Well, thanks for bumping the thread.
How do you get "almost all"? Druze, karaite, waldensian, yazidi, and zikri were neither radical or short-lived, in fact they still have adherents today. While samaritanism is not really a splinter movement of orthodox judaism. Your "rule" is not true for a full third of the in-game heresy, if we count manichaeism. That's without counting borderline cases like monothelitism (short-lived, not radical) or lollardism (arguably used to be radical, but still have adherents many centuries later, though they changed their name to hussite).
I admit that not all heresies are inherently radical, but you're kinda cherry-picking this. The five you mentioned are the only ones that weren't relatively short-lived. There aren't any Iconoclasts, Cathars, Qarmatians, Kharijites, or Mazdakis around today, and these movements weren't prominent for more than a few centuries. There were also no lasting kingdoms that promoted CKII's "heresies" as state religions. Manichaeism is the exception that actually
did become a state religion for the Uyghur Khanate and a number of other steppe polities.
I'm not saying all CKII heresies were tiny, transient trends. A number are portrayed as sects or alternativee interpretations, but the majority are not around today and many didn't even last until 1453.
- Cathars - 12th-14th centuries
- Fraticellis - 13th-15th centuries
- Waldensian - Still a thing
- Lollards - 15th century lingering into the 16th
- Monophysite - not a coherent movement as the game portrays it
- Messalianism - also not even a coherent movement as the game portrays it
- Bogomils - survived past CKII but gone today
- Monothelites - the controversy was concluded before CKII's timeframe
- Iconoclast - the controversy was concluded in the 9th century and long gone by 1066
- Paulicians - possibly survived past CKII? Part of the weird Bogomil-Cathar relationship
- Zikri - Still a thing but didn't even exist in CKII's timeframe
- Yazidi - Still a thing
- Kharijite - gone by 1453
- Qarmatians - Late 9th-11th centuries
- Hurufis - 14th-15th centuries
- Mazdaks - no clue, but the controversy happened before CKII's timeframe
- Samaritan - still a thing
- Karaite - still a thing
Manichaeism lasted from the 3rd-16th centuries. It had a formal church hierarchy, vibrant artwork, and its own series of holy texts. I really think it deserves to be on another level from most of these movements, though I'd love to see Yazidi become its own religion as well.
You're omitting that these these christian theologians were denouncing manichaeism as a heresy. Which was also the view held by the Sassanids, the Abbasids and some others. This could only be represented in-game if manichaeism was a heresy of multiple religions.
Some christians theologians even emphatically describe catharism and bobogomilism as a manichaean revival in Europe.
Well... yes, of course they were denouncing it. Religious authorities in CKII's timeframe denounced both separate religions and alternate interpretations of their own religion as "heresy." It's a loaded term. Should Shi'ism be a Sunni heresy by your logic? Should we make all the Christian and Islamic faiths into Jewish heresies?
I think the fact that Manichaeism was persecuted far and wide only supports my argument. It wasn't a local movement that had its century or two of prominence and then died out; it was a profoundly meaningful phenomenon in its day.
Manichaeans and mandaeans were on good terms, and modern scholars conclude that Mani was actually raised an Elcesaite (a sect with no damn relation to mandaeism or zoroastrianism) rather than a mandaean as previously believed. For these reasons it makes even less sense to put mandaean as an heresy of manichaeism.
If you're hell-bent on making manichaeism as a non-heresy with its own heresies, pick marcionism as a heresy. Like Mani, Marcion attempted to create a syncretist sect and and proclaim himself its prophet. On the other hand, it's out of CK2's timeframe.
This I'll give you. I just can't think of anything better than Mandaeism, though they could always implement it without a heresy. Marcionism is cool and all, but it was a much earlier movement and probably had zero adherents still living by 769.
