[h3]Setting and Word of Green Sahara[/h3]
[b]Maps[/b]

[hider=My Hider]
Africa:
[url]https://i.imgur.com/RqceUFK.png[/url]

Europe:
[url]https://i.imgur.com/UGB8CTc.png[/url]

Religion
[url]https://i.imgur.com/VkStGdp.png[/url]
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[b]History:[/b]
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The rain never left the Sahara, leaving what had become a dry wasteland in our world to remain a lush and fertile grassland. Dominated by the 3 Great African Seas: The Moorish Sea, The Sea of Chad, and the Punic Sea. Home to various nomadic tribes and some powerful kingdoms, the North of Africa is much more relevant in the world. 

After the conquests of Carthage, in which the emergent Carthage utilized its massive abundance of resources to utterly eradicate its rival Rome, and Alexander, and the rise of the Hausa empire of Chad, the Sahara was dominated by Three Major powers, The Carthaginian Empire, The Ptolemaic Kingdom, and the Chadian Empire, with the powerful Seleucid Empire exerting influence. Following a Jewish revolt taking place in Seleucid territory, the Ptolemy's backed the rebels, declaring war on the Seleucids. The Seleucids called their ally, the Carthaginians, into the war, prompting the Ptolemy's to call in the Chadian Empire. The War ultimately ended in favor of the Ptolemys, who backed the creation of and Israelite Kingdom, and forced the Seleucids to renounce their claims in Asia Minor and the Levant, ceding lands to the Ptolemaic allies of Pergamum and Galatia. Carthage was hit harder, being forced to renounce all its territories outside of Africa, withdrawing from Iberia and ceding its Italian territories to the Celtic Kingdom of the Senones, and release the Kingdom of Epirus as an independent state. Carthage and The Seleucids never rose again, with the remnants of the Seleucid Empire being destroyed by the arrival of the Parthians, and the Carthaginians facing destruction at the hands of the Vandals 3 centuries later.  
Around this time, the teachings of a man named Siddhartha Gautama began to spread across the Hellenic world, attracting followers from all walks of life. The first to officially convert to this new religion on a national level was King Attalus II of Pergamum, who sent out missionaries to the Galatians and the Macedonians. 
The Migration Period was kickstarted with the arrival of the Huns, who pushed Germanic, Celtic, and Slavic peoples southwest into Europe, Africa, and Asia. 
The first to fall were the Gaulish Kingdoms, which saw them migrating south into Iberia to escape the Goths, Franks, Saxons, Frisians, and Vandals, later being pushed northward into the Northwest of Iberia by the Vandals. The Vandal Kingdom was destroyed by the Goths, who forced the Vandals out into North Africa, where they destroyed the last remnants of the Carthaginian Empire. The Goths established a powerful state in Iberia, with the Northwest of Iberia being divided between various small Celtic Kingdoms, ruled and inhabited by Gaulish Exiles, native Celtiberians, and Britons fleeing from the Anglo-Saxon invasions, gradually expanding south. Italy saw itself invaded by the Burgundians, who took all of the Cisalpine Italian lands up to the Tiber river, with the Senonian Kingdom of Italy remaining in control of the South. The Balkans saw an influx of eastern Germanic Tribes who settled along the Danube, and Slavic tribes after that. The Kingdoms of Macedon and Epirus were conquered by the Cherusci and the Ostrogoths, while the Germanic Heruli, Lombards, and Marcomanni settled in the Northern Balkans, only for the Heruli and Marcomanni to be pushed across the Danube and the Lombards to be relocated to the Adriatic coast by the arrival of the Slavic Antes, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, and Rus. The Area of Germania, which largely saw itself depopulated, was resettled by Slavic tribes moving up to the Rhine, save for the Alpine region, which remained under the Authority of the Alamanni.

Meanwhile, in Africa, the Bantu migrations saw Bantu speaking tribes move east in northward and southward directions, encroaching on Saharan nations, particularly upon the Chadians and the Nubian kingdoms. Western African Kingdoms began to take advantage of the long trade routes from their lands to East Asia to become extremely wealthy and exert influence on the greater continent, culminating with the political unification of much of western Africa under the Ghana Empire, a direct rival to the increasingly weakening Chadian Empire. The Vandals, who had recently arrived in Africa, were also becoming rich off of facilitating Trade between West Africa and the western Mediterranean. Egypt remained something of a power, with holdings in Arabia and parts of the Levant remaining after the death of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, with the new Isaurian dynasty, founded by a Syrian born general Philippos Isauros. 

More turbulence was brought with the arrival of nomadic peoples from the east, who came to hold dominance over much of the steppe lands, first with the Avars invasion and conquest of Pannonia, and the arrival of the Magyars soon after. Now Turkic peoples are found across Central Asia, reaching into the Middle East. 

In contrast, the region of "Transalpine Europe" is a totally different world from the south of the continent. Organized religion and philosophy of the Hellenistic world have barely penetrated into this realm, mostly being inhabited by the most distant of Germanic and Slavic peoples. They are technologically lagging behind the Mediterranean and Near East, becoming less advanced the further northeast one goes. The area is mostly unchanged since the migration period, with the old Polytheistic religions of old being dominant. Norsemen utilize the complex river systems of the east to trade with the people of the Middle-East, keeping contact between the north and south alive. However, northern Europe exists at the periphery of civilization and is largely irrelevant on a global scale.  
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[b]Religion:[/b]
[hider=Okhemarite Buddhism]
Religion in the Mediterranean and the Sahara is dominated by "Bouttismos Okhemara", Greater Vehicle Buddhism. A western offshoot of Mahayana Buddhism, born from the intermingling of Buddhism and Greek Philosophy, it has rapidly spread across the Middle-East, North Africa, and Southern Europe. The religion has also incorporated dominant religious traditions such as the Greco-Egyptian Cult of Isis (applying many of the practices of the Isis cult upon the worship of the mother of Buddha, Maya). Ultimately, Okhemara Buddhism is a religion that stresses self-cultivation with the ultimate goal of escaping from rebirth and reaching the realm of Nirvana (Greek: Nibbana) through attaining the state of Eleutheros (freedom). Okhemara, due to the influence of the Messianic Judaism movement, emphasises the arrival of the Messiah (Greek: Khristos), who is named Mateia, and will arrive to deliver a world governed by perfect law, and will return 1000 years later as Apeirophos, the reincarnation of Mateia in the celestial realm who will send the wicked to Tataros to make penence for their sins, and will fuse the earth and heaven into the "Pure Land" of Nirvana (Greek: Nibbana) a land without suffering, where the Eleutherioi had dwelled beforehand. 
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[hider=Temple Judaism and Messianic Judaism]
Judaism remains the sole existing Abrahamic religion in the world of Green Sahara. Judaism is split among two major factions, Temple Judaism, based in the religious authority of the Second Temple priesthood and the Hasmonean monarchy, and Messianic Judaism, based in the religious authority of the self-proclaimed messiah Emmanuel of Axum.

Second Temple Judaism remains more or less identical to the second temple Jewish religion of our timeline, though foreign philosophies and messianic ideas have been brutally stamped out by the religious and secular authorities, who impose their own religious orthodoxy on the common people, often violently. Outside of Israel proper, there exist Arab and African Semitic tribes who pledge allegiance to the Kohen Gadol of Jerusalem and recognize him as the supreme authority of the religion. 

Messianic Judaism originally referred to a current of thought in the Jewish population that the Messiah would be coming very soon, and was full of apocalyptic thought and ideas of salvation. These Messianic sects were mostly brutally repressed by the temple priesthood, and many fled to Arabia and Africa, where the ideas became popular among some Jewish African tribes. In addition to being influential among African Judaism, it also contributed greatly to the ideas of divine salvation and Messianism in Okhemara Buddhism. The most significant Messianic Sect is that of Emmanuel of Axum, who has risen an army after being declared Messiah by a being that he assumed to be an Angel. Many African tribes now swear allegiance to Emmanuel.
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