Bulgaria

Bulgaria is a powerful kingdom occupying much of the Eastern Balkans and is the strongest country in the region. Encouraged by their recent victories against the Byzantines and Serbs, the kingdom is looking forward to extending Bulgarian rule over neighboring states, and perhaps, even conquer Constantinople itself.

## Bulgarian Ideas

### Confirm the Boyar Rights

Stability Cost Modifier: -10.0%Boyars Loyalty Equilibrum: +5.0%

### Bulgarian Golden Age

Development Cost: -10.0%Monthly Splendor: +1.00

## **Lore**

Constantinople triumphed as Bulgaria burnt. A vicious campaign of reclamation had ended the independence of both the First Empire and its religion; the Bulgarian Patriarchate was demoted to an arch-bishopric under the City of the Worlds Desire. That Babylon lived up to its name, drowning in gold and opulent splendor won off the backs of Bulgars and Asians who tasted no sweet fruit of Rome.

In their dim flattery, they attempted to fill gilded goblets from the river Lethe, piling foreign treasure and distant posts at the feet of brave Boyars, hoping they would forget their motherland. Foolishly, the Greeks failed to note in their records and almanacs the anguish of the serf and the humiliation of the noble, whose resentment would only build with time, waxing as Roman power waned.

Their doom would arise by their own hand, as Boyars upon the border of Asia Minor schemed away from the nosy meddling of the court. Brothers Theodore and Asen, scions of Cuman and Bulgarian royalty, were swayed by appeals to common ancestry and common interests between the Bulgars and the Turkic nomads they were commissioned to fight. The terrified Emperor and his sycophants huddled in their great city, prepared to defend from their strongest holdfast, only to realize this was precisely what their opponents wanted them to do.

The Bulgar host pillaged its way across to Gallipoli. Caught off guard, Constantinople could do nothing as our army entered Thrace, and then Bulgaria, lighting the fire of rebellion. Standing little chance, the humiliated Empire would eventually be forced to concede to the reestablishment of a new Bulgarian Tsardom. Among the necks strung up in Tarnovo was that false Bishop, an invasive plant imposed on us that needed to be pulled from the roots.

Our first invasion was thwarted, perhaps ironically, from the Chaldian Leon Gabras, whose grizzled force had the strength to fend off our army, unlike the feeble pansies in Tsarigrad. Yet even this defeat was only temporary, for to his credit Gabras forsook his overlord in favor of a new state in Anatolia.

Suffering under the bellicose ineptitude of the Angelid dynasty, the Greeks nonetheless attempted to launch an offensive against us at the dawn of the 15th Century. Collaborating with those fork-tongued Serbians, their untrained and ill-equipped force was sent lumbering across the border. Much to their dismay, though, God himself favored our cause, as great rains drowned the land, spreading disease and keeping our foes from finding solace in sleep.

Within weeks, our grand army destroyed the already-collapsing Greek incursion, erstwhile the Serbs capitulated unconditionally. Much of the Romans' Balkan holdings fell without incident, and now our Tsar leers at the capital of this wizened nation, seeking to clear from it the corruption and decay of a previous age and start a new era; the Era of the Second Bulgarian Empire.