Just in case anybody needs it, here is the history that will go in the OP.

It is the year 634 AD, but events have not transpired in the way they did in our world. Urged on by his mysterious Aksumite wife, the General Stilicho overthrew Emperor Honorius and seized power for himself. A series of strong Germanic Emperors ruled in the 5th century, keeping the Western Empire together at the loss of Britain and Soissons.

Further losses would take place as the rising Barbarian Kings in Francia and Visigothia pushed their territorial rights whenever they saw weakness. When Emperor Remus died in battle against the Visigoths in 598, it looked as if the Western half of the Empire up to the Italian border would be lost in its entirety. A young nephew of Remus, Marcus Marcellus Priscus, was declared Emperor by his soldiers and proved his worth by pushing the Visigoths back in Hispania. He was crowned Emperor Marcellus, and the few feeble opposing claimants were assassinated before he reached Ravenna. When the old ruler of the Eastern Empire died childless, Marcellus moved to take control and proved himself again in a skirmish with the Sasanians. And so the Empire was unified.

The Sasanian threat grew larger when the Shahanshah Bozorgmehr made a shaky alliance with the White Huns. He had expected an exiled Roman prince in his court to be elevated in the Eastern Empire, and he saw the rise of Marcellus as a threat. Confident he could get the Eastern court to support his claimant, the Shahanshah invaded. Off and on wars between the two great powers followed, continuing for nearly thirty years and only ending when Bozorgmehr died. With his other sons lost on the battlefield, the Persian Empire came under control of a three year old boy, the new Shahanshah Mazdak.

In Constantinople, Marcellus split the Empire in two so that his son Flavius Marcellus Pulcher could rule the west and be prepared to control a unified Empire. Pulcher placed his capital in the young port city of Venice. In 630, German incursions through the alps became so intense that both father and son were called to fight on the border.

So when reports of increasing Saracen raids reached the Emperor, he decided to send his second son, Marcus Priscus Caesar, who would prematurely declare himself "Arabicus" before disappearing as his army was destroyed in the deserts of Syria.

Emperor Marcellus and his son, Emperor Pulcher, fight the Germans on the borders of Italy. The second Imperial son, the self-named "Arabicus", has went missing after a defeat, and an eight year old boy named Mazdak sits as Shahanshah of Persia. Blood on both sides have been spilled, and the borders of the two Empires are exhausted from thirty years of hard war. Will they be able to defend against the Saracen threat, or will the world's great civilizations fall to the Arabs and their strange new religion?

LOVE

Anyway, due to my existing RP obligations, I will be sticking to the minimum writing limit of three five-line paragraphs or the equivalent.

I swear I recall the map extending across continental europe.

S'ppose twas just me imagining' things again.

Now where to learn about this corner of the world? All my medieval audiobooks I found all centers in northern and Western Europe. All I know about this place is the Christian Egyptians and the massive mosque the Byzantines- I mean romans- built.

I swear I recall the map extending across continental europe.

S'ppose twas just me imagining' things again.

Now where to learn about this corner of the world? All my medieval audiobooks I found all centers in northern and Western Europe. All I know about this place is the Christian Egyptians and the massive mosque the Byzantines- I mean romans- built.

Syria and the Levant - which is being claimed by Vilage last I checked - is pretty much the core financial center of the Roman Empire in the east with Egypt being the bread-basket as much as northern Africa is. In the recent history up to this point this region would have been the battleground between they and the Sassanids in Persia.

I don't imagine the war went as far, but with one of the major conflicts with the Persians, the Sassanids managed to get as far as Egypt and Constantinople when fighting the Byzantines. This conflict would have been a decade or two before this RP begins, or at most before Mohammad. During this conflict the Sassanids looted Jerusalem and stole the pieces of the True Cross which they took back to Persia as war trophies. When Heraculius ascended to power as Emperor he reversed the failing Byzantine favor (if in part because Constantinople was impenetrable) and drove the Sassanids back, and I think reclaimed the pieces of the True Cross from the Persians.

It was of course this conflict that laid the groundwork for what would be the weakened Byzantium and Sassanids so that Abu-Bakr and his successors could sweep in and start taking over, and for the Arabs to seize some of Byzantium's richest provinces.

And the Byzantines did not build Mosques. Mosques are a Muslim concept. The Byzantines - and later Romans - were Christians and they would have built churches. Many of which were ad-hoc'd as Mosques early on as the population of the region converted to Islam.

Being facetious on the internet is hard.

Without even looking at your post beyond the slight skim I will say yes, I know the ottoman conquest in 1453 is why Hagia Sophia is a mosque/museum today. Many ottoman mosque were pretty much are copies of the Hagia Sophia, something I keep finding amusing.

Speaking of the Hagia Sophia, the Hagia Sophia likely exists as it was made in the 500's.

Not sure about San Vitale. Maybe under a different context?

Anyhow, as a fun little thing to know the Romans had hot wax tablets they wrote in. The name stylus is derived from the tool Romans used to etch Latin in the hot wax. Not sure why I wanted to say that, but in this TL I wonder if hot wax based writings/manuscripts are still around as opposed to the parchment used in the Middle Ages. I am not sure if hot wax was also used in the Middle Ages, I suspect in some areas but I am oblivious of it.

It's more like Mosques were built to look like Roman churches, whereas the west adopted a more Gothic style of Church building.

I swear I recall the map extending across continental europe.

S'ppose twas just me imagining' things again.

Now where to learn about this corner of the world? All my medieval audiobooks I found all centers in northern and Western Europe. All I know about this place is the Christian Egyptians and the massive mosque the Byzantines- I mean romans- built.

The History of Rome

This played a part in why I wanted to do a Roman RP in the first place. Back last fall, I started to listen to these while I was at work. It's an amazing overview that everybody should listen to if they call themselves history fans, and covers everything up to the fall of the Western Empire. There is a continuation of it done by somebody else about the Byzantines, but I haven't listened to it so I cannot say anything about it.

Count Belisarius

This is what I am reading right now (albeit in text format, so I didn't spend no twenty bucks =p. If you can find this at the library, that would be great). Pretty good overview, the narrator explains a lot of the small cultural details of the time, like the religious differences.

In God's Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire

Admittedly, this one forms the foundation of what I know about the rise of Islam. It wasn't a subject I had much knowledge in at all until this year. Pretty good overview of the events that caused it all to happen.

Mercenary Army app

Leader Name:
Sigbjörn "Bláserkr" Ivarsson

Faction Name:
The Blue-Shirt Army (Old Norse: Bláserka Hirð)

Map Province:
Currently in Diocesis Pontica, scouting for employment opportunities and trading

History/Bio:
The Norse peoples first entered into history following their numerous raids across the North and Baltic Seas. Taking advantage of the chaotic state that the Huns and migrations of Germanic peoples had left the region in. Though Frisia and Britannia had been common targets, a favorite was the Baltic, which was now grealy weak and in complete uproar after the migration period. Various Swedish tribes took advantage of this weakness to begin raiding and colonizing the Baltic Coast, gaining access to the complex river system that let the explorers travel further inland, and opening up direct trade routs with the Roman Empire via the Daugava and Dneiper Rivers leading to the Black Sea.

Trade has Made Sweden one of the Dominant Powers in Scandinavia, alongside Denmark to its south; but while Denmark trades with and raids the West, Sweden looks east to the Rivers leading it to Rome. A particularly powerful tribe being the Rus, who have begun extensive trading missions from the Baltic, selling their goods and their services as mercenaries. One of these mercenary bands are the Blue-Shirts, known as the Bláserka Hirð, or simply the Bláserkar in their own language. Founded by the nobleman Ivar Blueshirt of Sweden, this band of mercenaries, around 3-4 thousand strong on average, consisted of Ivar's most trusted companions, including his own son, Sigbjörn. Well known among the kings of Europe, the Blue Shirts have earned their reputation as fearsome warriors and well trained soldiers, who are worth their price to hire.

With the death of Ivar only 11 years ago, Sigbjörn has taken control of his father's land and titles, including the constituents of the Blue-Shirt army, who currently spend most of their time in the Baltic at home, tending to their farms and trades until a call is made to them for employment.

I am so sorry for not commenting on this, I just noticed when I was going back to pick up player information for the OP that I had missed this.

Anyway, The Swedes and the Danes does not mean Sweden and Denmark, since the latter terms suggest unified monarchies. I know it is confusing because I marked some Kingdoms with tribal names ("Franks should be Francia or Frankish Kingdom, Visigoths should be Visigothia or Visigothic Kingdom). I should probably go back and redo the labels on the map to be more clear.

But anyway, The Swedes and Danes would not be unified Kingdoms quite yet, but rather petty kingdoms and tribal states. This doesn't preclude them from going about being precocious Vikings, as the Vikings of our world were not quite unified yet when they went a'raiding. That is a minor thing and everything else looks acceptable.

Also, I am finishing up the OP's and should have everything up sometime tomorrow. Everybody who has posted apps so far are accepted, just make sure to repost your apps in the character section of the main thread.

Now where to learn about this corner of the world? All my medieval audiobooks I found all centers in northern and Western Europe. All I know about this place is the Christian Egyptians and the massive mosque the Byzantines- I mean romans- built.

Another good resource, to propound what @Vilageidiotx said (speaking of, how is Count Belisarius? I've only read the two Claudius books by Graves and highly enjoyed them both), especially if you're looking for more specific questions, like "What was everyday life like in Sasanian Persia?", JSTOR is a great resource, with a huge selection of scholarly articles and journals. That's currently what I'm using to brush up on my knowledge of the region and time period; however, I'm pretty sure that a lot of it is locked behind a paywall unless you log in with a university ID of some kind. So if you're in uni, it's great (I've used it on basically every single academic paper I've had to write since starting). If not, there are still some good sources to be found, though keep in mind that a good deal of them are not written for the layman and can be pretty abstract

Excited for the OOC to go up and get the show on the road!

That does sounds interesting? Is there space for another player in Persia?

That does sounds interesting? Is there space for another player in Persia?

I'd welcome you, Patu!

I'm really, really sorry, but I may not be able to join this game as VATROU's starting a Fallout NRP on the Bethsoft forums.

Keyword, though, is 'may'.

That does sounds interesting? Is there space for another player in Persia?

Yes.

We are up!

Remember to repost your apps in the character tab so everything is nice and tidy.