CK3 Dev Diary #68 - Inspiration Never Dies​

As you may already know, artifacts are making a triumphant return in Royal Court. The artifacts themselves will be familiar to those of you who have used them in CK2, but how you actually get your hands on them will be slightly different. As such, I won’t talk much about the artifacts themselves for now, but I’ll be going over one of the major ways of how you will acquire artifacts.

Characters throughout the world can gain what we call an inspiration. Inspirations come about as a character is seeking to create something extraordinary, resulting in the character wanting to pursue the means of realizing their inspiration. They may want to write a great tome of knowledge, weave a tapestry, or forge a magnificent crown! There are many different kinds of inspirations, all resulting in various types of artifacts upon completion. An inspiration can be broad, such as someone wanting to merely forge a weapon, or very specific like a character wanting to forge a sword.

[Image of a character with an active inspiration]​

Inspirations only occur for landless characters. We want to extend the immersion of guests and courtiers by making them valuable to you even if you have no desire to push their claims, or use their skills as a councillor. Inspired characters will travel the world, from court to court, seeking a wealthy monarch to sponsor them and their creation. Realms with a high grandeur will be able to attract inspired characters more frequently than those with low grandeur. Granting them a higher chance at receiving skilled craftsmen that will be able to forge an artifact to meet your expectations.

Once an inspired character arrives at your court, you can choose to sponsor them by giving them the gold they ask for. A skilled character will demand larger amounts of gold, but will also yield better results in creating an artifact. Most of the time at least. No one is infallible after all. The skill that is relevant depends on the type of artifact they want to make. For example, a weapon and the quality it gets is dependent on the character’s Martial and Prowess skill. Writing a book, on the other hand, scales with Learning.

[Image of the Fund Inspiration interaction]​

After funding an inspiration, it will take some time for the character to create the artifact. During the creation progress various situations can happen, such as the character asking for better materials to work with. Below you’ll find such an example, in which my inspired character finds excellent material at the local market. Approve their request and pay for the material, and you’ll increase the overall quality of the artifact they’ll produce.

[Image of an inspiration event: Highest Quality]​

An inspiration gains progress similar to that of a scheme. You’ll gain progress depending on a chance each month, making the actual time it takes to complete vary. Once the inspiration reaches full progress, the character will approach you to present their creation.

[Image of an inspiration being completed]​

Mind you, this is not the only way in which you can get an artifact. Inspirations exist to serve as the most significant means of doing so, since they will generally grant you artifacts of a higher quality. You can still get artifacts by other means, such as getting them in events. I hope you enjoyed this brief look into how an artifact can come about. Stay tuned for more information regarding the Royal Court!

 

[wilcoxchar]

In the world of CK3, these are apparently the same thing.

In the sense that both are characters who do not own land and go to courts seeking patronage and looking for jobs, sure.

 

[Tiax]

In the sense that both are characters who do not own land and go to courts seeking patronage and looking for jobs, sure.

In the sense that being a good knight is the same as being a good blacksmith, and that if you have a good blacksmith in your court, you will almost certainly appoint them as a knight.

 

[Jupiteresse]

i think there should be a position for a weaponsmith or blacksmith in court, that'd be pretty cool or a trait like that, kind of like the wiseman or witch, or blademaster.

Also the option to specify what you want the inscription on the artifact to be would be pretty cool, like, if you don't want the artifact to have your name but, maybe your family motto, or maybe idk "for the glory of [realm]" or "in honor of [son]" or something of the sort!

im assuming that you'll be able to name or rename artifacts, but if not, that's also a very cool idea.

dying to see what's next

 

[Blackfang12]

Sounds kind of weird to me. A king wants a sword made, so he looks around the world for a guy who feels like making a sword right now?

I mean it's not implausible. IIRC an English king once sought out and commissioned the master swordsmiths of Toledo in Spain to forge 5 extremely ornate swords to be given as gifts

 

[wilcoxchar]

Sounds kind of weird to me. A king wants a sword made, so he looks around the world for a guy who feels like making a sword right now?

That is how commissions and patronage works, yes.

 

[Liquid Ghost]

I have to admit, I'm a bit underwhelmed by this. When you look at the great institutions and events and people that shaped the Medieval era, there's so many that simply aren't represented in CkK3 yet - the entire Catholic church is scarcely there, the Byzantine Empire is represented using the same feudal system as the Kingdom of France, there's no system for anti-Popes, vassals are nearly useless. Instead of any of those, we get artefacts. Let's be honest - individual material items, with a few notable exceptions, were not really that politically or militarily important in the Medieval era, with the exception of a few religious relics and occasionally crowns intended for coronation. 300 Gold for a dagger - 300 Gold gets you about 5 or 6 regiments of Men-at-Arms. No medieval monarch was foregoing a small army in exchange for a single dagger. And I'm almost certain this system will end the same way as CK2, where players acquired about a million different artefacts very quickly, all of which will give various bonuses, and become super-powered overmensch, making an easy game even easier.

I'd like to read your alternate timeline post where you complain of them adding cardinals and anti-popes instead of artifacts. It might read: "classic euro-centrism from PDX, catholic mechanics instead of adding a system that would benefit the whole map."

Point being that there is no winning move for PDX on CK or any other of their games; when a patch/DLC focuses on X, there always is someone saying "why didn't you focus on Y?"

 

[Gamadril]

So only landless characters can have inspiration. I see. It is true that you can rarely combine a ruler and a blacksmith in one person. But why my, let's say, Emperor cannot create a Magnum Opus like in CK2?

 

[Beyond Disbelief]

I have to admit, I'm a bit underwhelmed by this. When you look at the great institutions and events and people that shaped the Medieval era, there's so many that simply aren't represented in CkK3 yet - the entire Catholic church is scarcely there, the Byzantine Empire is represented using the same feudal system as the Kingdom of France, there's no system for anti-Popes, vassals are nearly useless. Instead of any of those, we get artefacts. Let's be honest - individual material items, with a few notable exceptions, were not really that politically or militarily important in the Medieval era, with the exception of a few religious relics and occasionally crowns intended for coronation. 300 Gold for a dagger - 300 Gold gets you about 5 or 6 regiments of Men-at-Arms. No medieval monarch was foregoing a small army in exchange for a single dagger. And I'm almost certain this system will end the same way as CK2, where players acquired about a million different artefacts very quickly, all of which will give various bonuses, and become super-powered overmensch, making an easy game even easier.

You are expecting a LOT out of the second DLC <1 year from the game's release.

CK2 didn't have any of the things you mentioned at launch and CK3 is already far more polished out of the box than CK2 was with a lot of flavorful CK2 DLCs like way of life already part of the CK3 base game.

I'm not sure Byzantines would ever get their own dedicated government system since it's farily unique and would only be applicable for ONE country that's in decline. However, i have no doubt the college of cardinals and fleshed out vatican system and a lot of things you've mentioned will be rapidly rolled out in the next year or two.

 

[Beyond Disbelief]

I see the ridiculous prices for creating artifacts hasn’t changed

An entire castle is 500ish ducats but a dagger is 300? Seriously it’s such a simple thing that makes no sense

While youre point is not without merit a Ferrari SF90 costs $625,000 while the average American home is only $375,000.

You can buy a real historical European castle for as low as €400,000 while the median historical castle is cheaper than a Californian single family home.

These 300 gp artifact daggers are more like the king's ferrari.

 

[Beyond Disbelief]

This is actually a bit of a letdown for me. I was hoping to see artifacts become something interesting and yet we are once again back to the same CK2 model of paying for one to be made. Sure, there are other ways to get artifacts that we don't know about yet, but in CK2, you just spend a bunch of money to get a top quality artifact made and we're seeing this again. Such artifacts really have no importance or interest in the game as they are just generic weapons or armor or whatever with no actual story behind them. (An "inspired" character making an item after being paid a bunch of money isn't a story). So once again, we'll have a bunch of uninspired artifacts spread throughout the world instead of having items that have stories and are worth something to the player beyond just a stat boost and money sink. I don't care about spending money on them, but when it's just some landless character who is "inspired", all you are really saying is that the king or emperor (not sure why a count or duke with money can't do this as it doesn't require a court to pay someone to make something) is paying a blacksmith or whomever to make something and that's it. Nothing special. Nothing unique. Nothing interesting. AKA - uninspired.

Don't get me wrong, I love artifacts and want them back. I made a few detailed posts long ago on how I would like to see the artifacts return as something that is actually important to the player and their characters' stories. Perhaps other ways of getting artifacts will result in that, but I really don't like seeing them come back as just newly made weapons and tapestries and such. Those aren't "artifacts". They are "goods". Maybe a weapon that was bought could be passed down for generations and become an artifact (a family heirloom specifically) because it's something the family has had for generations, but a newly forged weapon? That isn't an artifact.

This is actually the first thing that I haven't been happy with or at least okay with. I like where the game is going, but this is just a step backwards.

King: "I've paid this person to make me a sword. It's a really nice sword. You should think better of me and my court because I have this nice generic sword."

vs.

King: "This sword has been used by past kings to forge their empires for generations. It has real importance and historical value. Don't you think my court is better for having such an artifact?"

While I get your point its a relatively small enough function of the game I doubt CK3 team would ever flesh out enough to any one's liking. What concerns me the most is the modding potential.

CK2's artifact system was very limited, so the only way to achieve the level of detail I wanted was bunch of flags.

I'm hoping CK3's artifacts can store more data (like the secondary name/text strings that I'm crossing my fingers for) and in turn enable more moddable features.


My next pet project once Royal Court lands is definitely going to be a mod to reforge your artifacts starting with Joyeus - blade's dull? Reforge the blade. Pommel's cracked? Replace the pommel - and just like the historical Joyeus one has to wonder with all the replacement over the years is any of the original part still there and is it really still Joyeus? THAT would create a very meaningful and flavorful legacy weapon IMO.

 

[Andrzej2]

Such artifacts really have no importance or interest in the game as they are just generic weapons or armor or whatever with no actual story behind them.

That's not true. To this day I remember a story about one of my armors.

"Did you ever hear about tragedy of Basileus Hadrian the Holy? I thought not. It's not a story the latins would tell you. It's a Roman legend. Hadrian the Holy was a Byzantine Emperor, so powerful and so rich he could use the money to influence nations and build holdings. He had such a treasury that he could even buy rare artifacts. The wealth is a pathway to many items some consider to be unnatural. He became so prosperous... the only thing he was afraid of was losing his money, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he hired a shady blacksmith, he gave him his whole treasury of 4500 ducats to aquire a top notch armor named Warden, then his blacksmith escaped with this newly created item and gave it to the Sultan of Al Jazira. It's ironic he could buy the most expensive armor, but not for himself."

 

[Beyond Disbelief]

That's not true. To this day I remember a story about one of my armors.

"Did you ever hear about tragedy of Basileus Hadrian the Holy? I thought not. It's not a story the latins would tell you. It's a Roman legend. Hadrian the Holy was a Byzantine Emperor, so powerful and so rich he could use the money to influence nations and build holdings. He had such a treasury that he could even buy rare artifacts. The wealth is a pathway to many items some consider to be unnatural. He became so prosperous... the only thing he was afraid of was losing his money, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he hired a shady blacksmith, he gave him his whole treasury of 4500 ducats to aquire a top notch armor named Warden, then his blacksmith escaped with this newly created item and gave it to the Sultan of Al Jazira. It's ironic he could buy the most expensive armor, but not for himself."

IIRC CK2 also had a history of ownership for artifacts much like title history. I really HOPE that CK3 will likewise keep a history of artifact ownership because that really helps tell the story of the item.

 

[Rhofpheh]

I don't think we actually use all the different skills for creating artifacts. I don't think we use intrigue at the moment for example.

Intrigue and Prowess to make daggers, perhaps? Just so Intrigue can also join in and play with the other kids.

 

[Raelo]

I was happy that CK3 seemed to be going for more realism than its predecessor, but sadly this system seems to be heading right back into fantasy alley. As, other people have noted already, this is just not how any of it ever worked. Good equipment didn't come from 'inspiration', it was made made by talented and experienced craftsmen who instead of traveling around stayed put because rich clients tended to find them rather than the other way around. In addition, unlike what D&D tells us a more expensive sword doesn't magically makes you better at fighting. At least I hope they restrict this system to lowborn characters, having the sister of a duke head into some smithy in a foreign land because she didn't get to rule her own piece of land would be laughable.

It seems to me that with some tweaks this system would be much better suited for famous artists, who did actually travel around to work for various patrons (mostly towards the end of the middle ages, but still...)

 

[Tiax]

In addition, unlike what D&D tells us a more expensive sword doesn't magically makes you better at fighting.

Yeah, hopefully they make the items ornamental, and give grandeur, prestige, etc. It makes sense to spend a bunch of money on a jewel-encrusted, golden dagger if you want to show off your wealth. But it doesn't give you a +1 dagger of extra good stabbing.

 

[Tiax]

While youre point is not without merit a Ferrari SF90 costs $625,000 while the average American home is only $375,000.

You can buy a real historical European castle for as low as €400,000 while the median historical castle is cheaper than a Californian single family home.

These 300 gp artifact daggers are more like the king's ferrari.

Well, in CK2, they were more like "A regular sword" and "decent armor". Hopefully that's not the case here.

 

[Lollipop_but_rock]

IIRC an English king once sought out and commissioned the master swordsmiths of Toledo in Spain to forge 5 extremely ornate swords to be given as gifts

Note that apparently the count or Duke of toledo can't do that himself tho. (pun not directed at you)

 

[newtlord]

It all seems a bit backwards to me. The Sistine Chapel wasn't painted by Michelangelo deciding he had a cool plan to paint a ceiling and wandering around Europe until he found someone who was interested, and even the most egotistical of smiths wouldn't turn down a well-recompensed commission to craft a sword just because they're currently dreaming of a nifty new dagger they could make.

EDIT: A view of craftsmanship and patronage that gives most of the agency to the craftsman rather than the patron seems particularly odd given that we will always be playing the patron and are apparently explicitly barred from playing the craftsman.

 

[Blackfang12]

Yeah, hopefully they make the items ornamental, and give grandeur, prestige, etc. It makes sense to spend a bunch of money on a jewel-encrusted, golden dagger if you want to show off your wealth. But it doesn't give you a +1 dagger of extra good stabbing.

And well, a more expensive sword is also probably forged by a better smithy that can charge higher prices for their products, and so being made by more skilled craftsmen can be more nimble, sharper, and more durable

 

[TempestM]

Please reconsider giving courts only to non-tribal kings and emperors