The Levantine Struggle: A Crusades Hotseat AAR

[phonicsmonkey]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

*This is a story thread for the Kingdoms Crusades Hotseat The Levantine Struggle. Players in the game are invited to post AARs, battle reports or other creative writing inspired by events in the game. At regular intervals I, the game admin, will provide factual updates of events in the game which have been approved by the players and with a suitable delay.*

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In the year 1174 the region known in modern times as the Middle East and in those times variously entitled the Levant, Outremer or the Holy Lands is in a state of delicate equilibrium. Barely a century has passed since the Battle of Manzikert, a seminal disaster for the Byzantine Empire and the trigger for the war of conquest known as the First Crusade in which much of the Levant fell to Catholic forces and the Crusader States of Jerusalem and Antioch were formed.



The events of the Second Crusade, in which Edessa changed hands once more and successes were gained against the Moorish Caliphate in Iberia, are still raw enough in the collective memories of the Rum Turks and the Fatimids of Egypt to create a lasting antipathy towards the men of the West who now seek to put down roots and make their stay in the region permanent.



It is at this uneasy time of partial truce that representatives of the five major powers of the region, the Byzantine Empire, the Principality of Antioch, the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Turkish and Fatimid Sultanates, find themselves in receipt of an Enigmatic Invitation to attend secret talks in the great city of Constantinople.



Will the fragile peace last? Or will the Levant be again plunged into a bloody struggle for supremacy between the warring peoples of the Book?