QORTEN APPROVED OF THE INTERACTIVE CHARACTER CREATION OF THIS AAR
CHARACTER CREATION CLOSED! NO NEW CHARACTER ACCEPTED
Hi!
So welcome to this new AAR I’m making, and my first in CK3. As said in the title, this will be an AAR that takes place in the world of the Godherja mod. While I suck at it and have yet to understand how magic works, I still like that mod a lot, if only for the fact that it managed to create an interesting world without basing it on anything else. As for what this AAR will be about, it will feature the story of a fictional family (as in one that we create and isn’t originally part of the mod), their struggles in this period of anarchy and their attempts to make a place for themselves.
I want to make it clear from the get go that this will be a shorter AAR than what I usually do (unless I’m wrong, all my previous AARs have 100+ chapters). This is both because this story will probably go wrong for the main characters fast considering how the mod’s events go (hence the title), and because this is more of a pause from my previous AAR, which I still want to continue but also had another type of story I wanted to tell (thus why we’re here). Another reason why I’m doing Stay of Execution is because doing the follow up to my previous AAR would mean no character creation, which is a feature of my two previous AARs I enjoyed a lot. So now that this is done, here’s a bit of background on Godherja for anyone not familiar with the mod:
BACKGROUND
Do be aware that this is a gross oversimplification and that this summary comes from my own understanding, so I might get some things wrong.
Humanity was created by a god, Aersanon. Aersanon eventually abandoned humanity as a failure, created new beings, the aelfirs (which enslaved humanity), but then the god decided these beings a failure and so Aersanon started to work on a third project. But see, the thing is, because humanity was created with the blood of Aersanon in their veins, they could also alter reality, change the world as they saw fit. Or as we call it, “magic”.
So humanity waited. They memorized their most powerful spells. They waited, they prepared, they readied themselves. And then they struck. Thus, the God War, or the Godherja. First it was a conflict between the humans and the aelfirs, leading to the extinction of the later. But now the remains of humanity had one fear: What would Aersanon think of their actions? In a desperate attempt to save themselves, thousands of Magi launched the most powerful spell ever seen. And with it, they killed their god.
The death of Aersanon had an immediate effect. Continents shifted, most surviving humans died on the spot, magic was corrupted and stopped working like it had before, civilisation collapsed… But even then, humanity survived. They continued to exist, for so many generations that it forgot about Aersanon and the Godherja. Eventually, after long periods of time, civilisations and empires would reappear.
And now we come to the Aversarians. They were the descendants of guards that served a ruthless aelfir ruler, used because said aelfir was too paranoid to trust his fellow aelfirs to protect him. Generations of humans later, he would be remembered as named Aersodiax, their emperor who spoke to the gods. Because of their past bound to their aelfir masters, the Aversarians were fond of slavery as a ritualistic part of society. They would spread and build great city states, spreading their beliefs and their civilisation to become a predominant power in the region.
But these city states proved unable to thrive forever. In the end, one would unify them all, creating the Aversarian Aautokrata, the ‘Human Imperium’. This empire would eventually dominate the continent. While it did struggle and come close to its doom at time, it always returned stronger. Magi thrived in Aversaria, and the empire continued to expand.
So to understand what comes next, I need to explain Gederða. See, the god humanity killed? Well, a god can’t exactly die, but it is in an eternal rest. Each time its dream of death spreads, its last breath is breath or its corpse moves a bit, it affects the world. Sometimes in small ways (people howling at the moon for no reasons), sometimes in big ways (a continent shaking or a river flooding with blood). Odrstund is the name given to the worst case of Gederða to strike the Aversarian Aautokrata. Every noble with magical ability had their worst traits enhanced tenfold. Suddenly, the entire high nobility of the empire became full of evil murders and sociopaths, all too willing to slaughter each other for power.
And born right in the middle of Ordstund was a fellow named Aeschraes. He was the son of one of the oldest and most powerful families of Aversaria. These nobles now being monsters, he was violently beaten by his father in his youth. After said father killed his younger sister, Aeschraes entered a rage so raw that he “wiped out an entire palace-city from pure magical rage”. And thus arrived the greatest Magi of his generation. He would then go to the most prestigious Magi academy, where the teachers had a tendency to manipulate the students in order to turn them into puppets for themselves.
Those lovely teachers also tried to do the same with a new female student named Axiaothea. She spent most of her life secluded by her father, though she often tried to escape. Eventually, her father married Axiaothea to one of his most powerful vassal, a man Lathaxos, in exchange of wealth and political support. The husband then had his wife imprisoned in a tower where she was barely fed. In that tower, she eventually spent a month preparing a ritual, and when Lathaxos opened the door, the blast of the spell struck him immediately, after which she magically skinned him in front of his men. Considering that Lathaxos was an experienced battle mage, it was impressive and scary. She escaped, and although her family tried to track her down, she fled to the same academy as Aeschraes (they actually shared classes together).
Long story short, Axiaothea eventually married the Aautokratir (the Emperor), while Aeschraes became the Legon of the Legio XXI, making him one of the great military commanders of the Aversarian Aautokrata. Then the Aautokratir died in suspicious circumstances, and people started to accuse Axiaothea of being responsible. When the Blood Senate met, she slaughtered most of the assembled nobles, the rest bowing to her authority. But then she returned to the capital to find Aeschraes leading a coup against her supporters. He declared her a false Aautokrata and decided that the was the rightful ruler of Aversaria. Thus, the Imperial Civil War (1186-1200).
However, Aeschraes’s coup eventually failed, and so he found himself leading a rebellion against Axiaothea. Things were not going well for him. Desperate, in 1200 he did the impossible. Sacrificing many of his followers as well as his entire family, he brought forward a massive magical attack that killed Axiaothea, most of her supporters… and half of the Aversarians on the continent. The survivors would name this event Frodbrokna. Even worst, this even cracked open the mind of the dead god Aersanon, thus the Fog. The Fog creates nightmares that only a god could think of. It takes your soul, it destroys you, it ruins the world. The world was in ruin.
And with the Aversarian Aautokrata now destroyed and collapsed, a new people appeared: the Sjalvolki. While previously they had only raided the Aversarian, now they were migrating. Under the leadership of Cenware, they are now moving south, with their leader hoping to build a great state to outshine the Aversarian empire that caused so much destruction.
So what about our protagonists? Well, they are Southern Aversarian, which all the problems that implies. Currently, they had no choice but to submit themselves to Gorassos the Skull-Taker. Gorassos is a violent bloodthirsty warrior who Aeschraes once called a “Mad Dog”. Once Aeschraes’s personal killing machine, Gorassos now went his own way, declaring himself Aautokratir of the Bloodied Throne and building a cult of death and war around himself. And our main characters currently have no choice but to bow to this monster to survive. But will this be enough, or is it their fate to be doomed?
CHARACTER CREATION
One character per person. There are no limit slots for the characters. Anyone can post one if they want to.
Character creation will stay open for 72 hours. Normally I do it for a week long, but I realized that I usually get 70 to 90% of the characters in the first three days anyway, with half of the cast usually posted by the first day. So I should be able to get a decent cast in that time.
IF YOU EDIT YOUR CHARACTER AFTER POST, WARN ME THROUGH PRIVATE MESSAGE OR BY POSTING SAYING YOU EDITTED YOUR POST SO I DON'T MISS IT.
Your characters will automatically be Southern Aversarian (his culture) and Aversarian Aagiokratian (the main religion of the Aversarians). While I considered allowing various religions, I decided in the end to make everyone the same faith to bring some unity to the family.
Name
The name of your character. Aversarian names for men are mostly Byzantine names or Roman names. Most names usually end with -os: Tiberios, Xuthos, Dracos, Melatios… However, you also see some ending in -us, -is, -es, or -on. For example, you have Iordanes, Lycus, Phokis, Telemachion. My advice would be to pick a name from Byzantium or Rome and change the end. So you could have Valerius becomes Valerios, Zenon becomes Zenes, Leontios becomes Leontis, Konstas becomes Konstos…
For women, it’s mostly just roman and byzantine names for women, which means most names end in -a (Markia, Sophia, Pulcheria) or in -e (Helene, Agne, Adriane). Again, go with something you like or inspires you.
Gender
Unlike most medieval fantasy societies, the world of Godherja has women and men mostly on equal standings. Which means that women are just as likely to inherit or take center stage. So here you decide if your character is a man or a woman.
Sexual Orientation
You decide if your character is heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual or asexual. I do want to point out though that the vast majority of characters in the game are heterosexual, so I shouldn’t have the entire cast be asexual.
Attributes
You have 34 points to divide between the diplomacy/martial/stewardship/intrigue/learning/prowess. Note that you can only put up to 10 points in one attribute. Don’t add the bonus that come from the traits, we’ll let the game deal with that.
Traits
Now, while when I do the CK2 character creation I list the bonus of each traits here, the traits in CK3 just have too much factors to properly write them. So instead, I’ll be referring you to the wiki for the traits: https://ck3.paradoxwikis.com/Traits
1- Education Trait
You can pick one education trait for diplomacy, martial, stewardship, intrigue or erudition. The prowess and republican educations aren’t available here. It is your choice how good he is at his education. Paragons of their craft are just as interesting as struggling heroes.
2- Congenital Trait (Optional)
If you want, you can pick a congenital trait (be it a normal one or a leveled one) for your character. You can skip this part however, especially if you feel your characters has no need for these congenital traits. To quote myself in the Dragon Kin character creation: “A character doesn’t need to be a genius or a dwarf to be interesting.”
3- Personality Traits
You choose three personality traits for your character. These will determine what kind of person your character is. More than the others, these are usually the traits that affect how your character will be portrayed in the AAR.
4- Commander Trait
If your character has a martial education, he can pick one commander trait.
5- Magi trait
This one is not really up to you. Being members of the Aversarian aristocracy, there a high chance that at least one of your parent has magic potential. I will randomly give your characters one of five options (None, latent Magi, basic Magi, gifted Magi and advanced Magi). The most frequent options are none, latent and basic, but you might get gifted or advanced with luck. Some characters might also be given some mage training accordingly to their magic potential, education and personality. You only have one option here. If you wish to, you can say “none” and thus chose to have no magic potential, though some more Magi inclined characters in the family might look down on you for that.
Character Examples
Priscias (M)
Heterosexual
Diplomacy: 5 Martial: 1 Stewardship: 8 Intrigue: 5 Learning: 5 Prowess: 8
Traits:
Destasia (F)
Bisexual
Diplomacy: 4 Martial: 5 Stewardship: 3 Intrigue: 10 Learning: 9 Prowess: 3
Traits:
Isaakios (M)
Heterosexual
Diplomacy: 7 Martial: 9 Stewardship: 4 Intrigue: 1 Learning: 5 Prowess: 8
Traits:
CHARACTER CREATION CLOSED! NO NEW CHARACTER ACCEPTED
So welcome to this new AAR I’m making, and my first in CK3. As said in the title, this will be an AAR that takes place in the world of the Godherja mod. While I suck at it and have yet to understand how magic works, I still like that mod a lot, if only for the fact that it managed to create an interesting world without basing it on anything else. As for what this AAR will be about, it will feature the story of a fictional family (as in one that we create and isn’t originally part of the mod), their struggles in this period of anarchy and their attempts to make a place for themselves.
I want to make it clear from the get go that this will be a shorter AAR than what I usually do (unless I’m wrong, all my previous AARs have 100+ chapters). This is both because this story will probably go wrong for the main characters fast considering how the mod’s events go (hence the title), and because this is more of a pause from my previous AAR, which I still want to continue but also had another type of story I wanted to tell (thus why we’re here). Another reason why I’m doing Stay of Execution is because doing the follow up to my previous AAR would mean no character creation, which is a feature of my two previous AARs I enjoyed a lot. So now that this is done, here’s a bit of background on Godherja for anyone not familiar with the mod:
BACKGROUND
Do be aware that this is a gross oversimplification and that this summary comes from my own understanding, so I might get some things wrong.
Humanity was created by a god, Aersanon. Aersanon eventually abandoned humanity as a failure, created new beings, the aelfirs (which enslaved humanity), but then the god decided these beings a failure and so Aersanon started to work on a third project. But see, the thing is, because humanity was created with the blood of Aersanon in their veins, they could also alter reality, change the world as they saw fit. Or as we call it, “magic”.
So humanity waited. They memorized their most powerful spells. They waited, they prepared, they readied themselves. And then they struck. Thus, the God War, or the Godherja. First it was a conflict between the humans and the aelfirs, leading to the extinction of the later. But now the remains of humanity had one fear: What would Aersanon think of their actions? In a desperate attempt to save themselves, thousands of Magi launched the most powerful spell ever seen. And with it, they killed their god.
The death of Aersanon had an immediate effect. Continents shifted, most surviving humans died on the spot, magic was corrupted and stopped working like it had before, civilisation collapsed… But even then, humanity survived. They continued to exist, for so many generations that it forgot about Aersanon and the Godherja. Eventually, after long periods of time, civilisations and empires would reappear.
And now we come to the Aversarians. They were the descendants of guards that served a ruthless aelfir ruler, used because said aelfir was too paranoid to trust his fellow aelfirs to protect him. Generations of humans later, he would be remembered as named Aersodiax, their emperor who spoke to the gods. Because of their past bound to their aelfir masters, the Aversarians were fond of slavery as a ritualistic part of society. They would spread and build great city states, spreading their beliefs and their civilisation to become a predominant power in the region.
But these city states proved unable to thrive forever. In the end, one would unify them all, creating the Aversarian Aautokrata, the ‘Human Imperium’. This empire would eventually dominate the continent. While it did struggle and come close to its doom at time, it always returned stronger. Magi thrived in Aversaria, and the empire continued to expand.
So to understand what comes next, I need to explain Gederða. See, the god humanity killed? Well, a god can’t exactly die, but it is in an eternal rest. Each time its dream of death spreads, its last breath is breath or its corpse moves a bit, it affects the world. Sometimes in small ways (people howling at the moon for no reasons), sometimes in big ways (a continent shaking or a river flooding with blood). Odrstund is the name given to the worst case of Gederða to strike the Aversarian Aautokrata. Every noble with magical ability had their worst traits enhanced tenfold. Suddenly, the entire high nobility of the empire became full of evil murders and sociopaths, all too willing to slaughter each other for power.
And born right in the middle of Ordstund was a fellow named Aeschraes. He was the son of one of the oldest and most powerful families of Aversaria. These nobles now being monsters, he was violently beaten by his father in his youth. After said father killed his younger sister, Aeschraes entered a rage so raw that he “wiped out an entire palace-city from pure magical rage”. And thus arrived the greatest Magi of his generation. He would then go to the most prestigious Magi academy, where the teachers had a tendency to manipulate the students in order to turn them into puppets for themselves.
Those lovely teachers also tried to do the same with a new female student named Axiaothea. She spent most of her life secluded by her father, though she often tried to escape. Eventually, her father married Axiaothea to one of his most powerful vassal, a man Lathaxos, in exchange of wealth and political support. The husband then had his wife imprisoned in a tower where she was barely fed. In that tower, she eventually spent a month preparing a ritual, and when Lathaxos opened the door, the blast of the spell struck him immediately, after which she magically skinned him in front of his men. Considering that Lathaxos was an experienced battle mage, it was impressive and scary. She escaped, and although her family tried to track her down, she fled to the same academy as Aeschraes (they actually shared classes together).
Long story short, Axiaothea eventually married the Aautokratir (the Emperor), while Aeschraes became the Legon of the Legio XXI, making him one of the great military commanders of the Aversarian Aautokrata. Then the Aautokratir died in suspicious circumstances, and people started to accuse Axiaothea of being responsible. When the Blood Senate met, she slaughtered most of the assembled nobles, the rest bowing to her authority. But then she returned to the capital to find Aeschraes leading a coup against her supporters. He declared her a false Aautokrata and decided that the was the rightful ruler of Aversaria. Thus, the Imperial Civil War (1186-1200).
However, Aeschraes’s coup eventually failed, and so he found himself leading a rebellion against Axiaothea. Things were not going well for him. Desperate, in 1200 he did the impossible. Sacrificing many of his followers as well as his entire family, he brought forward a massive magical attack that killed Axiaothea, most of her supporters… and half of the Aversarians on the continent. The survivors would name this event Frodbrokna. Even worst, this even cracked open the mind of the dead god Aersanon, thus the Fog. The Fog creates nightmares that only a god could think of. It takes your soul, it destroys you, it ruins the world. The world was in ruin.
And with the Aversarian Aautokrata now destroyed and collapsed, a new people appeared: the Sjalvolki. While previously they had only raided the Aversarian, now they were migrating. Under the leadership of Cenware, they are now moving south, with their leader hoping to build a great state to outshine the Aversarian empire that caused so much destruction.
So what about our protagonists? Well, they are Southern Aversarian, which all the problems that implies. Currently, they had no choice but to submit themselves to Gorassos the Skull-Taker. Gorassos is a violent bloodthirsty warrior who Aeschraes once called a “Mad Dog”. Once Aeschraes’s personal killing machine, Gorassos now went his own way, declaring himself Aautokratir of the Bloodied Throne and building a cult of death and war around himself. And our main characters currently have no choice but to bow to this monster to survive. But will this be enough, or is it their fate to be doomed?
CHARACTER CREATION
One character per person. There are no limit slots for the characters. Anyone can post one if they want to.
Character creation will stay open for 72 hours. Normally I do it for a week long, but I realized that I usually get 70 to 90% of the characters in the first three days anyway, with half of the cast usually posted by the first day. So I should be able to get a decent cast in that time.
IF YOU EDIT YOUR CHARACTER AFTER POST, WARN ME THROUGH PRIVATE MESSAGE OR BY POSTING SAYING YOU EDITTED YOUR POST SO I DON'T MISS IT.
Your characters will automatically be Southern Aversarian (his culture) and Aversarian Aagiokratian (the main religion of the Aversarians). While I considered allowing various religions, I decided in the end to make everyone the same faith to bring some unity to the family.
Name
The name of your character. Aversarian names for men are mostly Byzantine names or Roman names. Most names usually end with -os: Tiberios, Xuthos, Dracos, Melatios… However, you also see some ending in -us, -is, -es, or -on. For example, you have Iordanes, Lycus, Phokis, Telemachion. My advice would be to pick a name from Byzantium or Rome and change the end. So you could have Valerius becomes Valerios, Zenon becomes Zenes, Leontios becomes Leontis, Konstas becomes Konstos…
For women, it’s mostly just roman and byzantine names for women, which means most names end in -a (Markia, Sophia, Pulcheria) or in -e (Helene, Agne, Adriane). Again, go with something you like or inspires you.
Gender
Unlike most medieval fantasy societies, the world of Godherja has women and men mostly on equal standings. Which means that women are just as likely to inherit or take center stage. So here you decide if your character is a man or a woman.
Sexual Orientation
You decide if your character is heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual or asexual. I do want to point out though that the vast majority of characters in the game are heterosexual, so I shouldn’t have the entire cast be asexual.
Attributes
You have 34 points to divide between the diplomacy/martial/stewardship/intrigue/learning/prowess. Note that you can only put up to 10 points in one attribute. Don’t add the bonus that come from the traits, we’ll let the game deal with that.
Traits
Now, while when I do the CK2 character creation I list the bonus of each traits here, the traits in CK3 just have too much factors to properly write them. So instead, I’ll be referring you to the wiki for the traits: https://ck3.paradoxwikis.com/Traits
1- Education Trait
You can pick one education trait for diplomacy, martial, stewardship, intrigue or erudition. The prowess and republican educations aren’t available here. It is your choice how good he is at his education. Paragons of their craft are just as interesting as struggling heroes.
2- Congenital Trait (Optional)
If you want, you can pick a congenital trait (be it a normal one or a leveled one) for your character. You can skip this part however, especially if you feel your characters has no need for these congenital traits. To quote myself in the Dragon Kin character creation: “A character doesn’t need to be a genius or a dwarf to be interesting.”
3- Personality Traits
You choose three personality traits for your character. These will determine what kind of person your character is. More than the others, these are usually the traits that affect how your character will be portrayed in the AAR.
4- Commander Trait
If your character has a martial education, he can pick one commander trait.
5- Magi trait
This one is not really up to you. Being members of the Aversarian aristocracy, there a high chance that at least one of your parent has magic potential. I will randomly give your characters one of five options (None, latent Magi, basic Magi, gifted Magi and advanced Magi). The most frequent options are none, latent and basic, but you might get gifted or advanced with luck. Some characters might also be given some mage training accordingly to their magic potential, education and personality. You only have one option here. If you wish to, you can say “none” and thus chose to have no magic potential, though some more Magi inclined characters in the family might look down on you for that.
Character Examples
Priscias (M)
Heterosexual
Diplomacy: 5 Martial: 1 Stewardship: 8 Intrigue: 5 Learning: 5 Prowess: 8
Traits:
- Charismatic Negotiator
- Handsome
- Diligent, Brave, Cynical
- None
Destasia (F)
Bisexual
Diplomacy: 4 Martial: 5 Stewardship: 3 Intrigue: 10 Learning: 9 Prowess: 3
Traits:
- Elusive Shadow
- Forgiving, Calm, Deceitful
Isaakios (M)
Heterosexual
Diplomacy: 7 Martial: 9 Stewardship: 4 Intrigue: 1 Learning: 5 Prowess: 8
Traits:
- Misguided Warrior
- Zealous, Arrogant, Callous
- Flexible Leader
Last edited:
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