(looking for collaborators, worldbuilders and developers! addressed at the end)
Anbennar is an original fantasy world I initially created around 2014, and in 2018 was released as a total conversion mod for Europa Universalis IV. Since then the mod has become one of the best total conversion mods for EU4 and was even featured in a PDX Dev Clash. The Anbennar setting as a whole has also grown into a massive collaborative worldbuilding project with art, music, fanfiction and even D&D campaigns being played already!
Like our EU4 mod we’ll follow the same historical period as vanilla, and while in EU4 we explored what happens to a fantasy world in an age of gunpowder and reformation, in CK3 we will deal with fantasy at its peak: an age of knights and magic, with all with the undertones of political and dynastic intrigues that we all know and love – and for existing fans of the mod, you’ll get live through the legends, tales and origins of the stories you see in EU4
Anbennar CK3 will see you in 1022, 2 years after the War of the Sorcerer King, and 22 years after the elves landed in Cannor. The map will initially cover Cannor, Bulwar and Northern Salahad, but with potential to expand beyond.
Planned Features
- Experience an original, lore-rich fantasy world inspired by settings like Forgotten Realms, Dragon Age and The Witcher, but built for games in mind
- Play as a fantasy race from elves, halflings to gnolls, dwarves and more!
- Cultivate your own magical bloodline through congenital magical aptitude traits
- Wield magic with a system inspired by classical D&D schools of magic
Character Screenshots
Marion ‘Firstborn’ Silmuna. Son of the legendary elf Munas Moonsinger, who led his people to Cannor after singing to the moon, and Auci Dameris – Queen of Dameria, and avatar of the goddess The Dame. Now alone and ruler of one of the strongest nations in the land, Marion must fight to preserve his birthright – and also lead the new half-elven nobility that is rising throughout Cannor.
Calasandur the Magnificent. Master elf-smith and architect of the greatest castles built during the War of the Sorcerer King. Now a humble Count of his last castle, Calascandar (yes, he named it after himself), he now seeks to spread grow his wealth and spread his influence across this new world.
Ioriel Redrose. The most beautiful elf in Cannor, and now, Queen-Mother to her young son, Reán. Blessed with great cunning, she must now guide her young son to rule the Kingdom of Lorent, which is now undoubtedly one of the strongest countries in Cannor due to the fact that unlike their allies in the Free Realms, Lorent unconquered throughout the war.
Bolgrun Redstone, King of Rubyhold. The ruby dwarves have advised the Lorentish since they were tribes fighting back the Gawedi – but with the arrival of elves the influence of dwarves and King Bolgrun has waned… there’s something about these elves that dwarves like Bolgrun don’t like one bit.
Jaher. Liberator of Bulwar. Emperor of the Phoenix Empire. Whilst the elf Munas Moonsinger led his people to Cannor to fight in the War of the Sorcerer King, Jaher led the few ships loyal to him to Bulwar after hearing of the plight of the people there who had been enslaved by gnollkind. After that, Jaher even helped defeat the Sorcerer King with the might of hes newfound empire. Now arguably the strongest elf in the world, Jaher looks both east and west for new lands to control.
Finally, not an elf, nor a goblin, but a gnome. King Carwick of Iochand hails from the first and only gnomish kingdom which has peacefully coexisted with their human subjects and neighbours since the fall of the Gnomish Hierarchy 600 years ago. But as the victorious Free Realms get bold with their victory, perhaps the gnomes of Iochand will finally have to fight with steel, not words, to secure their place in this world.
In-game Screenshots
WIP of Cannor. Terrain done by the wonderful @Biegeltoren. The main sea in Cannor is the Dameshead (as its kinda shaped like a woman’s head with a hennin). At the centre of the Dameshead is the Damesear, and heartland of Dameria.
The region of Lencenor, dominated by the Kingdom of Lorent.
The Dragon Coast, former homeland of the gnomes. In the Age of Antiquity, the Gnomish Hierarchy ruled these lands, the Dragonwake in the 420s brought forth dragons and kobolds to destroy the Hierarchy. Now the gnomes are scattered throughout Cannor, with only the states of Nimscodd island and Iochand surviving.
Finnic Shadowhand was one of the heroes of the War of the Sorcerer King, and actually helped defeat him in the Battle of Trialmount – and because of this, the halflings of the Small Country elected him King! Unprepared and inexperienced, he must now fight to unite his people from the vying warlords of the land.
What kind of setting is Anbennar?
At its core we’re a classic D&D setting (which is probably why its so easy to use Anbennar for a campaign). In Anbennar, everything you can expect from a standard D&D world probably exists somewhere, maybe not at the same prevalence or role, but it’s there.
We want Anbennar to be approachable, and we care more about telling great stories rather than doing something weird for weird’s sake. This means you’ll count Anbennar alongside more contemporary settings like Dragon Age, Forgotten Realms or The Witcher rather than Discworld or Wheel of Time.
What this means is that you’re probably familiar with a lot of the core concepts and what to expect: elves are a thing, and they act and look like what you’d expect, they live long and have pointy ears, dwarves are also a thing, and they dislike elves and love beer, vampires exist and bugbears too!
We want Anbennar to be approachable, and we care more about telling great stories rather than doing something weird for weird’s sake. This means you’ll count Anbennar alongside more contemporary settings like Dragon Age, Forgotten Realms or The Witcher rather than Discworld or Wheel of Time.
What this means is that you’re probably familiar with a lot of the core concepts and what to expect: elves are a thing, and they act and look like what you’d expect, they live long and have pointy ears, dwarves are also a thing, and they dislike elves and love beer, vampires exist and bugbears too!
Okay but what is actually going on? How is this different from other fantasy settings or mods?
Elves and their cultural impact are at the core of Anbennar CK3. Unlike other settings where elves have been at the continent for thousands of years, our elves are new – arriving instead in the equivalent of medieval times, and gamestart, they’ve only been around for 22 years. This means we get to see the usual elven narrative on its head, and whatever implications of that may be.
Speaking of elves, as mentioned they used magic to help win the equivalent of LOTR’s War of the Last Alliance, you know, the typical “War against Evil” conflict. This leads us to the next interesting point: in Anbennar, you’ll get to experience what comes after the War vs Evil: what happens after the big bad dark lord dies?
Finally, as mentioned before, magic is also at the core of the mod. In Anbennar, elven blood has direct correlation to possible magical aptitude, and fans of the setting will know that the future leads to half-elven (or at least some elf blood) nobles with some capacity of magic throughout Cannor. In CK3 we want you to live through this experience. We want you to cultivate your own magical bloodlines – after all, what is Crusader Kings if not an amazing eugenics simulator?
There’s a whole lot more cool stuff about the setting, but for initial release we will focus on the above.
Speaking of elves, as mentioned they used magic to help win the equivalent of LOTR’s War of the Last Alliance, you know, the typical “War against Evil” conflict. This leads us to the next interesting point: in Anbennar, you’ll get to experience what comes after the War vs Evil: what happens after the big bad dark lord dies?
Finally, as mentioned before, magic is also at the core of the mod. In Anbennar, elven blood has direct correlation to possible magical aptitude, and fans of the setting will know that the future leads to half-elven (or at least some elf blood) nobles with some capacity of magic throughout Cannor. In CK3 we want you to live through this experience. We want you to cultivate your own magical bloodlines – after all, what is Crusader Kings if not an amazing eugenics simulator?
There’s a whole lot more cool stuff about the setting, but for initial release we will focus on the above.
Want to be part of our journey? We're looking for people to help with...
- Building our world
- Sorting out things like landed titles, province building positions, using our EU4 mod as a basis
- Creating new flags using CK3’s CoA system
- Fleshing out character histories, and making new ones and new lore in turn
- Design and implement interesting systems
- Racial traits, immortality and preventing certain racial offspring
- Inheritable magical aptitude and magic system
- Declaring war and resolving conflict via duels instead of battle
- Godly avatars, the revelation of them and their actions in the world
- Adventures and Adventurers!
- Create art and 3D models, for the game and the setting
- CK3 trait icons, gui, CoA and more
- Work on perfecting our racial ethnicities
- Help sort out this massive conundrum of having 3D models for kobolds and gnolls
- Concept art for use in loading screens and beyond
If you're interested with any of these please check out our discord. Our development style is very open, and communication is key – and a whole we want you to focus on things you are passionate and interested in!
For those interested in writing and establishing lore, please join the Discord - our writing style is collaborative so most of it is done there.
If you want to just talk about the mod and setting or keep up with the progress, please also visit our Discord - we post regularly of our progress as we develop.
For more info about the world and setting, we have a wiki and lore primer linked below:
Links
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