Shadow Inquisition Update Development Diary
Come join the Shadow Inquisition! We have:
- The longest, most epic quest line in the mod.
- Vastly different ways to gain an edge over the minions of Hell that you can specialize to a very extreme degree or mix and match them for good balance.
- Custom-made schemes, interactions, buildings, wonders, clothes, titles, dynasties, characters, perks... all the content you'll need to fully immerse yourself in the experience of being an instrument of Divine Wrath.
- Team spirit
- God at our side
- Flamethrowers :3
But what is the Shadow Inquisition?
It's a secret initiative established by the Holy Father himself to tackle the problem of blood-sucking servants of Satan preying upon Christendom. Its participants are elite organizations that bring together individuals uniquely gifted to find and eliminate supernatural enemies. Their efforts and sacrifice in exposing those fiends to the light resulted in the first Inquisition that you experienced as a late-game crisis event in the previous update. Now it's time to explore how the fight against darkness really started.
Unique Mechanics:
- Find Lair scheme: Hit them where they sleep with this signature hunter scheme. On completion it allows you to attack your target using the value of your chosen skill against theirs. If you succeed (or achieve a pyrrhic victory that also gives you various maluses), you're awarded prestige, piety and also varying amounts of dynasty prestige and True Faith XP based on the age or rank of the vampire. Choose your targets wisely, failure means death. The scheme can't fail, but takes a very long time against a vampire more proficient at intrigue than you and your spymaster. There is a quite perfidious way to make it much quicker though, but we'll let you discover it on your own. Hint: Sometimes you need to take a step back to make two steps forward.
Ordination: Introduce an uninitiated courtier to your vampire-hunting ways. You'll have a decision to improve their skills (the choice depends on your order) and they will become your adopted "child" and heir. If you're lacking suitable candidates, there's a minor "Invite Prospect" decision to help you with that.
- XP gain: The inquisitors are not princelings with a bunch of tutors and and a fief to play around with, they learn the practical leadership skills on the job. They get better at a given aspect of rulership faster the more they are involved in it and what they're involved in is represented by buildings symbolizing influence over various facets of mortal life. So the more buildings of a certain type you have, the faster you gain the corresponding perks. Have the land's clergy firmly in your grip and your heirs will never find themselves lagging in their theological proficiency, but don't expect them to become great generals if none of you ever spoke to a soldier.
- True Faith lifestyle and powers: the Shadow Inquisition would be dead on arrival if a considerable number of its members weren't powerful Theurgists. The benedictions and maledictions they wield constitute a tremendously useful toolbox of powers and abilities, some of them parallel to certain vampire disciplines, others completely unique. Use them well and use them often if you wish to level the playing field with the fiends. Every candidate for an Inquisitor has a chance to possess True Faith, but in case your heir doesn't, you can give them a chance to find it by using the Intercession power on them. If you don't have it, you can ask a friend who does to help you gain it. Be aware that having any of the Seven Deadly Sins as your personality traits put you at a risk of suffering a crisis of faith and losing access to these miraculous abilities. You can try to overcome it, but it's better to avoid it altogether by working on your character and getting rid of your sinful tendencies (see the minor decisions). You can level the True Faith lifestyle like any other, but it's much more efficient to gain True Faith experience by killing vampires. Let us repeat that: it's much more efficient to gain True Faith experience by killing vampires.
- Renown and new dynasty legacy track: Unlike vampires who are grouped into sizeable clans with their many members peppered across the globe, each hunter faction is its own, relatively small dynasty. That puts every bookmarked character in control of how they spend their dynasty prestige (which can be earned from wonders, signature buildings and most rapidly, killing notorious vampires). The dynasty perks not usable by vampires have had their costs lowered to vanilla levels which means as a lay order you can relatively quickly complete the familiar Blood legacy track to kickstart that breeding program and as clerical order, you have a brand new legacy track designed just for them that significantly improves all future candidates for Inquisitors and gives the old hunters a consolation bonus as well (those are the tiny bonuses that you can see, the main thing happens when new Inquisitors/prospects are generated).
- Succession: Due to hunters having a limited lifespan, succession is a much bigger deal for the Shadow Inquisition. We decided to do away with the Elective Succession as it proved impossible to align your titles to go to a single heir and we didn't want to make mortality even more bitter by having your realm fracture on succession, let's leave that in vanilla CK3. Instead, we gave them something you don't see often: Ultimogeniture. Shadow Inquisition values zeal above all else and that is a young soul's strongest virtue.
Meet the Orders:
The Poor Knights of the Passion of the Cross of Acre
These guys are the closest thing to the familiar idea of a paladin we have. Chivalrous and fearless, they meet the forces of evil head-on with a sword in their hand and the Lord guiding it. Mechanically-speaking, they're the most straightforward order to play for those familiar with the mod as their main strength is much like that of vampires: their knights. Play to their strengths and your champions will go toe-to-toe with retinues of ancient vampire lords. Your starting leader, Gauthier is a beast of a holy warrior and there are few vampire havens he can't walk into like he owns the place. Well, when he finally finds one, because the chivalrous knights are not great at intrigue.
The Sisters of Saint John
At first glance the good nuns look absolutely doomed. Clutching a small duchy on the doorstep of the vast domain of the ancient monster Mithras, generally not good at fighting and suffering from extra stress caused by their disturbing visions, they seem like an order designed for masochists, right? Wrong, that would be the order of St James, the Sisters have something going for them that makes life much easier: money. The nuns are the thriftiest bunch on the whole map, they may not be the mightiest warriors around, but their deep-running connection to the affairs of their flock enable them to squeeze more economic juice out of their holdings than anyone else. Don't miss their frequently occurring "Mystic" trait that lets them be no slouches at learning either.
The Red Order
By far the shadiest crew on the Shadow Inquisition roster, these scholars collect disturbingly unholy texts, as they claim, "for research purposes". But as the Lord said "You will know them by their fruits" and the fruits of Red Order's efforts bring destruction upon the foul fiends of the night through the power of knowledge like you never thought possible. Again, on paper, it looks like an organization specialized in a dubiously utility skill of learning will have a snowball's chance in hell of wrestling the Holy See from the clutches of a fiend as powerful as Camilla, but once you stabilize their precarious geopolitical position, they'll surprise you with their versatility and the power of their piety generation.
House von Murnau
Led by the great Leopold von Murnau, this noble family is affected by a generations-spanning curse that makes them sensitive to the evil lurking in the shadows. Not every von Murnau carries that curse, but those who do usually interpret it as a divine calling to combat said evil, making them natural allies to the Shadow Inquisition cause. Their sizable domain in Bavaria provides them with wealth and manpower they can use to help their allies and their central position provides them with the opportunity. Unlike the clerical orders, the von Murnaus breed normally with all the risks and advantages that entails. Their diplomatic strength and abundance of prestige reflect their secondary role as Shadow Inquisition's envoys to the world of mortal nobles.
Order of the Sword of St James
Although the knights of Santiago are, lore-wise, not a part of the Shadow Inquisition due to their leader being too paranoid to report to anyone, even the pope, we chose not to put any hard obstacles beyond the geographical distance and Rodrigue's difficult disposition for the player to reverse the decision to go at it alone, because Lord knows they have it hard already. Player experience may prove us wrong but we consider these Spanish hunters to be the first truly hardcore bookmarked start. They are few, their holdings are poor, their enemies are numerous and each is more powerful than the other. Their starting cadre not exactly suited to hit the ground running doesn't help either. There is one thing the knights of St James can put their trust in though: cold hard steel. This knightly order's specialty of commanding Men At Arms may be the slowest one to pay off, but if you manage to survive long enough to make the most of it, you will assemble an Army of God that will sweep away all that is unholy from the face of the known world.
Oculi Dei
This lay order comprises of families of knights and clerics fighting the spawns of Hell on the frontlines and serves as Shadow Inquisition's intelligence agency. Loosely structured and often suspicious of one another, the agents of the Eyes of God nevertheless provide the Shadow Inquisition with a terrifying capacity for covert activities. Every vampire fancies themselves a schemer, but at the end of the day, they're just individuals sending their handfuls of lackeys to do their bidding. The Oculi Dei on the other hand is a Europe-spanning spiderweb of pious men and women devoted to waging a silent war against the wretched enemy. Nobody knows just how many of these eyes are piercing the darkness, but judging from the order's leader's potential to make famous undead schemers like our fan favorite Helena look like amateurs, the fiends should probably assume that even a stray dog can be an Oculi Dei agent.
Calomena's Forsaken
Bayezid and Basil are very special boys. They're Bogomilist heretics, but not really, they want to rid the world of vampires, but not really and they're not really boys since they're like a 100 years old. Have we mentioned they're ghouls? Yeah, the Gantenbeins are definitely the "wild card" of this update. Forced to flee Constantinople where they served as pawns of a vampiric cult, the brothers reinvented themselves as vampire hunters masquerading as Bogomilist preachers and roam the Balkans amassing a crowd of followers. They don't believe in material wealth so don't expect them to be good with money, you'll have to discover a way secure a gold supply. Don't worry though, you won't need much of it, the Forsaken turn piety into obscene amounts of levies and their followers into ghouls if they deem them worthy (and have a captive vampire to bleed). They're labelled "Very Hard" mostly due to the fact that they're completely different than anything else and you won't get anywhere with them unless you adapt to that fact, but they should be safer from an outright invasion in the player's hands than Rodrigue and his crew. Schemes are a different matter though, for some reason the AI seems to consider "ghoulbros" the best target for murder schemes in the whole wide world so be prepared for that.
The Super Secret Bonus Order
Somewhere in the domain of one of the above factions is a knightly order with somewhat different things going for them than the other two. It's not bookmarked for a reason as non-independent, one-county rulers don't offer the most thrilling pacing, but you may want to look for them if starting small and slow is your *cough cough* cup of tea.
General tips:
- Know your enemy! Barring a few exceptions, vampires of your rank employ monstrous knights who can easily trample whatever advantage in levies and Men At Arms you managed to accumulate over your target all by themselves. Don't go to war with anyone bigger than a lowly count without scanning through their vassal and courtier tabs to see who you'll be dealing with on the battlefield and trying your best to neutralize those "one man armies", especially in the early game. If it's too late to track them down and murder them, you can still use your "Penance" power on them.
- Manage your domain carefully. Inquisitors draw their power from their holdings to a much larger degree than vampires. The whole game plan of how you're going to survive, thrive and gain an edge over the spawns of Satan starts at the choice of buildings your domain will be composed of.
- Alliances: You have an ability to make one alliance as if you had the "Defensive Negotiations" diplomacy perk (the perk gives you a second one). Use it wisely, alliances are a double-edged blade. Sometimes it's better to let your siblings-in-arms die if that means you get to live long enough to avenge them.
- Levies: Whatever you do, don't let your levies run low. Big levies scare the vamps away, the more of them you have, the safer you are from getting dogpiled.
- Gold: Set the "Ask the Holy Father for funds decision" on auto-remind, there's never a reason not to take it (unless you're maybe just about to increase your top stat).
- Always be on the hunt for vampires. If you can't risk a confrontation with anyone more powerful than some baron's imbecile childe, hunt the imbecile childe, but keep the "Find Lair" scheme running.
- You can freely revoke baronies in your counties. You'll lose the ability to have the barons go to war with you as knights, so it's not always the best move, but it's usually a good way to start.
Thank you for your attention and happy hunting
We're very much looking forward to your feedback.