Supernatural events (immortality)

[Georilla]

Hey. I have been brainstorming for a long time to play with supernatural events on or off, and to enable devil worshipers or not.

Originally I was firm against this kind of thing, because it seemed totally unrealistic. But then I read someone saying that a lot of seeminly supernatural events make perfect sense in that time period when science wasn't all around us and people believed in almost anything. And most things would be able to be explained in modern science.

So I have moved a lot towards: let's play with it on. However, the one thing that I can not possibly explain to myself is immortality. That one is very difficult to explain even in modern eyes. How can I possibly explain someone being 153 years old in 1053? For all the other things I can make up things in my mind. But not that one.
I don't suppose there is any way to disable immortality? Especially since I want the AI also to have all the supernatural events.

Then there is the Devil Worshipping, how much of this can be "explained" with science? If you put yourself in the shoes of people who are gullible towards fantasy stories.

 

[Zoomun]

You can't really explain a lot of the supernatural events including immortality. If you don't like this then I would recommend turning them off. From what I can tell it seems that you don't want anything impossible so I would recommend turning demon worshippers off if you were to keep supernatural events on.

 

[thevmag]

You can explain... the quest for immortality. It's entirely plausible that you'd send out your best minds to try to find its secret. If you fail or give up, which is extremely likely, then it's all within the realm of realism. If you manage to somehow achieve it... good for you. But you can still find yourself dead by 90 or 103, be it via combat or suicide (all your kids and wives have died, rip) or assassination. Not impossible to reach such ripe ages, rare but possible, and then it can be argued that immortality was a placebo this whole time.

Satanists... I finally caved and got M&Ms, but kept satanists off. The idea of a secret cult worshiping in heretical ways is cool, but I don't really feel up for the whole "for the evulz" magical brainwashing skull-wearing hunchbacked stuff. A bit too cartoony. But it turns out that, for Christians, the Hermetics are great evil cultists: a buncha old guys and their young apprentices giving thanks to a pagan god, diving into the occult, sometimes getting burnt at the stake by their lieges...

 

[Admiral_Obvious]

The M&M stuff can somewhat be explained, if we're talking about lower level stuff, and events. The "summoning" of a "higher god/devil" is almost certainly due to the use of drugs/hallucinations. The bonus/malus that you get after it is just random, mostly.

Most if it can't really be explained properly though, like "I lost my eye in battle 20 years ago, but it's back nao". Or, the "I murdered my child to live longer" actually working (Though I guess there's no stress of raising the kid?).

 

[tobias.mb]

Isn't the immortality event player only?

For the M&M stuff. It's actually not just the devil worshipers. You can also get rid of cancer by praying for example. But a lot of the exents can be explained with either it was a misdiagnosis in the first place (you never had cancer) or just pure coincidence (like the dark curse thing of the devil worshipers). Maybe the dark curse ritual also just involves poisoning your victim. Who knows...
Apart from some more extreme events, it's not too immersion breaking imho.

 

[Castios]

It's just a game so I don't mind few crazy supernatural events here and there as long as they are not too much over the top. Immortality is exception because it impacts the game more than anything else but chances of completing the event are soooo slim (probably like 2% total) that you shouldn't worry about ever achieving it unless you scum reload the game until you get lucky.

Don't take this game too seriously. Yeah it's supposed to be simulation but it's still just a game. If there is only tiny bit of magical stuff I don't mind it, especially as people in medieval times really believe in all that stuff, so if you for example get some bonuses to your stats from demon worshipping, it's not unlikely that someone would treat some satanic ritual as placebo and suddently feel more confident in his martial skills etc.

Not impossible to reach such ripe ages, rare but possible, and then it can be argued that immortality was a placebo this whole time.

Don't ingore the fact that now you get amazing bloodline from being immortal and you are immune to diseases. It's KINDA big deal. My immortal ruler is almost 200 year old and he is not going anywhere anytime soon. I accept every duel and lead every army and he is still kickin with all his limbs intact.

 

[Castios]

Isn't the immortality event player only?

For the M&M stuff. It's actually not just the devil worshipers. You can also get rid of cancer by praying for example. But a lot of the exents can be explained with either it was a misdiagnosis in the first place (you never had cancer) or just pure coincidence (like the dark curse thing of the devil worshipers). Maybe the dark curse ritual also just involves poisoning your victim. Who knows...
Apart from some more extreme events, it's not too immersion breaking imho.

AI can also get immortality quest if you enable it. Works with ironman.

And yeah, as long as it's not anything over the top I am fine with supernatural stuff in this game. It doesn't ruin immersion because such beliefs in medieval times were not uncommon, so in the way it just adds immersion.

 

[thevmag]

Don't ingore the fact that now you get amazing bloodline from being immortal and you are immune to diseases. It's KINDA big deal. My immortal ruler is almost 200 year old and he is not going anywhere anytime soon. I accept every duel and lead every army and he is still kickin with all his limbs intact.

Bloodlines are personal/public perceptions. Nothing changed if you were never the heir to Alexander, and suddenly claimed to be, for example. But belief makes people respect you a bit more, and gives you the balls to invade once a lifetime.

But immortal being immune to disease... if we're talking "how can we justify these supernatural shenanigans", then someone was just really lucky, and believed himself to be such. A fully intact immortal is nice, but we've had plenty on this forum who lived their life syphilitic, incapable, barely a torso with a head.

 

[Rags17]

I am a hard core history buff but I play with all supernatural events on all the time. For me its all about "being there" immersion - I am happy for people to die of "Stress" or "Depression", when IRL no one would now use that description, they would instead refer to the causative agent rather then the illness (eg heart failure, nourishment caused by self neglect etc). As a medieval formulation though it makes perfect sense.

In my mind the same applies to supernatural events. Cancer being cured or eyes growing back are IMO very easy to explain - the "cancer" was actually a huge cyst (or maybe even was a huge but easily excised tumor), the eye was seriously damaged and occluded but was "healed" when the corneal scab fell off and regenerated itself well enough for the character to say that they could "see" again and so on.

Immortality is easy to explain. I remember reading somewhere about a bishop who accompanied William the Bastard to England, at the time he was rumored to be over 120 years old. Don't forget that unless your character gets immortality you can always explain away any 153 year old you meet as being simply "very, very old", maybe he's only 94 and forgot his actual birthday, maybe he really is 120 and is just a lucky fluke (see also Jeanne Calment). In any event don't forget that "immortal" in CK2 terms is a rather misleading term - an "immortal" character might not die of old age but if you read the forums you will hear a lot of complaints about "immortal" characters being assassinated, dying in battle, losing chess against Death etc. Even if you do have immortal characters in your game the odds are that they will probably all end up dying anyway.

TL;DR - I take each example of "supernatural" stuff in the game as just background flavor. Of course vampires, werewolves, devil worshipers and immortals exist, but so do horse Chancellors, cat Spymasters and Secret Bears. I like finding out about these things in my games because they help make it all seems less logical and (dare I say it) more medieval.

 

[Eltener]

The way I interpret the immortality and the killing your children to get more life stuff is that it's not actually 1 person, but a tradition of the heir secretly taking the throne and assuming the persona of their diseased relative for whatever tradition or whatever so as to create the illusion of an unaging immortal ruler. When you grow back a leg I see it as getting an improvised prosthetic limb and the commoners seeing it as some kind of vile demonic growth conjured using science, sorry, I mean pagan/satanic magic. This is all a bit of a stretch but it's all I can come up with ahaha

 

[nestorius]

I dont know I kind of like them I used to be always a devil worshipper when pagan but now I barely use it due to the lodges the Immortal thing happens once a lifetime and actually isnt that great as you need to wait ages to redo an invasion or change inheiritance but I guess the bloodline is good. I also always play with sunset invasion as it makes the game more interesting.

 

[WomboCombo]

Hey. I have been brainstorming for a long time to play with supernatural events on or off, and to enable devil worshipers or not.

Originally I was firm against this kind of thing, because it seemed totally unrealistic. But then I read someone saying that a lot of seeminly supernatural events make perfect sense in that time period when science wasn't all around us and people believed in almost anything. And most things would be able to be explained in modern science.

So I have moved a lot towards: let's play with it on. However, the one thing that I can not possibly explain to myself is immortality. That one is very difficult to explain even in modern eyes. How can I possibly explain someone being 153 years old in 1053? For all the other things I can make up things in my mind. But not that one.
I don't suppose there is any way to disable immortality? Especially since I want the AI also to have all the supernatural events.

Then there is the Devil Worshipping, how much of this can be "explained" with science? If you put yourself in the shoes of people who are gullible towards fantasy stories.

I have 1500 hours in this game and I've never seen an immortal character, and I play with unrestricted supernatural events. That's how rare it is. Most of the time you just get reborn, the mystic is a fraud, you fail it during the many steps.

 

[grnbrndd]

570+ hours and I’ve only gotten it once, and failed on one of the challenges.

 

[Rags17]

I have 1500 hours in this game and I've never seen an immortal character, and I play with unrestricted supernatural events. That's how rare it is. Most of the time you just get reborn, the mystic is a fraud, you fail it during the many steps.

Yeah I've had the event chain start maybe 4-5 times, once I even got the mystic but got no further. In my experience its rare and very tantalizing - I like that ! The same goes with secret bears, vampires and the Cthulhu event. Rarities I HAVE had include the Crack of Doom (that was fun !), Joan of Arc and the Wolf Blood chain.

Re the last one - I'm not sure if it was all part of the same chain but it happened while I was console playing as as custom Holy Order, we had moved to India (long story) and had lost our last holding for the third time (another long story) and so I was marching the entire Order back to Europe. We found a baby abandoned on the trail and about 20 years later he came of age and I took over playing as him when he became the new Grandmaster, it was shortly after that that I started getting all the fun "howl at the moon" events etc.

Definitely a highlight of my CK2 memories !

 

[Rags17]

By the way, here is the entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 793 -

"Here terrible portents came about over the land of Northumbria, and miserably frightened the people: these were immense flashes of lightening, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air. A great famine immediately followed these signs; and a little after that in the same year on 8 June the raiding of heathen men miserably devastated God's church in Lindisfarne island by looting and slaughter."

Assuming that no supernatural stuff happened here, how would you interpret this entry ? Did dragons really fly through the air ? Did a famine "immediately" follow these signs ? Di the lightning happen at the same time as the dragons appearance or later ?

Now imagine how some of your own character's actions and events could be interpreted by chroniclers. Legs growing back, secret bears, eyesight being restored all seem like pretty standard monastic embellishments to me. Who knows what they REALLY were, but that's artistic license for you.

 

[Duskwave]

I get the immortality event pretty often, roughly every 150 years, but almost always the mystic is obviously a fake (terrible stats) and the others I usually die around step 2. Only made it to the last step once, never succeeded or even reincarnated.

I think the Cthulhu event only happens if you're a Lunatic, as I recall. Lunatic events are their own deal, really (though a lot of things not categorized as such couple be un-flagged delusions...)

It's not something that's particularly bothered me for the most part... though some of the Devil Worshipper stuff goes a little over the degree I like for a normal playthrough. But everyone's threshold for "too weird" is different.

 

[Rubidium]

The immortality event really can't be explained, and the Satanists likewise. If it happens (and the initial start of the chain is actually annoyingly frequent, even if success is much more rare), you are actually immortal and basically won't die (yes, you can theoretically die various ways, but you get a huge health bonus in addition to everything else, so even most diseases can't kill you). While things like running around and sacrificing people don't really require much suspension of disbelief, you can literally regrow missing body parts, as well as hypnotize someone into becoming a fanatical follower.

The devil child is also hard to explain (where do those witches come from, with their event troops? and you get some regeneration there as well).

 

[Duskwave]

Man, devil child is such a disconnect for me because people always talk about the witches, and they never make it to that point for me. Had two games derailed because I got the kid as a 9th or 10th kid, a daughter, in a male-only-inheritance setting (once as Caliph) which does a real number, and feel like I get it almost once per game... but I've never had the dramatic stuff with the witches. The nanny always died of actual illness or just "poor health" before any of her stuff really happened, and the other witches never show

 

[Eldath]

I only had the devil's child event pop once but that was one of my first games and I literally had no idea what I was doing.
Immortality popped often but I never actually made it.
Never even knew there was a cthulu event too.
But one of my characters was a very strong werewolf, which I found to be an interesting, even though it didn't lead anywhere.

I also had a RobinHood event pop up once.
It would be nice to know if your religion influences what event you can get.

That being said I fully approve of supernatural content. Given that even today we can't explain everything, it's natural that completely mundane stuff today would have been interpreted as supernatural back then.

All I ask is that no ancient aliens pop up because that would ruin everything for me.

 

[orochi2k]

Here is an explanation of immortality which most people can understand:

What the world see is merely an identity. Thus, when a masked king sitting on his throne for hundreds of years, ruling from his castle far away from general eyes. People only know he is still there, the same king ruled the nation for hundred years while nobody even realized the person behind the mask has changed.
Because, the king prepared for this.
He made his shadow behaves just like him, sounds just like him, having traits just like him.... Maybe his shadow is even one of his secret sons who never revealed to the public.
He made all those may question....disappeared.
A secret so well kept for generations.

Why?
From here, the kingdom shall go for glorious! For it's ruled by an immortal... a living god!
The nation shall be united and stable for they know they are guided by a god king.
Enemies shall surrender for they know they never stand a chance to a king that never dies.

Can this be real?
Let's look at the history. At least, Japanese ninja clans are well known about using such method....
Fuuma Kotarou, the leader of Fuuma clan... Who exactly is him?