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The Journal of Khan Kubasar ' the Holy Warrior' Abdeddit
as written by wrc-wolf
Bachman, come here you little scamp. What are you doing hiding back there, you know it's time for your lessons. Yes I'm not your regular mentor but your mother asked me to talk to you today. Yes you're the Khan and you may do as you wish, but that's for another day; now you are my pupil, and today I want to talk about your father.
Yes, your father.
Well, yes, he was, and yes he did do those things, but you really shouldn't listen to those Bönek boys, you know how thar family is. No, I won't tell you what I mean, just nevermind that now. Just stop, come here, settle down and listen and I will tell you all about your father, and at the end you can decide if he was a good or a bad man. And which you want to be in your life. Now, shush.
I knew your father before he first came to power, and I stood by his side throughout his illustrious lifetime. I was Imam to his brother, your uncle, before him; a sweet young child your age who had a sickly demenure and who went to be with God on the Fifth of Jumādā al-Ūlā, in the year 536 AH. Or the Third of April, to your Orthodox subjects, one thousand one hundred and forty-two years after the death of their Christ. Now, your father was not an ambitious man, he had not asked for the mantle of command from God, and when I first saw him enter the Black Chamber on that dreary rainy day he certainly was a man of many vices. Well yes I have heard that his own father called him an unappreciative traitor to your family, but I've already told you you shouldn't listen to what the Böneks say. No whose telling this story? Are you done?
Now, when your father first took on the crown of our sovereign, the realm was beset by civil war, brother against brother. Though the ring-leader of the traitors band of opportunists was ostensibly Grand Prince Vysheslav of Moskva, he was an simple man with no discernable quality of life aside from his devotion to his Christian faith. Your father, wise that he was, could see that instead this was a plot from within your own family, lead by his cousins Bönek of Aktobe & Uzur of Bjarmia, two ambitious yet wicked and craven dregs of your otherwise glorious clan who sought to dethrone your father. Elsewise would any upright Muslim man of the steppe follow a Christian who had only know the walls of a city all his life, who had never seen the brillance of God's plan in the great open blue sky, who had never known the joy in riding all day. You see?
As well there was a second, smaller war, lead by the Duke of Cheremisa to place Etrek, a distant cousin and ruler of Vladimir, in your father's divine seat. Fool he was though, for Etrek was already here in Bulgar, locked in the dungeon below for an earlier crime. Your father... dealt with him. Yes, your father 'dealt with' many members of your extended family. There were several already in the dungeons for their past crimes commited under your uncle and great-father's rule. He had them all executed, and even imprisoned many more to prevent others from using them as Etrek had been. But not all. His brother, your uncle, Prince Kuntuvdi, he released, and even took into his own home, to raise him as he would his own sons. To raise him as he did you. Kuntuvdi as not just of your blood, he grew up under the same household as you did, surronded by the same people as you, like myself. Only God and the Prophet, peace be upon his name, know why. Your father was like that. Perhaps he saw something of himself in young Kuntuvdi. I never asked him, and he never told me, but before you were born Kuntuvdi was like a cherished son to him, better than his own, better than your elder brothers in fact.
Now, the early days of your Father's reign weren't all blood. He rearranged your uncle's small council, placing some there who would in time become rulers in their own right, such as Ali of Moskva & Khidr of Aktobe. Others were his loyal supporters in the war, like Duke Shumayl of Tver, whose lands had been over-ran by the traitors' forces and whose family then sought refuge under the Khan's own roof. I was there of course on the council meeting when your father first greeted these men, and put them to their tasks. To me he charged, not to find further legal or theological reason for why a great Khan such as himself should personally rule over vast lands, but instead to find new ways that his loyal vassals could serve our one true God through him, his divine intrunment on this plane. I know you do not share such a view, already at such a young age, but that is how he was, your father was always a man of faith. He also discussed changing tactics with his commanders, but I am no man of great military prowess, I honestly do not remember much of what was said.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, he sent for your mother. Of course you know that your father had been previously married, to a daughter of the sultan of far-away Mauretania. Adilia was everything your father was not; ambitious, soft-spoken, unconcerned with money, and above all she was highly restrained, even towards her own child. Their relationship had always been tense, however, in those heady first few days of his reign, where your father was a whirlwind of activity, the energy of his divine purporse radianting outward, affecting all those around them to great diligance as their Khan embodied, and it all finally came to a head. She asked for a khula, and he allowed it without even a fight. She left for her father's court within a week, where she died just a few years later, though she left her children, your eldest two brothers and sister, behind without a second glance. Now, your father knew that a Khanate was nothing without a Khanum, so he swiftly sent messengers asking for hands of three women. First your mother, Aisha, then one of the last Rasadids, that line of great conqueres who had brought the Islamic faith to Abysinnia; then there was Chioria, the great-daughter of the Georian King, a marriage your father believed would help defend the realm's soft underbelly from further incursions by the Cuman tribes; and finally he was bethroted to Princess Ceylan of Khiva, whose married would further surther our southern border. Or so he hoped.
Yes, yes, fine, I will tell you of the War of the Two Cousins, though I have not much to tell. You must remember dear child I am a man of God, and I do not regularly go off riding into the sunset brandishing my lance and bow like the warriors of your iqta. Now, at that time, in the autumn months of the first year of your father's rule, the great independence army was in the region of Vladimir. Your father stayed in Bulgar to secure his rule, while commanding Count Kobyak, Duke Itlar, and Duke Kubasar to lead the armies of the faithful against the traitors and Orthodox heretics. At the same time Kubasar of Cheremisa, who had only recently re-sworn his oaths of fealty to your father the Khan, declared war on the great kingdom of the Rus, who had long been our adversaries in the West, and who were themselves fighting a civil war at the time.
Our men caught our foes flat-flooted in the hills of Ivanovo, and though the seperatists had the high ground their numbers could not match ours. We caught them once again in the woodlands of Volochok, and, their moral smashed as their arms were in the face of our faith in the one true God, they were finally defeated within their own lands of Murom, where our noble horse archers could be put to real use. Upon hearing the joyous news in Bolgar the great Khan ordered the mercenary turks under Captain Yaman to turn East, to deal with his cousin in Aktobe, while his own levied forces would beseige our occupied holdings in Vladimir and Tver.
This celebratory mood was further enhanced by two occassions; Chiora announced she was pregnant with child, your elder brother, Uzluk, and I was able to report the success of my mission to Chuvash, where I was able to convert the heathen pagans to the one true God. However within weeks diaster struck; two messengers arrived in the capital bringing dire word. The rebelling Abdeddit cousins were now being invaded by outsiders! Uzur's pitiful peasant levies were being driven back at every turn by a Christian holy alliance lead by the great King Olav of Norway, while at the same time a collection of cuman chiefdoms had crossed the border with Aktobe into the Ryan desert and laid sige to Bönek's scant forces there. Bönek himself was busy harassing our own holdings within loyal Bulgar, and even if he had wanted to did not have the arms necessary to force the invaders from the realm. Into this depressed environment Aisha announced her own first child to the great Khan, your elder sister Karacik.
Continued below...

[Game 3, Round 5] - Khan Kubasar Abdeddit