Ansar Eclipse

Under the reign of the illustrious First Sayyid, the Arab Dominion became a reality, manifest in a heavily religious monarchy.  The Sayyid's successors, the Prima Dynasty, would not enjoy as great a success as he. Economic instability marred his grandson's reign: frequently, the Lord High Exchequer was unable to meet the Dominion's financial demands.  The solution? Broaden the tax base:  expand the Dominion into Russian territority.

Few officials in the monarchy wanted to resume the war against the Russians. Moscow and other territories were still not consolidated properly, and fighting a war would cost money. Unfortunately for the Russian warlords, the Sons of Zeus took up the cause of war. The Sons were a heavy cavalry order charged with protecting the Temple of Zeus and expanding its glory. The path to glory lay through Russia. The king acquiesed to the notoriously strong-minded Sons, but he and the Exchequer both limited army operations to the Volga River. The Dominion would spread that far and no further: leave the Russians their hills.

The Sons, infantry units, and the remnants of the royal cavalry took Russia by storm. Then as before,  Russian cities fell with little resistence.  The Sons' war-chief, Uthman the Mighty, took command of the entire Army, swiftly conquering the areas allowed him. He traveled to Medina to encourage the king to broaden the war, as well as to proclaim the good news to the people of the Dominion. Popular support, especially among the nobility, soared: the king was soon powerless to oppose the whims of his subordinates. Uthman further called for more volunteers to travel to Russia and fight for glory. He unwittingly invited the birth of the Ansars, a radical sect who would come to dominate the Dominion.

Intiially, the Ansars were young men who volunteered to take up the sword and fight for glory, uniting themselves as a religious order. They vowed not only to spread the glory of Zeus, but to spread a more godly way of living. Inspired by the Arab religious text, The Tome of Virtue, the Ansars created an "Ansar Coda", establishing who they were, why they fought, and what kind of society they expected to establish in Russia. Their dream was a just world.  Historian Jacques Monet would later note that the Ansar Coda is one of the most effective pieces of propaganda ever devised: not only did it call young men out of the cities at unbelievable numbers, but once translated into Russian it created in the Russian populace an ally.

Ignoring the king, the Ansars led the Sons of Zeus and the Royal Army further into Russian territory. They were zealots, with a passion beyond reason: no man, no king, no natural force could stop their rise.  They vowed to claim all of Russia in the name of God, and so they did.

 In Russia, only Ansar law ruled. In the Dominion, the number of men drawn by the Ansar ideal increased at an alarming rate: the king and his intimates feared that their powerful numbers and anti-authoritatian preaching would see them rise against the Dominion itself, against the monarchy. When the king mysteriously died only to be replaced by an alarmingly Ansar-friendly regent, the nobles feared the end of the Dominion was at hand. Was the glorious monarchy established by the First Sayyid about to be destroyed by an army of zealots whose conviction and power could not be surpassed?

What no-one suspected was that the time of the Second Sayyid was at hand.