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Dev Diary #101 - Saints and Ancestors

Hello there! Another week, another Dev Diary!


This week we are going to take a look at the Saints, their potential Pagan counterparts, and how they will work in Holy Fury.


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After the death of a pious Christian character, there is a chance for the Pope/Patriarch/local bishop to decide to beatify them. This is how they’re shown to be truly pious Christians. There will be an announcement sent out to the dynasty as well as the ones in the realm of the character. A beatified character gets a special trait, and a chance to later on be canonized.


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If they do indeed go on to become Saints, another announcement message will be sent out to all Christians of the same faith, as well as their dynasty members. The character in question will be given a special nickname, a miracle will be associated with him/her (this is mostly for flavour) and they will be given a special bloodline. Note, any Christian with a religious head can become canonized, not only Catholics.


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The Saint will have their burial site made public, usually in their capital or another nearby province in the form of a Province Modifier. This gives a permanent benefit for whoever holds the Burial Site, as well as some new flavor events that might happen. Any church holdings in the province will be able to create a small shrine to the local Saint. As well, if any raiders were to drop by the province, they might loot and ruin the burial site for some extra gold and prestige.


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A new icon and menu have been added to the religion screen for Christians, where they can check all the Saints that have been created for their faith throughout the game. We figured it would be a handy way of keeping track of everything.


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For those enjoying pilgrimages and traveling, we have added a new option and event chain to travel to a Saint’s burial site. It will find 4 relevant burial sites of Saints created throughout the game. If there isn’t 4 existing in the game yet, there will be up to 3 placeholders filling those spots. Hopefully it will be an interesting change of pace from the regular pilgrimages.


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If the Catholics are led by a particularly terrible Pope, you might even see the cases of “Impious Saints” as we call them. In the worst case scenarios, this can end up with all of Catholicism embroiled in a massive war, fighting for the piety of the Holy See. The impious Saint in question will get a Bloodline as well, but it doesn’t quite bring as many benefits as most other bloodlines do.


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For those of you who don’t care particularly much about Catholics, or Christians in general, we have added a new Reformation doctrine where one can take on the benefits of Saints into your pagan faith. Instead of caring about such silly things as “Piety”, “Humbleness” or other supposed positive traits, the Venerated Ancestors will be based on things your religion cares about. So if you reform your religion to be a warlike one, one is more likely to become a Venerated Ancestor if you do things that are warlike.


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For those of you preferring to lead religions yourself, you will occasionally be given the choice of people the religion will venerate as a worthy ancestor. The dynasty of the character in question will, of course, be very appreciative of their family member being venerated as an Ancestor.

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For the characters receiving that honor, there is a whole slew of new special bloodlines attached to them, as well some special nicknames.


Hopefully you enjoyed this little peek into the upcoming feature for CK2, and we are excited to hear your thoughts on it. Until next time!
 
And Spain/Castile would get St James the Moorslayer
I mean St James nickname is not very... politically correct nowadays.

Looking forward to the first Saint <insertnamehere> 'the Abomination' or Saint <insertnamehere> 'the Mutilator'


Could it be possible for pagans with high prestige or piety to fabricate their ancestry back to to gods (Ynglings, Skjoldungs and etc for example) be something to consider?

Maybe it should be possible by paying a huge Prestige or Piety cost ? That would be a fun way to convert big Prestige now into a stream of Prestige for your descendants . . .
 
"A Blessed"?
Blessed is the title used for those who have been beatified by the Church, though its presented a bit early in the process in the game. The process goes Servant of God (somebody who has had their cause of canonization opened) -->Venerable (somebody who has been found to have displayed heroic virtue) -->Blessed (beatification) -->Saint (canonization). Of course, things were not so clear cut in the medieval period, and people were often venerated as saints in their local area decades or even centuries before being recognized by the Vatican as such.
 
So, since a reformed pagan faith is going to try to accommodate what the religion cares about when selecting who becomes an ancestor this kinda overlaps with something I've been wondering for a long while, namely: is it possible to establish a bloodline (in this case through becoming an ancestor) known for it's learning? For example if I choose astrology as a doctrine and ancestor veneration as the other - would my character becoming the leader of the Hermetics, having a learning of 40+, writing a magnum opus and/or inventing something marvelous result in becoming an ancestor?
 
Awesome.

EDIT: Is it possible for more than one person from a single dynasty (say, a father and son?) to be canonized?
How might that affect bloodlines?

Yes. They stack.

Wow... But shouldn't there be a point where i get the holy family bloodline. In case that i combine 4 Sainted bloodlines in my veins.
Or is there going to be a mechanic that would allow me to form a bloodline by paying minstrels to sing about my godgiven bloodline.
 
I've been waiting for something like this for awhile!
Never thought I'd see it implemented.
My only further request is that a kingdom be able to set a "Patron Saint".
England had St. George
Scotland had St. Andrew
Obviously Ireland had St. Patrick

I'm sure there were others but those are the first to come to mind.
Still GREAT work and thank you!

England's earlier Patron Saint Edward the Confessor would like a word with you. So would Saint Edmund the Martyr, King of Wessex.

Of course, Edward isn't born for 230-odd years after game start, so that might take some time to arrive.
Edmund is contemporary to the early game, being born around 70 years after the game start.

But St George isn't accepted as England's Patron until we're in the 14th century.
 
Can we steal the bodies of saints and rebury them in our provinces?
that was a thing

Also turning a minor saint into a major pilgrimage centre by building a massive cathedral

Also is there a difference between major and minor saints?
itd be nice if there were saints who didnt give bloodlines and their province modifier was only a temporary one?
maybe even most are temporary but you can make them permanent and bloodline having by building a cathedral or something there?
All of this would be incredibly nice!
 
I also agree with my post from earlier.
sreckom92 has a good point about it.

England's earlier Patron Saint Edward the Confessor would like a word with you. So would Saint Edmund the Martyr, King of Wessex.

Of course, Edward isn't born for 230-odd years after game start, so that might take some time to arrive.
Edmund is contemporary to the early game, being born around 70 years after the game start.

But St George isn't accepted as England's Patron until we're in the 14th century.

Also Thomas Becket, he was probably the biggest english saint, people came from every inch of europe to visit his shrine, at his height he was the biggest in europe. Half way though the game though.
 
The only issue that I can see is that as each game progresses there are simply more and more characters on the map, which means more deaths and thus more beatifications/canonizations. My readings are that it was actually the opposite - until the process became more rigorous in the 12th century every village would nominate to have their local bishop beatified, after that the process* became a lot more formal and thus fewer saints were elevated.

Maybe the devs could see fit to tweak the chances so that there would be lots of beatifications in the earliest bookmarks (credulous peasants), a lot of canonizations in the 10th-12th centuries (Crusades, holy fervor) and a lot fewer ones after that (stricter qualification for sainthood).

Snow Crystal said that only landed characters can be beatified and sainted. You end up with a few more landed characters as the game progresses, but not that many more. I expect the rate of sainting to be about flat (assuming Christians aren't conquering the world).
 
This looks amazing!

Just one suggestion: that bloodline bonus from being a saint, couldn't the conversion bonus be restricted to if the character stays in the christian group? It would be weird to be able to convert counties to buddhism simply because an ancestor is considered holy for christians.
 
This looks amazing!

Just one suggestion: that bloodline bonus from being a saint, couldn't the conversion bonus be restricted to if the character stays in the christian group? It would be weird to be able to convert counties to buddhism simply because an ancestor is considered holy for christians.

It is. There are requirements for the bloodline to be active.
 
I have gone from 'meh' at the time of the announcement of the expansion to 'I absolutely need this' at the time of this dev diary.
 
Really looking forward to this! Every piece of news about it makes me want it even more.

One quick question though: Will historical saints have the bloodlines? For example if I play as Philip the Fair of France, will I get the bloodline of his grandfather, St Louis of France?
 
Blessed is the title used for those who have been beatified by the Church, though its presented a bit early in the process in the game. The process goes Servant of God (somebody who has had their cause of canonization opened) -->Venerable (somebody who has been found to have displayed heroic virtue) -->Blessed (beatification) -->Saint (canonization). Of course, things were not so clear cut in the medieval period, and people were often venerated as saints in their local area decades or even centuries before being recognized by the Vatican as such.


Yes, I know, but in English, Blessed is not used as a noun. ("A" Blessed doesn't work.) Unlike Saints, of course.

I was playing grammar/vocab Nazi.