I have one friend in Skype who is considering registering and joining us - he is most interested in Constantinople! After some discussion with him I think we can discard the notion of a mongol invasion; it's too complicated, too many points of conflict, and as an antagonistic party its reach is far too vast while it has no real base of operations. 

I do like the idea of trying to escape from Jerusalem (or Constantinople for that matter, depending on who wants what). Conquering it back is definitely something we could look at doing, situation permitting~