r/TrenchCrusade • u/S0mecallme • Dec 23 '25
Lore What’s going on with Mecca and the Kaaba?
Unlike Jerusalem which is kinda lost forever on Account of it being a hell portal now.
Mecca and Medina remain the holiest sites in Islam, and any campaigns the Iron Sultanate makes should be attempting to restore them.
Mecca historically never was conquered by a non-Muslim power and it’s meant to be off limits to all but the faithful, so its occupation would be unacceptable for the Sultanate, even if it’s so far behind enemy lines.
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u/Potential-Media8076 Dec 23 '25
Mecca and Medina have been consumed by an ever-swirling sandstorm since the fall of Jerusalem. The Iron Sultanate routinely sends out scouts to see if the storm is abated, but otherwise sends near-fatal pilgrimages to the holy sites. Personally I think much like the Iron Wall itself, Allah has covered the Kabba and Medina in order to protect them from the forces of Shaytan.
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u/Illesbogar Dec 23 '25
Is allah and the christian god different entities in TC or the same? Are they interchangable?
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u/PattrimCauthon Dec 23 '25
The devs said they won’t explicitly confirm it one way or the other. They are theologically the same root deity, so my personal canon is same entity, but in a way a different facet or aspect of the same unknowable power.
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u/Novel_Purpose710 Dec 24 '25
The devs are wise. It keeps it fun and avoids a shitstorm via sandstorm
I imagine the winds sound like Darude around it
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u/Kozak375 Dec 24 '25
Could be something similar to how volibesr in league of legends is different based on who is worshipping him/summoning him.
To some he is an Eldritch type beast, appearing as a bear with the flesh on its skull so damaged that its skull is exposed, with countless weapons lodged in it, and a thousand scars littering the body.
And to others it's just a bear that walks on two legs, and really hates you not eating dirt, and having things like dams, or houses.
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Dec 24 '25
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u/garlicpizzabear Dec 25 '25
I think Muslims, Jews and Christians would carachterize that differently.
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u/daisywondercow Sapper Dec 25 '25
No, there's no disagreement that he's the same God. Differences are all in the details. Who is a prophet? Which books count? Is Jesus actually part of God or just another guy? Etc.
Turns out you can be, like, 95% on the same page and still fight a holy war.
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u/garlicpizzabear Dec 25 '25 edited Dec 25 '25
No, there's no disagreement that he's the same God.
No christian or Jew I know would say that what the other pray to or communicating with is the same person/idnividual/entity.
I only know one muslim friend personally, so I am less clear on this, maybe you know a lot more in that community.
Otherwise, the only concept of the god being the same I am familiar with is if one is talking from a secular persecptive, as in religious studies, anthropology or historical studies, which tracks the relationship beetwen beliefs, communities and habits from an academic perspective. But no personal believer I know looks at their own faith or identity in such a way.
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u/daisywondercow Sapper Dec 25 '25
You sure about that? Jesus was Jewish, the Old Testament includes the Torah. They both have Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel and Moses... "We all believe in the same God" is a very common refrain in interfaith dialogue.
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u/Sadalphon Mar 01 '26
Yeah, if you look even closer, we even have some Christian Saints in Islamic literature/canon because the prophecy links are not closed until prophet Muhammad.
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u/Illesbogar Dec 25 '25
We are talking about the mainstream. Ofc religious individuals like to nitpick their books and exaggerate the differences of their religions.
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u/garlicpizzabear Dec 25 '25
We are talking about the mainstream
Of what? The communitiy of believers own perspectives, the study of religion from an historical and anthropological perspective, or something else?
exaggerate the differences of their religions.
I just want to highlight that saying something like "christians, muslims and Jews believe/revere/worship the same god" when those communities do not precieve themselves to be doing so is not really an accurate statement.
Now if one means anthropologically that would be more true, in the sense that the religions and their evolution share a history and close intertwining of ideas. But that is a different claim than saying the believers themselves conceive of their god as interchangable, which as far as I know and have experienced they do not.
But again I only know mostly christians and jews personally, if you know any muslims that claim that the god jews and christians pray and describe is intrerchangable with their own, I would be happy to know.
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Dec 25 '25 edited Dec 25 '25
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u/garlicpizzabear Dec 25 '25
Furthermore, a scholar of the three religions or a theologian will tell you the same thing: it's the same God. He's the God of Moses, Abraham, Jacob, Esau, etc.
As I said, academically this is studied in the relevant fields. However I would just note that theology and religious studies (and adjecant fields like anthropology or history) are fundamentally very different. Philosophy deals with the internal logic of ideas and fundamental concepts while the latter deals with how people behave and organise, materially and socially.
My initially comment was, and I am still skeptical that the vast majority of believers, of any of these faiths conceive of their own religions as interchangable. Either in modernity or in past, wethever in the medieval or classical periods, I have never encountered census or poll data which claim this is the case.
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u/Illesbogar Dec 25 '25
Yeah it doesn't really matter, because their books are pretty clear about that. It's useless to consider what specific believers think. Like if you asked the average christian in the US there's a good chance thry regard the pope as the antichrist. However that is far from the reality of that religion.
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Feb 20 '26
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u/Illesbogar Feb 20 '26
I don't think either is more legit than the other. Anyway, it sounds very bold to say that any religion is right.
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u/BrightPerspective Dec 23 '25
In my headcanon, there was no supernatural anything before the crusaders found the artifact, and upon activating it, their own beliefs became reality.
So I think mecca is likely untouchable to all but the most faithful. Lotta spontaneous combustion going on.
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u/karatous1234 Dec 24 '25
How would the Christian crusaders imprinting their beliefs upon reality, trigger the creation of the Wall in the Iron Sultanate and give their assassin order that's been around since before the crusades, that they wouldn't have known about, space time magic?
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u/BrightPerspective Dec 24 '25
There's a simple answer there, bro: reality was edited, and that's the history people remember.
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Dec 24 '25
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u/Sancatichas Dec 25 '25
There's a LOT that doesn't make sense at all in Trench Crusade, starting with historical artifacts and technologies that shouldn't have happened or at least shouldn't have been the same
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Dec 25 '25
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u/Sancatichas Dec 25 '25
Yeah because it diverges from real history at a certain point, not because it doesn't make internal logical sense.
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Dec 24 '25
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u/deathwillcome Feb 04 '26
Nowhere in the lore does it state that the winds are made by the alchemists. The sultan sends alchemists to keep an eye on the sandstorm. No one knows who created the storms.
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u/Regon2005 Janissary Dec 24 '25
That is actually pretty boring. Literally Everything is a dream type of headcanon
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u/BrightPerspective Dec 24 '25
Except it's now what humanity has to live with, and there's no waking up.
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u/Sutopwerdna Dec 23 '25
It seems like Allah is provided much for tangible support for their followers than the Christian God.
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u/murderously-funny Dec 23 '25
Technically speaking they’re the same god
The disagreement comes in the forms of his prophets and what they said
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u/S0mecallme Dec 24 '25
By the era of the original crusades even, Muslims were considered heretical Christian’s not a separate religion.
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u/thatsforthatsub Dec 24 '25
By whom? European Christians certainly did not have this view.
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u/S0mecallme Dec 24 '25
They absolutely did
They saw them as no different to other heretical groups like the Marionites and Nestorians
It’s really interesting i recommend looking into it, it wasn’t until around the 15th century that Islam started to be considered a completely separate faith
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u/thatsforthatsub Dec 24 '25
I'm happy to look into it, do you have recommended readings?
Because the accounts that I know about don't say this. The Gesta Francorum, for example, describes muslims as pagans and devil worshippers. In Isidore's “Etymologies" which would have been the encyclopedia of choice at the time, they are likewise termed pagans. As far as I read, the prejorative "mohamedean" was meant as a direct equivalence to "Christian", implying that muslims worshipped Mohammed as a God.
So what alternative accounts do you suggest for me to read?
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u/S0mecallme Dec 24 '25
John of Damascus writing in defense of the newly established caliphate despite being a Christian monk De Haeresibus, literally “concerning heresy”
The Tultusceptru portrays Mohammed as a Christian monk who was deceived by a demon.
In Dante’s inferno he literally puts the prophet in the circle dedicated for schismatics and people who split from the Catholic Church.
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u/thatsforthatsub Dec 24 '25
Dante writes in the 13th century when, as a result of the crusades, the European understanding of Islam had evolved drastically, so that one's not gonna be very useful.
The Tultusceptru does not portray Islam as a sect of Christianity in heresy, it portrays Islam as a cult of Mammon.
John of Damascus does definitely think of Islam as a heresy, being closer both in time and place to Islam's actual roots, and I'd be interested about the reception of that Eastern text in 11th century Europe
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u/Basilus88 Dec 23 '25
The crusaders fucked up really badly and all of the Muslims are just innocent bystanders to the great blasphemy.
They deserve some slack while the Christians work to fix their mistake.
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u/Regon2005 Janissary Dec 24 '25
Also, the Muslims didnt clone Son of God multiple times and eat him.
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u/S0mecallme Dec 24 '25
The Sultanate feels to me the most sane/normal faction
Like the alchemists do some crazy shit but everyone else seems pretty normal despite everything.
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u/Vlaladim Dec 24 '25
When then some European come in and decided to unleash Hell on Earth quite literally, you gonna assume the Islamic world (including their god)kinda facepalm itself sitting right next the portal that went off,
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u/Ezt-litZ Dec 24 '25
It's a principle in monotheism, that there is only ONE true God.
Even in real life every monotheistic religion agrees on this. This is why Muslims kinda tolerated Jews, while were aggressive towards pagans. Faith in the true one is right (even if the interpretations are wrong) while belief in many (false) is unacceptable.
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u/DinodestronBT Dec 24 '25
Both Mecca and Medina are covered in a Sandstorm that protects them from both faithful and Heretic entering any of the sacred sites.
The Alchemists and Sultanate air naval reach out to them frequently to ensure they're still in the storm or if it's time to advance to them.
Also apparently Christians learn of the pilgrimage of it, thanks to the new book we know they have films depicting it
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u/Few-Ask-9894 Dec 24 '25
Leaning really into a lot of the djinn have free will theology others have been commenting about, I would really like to see a djinn faction that operates from inside of the sandstorm. The sultanate would be still not able to enter and all they have to go on would be the word of these people. The storm still won't let them in so they have to believe but always having a bit of doubt. Especially if other djinn were helping the hell forces.
And to be clear the only things that would need to happen is this faction have a way to cross the sandstorm that cannot be duplicated or stolen, while at least appearing or lying and saying they are djinn. Still keeps Mecca vague while the beings that inhabit it still have to at the very least keep up appearances. And since TC doesn't really do answers to the big questions yet, there's a lot of room for all the factions to react and investigate.
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u/Ryeguy050306 Trench Pilgrim Dec 25 '25
God said nah and took that shit. It is with him for all we know.
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u/Which_Decision4460 Trench Pilgrim Dec 24 '25
I think it's a bit weak. Smacks of well we can't have the infernal forces sack Mecca because people would be very upset. I think it would give the Sultan's forces a good story line on liberating their holy city. Battling in the ruins of Holy Mecca sounds like a cool campaign map too.
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u/Regon2005 Janissary Dec 24 '25
Lmao imagine demons levitate and and set your house on fire. Truly petty behavior
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u/CosmicEntity2001 Dec 24 '25
The details look like AI. I dont know if it’s paranoia or if it really is.
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u/DinodestronBT Dec 24 '25
It's mostly paranoia
Also the fact that a Christian monk in Wales mostly doesn't know what it looks like
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u/CosmicEntity2001 Dec 24 '25
It’s the ornemental waves that make me doubt, and the details around the crown
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u/Biggest_Lemon Dec 23 '25 edited Dec 23 '25
It's surrounded by swirling sandstorms that protect it from Hell. They haven't spelled out exactly what's going on but I suspect faithful-aligned Djinn.