Hello, modern Bulgarian here.
First off, I must say I was blown away when I initially got into Crusader Kings 3 by the fact not only my nation - Bulgaria, is playable, but also the heresies of Paulicanism and especially Bogomilism. It is extremely rare to see those represented in vidya or media at all!
However, a few things have bugged me ever since, and as I recently began to mod, I set out to correct them. As such, I am making this thread as a recommendation for the steps below to be seen by the Developers That Be and considered as possible official changes in the game in future patches.
1. Bogomilism
With bogomilism, I had swapped one Holy Site for another - as of right now, bogomilism is an exact copy of Orthodoxy in holy sites, which does not feel right. I have replaced Antioch as a holy site for a Monastery Holding in the tile of Rila, Sredets County. Most official historic takes place Rila as the first mass congregation of the Bogomilist movement, first churches of the heresy were built there, so on and so forth. For effects of the "new" Holy Site, I have settled for a mere plus 10 Popular Opinion in order to not make my mod biased, but keep it thematically accurate - after all, the Bogomilist heresy was as much of a populist movement of the masses as it was an alternative teaching of semi-gnostic Christianity. However, an argument can be made for the new Holy Site to give Levy Size instead, which is still thematic, or to give both Popular Opinion and Levy Size.
Bogomilist Realm Priests should always wear peasant clothing, last patch broke it.
Tenet change - swapped away Pacifism for Vows Of Poverty. While Bogomils have viable arguments for a few tenets, the one that weights the most to replace the placeholder pacifism is Vow of Poverty, as it fits both thematically and mechanically the most. The Bogomils preached distance from luxury and were especially critical of one Sin in particular - namely, Greed - which, per the tenet itself, has double weighting in opinion, which just fits perfect! In addition to that, whilst not full ascetics, Bogomil preachers were known to possess little on their travels - often merely robes and pastor canes; practically making them adherents to a vow of poverty, even if it was not officialized by internal doctrine.
Finally, Pacifism has to go, for not only is "turn the other cheek"s meaning disputed by different faithful even today, but the Bogomil movement itself was inherently rebellious. They were not violent, yes, but it is hard to truly call them pacifist either - one cannot be truly pacifist if they intentionally get into confrontation with authority by "blaspheming" or by playing coy with their taxing payments. It has also been implied that during Tsar Samuil's rule, the heresy was allowed to spread with no real crackdown by official orthodox authority because their popularity with the masses was useful, especially in resisting foreign threats (which in turn implies the threat of potentially pissed off bogomilist masses NOT being useful).
If curious, the other Tenets that fit Bogomilism to replace the pacifism slot (as in, at least a fitting argument can be made for their inclusion given bogomils of the past and urban legend of the present) include: Asceticism (near the same function and same weight in theme as vows), Aniconism (bogomilists' thought too much focus was given on the symbol of the Cross (+icons) itself/the death of Christ as opposed to His lessons/life), Reincarnation (at least some bogomils went full gnostic in the sense they believed souls are maliciously recycled), Inner Journey (a bit questionable but they did preach Mind Over Matter) and finally Esotericism (Bogomils, especially according to modern urban legend which has passed down for centuries, were really into some "mystic practices", whatever that may be).
Bonus suggestion - make Peasant Leader be considered a Virtue for Bogomilism, and make it likely to show up as a trait when generating Elects (realm priests).
Bonus Bonus suggestion - unique Holy Order names (not historic, obviously): Order of Bogorodica /'Theotokos' is Greek, Godmother Virgin Mary/ (this can work for the Orthodox order names also; use Theotokos if Order Founder is Greek culture, Bogorodica if Bulgarian, South Slavic and many Slavic cultures also), Blessed Soldiers of Pop Bogomil /Pop ('Father') Bogomil founder of the bogomil movement, closest they have to their own Saint/, Order of Sophia /+add to almost all Gnostic and Dualist faiths' Holy Order names' list tbh) Peasant Movement of The Truth /rebel-militia-sounding because it fits/.
2. Paulician
The story with Paulicans is spicier. See, once upon a time Paulicans arrived to Bulgaria instead of being born in its lands like Bogomilism, and indeed intertwined with bogomilism by influencing it somewhat. But, Paulicians were recorded to survive up to the 16th century in the Rhodopes County, which is where its new Holy Site would be, until some 150 years into Ottoman rule saw most of them convert themselves to Islam - becoming what is modern day Pomaks, also called Bulgaro-Mohamedan (Bulgarian Muslim essentially). It was harder for me to decide which vanilla holy site to replace with the new one, but I settled on cutting Antioch off the same as I did for Bogomilism above. As for the effects of the new Rhodopes Holy Site, I gave it a plus 5% Levy Size and plus 1 Martial, as I felt Paulicanism is thematically much more warlike and thus the new Holy Site needs bonuses of martial nature to compensate for the great martial bonuses previously provided by Antioch.
Just as the end of Paulicianism is on the Bulgarian side, in the face of the eventual Pomaks, an argument for representing the Armenian-centric beginning of the Faith can be made for the inclusion of Dwin as a Holy Site - an argument already present in the game files, where with a questionmark lies the thought of Paulicians sharing placeholder holy_sites of the Armenian church instead of the Orthodoxy.
With the two points above, the result should look something like this:
and
So, I urge for this little recommendation to be forwarded to the developers or be discussed here as a way of bringing it to attention, so that two very interesting heresies get their flavour shown.
Cheers.
First off, I must say I was blown away when I initially got into Crusader Kings 3 by the fact not only my nation - Bulgaria, is playable, but also the heresies of Paulicanism and especially Bogomilism. It is extremely rare to see those represented in vidya or media at all!
However, a few things have bugged me ever since, and as I recently began to mod, I set out to correct them. As such, I am making this thread as a recommendation for the steps below to be seen by the Developers That Be and considered as possible official changes in the game in future patches.
1. Bogomilism
With bogomilism, I had swapped one Holy Site for another - as of right now, bogomilism is an exact copy of Orthodoxy in holy sites, which does not feel right. I have replaced Antioch as a holy site for a Monastery Holding in the tile of Rila, Sredets County. Most official historic takes place Rila as the first mass congregation of the Bogomilist movement, first churches of the heresy were built there, so on and so forth. For effects of the "new" Holy Site, I have settled for a mere plus 10 Popular Opinion in order to not make my mod biased, but keep it thematically accurate - after all, the Bogomilist heresy was as much of a populist movement of the masses as it was an alternative teaching of semi-gnostic Christianity. However, an argument can be made for the new Holy Site to give Levy Size instead, which is still thematic, or to give both Popular Opinion and Levy Size.
Bogomilist Realm Priests should always wear peasant clothing, last patch broke it.
Tenet change - swapped away Pacifism for Vows Of Poverty. While Bogomils have viable arguments for a few tenets, the one that weights the most to replace the placeholder pacifism is Vow of Poverty, as it fits both thematically and mechanically the most. The Bogomils preached distance from luxury and were especially critical of one Sin in particular - namely, Greed - which, per the tenet itself, has double weighting in opinion, which just fits perfect! In addition to that, whilst not full ascetics, Bogomil preachers were known to possess little on their travels - often merely robes and pastor canes; practically making them adherents to a vow of poverty, even if it was not officialized by internal doctrine.
Finally, Pacifism has to go, for not only is "turn the other cheek"s meaning disputed by different faithful even today, but the Bogomil movement itself was inherently rebellious. They were not violent, yes, but it is hard to truly call them pacifist either - one cannot be truly pacifist if they intentionally get into confrontation with authority by "blaspheming" or by playing coy with their taxing payments. It has also been implied that during Tsar Samuil's rule, the heresy was allowed to spread with no real crackdown by official orthodox authority because their popularity with the masses was useful, especially in resisting foreign threats (which in turn implies the threat of potentially pissed off bogomilist masses NOT being useful).
If curious, the other Tenets that fit Bogomilism to replace the pacifism slot (as in, at least a fitting argument can be made for their inclusion given bogomils of the past and urban legend of the present) include: Asceticism (near the same function and same weight in theme as vows), Aniconism (bogomilists' thought too much focus was given on the symbol of the Cross (+icons) itself/the death of Christ as opposed to His lessons/life), Reincarnation (at least some bogomils went full gnostic in the sense they believed souls are maliciously recycled), Inner Journey (a bit questionable but they did preach Mind Over Matter) and finally Esotericism (Bogomils, especially according to modern urban legend which has passed down for centuries, were really into some "mystic practices", whatever that may be).
Bonus suggestion - make Peasant Leader be considered a Virtue for Bogomilism, and make it likely to show up as a trait when generating Elects (realm priests).
Bonus Bonus suggestion - unique Holy Order names (not historic, obviously): Order of Bogorodica /'Theotokos' is Greek, Godmother Virgin Mary/ (this can work for the Orthodox order names also; use Theotokos if Order Founder is Greek culture, Bogorodica if Bulgarian, South Slavic and many Slavic cultures also), Blessed Soldiers of Pop Bogomil /Pop ('Father') Bogomil founder of the bogomil movement, closest they have to their own Saint/, Order of Sophia /+add to almost all Gnostic and Dualist faiths' Holy Order names' list tbh) Peasant Movement of The Truth /rebel-militia-sounding because it fits/.
2. Paulician
The story with Paulicans is spicier. See, once upon a time Paulicans arrived to Bulgaria instead of being born in its lands like Bogomilism, and indeed intertwined with bogomilism by influencing it somewhat. But, Paulicians were recorded to survive up to the 16th century in the Rhodopes County, which is where its new Holy Site would be, until some 150 years into Ottoman rule saw most of them convert themselves to Islam - becoming what is modern day Pomaks, also called Bulgaro-Mohamedan (Bulgarian Muslim essentially). It was harder for me to decide which vanilla holy site to replace with the new one, but I settled on cutting Antioch off the same as I did for Bogomilism above. As for the effects of the new Rhodopes Holy Site, I gave it a plus 5% Levy Size and plus 1 Martial, as I felt Paulicanism is thematically much more warlike and thus the new Holy Site needs bonuses of martial nature to compensate for the great martial bonuses previously provided by Antioch.
Just as the end of Paulicianism is on the Bulgarian side, in the face of the eventual Pomaks, an argument for representing the Armenian-centric beginning of the Faith can be made for the inclusion of Dwin as a Holy Site - an argument already present in the game files, where with a questionmark lies the thought of Paulicians sharing placeholder holy_sites of the Armenian church instead of the Orthodoxy.
With the two points above, the result should look something like this:
and
So, I urge for this little recommendation to be forwarded to the developers or be discussed here as a way of bringing it to attention, so that two very interesting heresies get their flavour shown.
Cheers.
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