-ABBC- Additional Byzantine-Bulgarian Characters

This mod is a "character pack" of sorts, adding thousands(4000+ as of right now) of historical characters and known connections between historical characters, as well as implementing many theories and adding some speculated connections. Besides these, it also adds several hundred fictional people to represent tribes -mostly Slavic with some Germanic and Turkic origin- that are missing from the game.

Despite the name it doesn’t add only Byzantine and Bulgarian characters, the name simply comes from the fact when I first started working on this my intention was to only add missing members for the Bulgarian ruling dynasty (Dulo, Krum, Kometopuli) and add missing members for the families of Roman/Byzantine emperors, especially to show how many of the emperors were connected to other emperors that came before them, as well as adding a few missing families from Byzantine Empire in 9th and 11th centuries and a few missing Slavic tribes that were located within both realms but it went way beyond that adding thousands of characters from various different realms, cultures and families like adding missing members of the Anglo-Saxon House of Wessex, the Visigothic ruling family of Balthes or the Khazar Ashina dynasty or adding some Norse families from scratch, a more comprehensive(but sadly outdated) list can be found in the Paradox Forums thread:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/mod-abbc-additional-byzantine-bulgarian-characters.1607409/

For a version that makes use of cultures added by Culture Expanded you can use this version.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3180138029

It should be compatible with most other mods since besides adding houses, dynasties and characters and a changes to few existing characters, this really doesn’t change anything.

Currently this modifies:

history

– characters (besides additions also changes existing characters)
– titles (makes no changes, only additions)

common
– dynasties (makes no changes, only additions)
– dynasty_houses (makes no changes, only additions)
– coat_of_arms (makes no changes, only additions)
– legendslegend_seeds0_legend_seeds.txt
– landed_titles (makes no changes, only additions)

In the future it will also modify (addition of new files only)

common
– dna_data

Almost all of the planned major additions(various minor additions are not in the roadmap) in the roadmap that can be found in the PDX Forum page is done with
only two major updates regarding historical characters remain:

– GH: Addition of people mentioned in Gesta Hungarorum which, most likely come no earlier than summer if I do it at all since I don’t have time to spare reading on it, most of the updates since release are worked in small breaks of 10-30 minutes

– GAP: Georgians, Armenians, Persians. Addition of many missing characters (and dynasties if I find any) of Georgian, Armenian and Persian descent and addition of people/dynasties that are connected to them through marriage and missing in game. This one I’m currently working on, not counting those that were already in the mod when I released it, so far I’ve added many missing Bagratids from both Armenian and Georgian branches, added many missing Arsacids, added most of the missing Anchabadze(Abkhaz but Georgian in game) I could find, will probably finish Arcrunis in an update or to and some missing Sasanians and will gradually add more as I work on them.

There are also two major additions that I ultimately decided not to continue on:

– PopPa: Addition of families of Popes and Patriarchs and connecting Popes and Patriarchs whose families exist.
I have already added/connected families of many Popes and Patriarchs, especially those related to other Popes and Patriarchs, belonged to important(even imperial) families or connected to important people and any Pope and Patriarch I find to be connected to some important people I will make the connection/add families but I won’t go through every single pope and patriarch.

– MAD + DIO:
MAD is various Mercenaries, adventurers and defectors that served Byzantine Empire in 11th century I have already added those I could find and will add more if I find them.

DIO is Descent into obscurity which I planned to add fictional members for many important people or people from important families to bring them up to 867 and 1066 starts. These people were carefully selected so no people that were known to have died unmarried/childless etc. but they were people who were known to be married but not known whether they had children or not, people who disappeared from record(but not dead at their last mention) at a young age even if they were unmarried, people who were known to have children but weren’t mentioned any further after their last record.

To give some examples of eligibles for DIO

Several Several branches of Ashina that sought asylum with the Chinese and are known to have had children.

Godagis the nephew of the Vandal king Huneric was exiled along with his wife and there is no further mention of him.
Gelimer the last king of Vandals was defeated by Belisarius and after his surrender, was given estates in Galatia by Justinian and Gelimer settled there along with his cousins and nephews who survived the war and there is no further mention of them.

Sabin who ruled Bulgaria in 765-766 fled to Byzantine Empire and later his family was also transferred and is last mentioned in 768.

Telerig of Bulgaria fled to Byzantine Empire in 777, was made patrikios Emperor Leo the Khazar and married to a sister or cousin of Empress Eirene.

So as can be seen from the examples, these are chosen from people/families that have not died out(or at least not known whether if they had died out) but faded (or may have faded) into obscurity, hence the name of the update.

Due to additions for DIO being entirely fictional I have ultimately decided not to continue further on it. Of the work I have done so far on this branch of updates, I have implemented to the main mod descendants to people who are only at most 3-4 generations or around 100 years away from the start dates and I will definitely not add the rest of the work as part of the main mod but I do plan to add them perhaps as a small submod or add them within the main mod but in a defunct state that can easily be made active by a very small change but only people who wants to add them would have them. I will probably make this addition within a few weeks (date is 22/04 as I’m writing this)