their religious texts and worship, and ensured the loyalty of their religious communities, they would be granted large temples and significant funds to protect the faith of the ancestors. In exchange, they would agree to tolerate groups of outsiders like the Jews and the Allfatherists, and acknowledge that these outsiders are equal under the law, and (importantly for the Jewish tributaries on Lake Chad) have the right to govern as chiefs and sit on the council of chiefs.

In the end, many in the cleargy accepted her proposal. The Hausan and Tuareg faiths were independently codified.


The Hausan Faith was codified as the Bòòríí religion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hausa_animism). Its chief temple was built in the expanding Hausan city of Kano, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kano), upon the site of Dala Hill. Its head became a man named Barbushe, who took the position of High Priest. Mai'iyali herself accepted a position as Inna ("Priestess/Spiritual Mother"), giving her significant authority in drafting the doctrines of the codified Hausan Faith, but also preventing her from further radicalizing the faithful.

In the end, the Bòòríí was codified as the worship of numerous spirits. Tsumbubura was said to be the most powerful amongst them, and the protector of the Hausan people and Dauran state, but many other spirits were granted a place in the pantheon. The cannons of Bòòríí were written such that even foreign gods like Thor and Yahweh could be explained as spiritual protectors of faraway lands. For the average citizen, Bòòríí continued to focus on worship and veneration of ancestors. The codified religion was more than mere spirituality. It also included within it the practice of Boka, a herbal medicine, which through various uses of medicial herbs and ceremonies strived to heal illnesses and appease spirits who would otherwise seek to do harm. Barbushe did a lot to gather various tribal medical practices, and codify them. His followers would further study them, and the Temple of Kano would become both a spiritual and medical center.

The codified Tuareg faith came to be known as Maraboutism, after Marabout, the wandering preacher who would spread its word with Tin Hinan's sanction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Berber_religion. Tuaregs had always venerated the Sun and Moon, so they were made into the faith's chief gods. Berbers likewise venerated their ancestors, and this aspect was emphasized in the codified Maraboutist faith as a way of establishing commonality with the Bòòríí faith of the Hausa. The cheif temple of the Maraboutist faith was built on the site of the tomb of Tin Hinan the First, the ancient Tuareg queen from whom the current empress took her name. This was ment to solidify Abalessa's position as the center of Tuareg culture. The Maraboutist faith spread outside of Dauran territories too, into the Northern Sahara along trade routes. However, here, an odd adulteration took place. It merged with ancient Kemetist beliefs still practiced by the locals there, into a Setite Maraboutism. This Berber Cult of Set would never be practiced significantly in Dauran lands though, where the centralizing influence of Abalessa's temple, along with the distance from Egypt made it unpopular.

Instead, Tin Hinan II worked to ensure that she would be seen as a divine figure within the Tuareg pantheon, both through her efforts to restore the old leader’s tomb and build a mausoleum there, and through her patronage of Marabout the prophet.
______________________
The net result was this: The religious protection of Allfatherist and Jewish communities was enshrined in law. The power of the Jews to serve as chieftains in their Sao Cities and sit on the Council was also protected. The Alfatherists got a quarter of Abalessa to build their temple and market, to facilitate trade with the North. The rest of the city was built up as a market, Tuareg cultural center and holy site. Hausan beliefs were codified in the Temple of Kano as the Bòòríí state religion. Tuareg beliefs were codified in the much more diffuse Maraboutist faith, which was held within the Dauran state by emphasizing ancestor worship and veneration of Bayajida, Karbagari and Tin Hinan II as holy figures.
 
Diplomacy:

To Carthage: We have met the missionaries who crossed the Sea of Sand to come to us from your wonderous land, and we want to know more. Would you accept our traders in your markets? If so, then your merchants are welcome in ours.

OOC Note: I know that Carthage is not Allfatherist. IC my nation doesn't really know that though. The Allfatherists were the first large group to cross the Sahara en mass from Europe and North Africa since the Tuaregs came. The Queen is hoping that they would thus be able to guide carvans back to Carthage, facillitate trade and commerce. By the time this message gets to you on cammelback, and your response gets back to us on cammelback, the Allfatherists would already be relatively entrenched, and through the goods and ideas they brought with them, and through the valuable instructions on northern trade routes, they would already have good allies in our local merchant class. Thus, like it or not, for the Dauran people, they are the representatives of everything "North" until active efforts are made by Northern governments to mitigate this impression. Most people in Daura assume that Carthage is mostly Allfatherist. Those more in the know realize that Thor is not the dominant god there, but assume that the Allfatherists came with a degree of official sanction. This is an assumption the Allfatherists have no reason not to cultivate.
 
Yagan, the one known for being the Chief of the Gurri, one day was resting under the shade of a stone before returning back to his people after the great hunt. While there, he was contemplating life. The wind and the earth were so harmonious in unity, and the sea was calm. It was that day that the truth of Altjari would be fully given to Yangan, yet he would refuse it, instead choosing blissful ignorance for a period in his time.
A man appeared from far away. He was wearing yellow robes, and he had the head of a crocodile. It was Ginga, the spirit of the Crocodile - Man. When approached by what Yagan, along with his kin, considered brothers at the time, he paid his respect. The spirit was unfazed, instead ordering the mortal to stand and listen to the truth that the spirit's gods had revealed to him in the past.
Yagan was shocked. For him, those words were nothing more but Walujapi, the evil Black Headed Python, who was trying to turn him away from his belief in spirits and his ancestor so that he would later be punished by losing the protection the other Altjira spirits offered him and his tribe. For this, he fled from the vile spirits corruption and went back to his kinsmen.
But this is what is to be known through Yagan's story: that truth is unavoidable. A few days later, a group of monks arrived from a land far to the north. They were the first faithful, who sought to spread the truth to the native inhabitants of our lands. With them, they brought strange new fashions and tools that were quickly adopted by many of the Gurri, as they were simply better than what the tribe had at the time. Their leader tried to fight back, but it was not possible; too many had already converted. He and his clan members too later on converted. For the truth conquers all, high and low, chiefs and babies, men and women. Truth is equal and acceptive of all. For a mortal to be saved, he must accept the Truth. And then the Truth will save him.
Click to expand...

As such read the holy scripts of the Sisterhood in Maka.
 
Ilmenian Veche in the early second half of the VII century

- Voyeslava and the rise of the Kazyonnoye voysko:

While the Scythian Peryton Empire was still in the process of disintegrating, Ilmenian Veche was already preparing to protect its independence. Some commoners believed that the Scythian nobility and the Peryton King himself were intentionally showing their weakness in order to let all potential troublemakers and independence fighters show their true intentions; that, people said, would’ve made it easier for the King to cleanse the steppes from all rebellious elements. Yet, as time kept passing, more encouraging news started to come from the south. It was said that a Wendish Knyaz' (Prince) named Mezamir had slaughtered the Scythian royal family and had gone as far as crowning himself as Xsaya. Yet, after a brief celebration of newly gained independence there came a time of sobering realization: nobody but themselves could protect the Ilmenian Slovenes from outsiders. It was that somewhat paranoid idea that put the Veche into the path of long-needed military reforms.

Under the rule of Scythian Xsayas the Ilmenian Slovenes mostly supplied the Scythian military with cavalry as it was required by law. The tradition of infantry warfare was still strong in Ilmenian lands due to their harsh climate and forested terrain, but Scythian lordship created an unusual tilt toward cavalry that survived until mid-VII century. With old recruiting laws being abandoned, though, an opportunity arose for developing an army that would be perfectly suited for protecting Ilmenian lands. And the person to drive that reform was to be a woman.


Voyeslava Kalevna (“Voyeslava, daughter of Kalev” in Old Russian), also known to the contemporaries as the Yemian Hag, was a descendant of a Slavicized Finnish family from the tribe of Yem’. Incorporation of Ilmenian and Suomi lands into the larger Scythian Empire, strangely enough, opened a new career opportunity for Finnish and Slavic women, namely military career. Like majority of steppe nomads, the Scythians had preserved the tradition of women serving in the army alongside men, and Voyeslava was quick to realize that it was her way up to a higher social status. While the 19th century romanticists liked to portray her as a beautiful Amazon, Voyeslava was a rather stout, muscular woman who, as legends have it, was quite dangerous not only with her bow, but also with a mace. Recent archeological findings of her armor support that accounts and draw a picture of an rough old lady that was well in her fifties by the time the collapse of the Peryton Empire took away her main source of living.

Yet, by then Voyeslava had quite a reputation as an experienced military commander, so it’s no wonder she quickly became the first candidate to the position of Ilmenian Posadnik. The legend has it that, when the soviet gospod first introduced her candidacy to the Novogorodian veche, the gathered men tried to boo the “old hag” out of the square. When the council of lords was about to withdraw their proposal and look into other candidates, Voyeslava challenged any man from the crowd to a fistfight. The legend claims that the stocky old lady knocked out cold three men in a row – a tiller, a rower, and a blacksmith, - before the veche changed its opinion and hailed her as the new Posadnik. While historians doubt the realism of that story, they’re sure it represents the backlash Voyeslava’s figure had to face during her service as a Posadnik.

One way or another, the Yemskaya Babka (“the Yemian Hag” in Old Russian) became the first head of Ilmeno-Slovene military, and she is also claimed to be the driving will behind the reform of the Ilmenian army service in the late VII century.

Voyeslava was quite skeptical of the composition of Ilmenian troops. From the decades of Scythian service, the Veche had inherited a large cavalry force, consisting of and supplied by mostly noble land-owners and rich merchants. The infantry branch was extremely under-developed, consisting of only small contingents of opolcheniye (peasant militia) and sobornaya rat’ (urban levy). That army could be quite useful in steppe warfare, yet it was almost completely inadequate in protecting the swamps and forests around the Lake Il’men’, especially considering the fact, that cavalry required quite a lot of fodder, which could be extremely scarce in that region, especially in winter.

That defined the direction of Voyeslava’s military reforms. Her first step was adding a new element to the existing system of recruitment. She made it so that any free Ilmeno-Slovene person (man or a woman) that owned a certain big amount of property was obliged to serve to his land at least a portion of each year. However, such people could exempt themselves from military service if they hired three fully equipped and trained foot soldiers and offered their service to the state instead. Needless to say, vast majority of moneylenders, traders, landowners, and other types of businessmen happily opted-in for the second option. Troops raised through that means became known as the Kazyonnoye voysko, and people serving in them were called “kazantsy” (sing. “kazanets”). That name originates from the word “kazna” (“coffers” or “treasury”), because they were paid and supplied from the rich people’s own coffers.


With the infantry branch of Ilmeno-Slovene military properly extended, Voyeslava went on reforming the military doctrine as well. Being a good logistician, the Yemian Hag quickly recognized the importance of numerous local rivers as supply and communication routes, especially in the land that lacked any well-maintained roads. In summer, late spring, and early fall they could be used to quickly outrun a retreating enemy or to quickly concentrate a superior force against an isolated enemy unit. In prolonged campaigns rivers could be also used to cheaply supply Ilmenian forces from any city. It was especially important if the Ilmenian Slovenes wanted to preserve a cavalry advantage over their enemies: after all, oats could be delivered for horses by waterways in a matter of days, while the enemy would be unable to forage enough fodder for their horses in these forested lands and would have to rely on delivering it by land from the south, which would surely affect the effective strength of their cavalry.

Another innovative change in Ilmenian military tradition was introduction of winter campaigning. In the most of the Northern Hemisphere, winter was the time when even the bloodiest campaigns were put to a stop, and levies were sent to their homes, while regular retinues waited it out in winter quarters. However, Ilmenian economy was mostly driven not by agriculture, but trade, forestry, and trapping, so the country could easily afford keeping its army in the field through winter period. Majority of Ilmenian Slovenes were already quite familiar with forest survival skills, but military application of that knowledge was developed only in the VII century. First of all, in winter season all rivers, swamps, and lakes of the region were ice-bound, which, on the one hand, made sailing impossible, but at the same time turned rivers into perfect analog of roads. With cavalry riding along the shoreline, where the ice is the thickest, and the lighter troops marching along the middle of the river, Ilmenian army now could easily cover huge distances and surprise “hibernating” enemy in his camp. Secondly, while Voyeslava clearly was not the first person to introduce skies and sleds to warfare (they had been used by Finnish and Russian tribes in hunting and transportation for centuries before that), she was clearly the first one to make them a regular part of Ilmeno-Slovene military equipment. Lyzhy (“skies”) and sani (“horse-driven sleds”) provided unique advantages to Ilmenian infantry in terms of maneuver, supply, and simply survival in winter season.

- Establishment of Inozemskaya Sloboda:

The collapse of Scythia, while being celebrated in newly-emerged nations, was a true tragedy for the Scythians themselves. After several centuries of unceasing expansionism ethnic Scythians were but a thin upper stratum in the multi-national structure of the giant Empire. Yet, many other ethnicities, particularly in the core of the Scythian land in northern Cimmeria were heavily Scythicized and could enjoy a great deal of privilege in the Peryton Kings’ domain. It is these tribes and strata that became the main target of numerous pogroms and massacres when the power of Xsayas declined. Unwelcome in their own land and especially in the periphery of the Empire, many were escaping their doom to foreign lands, selling off their property and taking their gold with them, while more stubborn of them vanished in the bloody civil war.

Upon the day of Ilmenian independence, Scythian-speaking nobility still formed a good quarter of Ilmeno-Slovene political elite. As a new order was emerging in the Black Sea Steppes and Eastern Europe, an exodus started to take place, with a lot of Scythian-speakers leaving Ilmenian land for Western Europe, Balkans, and Anatolia. That withdrawal of human resources wasn’t of much concern for the Veche, but it was a source of worry for the soviet gospod as the business elite saw it as a loss of a huge wealth for the nation.


The most vocal critic of that development was a member of the Council of Lords Putyata Yegupovich (Putyata, son of Yegup), a prominent honey trader from the city of Ladoga. Having made a fortune on supplying the demand of Ilmenian grandees for Westrn-European and Middle-Eastern luxury, Putyata knew all too well that the Scythian emigration could disrupt his business and damage the profits of the state. With this realization, he had no other choice but try and sway the veche’s support in favor of new policy of national and religious toleration.

Not much is known about the details of the political struggle Putyata Yegupovich had to pass through, but modern historians agree that it’s not a coincidence that the first legation quarter (or “Inozemskaya Sloboda”) established in the city of Novogorod became known as Putyata’s Quarter (“Putyatova Sloboda”). Originally, Putyata’s Quarter was just a small underdeveloped part of town, where Scythians were allowed to follow their civil code, practice their religion, and even use old Scythian money, given that they could pay the city for the “lease” of the land. In addition, foreign traders could enjoy a great deal of tax cuts if they were to establish permanent trade posts in Putyatova Sloboda.

The experiment proved to be successful, and soon all big Ilmeno-Slovene cities, such as Izhorsk, Pskov, Ladoga, Russa, and Beloozero, had their own Scythian legation quarters. As more merchants from other lands were passing though Ilmenian lands, other national quarters started to appear: Vseotsovskaya Sloboda (Allfatherist Quarter) in Pskov, Ognepoklonnaya Sloboda (Fire-Worshippers’ Quarter) in Novogorod, and Samoyedskaya Sloboda (Samojardian Quarter) in Ladoga.

- The Route from the Varangians to the Greeks:

One credit can never be taken away from the Scythians: they were the first ones to recognize the importance of great Eastern European rivers as trade routes. However, with the collapse of the Peryton Empire the network of canals, trade posts, and supply depots was abandoned and sometimes severely damaged during years of endemic warfare. And it was that network that Putyata Egupovich decided to reclaim in 668.

By then, Putyata was the most influential member of the soviet gospod, having capitalized on the success of the establishment of legation quarters. Upon receiving Veche’s permission, he lead an embassy to the newly-proclaimed Xsaya of the Wendish Empire, a warlord known as Mezamir.

The embassy was a complete success. Distracted by the Dacian invasion, Mezamir hurried to agree to the Ilmenian proposal, given the fact that Ilmenian Slovenes promised to fully fund the repair of infrastructure and offered to pay up to quarter of their trade income to the Wendish Xsaya.


Revival of Volga-Dnieper-Kama trade was a slow and gradual process, but it made the Volga and the Dnieper river valleys known among traders as the Land of Towns, since every several hundred miles along the flow of the river a merchant could expect to stop at a small trade post looking over the riverbank and bustling with life.

- Reclamation of the Vod’ and the Chud’ lands:

Baltic tribes of Votes and Chudes populating the territory of modern Estonia were known to Ilmenian Slovenes as the Vod’ and the Chud’. For almost a century these ethnicities had been half-independent tributaries of the Scythian King, but the collapse of the Scythian Empire had cut many useful ties between the Veche and these barbaric people. However, it was about to change during the employment of Posadnik Rodogost the White-Eyed.


Rodogost was the third Posadnik to hold the office after the vacation of Voyeslava Kalevna. By the time that grizzly Ilmenian mercenary became the employee of the state, Voyeslava’s reforms were most likely in their final stage and the Kazyonnoye Voysko was well-established.

While kazantsy men-at-arms were a great addition to the Ilmenian military, they also involuntarily created a strange new vector in the Veche politics. Since Kazyonnoye Voysko was being paid for by Ilmenian merchants and grandees, the latter ones saw it as their natural right to demand from the state that the army they helped to raise doesn’t just consume money for no gain. Naturally, a new merchant lobby was created in the soviet gospod, arguing that the Kazyonnoye Voysko should be used primarily in expansion of Ilmenian trade. While a number of short-serving Posadniks managed to keep the lobbyists at bay (probably, at the cost of their employment), Rodogost the White-Eyed was a man of much more flexible morals and adventurous nature. He was quick to propose a plan of a colonial campaign in the southern and eastern shore of the Finnish Gulf. If these lands could be brought to the Veche’s reach, they could become an important gateway in extending the Volga-Dnieper trade from the Pontus to the Baltic.

In 664, the Reclamation of the Chud’ and Vod’ lands began. It was carried out mostly by the Kazyonnoye Voysko, supported by detachments of the Pskovian druzhina cavalry. The first stage of Rodogost’s campaign was rather humble: it aimed at taking full control of the Neva River estuary and establishment of a fortified port named Koporye on the eastern shore of the Finnish Gulf. The second stage of the plan was peaceful annexation through trade or conquest through colonial warfare of the lands of modern Estonia, including the Saaremaa island. While the rest of Ilmenian army was concentrated on protecting the core of Ilmenian land, Rodogost’s division was expected to be more than enough for protecting Veche’s colonial efforts.

Finally, the third, and most ambitious stage targeted the whole Eastern Baltic shore as the grand prize for the Veche. While that part of the plan was vulnerable to various contingencies, such as resistance of local tribes or potential conflict with other Baltic powers, it was still a desired goal of the ambitious and ruthless Posadnik.
 
Unfortunately, this update most likely isn't coming.

Simply put, I've just made too many mistakes with this game to feel like I can continue. The mechanics themselves were somewhat broken to begin with - I tried to mesh together BT and IT in a way that I later on realized didn't make a ton of sense nor really worked that well for turns of this length. Let's just say that military affairs are neither my favourite nor my strongest part of modding, and handling it the way I did was probably my biggest mistake. And without going into detail, some of the decisions I made during the game itself were extremely poor judgement on my end. For the record, I don't blame any one of you for this, only myself.

I thought I could just keep going, and shake those mistakes. But I can't. I've pissed too many people off, and if I keep going like I am right now, that's only going to continue. To those of you whom this applies to, consider this an apology for what I did. If I'm getting people annoyed at me by just modding as I am, then I'm certainly doing something wrong. And every time that happens, it cuts on my motivation. And it happened enough times that the game just didn't become fun for me to do anymore. I found yesterday that I just wanted to watch Netflix or play video games than work on the updates. I thought it was just temporary, but it wasn't.

It won't help that, even if I had continued, there would have been this update and then the next - and beyond that, I can't be sure. I'm going to be traveling a lot in part of July and most of August, and after that I have to get settled in university. This would have undoubtedly gone on hiatus, and we all know well what those do to games.

I'm really, really sorry to all those of you who contributed and still held interest in this game. I assure you I greatly loved reading each and every one of your contributions, and the one thing I had the absolute most fun doing - more than really anything I've ever done in a NES or IOT - was creating the starting scenario for this world, and the cultural and religious details that took up the background. I'd like to specifically thomas.berubeg as someone who contributed immensely, and someone I completely enjoyed talking about this game with, right until the very end.

This is certainly not my last game. I do have some idea of what I want to do next, and I promise it'll be better than this, and something that I won't screw up. But that won't come for another few months.
 
I don't know. The game was a lot of fun for me to follow, and it's sad that my faction hasn't seen real action. Still, thanks for the game, SK.
 
Thanks for the game, it was fun for me. Good luck with university!
 
RIP. This was my favorite alive IOT/NES. :sad:

Anyway, good luck with your University. :D
 
Thanks for the game SK, I really enjoyed it! Also, good luck with University!
 
Also thank you.
 
Thank you for all your work.

Would it be possible to continue with the setting as it is now in a future IOT with a whole new ruleset? I had a great time seeing this world evolving, watching empires rise and fall and it would be amazing to continue this journey.
 
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