Sudanna

Or Oblivion, actually.

However welcome you feel, Harehunter, passive-aggressively whining about it in public is only going to make you less welcome.

It's not only about what the other party wants, either. I mean, speaking personally, I have absolutely noooo desire to date someone I'm not already really good friends with. Random attractive strangers can be attractive, but there's more to life than pretty things. Even if Ghadring was right about everything else, which everyone not Ghaldring seems to think he is not, that's not to say that anyone else would be comfortable or happy doing as Ghaldring does.

That's why it's funnily enough.

There's always craigslist.

so can i be in this Episode, diki

Pocket watches are already cool.

*cries*

I hate compliments, actually. I have perilously low self-esteem and compliments only remind me of that. I also have no idea how to receive them other than saying "No, you're wrong.", which leads to awkwardness. Compliments suck. Never give compliments.

BREAKING NEWS: Internet forum full of timid nerds gives dating advice: "Relationships are scary."

The solution is, as always, to do nothing and live in misery.

I'm here. Gimme my +1.

I stack shackles and whips around my room in every SW game.

Well, if we did things right, it wouldn't have ended for another 600 years or so, so that's probably an iffy proposition from the start.

Welp, I've juuuuuust lost my save files for Emir Hasan, so this is as far as this LP is gonna get. If there's interest, we could start over as someone else, but, well, bleh.

dude if you need more motivation after getting a thumbs-up from JV himself you're screwed You may be mixing up SW and CR.

I'm pretty sure you've hipstered on up to the forum and linked us pictures of your half-eaten food before, Lilith. I don't eat.

Just before departing, I discover that my first wife, Shokouh, is pregnant. It fills me with entirely new kinds of dread about the perils I face in war. I find myself regretting that I'm so committed - had this news come a month sooner, I might have delayed. But too late now The same two idiots try to take command of the flanks as did last time - Maziar and Aghlab. I convince Maziar, at least, to step down in favor of Uways, one of my vassal mayors, whose skill in battle nearly exceeds my own. Did I say nearly? It does, completely. But don't tell the men that - they must have faith in their emir. Unlike my last conquest, this one will involve actual battle, and the prowess of my commanders will be essential. These arguments fail to sway Aghlab, though, who I cannot remove. At least he has taken the weakest flank. We meet the forces of Beyberley Bugha outside his capital of Oromieh. They are not led by the Beyberley himself, but by a servant of his, Abdullah. We outnumber them nearly two-to-one, but they have the advantage of defending treacherous mountain terrain. The battle opens with skirmishes by our archers, and he has the advantage here. But soon, the lines of our infantry meet, and the advantage is mine. His right flank, facing my left under Aghlab, deserts him, and he soon finds himself outmaneuvered as well as outnumbered. Then his right does the same, and the army of Abdullah is routed entirely. Allah favors the bold and the numerous, it seems. Once the bodies are counted, it's revealed that we have slain more than half of the Beyberlik's levies, and at relatively minor cost to our own. The remainder are fleeing to the sheikhdom of Gilam, my new conquest, likely hoping to force me to abandon a siege to stop them from wreaking havoc. I do not intend to worry about them - Gilam just came into my possession two weeks ago - I could hardly care about any damage they could do to the already siege-depleted holdings there. I begin the siege of Oromieh. The army of the Dulafid Emirate has begun to siege my holdings in Qazwin, but if I spend all my time chasing armies, I'll never get a siege done, and then I'll never win. Qazwin can fend for itself, for now. Or, rather, it will have to, regardless of whether or not it can. The forces there are more evenly matched, at any rate - my own efforts will likely be completed before theirs. The siege is opposed by Maziar, the courtier I replaced with Uways. I almost feel guilty about leaving him behind to probable death or capture, but then I remember that he is an idiot that presumed to steal command of my army from me, and I don't feel almost guilty anymore. He is also ugly. I hope he loses that siege of my own castle! Near the end of the siege of Oromieh, I receive word that my first wife has given birth to a son - a son! I can hardly contain my relief - a son, just as I'd hoped. For succession, yes, but also for myself. I cannot wait to raise him to be a tough soldier of Allah, just like his father. I write back that he is to be named Zayd, after my late father. Perhaps instead of a life of soldiery, he will follow his namesake and become a learned cleric? I'm overwhelmed, honestly. A son! It makes me all the more anxious to end this war so I can see him with my own eyes. The siege goes on.

Chapter 4: War with Consequences I return to my court in triumph, and take a new wife in celebration of my victory. Another lowborn courtier of my brother's, she is possessed of an unusual intelligence and scholarly bent for a woman, and is also an envious, paranoid snake. I make her my cunning, envious, paranoid secondary wife. I stress the secondary when I announce it, just like that. It's best to keep wives focused on fighting one another: keeps them from directing that energy towards me. Oh, her name? It's Layla, I believe. I would be tempted to attribute downright genius to her, were she not a she. The time for peace and celebrations is short, though. It is time to begin a dangerous gambit. The Abbasid Caliphate, by far the largest threat to my sovereignty and to Shi'a Islam as a whole, is currently fractured in a claimant's war that looks like it will drag on for a long time. The old Caliph Mu'tazz has just been deposed by his cousin Al-Muhtadi, and reduced to a lowly emir. Well. When I say "lowly emir", I mean emirs other than myself. Obviously. Anyways. This is the new Caliph: Al-Muhtadi is a paranoid and lazy recluse, rarely leaving his heavily-guarded palace. However, he is also incredibly patient, seldom taking a course not carefully planned out. I suppose these qualities go well together. However, two of the ex-Caliph's brothers, either loathe to see the title pass that much further from their grasps or sensing a moment of weakness, have decided to revolt against their cousin and take the Caliphate for themselves. Each has gathered many of the emirs and sheikhs of the empire to their respective banners. They are Emir Al-Muwaffak of Basra Apparently a very learned man, both as patient and lazy as his cousin, though far more disposed toward lying to get his way. and Emir Al-Mu'tamid of Arabia Kind, hard-working, just, extremely devout, and a masterful diplomat. Not all of the heretics are despicable examples of human waste. Only most of them. , whose realms and allies are both considerable. Of the three, I'm told that Al-Mu'tamid is winning the war, but that hardly concerns me at the moment. They are all enemies. What does concern me are the spoils of the empire they're fighting over. While much of the nobility has a stake in this war, some of the empire's vassals remain neutral, pledging to serve whichever claimant wins. Bugha al-Sharabi, the Beyberley of Tabriz, is such a neutral party. Beyberley al-Sharabi borders my emirate. He is a pious and diligent man, a scholar of very unscholarly cunning, and a man who sets his sights high. He is also, as I have regrettably been informed, "incredibly virile". I'm not sure if this is information or propaganda, really. He cannot field as many troops as me. Without a real liege to rally the empire to his defense, he will have to rely on the good will of his neighbors. Most of whom are either Shi'ites or engaged in the war for the empire. It's hardly assured, but if they stay out of it. . . I have a chance to both considerably expand my realm and weaken the heretical caliphate. I declare a second holy war at my wedding, after two weeks of peace. Layla looked a bit put off. While I'm still gathering my armies at the capital, I am informed that my neighbors did not have the good grace to stay out of it: the Dulafid Emirate, to my direct south, has rallied to the defense of their brothers in heresy. While not a death knell to my efforts, this is clearly not good. This ally adds about another 600 men to the 900 or so I already face. I still have numerical superiority, at least. If worst comes to worst, I may hire mercenaries as well - unsavory men, but I have the gold to do so, and they did win me my throne in the first place, after all. It's not yet necessary, though - the forces opposing me are yet divded, though they have the benefit of defense. And the mountains that all of our realms reside in favor the defender.

For you, Lilith, anything. Pay no attention to the name. We have always been at war with Eastasia.

It provoked a civil and interesting discussion about how bad of an idea it was, which is pretty much SW's version of flaming these days.

As long as it's not too long, yeah. better than jered

SoT, I think you're getting way too attached to your uninformed idle speculation. It's okay if something you said turns out to have been very silly. Trying to argue in its defense is not going to make it any less silly. It will actually make you look silly.

I forget what we called the second ship last time we played. I know it was a good one. . .

I didn't say that nobody knows how it happened, I said that I'm not gonna take the time to explain how I understand it happened, cuz that would take a while. If you want to spend a lot of time learning about all the little details, I direct you to where I got most of my information, this fantastic podcast series. In the latter days of the empire, most legionaries were Germans rather than Italians, but only some of these really counted as auxiliaries, and while there were more and more instances of revolting legions, the ethnic origin of the troops was never a real sticking point. They fought against migratory German tribes as well s they fought against anyone. Most of the commanders were not German, after all, and it was them that kept trying to claim the empire. It might have been easier to get non-Italian legions to go along with it, but it's still more a symbol of the decaying investment of Roman subjects in the Roman Empire and a byproduct of the aforementioned proto-feudalism than some kind of ethnic strife.