Fellow
friends, comrades, brothers-in-arms, I made a somewhat funny discovery. While
watching an episode of Gilmore Girls with my girlfriend, one of the characters mentioned
a flower. So what is so special about a
flower in Gilmore Girls? It was the name of the flower that caught my attention
and made me rewind the episode and rewatch the scene about 5 times. The flower
was called Usambaraveilchen (engl: Afircan Vilotes).
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| The Usambaraveilchen aka the African Violet |
Usambara? But Usambara is
a work of fiction! Okay, maybe it is not a work of fiction, maybe there is a
place called Usambara. A quick google search later, I found Usambara. Funny
enough – Usambara is not far from my Usambara.
Before we
travel to the real Usambara a quick look at my Usambara. I took the name from a
Forum RPG, maybe the original creator knew about the real Usambara, I don’t
know, but when I took over Usambara I relocated the Nation to the east coast, with
Usambara’s territory overlying
the East African Rift covering a diverse and expansive terrain. It is bordered
by Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.
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| My Usambara |
So where is
the real Usambara? The real Usambara is not a country or nation by definition,
but it is a mountain region in….Tanzania!
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| An old map from Southern Usambara |
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The mointain range is called the
Usambara Mountains and is home to the Usambaraveilchen (African Vilotes) and
the Pterinochilus murinus aka the Rote Usambara-Vogelspinne (Red
Usambara Tarantual but it’s not called that in englisch. You people know these
arachnids as Mombasa golden starburst tarantula – a pretty cool name if I might
say so)
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| The Rote Usambara Vogelspinne aka the Mombasa golden starburst |
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| The Usambara Mountains |
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| Again the Usambara Mountains...I should go there and play a campaign game |
So what
does that mean for ficitional Usambara? First of all it means a relocation into
the Usambara Mountains, and secondly it means a more or less complete redesign
of Usambaras history. Tanzania was a former German Colony and only become
British territory after the Great War, so there is quite a few changes in the
way Usambara developed. That also means that I can explore the history of
Usambara a bit more and create new conflicts within the nation. Over the next
few weeks or months I’ll rewritte the mostly unpublished history of Usambara
and will post it piece by piece here on this blog. I know, not everyone is interested
in this kind of content, but it is where my heart and soul are. I studied
history and political science and I love to create new and unique stories.
Also, with a complete and complex background, the games will become far more interesting.
But fear not – we have some miniature reviews and pictures of painted models
incoming.
I finally
found the perfect models for my Usambara Armed Forces models, so in a couple of
weeks, I should be able to present some painted models – it took me some time!
Also on the
horizon are some insurgents and the story behind their fight for freedom – as well
as some painted models and a short battle report from the first engagement we
played a couple of weeks ago.
So I hope
not all of you have already left Usambara – because Usambara is very well alive!
