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CK2 Dev Diary #36: The Witching Hour

Hi everyone!

I hope you all had a good time during the Holidays. I know I did, but now it’s time to don the crown, strap on the sword and get back to work on Crusader Kings II (and my other game, of course...) Now, what better way to start off the new year than with a bit of harmless witchery? In the terribly long eras before the great thinkers of the Age of Reason would have us replace magic with science, the “occult” was of course seen as a normal part of life, and society lived in fear of curses and evil spells. But… just because you’re superstitious does not mean the witches aren’t out to get you! Just like today, the desperate and the unscrupulous would seek power by any means necessary, including the worship of demons and evil spirits...

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This brings us to my favorite Society in the upcoming expansion Monks and Mystics; the Demon Worshippers. These brothers and sisters of the left-hand path come in several varieties: Abrahamics get “Lucifer’s Own”, Tengri pagans get the “Plaguebringers”, the Indian faiths are afflicted with a particularly nasty type of Kali worship, Baltic, Slavic and Finnic pagans get “The Cold Ones” (evil shamans) and Germanic Pagans have those who curry the favor of Hel and of powerful jotuns. Regardless of religious context, they are all united in their self-serving, utterly ruthless quest for power in the world of the living, and care little for their fate in the afterlife. As they advance through the ranks, Demon Worshippers get powers like “Dark Divorce”, “Summon Familiar” and “Tainted Touch” (a health curse.) Through their network of agents, they can also attempt to abduct relatively low ranking characters. Now, a lot of the content for the Demon Worshippers is hard to explain in terms of placebo effects and natural phenomena, so if you don’t care for the supernatural I suggest simply not joining those Societies (because rooting out their covens and persecuting them through your Court Chaplain is reasonably historical and adds flavor to the game.) However, if you really don’t want them around, you can turn them off through a Game Rule.

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Next up are the infamous Assassins, a Shiite Muslim Society that - unsurprisingly - specializes in murder. The elusive Assassins consider themselves the true followers of Allah, and will do anything to further the advances of Shia Islam and protect their fellow believers. Consisting of loyal warriors as well as competent spies, wielding manipulation and social skills as expertly as a dagger, they specialize in asymmetrical warfare, striking hard at the heart of their enemies. Their special powers include intimidation and murder. For example, they can get a Favor with someone (if you have the Conclave expansion) by leaving a dagger on their pillow. At higher ranks, they can also mark someone for death, so that lower ranked members will get that murder as a mission. Since this Society is also a political entity and a Holy Order of sorts, the Grandmaster gets the power to raise special troops.

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There is more to say about these Societies; their other powers, missions and semi-random events, but I don’t want to spoil it all. Oh, and if you have the Way of Life expansion, you can use “Spy On” to find out if a character is a member of a secret Society like the above...

There won’t be a CK2 stream today, but stay tuned for something next week (and a new dev diary, of course)!
 
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MMm are there any new scripting effects coming with these special abilities from societies that are being opened up for modders?
 
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MMm are there any new scripting effects coming with these special abilities from societies that are being opened up for modders?

Oh yes... it's easy as cake to mod in new Societies with powers and missions.
 
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I can hear all Chaos-worshipping Warhammer: Geheimnisnacht players screaming with joy.
 
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Oh yes... it's easy as cake to mod in new Societies with powers and missions.
What I mean, are there any new script effects that are coming? For instance does the assassins society use simply event troops or do they have a new command that works more akin to a mercenary company?
 
the expansions becomes more attractive from DD to DD (as is to be expected...)
 
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A long while back you guys asked the community what changes they'd like to see or for feedback. Did anything make it into the game? I'm just curious as I never seen any follow up to it.

On topic though, this DLC has me extremely excited for CKII's modding scene. Great work!
 
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burn the witch, kill the heretic
 
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What I mean, are there any new script effects that are coming? For instance does the assassins society use simply event troops or do they have a new command that works more akin to a mercenary company?

There are plenty of new effects and triggers but you'll have to wait for the patch notes. :)
 
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Since this Society is also a political entity and a Holy Order of sorts, the Grandmaster gets the power to raise special troops.
if I were to create a mod which adds Knights Templar society, can I tie it to the existing Knights Templar Holy Order, and get this ability to raise special troops?
 
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Oh boy, I can't wait to become an immortal demon worshipping canibal, that occasionally sacrifices his virgin daughters to Lucifer and eats his sons for dinner.
HAIL SATAN! >: D
 
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I predict Assassin's Creed references in the achievements. Oh, so many Assassin's Creed references.
 
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Guyyyyys

The thing that deserves the greatest hype in this dev diary. Is the part of the tooltip in the third screenshot that says "is secretly Shia" and "is NOT secretly following another religion."

Gonna be a whole new layer.
 
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So will every character be a member of a society? As a player, would there be situations where I wouldn't want to be in a society for any reason other than 'I just can't be bothered to interact with it'?
 
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