Greetings!

Today I’d like to present a feature that is specifically tailored towards the ones among you who truly enjoy breeding potent dynasties - Legendary Bloodlines!

Legendary Bloodlines are modifiers that are passed down the generations from one specific character, the Founder - they work much like a dynasty, but with several more rules and caveats. They symbolize the widespread renown a certain character might have, and the staying power stories surrounding their feats are. Having a Legendary Bloodline in your character will convey a bonus based on who founded it, and there are many different Bloodlines to be found (and Founded). Bloodlines are accessed from the Character View:

Unlike traits such as Genius or Strong, Bloodlines are not genetical - Bloodlines gain their power from perception and belief; if you were a superstitious medieval warrior, would you rather fight the big burly fighter who you knew were related to Charles the Hammer, or the one you knew were not?

That very same superstition, combined with the prejudices that were common in those times, causes Bloodlines to be either Agnatic or Enatic - to breed Bloodlines into your dynasty will require you to get clever, and plan ahead if you want more than one line to run within your direct line of heirs. If a Bloodline is agnatic, for example, a man will still pass it to his daughters - but they will not pass it on to their children, that will be exclusively reserved for his sons.

Certain bloodlines, or certain effects of certain bloodlines, will only be active for characters who fulfill certain triggers - for example, Christian knights will only seek to serve a descendant of Charles the Hammer if he happens to be Christian.

It's also worth noting that Bloodlines do not give direct stat boosts like how artifacts do.

To facilitate the merging of several different Bloodlines into one direct line of characters, we’ve made it so that Matrilineal marriages transfer bloodlines that the parents wouldn’t normally be able to transfer - symbolizing that it’s less explicitly about gender, and more about who’s the dominant part in a marriage.

To see who’s a part of any given bloodline, you can view a list of the current holders by clicking a button next to the Founder in the Bloodlines View:

Though the easiest way by far is to enter the Bloodlines Ledger Page to see which bloodlines exist, how many members there are and, by clicking the entries, view who holds them.

Bloodlines stem from many different sources, but the ones I’ll touch upon today are the Historical Bloodlines. As you might have already figured out, certain famous historical characters start with bloodlines, or found them at a certain point in their life. For example, if William succeeds in his invasion of England he’ll found a bloodline. As bloodlines come and go, you’ll have a different setup depending on what bookmark you choose to start in. Here’s a few examples of bloodlines you can expect to want to breed into your own line:

Note that there will be ways to get bloodlines apart from breeding them into your dynasty, but that will be the subject of a future DevDiary.

 

[Knotz]

I hope the next DD talks about the non-historical bloodlines because I have so many questions. A few are obvious, like Saoshyant which kinda already is a bloodline trait and immortal (though I'm curious as to whether the originator would benefit from their own bloodline?) and Satan's baby which I sincerely hope is a negative bloodline (though with plusses too, like a malus to piety and/or general opinion but maybe you get a boost in Lucifer's Own or sometimes attract highly skilled satanists) and someone who reforms a pagan religion. Will the explanations of their deeds be pre-written or will we be able to write it?

I had a Satanspawn once who picked the theology focus and spent his entire life seesawing between good and evil, every time he'd gain a positive trait through trying his damn best as a Benedictine a fish would whisper to him and he'd lose it but also vice versa. Kinda like Vanessa Ives. He wound up committing suicide. The maluses would still make sense, the general public wouldn't know or care about the struggles going on in his soul, but a "MWAHAHAHAHA EVIL!" description wouldn't really fit either.

Are there ways to establish a bloodline that doesn't have to do with war or combat in some way? Like imagine if you're in the Hermetics and you have a learning of 30 and you've written several high tier books and you invent a magnetic compass do you get to establish a bloodline known for its learnin'?

Also, are all bloodlines either agnatic or enatic? I'm assuming that's at least partly to do with balance otherwise they'd never die out.

Lastly, the players obviously tend to play a direct succession of remarkable individuals. Is there a limit to the bloodlines you can lay claim to?

I know these should probably wait until we have the DD on non-historical ones but ~shrug~

 

[Thure]

Source? I must have missed the announcement.

It wasn't really announced, but we could see them on the PDXCON Stream.

 

[Admiral_Obvious]

It wasn't really announced, but we could see them on the PDXCON Stream.

Roughly 10 minutes in you see specifically the French portrait showed earlier. (As well as a lot more.)

 

[Prometheus_1]

Cool Idea, I always love to breed my house with important other houses like Karlig etc, One thing I would sugest is to remember that there are still important , very important bloodlines that actually every house would strive to breed with , the one descending directly from the Iulius Caesar one ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_from_antiquity

The Massimo family noble house According to the Augustine historian Onofrio Panvinio (1529-1568) in his work "De gente Maxima" of 1556, the family descends in the male line from the ancient Gens Fabia or "Maximi" of republican Rome and from Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus (c. 275 BC – 203 BC), called Cunctator ("the Delayer").

Theophylact (before 864 – 924/925) was a medieval Count of Tusculum who was the effective ruler of Rome from around 905 through to his death in 924. His descendants would control the Papacy for the next 100 years. He claimed to be descendant of a side branch of the Iulio Claudian dinasty , which in medieval time was an exceptional descendance. From him derived the other two noble houses of the counts of Tusculum , Colonna and Tolomei noble houses.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

Actually the bloodlines are found on superstition, shouldnt there be a blood of Jesus since the Merovingians claimed descendants from Jesus (through a daughter of Jesus from Mary of Madalene).

The Merovingians never claimed that, that story was made up in the 20th century as a hoax.

 

[_Perun_]

Martial is tactical, strategic, and military logistics skill. Also strategy and tactics is not the same thing which you seem to indicate in your post, strategy is the overall planning of a campaign tactics is the conduct in a single battle. Consider Hannibal, brilliant tactician but wasn't very good at strategy.
And military skill gives more levies because you are better at the logistics of recruiting them. Which is again something waving a "magic sword" doesn't help you with, your levies aren't volunteers doesn't matter how inspiring you are.

Sure, tactics =/= strategy. And logistics is definetely part of strategy. But you kind of choose a perspective that invalidates sword adding to the martial.
If you have one castle (and so we can ignore the logistics and campaign planning factors) and can muster 500 troops without a sword and 510 with it, you can safely assumed that the additional 10 joined your army because they heard of your sword and otherwise would rather hide in the forests to avoid being recruited.

And yeah martial does affect combat because higher martial means you have a better chance at choosing a better tactic. Which can increase your troop combat ability with up to +420% (couched lance charge) way higher than any other combat modifier in the game.
https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Combat_tactics

Yeah, but isnt that scaled up to martial 16 and no further?

 

[Nyrael]

Actually the bloodlines are found on superstition, shouldnt there be a blood of Jesus since the Merovingians claimed descendants from Jesus (through a daughter of Jesus from Mary of Madalene)

As far as I know, Merovingians claiming to be descendant from Jesus is something made up in 20th century literature.

 

[AjayAlcos]

Source? I must have missed the announcement.

I just found em on the DLC playthrough, too bad the Magyars don't get their own portrait

EDIT: Argh.. Beated to it.

 

[Paxter Redwyne]

Shouldn't Karlings after 769 start date have Charlemagne bloodline instead Charles Martel?

 

[Rubidium]

Cool Idea, I always love to breed my house with important other houses like Karlig etc, One thing I would sugest is to remember that there are still important , very important bloodlines that actually every house would strive to breed with , the one descending directly from the Iulius Caesar one ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_from_antiquity

The Massimo family noble house According to the Augustine historian Onofrio Panvinio (1529-1568) in his work "De gente Maxima" of 1556, the family descends in the male line from the ancient Gens Fabia or "Maximi" of republican Rome and from Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus (c. 275 BC – 203 BC), called Cunctator ("the Delayer").

Theophylact (before 864 – 924/925) was a medieval Count of Tusculum who was the effective ruler of Rome from around 905 through to his death in 924. His descendants would control the Papacy for the next 100 years. He claimed to be descendant of a side branch of the Iulio Claudian dinasty , which in medieval time was an exceptional descendance. From him derived the other two noble houses of the counts of Tusculum , Colonna and Tolomei noble houses.

These are pretty clear examples of forging ancient bloodlines (which should definitely be a thing).

Pretty much every noble family had a legend about being "really" descended from some long-lost Greek/Roman/Trojan/noble barbarian family. Add in modern amateur genealogists inventing family relationships more or less out of whole cloth (many of which have made their way into Wikipedia; basically don't trust any of those nice ancestry/issue sections for counts and dukes until the late middle ages at best) to invent additional ones, and the issue gets somewhat clouded.

The Massimo, in particular, don't seem significant enough in CK2 terms to be part of the game (as minor nobility in the city of Rome, they probably don't even deserve a barony), and the claim to be descended from the Fabii looks like it doesn't come up until the EU4 period, even if I trusted the sources (which, at first glance, I'm not sure I do; also, take a look at the talk page if you want to be entertained).

The Counts of Tusculum were important figures, but I'm not sure that the claimed descent (which I'm not sure on your source for?) is particularly significant.

 

[TheDungen]

Sure, tactics =/= strategy. And logistics is definetely part of strategy. But you kind of choose a perspective that invalidates sword adding to the martial.
If you have one castle (and so we can ignore the logistics and campaign planning factors) and can muster 500 troops without a sword and 510 with it, you can safely assumed that the additional 10 joined your army because they heard of your sword and otherwise would rather hide in the forests to avoid being recruited.
Yeah, but isnt that scaled up to martial 16 and no further?

You don't get it do you levies aren't volunteers they are people fulfilling their commitment to their lord. If you get ten men more it's because the people you have in charge of making sure everyone who ought to serve is serving, and are less likely to be fooled, or bribed and so on. And being better at this stuff means you can keep a closer eye on the people you have employed in recruitment which means you get more men. But a freaking sword won't help you there. This is systematic issues and organisation.

 

[Truewhit]

I'm a bit confused about the enatic bloodline. so if we took the agnatic bloodline inheritance reversed: only daughters will be able to pass the enatic bloodline and while sons have it, they can't pass it to their children? So isn't bad that after i gained an enatic bloodline for my sons, i have to keep matri marriage my daughters to keep the enatic bloodline? and remarry again into the family ensure my great grandson still have the enatic bloodline?

Well i planned doing zoroastrian play anyway, this mechanic will not bother my next playthrough.

It will. There is the Blood of the Sassanids to pick up.

 

[_Perun_]

You don't get it do you levies aren't volunteers they are people fulfilling their commitment to their lord.

Levies were not voluntary but rulers needed somewhat compliance to exercise their rule. It is being relfected in CK in vassals' opinion having an impact on how much taxes they pay. Same goes with the folk - they have the obligation to serve but they can desert or hide in hope that it will go unnoticed.
But if the ruler looked like a reliable commander (among others had impressive gear), they maybe would rather to serve their duty instead of deserting. But this kind of stuff impress rather officers than simple folk but you write about it yourself:

If you get ten men more it's because the people you have in charge of making sure everyone who ought to serve is serving, and are less likely to be fooled, or bribed and so on. And being better at this stuff means you can keep a closer eye on the people you have employed in recruitment which means you get more men. But a freaking sword won't help you there.

And those people in charge can also be impressed by your gear so a freaking sword can help a lot.

This is systematic issues and organisation.

Organisation rhymes with motivation. And motivation is what appearances provide.

 

[neutrondecay]

OH, will Jews have a bloodline from, say, Abraham? Maybe just if you have the Sons of Abraham DLC?

Abraham is literally 'the father of a multitude'; descent from him was never a popular claim, because it's inherently commonplace.

Elsewhere, I've suggested descent from King David - something the Solomonids and Bagrationis both claimed - and upthread someone also suggested descent from Aaron for Cohanim. I'd support that too.

Unrelatedly, the Giustiniani dynasty of Venice and Genoa claimed to be descended from Justinian, which would be cool to include.

nd

 

[Marschall_Vorwärts]

If Harald Fairhair isn't represented, then my disappointment would be immeasurable.

 

[Marschall_Vorwärts]

Abraham is literally 'the father of a multitude'; descent from him was never a popular claim, because it's inherently commonplace.

Elsewhere, I've suggested descent from King David - something the Solomonids and Bagrationis both claimed - and upthread someone also suggested descent from Aaron for Cohanim. I'd support that too.

Unrelatedly, the Giustiniani dynasty of Venice and Genoa claimed to be descended from Justinian, which would be cool to include.

nd

If they add the bloodline of David, then I hope there would be a messiah event chain for jews.

 

[TinWiz]

If they add the bloodline of David, then I hope there would be a messiah event chain for jews.

Now that would be interesting... especially if it was converging agnatic and enatic (cf. gospels of Matthew and Luke, respectively). Of course, the pope would excommunicate the "imposter" and send the Grand Inquisitor after him.

 

[Silversweeeper]

If they add the bloodline of David, then I hope there would be a messiah event chain for jews.

Now, you listen here: 'e's not the Messiah, 'e's a very naughty boy! Now, go away!

 

[Sonmi]

French, South Slavic, West Slavic and Croatian portraits are confirmed for a week or so.

Italian portraits too.

 

[TheDungen]

Levies were not voluntary but rulers needed somewhat compliance to exercise their rule. It is being relfected in CK in vassals' opinion having an impact on how much taxes they pay. Same goes with the folk - they have the obligation to serve but they can desert or hide in hope that it will go unnoticed.
But if the ruler looked like a reliable commander (among others had impressive gear), they maybe would rather to serve their duty instead of deserting. But this kind of stuff impress rather officers than simple folk but you write about it yourself:

And those people in charge can also be impressed by your gear so a freaking sword can help a lot.

Organisation rhymes with motivation. And motivation is what appearances provide.

Even if we assume it contributes it would be very little. but artifacts can have a huge impact on your martial score in the game. I can accept it from books but fancy swords can give as much martial as a low education trait, as being a renowned raider, a crusade veteran or a former varangian. As much as being quick or shrewd or a strategist.