• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

Stellaris Dev Diary #298 - Renowned and Legendary Paragons

Hello fellow Explorers of the Void.

We're excited to share with you another Dev Diary, this time focusing on the characters of our upcoming DLC, Galactic Paragons. Today, we have Arctic Art Director Frida, and Arctic Game Director Petter to talk about the new handcrafted characters you may encounter.

Watch the Video Dev Diary:


Petter (Arctic Game Director): Paragon is primarily an expansion with new mechanics such as the council and the leader rework. But, in a DLC that centers around leaders it felt only natural that we would craft some exceptional characters for you to encounter out there amongst the stars.

The initial ideas for most of these characters were generated during a half-day workshop. We gathered everyone at Arctic and sat down to brainstorm what kind of characters we would like to see in the Stellaris galaxy. They got somewhat cryptic names such as ‘Sneakson’, ‘Big Woman’, ‘Harkon the Governor’, ‘Charming Pirate’ and so on. But the concepts became the foundation for our iterative process. Their backstories changed the art, and the art changed the backstories. We also got good input from the Content Designers on Studio Green that led to even more tweaks. So, the characters you will encounter have evolved organically.

We call these individuals “The Paragons”. Now, these paragons are divided into two categories: Renowned Paragons and Legendary Paragons. You will find out more about what these categories means (and some examples) below.

Frida (Arctic Art Director): From the Art team, we have meticulously hand-crafted numerous unique portraits for the Renowned and Legendary Paragon. Each leader is designed to have a distinct appearance that reflects their personality and story, making the galaxy feel more alive and diverse.

During the creation of the portraits, we wanted to elevate the art and storytelling aspects of the leaders, particularly for the Legendary Paragons. One way we have done this is by breaking up the static poses typically seen in the species portraits. Instead, we've incorporated dynamic poses, gestures, and expressions to make these characters truly stand out.

For the Legendary Paragons, we've moved away from the traditional three-quarter pose and experimented with more engaging and dramatic poses. This change not only helps to emphasize the importance of these characters but also makes their portraits visually striking.

The Renowned Paragons, on the other hand, maintain a pose closer to the original species portraits, but with added details and props that help convey their personal stories. Subtle elements such as hand gestures, smirks, scars, or unique clothing items help to give a glimpse into each character's background and personality.


The Renowned Paragons

Petter: Speaking of the Renowned Paragons. These are individuals who you don’t stumble upon out in the galaxy, instead they will seek you out! We have 16 of them in the DLC (two for each ethic - sorry Gestalt) and they will strive to join empires whose ethics match theirs: A pacifist paragon will seek out a pacifist empire, a militarist paragon will seek out a militarist empire, and so on.

The idea behind the Renowned Paragons is to give the sense of a living galaxy. Each character hints of a bigger world. And we see them as something that will spice up your playthroughs and give it a more distinct flavor. You will find that vastly different types of characters seek you out depending on who you are. Each renowned paragon can be seen as a possible representation of an ethic.

Each Renowned Paragon that you encounter has unique art, a personal backstory, and a powerful Destiny Trait from the start. But, they also have a negative trait that adds some flavor. And, they have a chance of triggering some events tied specifically to them that show more of their personality.
Here are some examples.

Kai-Sha, the Spymaster


1.gif
2.png

Gameplay-wise Kai-Sha is a General (specialized to sit on the council), with the Authoritarian ethic. She is the shadowy right hand woman you would want to have on your side as an Authoritarian ruler to deal with anything that threatens your power.

Frida: Funny story about Kai-Sha - she was actually inspired by our UX designer, Kajsa (also known as kc), purely by coincidence! As we worked on her design, we emphasized her features more, creating a unique look for this character.

Borin: The Friendly Salvager


3.gif
4.png

Frida: Borin's design was inspired by the salvager portrait from Overlord, and we had a blast taking that concept further, creating another character of that species. He comes from a salvaging community on an old space station and left to explore the wonders of the galaxy, ultimately joining your empire. In order to make him feel like an engineer, we incorporated yellow signal colors for relatability.

Petter: Borin is charming. His dream has always been to leave his Salvager enclave and travel across the stars. But he still has his mechanical skills and repairs all friendly fleets that are in the same system as him. Also, if you are lucky he might build you a robot that can join your empire. He is a quite warm, and almost spiritual, character for a materialist compared to the other Materialist leader, Xondar, who thinks flesh is weak. Again, trying to show how different the same ethic can be.

Vas the Gilded:


5.gif
6.png


Frida: With Vas the idea was to give her a unique and extravagant look. It was important her love for luxury was shown in her design, with extravagant clothing and accessories. Through the development of her outfit she quickly became similar to a certain Princess, so it took a few iterations to find a unique shape of her headpiece. Her pose is also calm and dignified, hinting at her expertise as a diplomat.

7.png

Petter: Vas is one of the characters from the workshop that was pretty much the same the whole way through. But she was a bit more “courtesan”-ish for a while but now she is more noble and “senatorial”. It was our QA Daniel Teige that came up with her.

Q’la-Minder, the Ruthless Governor:


8.gif
9.png


Frida: Q’la-Minder is all about ruling and exploiting others, with a strong focus on industry and wealth. Personality-wise he is a bit of a submissive, butt-kissing worm. We took inspiration from the Harkonnens of Dune, designing him to be as slimy and unappealing as possible to match his character, reusing one of the species from the Aquatics DLC.

Petter: Q’la-Minder is truly revolting, but still quite lovely in a twisted kind of way. He is great to place on planets where you really want to squeeze the most of the working population. They won’t be happy. But they will work.


Legendary Paragons

Petter: The Legendary Paragons are encountered as you explore space and encounter new worlds. There are four Legendary Paragons in the game, each with their own unique abilities, relics, and stories waiting to be uncovered. The Legendary Paragons in many ways represents the different aspects of what Stellaris is: Exploration, War, Ancient Mysteries and Colonization.

Frida: Speaking of Colonization, one of the Legendary Paragons we'd like to introduce is Azaryn, the melancholy plantoid who is the last of her species.

Astrocreator Azaryn


10.gif
11.png

Here are a few thoughts on Azaryn from Linus (Content Designer): With Azaryn the initial design goals involved the terraforming mechanic, as well as themes of loss. Early on, she was called simply the 'Sad Plantoid'. Her path is one of redemption, and to achieve it, she will need the help of a larger civilization like yours.

Terraforming can be a powerful tool, and we wanted her gameplay to leverage that. Though it's still an expensive endeavor, Azaryn's terraforming has multiple unique points to it – but we'll leave you to discover those for yourselves. To balance those perks, the finite nature of her abilities come into play. Her power comes at a great cost to her, and may only be utilized a few times until dire consequences follow.

That finite, fleeting nature is something we hope will help to convey her humanity, her personality, and her story. It ties into a big part of what Galactic Paragons is about; to bring characters to the forefront of the experience, looking beneath the galaxy's grandeur, all the way down to the relatable, and letting their stories feed into your own.

Frida: Not to spoil too much of her story, Azaryn will begin to deteriorate and we provided four different states where her portraits change based on your progression.


New Recruitment window!

Frida: We now have a new window type used for recruitment, moving away from the standard diplomacy screen.

12.gif

New Event window!

Frida: We’ve also created a new type of event window, where the leader portraits are displayed to the side of the event art, making it clear that this is an event tied to your leader and that it’s clear which leader it is. From my point of view, it helps to engage with the written content, having the character present beside the text.

13.gif

Some final words

We all here at Arctic hope that you will enjoy Galactic Paragons. And that the many characters will be great seeds for stories in the galaxy.

That's it for today's Dev Diary! We're looking forward to your feedback and thoughts and we'll be back soon with a new Diary on Origins, Civics and Tradition Trees.

And don't forget to catch our Galactic Paragons First Look stream, with Game Directors Stephen Muray (PDS Green) and Petter Nallo (PDS Arctic) tomorrow, starting at 1515 CEST on
twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive!

wednesday stream.png

Until next time, stay stellar!

Frida and Petter and Linus
 
  • 82Like
  • 45Love
  • 7
  • 5
  • 1
Reactions:
100% agree. I want to recruit and grind leaders from my species, name and customize them. I want events like my admiral is flying thru a gov space and theres an altercation between two leaders im personally attached too. Not just static same 20 characters. Really disappointed.
You know that for the most part you will still have normal leaders, right?
 
  • 10Like
  • 7
  • 6
Reactions:
What sort of bothers me here is that characters like Q'la-Minder set a sort of standard here that shouldn't exist. By making him a fixed, unchanging character that always has the same name and portrait in literally every playthrough ever after this patch comes out, you limit what the actual Aquatic portrait he's based on is.
Regardless of whether there is an empire in your game that uses Aquatic 11, that one member of that species will always exist, presumably just popping into existence out of thin air and in the middle of nowhere one day, and he'll always dictate what sort of naming convention will at least in part exist among the Aquatic portrait no. 11 species, regardless of what any lore of a player-made empire using that portrait would have, regardless of which Name List has been chosen for them. Should he still be called Q'la-Minder if every other man of his species goes by Steve or George, or Motile Organ 083?
That brings up another two things: Gestalts cannot use Paragons. What if the Aquatic 11 species is a Hive Mind, how come this guy is an independant individual? And would he still be a guy if someone made them all-female or genderless during Empire creation? If so, why?

Sure, you may not always encounter him. But he will always exist, there will always be the chance that just one Authoritarian Empire in your galaxy hires a leader from a species that either literally doesn't exist at all, or doesn't in the form that Q'la-Minder implies. He is basically bound to break immersion by merely existing.

The other Paragons suffer from a similar issue in that they are somehow members of unique species that you somehow encounter only a single member of, even if you have a fully upgraded Sentry Array set up that reveals that no, there isn't any more of them in the whole galaxy, with the notable exception of Borin and the salvagers, who at least have some precedent, as well as Azaryn, who is explicitly the last of her species and thus has an explanation for the absence of anyone like her.
Or it's just like Star Trek the original series were all aliens look human but are generally not at all related to each other

You can also use genetic ascension to change your looks, but even then your people still belong to your founding species and aren't treated as a separate species

So even when leaders look a certain way you can easily make the claim that they are entirely unrelated to your empire of similar looking folks
 
  • 5
Reactions:
If you went psionic, do either of the chosen become special leaders? The divine sovereign or chosen leader of the gods within the shroud. What of the galactic sovereign if the galactic imperium was formed?
 
  • 1
Reactions:
It would be cool if the exile could be become one of these special leaders with unique portrait.
IIRC, the Exile is supposed to be a member of your own species. Would be kind of awkward if you instead got a Blorg portrait.
 
  • 10
  • 2Like
Reactions:
100% agree. I want to recruit and grind leaders from my species, name and customize them. I want events like my admiral is flying thru a gov space and theres an altercation between two leaders im personally attached too. Not just static same 20 characters. Really disappointed.
There's literally a level up system to make your own leaders unique and make them find their destiny
 
  • 16
  • 2
  • 1Like
Reactions:
I think developing these leaders like this is the right course of action, compared to generating them. I do hope that they will continue to add them, especially for Gestalts (but that requires a bit of a different approach). Modders can also just pretty easily create these it looks like, disregarding the required artwork which will be hefty ;)
 
  • 5
Reactions:
I see a big discussion of Storytelling happening in this thread, and I believe we ought to look at the bigger picture of the update to see how much more we are getting in terms of emergent storytelling from Leader traits system, ruler customization, council interaction, unique civic council positions; and then on the other side with fixed Storytelling we get the Legendary and Renowed leaders with a fixed backstory but you can still interact with them with events and choose what best use to put them to.
I like to see the new Leaders as living Relics (well known lore, provides a certain bonus), that way their fixed storytelling element does not bother as much; I can get used to it.
 
  • 16
  • 1Like
Reactions:
I see a big discussion of Storytelling happening in this thread, and I believe we ought to look at the bigger picture of the update to see how much more we are getting in terms of emergent storytelling from Leader traits system, ruler customization, council interaction, unique civic council positions; and then on the other side with fixed Storytelling we get the Legendary and Renowed leaders which fixed backstory but you can still interact with them with events and choose what best use to put them to.
I like to see the new Leaders as living Relics (well known lore, provides a certain bonus), that way their fixed storytelling element does not bother as much; I can get used to it.
Double posting here I guess, but I will regardless. These 'static' leaders are not different at all from precursors, fallen empires or crises for example. It completely fits with the development so far.
 
  • 13
  • 1
Reactions:
Does this mean the destinies are locked to these characters or can leaders we recruit from our own species pool also get those? Cuz I feel like somebody who becomes the Chosen One via Shroud event should also be considered a paragon/get access to a destiny trait.
 
  • 2Like
Reactions:
Interesting, getting Last Baol vibes from Azaryn. Any interactions there?

How random are these encounters? Given their finite nature I could see them being repetitive. Guaranteed systems are bad enough, but will we always be ‘sought’ by a paragon? Are they also guaranteed? Also what planet will be their homeworld if their species does not exist?
 
  • 6
Reactions:
I wonder. Will we have any Paragons associated with the crises?

Some plucky leader that emerges in a time of crisis out to unite the galaxy against impending doom?

Or perhaps even a leader from the existing aid that shows up at certain times during a crisis. A leader of the Sentinel Order out to rally your nation against the Scourge. A ancient Cybrex AI seeking to join your forces to both save the galaxy and redeem itself. Or a renegade interdimensional warlock that wants to thwart the ambitions of its kin.
 
  • 2Like
  • 2
Reactions:
Does this mean the destinies are locked to these characters or can leaders we recruit from our own species pool also get those? Cuz I feel like somebody who becomes the Chosen One via Shroud event should also be considered a paragon/get access to a destiny trait.
Destiny traits are a normal pick at level 8. The only question is if the renowed leaders have special traits or if they are available to everyone.
 
  • 2Like
  • 1
Reactions:
I’ll throw my hat on the soapbox and join the crowd saying I don’t like the whole pregenerated nature of the paragons, although I’ll be keeping my mind open, and see how it feels to play. With legendary paragons it makes sense, unique art, story, and voice lines require a fairly strict story. I just hope you won’t be getting 2-3 of them every game.

For the renowned paragons, while I do like the cool art, and especially how they are based on real species, I think it would be better to have some variation. Have them tie more into the actual galaxy. Like, is Vas the Guilded always from the Alyssum Magnetar Sisterhood? Why have we never heard of this empire before?

What I think would be better is if each character had random names, possibly a random trait (I do think at least two preset traits are needed to capture the character of the leader), and then pull a portrait from a few options. Give them labels like “rich”, “military”, “shady”, “mechanical”, “scoundrel”, etc. For example, Kai-Sha could fit for both shady and mechanical.

It would be a significant amount of more work, and I know it won’t happen, but it would hold much closer to the emergent storytelling that makes Stellaris what it is.
 
  • 25
  • 2
Reactions:
Having some prescripted content is fine. Stellaris has always had it, and it's always been some of the most memorable content too. Emergent storytelling is great, but Stellaris's systems for that on the smaller scale, such as dealing with leaders, aren't really robust enough to avoid things just feeling haphazard and random most of the time.

I really don't get why they kept Generals and didn't replace them with Envoys as the 4th leader type though. Especially when there's a "spymaster" Paragon!
 
  • 10
  • 2Like
  • 2
Reactions:
Are the paragons completely static then? The same characters every playthrough? That seems weird considering Stellaris' consistency with random, emerging story elements. It's actually what makes the game stand out to me compared to other space 4x games that always have the same fixed countries and leaders.
What?! And end with some bland "leaders" that are just a portrait with some random traits glued at it? No, thanks! I prefer static Renowmed and Legendary leaders that are competent in their work and unique over any kind randomized "leader".
 
  • 16
  • 9
  • 2Like
Reactions: