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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:
DDBloodlines_BloodlineView.png

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.
DDBloodlines_Patrilineal.png


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.
DDBloodlines_MatriTransfer.png


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:
DDBloodlines_List.png


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.
DDBloodlines_Ledger.png


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:
DDBloodlines_Examples.png


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.
 
Looks very interesting, I can't wait to get my hands on this.
One question though: how dynamic is this system? E. g. I start a game with a custom charachter from the ruler designer, will they be able to found a bloodline? Or will they have to marry into a bloodline and modify it later?
 
So when it comes to founding a bloodline what modifiers do you get? Is it limited purely to a prestige/combat skill bonus or are there more modifiers. If there are more modifiers then how do they work? Does the descendants of a good warrior get good martial/Morale bonuses and do the descendants of a good diplomat get good diplomacy bonuses or X opinion? Is it random? Does the player get to choose?
 
Can bloodlines be cognatic?
In mods, but I don't think any are in vanilla; in our tests when we had bloodlines that were cognatic they'd just spread far too wide. We're talking several thousand living people with the bloodline a handful of centuries down the line.
 
Wait, so if you're descended from someone, you get really high personal combat skill out of nowhere?

It's supposed to represent your enemies being a bit more afraid of someone from a legendary bloodline (and I guess your knights and allies being more defensive of you in combat).

"Excuse me , good sir, before we fight, might you maybe quickly lift your visor and tell me if you descend from either Attila, Charlemagne or Alexios Komnenos if it pleases thee, I a particularly wary fighting their descendents, you need to know".

Coat of arms literally exist to have you identifiable on the battlefield. Unless someone crawled out of a cave, they would know your name, background and standing just from that. This includes foreigners, Medieval warriors did like to inform themselves of who they were likely to fight against.
 
Sorry if this was answered already, but will the basic Bloodline mechanic come with the patch or the DLC? As in, is it like Societies, where you can still mod them in yourself but will need the DLC to get the "official" ones?
 
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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.
 
I will just assume that ledger list is incomplete, and you didn't miss out the bloodlines of Cunedda ap Edern / Rhodri Mawr of Gwynedd, or Cnut the Great / Valdemar the Great of Denmark
 
This reasoning might justify a small boost in personal combat ability, but a +8?
See other posts in this thread. In 2.9, +8 is small.
General rule of thumb is that all values are 10x larger now. So Strong for example now gives +10 instead of +1.
 
See other posts in this thread. In 2.9, +8 is small.
General rule of thumb is that all values are 10x larger now. So Strong for example now gives +10 instead of +1.
Wow.
 
As I mentioned in the Diary itself, it's because a superstitious medieval warrior would be more intimidated fighting someone they know was related to a great hero than someone who was not. Note that the Personal Combat Skill values have been heavily revised in HF, 5 skill is very low - but it can give you that edge you need. More on this in a future DevDiary!
Do they currently even have much of an effect? I couldn't not die from a duel the other day with my rival. He had 0 combat skill and I had 7 i think at the time.

I wonder how AGOT mod developers will implement this in their mod.
Everytime I see radical, and yet useful, changes/features this is one of the first thoughts that comes to my mind as well.
 
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