Timothy Ferguson's Blog, page 79

In Mythic Sicily, you need to know how to use your fists

Coat of arms of Sicily (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Most magi, when they head out into the world, take shield grogs with them. The average shield grog has light armor and inexpensive weapons, but some go further. The point man may be sheathed in metal, to soak up damage. No-one calls them on this, because in most places, a nobleman’s retinue dresses and acts like this. If anything, they are a bit lightly armoured.

This is interfering with the mundanes in Sicily.

By decree of the Emporer no-one in Siciiy is allowed to carry weapons. This includes “sharp knives” of the sort ususally carried as tools and cutlery in other places. Even his own retainers are forbidden from wearing armour outside his fortresses: they need special permission, which is rarely given.

If you kit up in Sicily, then you are treated like a man who is walking through a mall with a machine gun. The people with the legal obligations to maintain the monopoly of force turn up, and they are the direct, selected representatives of the Emporer. There’s no convoluted chain of feudal obligation here: the guy in charge of your area is a direct, selected representative of Frederick II.

So, a character in Sicily either needs a way to hide their gear, using magic, or to make havoc with whatever’s close to hand. This means that the Brawl skill, which is a sort of emergency spare in most campaigns, is a vital skill in Mythic Sicily. It’s the skill you use when you grab a nearby tool as a makeshift weapon.

How do shield grogs work when they don’t have armor? Against other humans, quite well, because most of them don’t have armor either. People are all sort of squishy, and you do the best you can with leathers. Against monsters? Things are tricky. You need to find ways of hiding gear, or getting out of the way of attacks.

Will Sicily become the home of whatever passes for martial artists in the Order? After a few generations, wouldn’t your covenant think that high-level Brawl training was a good idea?

Ars Magica note: folk magical ritual

Again, from Machen’s The White People:

So when once everybody had come, there was no door at all for anybody else to pass in by. And when they were all inside, round in a ring, touching each other, some one began to sing in the darkness, and some one else would make a noise like thunder with a thing they had on purpose, and on still nights people would hear the thundering noise far, far away beyond the wild land, and some of them, who thought they knew what it was, used to make a sign on their breasts when they woke up in their beds at dead of night and heard that terrible deep noise, like thunder on the mountains. And the noise and the singing would go on and on for a long time, and the people who were in a ring swayed a little to and fro; and the song was in an old, old language that nobody knows now, and the tune was queer. Nurse said her great-grandmother had known some one who remembered a little of it, when she was quite a little girl, and nurse tried to sing some of it to me, and it was so strange a tune that I turned all cold and my flesh crept as if I had put my hand on something dead. Sometimes it was a man that sang and sometimes it was a woman, and sometimes the one who sang it did it so well that two or three of the people who were there fell to the ground shrieking and tearing with their hands. The singing went on, and the people in the ring kept swaying to and fro for a long time, and at last the moon would rise over a place they called the Tole Deol, and came up and showed them swinging and swaying from side to side, with the sweet thick smoke curling up from the burning coals, and floating in circles all around them. Then they had their supper. A boy and a girl brought it to them; the boy carried a great cup of wine, and the girl carried a cake of bread, and they passed the bread and the wine round and round, but they tasted quite different from common bread and common wine, and changed everybody that tasted them. Then they all rose up and danced, and secret things were brought out of some hiding place, and they played extraordinary games, and danced round and round and round in the moonlight, and sometimes people would suddenly disappear and never be heard of afterwards, and nobody knew what had happened to them. And they drank more of that curious wine, and they made images and worshipped them, and nurse showed me how the images were made one day when we were out for a walk, and we passed by a place where there was a lot of wet clay.

Ars Magica note: a folk charm against the fae, from Arthur Machen’s “The White People”.

Further notes from The White People by Arthur Machen: an example of a folk charm against faeries.

I could not see any stones or flowers, but I was afraid of bringing them away without knowing, and I thought I would do a charm[137] that came into my head to keep the black man away. So I stood right in the very middle of the hollow, and I made sure that I had none of those things on me, and then I walked round the place, and touched my eyes, and my lips, and my hair in a peculiar manner, and whispered some queer words that nurse taught me to keep bad things away. Then I felt safe and climbed up out of the hollow, and went on through all those mounds and hollows and walls, till I came to the end, which was high above all the rest, and I could see that all the different shapes of the earth were arranged in patterns…

First set of Sicily notes

Description: Topography of Sicily, created with GMT 4.1.3 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve been working on some Sicilian material. based on a biography by an author named van Cleve.  My notes are on a separate page.

I’ve been transcribing these notes for a month or so, but I’ve been stuck on the last chapter for ages.  My plan, rather than continuing to plod through the pages and then release them all at once is to make these partial notes public, and then to work up sections as plot hooks.  When I have more time, I’ll finish moving the notations for the final chapter.

After these notes are digested and the rest are added, I’ll then move to the next book. This set of notes desperately needs some geographical anchor, so I’ll likely grab Lonely Planet Sicily and shake it down.

(A quick look at the notes gives me my first interesting plot point: in Sicilian campaigns Brawl is way more important than anywhere else.)

Ars Magica note: are some people blind to all faerie glamours?

This is a a brief tale of faerie that inverts some of the usual tropes, from Arthur Machen’s The White People (via Project Gutenberg). I’ll be posting another four excerpts from this book, over the next month. Machen’s narrator is a sixteen year old, writing in a journal.

 It reminded me of a tale my nurse had told me when I was quite little; it was the same nurse that took me into the wood where I saw the beautiful white people. And I remembered how nurse had told me the story one winter night, when the wind was beating the trees against the wall, and crying and moaning in the nursery chimney. She said there was, somewhere or other, a hollow pit, just like the one I was standing in, everybody was afraid to go into it or near it, it was such a bad place. But once upon a time there was a poor girl who said she would go into the hollow pit, and everybody tried to stop her, but she would go. And she went down into the pit and came back laughing, and said there was nothing there at all, except green grass and red stones, and white stones and yellow flowers. And soon after people saw she had most beautiful emerald earrings, and they asked how she got them, as she and her mother were quite poor. But she laughed, and said her earrings were not made of emeralds at all, but only of green grass. Then, one day, she wore on her breast the reddest ruby that any one had ever seen, and it was as big as a hen’s egg, and glowed and sparkled like a hot burning coal of fire. And they asked how she got it, as she and her mother were quite poor. But she laughed, and said it was not a ruby at all, but only a red stone. Then one day she wore round her neck the loveliest necklace that any one had ever seen, much finer than the queen’s finest, and it was made of great bright diamonds, hundreds of them, and they shone like all the stars on a night in June. So they asked her how she got it, as she and her mother were quite poor. But she laughed, and said they were not diamonds at all, but only white stones. And one day she went to the Court, and she wore on her head a crown of pure angel-gold, so nurse said, and it shone like the sun, and it was much more splendid than the crown the king was wearing himself, and in her ears she wore the emeralds, and the big ruby was the brooch on her breast, and the great diamond necklace was sparkling on her neck. And the king and queen thought she was some great princess from a long way off, and got down from their thrones and went to meet her, but somebody told the king and queen who she was, and that she was quite poor. So the king asked why she wore a gold crown, and how she got it, as she and her mother were so poor. And she laughed, and said it wasn’t a gold crown at all, but only some yellow flowers she had put in her hair. And the king thought it was very[136] strange, and said she should stay at the Court, and they would see what would happen next. And she was so lovely that everybody said that her eyes were greener than the emeralds, that her lips were redder than the ruby, that her skin was whiter than the diamonds, and that her hair was brighter than the golden crown. So the king’s son said he would marry her, and the king said he might. And the bishop married them, and there was a great supper, and afterwards the king’s son went to his wife’s room. But just when he had his hand on the door, he saw a tall, black man, with a dreadful face, standing in front of the door, and a voice said—

Venture not upon your life,

This is mine own wedded wife.

Then the king’s son fell down on the ground in a fit. And they came and tried to get into the room, but they couldn’t, and they hacked at the door with hatchets, but the wood had turned hard as iron, and at last everybody ran away, they were so frightened at the screaming and laughing and shrieking and crying that came out of the room. But next day they went in, and found there was nothing in the room but thick black smoke, because the black man had come and taken her away. And on the bed there were two knots of faded grass and a red stone, and some white stones, and some faded yellow flowers.

So, this character cannot see faerie gifts, indeed she sees through their glamor to such a degree that she doesn’t seem to comprehend the faerie form of the item. How then, did she marry the dark man? Perhaps a symbolic act that she could not understand the consequences of, due to her inability to see glamoured things?

Intaglios

Have you ever kept reminding yourself to do something, and then realised, after the day is over, that you forgot it entirely? This happens to one of the knights at the Grail Castle. People keep saying to him “Don’t forget to ask the question!” and three times he says to them “Sure, I’ll ask him what ails him. I promise” and then at the moment he sees the Grail King the question flees his mind and afterward he feels like a bit of a dill.

That’s how I feel about intagilos. I kept saying to myself “You should put that in Land Beyond the Forest” and I’d say to myself “Sure, I will.” and then I was reading my author’s copy of Against the Dark and thought “Oh. I forgot them.”

So, an intaglio is an inscribed gemstone, used as a seal in Roman times. The same term is also used for a printing method. In this method the desired image is carved into a surface to which ink is applied and then wiped away, so that only the incisions hold the dye. The print surface is then pressed on the top.

Now, the reason I wanted to include intaglios in Against the Dark is this: Ars in second edition used the word “sigil” for three different things, and I was hoping to fix it.

A sigil, in 2nd edition was:

* the distinct signature in a magus’s magic.

* the sign of their right to vote.

* the sign a covenant uses to mark its property, and so that its servants can tell friend from enemy in skirmishes.

Now in Covenants: Revised we killed that last one: I believe a covenant’s people now wear a design we call a “badge”, which in Latin is presumably an “insigne” (insignia being the plural in Latin, although it’s now considered singular in English).

That just leaves us with the sigil (Latin: sigilum) for the magus’s token of voting right, and peculiar magical mark. Sigil actually works well here as a word, because it means both a sign and a thing that makes the sign, like the word “seal” in English, which is both the wafer of wax and the thing you press against it. That flexibility as a word makes it a problem as a game term, though.In English is you say “What”s the Duke of Cumberland’s seal?” If I answer you “It’s a large bee over six stars.” it doesn’t matter if I mean the thing that makes the impression in the wax or the impression it makes.

Now, my idea was that the terms would be as follows:

“sigil” refers to the distinctive mark within a magus’s spells
“intaglio” is the name for the item a magus carries to show the right to vote. This would mean that Tremere had the “No Intaglio” Flaw for example.
“insigne” (badge) is the term for the ownership mark of covenants (or oppida, in this case).

So, what do people think?  Am I right that the Tremere or Guernicus would have come up with a second term pretty sharpish when they kept getting the various sigils confused in conversation?  Should intaglio and sigil refer to the opposite thing? Is the mark on a magus’s spell made by a process of vim flowing over the magus’s soul, like ink on a printing block?

 

 

A quick note

So, the blog has been a little quiet (I’ve been off doing Coursera) but there’s some material upcoming:

My Sicily notes.  These really are notes: they are some of the raw material out of which I’ll later build story hooks and paragraphs of text. I need more, particularly geography, but we’ll see how far this book takes us first.

Extracts from Arthur Machen: The White People was one of the inspirations for Lovecraft, and five extracts in particular are useful for Ars Magica. Actually, there’s a sixth based around being spirited away by a woman in the shape of a stag, but it’s so similar to what we’ve done in the books I’ll be skipping it. So – one post from Machen a week, starting the first week of May.

Beating up clowns – an Ars Magica note.

English: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor in L’art de la chace des oisiaus (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In 1221, Frederick II, the Holy Roman Emperor, passed a law that said in his kingdom of Sicily, no-one was ever to be charged for robbing, or beating up, buffoons and jesters. The laws passed at the time also included the punishment of gamblers who took the name of God in vain, the demand that Jews wear distinctive clothing and rules for controlling the movement of prostitutes.

Why he decided that it was worth his royal time to encourage people to beat up clowns is unclear, but according to van Cleve in his biography of Frederick II, it was a reflection of official Church policy. It was thought that the many humourous songs at the expense of the clergy demeaned the Church, and that the best way to fix this was to allow humourists to be randomly beaten up.

Transylvanian Tribunal Timeline

I wrote a timeline for the Tribunal book, but asked for it to be cut, because it was taking up space that could be used for ideas set in 1220. Here it is, for your covenant’s deep history, or play in non-standard time periods.  You’ll notice it contains primarily Hungarian material. If it also contained Serbian, Greek and Bulgarian material, it would have been a chapter of itself.

The history of the Transylvanian Tribunal is intimately tied to the history of the Greek empire to the south. The Empire had, with brief exceptions, been ruled unsoundly for centuries. Apportioning blame for the final series of civil wars, as some magi do, merely masks the fundamental flaws in the Empire as an economy and machine of government. The Crusaders would never have been able to take Constantinople if it had been ruled well.

14: Romans conquer Transdanubia, and name it Pannonia

106: Romans conquer Dacia.

271 Romans withdraw from Dacia and make defensive fortifications along the Danube, to keep out Germanic tribes.

430: Atilla the Hun uses the Carpathian basin as his base for attacks on Constantinople and Italy. His son leaves the Szelkers behind when he retreats to Asia.

567: The Avars invade the Carpathian basin.

626: Carpathian Avars, in alliance with the Sassanids, almost take Constantinople.

800s: The Slavs migrate into the Carpathian Basin.

862: The Hungarians first appear, assailing the Eastern Franks.

894: The Hungarians, under Árpád, conquer and colonise the Carpathian Basin. This was likely at the request of the Empire, which was at that time facing a Bulgar-Moravian (Vlakh) alliance, but may have been in response to the Pecheng invasion of their homelands.

907: Árpad dies and is buried near Buda.

910 Hungarians defeat Louis IV, and for the next forty-five years they terrorise the German lands. They raid as far east as Lerida in Iberia, launching heavy raids against Burgundy and Italy twice and extorting tribune from many surrounding states.

952: The Gyula of Transylvania is baptised, seeking closer ties to the Empire, to aid against the Bulgars. The Patriarch sends a bishop to “Turkia”

955: Hungarians suffer catastrophic loss at Ausburg, and cease relentless raiding westward.

972: King Geza of Hungary has himself and hundreds of “nobler” Hungarians baptised. The pope sends a bishop to the Hungarians.

996: King Geza of the Hungarians reaches out to the West, coming to peace with his last enemy (Henry II of Bavaria) through a mixture of marriages and treaties. This sets the border of Hungary, to the west, at the rivers Morava and Lietha.

998: King Stephen of Hungary defeats a revolt against his rule by Koppány. He has Koppant’s corpse quartered, and hung on the battlements of Veszprém, Györ and Esztergorm. The last quarter was sent to the Gyula of Transylvania as a warning.

1000: Stephen of Hungary, later Saint, is granted the crown of Hungary by the Pope.

1003: Stephen invades Transylvania, and appoints a new ruler, but pardons the old one, who retains his place in the Hungarian elite.

1046: Massacre of Christians in Hungary by pagans, during succession unrest.

1061: Bela of Hungary is approached by a mob, who identify themselves as pagans and ask for his permission to stone and impale all the priests in the land. He asks for three days to consider it, and during that time gathers an army, which he uses to put down the pagans, effectively ending paganism in Hungary.

1063: After a brief war, King Solomon takes control of Hungary. (Solomonari link?)

1074: King Geza deposes King Solomon, who flees to Poland with the treasury.

1077: King Gexa is succeeded by his brother Ladislaus I, later Saint.

1095: Invading Cumans are aided against the Empire by a Vlakh rebellion, but this is defeated by the Empire’s greater forces.

1018: Basileois II Boulgaroktonos subdues the Bulgars and incorporates their territory into the Empire.

1018: St Stephen open his land to pilgrims, and opens a hostelry in Jerusalem. A covenant based on this tourist income could date from this time.

1041: The final defeat of the Pechengs by the Byzantines. Pechengs settle down in Transylvania.

1046: Vata instigated pagan uprising in Hungary. “Shaved his hair leaving only three braids, and his followers began to eat horsemeat.”

1075: King Demetrius Zvonimir of Croatia is granted a crown by the Pope, and his land is declared a Papal fief.

1090: Ladislaus found bishopric at Zagreb, consolodating his control of Slovonia.

1091: King Demetrius of Croatia dies, and his brother in law, Ladislaus of Hungary, claims his lands. He grants them to his nephew Álmos, which causes trouble with the Pope.

1091: Last serious raid from the east against Hungary, from here on, Hungary is raiding its neighbors, not being raided by them.

1095: Ladislaus dies and his nephew Coloman the Learned, comes to power. He was “half blind, hunchbacked, lame and stammering” and meant for the priesthood. His brother, Álmos of Croatia, rebelled against him five times, and eventually wore him down. Coloman had him and his son (future Béla II) blinded. Álmos was the first Hungarian to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem (c1107).

1096 – First waves of crusaders march through Hungary. Those well behaved are allowed to go on, while some pillaging groups are defeated by King Coloman. He keeps Baldwin, future king of Jerusalem, hostage for a time, to the good behaviour of his brother’s forces.

1100 – By this time the urbanisation of the western countries has eroded Byzantium’s economic advantages, and with this its military advantages.

The policy of the Komnenoi emperors was to retake the western Empire, and this was an expensive endeavour. This required high taxation, which caused civil unrest and fuelled bureaucratic corruption. The use of mercenaries degrades the professionalism of the army. Naval power, and commercial naval strength, are neglected and gradually eclipsed by the Venetians. Society feudalises, so central control becomes limited.

1100s: Cuman raids in the area between Brasov and Forgaras devastate the area.

1102: King Coloman has himself crowned King of Croatia, but Croatia is retained as a separate domain to Hungary, with varying laws and customs.

1116: Coloman dies, his son Stephen is basically ineffective, although he does get Dalmatia back from the Venetians, who invaded when his father died. He raids his neighbours every year, but makes few other territorial gains.

1128: When it becomes obvious he cannot have an heir of his body, and that his blinded cousin is still alive, kept secretly in a Hungarian monastery, King Stephen II of Hungary restores him and names him heir. He marries him to Helene, the daughter of the Grand Zupan of Serbia.

1131: Stephen of Hungary dies and Helene of Serbia, the wife of his heir, convenes a royal council and massacres those she holds responsible for her husband’s childhood blinding, or Coloman faction loyalists. They seek the aid of Boris, the son of Colomon’s second wife, who had been sent back to Kiev when Colomon discovered she was having an affair. He invades, but fails to take the kingdom, although he hangs around in local politics for decades. Bela dies young, likely of alcoholism, and his son is crowned under the regency of a Serbian unlce, who spedns a lot of time fighting off Boris.

1140s: The Hungarians form alliances with the enemies of the Holy Roman Emperor and the Byzantine Emperor, and intervene in Russia, but over time this wear out their economy and divides the ruling class.

1150: Saxons begin to settle in Transylvania and Spis.

1159: The Hungarians chose the Papal side in the dispute between the pope and the Emperor. Archbishop Luke of Esztergorm likely responsible for this.

1162: The king of Hungary dies and his son, Stephen III, is forced into exile by his uncles (who are Byzantine proxies) who crown first Ladislus II and then Stephen IV as king. Luke of Esz refuses and so is imprisoned, and the other archbishop does the job.

1163: The Byzantine puppet government is so unpopular that Stephen II is able to return and defeat Stephen IV, reclaiming the throne. Stephen allows the Byzantine emporer, Manuel, to take his brother Béla as hostage, in exchange for recognising his claims in Croatia and Dalmatia. Manuel who has no son, renames Bela Alexius, betrothes him to his own daughter and proclaims him his heir. He then asks for Bela’s duchy, Dalmatia, and is not given it, which leads to war that lasts until 1167.

1169: Manuel has a son, and withdrawls all of the priveledges offered Bela, including betrothal to his daughter, marrying him instead to the daughter of the Prince of Antioch.

1172: Stephen dies, Bela returns home, and Luke refuses to crown him, because he thinks he’s Orthodox. The other archbishop does it, and the pope sends Luke a letter of rebuke.

1180: Kulin appointed Ban of Bosnia by Manuel of Byzantium

Manuel of Byzantium dies, and the Empire ceases to press its neighbors.

1182: Bela of Hungary takes back Dalmatia and Srem and raids the Balkans.

1185: A year of grave crisis for the Greek Empire. The Hungarians raid the Balkans, and capture the town of Sredec, pillaging it. The Serbs revolt, seeking independence. The Normans take Thessalonica, the second largest city in the Empire, and march on the capital. The people of Constantinople revolt and depose the Emperor. The new Emperor, Isaakos II, sends his general Alexious Branas, against the Normans, and they retake most of the lost territory. Isaakos II then marries the ten year old daughter of the King of Hungary, accepting back some of the territory taken by the Hungarians as her dowry. He levies special taxes to pay for his marriage, which are deeply unpopular.

1185 (or 1186) Two brothers, Peter and Asen, approach the Emperor while he is in Kipsella (Ipsala) and ask him to register them in his army, and grant an imperial edict granting them a small piece of land. He refuses. Asen expresses his annoyance, and a courtier mocks him and slaps him in the face.

1186: The brothers are unable to get their people to rise against the Empire. They build a chapel to Saint Demetrios and fill it with possession sufferers, who are then gripped by an ecstatic spirit and say that St Demetrios has abandoned the Empire and chosen the brothers’ cause. God has granted freedom to the Bulgars and Vlakhs. Peter is crowned king, but his forces are defeated and the brothers flee over the Danube to the Cumans. The Emperor raids the country, but does not fortify it.

1186: Stephen Nemanja invades Doclea, and destroys the Greek aristocracy of the area.

1187: The Cumans, Vlakhs and Bulgars raid Byzantine territory. A Byzantine army is sent, but its leadership changes twice in quick succession, leaving Alexious Branas in charge. He rebels, aided by Cuman warriors, but is defeated by the Emperor.

Emporer Isaakos marches twice against the Cumans, and claims victory each time in the sense that he holds the field after the battle, but his secretary records that the horse-archers kept slipping through his fingers at these battles, and harassing the countryside regardless of their losses.

1187: Stephen Nemanja besieges Ragusa. He fails to take it by force, but wins it, with many conditions, by a negotiated settlement after the siege.

1188: Isaakos captures the wife of Asen and his younger brother, Kaloyan. He takes them to Constantinople as hostages. Kaloyan decides he likes Constantinople so much he wants to own it.

1188: Bela of Hungary invades Gallica and has his son. Andrew, proclaimed Duke. His destruction of Orthodox churches enrages his subjects, who cast him out after less than two years. Once he becomes king, he spends a lot of time intervening here.

1189: The royal palace at Eztergorm is rebuilt in the Gothic style by French masons, and is considered rather flash.

1189-90 The crusading forces of Frederick I march through the war zone. Peter offers him 40 000 Cuman auxiliaries if he wishes to attack the Byzantines, but Fredrick declines. He stops for hospitality at Stephan Nemanja’s capital, at Nis, who offers him 20 000 troops if he decides to attack the Byzantines. The Byzantines offer him aid if he’d like to attack the Bulgars, but he declines. They then block his passage and begin raiding his army, so he decides to invade Constantinople. A peace settlement is, however, hastily concluded. The Serbs take the opportunity to capture all of the towns around Giges, a covenant in the Theban Tribunal.

1190: Byzantine punitive raids increasingly ineffective. Serbs rebel. Grand Zupan Stefan Nemanja destroys Skoplje. Emperor Isaakos defeats the Serbs, then campaigns to the River Save, where he personally meets King Bella II of Hungary, his ally.

1191-1195: The war grinds on, generally badly for the Byzantines. The Bulgars hold the land between the Danube and Balkans, and raid Macedonia and Thrace almost at will. They begin taking and pillaging fortified towns.

The war in Serbia initially goes well for the Byzantines , with a victory over the Serbs. They take to the mountains and use guerrilla tactics to wear the Byzantines down. The Greeks and Serbs negotiate a settlement with Nis and Rasno goes to the Empire, Serbia recognising the suzerainty of Constantinople, and Stephen being confirmed as Grand Prince. Stephen’s son marries a Byzantine princess.

Emperor Isaakos’ brother, Alexios, stages a coup and blinds his brother.

1192: King Ladislaus of Hungary canonised. Very popular.

1195: The new emperor sues for peace with Peter and Asen, but cannot get acceptable terms. He sends an army against them, but it is surrounded and its leader, the Emperor’s son-in-law, is captured by Cumans.

1196: A Byzantine-sponsored nobleman assassinates Asen.

1196: Stephan, grand zupan of Serbia, abdicates in favor of his son, also a Stephan, and retreats to a monatery on Athos in Grece.

1196 Emeric of Hungary is the first king of that realm to seriously consider annexing the Balkans. The pope is in favor, because he’s Catholic. He tries to get a puppet up in Serbia, fails, and makes an intergenerational enemy.

1197: Peter dies, and is succeeded by his younger brother Kaloyan.

? Kaloyan is eventually given a crown by the Pope. Emeric of Hungary tries ot prevent this by detaining the papal representative, but fails.

1199: Cumans raid into Thrace. They win a victory but on their way home meet a Byzantine army near Bizye. The Cumans fight, but then drop their plunder and retreat. The Byzantine army breaks formation to loot the Cuman plunder, when the Cumans return and defeat them. They then take their plunder home.

1200 The pope calls on Emeric of Hungary to deal with the Paterene Heresy in Bosnia. This takes 3 years to sort out.

1200 The retired grand zupan of Serbia, Stephen, dies. His second son, Vukan, who had kept the peace while his father lived, begins to plot against his brother (also a Stephan)/

1200-1 The Cumans and Vlahks raid Byzantine territory at will, and are believed to be preparing to assail the capital. This is prevented by raids on the Black Sea wintering camps of some Cuman tribes by Roman of Galicia. Roman does this in part because his prelate asked him to stand by his fellow Christians, but also because the Cumans formed an essential part of the army of his rival, Rurik of Kiev.

1202 The Empire falls into anarchy.

1202 Vukan ousts his brother as grand zupan of Serbia, with Hungarian assistance. Stephen flees to the Bulgars, and with their aid returns in 1203, ousting his brother in 1204. Their brother, Sava, who was archbishop, arranged a peace between them, with Vukan becoming Stephen’s vassal.

1203, Ban Kulin of Bosnia, Emeric’s vassal, purges the Bogomils.

1204 Constantinople falls. The Latin Empire is formed. Its first ruler is Baldwin, who prepares to invade Asia Minor to destroy the Greek resistance there. The Thracian Greeks rebel against the Latins and ask Kaloyan for aid. He sends an army. Baldwin responds with the army he was preparing for Asia Minor.

Emeric of Hungary complains to the Pope about the sack of Zara, which was in his land, and the Pope excommunicated the Venetians and made them pay damages. The city was, however, all but destroyed.

Emeric dies. He leaves his son under the regency of his rebellious brother Andrew, and Ermeric’s wife, Constance of Aragon, fearing for her son’s safety, flees to Austria.

1203: A prince of Serbia charges Kulin of Bosnia with heresy, which is investiagted to no effect.

1204: Ban Kulin of Bosnia dies. He is succeeded by his son, Stephen Kulinic. Stephen was a Catholic and supported Hungarian policies. He was hostile to the Bogomils in Bosnia.

1205, After several minor battles, the Latins besiege Andrianople. Kaloyan has around 14 000 Cumans with his Bulgar and Vlakh forces, and he orders the Cumans to use feigned retreats to soften the Crusaders. The Cumans kill Louis of Blois, and capture Emperor Baldwin. The Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandalo, somehow manages to escape, which isn’t bad work for a blind ninety-one year old man. Kaloyan wants to press his advantage, but summer is coming, so his Cumans leave to tend their flocks, and he needs to just wreck the parts of Thrace the Latins haven’t destroyed, and leave. He raids Thessaly. Henry, the brother of Baldwin, besieges Adrianople unsuccessfully, then while on the way to another town, is stopped by a flooding river which inundates his camp. This is seen as a sign from, God, and he retreats to Constantinople.

1205: the infant son of Emeric of Hungary dies in exile. His brother is crowned Andrew II, and the pope makes Emeric’s widow marry Frederick of Sicily (eventually Emperor Frederick II) Andrew has a bee in his bonnet about Galicia, and assaults it 14 times, leading the army himself 4 times, during his lifetime. Andrew introduces his “New Institutions”, which over the next few decades annoy his nobles and destroy his finances.

1206: Kaloyan razes much of eastern Thrace, and his forces reach within 12 miles of Constantinople. The Thracian Greeks switch sides and ask for Latin aid. Kaloyan, then destroyed one of their larger towns, burning it to the ground.

1207: Kaloyan besieges Adrianople, but his Cumans leave him to go to their summer pastures, and so he needs to break the siege. He marches against Thessalonica, but is murdered. His nephew Boril usurps the throne and marries Asen’s wife (a Cuman of powerful family). Asen’s sons flee to Kiev.

1208 Bulgaria begins to fragment under the usurper Boril. Boril’s brother, Strez, rebels and is supported by the Serbs and Latins. The Latins invade, and although they are initially defeated, they eventually take back northern Thrace.

1208 Grand Zupan Stephen of Serbia marries Ana, a grand-daughter of the Doge of Venice.

1210-1 The region of Vidin revolts, and Boril asks Bela IV of Hungary for aid, which he provides, extinguishing the rebellion.

1211 The Teutonic Knights are asked into Transylvania.

1213: Gertrud, wife of Andrew of Hungary, is so pro-German, and showers so many favors on her kin, that the Hungarians nobles snap. While Andrew is off invading Galicia again, they massacre her retinue. Andrew kills one ringleader by impaling, but has to let the rest off, because he hasn’t sufficient support to win a civil war.

1214: The daughter of Boril of Bulgaria is wed to the son of Andrew II of Hungary, and Branicevo is given as part of her dowry. Boril marries the niece of Henry, Emperor of the Latins. Henry, in turn, marries Boril’s daughter.

1216: Henry, Emperor of the Latins, is assassinated.

1217 Stefan Prvovencani (Nemanjic) is crowned the first King of Serbia, with a crown sent by Pope Honorius III.

Andrew of Hungary, his cousin the Duke of Austria and the King of Cyprus go on crusade. Andrew leaves Archbishop John of Eztergorm, the most vocal critic of his new institutions, as his regent. Andrew leaves after three months, with no marked success. On the way home he arranges betrothals for his son (to the daughter of the Emperor) and daughter (to Ivan II Asen of Bulgaria). When he gets home, his treasury is empty and his realm is broke and on the verge of civil war.

1211-1218: Ivan II Asen returns to Bulgaria, at the head of an army of Russians and Cumans. Boril dies. (Length of siege in dispute*)

1219: The Serbian church is granted autonomy by the Patriarch of Constantinople, then living in Nicaea.

1219: Đorđe Nemanjić, the son of the King of Serbia, is granted the crown of Dukjia and Zeta. He is a vassal of his father.

1220# King Andrew of Hungary gives Bela, his son, Croatia and Slavonia to rule. Bela is the centre of a strange sort of “loyal opposition” to his father. Never quite rebelling. Bela comes to direct the foreign policy of the realm.

1221# The Pope, disturbed by the degree of religious tolerance in Hungary, forces the Greek monastery as Veszprem to be given the Benedictines, and Hungarian Jews to begin wearing the distinctive marks laid out in the Fourth Lateran Council.

1222# The Golden Bull is signed in Hungary

1223# Battle of Kalka. Cumans shattered.

1227# 20 000 Cumans Christianize and migrate to Hungary.

1232# Andrew II excommunicated and Hungary placed under interdiction.

1233# The church forces Andrew II to sack all the Muslims and Jews who look after his financial affairs as part of his peace settlement with the church.

1235# Andrew II’s daughter Elizabeth is canonised, 4 years after her death.

1237#: A massive wave of Cuman immigration makes Thrace a “desert”. They ally with various states. Their two princes take Latin wives. 10 000 enter Nicene Imperial service in exchange for land.

1241# Ivan II Asen dies. Prince Jonah, one of the Latin-allied Cumanians, dies in Constnatinople. He is a pagan, so he is buried in a tumulus outside the city walls. Twenty four horses and ten volunteer warriors are sacrificed to his memory.

Mythic Sicily, a night for setting parameters

I started the reading for my Mythic Sicily project tonight and I find I’ve a bigger task than I imagined.

I thought I’d just be covering the court of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor and Marvel of the World. There are many reasons for being interested in it, from a roleplaying game perspective. It turns out, I’m wrong, there’s a lot more that needs doing.

John Julius Norwich has written a wonderful history of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, which ended in 1198. It would give the deep history to older covenants in the area, and offer the sort of self contained saga arc that we see in many little doomed kingdoms, like Christian Georgia, or Arthurian Britain.  Eight hundred pages of all highly reworkable material, but material which stops well before what Ars Magica’s standard start date requires.

So, to make things worse for myself, the plan is now this:

Do a 1220 version of the setting.

Research the earlier time period and use it to enrich the 1220 version.

See if the interest and materials hold out and then try and create a grand campaign arc for the period between the fall of the Emirate of Sicily (yes, there was an Emirate of Sicily…I didn’t know that.)  and the point where Frederick II really hits his straps, which is slightly after 1220.