Neruz posted:

I just looked that one up and hahahaha that is supposed to be a dragon?

How on earth did people ever take some of these coats of arms seriously.

Ofaloaf posted:

I never got a sense that Arians were that organizationally different from any other Christians at the time. Ambrose of Milan called their priests sacerdotes as opposed to episcopi, but Ambrose was a devout Nicene who probably didn't like legitimizing and recognizing Arians as equals, so that's a bit of an iffy source. Most contemporary sources were from an anti-Arian perspective, iirc, so that's doubly tricky to really figure out every nitty-gritty detail of Arianism. Judging from the Third Council of Toledo, it doesn't sound like it was that difficult to transfer Arian sees over to Catholic/Nicene control, so the organizational differences can't have been that vast.

Fox Ironic posted:

Edit: Also, #3 could also be a way of incorporating pagan beliefs into Arian Theology. Turning Old Gods into new Saints imbued with the power of God to act upon the Earth in the form of Holy Spirits might be pretty easy to digest for a lot of Pagans.

Fox Ironic posted:

So scrap the syncretic approach I take it. That leaves the question of what makes Gothic Arianism (or Brythonic Arianism, if our conversion efforts are successful) unique from Chalcedonian Christianity?

Merdifex posted:

Gothic Christianity was Homoousian in it's conception of God and Jesus, that both were like in substance, but not quite one and the same. There was no concept of the "holy spirit" in the sense of the Catholic trinity where three persons constituted God and Jesus.

Could some Gothic Christians, in time, accept gnostic ideas of a sinful material world (and of the demiurge)? I don't know, their conception of creation is that it was by God himself, and not some lower, crasser entity like the demiurge. So the cultural proclivity to shun the material world is not very obvious, at least predicting from what I know. How Neoplatonic ideals (somewhat similar to gnosticism, but not quite) or the Manichean duality between bad and good could make its way to Gothia and become intertwined with their theology, I don't know.

It's important to understand that religious schisms were usually more political than they were based on theological disagreements. So we could look at the political borders we have right now, or religious leaders and such and predict how the church would split based on that.

Ofaloaf posted:

_{The world as we know it, circa Autumn 432.}

Fox Ironic posted:

Definitely agree with you on Attila's Empire disintegrating into successor states, but with a weaker Christianity in The Gothic Timeline so far (GTL?) than OTL, as well as a more devastated Central Europe even before Attila's arrival, I think there's a significant chance the interior of the continent is going to remain Pagan for a lot longer. That, and a Pagan Reformation or two during CK2 and we'll have a very religiously diverse Europe.

Neruz posted:

You find the concept of an Aztec Empire reverse-engineering Viking boat-building techniques to launch an invasion of Europe to be implausible?

Bozart posted:

Also please include some stuff about how the library of alexandria didn't burn down this time so europe starts CK with muskets because there wasn't any dark ages, that would be a nice touch tia.

Ofaloaf posted:

Mr.Morgenstern posted:

And you know why the Sassanids are so strong? It's all because Ofaloaf razed that gold mine province way at the beginning of the game.

Mr.Morgenstern posted:

I was actually joking a bit there but I'm sure having that province razed did contribute to the collapse of the ERE.

dublish posted:

All of what now?

Hitlers Gay Secret posted:

gently caress, I keep forgetting about the 300 year difference.

Notable Historians posted:

"As everybody knows, the terror that was the Huns was not only devastating but long lasting. The many different tribes of Germania were driven out of their old homeland by Attila's Huns, though even more so by the roaming Hunnic Hordes that followed Attila's demise. Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Quadians, nobody was spared and most everybody took their belongings and fled wherever they were or weren't welcome. The Gothic realm in particular took in many of the lesser tribes, though it is uncertain whether or not this had any long-lasting influences on the area as very little is known about the exact numbers of refugees to arrive. Vast plains, forests and hills all emptied, save for the fire pits and hovels left behind by the fleeing tribes.


"The Huns continued to be a significant threat to those few who remained behind though, until the Huns were driven out by easterners arriving to take the now empty lands. The Huns were forced to flee southwards, and finally found a people weak enough for them to suppress even with their lowered numbers: the Pannonians. Eventually the Huns formed their own Kingdom, just like the Goths in the west had done ages before. The Lands from the Pannonian Plains to the Carpathian Mountains would henceforth be known as Attilia after their old warlord, the last to truly unite them, and his descendants would come to rule it for ages to come."


"The people who ran the Huns out of Germania? Those were the ancestors of the Western Slavs we know of today. The Wends and Czechs settled the lands to the north, close to the old Saxon and Frisian homelands, while the Croatians and Serbians amongst others eventually came to settle the lands between them and the Alps to the south. They were often as divided as the former Germanic tribes had been, but they filled the void nonetheless."

Ofaloaf posted:

Barring any dramatic upsets within the hour, and if my counting skills are still intact, RED has won, with 31 _{or so} votes. Following the immense devastation the Huns inflicted upon Central and Eastern Europe, and the mass migrations (and total oblivion) many Germanic groups followed due to the above, much of ancient Germania and Scythia became an inviting, open place to Iranian and Turkic peoples in the following centuries, and by the 700s much (but not all!) of the region had been settled by these peoples.


_{That Avaria-in-Italy's a good egg too and doesn't contradict the vote, I'll work that in somehow.}

YF-23 posted:

No King nor Emperor was fit to rule the Italian realm. The Central Roman state, having secured Italy from the Emperor of the west but under persistent siege from all sides and unable to pursue dreams of establishing itself as Empire in the Mediterranean entered a crisis of leadership as the purpose of the realm was uncertain. Without any practical source of legitimacy for the pretenders and under pressure from the heretic Goths and pagan Avars to the north, the Italian Romans found a common cause in defence of the faith, with the Bishop of Rome playing an increasingly active role in the state, culminating in a Great Compromise: the acceptance by the Roman Senate and the Italian nobility of the Pope as the highest authority in the realm.

The Western Roman Separatists start CK2 as the Holy Roman Empire, a theocracy under the Pope, who is Emperor over a number of duke- and king-level feudal vassals.

AJ_Impy posted:

The thing is, the original otl HRE is renowned for not being holy (It had a temporal emperor), not being Roman (It was largely German) and not being an Empire (It was more a loose confederation with an elective monarch). The difference here is in postulating a Holy (Ruled by a Pope) Roman (Based out of Rome, run by Romans) Empire (Large centralized state with a single supreme ruler). The joke is in this timeline it actually lives up to the name, whereas in our timeline it didn't. Not including the 'Empire' part would be less entertaining. What's your native language, by the by?

Gantolandon posted:

Wouldn't it be better to just make them start with an antipope?

Merdifex posted:

I second Gantolondon, an antipope would suffice. It could be explained that they each follow same doctrine but the Hispanians believe that the pope shouldn't be a de facto controller of large territories and doesn't need temporal power over Christendom.

YF-23 posted:

The west Romans and east Romans have a lot in common though, and politically probably recognise each other as the legitimate continuation of the two halves of the Empire. The WRE would then probably not be in schism with the ERE, they'd probably both belong to the same Orthodox Nicene Christianity, in opposition to the Papist Christianity of the Italians.

The Schism happened primarily for political reasons (the Pope making a power grab and the Byzantines rejecting it) which then sought some piss-poor religious justification to back it up (fillioque); here it's the other way around, the WRE and ERE have really good political reason to overcome tiny doctrinal differences and remain united in faith against the Pope's massive overreach.

Merdifex posted:

Invasion of the Britons

Very similar to:

With the exception that the entire north of Hispania, including Asturias and large swathes of Tarraconensis, was invaded and settled by Britons from, well, Britain.

Fleeing Romano-British oppression in their own lands, they sailed forth with their best warriors and reached lands far and wide. Their attempted invasion of Armorica was repelled by the Goths, and so they finally found refuge in Hispania. The local lords were weak, and the invasion saw little in the way of obstruction.

They established many petty kingdoms and a few duchies, and were more than able to defend themselves from the weak remnants of the WRE in the south.

In time, they developed an unique culture, calling themselves the "Brythons" after the Latin name for them. They ruled over a mostly Hispano-Roman populace, but many areas of the north were largely depopulated, and the Brythons made up the majority in these areas, their Celtic tongue becoming the lingua franca.

Perhaps in time, a strong ruler will appear and unite all the disparate Brythonic realms, and establish the Kingdom of Brythonia.

The Brythons mostly picked up Arian Christianity from from the Goths, but many bought with them the worship of the old gods. Some druids remain in Asturia, although their religion is not the majority one.

The rest of the WRE, shattered by the Brythonic invasions and shattering apart at the centre, fell apart into smaller kingdoms under fledgling dynasties.

PLAN
Spread of Brythonic culture

Area under direct Brythonic rule


TL;DR : Celts in northern Spain.

RowansWarden posted:

In the early days of Islam, missionaries brought the faith to the Eastern Roman Empire. Faced with an existential threat from the Sassanids to the east and the ever-growing power of the Bishop of Rome to the west, the Emperor embraced Islam. By the eighth century, the Byzantines were largely Muslim, and they managed to reclaim some of western Anatolia while the Arabs expanded into most of the Sassanid lands west of Persia. Persia itself remained Zoroastrian, while Christian Axum still ruled Egypt.

Muslim Byzantium

AJ_Impy posted:

It seems to be leaning towards a 'Many Islams' interpretation. If the Hellenic version is strong enough to stand unopposed, it stands to reason that none of the others are in an overwhelming position.

Merdifex posted:

If the Hellenic Islam thing wins out, Ofaloaf should add a decision / event-chain where Hajj is made to Constantinople instead of Mecca.

Merdifex posted:

Since so many people want Hellenic Islam and Islamic Byzantium, I wonder if they want proper Islam to be united under Sunni or divided amongst Shia and Ibadi as well.

Griffen posted:

While it is true that Egypt and the Levant converted rapidly, keep in mind that the initial expansion of Islam was through wars of conquest. Those who were not muslim were levied an additional tax, if not persecuted outright. That gives a large incentive for the locals to either convert or flee. What is being proposed for the ERE is not this, but rather where a single emperor tries to convert his nation out of ambition/greed/convenience/etc. That would be much harder to do unless he goes full Ivan the Terrible, which has a greater chance of leading to his assassination than an entire populace converting. Note that Constantine's religious policy was simply to remove the penalties to being openly Christian, he did not dictate a state religion. In fact he was a patron of other religions as well. I say this because had he simply tried to dictate Christianity on the empire, he would have had a much, much harder time, and likely would have failed. History has shown you can convert by the sword, but not by the decree. That's why I just feel the Byzlam route, while offering a novel scenario, seems unrealistically forced. It would require essentially making a Byzlamic heresy that merges Islam with Christianity to try and sneak it past everyone, and I have a hard time seeing that work (or the point from the emperor's point of view, he already has the regional Patriarch in his pocket).

Griffen posted:

I can see the logic in that idea. However, it does rely on a lot of things lining up. You have to have an emperor who views abandoning his hold on the current predominant religion in favor of a new one with no guarantee of success (or is sincerely converted). You need the Patriarch to not excommunicate the emperor and giving blank check to any noble to usurp the throne. You have to have the nobles of the empire weak enough to not oppose him (because they are going to use any excuse to take his throne). You need the general population unconcerned enough with the emperor's conversion to not start revolting at the urging of firebrand priests or fear-mongerers (because unless we're saying that the initial expansion of Islam was peaceful, you still have in essence a religious movement conquering Arabia, the Levant, and Egypt; I'm sure Greece would have seen some Axumite refugees spreading tales of death and carnage at the hands of the muslim). You need the HRE to ignore the conversion of the ERE and the following confusion and not take advantage of it (considering the WRE would be less likely to aid the ERE if it was heathen). Any one of those things would throw a huge monkey wrench into the gears of a peaceful Byzlam conversion. Even if the emperor tried to convert the country by the sword, he would have too small of a loyal base of power (how many Christian Greeks would execute their own people when they could simply kill the emperor and be called a hero by the church?)

Thus while I can see how you might have a chain of events that lead to Byzlam, it seems highly unlikely, given the world we're working with, that the ERE would go muslim without being conquered. If the thread wants Byzlam, then it'll be Byzlam; I just think it will be extremely hokey and Deus ex Machina and kind of mess with the flow of things.

Drone posted:

Oh c'mon guys, slavic Britain is ridiculous, even relative to Byzlam.

Gygaxian posted:

Druids in togas are much better than a ridiculous Slavic England.

Merdifex posted:

Didn't the vote end yet? And just to remind people, if Slavs aren't in Britain, then Slavs aren't anywhere. Ya'll remember voting for that, right?

AJ_Impy posted:

Wherever the Slavs end up, they will be a Rome.

Merdifex posted:

I do remember you not mentioning the Slavs anywhere, so unless I'm wrong about that, my interpretation wasn't unwarranted.

Thread posted:

Drama, drama, loving drama!

GSD posted:

I just want Ireland to be free of the (whoever) yoke.

Merdifex posted:

Really dropped the ball, man. We could've had a Roman Empire which is also Carthage and ruled from Carthage and worships Baal.

sniper4625 posted:

This just makes me want even more Romes.

Drone posted:

So Constantinople really is gonna be Tsargrad then?

sniper4625 posted:

What is Rome?

Ofaloaf posted:

No, that was it for voting. The British vote noted there'd be one after that, and there's been one after that.


And look, people voted for a Slavic ERE, so there'll be a Slavic ERE. Not Greek, Slavic. Sure, melting pot events can mix stuff around, but still, Slavic.

YF-23 posted:

Since there is thread participation the thread is part of the LP. The LP was inside us all along.