Heirs of Ērānšahr

The House of Sāsān did not end at Nihāvand. Its heirs fled east, to the court of Tang China, and waited. Three generations later, a young exile turns his face west — toward a lost empire.

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An alternate history of Iran. After the last Sasanian claimant, Narsieh, died in Chang’an in 730 AD, his line quietly survived as guests of the Tang.

In the 867 bookmark you inherit that legacy as Ardeshir — a landless sixteen-year-old of the old royal blood, born in exile in China. You hold nothing but a name, a claim to an empire two thousand miles away, and a handful of loyal kin.

The road home runs the length of the Silk Road.

• Ride west. Begin as a landless adventurer on the China map and make your way across Central Asia toward the Iranian plateau.
• Wake the sleeping houses. The great Parthian clans that once crowned and uncrowned kings — Sūrēn, Ispahbudhān, Warāz, Spandiyādh, and Zīk — endured in silence through the Islamic centuries. Reach a clan’s ancestral homeland and its surviving heirs rally to your banner with warriors of the old kind. Timing matters: arrive early and a strong host answers — tarry too long and the last of a line may die before you reach it.
• Summon the old blood. Landed Sasanian rulers can instead "Appeal to the Old Blood," calling the Caspian and Iranian houses to the cause by right of descent.
• Restore Ērānšahr. Reunite the plateau and be crowned Shahanshah at Istakhr — where the first Ardashir raised the House of Sāsān six centuries before.

Beneath the story lies a ground-up rebuild of the pre-Islamic Iranian, Armenian, and Caucasian nobility — over five hundred historically-grounded characters woven into one connected genealogy:

• The Arsacids and the Seven Great Houses of Iran
• The Bavandids and Baduspanids of the Caspian
• The Karen and the Mihran
• The Samanids and their descent from Bahrām Chōbīn
• The Chosroid kings of Iberia and the Arsacid line of Armenia

All reconnected, deduplicated, and given their proper coats of arms — down to the Derafsh-e Kāviāni of the House of Sāsān.

Start a new game in the 867 bookmark and choose Ardeshir at Chang’an. History and genealogy changes only take effect in a fresh game, so a new 867 start is the way to see everything.

Requirements

• All Under Heaven — required (you begin on the China map).
• Roads to Power — required (the landless-adventurer start).
• Legacy of Persia — optional (period men-at-arms for the risen houses).

Built for CK3 1.19.x "Scribe."

Heirs of Ērānšahr is actively developed. The genealogy and the world are complete; the reconquest questline keeps growing. So jump in: ride the Silk Road, wake the old houses, and restore the empire — then tell me how it played. Feedback, bug reports, and screenshots are hugely welcome in the comments, and every one helps steer the road home.

To keep its genealogy clean, this mod rewrites several vanilla character files, so it may conflict with other mods that edit the same pre-Islamic Iranian, Armenian, or Caucasian characters. It is otherwise standalone.

The genealogical backbone is adapted from More Bookmarks+ — with thanks to its authors for the scholarship it rests on.

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Bāz āmad Ērānšahr — the land returns.