Pagan improvements

[vyshan]

Some thoughts for Pagans. Most of what I did get for these faiths, I got by scanning Wikipedia. I do appreciate any and all help from those that are familiar for more ideas as to how to improve these faiths. If I get any more ideas I will add them to this list.

All pagans
Offering festivals: These will reperesent larger and more elaborate sacrifices to the gods and goddesses of your faith, or the faith of other pagans under your control.

You will get a decision to do a sacrifices, and you get to decide who and what you offering to. Are you making a sacrifice to Frey for Fertility or are you sacrificing to Perun for victory in battle, or to more local gods of the province for happiness in said province and so on.

When the priest comes back it can be clear or cryptic, but in either case the Gods have provided an answer to your question. Thus you gain a bonus, or rarely, a negative to your question. So again, if you asked for Perun to grant you victory then you get a bonus to troop moral, a bonus to fertility if you asked Frey for fertility and so on. The bonuses are not all that great but a nice bonus that can sway things. It is weighted in your favor if the priest is your friend, and against you if he/she is your rival and hates your guts.

Minor Offerings: These represent more minor offerings that can be done at almost any time. In contrast to the Offering festivals above, these would be to the Gods in general. In effect it would function like either the indulgence or Sadaqah decision, where you pay money(Goats, chickens, cows and horses are expensive) to perform a general sacrifice to gain piety. If reformed with a head of the faith, then you gain a bonus with them.

Learn Magic: From what I can find, it seems that a number of pagan faiths tend to be more highly appreciative of magic. Mages and other mystics had more of a role in their societies. Thus one should have the option to learn magic, be it Seidr or the rites of a shaman and so on. Now there might be cultural taboos for example(women are fine learn Seidr but men get a prestige penalty and a vassal penalty since it is unmanly).

If you have a court Shaman, Volva and so on, they might ask you to teach someone in your family who is suitable to learning the magical arts. Again cultural values matter here, still general concept should apply to most. You would also be able to seek out a wise shaman, Volva, and other mystic people of how like Indians can seek out a Guru.

Court Chaplin action – Perform Augury: This is a new action for the pagan court Chaplin. Where your Court Chaplin(what ever he or she is called) is sent to a province to perform Auguries, Divination, sacrifices and the like for the local people. In general it would function similar to the Muslim action of giving charity, so it helps over all lower revolt risk(the peasants like active priests doing sacrifices) with successes giving piety bonus or relations with a vassals; failure can make the peasants upset and mob the priest or embezzling money(goats, horses, and other animals cost money to sacrifice)

Slavic
Festivals: There should be some more festivals then the Jarlio festival. Thus:

• Dziady: This festival was done twice a year once in spring and once in Autumn. This festival honors the dead. As a festival, you would invite your family members and vassals to come and partake in the festivities. At night there would be offerings to your decesed relatives and more feasting to remember their victories and seeking their aid.
  
• Kupala Night: A Summer festival. From what I can gather it involves couples doing bonfire jumping, finding fernleaves for good luck, power, and prosperity. Tossing Garlands down a river with candles on them seem to be something else that was done according to wikipedia.

Construct a Bałwan: Balwans are large pillars that are typically dedicated to a deity. This would function similar to the Norse Runestone mechanics. You get to dedicate to one deity of the slavic gods and goddesses to gain some benefits similar to the Runestone.

Baltic
Festivals:

• Ilgės: The autumn festival of the dead. Offerings, libations, songs, and toasts were given to the dead.
• Rasos: Similar to Kupala Night from what I can tell. It involves feasting, sacrifices, jumping over bonfires.

Vaidelutės: From what I can find, these were the sacred priestesses that tended to the hearth fires of the Goddess Gabija. Hearth fires played a central role in the life of baltic people and they were to take care of it. The order from what I can gather was similar somewhat to the Vestal Virigins of the Romans. Perhaps this is something that requires the reformed Romuva faith?

Snakes: Snakes seemed to be a highly auspicious creature among the baltic pagans from what I can find. They were honored and apparently kept around the home. I also read that the Vaidelutės who took care of the hearth also took care of these grass snakes. So perhaps some events related to them?

Heroic Cults: Pious Baltic Pagans should be able to be declared local gods or Goddesses. I believe that CK2+ has a sainthood, so using that mechanic should work for the baltic pagans.

Finnic
Festivals:

• Karhunpeijaiset: A festival that can be done at any time to celebrate the successful hunt of a bear and wish the bear a quick speed back to the forest. There was a feast following which the bones would buried and the skull placed on a pine tree.

Bear Cult: From what I can gather bears tend to play a major role in Finnic religions. They were one of the most widely respected and honored animals in their faith. There should be some events relating to this, as well as the festival when a bear is hunted, well brought down in Finnic belief.

Reincarnation: It seems that the Finnic people believed in reincarnation so perhaps they should get a reflavor of the reincarnation event that Indians get.

Norse
Shieldmaidens: Martial women can seek to become warriors. This is something that IIRC is in CK2+ and I think it could be nice to have them in Vanilla.
Festivals:

• Yule/Winter Nights: This would be a festival that occurs in Winter. There would be Drinking and feasts and sacrifices.
  
• Dísablót: This is a late winter and spring festival around February or March, in honor of the Dísir, the female spirits of importance. There was feasting and sacrifices for the peace they had and victory that they would gain. With the festival came the market fair, known as the Disting.

 

[Narvait]

OK, that I agree.

About imitation however - who did Muslim early tribes imitated when arrived at secular + relig head in one person?

 

[BlackEagle78]

I think we can go a step further and state that Islam is the reformed version of the Arabian Semitic paganism. It was formalized and canonized, and the general ideas and beliefs of the culture have been mixed with other faiths, such as Judaism and Christianity, where desired.

 

[Gurkhal]

Just want to thank Vyshan for breaking out all of these great suggestions for paganism.
For the record I support all of these.

 

[vyshan]

Just want to thank Vyshan for breaking out all of these great suggestions for paganism.
For the record I support all of these.

thanks. I am also working on a submod for HIP to include as many of these as possible IG; though getting them added to vanilla is also great

 

[Narvait]

Have I mentioned my idea of White Horse lottery for pagans. Basically you take White Horse and let him step over the sword. If he steps over sword with right leg, then Yes. If with left leg, then No.
That is from Livonian Chronicle. I think it saved some bishop's life. Since horse stubbornly three times used right leg and poor Livs did not kill that bastard.

How to use that? Hm. Possibly as extra decision on events (Yes/ No/ let horse decide for extra piety). Would work for Suomenusko (Livs were the source), but I guess Balts had similar ways, probably other pagans too.

 

[Gurkhal]

Have I mentioned my idea of White Horse lottery for pagans. Basically you take White Horse and let him step over the sword. If he steps over sword with right leg, then Yes. If with left leg, then No.
That is from Livonian Chronicle. I think it saved some bishop's life. Since horse stubbornly three times used right leg and poor Livs did not kill that bastard.

How to use that? Hm. Possibly as extra decision on events (Yes/ No/ let horse decide for extra piety). Would work for Suomenusko (Livs were the source), but I guess Balts had similar ways, probably other pagans too.

One way to do this could be that its a special decision/action that the ruler takes where they take this augury and it gives something like +10% to all Prestige and Piety won by actions for a couple of months or so if the signs are interpreted favorably. And no bonus at all if the signs are interpreted unfavorably.

 

[Narvait]

Re secular leader being also secular leader.
I found on Rowell's "Lithuania Ascending", the following:
"The kunigas was originally the chief military and religious leader of the small tribal units... The title means "priest" today. The prince-priest functioned like ... Irish ri or Icelandic Godi. As the example of kunigas in action.. we might take.. Sudavian leader, Skumantas... who was called volhv (wizard) and fortune teller.. was a great fighter.
..
As the chief of the warrior princes, the Grand Duke was the nation's high priest."

 

[Karlingid]

Canon of Holy Books is... canon of Holy Books. No one will say that this catechism, talmud or sunna is the holy book.
Catechism, talmud, etc. is a collection of traditional interpretations, summaries, etc. Dont have status of Holy Books like a Pentateuch or Quran. Catechism can be changed, you can add new chapters, etc. BUT nobody can give "Sixth Book of Moses" to Pentateuch or remove "Genesis". Even if somebody does so, it would be heresy. This is quite different in eg. Far East. religons.


Existence of religious heads is not the same as a strict hierarchy... Otherwise - dead in the Middle Ages (mimicry impossible). Ergo? Ahistoricism


¿Qué?


Think - how to make a copy of the structure of the ancient Egyptian religion, when this religion is dead for hundreds of years? And you sit in the far Finland or on the Steppe, and you do not have any knowledge about it. You can imitate what you know. You know a little structure Christian churches and Islam. Zunist can reformed in way like a hinduism or buddism, but nordicism/astaru? Vikings had no idea of ancient Rome, in order to copy solutions Romans.

If the Vikings can reformed their faith based on ancient Rome - why not give them political reform to state like a Roman Republic, not feudalization?

1) "Tanakh" is an acronym based on Hebrew writing customs (shared with Arabic, the Abjad system) in which consonants are the only thing writing. This is, in Hebrew, TNKH, T is for Torah, N is for Nevi'im, and KH (in Hebrew, a single letter) is Ketuvim (with the different "Kh" variant being applied). The "Tanakh" is often compiled into a single scroll or book, and meets all the qualifications of a "Holy book." The Quran serves this purpose in Islam, being almost identical to the New Testament in function. Multiple religions have introduced systems similar to the "Holy Book" long before Christianity even existed.
The Aztecs have their codices
The Mayans have the Popol Vuh
The Egyptians have the Book of the Dead (among others)
The Norse have the Edda, of which we have two parts to a much longer text
Hinduism has the Vedas
Judaism has the Tanakh
Islam has the Quran
Tibet has Bongyur and Tengyur
Buddhism otherwise has the Pali Canon
Taoism has the Tao Te Ching
Jainism has the Agamas
Zoroastrianism has the Avesta

So on.

2) Judaism maintained and, in some regions, to this day maintains a strict tribal hierarchy. The Levites, in ancient times the city-dwellers of the tribes, are given special permissions. The Kohanim, a special group of Levites with status passed through heritage, are the high priests. This isn't even counting the whole slew of qualifications for priesthood and the complex chain involved. Islam certainly counts towards having an established hierarchy as well. The Egyptian religion had it, the Romans had it without doubt (They had initiation rituals dedicated to becoming the priests of individual gods, with multiple tiers of priesthood all the way up to the Pontifex, acting like a Pope). Shintoism has an independently developed system with this, similar to the Roman system in that the emperor is often the highest authority as well. The Aztec priesthood was incredibly complex. Celtic polytheism had a strict hierarchy that we only know of because even the Romans were impressed, as the Celts did not write about their own religion until the Middle Ages. While the North European pagans might not have had a strict hierarchy, it is an utter fallacy to say it is a uniquely Christian thing, much less dead entirely.

3) How to do this? Use the many, many native Egyptian texts about their own religion. So many of them are hieroglyphs too, so meaning can be derived without even knowing the language. If not, use the plentiful Greek and Roman writings about the Egyptian religion instead. Hellenism was certainly structured and organized enough to spread across Celtic and Semitic regions, and even saw its own reformation to combat Christianity. With this in mind, the Egyptian religion, specifically the cult of Isis, found ground in Europe against all odds.

Vikings had a pretty good idea of Rome. Apart from their extensive and often complicated relationship with Byzantium, who proudly wore the mantle of the Roman Empire and preserved ancient knowledge about pre-Christian Rome and its customs, the Goths acted as an intermediate group. The Goths, themselves being Scandinavian, took over Italy, Spain, and Crimea. Two of these three are in Roman control, and their cousins (the Vandals) took Roman Africa as well. Plus, the constant Viking raids on monasteries doubtlessly gave them access to bountiful knowledge of the world around them, to the point that the Normans, being descendants of Viking colonists, would end up with holdings in Italy and the Levant.

The pagan reformation system in-game does not represent "Savagery" or a lack thereof. The game is abundantly clear that it represents a centralization of power. With many divided tribes, a religion is bound to have many local deities, legends, and customs. The idea of the reformation, as outlined in the event text, is that under a single authority, you enforce your version of the religion on others. This is why you NEED to capture holy sites, rather than just have high moral authority: You are establishing your version as THE version, and by owning said holy sites, you are enforcing it on places to replace their previous version.

If you think unreformed paganism is dancing in the woods around fires, or "savage" by any means, then forget many Christian holidays. Easter is a Mesopotamian festival for the goddess Ishtar, Christmas is a Germanic festival celebrating enduring life in the harsh winter (through evergreens like holly and mistletoe) and the eventual return of the sun, and the list goes on. Saint worship is a near clone of how the Greeks worshiped their gods, the Djinni like Iblis are Preislamic deities, and the form of Christianity in a particular region represents the pre-Christian culture of that region. Orthodoxy is the way it is because it's how the Greeks did it when they were pagan. Catholicism is based on the worship of the emperor of Rome and the idea of a pontifex maximus. Arianism is based on Germanic culture in which things like demigod heroes are much more rare than in Greece and Rome. Miaphysitism and Nestorianism represent the complex relationship between kingship and godhood in Semitic culture. Et cetera.

 

[moscal]

Tanakh" is an acronym based on Hebrew writing customs (shared with Arabic, the Abjad system) in which consonants are the only thing writing. This is, in Hebrew, TNKH, T is for Torah, N is for Nevi'im, and KH (in Hebrew, a single letter) is Ketuvim (with the different "Kh" variant being applied). The "Tanakh" is often compiled into a single scroll or book, and meets all the qualifications of a "Holy book." The Quran serves this purpose in Islam, being almost identical to the New Testament in function. Multiple religions have introduced systems similar to the "Holy Book" long before Christianity even existed.
The Aztecs have their codices
The Mayans have the Popol Vuh
The Egyptians have the Book of the Dead (among others)
The Norse have the Edda, of which we have two parts to a much longer text
Hinduism has the Vedas
Judaism has the Tanakh
Islam has the Quran
Tibet has Bongyur and Tengyur
Buddhism otherwise has the Pali Canon
Taoism has the Tao Te Ching
Jainism has the Agamas
Zoroastrianism has the Avesta

The Vikings or Finns did not have access to either the Aztecs or the Mayans or the ancient Persians to learn from them is that you need a canon of sacred books.

 

[Narvait]

The Vikings or Finns did not have access to either the Aztecs or the Mayans or the ancient Persians to learn from them is that you need a canon of sacred books.

Who did Aztecs and Mayans had access to?

 

[Karlingid]

The Vikings or Finns did not have access to either the Aztecs or the Mayans or the ancient Persians to learn from them is that you need a canon of sacred books.

This is greatly missing the point.

Holy books are seen across the world in various cultures. The Vikings have their own, the Eddas, of which we have two pieces known in the modern day. Also, Zoroastrianism was still alive by the start date, if you've never played the game. The Karen satrapy is unquestionably an independent Zoroastrian realm, in contrast to the Bavandids whose status was a bit more murky and often changing.

Who did Aztecs and Mayans had access to?

Pretty much this. There's no pre-requisite that states Holy Books have to be Christian-inspired, as many of the Mesoamerican codices date to before Columbus. The Popol Vuh is undoubtedly an example of the K'iche organizing and canonizing their religion further without any external influence to guide them to do so. Admittedly, the Popol Vuh proper was written after the Spanish arrival, but it had precolumbian predecessors, and the existence of the Popol Vuh in the state that it does only further cements that the canonizing and codifying of pagan religions does NOT mean they try to become more Christian.



The pagan reformation events represent this: a single chieftain gaining significant influence and unifying the religion, in much the same way Hellenism was reformed in days past. There is NO indication in-game that would even hint that they're trying to become less "Savage", to use a very non-objective word deployed prior, and the event text actually indicates that it would make little sense for them to do so. They're actively fighting back Christian and Muslim pressures, so it makes no sense that they'd be trying to appear more Christian when their own native religion is doing better than it ever has.

 

[moscal]

And this is problem - this is a bad path conceptual. Historical no religion was reformed as a result of the conquest of a unifying cultural and/or religious. Vedism changed in Brahmanism is not the result of blobing. Brahmanism to Hinduism or Hinduism to Buddhism too. Otherwise - look at Egypth in XX century B.C. and Scandinavy or slavic region in V cemtury A.D. On the one hand, the advanced civilization of the other - tribal barbarians. Likewise religion. So changing social structure will change beliefs in religion. There are historical exceptions - eg. Zoroastrianism (by prophet) or temple Judaism (by prophet).

If for tens centuries, Germans, Slavs, Finns and others could not reform their faith, it means that they do not have enough strong stimuli. They had a vision, ideas, needs, etc. The reform of the need role models, because they stopped in development. Another way is to reform the prophet. Look at the empire of Attila - had the authority, power, empire, etc. But he does not reformed paganism north of Rome. Why? Because power and bloobing is too small to reformation. Look at Din-i-Ilahi - failed reform Hinduism and Islam (the great fail in history of reform religion). This same problem. Atenism? Too. Et cetera, et cetera...

So your, and Paradoxian, point of view on the reform of the religion of the pagans - is defective.

 

[Metanetwork]

And this is problem - this is a bad path conceptual. Historical no religion was reformed as a result of the conquest of a unifying cultural and/or religious. Vedism changed in Brahmanism is not the result of blobing. Brahmanism to Hinduism or Hinduism to Buddhism too. Otherwise - look at Egypth in XX century B.C. and Scandinavy or slavic region in V cemtury A.D. On the one hand, the advanced civilization of the other - tribal barbarians. Likewise religion. So changing social structure will change beliefs in religion. There are historical exceptions - eg. Zoroastrianism (by prophet) or temple Judaism (by prophet).

If for tens centuries, Germans, Slavs, Finns and others could not reform their faith, it means that they do not have enough strong stimuli. They had a vision, ideas, needs, etc. The reform of the need role models, because they stopped in development. Another way is to reform the prophet. Look at the empire of Attila - had the authority, power, empire, etc. But he does not reformed paganism north of Rome. Why? Because power and bloobing is too small to reformation. Look at Din-i-Ilahi - failed reform Hinduism and Islam (the great fail in history of reform religion). This same problem. Atenism? Too. Et cetera, et cetera...

Din-i-Ilahi was a failure at mixing Hinduism and Islam, but Sikhism became a successful religion in its own right, wasn't it? Atenism did not catch on, but it might just be that the high priests of other Egyptian gods tried to systematically erase all traces of it from history? And at the time Attila actually lived, pagan religions had little reasons to reform for two very simple reason. First, all mainstream religions in Europe were polytheistic until the rise of Christianity, which was not at the height of its power until a few centuries later. Second, the ability to read and write was tremendously rare in Europe during the Vth century. Even Charlemagne, an Emperor in his own right, only learned to read and write after uniting Fracia, and it was spectacular even for a person of his rank. The hardest part is not the writing itself, it's finding the person who will do it.

Further, there were other religious reforms that were quite successful. Atenism was a failure, but the cults of Amun and Ra agreed to "fuse" their gods as a way to promote national unity. In real life, Germanic paganism went from a mostly disorganized bunch of local beliefs to a slightly more structured religion, and some characters of their mythology were clearly modified to look more similar to Catholic saints. If the game can have Aztecs invading Europe, it's not inconceivable to see other pagan religions reforming after uniting its most holy sites under a single crown.

 

[Narvait]

Some special traits similar to Norse berserks, vikings would be nice.

 

[SBolshevik]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedmak

These could be added as courtiers.

 

[Silversweeeper]

Most nomad stuff could be made available to Tengri rulers (if you have HL) and the Tengri stuff that requires a specific culture/government could be opened up to all Tengri rulers.

 

[Pringles VII]

I feel like an interesting thing for Norse pagans would be to add family trees/family posts. In Norse households, they would either have a tree on their property (which they would decorate for Yuletide) which would represent their family, from the tallest branches of the distant ancestors to the roots of those yet unborn, or, if they were unlanded, they would have a post inside their house to stand in for a tree. Maybe there could be some events revolving around that?

Also, when a child came of age, an "Initiation Into the Kindred" ceremony would be performed, when the child would take on another name, receive their first sword, and answer questions about their ancestors. Perhaps instead of the "introduce heir to realm" decision, it could be "Initiate Heir Into the Kindred"? Although it should probably be more common than that and for every child.

At weddings, the couple would exchange ancestral swords as well as rings. If a man did not have an ancestral sword, he had to get a sword, carve his family name in runes into the blade, and then dye it with his blood and/or with his sperm. Maybe events would concern not having an ancestral sword and losing gold and prestige. Also, all the women at the wedding would race all the men from the temple to the feasting hall, and if the women won, the men had to serve them, and vice-versa. The couple would then go to a sacred grove and consummate their marriage, sometimes alone, sometimes with companions a little ways away, drinking and calling out ribald suggestions.

Think of all the flavor you could add with such rich traditions! I don't know enough about the other pagan faiths, but if Kveldulf Gundarsson can write Teutonic Religions: Folk Beliefs and Practices of the Northern Tradition, which is where I got the information above, I have no doubt in my mind that Paradox could draw from the Finnish program to rediscover the Suomenuskuo religion (IIRC they have a national effort to uncover their cultural tradition), and I'm sure there are other people like Gundarsson in the Baltic States, the Slavic regions, and in Mongolia that have written about Romuva, Slavic paganism, and Tengrism. In fact, I believe that in Kazakhstan, there is a movement to restore Tengrism in their region.

Do it, Paradox!

 

[Pringles VII]

Speaking of Initiation Into the Kindred, why don't they add events like Confirmation for Christians and Bar Mitzvahs for Jewish characters, possibly including taking a new name? (This would also let you correct typos when you're naming your children.)

 

[Pringles VII]

Another thought: Let reformed pagans send missionaries to unreformed pagans. I think the ultimate goal of reforming religions should be making them the equals of Christianity and Islam. So let reformed pagans go on pilgrimages, send missionaries, and all the other stuff and nonsense. The Valhalla-Bound trait coming in the next patch is a step in the right direction and the answer to all my prayers since ToG came out.

 

[SBolshevik]

Another thought: Let reformed pagans send missionaries to unreformed pagans. I think the ultimate goal of reforming religions should be making them the equals of Christianity and Islam. So let reformed pagans go on pilgrimages, send missionaries, and all the other stuff and nonsense. The Valhalla-Bound trait coming in the next patch is a step in the right direction and the answer to all my prayers since ToG came out.

It really is a question of whether the religion would stop being an ethnic one. It sort of seems to me as if the various paganisms are tied to their culture a lot more than Christianity and Islam are.