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Dev Diary #21 - Custom Faiths and Pagan Reformation

Oh, hello there! Interested in becoming a heresiarch, are we? Or maybe you just want to organize your ancestor’s ancient spiritual traditions into a true reformed Faith, one that can stand up to the Crescent and Cross? Either way, you’ve come to the right place!

To start us off, I’m going to go into how the process of creating a new Faith or reforming a pagan one works. After that, there will be a teaser of some Tenets and Doctrines that you may be interested in picking for your newly-founded Faiths ;)

Faith Creation
Creating a new Faith is no easy task. Only the most pious rulers will be able to convince the clergy within their realm that they alone know the true will of the divine and, in doing so, take the first steps towards establishing a new Faith. However, with a little bit of devotion and a lot of time, you too will be able to reshape your Faith to suit your dynasty’s needs!

When looking at your own Faith’s tenets and doctrines, you will see a button at the bottom labeled ‘Create New Faith’. Clicking this button will open the Faith Creation window, which can be viewed at any time — even long before you have acquired the means to actually create a new Faith! This will allow you to play around with the different options and get a feel for what is possible, allowing you to set long-term goals for yourself.

DD_CreateAFaith_WM.png
[Screenshot of the Faith Creation window showing modified Tenets and Doctrines]

You can change every single Tenet and Doctrine of your hypothetical new Faith on this screen, though the list of what Tenets are available to pick varies from Religion to Religion. For example, Tenets based on the concept of Dharma are exclusive to Oriental Religions, whereas Monasticism was common practice and is thus available to everyone. This means when creating a new Faith, you must first ensure you are a member of the Religion that you want to base your new Faith off of.

Beyond simple availability, it is also easier for some Religions to accept certain Doctrines than others. For example, Islam is used to polyamory and will happily accept a new Faith espousing it. In contrast, a new Christian faith that claims God intended us to have multiple spouses will be met with a little more skepticism...

The way this plays out in CK3 is that each Tenet and Doctrine has a Piety cost associated with it. The further you deviate from your original Faith, the more Piety you will need in order to convince the priests that yes, you actually have had a vision from the divine and yes, you actually are enforcing their will and not just trying to make some weird personal sex cult.

DD_Cosanguinity_WM.png

[Screenshot of the scaling costs for the Cosanguinity Doctrine]

After you have made all the changes you want, you will be given the total amount of Piety your character needs in order to create their new Faith. This cost can get quite high, meaning that creating a new Faith or reforming a pagan one ends up being a life-long goal for most characters. It is highly recommended to attempt this with characters who have a Learning education and/or who have multiple Virtuous personality traits, and having the ability to go on frequent pilgrimages or donate gold & troops to holy causes helps too! Finally, timing your divine revelation to completely coincidentally occur when your Faith is suffering from low Fervor will make it much easier to get everyone to buy into your new canon (I will talk more about Fervor in our future Dev Diary on heresy outbreaks).

Once you are happy with your Tenets and Doctrines and have accumulated the necessary amount of Piety, you can officially convert to your new Faith. You and your capital county will adopt it immediately, but it won’t be easy for a ruler to convince their vassals and subjects to adopt this strange new Faith — they might be more inclined to stage an uprising and depose their mad king from the throne! After all, if you die before your new Faith gains a foothold in the world, there is a good chance your Faith will die with you…

Pagan Reformation
Pagan Faiths in Crusader Kings III start out with the special ‘Unreformed’ Doctrine.

This Doctrine grants notable bonuses to Tribal rulers early on, but it locks them into the Tribal government type and provides substantial Opinion penalties to any non-Tribal vassals they acquire. Since Tribal realms are notoriously unstable, successful chieftains will eventually want to look into either converting to a reformed religion so they can feudalize, or reforming their pagan religion into a true organized faith.

Like with Faith Creation, rulers must earn a substantial amount of Piety to organize their Faith’s disparate shamans into a coherent clergy. In addition, they must have at least 3 of their Faith’s holy sites located within their realm.

DD_VidilismHolySites_WM.png

[Screenshot showing 3 of the Vidilist Holy Sites]

Once you accomplish this, the process is quite similar to creating a new Faith of an existing reformed Religion. Your vassals may still be reluctant to convert to your newly reformed Faith, but because reformed Faiths gain a bonus to conversion against unreformed Faiths, you will have a much easier time convincing them to go along with your reformation than a heresiarch within in an existing Faith would have with making a new heresy.

DD_ReformationNew_WM.png

[Screenshot showing a Vidilist reformation event]

Tenet and Doctrine teaser

To finish this off, here are a few choice tenets and doctrines which you can pick when creating a new Faith in CK3. Many of these are also used by already existing Faiths, but some are only available to custom Faiths created by players. As you can see, there is a lot of variety in the kinds of custom Faiths you can create — ultimately every kind of playstyle should have some set of Tenets and Doctrines to support it!

DD_Tenet_Showcase_WM.png
[Screenshot of the Tenets Warmonger, Human Sacrifice, Ritual Cannibalism, Christian Syncretism, Dharmic Pacifism, Carnal Exaltation, Divine Marriage, Sacred Childbirth, and the Doctrines Pluralism and Fundamentalist]

That is all I have for you this week, but join us next time as my colleague @Heptopus talks about the diversity across the world in CK3 and the many different ways you can tailor the game experience to match your personal preferences!
 
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IMO the place of your court should become a holy site if you choose to create a heresy or reform if it wasn't already as it will be the center of your new religion with your realm being the only one adhering to it.
 
IMO the place of your court should become a holy site if you choose to create a heresy or reform if it wasn't already as it will be the center of your new religion with your realm being the only one adhering to it.
Agreed. The question is: How to define which of the previous holy sites should then be removed?
 
Agreed. The question is: How to define which of the previous holy sites should then be removed?

Maybe have the religion have it's holy sites which cannot go away and the faith have it's specific holy sites.

e.g. Jerusalem would be a Christian holy site which all faiths should have, but Constantinople would just be a holy site for Orthodoxy.

When you now proclaim Indian Orthodoxy you can remove a holy site of the faith, e.g. Constantinople and proclaim your capital, e.g. Delhi as a new holy site.
 
I would say it changed a bit. But it was already said that Holy Fury had some stuff of the new plans in it. The big change is that you have more choices in their doctrines and build up and that Moral Authority is no longer an issue (Gone are the times where you have to hope that Perm can hold their site against Cumania to reform the religion) and it is more piety based.

Good point!
 
It would be both a strain on game mechanics and way outside of the time period.

Modern gender identities are exactly that: modern. In antiquity and in the Middle Ages various societies could be more or less accepting of same sex relations, but even when same sex relations were relatively accepted men and women were still expected to marry to produce offsprings (or use the marriage as a form of political agreement between two families).
IIRC same-sex relations in antiquity were mostly of the type involving manifestations of stereotypes - ie nobody looks down on you having a relationship with a man, but if he looks/dresses up like a man, people start talking.
 
It would be both a strain on game mechanics and way outside of the time period.

Modern gender identities are exactly that: modern. In antiquity and in the Middle Ages various societies could be more or less accepting of same sex relations, but even when same sex relations were relatively accepted men and women were still expected to marry to produce offsprings (or use the marriage as a form of political agreement between two families).

This literally isn't true though. Within the time and scope of CK itself there are multiple cultures which have, say, three accepted genders (such as Hijras or however it's spelled in india), or ideas of marriage which don't reflect the christian european ideas of it.

The idea that all of this stuff is new is almost purely based on a lack of understanding of other cultures, and a spot of imperialism more recently which dealt a lot of damage to, particularly aspects of cultures which differed from the christian/european ruling cultures.

IIRC same-sex relations in antiquity were mostly of the type involving manifestations of stereotypes - ie nobody looks down on you having a relationship with a man, but if he looks/dresses up like a man, people start talking.

Not quite true, it varied a LOT from culture to culture, and from time period to time period. In a lot of points in ancient norse time, for example, lesbians were mostly fine, and for gay men, the only thing which recieved public discrimination wasn't anything to do with being gay neccessarily, it was any dude percieved to be a "bottom", so to speak. So, two masculine dudes together could sometimes go just fine, but feminine dudes... yeah they had it rough in general regardless of orientation, between associations with Loki (so sometimes their treatment would improve or worsen based on the public view of that diety in particular...) and the general focus of their society, not neccessarily on men, but definitely the traits we consider part of "masculinity" today.

There's so much variation in this map and time period that they've chosen, that it's basically impossible to make sweeping statements about the whole thing.
 
I guess that was meant to say that Islam is used to polygamy and it will be easier to make heresies that feature multiple marriages with it.

I guess that indeed was the intention. Funny how someone would confuse polyamory with polygamy.
 
Mostly a flavour thing, but it would be nice if some reformations adds the reformer as a god. Later in texts characters thank or swar upon this reformer in event texts.
 
It always pissed me off seeing a dynasty die or lose control over an empire because the lady in charge didn't go for matrilineal marriage.

So I'm most hyped about that being fixed.
 
It always pissed me off seeing a dynasty die or lose control over an empire because the lady in charge didn't go for matrilineal marriage.

So I'm most hyped about that being fixed.
Dynasties probably still will burn out that way if the AI actually uses hooks to force marriages, similarly to how the AI would sometimes enforce a nasty marriage with your heir via a favor in CK2
 
Damn. I've hated most of what's been announced for CK3 but this is actually making me tempted. If only they'd patched this system in to CK2 instead of deciding horrible looking console circa ten years ago graphic portraits are 'better' and characters having one or two traits that get exaggerated and caricatured is more deep than multiple traits at forming a personality.
 
It always pissed me off seeing a dynasty die or lose control over an empire because the lady in charge didn't go for matrilineal marriage.

So I'm most hyped about that being fixed.
On a related note, I'm quite excited by inheritable hooks, to show that dynastic connection between a father's actions and what his son has to put up with. Of course I should be able to coerce the second sultan of Egypt into my faction, I voted with his father on lowering iqta obligations!
 
This literally isn't true though. Within the time and scope of CK itself there are multiple cultures which have, say, three accepted genders (such as Hijras or however it's spelled in india), or ideas of marriage which don't reflect the christian european ideas of it.

The idea that all of this stuff is new is almost purely based on a lack of understanding of other cultures, and a spot of imperialism more recently which dealt a lot of damage to, particularly aspects of cultures which differed from the christian/european ruling cultures.
Even with Hijras equating modern gender identities with what originated in ancient times remains a terrible idea and a sure way to fail to understand these older expressions of non-binarism and transsexualism. Obviously even in the past there were cultures that didn't limit their conception of gender to just men and women, if that's what you think I was rejecting, the point remains however that these expressions of non-binarism aren't going to take over "marriage" in the way it works in Crusader Kings: a local Indian prince is still going to "marry" (in the CK logic) a local Indian princess to continue his dynastic line and make political alliances (and to an extent that's historical too), stuff like homosexuality or even an hypothetical inclusion of Hijras in the game would be the stuff of extra-marital love affairs that will be more or less accepted depending on how the local religion considers that stuff.
 
Even with Hijras equating modern gender identities with what originated in ancient times remains a terrible idea and a sure way to fail to understand these older expressions of non-binarism and transsexualism. Obviously even in the past there were cultures that didn't limit their conception of gender to just men and women, if that's what you think I was rejecting, the point remains however that these expressions of non-binarism aren't going to take over "marriage" in the way it works in Crusader Kings: a local Indian prince is still going to "marry" (in the CK logic) a local Indian princess to continue his dynastic line and make political alliances (and to an extent that's historical too), stuff like homosexuality or even an hypothetical inclusion of Hijras in the game would be the stuff of extra-marital love affairs that will be more or less accepted depending on how the local religion considers that stuff.

(I'ma ignore the stuff about Hijras because I'm very much only familiar with the eurocentric trans stuff, don't want to speak for any hijra or two-spirit people or any of that, and we're getting a bit too indepth on what was a throwaway point to counter a weirdly off-topic line in your own comment.)

On the main topic... that's the thing though, historically gay marriage in these times was something that, in the absolute best/luckiest of times was something commoners might've done unofficially in a shed somewhere, and never held any legal weight...

But that was because historically speaking incredibly few rulers were ever openly LGBT, for a whole laundry list of reasons, but that translates to incredibly few chances where the local ruler even cares enough about the issue to consider changes, and particularly in monogamy-only societies that pressure would also push them towards taking that hit and just marrying for legalese and heir production, and finding love elsewhere.

But, in the context of CK3, a game where literally all of these challenges such a ruler faces can not only be overcome, via shifting the religion to accept them, with consorts and/or concubines for legitimate kids, and fending off anyone who has a problem with that with their armies and whatnot...

A game where, not only can that occur, but those effects can last centuries after they're first created...

Surely after all that change, and all that time for such a change to sink in and ripple through the populace, two people of the same gender marrying isn't preposterous or anything.
 
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Ok I see that "respectfully disagree" and... Come the heck on, it took us, what, 100 odd years max after gay people STARTED fighting for recognition and rights on a larger and more organised scale, much less if you start counting from when the majority of the population supported them, to have it legalised in most of the world, you REALLY think it'd be implausible for such a thing to happen within two centuries maximum if the majority of the population in a given region embraced LGBT rights for religious reasons a thousand years ago!? Of course not.
 
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Ok I see that "respectfully disagree" and... Come the heck on, it took us, what, 100 odd years max after gay people STARTED fighting for recognition and rights on a larger and more organised scale, much less if you start counting from when the majority of the population supported them, to have it legalised in most of the world, you REALLY think it'd be implausible for such a thing to happen within two centuries maximum if the majority of the population in a given region embraced LGBT rights for religious reasons a thousand years ago!? Of course not.
Yes, because the concept of "LGBT" didn't exist at all back then.

In fact, the concept of "rights" was radically different too.
 
Yes, because the concept of "LGBT" didn't exist at all back then.

In fact, the concept of "rights" was radically different too.

That wasn't part of the point that was part of the joke.

But more seriously, when "Equality of gay people" is on the table, no matter how or when it got there, the fact that they're not equally able to marry each other is going to come up.