An idea I had for CK3
MAIN PREMISE:
In CK3, you can currently only make religions based off existing, reformed religions. I'd like to propose the idea of scholarly adventurers, high learning rulers and monks having the ability to create their own, seperate religions.
From a basic standpoint, this system would be very similar to the standard religion creation screen, except youd be able to do a few extra things, specifically coming up with god(s)/prophets to be used in the text of various actions (you can also include yourself or your followers if you're an adventurer, and whenever mentioned, you can click on them and see their character)(and additionally a god system, between spiritual monotheistic (like christianity), temporal monotheistic (like islam), polytheistic non-heirarchal and polytheistic heirarchal), 2 extra "base tenets" which apply across all divergent faiths, and a few base sins and virtues.
This would not only allow for more in-depth rp, but would allow for players to make their own flavor for drier regions (for example, starting a Buddhist-like faith in siberia and spreading it across the steppe via conquering and conversion).
For holy site locations, the first is always the founding location, the second is the next place you convert that isnt the founding location, and the others are places you hold activities at (feasts, funerals, grand weddings, hunts, etc), and followers of the faith will be able to build special kinds of temples at these locations that grant the holder's faith (if its of the same faith group) extra fervor.
A new head of faith title could be created, a Mandate. Mandates are simple, they go to the founder of the religion and either pass down to the current holder of the primary title that the ruler had on creation of the religion group (Earthly inheritance) or more simply can just be passed down by the realm's inheritance laws like any other title though strictly following the religion group's rules (so if its men-only, yet the heir is a woman and the realm's inheritance is equal, then the Mandate is transferred to a son instead of the new leader of the realm).
Mandates automatically grant all of the faiths under the faith group some amount of fervor (that's up to paradox to balance, but id think somewhere around 20% would be good), and on the destruction of the Mandate title (as in, no one inherits it), then the buff is removed and all faiths under the faith group suffer a 20% fervor debuff until the Mandate is recreated (unless a faith under the faith group has a different head of faith, then they don't get the buff or debuff).
Mandates can only be recreated (after their destruction) by people who are related to the original founder (either by blood or were their follower, friend or partner or a descendant of any of the aforementioned), and if the founder owns several empire titles on their death, a new hegemony will be created and the heir of the founder will be able to name it.
My choice behind specifically Scholarly Adventurers, Monks/Sages/Priests and high-learning Kings is simple, its based on historical precedent:
Zoroaster, Mahavira and the Buddha were all monks/sages (Zoroastrianism, Jainism and Buddhism respectively), Jesus, Abraham and Moses (according to judaic tradition), Mani and Guru Nanak were forms of Adventurers/Traveling Sages with large followings both spreading the word of their respective god (Christianity, Judaism, Manichaeism and Sikhism respectively), and Islam was founded by Muhammad who can be argued to have been a form of ruler due to his unification of the Arabian tribes.
CHANGES TO EXISTING FAITHS:
Also, with this id suggest having an event splitting east and west christianity into two seperate groups sometime around 1054 depending on if you've reunited christendom and the current tensions between the Basileus (and by extension, the existing heads of faith of Orthodox, Apostolic, Coptic, Iconoclasm and potentially Nestorianism if they do a decision to reconnect with the Orthodox church,) and the Emperor (and by extension, the existing heads of faith of Catholicism, Insularism, Mozarabism and potentially Conversos or Adoptionism if they exist). This changes the respective faiths from Astray to Hostile, and enables split crusades.
Additionally, after such an event, a regional heresy which has taken over 60% of an empire which currently exists and is controlled by a follower of the heresy can also declare itself a different christian religious group and the person choosing this enters a limited version of the religion group creator, allowing them to change only the base tenets but none of the main faith's actual tenets (though, some things like marriage, crime and clergy doctrines will be modifiable, and the Constantinople/Vaticano holy site will be replaced with the capital of the empire the heresy controls).
Some existing religions will now have a founder (visible in the religious group's menu), like Buddhism (Buddha), Taoism (Lao Tzu), etc.
OTHER THINGS:
If you create a new religious group thats not christian (the previously mentioned split in christianity doesnt affect the christian syncretism tenet, it still applies to all christian religions) or eastern (hindu, jainist, buddhist, tibetan and a couple others share the eastern syncretism tenet, so if you previously followed any of these religions before creating a new group, your new religion group has the option to keep the trait of being "eastern") in origin, your new religion group will get a new syncretism tenet which can be chosen by any religion that isnt part of your religion group, and will consider your faith to be only hostile instead of evil (except in the case of eastern religions, who will consider you astray instead of hostile).
If the founder of a religious group dies without a large amount of prestige, your character will be considered "legendary" (similar to Moses or Abraham) and will automatically be added to the list of gods/prophets if you weren't already on the list, and all religions under the religious group will gain a 5% fervor due to "Legendary Founder".
The death of the religious group founder gives out an event to every follower of the religious group which gives 100 stress if you're in the negatives in piety, and if your level of devotion is already Religious Icon, you can get a claim and eventually declare war on the new head of faith (if its a mandate) and take the title of Mandate. This new title is technically called Mandate Domitor, and the original Mandate title can be restored under a valid heir to the mandate through either a war with the Mandate Domitor or the Mandate Domitor dying without an heir.
If the religious group founder is murdered or killed in battle, the killer (or ruler of the killer in the battle), all followers of the religious group get a free imprisonment reason and a free subjugation casus belli in which the ruler will be imprisoned after subjugation.
Armed Pilgrimages on new religious groups (as a base tenet) will give all followers of the faith with the Religious Icon level of devotion and an opinion of 50 or higher with the Head of Faith the ability to get an unpressed claim on any title that the founder of the faith had on their death below Hegemony rank that is currently controlled by a ruler which does not follow the same faith as you (but can be the same faith group as long as it doesnt have rite for the head of faith that you have).
The ai would occasionally be able to create it's own faiths (though not faith groups unless historical) with tenets based on the founder's traits and generally the state of their kingdom (or followers and patrons in the case of adventurers), though this would not be common and would be extremely rare in all starting religions. As a few examples, a christian ruler with many Muslim counties and vassals would choose Islamic Syncretism as one of the tenets, someone who has an infertile wife may choose to have Polygamy or Concubines, or to unban adultery.
CONCLUSION:
While this is a lot of content, and I don't expect all of it to be added, at least not in one go and not without a lot of refinement, I believe the ability to create new faith groups would go a long way in strengthening both historical and ahistorical roleplay along with functionality in CK3. Later, I will try to make some concepts for the ingame menus and such.
Also, something that this would benefit from is significantly more custom faith symbols, and maybe even ones that can be custom colored and uploaded as a grayscale image for coloring.
MAIN PREMISE:
In CK3, you can currently only make religions based off existing, reformed religions. I'd like to propose the idea of scholarly adventurers, high learning rulers and monks having the ability to create their own, seperate religions.
From a basic standpoint, this system would be very similar to the standard religion creation screen, except youd be able to do a few extra things, specifically coming up with god(s)/prophets to be used in the text of various actions (you can also include yourself or your followers if you're an adventurer, and whenever mentioned, you can click on them and see their character)(and additionally a god system, between spiritual monotheistic (like christianity), temporal monotheistic (like islam), polytheistic non-heirarchal and polytheistic heirarchal), 2 extra "base tenets" which apply across all divergent faiths, and a few base sins and virtues.
This would not only allow for more in-depth rp, but would allow for players to make their own flavor for drier regions (for example, starting a Buddhist-like faith in siberia and spreading it across the steppe via conquering and conversion).
For holy site locations, the first is always the founding location, the second is the next place you convert that isnt the founding location, and the others are places you hold activities at (feasts, funerals, grand weddings, hunts, etc), and followers of the faith will be able to build special kinds of temples at these locations that grant the holder's faith (if its of the same faith group) extra fervor.
A new head of faith title could be created, a Mandate. Mandates are simple, they go to the founder of the religion and either pass down to the current holder of the primary title that the ruler had on creation of the religion group (Earthly inheritance) or more simply can just be passed down by the realm's inheritance laws like any other title though strictly following the religion group's rules (so if its men-only, yet the heir is a woman and the realm's inheritance is equal, then the Mandate is transferred to a son instead of the new leader of the realm).
Mandates automatically grant all of the faiths under the faith group some amount of fervor (that's up to paradox to balance, but id think somewhere around 20% would be good), and on the destruction of the Mandate title (as in, no one inherits it), then the buff is removed and all faiths under the faith group suffer a 20% fervor debuff until the Mandate is recreated (unless a faith under the faith group has a different head of faith, then they don't get the buff or debuff).
Mandates can only be recreated (after their destruction) by people who are related to the original founder (either by blood or were their follower, friend or partner or a descendant of any of the aforementioned), and if the founder owns several empire titles on their death, a new hegemony will be created and the heir of the founder will be able to name it.
My choice behind specifically Scholarly Adventurers, Monks/Sages/Priests and high-learning Kings is simple, its based on historical precedent:
Zoroaster, Mahavira and the Buddha were all monks/sages (Zoroastrianism, Jainism and Buddhism respectively), Jesus, Abraham and Moses (according to judaic tradition), Mani and Guru Nanak were forms of Adventurers/Traveling Sages with large followings both spreading the word of their respective god (Christianity, Judaism, Manichaeism and Sikhism respectively), and Islam was founded by Muhammad who can be argued to have been a form of ruler due to his unification of the Arabian tribes.
CHANGES TO EXISTING FAITHS:
Also, with this id suggest having an event splitting east and west christianity into two seperate groups sometime around 1054 depending on if you've reunited christendom and the current tensions between the Basileus (and by extension, the existing heads of faith of Orthodox, Apostolic, Coptic, Iconoclasm and potentially Nestorianism if they do a decision to reconnect with the Orthodox church,) and the Emperor (and by extension, the existing heads of faith of Catholicism, Insularism, Mozarabism and potentially Conversos or Adoptionism if they exist). This changes the respective faiths from Astray to Hostile, and enables split crusades.
Additionally, after such an event, a regional heresy which has taken over 60% of an empire which currently exists and is controlled by a follower of the heresy can also declare itself a different christian religious group and the person choosing this enters a limited version of the religion group creator, allowing them to change only the base tenets but none of the main faith's actual tenets (though, some things like marriage, crime and clergy doctrines will be modifiable, and the Constantinople/Vaticano holy site will be replaced with the capital of the empire the heresy controls).
Some existing religions will now have a founder (visible in the religious group's menu), like Buddhism (Buddha), Taoism (Lao Tzu), etc.
OTHER THINGS:
If you create a new religious group thats not christian (the previously mentioned split in christianity doesnt affect the christian syncretism tenet, it still applies to all christian religions) or eastern (hindu, jainist, buddhist, tibetan and a couple others share the eastern syncretism tenet, so if you previously followed any of these religions before creating a new group, your new religion group has the option to keep the trait of being "eastern") in origin, your new religion group will get a new syncretism tenet which can be chosen by any religion that isnt part of your religion group, and will consider your faith to be only hostile instead of evil (except in the case of eastern religions, who will consider you astray instead of hostile).
If the founder of a religious group dies without a large amount of prestige, your character will be considered "legendary" (similar to Moses or Abraham) and will automatically be added to the list of gods/prophets if you weren't already on the list, and all religions under the religious group will gain a 5% fervor due to "Legendary Founder".
The death of the religious group founder gives out an event to every follower of the religious group which gives 100 stress if you're in the negatives in piety, and if your level of devotion is already Religious Icon, you can get a claim and eventually declare war on the new head of faith (if its a mandate) and take the title of Mandate. This new title is technically called Mandate Domitor, and the original Mandate title can be restored under a valid heir to the mandate through either a war with the Mandate Domitor or the Mandate Domitor dying without an heir.
If the religious group founder is murdered or killed in battle, the killer (or ruler of the killer in the battle), all followers of the religious group get a free imprisonment reason and a free subjugation casus belli in which the ruler will be imprisoned after subjugation.
Armed Pilgrimages on new religious groups (as a base tenet) will give all followers of the faith with the Religious Icon level of devotion and an opinion of 50 or higher with the Head of Faith the ability to get an unpressed claim on any title that the founder of the faith had on their death below Hegemony rank that is currently controlled by a ruler which does not follow the same faith as you (but can be the same faith group as long as it doesnt have rite for the head of faith that you have).
The ai would occasionally be able to create it's own faiths (though not faith groups unless historical) with tenets based on the founder's traits and generally the state of their kingdom (or followers and patrons in the case of adventurers), though this would not be common and would be extremely rare in all starting religions. As a few examples, a christian ruler with many Muslim counties and vassals would choose Islamic Syncretism as one of the tenets, someone who has an infertile wife may choose to have Polygamy or Concubines, or to unban adultery.
CONCLUSION:
While this is a lot of content, and I don't expect all of it to be added, at least not in one go and not without a lot of refinement, I believe the ability to create new faith groups would go a long way in strengthening both historical and ahistorical roleplay along with functionality in CK3. Later, I will try to make some concepts for the ingame menus and such.
Also, something that this would benefit from is significantly more custom faith symbols, and maybe even ones that can be custom colored and uploaded as a grayscale image for coloring.
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