faction history

[Franconicus]

I'd like to now more about the different factions in RTW - esp. the smaller ones.

What do you know about their religion, their culture, their future. What is left of them today. Do we have descendantsof every faction in this forum?

[Al Khalifah]

Do we have descendants of every faction in this forum?

Definately. I'd have thought that everyone in this forum is descended from one of the games factions except for non-mixed Native Americans, people from non-mixed Oriental ancestry, deep southern non-mixed African peoples and non-mixed other aboriginees.

The peoples of Europe, North Africa and Western Asia spread across the world and have shaped its destiny for the past two thousand years. The factions in R:TW provide the basis for the beginnings of the world we know today and pretty much any nation in the modern world except for Eastern Asian, Indian and Southern Africa has a population that is deeply mixed with peoples from R:TW's civilisations.

[Franconicus]

Your right! But the question is, do we cover all fractions? What is our heritage?

Maybe I shall start myself

I was born in southern Germany. So my main source should be from Germania. I will refer to it. Germanian tribes are well-known for wandering a lot. So you could find them from Crimea to Spain, from Britain to northern coast of Africa. They seem to be very open to other cultures. For example in France they Francs ruled but they were just a minority and mixed pretty soon with Gauls and Romans to built a new tribe. In southern Germany the originaol population was Celtic, then dominated by Romans and finally occupied of Germanian tribes. You also have a portion of Slavians and Hungarians.

What is left today. The language of course. Even though there are many words of Roman origin there are many Germanian roots. (see water – engl., wasser – ger. , wodka russ.).

The religion of the Germanian is not very well known. Many of their customs and beliefs were integrated into Christian religion. Others are just cursed. And most of the weekdays are still named after their goods: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.

[Duke Malcolm]

I'm from Scotland, my mother's side, being Irish, isn't represented by a faction in RTW. My father's side, however, is Scottish, and there are a few possibilites there. The line could go back to the Scots of Dalriada, and hence to the Irish.
It could go to the Brythonic Celts of Strathclyde, then it would be the Britons.
It could go to the Vikings and Gaels of the Lordship of the Isles, then it won't have a faction.
It could go to the Angles of Lothian, and Saxons who later inhabited the lower regions of Scotland, and whom the Picts may have been, then it would ge the Germans.

[tibilicus]

Any one know about the the Amazons or how they were wiped out e.c.t? would be pretty cool to know.

[Duke Malcolm]

I would have imagined that only having women in a society makes it a bit hard to reproduce. Last time I checked, lesbians couldn't achieve that...

[tibilicus]

I wonder if when you send a spy to the Amazon city he secritly pretends to die and then..........

[Franconicus]

I married one!!

[nokhor]

there was a thread similar to this a while ago, started by simon appleton. i'm sure someone will be kind enough to post the link to it.

[Franconicus]

I'm from Scotland, my mother's side, being Irish, isn't represented by a faction in RTW. My father's side, however, is Scottish, and there are a few possibilites there. The line could go back to the Scots of Dalriada, and hence to the Irish.
It could go to the Brythonic Celts of Strathclyde, then it would be the Britons.
It could go to the Vikings and Gaels of the Lordship of the Isles, then it won't have a faction.
It could go to the Angles of Lothian, and Saxons who later inhabited the lower regions of Scotland, and whom the Picts may have been, then it would ge the Germans.

This sounds very promising. What can you tell about them? What is left in todays life?

[Craterus]

I'm confused about my ancestors from the Roman era. I'm from England but my ancestors could've been Roman, Gallic, German possibly even Greek or Macedonian but I doubt it. There was slave trade, wars going on etc. So my ancestors of the time could've been anything.

I think it would be near enough impossible to trace my family back that far.

[Byzantine Prince]

From genetic studies we have learned that English people are 80% germanic, so it's not really that heavely messed up.

I'm Greek myself with a tint of Dacian which adds to my ferocity .

[Craterus]

My grandfathers ancestors were French.

[The Wizard]

My mother's family comes from Aquitaine originally, it was nobility which had embraced the French protestant movement. When Louis XIV started to crack down on the huguenots, they fled to the Republic of the Seven United Provinces (Netherlands). In other words: that part 'of my blood' is Frankish, Celtic, Iberian and even a bit Basque! It shows in my dark eyes and hair.

My father's family, according to my grandfather, 'came down the Rhine on a log', which is what was taught at school in his day. It's quite likely: that part of my blood is Batavian or Caninefate. These tribes later joined the Frankish confederation, so the other half of my blood is also French, and therefore largely Frankish.

So, I'm mostly represented by the Germanic faction.

However, my father's mother is a jew, making him a jew as well. But since, of my parents, only my father is a jew, I am not, according to orthodox jewish law. Therefore, I've made a point of searching out the approximate percentage 'of my blood' which is jewish, and it makes me ethnically 25% jewish (grandmother is 100% jewish, married a dutchman, my 'Batavian' grandfather on my father's side, making my father *ethnically* 50% jewish, making me 25% jewish, ethinically speaking). So I can claim descent from Judah Maccabeus, since all jews are family



~Wiz

[Franconicus]

Just read an article about the Scythians. They must have suffered from the huns. Rest of this tribe seemed to join the Gothics and Vandales. So rests of them could have ended on the balkan, in Italy, in France, Spain or northern Africa. Everything seems to be mixed between ancient and medieval.

I wonder how the nazis came on their silly idea about a German race?

[BalkanTourist]

What is left today. The language of course. Even though there are many words of Roman origin there are many Germanian roots. (see water – engl., wasser – ger. , wodka russ.).

Vodka is an alcoholic beverage, voda in Russian means water but it is only remotely related to wasser and water, since Slavic and German are two different branches of the Indo-European language group.

[Brutus]

Another 'German' here... In Caesar's time the region of my birth (the western part of Northern Brabant in the Netherlands) was split between germano-celtic and germanic tribes...Most likely the Menapii lived in the region where I came from (although back then it was all swamps and forests), with the Eburones living nearby. Caesar displaced a lot of people though, so about fifty years later the Frisiavones, Texuandri and Batavians could be found in the vicinity. They were later all absorbed by the Franks, these parts being amongst the first they took on the Roman side of the Rhine. The Batavians were almost certainly part of them, as The Wizard said. Well, the Franks never left, so I guess I'm descendent from them. Even though, I wouldn't know if my family lived here back then, the furthest back they traced my male bloodline in these parts was 1450, when they already happily farmed here, but that's a long way from the times of RTW...

[Franconicus]

Vodka is an alcoholic beverage, voda in Russian means water but it is only remotely related to wasser and water, since Slavic and German are two different branches of the Indo-European language group.

Your right! I was just joking!

[Franconicus]

Another 'German' here... In Caesar's time the region of my birth (the western part of Northern Brabant in the Netherlands) was split between germano-celtic and germanic tribes...Most likely the Menapii lived in the region where I came from (although back then it was all swamps and forests), with the Eburones living nearby. Caesar displaced a lot of people though, so about fifty years later the Frisiavones, Texuandri and Batavians could be found in the vicinity. They were later all absorbed by the Franks, these parts being amongst the first they took on the Roman side of the Rhine. The Batavians were almost certainly part of them, as The Wizard said. Well, the Franks never left, so I guess I'm descendent from them. Even though, I wouldn't know if my family lived here back then, the furthest back they traced my male bloodline in these parts was 1450, when they already happily farmed here, but that's a long way from the times of RTW...

Ave Brutus,

as far as I know, the Franks were just a group of adventurers from all kind of Germanian tribes. Frank seems to mean 'wild' and 'free'. Maybe kind of Rockers. They also seemed to be just a quite small group, when they started to penetrate the Gaulish lands, some 10,000, maybe. I do not know how they could control Gaul. Maybe they just absorbed other groups.

So in fact, the genetic share of the Franks may not be so big.

Maybe someone else has more knowledge about that.

[Adrian II]

From genetic studies we have learned that English people are 80% germanic, so it's not really that heavely messed up.

I'm Greek myself with a tint of Dacian which adds to my ferocity .

Ah, there we have the elusive 'genetic studies' again. Care to reproduce them or link to the source, Byzantine Prince? I have a tint of French blood, you see, hence my Cartesian doubt.

[Brutus]

Ave Brutus,

as far as I know, the Franks were just a group of adventurers from all kind of Germanian tribes. Frank seems to mean 'wild' and 'free'. Maybe kind of Rockers. They also seemed to be just a quite small group, when they started to penetrate the Gaulish lands, some 10,000, maybe. I do not know how they could control Gaul. Maybe they just absorbed other groups.

So in fact, the genetic share of the Franks may not be so big.

Maybe someone else has more knowledge about that.

Well, genetics are difficult to tell, of course. At Leiden university they just finished researching the genetic code of males all over Europe, in which they found out, for example, that Italian from Veneto are genetically closer to Germans and Norwegians than to other Italians. Also they found that people from Friesland and Groningen are closer to Danes than to other Dutchmen. However, because of their use of sometimes very small groups of testing persons, their research is dubious at best.

The Franks did indeed impose their rule on people already inhabiting the areas, but their share in the population would diminish when moving further south. So most likely their percentage of the verall population was the highest in the regions were I am from. Also, old school books here tell us that our country was inhabited by three tribes after Roman times: The Frisians in the west and north, the Saxons in the east and the Franks in the south.

Probably my 'blood' is part German (of whatever tribe), part celtic, part Roman, part whatever people lived here before them, and part of whoever knows who. From my own appearance I could deduct that I have a large amount of German blood, but actually I feel more closely related to Brabantine peasants then to germanic warriors...

By the way, I thought that the Franks, who were indeed a confederation of tribes (for example also including the Chatti) took their name from the 'francisca' which is a battle axe mostly used for throwing at the enemy, and was one of their primary weapons. (my primary source for this information wasn't just the 'Throwing Axeman' of Age of Empires 2! )

[ShadesWolf]

Why dont you drop a line to CA they must have some data somewhere about each faction, as they dont like other people spending time doing this type of work for the comunity, then maybe they should supply it to us.

[Accounting Troll]

Even the late Iron Age Britons were a mixture of Celts, the various pre-Celtic inhabitants of the British Isles, and anybody the inhabitants of Britain traded with, including the Phoecinians and Carthaginians. Almost every faction in R:TW and M:TW has contributed to my genetic mix over the last few thousand years owing to invasions, immigration and trade.

Several years ago, a group of scientists compared the genetics of people who live in the Cheddar Gorge area with the genetics of someone who had been buried there in the Bronze Age. They actually found someone who was a direct male line descendant. Another survey revealed that the Vikings had very little genetic impact in the parts of England that they settled in.

[artavazd]

I'm Armenian

[artavazd]

here is a link which covers armenian history in general
http://www.hyeetch.nareg.com.au/arme...istory_p1.html

[artavazd]

I'm An Armenian

I'm an Armenian, as old as Ararat;
My shoes were wetted by the waters of the Flood.
Beside these shining peaks where Noah sat
My sword once drew the dread Bel's* evil blood.
These boulders overgrown with moss since time
Beyond remembrance, my hand hewed to lie
In the foundation of an ancient shrine
Which my own blood I shed to sanctify.
One morning here, in Ararat's green valley
My hammer and my pick aside I flung
And lit a fire on the Chaldean altar.
Those days both Ararat and I were young.
Then crimson every valley-flower was dyed;
All we had sown in it through ages past
Grew on the blood of countrymen who died.
Beneath each hillock killed Armenians rest.
With trusty shield I met attacking hordes,
Suffering countless wounds from countless swords.
I'm an Armenian, as old as Ararat.
High as the hills I bear my head. My story's sad:
Each century that passed brought grief to me.
My sons throughout the whole wide world were scattered;
With bloody showers Ararat was spattered.
My ploughlands crops of misery would yield.
I lived and breathed among my burned-out fields
On wasteland rubble, ashes steeped in gore.
But now, with my own blood revived once more,
Again the holy altar-lights burn bright,
Warming my heart and gladdening my sight.
New ploughshares out of rusted swords I forged;
Our fathers' heritage to my children I gave back.
Our sorrow fills my verse with hot blood gorged.
A twentieth century Gregory Narek**
I'm an Armenian, as old as Ararat.
Beneath my sorrows Ararat itself would bow.
Any ill-omened, blood-thirsty Attila that
Arose in history, would deal me his first blow.
Inured to massacres, I lived in thrall for ages.
An orphan, in the fight for life I'm steeled.
My thousand-year-old grain, preserved by hearts courageous,
Sown in new times, sprouts in my virgin fields.
Blessed be my roots, whose strength is marvelled at!
A homeless outcast once, a motherland have I.
I'm an Armenian, as old as Ararat.
I hold my head as high as eagles fly.