Fenix_120 said:Al_Mansur said:Muslim sources always claim that almost every Muslim leader was fair skinned, blonde, etc. Even Abd al Rahman the first, the survivor of the Umayyad family, who was half Arab half Berber.. I wonder if it is not exagerated. Besides people of the steppes aren't quite fair.
Otherwise, awesome work, it looks fantastic, especially the scene borders. It looks like a new game.
Interesting to also note
"No accurate portraits of Genghis exist today, and any surviving depictions are considered to be artistic interpretations. Persian historian Rashid-al-Din recorded in his "Chronicles" that the legendary "glittering" ancestor of Genghis was tall, long-bearded, red-haired, and green-eyed. Rashid al-Din also described the first meeting of Genghis and Kublai Khan, when Genghis was surprised to find that Kublai had not inherited his red hair.[15] Also according to al-Din Genghis' Borjigid clan, had a legend involving their origins: it began as the result of an affair between Alan-ko and a stranger to her land, a glittering man who happened to have red hair and bluish-green eyes. Modern historian Paul Ratchnevsky has suggested in his Genghis biography that the "glittering man" may have been from the Kyrgyz people, who historically displayed these same characteristics."
Another thing to keep in mind their were several pockets of Greeks still living in the middle east by this time, and Macedonian's were Arian.
That is interesting to know, perhaps those features were considered more attractive or noble at that time.
Regarding your last line, if I may nitpick; when you say the Macedonians were 'Arian', I presume you mean they had northern/western European features. The word I believe you meant to use was 'Aryan', the name used by the Nazis to give Germans prestige; Aryans were (if I remember rightly) an ancient tribe or group of tribes who invaded what is now Pakistan thousands of years ago. I think they were credited with the first written language in the region or something along those lines, but as far as I know there is a lot of speculation and little hard facts about them, which made them a perfect people for the Nazis to hijack and declare as the ancestors of Germans and racially similar people. But the only Arians I know of were followers of an early Christian named Arian in the Balkan region, who I think either grew up outside the Roman Empire and then entered it or grew up inside, left and later returned.
EDIT: It seems I got the names and location muddled a bit, apparently Arianism was the teaching of a man called Arius http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianism. I am fairly sure this is the Christian I was thinking of!