• 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.
Or make a Continental Germanic Religion for all Germans and Saxons together.
This one is actually already in the game, under the anachronistic name "Norse". The Norse people didn't actually have their own religion, but followed the same pan-germanic pagan religion as their southern brethren, they just was the only ones still clinging to it by 867. Sure there were some regional differences in the religious practices between Scandinavia, Continental Germany, and Anglo-Saxon Britain, but non large enough to make it separate religions. Just like how the Celtic Christian practices differed quite a lot from Italian Christian practices at the time, while still being equally Catholic.

That is not to say there is no place for additional flavour elements to represent the pan-germanic nature of the "Norse" religion, but right now that isn't first priority, at least not for me...
 
This one is actually already in the game, under the anachronistic name "Norse". The Norse people didn't actually have their own religion, but followed the same pan-germanic pagan religion as their southern brethren, they just was the only ones still clinging to it by 867. Sure there were some regional differences in the religious practices between Scandinavia, Continental Germany, and Anglo-Saxon Britain, but non large enough to make it separate religions. Just like how the Celtic Christian practices differed quite a lot from Italian Christian practices at the time, while still being equally Catholic.

That is not to say there is no place for additional flavour elements to represent the pan-germanic nature of the "Norse" religion, but right now that isn't first priority, at least not for me...

Just to extrapolate on this idea further, Celtic Christianity also had a considerable Greek-Christian influence as well. St. Columba was one of the last well known Celtic Christians to actually still read and write in Greek in Ireland.

I'm also in agreeance with you about the anachronistic 'Norse' religion. Anthropological data as well as projected migrational studies indicate the actual difference between Germans and Scandinavian people is largely linguistic, and high German and Old Norse may have only been separated by a couple dozen generations (not terribly long from a linguistic point of view.) Since language is typically a carrier for religion and culture, had Christianity not actually come along, Germans and Scandinavians would potentially have venerated a pantheon of similar gods, partook in similar rituals, festivals and rites, and had a similar priesthood.
 
A possible idea could be to localise the name of the norse religion as Germanic (Maybe a more unique term for a pan-german religion could be found) instead of Norse.

Anyways, to expand on Jon's idea I will explain the basics of what I have worked out for the druidic religion, my prototype will have to wait until tomorrow since I was occupied with real life the last week (no more exams, yeah), but some basic parts of my work should be in Jon's prototype.

The new and improved druidic religion will be based on information mostly gleaned from the state of druidism during the roman occupation, but any traditions/practices from pre-roman times that haven't been proved to stop will probably make an appearance.

The holy sites as established right now are Ynys Mon (Gwynedd), the "Center of Gaul" (Chartres), Brigantia (Coruna), the Hill of Tara (Dublin or Kildare? not sure) and Ynys Afallach (Galloway). Ynys Afallach is still under consideration, I am thinking of finding another site in northern scotland or eastern england. Any real decision will have to wait until TOG is out.

I have already made some basic work on a headhunting mechanic and a conversion mechanic and I have permission to borrow some elements from Luca's Winter King mod. Planned flavor features are as follows:
  • A coming of age event chain for celtic boys and girls.
  • Sacrifices, I will see what can be recycled from the other religions.
  • Pilgrimages, there was a strong culture of travelling to sacred sites and deposing gifts to the gods or to ask favors (such as a curse on your enemies)
  • A feast of Tara that would probably fit into a possible High Kingdom mechanic that I am working on for Ireland and a special celtic empire.
  • See how I can accomodate the flavor events of the other pagan religions to represent the festivals of Imbolg, Beltane, Lugnasad and Samhain..
  • The possibility to attract powerful druids/wizards and bards to your court.
  • New ambitions representing the vows that were made to gods.
All the text and events pertaining to the religion will search to reflect certain themes that are very present in celtic mythology, such as severed heads, the sanctity of water, the rule of three, divination, the "otherworld" and shapeshifting. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Come back tomorrow for a prototype.
 
Last edited:
You could implement an event chain to embrace the common Germanic heritage and increase conversion rates amongst Germans, Saxons and Dutch people. Potentially that could either be paired with making a single Germanic religion, or you could have it so reformation or holding the reform site in Saxony is what brings about this restoration. I don't know if pagans can ideally have heresies, but you could try making a Germanic heresy of the greater religion which gets formed on reformation and gradually merges in.
 
Alright listen up everyone, I have uploaded my work on the druidic religion and merged it with Jon's Github project, follow this link if you are curious: https://github.com/Superpat/ancientreligions

EDIT: I have finished the rebirth of druidism event chain.

Also Jon, I love the dynamism of your minor titles. I tried out the other events as well and it all seems pretty good, we will have to go change the religion of the old emperors, some of them were greco roman. There are a few typing errors in the localisations, did not have time to correct them all, but I will check them later if you want.
 
Last edited:
We definitely need Egyptian Paganism in this mod. I'd love to play a campaign as the first Pharaoh in centuries bringing down the wrath of Horus, Seth, Osiris, and Nefertiti etc. on those Arab Shi'ite usurpers (I might even mod in a Goa'uld invasion associated with this for the lulz).
 
We definitely need Egyptian Paganism in this mod. I'd love to play a campaign as the first Pharaoh in centuries bringing down the wrath of Horus, Seth, Osiris, and Nefertiti etc. on those Arab Shi'ite usurpers (I might even mod in a Goa'uld invasion associated with this for the lulz).
Haha gotta love the Goa'uld!

As for egyptian paganism, its a little further down the road, first we will release greco-roman and druidic paganism since they seem to be the most in-demand.

Afterwards I have plans for the Ashurists (Mesopotamian Religion) in assyria, the Guanche pagans in the canarias and possibly expand the vanilla pagan religions a bit.

But if you want to lend a hand, send me sources and event/mechanism ideas by pm, I will be overjoyed to look them over (And if get a precise idea it might bump forward on my todo list)
 
"Heathen" could be the new localisation for Norse.

I would think the Celtic religions for each area should be separate entities actually. You shouldn't need to go after British holy sites as a Iberian celt.
 
"Heathen" could be the new localisation for Norse.
I would think the Celtic religions for each area should be separate entities actually. You shouldn't need to go after British holy sites as a Iberian celt.
I'm thinking of maybe doing Brythonic and Gaelic religions, but not an Iberian one, the one in coruna is mostly to represent a sort of celtic reconquest of old celtic lands.

Is it possible to have the Celtic/Druidic religions all in the same culture group but with different Holy sites? I have no idea.
Yes, each religion has its own holy sites.

As for the topic of renaming norse religion, I'm thinking of keeping unreformed norse as norse and changing the reformed faith to Asatru. And I also want to change the horrible names of the reformed religious institutions like the suomenusko church to something more flavorful, for example, the druidic reformed religion will be headed by the circle of druids and their head, the Arch Druid.

Edit: I have no idea yet what name I could give to the other religions though.
 
Last edited:
So, I've seen alot of discussion on the theory side of the mod, E.G titles etc, but has work started on actually implementing the religions and their holy sites in-game? Sorry, just curious, really want to make a Celtic Britannia and Greco-Roman Polytheistic Roman Empire :D
 
As for the topic of renaming norse religion, I'm thinking of keeping unreformed norse as norse and changing the reformed faith to Asatru. And I also want to change the horrible names of the reformed religious institutions like the suomenusko church to something more flavorful, for example, the druidic reformed religion will be headed by the circle of druids and their head, the Arch Druid.

I was literally just scrolling down to suggest Asatru.

You could make the non-reformed versions things like Finnic, Baltic, Slavic, Norse and West African and have the reformed versions take on more "universal" names which don't pin the religion on one culture, making it more plausible to spread it by missionary contact. Finnic could become Suomensuko when reformed, Baltic could become Romuva when reformed, Norse could become Asatru, West African could be Vudu, Slavic could become Perunism (after the most respected God, which could lead a pantheon). Tengriism could remain as it is.

I could probably reel off a list of more reformed religion names if you wanted. In my opinion there should be a Berber, Egyptian, Ethiopian, Arabic, Greek, Roman (optionally for Italians, Vlachs, Franks, Occitans, Catalans, Castillans and Portuguese), Celtic, Gaelic, Caucasian (no idea what Armenian and Georgian traditions were) and maybe some Mystery Cults or some vague religions for people of minor or marginalised cultures to defect to.
 
So, I've seen alot of discussion on the theory side of the mod, E.G titles etc, but has work started on actually implementing the religions and their holy sites in-game? Sorry, just curious, really want to make a Celtic Britannia and Greco-Roman Polytheistic Roman Empire :D
Yes! Here is a list of whats been finished for celtic polytheism:
  • Working religion
  • Localisations for titles
  • Minor Titles
  • Druidic rebirth event chain
  • Headhunting Event Chain

I just have a bit more polishing to do and I could release a fully fonctioning druidic religion!
(Alot more flavor and mechanics will be made as well)

As for the greco roman religion, I havent heard from Jon for a few days now, but I sent him a pm. He had a lot of work done as well, and it is functionning, its just slightly barebones in the current build

Edit:
I have an idea, how about I rename all reformed and unreformed pagans?
Norse pagans could become the Asatru when reformed
Slavic Pagans could become the Rodnovery
The Tengri could be called Altaic Pagans when unreformed
The Romuva could be called Baltic Pagans when unreformed
And the Suomenusko could be called Finnish Pagans when unreformed

If you have a better idea, tell me!
 
Last edited:
I don't know that much about the dynamics of how new schismatic religions form, but I think the main problem is that Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) are typically very resistant to notions that God is anything but one being, and would probably not suddenly become polytheist.

If you feel this is an issue, check out the Mayan Catholicism of today. In Mayan Catholicism a lot of the prayers go to different saints which reflects different aspects of their original faith to some degree or another.

The story goes that the force-converted indians were also forced to tear down their temples and build churches. As they did so they left their ancient gods turned into the wall, just behind different saints.
As such the indians would seem to go pray to a saint, while in reality the saint ended up representing another god.

These days there are part of the church that are still technically considered "catholic", yet has a shaman instead of a priest and take offerings (including sacrifical chickens).

Anyways my point is that it would be possible to merge the 2 religions by making the polytheistic gods more than human, but less than god, by having them represented by saints in some form.
 
I love most of the ideas - is there anywhere I could download this?
Soon! I'm just working out a bug with the reformation mechanic right now, it seems that the head of the reformed religion already exists even though the code is the same as the other religions.

If you feel this is an issue, check out the Mayan Catholicism of today. In Mayan Catholicism a lot of the prayers go to different saints which reflects different aspects of their original faith to some degree or another.

The story goes that the force-converted indians were also forced to tear down their temples and build churches. As they did so they left their ancient gods turned into the wall, just behind different saints.
As such the indians would seem to go pray to a saint, while in reality the saint ended up representing another god.

These days there are part of the church that are still technically considered "catholic", yet has a shaman instead of a priest and take offerings (including sacrifical chickens).

Anyways my point is that it would be possible to merge the 2 religions by making the polytheistic gods more than human, but less than god, by having them represented by saints in some form.
And st Brigit is just a christianization of the irish goddess Brigit!
 
We definitely need Egyptian Paganism in this mod. I'd love to play a campaign as the first Pharaoh in centuries bringing down the wrath of Horus, Seth, Osiris, and Nefertiti etc. on those Arab Shi'ite usurpers (I might even mod in a Goa'uld invasion associated with this for the lulz).

Was just about to suggest this, perhaps we could copy the Norse rune stone decision, into build an Obelisk. Greco-Roman and Druidism sound very interesting, cant wait to try this out.
 
Yes! Here is a list of whats been finished for celtic polytheism:
  • Working religion
  • Localisations for titles
  • Minor Titles
  • Druidic rebirth event chain
  • Headhunting Event Chain

I just have a bit more polishing to do and I could release a fully fonctioning druidic religion!
(Alot more flavor and mechanics will be made as well)

As for the greco roman religion, I havent heard from Jon for a few days now, but I sent him a pm. He had a lot of work done as well, and it is functionning, its just slightly barebones in the current build

Edit:
I have an idea, how about I rename all reformed and unreformed pagans?
Norse pagans could become the Asatru when reformed
Slavic Pagans could become the Rodnovery
The Tengri could be called Altaic Pagans when unreformed
The Romuva could be called Baltic Pagans when unreformed
And the Suomenusko could be called Finnish Pagans when unreformed

If you have a better idea, tell me!

If no one else is doing it, I can get started on making the Egyptian stuff btw. It will probably be fairly rough to start with, but we can improve on it as things progress.