Hello everybody! Today we're releasing our first Core Expansion for Crusader Kings III: Legends of the Dead and an accompanying free 1.12.1 "Scythe" Update.

Check out the release trailer below, and then the changelog itself under that.

• Added Legends: a new system that allows you to create stories based on Legend Seeds (with events, decisions, court position tasks, and other ways to obtain them), a Legend Chronicler to visualize them, and special rewards.
  
  • 3 Legend Types: Heroic, Legitimizing, and Holy, with bespoke flavor, effects, and rewards, including special Legendary Buildings and decisions.
    
  • 3 Legend Quality Types: increasing the rewards upon completion and during its spread.
    
  • Legend Promoters: sponsor someone else's legend for a much smaller cost.
    
  • Added Historical Legends to characters in both start dates that would have a Legend Seed in history.
    
  • Added many events, decisions and interactions to spread Legends, affect the rewards, and change the Chronicle.
    
  • Added Legendary Buildings, with powerful rewards, unlocked after completing high quality legends and investing in the new Heroic Dynasty Legacy - all of them with special 3D models on the map, changing depending on the culture.
    
  • Added Legend Seeds to the old Major Decisions, allowing you to start legends based on previous content.
    
  • Added Legend Chronicler visual variations based on culture.
    
  • Added a new Dynasty Legacy: Heroic, focused on Legends and unlocking new rewards for completing one.
• Added a special Black Death event chain for when the Black Death spawns, with special art, music, content and effects.
  
• Added new Diseases: Holy Fire, Bloody Flux and Measles, all of them available as potential plagues.
  
• 28 new character assets to immerse you into the late medieval era and give ailing patients and skilled physicians a distinct look:
  
  • 3 variants of male late style western nobility clothes
    
  • 1 variant of male bedchamber clothes
    
  • 1 physician male clothes
    
  • 2 variants of male late style western nobility cloaks
    
  • 4 variants of male late style western nobility headgear
    
  • 2 variants late style western commoner headgear
    
  • 1 variant western royalty headgear
    
  • 1 hooded male headgear
    
  • 2 variants of female late style nobility clothes
    
  • 2 variants of female bedchamber clothes
    
  • 1 physician female clothes
    
  • 2 variants of female late style western nobility cloaks
    
  • 3 variants of female late style western nobility headgear
    
  • 2 variants of female late style western commoner headgear
    
  • 1 hooded female headgear
• Added a new Funeral activity: bury a close relative in a whole new activity, with new events, options, intents and rewards.
  
• Added a new Legendary Feast option to the Feast Activity focused on getting new promoters for your legend and increasing its spread.
  
• Added new Activity Intents: Extort Legitimacy and Spread Legend.
  
• Added a new building line to temple holdings: Scriptoria, which increases legend spread and county control.
  
• Added a new building line of Duchy buildings: Burial Sites. Build up your family mausoleum and obtain legend bonuses, plague resistance, piety, court grandeur, county control and popular opinion.
  
• Added a new Court Chronicler court position, focused on finding new legends and helping you spread yours both inside and outside of your realm using new Court Position Tasks.
  
• Added an exclusive Map Table, with unique assets that reflect both Plagues and Legends.
  
• Added map graphics VFX for the spread of legends.
  
• Added new legendary and fateful music tracks as well as new both Legend and Plague Mood Tracks.

• Added Plagues: some diseases will now be treated as epidemics and spread through the map, causing Fatalities and infecting characters in that location.
  
  • Added many new plague events, both for when a plague is in your realm and when it's approaching, and decisions to protect yourself, your family, or your entire capital.
    
  • Added new events for the Court Physician, focused on plagues.
    
  • Reworked old health events, adding new flavor, animations and art.
    
  • Added new court position tasks for Court Physician - focused on helping with plagues, increasing piety and lifestyle experience - and for the Court Musician and Poet, focused on the spread of legends.
    
  • Added a new Hospice building line, available in all sorts of holdings, and providing Plague Resistance and Piety.
• Added Elderly and Child Health, affecting younger and older characters more with certain diseases.
  
• New Disease Game Rules and special Black Death rules, affecting its frequency, year and place of spawn, including historical settings.
  
• Added Legitimacy: a new system to measure the perception of your right to rule, including the Legitimacy Expectations from both Powerful and Regular Vassals.
  
  • Added Legitimacy rewards to old decisions, traits, and activities.
    
  • Added a new Dynasty Legacy: Legitimacy, focused on increasing Legitimacy, unlocking new intents and improving your dynasty's education.
    
  • Added Legitimacy penalties to some character interactions: Disinheriting a child, asking them to Take the Vows, or marrying a Lowborn.
    
  • Added Legitimacy modifiers to title creation: allowing you to create a title from less de jure counties if you have a high Legitimacy level.
• Added a new Faith Doctrine: Funerary Tradition, that affects the main event and rewards from Funerals.
  
• Added a new Cultural Tradition: Water Rituals, that helps with plague resistance.
  
• Added new disease graphics on the character models.
  
• Added new epidemic travel danger type for locations with plagues present
  
• Added map graphics VFX for the spread of disease
  
• Added option to hide the disease map graphics
  
• Added a default Map Table, with new assets and art, that improves immersion and offers a physical place for the map.
  
• Restructured and polished Event Window so that it can accommodate VFX.
  
• New Event VFX: Flies, Fog, Legend Glow, Rain, Smoke and Snow.
  
• New animations and instruments: hurdy-gurdy, flute, lute, qanun, and shawn.
  
• Remastered music and effects, bringing the map to life.
  
• Monthly county control is now split into two separate 'Growth' and 'Decline' figures, each with their own modifiers.
  
• Added new birds flying over the map, with seagulls in coastal provinces and crows flying over infected holdings.
  
• Added a coughing animation to armies passing through infected provinces.
  
• Added new map models like Healers' Camps, Burial Grounds, and Funeral Pyres spawning naturally in infected provinces.
  
• The Scarred Trait is now tiered, with gradually more drastic visuals and effects according to the level of the trait.
  
• Added balding hairstyles and a system for male pattern baldness. Characters have a baldness value in their DNA which affects the age at which (male) characters start losing their hair.

• All Plague Diseases are now more deadly, especially the Black Death.
  
• Rebalanced other Diseases to account for Elderly and Child Health.
  
• Made Brythonic heritage less likely to destroy the title of England.
  
• Removing a guardian will now only reduce unity once every three months rather than every time.
  
• The Ill trait is now more deadly to adult characters.
  
• Slightly reduced the legend spread rate from buildings, shared languages, and culture heritages.
  
• Inbred trait now reduces initial Legitimacy.
  
• AI now considers epidemics quite an important factor while thinking about hosting and joining activities.
  
• Completing Roman Heritage legend now gives claims in Italy, North Africa, Greece, Anatolia, Syria, Palestine and Egypt.
  
• Increased development gain from coastal provinces.

• Fixed AI being unintentionally less aggressive immediately after save-game load.
  
• AI should now be able to choose the "Dominate the Caliph" struggle ending option successfully.
  
• Make the AI remember when it last finished an offensive war between save games.
  
• Fix issue where activity intents were not being set correctly for AI activity attendees (would take default intent).
  
• Fix AI rulers waiting very long to convert their betrothal into marriage, if they gained their first title while being betrothed.
  
• Characters from savegames that were players before, and are no longer, will now get an AI strategy (and not sit brainless in their castle until death takes them).
  
• Fixed issue where ‘add_{budget}_gold’ triggers would not give extra gold, but only make the AI think they had more gold to spend, getting them to try and spend gold they do not have. Gold now actually gets created.

• Reworked interface for court positions:
  
  • Entries are smaller so as to show more court positions at the same time.
    
  • Court Positions can now have actions, similarly to Council Positions.
    
  • Each Court Position has their own icon.
    
  • Court Positions are color coded by their most important skill category.
    
  • Courtier aptitude is color coded and has an icon to be more distinguishable.
• Added monthly change descriptions of control and development to holding view so players can take action on it directly.
  
• Added max_height property to widgets. Works just like max_width.
  
• Added min_height property to widgets. Works just like min_width.
  
• Consistently use our tooltip-style throughout the game (fixes breakdown tooltips in county view, HUD budget list, tax slots, ruler designer, and more).
  
• Explain county absolute control in tooltips where possible.
  
• Fix text alignment of long texts in breakdown tooltips, and apply better bottom margins.
  
• Fixed various icon and text alignment issues in the tax jurisdictions interfaces.
  
• Highlight development loss or stagnation in holding view.
  
• Removes expiration information from timed character modifiers that do not have a set expiration.
  
• Fix Regent portrait to no longer push Lovers portraits out of the UI window.
  
• Court position UI now allows filtering by if they have tasks or not.
  
• Marriage UI now shows the specific chance of inbreeding happening.

• Chaplains now use Fate of Iberia temple art in the council view when relevant.
  
• Character view for Theocratic rulers, Chaplains, and Physicians now uses temple and study backgrounds.
  
• Concubine interaction now uses the faith temple background instead of a generic corridor.
  
• New loading screen illustration for "Legends of the Dead" expansion.
  
• 4 new Trait icons: Measles, Dysentery, Ergotism, Legendary.
  
• 2 new Memory icons: Plague and Legend.
  
• Travel Danger icon for Epidemics.
  
• 2 new Map Mode icons: Plague and Legends.
  
• 6 new Decision images:
  
  • Archers
    
  • Legitimacy
    
  • Legend
    
  • Family Tree
    
  • Black Plague
    
  • Tale
• 4 new Artifact icons: Animal Figurine, Chronicle, Jar, Northern Mace.
  
• 5 new Story Event images:
  
  • Apocalyptic Disease
    
  • Black Death
    
  • Heroic Legend
    
  • Holy Legend
    
  • Legitimizing Legend.
• 2 new Legacy Track illustrations: Legitimacy and Heroic.
  
• 2 new Activity Intent icons: Legitimacy, Legends.
  
• 11 new achievement icons.
  
• Polished Council and Courtier Task icons.
  
• 7 new Courtier Task icons:
  
  • Neutral
    
  • Espouse Legend
    
  • Generate Seed
    
  • Promote Legend
    
  • Attend Poor
    
  • Guard Family
    
  • Treat Epidemic
• Polished all circular progress bars.
  
• 7 new Event Backgrounds:
  
  • Catacombs
    
  • Oasis
    
  • Pyre
    
  • MENA Physician’s Study
    
  • Tribal Physician’s Study
    
  • Indian Physician’s Study
• Condemned Village
  
• 3 new full body disease decals
  
• 16 new Legendary Building models:
  
  • Christian Shrine
    
  • Norse Mead Hall
    
  • Norse Shrine
    
  • Desert Hunting Lodge
    
  • Dharmic Shrine
    
  • Indian Heroes PIllar
    
  • Hunting Lodge
    
  • Indian Palace
    
  • Islamic Palace
    
  • Islamic Shrine
    
  • Mediterranean Monument
    
  • Norse Runestone
    
  • Steppe Shrine
    
  • Western Hero Statue
    
  • Western Palace
    
  • Western Watchtower
• 7 new Building icons:
  
  • Graveyard
    
  • Hospice
    
  • Legendary Shrine
    
  • Legendary Hunting Lodge
    
  • Legendary Watchtower
    
  • Legendary Palace
    
  • Hero Statue
• 9 new props:
  
  • Alto Flute
    
  • Bronze Mortar
    
  • Bronze Pestle
    
  • Chifonie
    
  • Lute
    
  • Northern Mace
    
  • Book
    
  • Qanun
    
  • Shawn
• Ritual Washing Culture Tradition icon
  
• New Character Portrait shader. Gives characters a painterly look to them.

• Fixed a typo in the Find a new Faith for Persia decision.
  
• Fixed missing type when localizing HOSTAGE_OATH_OF_FRIENDSHIP.
  
• Fixed untranslated weapon type name in Exotic Arms event.
  
• Fixed a typo in City Walls of Toledo description.
  
• Fixed missing loc in Demand Conversion.
  
• Fixed AI acceptance tooltip to Request Incursion.
  
• Fixes trigger tooltips for options in Embellish Capital Decision.
  
• Fixes invalid tooltip for Take the Vows option in the Negotiate Release character interaction.
  
• Shortens event text in Travel: A Feast for Falcons to avoid a scrollbar.
  
• Fixed broken text in the House Feud rivalry reciprocation event.
  
• The tooltip in the event option for ending a house feud is now fully localized.
  
• Removed incorrect “cannot march here” text in tooltips for army units.
  
• Adds missing localization for modifier affecting faction join chance regarding Detractor trait.
  
• Fixed Wetlanders cultural tradition description.
  
• Propose Alliance interaction tooltip now correctly informs about existing hook on target character.
  
• Fixed a tooltip info about losing house unity when refusing the independence faction demands.
  
• The tooltip for the Wootz Steel innovation now lists the terrain requirement for the Wind Furnace building.

• Added Situation Log entry if a Vassal is waging a war which would make them independent or change Liege upon victory.
  
• Removed regency option from Challenge House Head interaction.
  
• Vassals now receive a message if their liege or above starts or succeeds in converting a county in their sub-realm.
  
• Child rulers under 12 are now allowed to sponsor inspirations. (Kid: "Goo goo pretty", Inspired Courtier: "Sire has Spoken! Thy will be done.")

• Add complex trigger support to morph_gene_value.
  
• Added NCamera::START_ZOOM_STEP define for more control over starting map view when selecting a character.
  
• Added new county triggers:
  
  • monthly_county_control_growth
    
  • monthly_county_control_decline
    
  • monthly_county_control_growth_factor
    
  • monthly_county_control_decline_factor
• Allow changing trait XP on dead characters
  
• County trigger 'county_control_rate' is now called 'monthly_county_control_change'.
  
• County trigger 'county_control_rate_modifier' gone, it is split into 'monthly_county_control_growth_factor' and 'monthly_county_control_decline_factor'.
  
• Tags set on portrait accessories can now influence decals and texture_overrides (Example: a hairstyle can trigger a head decal to be on/off now).
  
• Feed messages of the same type can now be auto-combined into one by using ‘combine_into_one = yes’.
  
• Text icons can be colorized by specifying a color definition in their configuration, such as `color = "color:red"`.
  
• Color of text icons can be overridden in localization strings by doing `@icon_name:color_name!` or inherit from the current formatting by doing `@icon_name:inherit_color!`.
  
• Deprecated ‘is_widget_open’ trigger, preferred trigger for this functionality is new faster ‘is_widgetid_open’ trigger, which works on widgetids instead of widget names.
  
• Added possibility to store script variables on dead characters.
  
• Added ‘on_yearly’ effect to court positions.
  
• Renamed ‘tooltip_enabled’ to ‘tooltip_visible’ in gui script.

• Cleaned up naming for some Houses and Dynasties in India to be more consistent with how other house and dynasty names are represented.
  
• Marzoban Zahhak of Upper Ghur is now the uncle of Ghurshah Sūri of Ghur in the 867 bookmark
  
• The Badami, Kalyani and Vengi Chalukyas are now considered branches of the same dynasty.
  
• Shazhou's culture is now Han rather than Sogdian in 867.

• Celibate trait no longer modifies opinion about characters with Eager Reveler trait.
  
• Event chain Great Expectations no longer can result in a potential game over due to heir gender.
  
• The Umayyad Strikes Back achievement now correctly requires Sunni Caliphate title.
  
• Non-clan rulers now get notifications about tax jurisdictions if they have Clan vassals.
  
• Raj'a tenet now is available for custom Zoroastrian faiths.
  
• Manage Royal Guards Martial Task decreases success chance for Enemy Hostile Scheme instead of increasing it.
  
• Skill bonuses from Confidants are now named correctly.
  
• The Tomb of Batsheba now increases close relative opinion of holder instead of increasing holder opinion of female rulers.
  
• Seljuks will no longer try to become your vassal if you are duke or below.
  
• House Feud ending event has now fully localized and truthful tooltips.
  
• Exaltation of Pain tenet no longer has a pink description. Sad.
  
• Fixed notification about a wrong artifact being stolen from you.
  
• Knight training from Mentor accolade now tells you the truth about the hastiluder track your knight is being trained on.
  
• Prevent the player from being able to deselect all radio buttons in the interaction window.
  
• Fixed Canterbury Cathedral not being a Point of Interest when upgraded to lvl 2 and 3.
  
• Fixed Castles not showing a 2D icon when upgrading them.
  
• Fixed OOS issue related to timed modifiers on travel plans.
  
• Fixed a bug in the Request Contract Assistance interaction so that it's finally usable.
  
• Fixed a multiplayer bug where players could generate different names for an accolade, leading to an OOS error.
  
• Fixed incorrect lighting setup in one of the Zoroastrian temple event backgrounds.
  
• Fixed issue where dead characters might both have both a 'former' and 'current' spouse that is the same.
  
• Fixed travel modifiers stacking when they should not (stacking quarreling entourage modifiers could escalate into a shouting match of epic proportions).
  
• Fixed you referring to yourself as your liege when changing stance during the Iranian Intermezzo.
  
• Fixed a graphical issue in the inventory with historical artifacts when their culture isn't set.
  
• Fixed House head succession if both the house head and heir die on the same day (house no longer cursed with a dead house head for eternity).
  
• Iranian rulers will now use Iranian clothes much more often.
  
• Off to play event will no longer trigger if the host of the event has died.
  
• Partially shaved hairstyles now have a proper 'clean' dome.
  
• Player will get correct notification & better GUI when "Abbasid Humiliation" struggle ending with "Dominate the Caliph" option is available.
  
• Positive county control change % modifiers now no longer make negative control changes bigger (they do not affect those anymore).
  
• Prevent you from becoming your own tax collector after succession.
  
• Raised armies now start with full supply instead of a fixed 100 (relevant if their supply capacity was increased by modifiers such as the ‘Living off the Land’ perk).
  
• Reduced time on disrespected elders modifier.
  
• Replaced all instances of script values for aptitude expecting incorrectly a level distribution with the correct distribution of.
  
• The Denounced, Disinherited, Extolled by House, and Accused of Decadence traits will now be removed if a character becomes Dynasty Head/House Head respectively.
  
• When marrying a wandering character via a grand wedding, they will no longer run back to their previous location after the wedding.
  
• When title is revoked from a ruler they can steal counties from vassals if the ruler has any other non-titular non-head of faith title and has any vassals to steal from.
  
• You can now revoke all titles of a vassal that hold a HoF-title, causing the HoF-title to be destroyed.
  
• You can now revoke vassal-of-vassal Holy orders where appropriate (via decision or button-interaction on barony).
  
• Fixed an edge case where viziers would, under certain circumstances, reduce your tax gain from vassals rather than increase it.
  
• Fixed bug where part of the ‘Tutorial’ button was unclickable.
  
• Yearly cultural acceptance changes will actually trigger roughly yearly instead of sort-of bi-monthly.
  
• Fixed that potential knights come knights immediately, instead of waiting a day (or longer for AI).
  
• Added safety check to travel_completion_event.1000 so it does not trigger if the current travel plan was aborted.
  
• Control Growth multiplier modifier no longer applies its modifier if the growth is negative.
  
• Court Scholar court position now correctly only requires Legacy of Persia DLC, and not Royal Court as well.
  
• Ethos is now correctly listed in the Cultural Pillar encyclopedia entry.
  
• Fixed Dismantle Byzantine/Holy Roman Pretenders decision being available more than once per lifetime, which broke the war declaration.
  
• Fixed a bug where a Hostage could remain a hostage after the Warden inherits the Home Court from a family member.
  
• Fixed a bug where the attacker's max troop count was always used as the losing side's max troop count when calculating war score from battles.
  
• Fixed a bug where winning a battle as the attacker would use the defender's scaling for calculating the war score.
  
• Fixed an issue where an aborted travel plan could progress travel days.
  
• Fixed an issue where an aborted travel plan could skip to the next destination.
  
• Fixed an out of sync where host and client disagree on who won a battle.
  
• Fixed bug where a recently landed, former court position employee could sometimes get the salary twice in a month.
  
• Fixed characters sometimes not being correctly added to entourage and court in travel events.
  
• Fixed issue where accepting demands when negotiating to Challenge House Head would not make you the House Head.
  
• Fixed issues with the Challenge House Head events when playing as House Head.
  
• Fixed OOS error on hotjoin where an unlanded court position employee becomes landed, loses their position and gets their salary later in the month due to changed rank.
  
• Fixed the Execute a Detractor/Supporter Iranian Intermezzo catalyst never firing.
  
• Fixed the Homeward Bound travel event breaking if your entourage was empty.
  
• Fixed war victory against same or higher tier ruler Iranian Intermezzo catalysts not firing.
  
• Fixed wiping the Seljuk's invasion not allowing you to end the war, added war target title to its name and disabled hostage peace options.
  
• Fixes issues with sexuality, tooltips, and pregnancy in the Adventurer Inspiration event Lady/Lord X's Lover.
  
• Holding Court will now always grant a small amount of Court Grandeur at a minimum.
  
• It is now only possible to share a Spouse with a family member in Polygamous faiths if all parties believe in Unrestricted Marriage.
  
• Prevented negative AI acceptance modifier being added to Offer Vassalization acceptance after having purchased a truce.
  
• Religious heads are no longer given the option to embrace Jesus in the Wanton Desires stress event.
  
• add_courtier and set_employer effects can no longer be used to return a hostage to their home court.
  
• Viziers (and Stewards) without titles now correctly receive a monthly gold income too, based on their liege. It shouldn't require a title to mooch off some funds.
  
• You should not be able to grant lessee temple holdings to other characters when your court chaplain position is empty
  
• The Dome of Soltaniyeh is now correctly considered to be a ‘Wonder’ travel point of interest.
  
• Fixed "weight_multiplier" for events - multiplied value was used to filter out "0-weight" events, but not for actual weight picking.
  
• Fixed Coat-of-Arms graphics to update immediately when the new or old holder is a clan and overrides the default CoA.
  
• Fixed re-activating a dynasty house when a new member wondrously appears again (usually happens when the last member dies while their wife is pregnant - the baby being born will revive the house).
  
• Fixed crash that could happen when opening up the barbershop while playing an unplayable character (through observer mode for example).
  
• Couture of the Capets character assets are now properly available in the barbershop.
  
• Allow lieges to build in holdings they lease out.
  
• Fix court amenity expenses costing piety or prestige to actually use those resources and not gold.
  
• Character tooltips in Activity Window and Event Window have been adjusted to not block characters in certain resolutions.
  
• Added missing Faction triggers.
  
• Fixed broken Iranian Resurgence check.
  
• Disallowed courtiers being taken hostage by their own liege.
  
• Fixed a very unperformant Seljuk effect.
  
• Fixed event with two childhood Traits.
  
• Fixed Seljuk Invasion target.
  
• Fixed Zakat Tax Decree.
  
• Fixed an edge case where you were able to start planning a Grand Rite without a witch trait or witch secret.
  
• Fixed bug where the vizier position was invalidated due to us checking if our liege could have one, not us.
  
• Fixed Iqta description and effects are not at odds with each other anymore.
  
• Made it harder to steal parents from their children's court, and impossible to steal unlanded guardians, court position holders, and councilors.
  
• Fixed max limit on scaling House Unity modifiers.
  
• Fixed scrollbar in friendship letter.
  
• Fixed an error when a dog seller leaves your court.
  
• Fixed error log showing errors for decision items in observer mode.
  
• Fixed double notification when someone else "Renewed the Caliphate".
  
• Fixed removed stray modifiers if a Grand Wedding invalidates.
  
• Fixed the history of artifacts stolen during a siege.
  
• Fixed accusing servants of being the real father of someone else's heir when they are younger than the heir in question.
  
• Fixed Mozarabism appearing as a regional heresy outside of Iberia.

We hope you enjoy Legends of the Dead and the free 1.12.1 "Scythe" update as much as we enjoyed making them!

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Hello and welcome to the 146th Dev Diary for Crusader Kings III! I’m Matthew, the Code Owner on Legends of the Dead. From the highly anticipated Epidemics feature to the Black Death itself—and what happens after your land is ravaged and your family taken to the grave—today we’re going to be covering all things Death!

► Discuss Dev Diary #146 on our forums!



As stated in the Vision Dev Diary, we’ve wanted to include Epidemics for a long time now—doing them bigger and better than CK2 ever did.

Plagues should be an impactful part of the game, ranging from a mild illness in a localized area to the sweeping spread of diseases across continents. Not only should they cause death in their wake, but those who survive should have their trust in your rulership tested.

Every barony with a holding is susceptible to an outbreak of disease, and many factors can influence the chance of an outbreak:

• The development of the county
  
• Terrain of the province
  
• Number of buildings
  
• Specific buildings such as trade posts and markets
  
• Cultural era
  
• If there is a nearby epidemic already
  
• Game rules

When an outbreak occurs, it will be one of three intensities: Minor, Major, and Apocalyptic.
The intensity impacts how much the disease can spread, how likely it is to spread to an uninfected province, and how long an infection in a province lasts.



Each disease will leave the infected with a specific associated trait, and any character located in an infected province is at risk of getting sick.

All outbreaks will get a dynamic name. Some will be named after the culture of the area, while others will claim the name of the region’s ruler…since if they were truly a legitimate ruler, the Gods would not punish them with such disease, right?

Every ongoing epidemic can be seen on the map too, both as an effect in normal map modes or in its own dedicated map mode.





If you zoom in closer, then we hide the epidemic pulsing blood and instead show the desolate gray land now haunted by death…



When there is an epidemic nearby or in your realm, you will be notified by the new HUD widget, which if you open (or switch to the map mode manually) will show you more info about ongoing epidemics.



If you click an epidemic on the map, or from the list, then you’ll be able to see an overview of the epidemic for every province in your domain it has infected, as well as the vassals in your realm and other independent rulers.

This also shows you which provinces are at risk of being infected by the epidemic and what the chance of it spreading is.



The chance of spreading to a neighboring province, as well as across two sea provinces, is influenced by many factors, such as how developed the provinces are, their buildings, cultural traditions, if they have immunity from prior infection, and more!

Speaking of province infection, you can see here that every province tracks how infected it is as a percentage. Different infection thresholds will cause different modifiers to be applied to the province and its holder.





The maximum infection rate is reduced by Plague Resistance, which can be increased through various means.

You can preemptively increase it by constructing buildings that raise it, such as the new Hospices building chain or the Burial Site duchy building.



You can also increase it by having your Court Physician work to Control Plagues using the new Court Position Tasks, or by taking the decisions to isolate in your capital or close the gates.



Legends of the Dead also features three new illnesses that can take the form of Plagues. Measles, the Bloody Flux (Dysentery), and Holy Fire (Ergotism).

As mentioned before, Measles is especially deadly to children, lowering their health even more than everyone else’s. This uses two new modifiers we’ve added for child and elderly health respectively, most diseases are more deadly to the elderly by default.



Of course, it wouldn’t be one of my dev diaries if I didn’t also point out that all of these things are very moddable: you can create custom epidemics, change how they spread, outbreak, infect characters, even how their blood splatter looks on the map!

Both Plagues and Legends come with a handful of game rules for controlling how they play, as well as specific rules for the Black Death.



Speaking of which, the Black Death holds a special place amongst the rest of the pantheon of epidemics, and as such, has some extra bells and whistles to go along with it.

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Hello all, Noodle here to ask the old question: “ʟᴏʀᴅ, ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴄᴀɴ ᴛʜᴇ ʜᴀʀᴠᴇsᴛ ʜᴏᴘᴇ ꜰᴏʀ, ɪꜰ ɴᴏᴛ ꜰᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴀʀᴇ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴇᴀᴘᴇʀ ᴍᴀɴ?”



No history of the medieval world is complete without reference to the Black Death.

Killing up to half of Europe’s population over the course of seven years, the Bubonic Plague that swept across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East in the 14th century altered the very fabric of society. Everyone - man, woman, adult, child, noble, pauper - found themselves at the mercy of the merciless pestilence. From the outset of development, we knew the Black Death had to be done proper justice.

This naturally involves a bit of a balancing act. On one hand, the Black Death should behave within the confines of the mechanics we’ve built, so that reaction to it is natural and swift. Presenting you, the player, with an unfamiliar new set of ways to deal with this unique event would be complicating matters for no real gain. After all, the plague itself is simply the scariest amongst a whole host of potential pandemics that could occur. On the other hand… It's the Black Death. Anyone should feel the fear of God and be reaching for their rosaries when they see that seeping dark mass wend its way on to their screen.



As such, the tack we took involved a deeper look at how the plague rolled out across the land. Like any good movie monster, half the fear is in the anticipation of the reveal rather than the monster itself, after all. It’s one thing to be dealing with the plague, but consider instead the stormy horizon: first come the missives of death and devastation, then the bedraggled and petrified refugees staggering to your borders, and then all of a sudden your armpit begins to swell…

That is the frame of mind we want the player to be in when the plague erupts. When the scythe starts swinging there’s not a whole lot anyone can do, but the precious moments before that wicked blade reaps its harvest are the ones worth investigating.



To move on from setting such an overly-elaborate scene, then, the actual mechanics of the Black Death follow the pattern laid out by other very large epidemics in-game. The notable difference is that - unless you’re incredibly unlucky (or have a truly massive empire, in which case I allow you no sympathy) and happen to have it take hold within your own realm - you’ll be getting fair warning of the coming storm.

As the panic mounts, you’ll be able to at very least begin to make provisions for protecting your realm, aided or hindered by a set of unique Black Death events that will give you opportunities to stock up some counties beforehand. These vary from calming panicking crowds right through to instructing your physician to dissect infected bodies to try and glean some meager information.

I won’t spoil those events any further here, but between them and the advanced warning a player can get, the Black Death becomes less strictly about waiting for the inevitable and more about a race against time. You will have to utilize all your options to the fullest to even withstand it, let alone escape relatively unscathed.

As with any Apocalyptic-level disease, the damage wrought by the plague can be mighty. More developed areas of your realm will suffer harder in comparison, and the sickness can wipe out entire branches of families. The issue with the Black Death in that case is its violent effects. Its modifiers are brutal, and its cocktail of lethality and infectiousness makes for the single greatest consistent threat to a realm in the entire game.

This is already getting rather lengthy, so I’ll leave it there. Hopefully you all have as much fun battling the Black Death as I did making it!

---

Of course, with Plague comes Death, and with that comes a time to mourn your lost friends and family:

And with all this desolation there also comes the opportunity to remember the dead. With Legends of the Dead, we're introducing a new type of Activity: Funerals.


[Image: Decision to host a Funeral]

You can hold a Funeral for any deceased member of your family in the past 5 years, and a new specific intent "Mourn" is available as default, allowing you to lose some stress after going through the process of grief.


[Image: Funeral planning]

The Activity Planner will suggest the best place in your realm to host a Funeral, prioritizing baronies with a temple, and high-level temples within that; if you choose one of them you will get extra Piety as a reward.


[Image: Selecting a place for your Funeral]

The different levels of the "Ceremonials" Activity Option also offer better final rewards for a higher gold cost, focused on Piety, Legitimacy and Stress loss.

The first phase of the Funeral is the Wake, the wait until the Burial, and it features all guests reminiscing about the life of the deceased, their memories together and their more characteristic traits. They may also interact with each other and even in these distressed times there will be someone waiting patiently just to get a hook… or increase the funeral numbers.



The "Burial" phase has different descriptions and general flavor depending on your faith's tenets, and will reflect your religious traditions, not always being a burial per se.

All throughout the celebration, Active Pulse Actions (or APAs) will also inform you of what the other guests are doing meanwhile, bringing the activity to life (pun not intended).



Funerals mainly reward your Piety and Legitimacy, as a moment to reflect on both the brevity of life and the legacy that we leave behind.

---

As part of this Core Expansion, we’ve also decided to implement more ways of showing the declining health of your ruler & their kin. Now, most of you might know the plague was already grotesquely displayed in the game prior to Legends of the Dead - and hopefully you’ll be excited to welcome two new diseases to the visual roster: Smallpox and Measles.


[Image: Now might be a good time to remind the good player that this box can be un-ticked in the settings]



And while we’ll mostly leave it up to you to figure out what to do with those diseases, as far as prevention and treatment is concerned, I think it’s safe to say you’ll definitely want to employ a court-physician. Fortunately, us from the character art team have been hard at work making that option as lucrative as possible - by adding some new sick physician clothes (along with a bunch of other new garments as well of course).

---

And last but not least we have the new achievements! As always, they are listed in order of difficulty.


Legendary! - Complete a Legend


You'll Never Take Me Alive! - Travel to a safe holding while your Capital is infected by an Epidemic


Pay Respects - Host a Funeral for your Legend Protagonist


Neverending Story - Complete your ancestor's Legend after their death


Divine Right - Reach the maximum level of Legitimacy


Canonized - Manage to make your Legend Protagonist a Saint


Upward Mobility - Successfully claim your Liege's title while having a higher Legitimacy Level than them


Local Legend - As a Count, complete a Mythical Legend


Not Today - Contract, and recover from, the Bubonic Plague


The Pharaoh Islands - As a Scottish character, complete a Legend claiming your descent from Ancient Egypt


Can't Touch This - Have an infected Barony at the maximum Epidemic Resistance



Thank you all for reading! We hope you’re as excited as we are for the release of Legends of the Dead next Monday to kick off Chapter 3!

---

Write glorious new sagas of military conquest and romantic adventures with Chapter III.
This Chapter includes two expansions, one event pack, and one cosmetic enhancement. Enjoy new mechanics, new events, and new historical flavor to add greater depth to Crusader Kings III!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/38036

Hello and welcome to the first of our feature breakdown Development Diaries! I'm a game designer on Crusader Kings 3 and I surely hope that you have a nice cup of coffee next to you and the will to read for a while, as today's entry is on the chonkier side! Today we will talk about Legends, Legitimacy, and the Art behind Legends of the Dead.

So, let's get right into it! Legends!

► Discuss Dev Diary #145 on our forums!






We've already covered the original reasoning behind legends in our previous Vision Dev Diary, but to go over it quickly (and in a very oversimplified manner) again: medieval people really loved legends, and above all of them, rulers really loved legends. One of the first times we ever hear of King Arthur is in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, which is, as the name says, a list of the kings of Britain.

The Plantagenet kings of England quickly latched onto the figure of Arthur as a legitimizing tool. This was partly a reaction to the German and French (specially the Capetians), that exalted their connection to Charlemagne in this "race for historic-mythical sponsorship" as the medieval historian Jacques Le Goff writes. All across Europe, medieval monarchs scrambled to find an older, more heroic figure, that would secure the throne for their dynasty.

And now, so can you!

Legends have a Type and Quality level. Because no legend can be entirely mundane, they start at Famed, then Illustrious and finally Mythical, each of them giving out progressively more powerful rewards; you can increase the quality of the legend when it has spread far enough, including having to extend outside of your realm.


[Image: Rewards for completing a Famed Legitimizing legend]


[Image: Rewards for completing a Mythical Legitimizing legend]


As for the Types, Legends can be Heroic, Holy or Legitimizing.

Heroic legends give additional Prestige modifiers and other thematic rewards that reflect your heroism, like the decision of launching a Legendary Adventure, or Demand Local Submission.


[Image showing one of the special Heroic Legend rewards]


Holy legends are focused around Piety and are greatly inspired by medieval hagiographies, specifically the Golden Legend, allowing the Protagonist to even gain the Saint at the highest levels, if the appropriate Dynasty Perk has been unlocked.


[Image showing one of the Dynasty Perks for the new Heroic Bloodline Dynasty Legacy, focused on Legends]


Lastly, Legitimizing legends will give you double the amount of Legitimacy and allow you to get new, powerful claims to expand your realm, as shown in the rewards above.

You also can, of course, choose the Legend Protagonist, the author of these heroic deeds. Among the possible options are your relatives (even if dead) and choosing someone other than yourself will also grant you extra Legitimacy, so you can dedicate your legend to your dragon-hunting grandpa.

But how can you start a legend? Well, every legend is born from a Legend Seed. Some characters start with historical seeds on game start, like the Capetians Heirs of Charlegmane, or the Hunnic Heritage, available for Nomadic cultures that claim to be descended from Attila himself.


[Image: The Heirs of Charlemagne legend seed]


[Image: Hunnic Heritage legend seed]


However, this is not the only way to get legend seeds, as winning important wars, hunting a legendary animal, and taking major decisions are also some of the most common ways of getting one.

Even hiring a capable Court Chronicler and paying them enough gold can manage to… make an ancient document appear mentioning your long-lasting dynasty.


[Image: Mending the Great Schism will grant you a Holy Legend seed]


But supporting a legend is not only beneficial for its owner, as becoming a promoter (a much cheaper alternative) will also grant you special bonuses, as well as helping the legend spread on your lands - the higher quality the legend, the bigger the rewards for you too.


[Image: Promoter bonuses]


While you spread your legend, you'll get flavor events of both people reacting to your legend in different manners along with your Chronicler and courtiers fervently asking you to recount the story just once more, my liege, making it possible to introduce… ehem… minor alterations to the text.

Use the new Court Position Tasks to make your Musicians and Poets sing your legend to make it easier to spread inside your realm, or get them to try and convince supporters abroad!


[Image: Court Musician performing the new Extol Domestic Legend task]


Turn your legend into an artifact, celebrate a feast in its honor, or simply enjoy the control boosts from having it spread over people that now believe you a hero. Legends were a core part of the medieval world, a powerful tool to root your power in something greater than you.

"Lineage and geste are synonymous, as the epic cycle constitutes itself according to a pattern of affiliation between families of heroes and families of poems." (R. Howard Bloch, 1983: 94).


[And here it was written, Paradox Forum, 20th of February, 2024 AD.]

For Legitimacy, our aim was to put together a measurement of different systems that already existed in the game, but were not directly connected to each other: Short Reign penalties, Popular Opinion, Vassalization and Marriage acceptance, etc. The game was already trying to reflect how legitimate of a ruler you were, but was trying to do so with Prestige and Renown in non-consistent ways. Prestige is a reflection of the social influence of the character, not an indication of them being the "right" person to the throne - you can be a highly prestigious king of the Capetian dynasty, but should you be the emperor of Byzantium?

Legitimacy and its effects scale with title tier. It's not the same being a level 5 Emperor - where everyone expects you to be the right person for the job - than a level 5 Duke, where everyone is impressed with your overachieving.



[Images: Count with Legitimacy level 0 and 5]



[Images: Emperor with Legitimacy level 0 and 5]


It's also easier to go up and down levels the lower your tier, as it's harder to convince people once they've formed an idea of who their king is.

Legitimacy also scales with the in the game era, and the levels are smaller in the Tribal and Early Medieval eras.

Legitimacy is calculated through a series of factors, mainly attached to who you are in relation to your title: the level of splendor of your dynasty, how long you've been on the throne, who your parents were (are you the child of kings or just random lowborns?), your traits, being a bastard, etc. When you die, a part of your legitimacy will be passed down to your heir, but they will get a calculation of their own based on who they are - it's not the same to have your firstborn inherit than a third cousin.


[Image: The Sayyid traits increases your Legitimacy]



Legitimacy can be gained through various means that will reassure the public opinion that you have the right to be in the throne: legends, for one, are one of the main ways to gain it. Holding activities, holding court, and doing what's expected of a ruler will also help increase it, as well as winning wars - but this will also be relative, as it's not the same to win a war against a Duke as an Emperor than be the Duke beating up the Emperor.

Legitimacy can also be lost. Losing battles, especially to factions (and especially to Claimant factions) will make you look pretty bad, or even managing to have a Peasant Rebellion appear will signify that you're not taking good care of your subjects. Rulers were also blamed for plagues, as the representatives of God on earth, so allowing them to hit your capital will also make you appear less legitimate in the eyes of your vassals. Disinheriting or forcing kids to take the vows also exposes a ruler that doesn't take good care of their dynasty and will also make you lose Legitimacy.


[Image: Disinheriting your heir will cost you more Legitimacy]


Your vassals, of course, have Expectations of you. This is calculated based on your tier, era, and how long your family has ruled over theirs, besides their opinion and relationship to you. Not meeting your vassal expectations will make them discontent and more likely to join factions against you.


[Image: King with Legitimacy level 3]


As we've already seen in the tooltips, Legitimacy levels affect all sorts of things in the game: Casus Belli cost, Marriage and Alliance acceptance, Faction formation and even the counties necessary to create a title.


[Image: The art for the new Legitimacy Dynasty Legacy]

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Hello! My name is Pavel Golovii and I am a senior illustrator at Paradox. I have been working on a number of illustrations for this expansion and today I am going to talk about processes behind the scenes of illustration work. As an example, I will take arguably the most challenging kind of illustrations we have in game - the loading screen. This illustration is the player's first introduction to the expansion and bears the responsibility of giving them a feeling of anticipation.

Every picture starts with an idea. With the introduction of epidemics in “Legends of the Dead” I regarded the opportunity to feature a physician, a healer as very fresh and appealing. It would be a positive, reassuring subject matter when compared to the intrigue, war and power struggles that dominate the themes of our other illustrations. Truth be told, a lot of inspiration was coming from “The Physician” movie and some orientalist’s paintings.


[Image: A couple of the initial ideas featuring an eastern theme with a physician.]


Another idea that was suggested and actively supported by game designers is the legend of The Lady of Shalott. This medieval themed story is a beautiful blend of tropes for both “legend” and “death” and provides a very suitable metaphor for the new expansion. At the same time this theme was depicted in many paintings by a number of renowned artists. It was especially popular in the Pre-Raphaelite era with a series of paintings by John Waterhouse featuring the legend. This potentially added to the challenge of making it relatively unique and unwittingly could bring up an unfavorable comparison with a master’s work. Somewhat reluctantly I took a stab at it and did some sketches.


[Image: Composition sketches for The Lady of Shalott theme.]


After discussing all of the above ideas with the team and the art director we decided to further develop the last (bottom one) variant as the most original and also well-fitting to present the Legends of the Dead DLC. Yet the physician theme was not trashed and made its way to become one of the story event illustrations. The composition of the chosen variant underwent a few changes afterwards following art-director’s feedback. We decided to get rid of the straight top-down view in favor of a more traditional perspective and closer look at the character yet retaining dynamic shapes of the water weeds and flowing dress.


[Image: Final composition that was approved.]


In many ways decisions made at this early stage affect the overall success of the final image. A good outcome is not guaranteed of course, but if properly made it creates a firm foundation for further work. On the contrary, skipping crucial steps assuming these can be tackled at a later stage can turn the painting process into a struggle, even though digital medium allows to change things easily at any moment.

I rarely do color explorations before final shapes and values for the composition are established. But this time I started experimenting with colors a bit earlier using AI which gave me an extra bit of flexibility and an abundance of variations. A locally installed Stable Diffusion with Control Net was used for generating rough color thumbnails based on my composition sketches. Black & white composition images were used to restrict image generation to shapes defined in them. Another color image that just contained the color palette of my preference was fed to Control net to roughly define color to be applied. Text prompt was of little importance, and I kept it very simple and basic. The results are pretty far from highly detailed crisp digital pictures that are usually expected from AI generated images. They are quite inconsistent and rough and have a great deal of randomness. But this is actually what I appreciate in these. I like that level of abstraction. Accidental interpretations of my composition ideas by AI provided me with extra inspiration. Not only the colors, but also values, shapes, edges and textures that start to loom in these thumbnails can give a new hint regarding a certain aspect of the artwork.


[Image: There was a sheer number of AI interpretations of my composition sketches.]


The major caveat with these AI generations is that you can do so many of them in a relatively short amount of time that you need to be quite decisive to stop that dopamine trap and move on. Otherwise they just pile up as photos on a mobile phone that you never return to.

Now the chosen AI generated color samples need to be applied to composition with proper distribution of size, shapes and accent placement (here AI is not of much help, not yet at least).


[Image: AI generated color “blobs” and sketches painted after them.]


[Video: Creation of a color sketch based on an AI generated thumbnail.]


The animation above shows the process of turning a generated color thumbnail into a color sketch that is submitted for the art team review. The greenish-violet palette was acknowledged as the most appropriate for the theme, with a flavor of mystery and slight surreal feel of goldish light reflections in the water.

After major decisions have been made it is time to make that final leap to the finished painting. Here the biggest challenge for me is to keep the overall image balance while adding details. Even when painting over a well-defined sketch, the image inevitably changes during the process. Defining a hand gesture or dress design may change the flow of the shapes and force readjustments in other places. It is very easy to get carried away by a certain area of the picture and then realize that the detail you have just painted does not work when viewed from a distance or pops out too much and breaks the general balance of tonal values. Some elements of the image require more attention than the others. Character face is obviously a detail number one in that specific image’s hierarchy, and it took me a while to paint it and find the proper expression. At the same time a number of secondary parts of the image I may have left untouched since the color sketch creation.

A crucial role in that process of image balancing plays feedback from the art director and the team. Over time while working on an illustration I get less perceptive of it. And during the regular art reviews I can get a fresh view from my team that helps to notice mistakes and flaws or even to recognize the moment when it is time to stop and call the image done.





[Image: Art director’s feedback suggesting perspective and tonal corrections.]
[CM’s Note: Tastefully censored.]


Here at Paradox, we have regular drawing sessions where our artists can draw either live models or from references. While the primary purpose of this is to train general drawing skills (a kind of an art gym), this can also be used for more specific tasks. I can ask a model to take a specific pose or gesture that I am working on in my current assignment. This can be quite helpful to make characters in an illustration look more convincing, find a better gesture or just simply avoid crude drawing mistakes.


[Image: A few examples of sketches and studies done with ongoing illustration assignments in mind.]
[CM’s Note: Also censored.]


On a final note, I have to confess that romanticized stories like the one about the Lady of Shalott are not that inspiring for me in general. The drama of these stories often seems too quixotic and naive to me. Yet one can find in their symbols and metaphors some true inspiring moments. For me in the case of the Lady of Shalott it was the contrast of young and flourishing life and premature death it was doomed for. I hope I managed to convey a bit of my sensations in the illustration.

Hello! My name is Joacim Carlberg and I’m the 3D Environment Lead on CKIII.

I’m going to introduce our new visual map tables, a feature we’ve wanted to add for a long time. With the new chapter a table scene will now appear as you lift your gaze higher from the map for an overview of the world. With the release of Legends of the Dead we have added two new map tables, the tables are chosen dynamically or if you have a preference you can also change the active one in the settings menu.


[Image: The map table as it appears in Legends of the Dead.]


If you do not have Legends of the Dead a base table will still be included with the accompanying patch, which can be seen below.


[Image: The map table as it appears without Legends of the Dead enabled.]


We think this will give a more immersive experience when overlooking the extent of your kingdom, the tendrils of plagues spreading the lands, and your legends spreading across the realms.

For those that love visual mods or total conversion mods for the game will find that this framing is also quite moddable.

As you finish your legends you will find opportunities to add a new site in your kingdom that commemorates or relates to the legend you’ve sown and grown. These legendary locations provide bonuses, but also show up in the landscape of your realm.


[Image: Legendary Statue, MENA Legendary Palace, India Legendary Palace, Legendary Runestone]


There’s more of these, but we’ll let you discover them in your own playthrough.



[Image: Lute, Flute, Shawm, Hurdy Gurdy, Qanun in back]


While working with El Tyranos with the recent content creator pack the environment team also collaborated with him to bring a set of new instruments into the game for courtiers and rulers to bring some music and levity, and for minstrels to spread legends and great deeds.

A ubiquitous instrument in many musical traditions, the flute has been a part of human history for millennia. While many of us first encounter music through the recorder, a flute variant, the broader family of flutes offers a diverse range of sounds. The flute's origins can be traced globally, with evidence of similar instruments found across various cultures. Its simple yet elegant design and versatility make it a staple in both classical and contemporary music.

The hurdy-gurdy, popular until the 19th century and experiencing a resurgence, is recognized for its distinctive drone. Its mechanism involves a rotating wheel running along the strings, making it a precursor to modern violins and influencing the design of the nyckelharpa.

A stringed instrument associated with minstrel songs of the Middle Ages, evolved from the medieval Islamic oud. It has a versatile range, transcending time and leaving a mark on musical history. The lute is synonymous with troubadours and courtly melodies.

A woodwind instrument and precursor to the modern oboe, gained popularity from the later Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Its distinctive double reed and conical bore contributed to the development of subsequent woodwind instruments. The shawm's vibrant tones were integral to courtly festivities and religious ceremonies during its heyday.

The qanun is an Arabic harp-like instrument with origins dating back to antiquity. It holds a significant place in the musical traditions of the middle east and has influenced a diverse array of musical instruments globally. The qanun's intricate design and delicate strings produce a sound that echoes with the rich history of ancient musical craftsmanship.

All of these instruments will also be found as animation options in the barber shop.


[...Anyway, here’s wonderwall]

And with that it's time for us to wrap up today’s Dev Diary, more interesting things will be coming next week when we’ll be talking more about Plagues, the Black Death, Funerals, Mod support and showcasing new Character Art (that’d make Papa Nurgle proud).

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Write glorious new sagas of military conquest and romantic adventures with Chapter III.
This Chapter includes two expansions, one event pack, and one cosmetic enhancement. Enjoy new mechanics, new events, and new historical flavor to add greater depth to Crusader Kings III!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/38036

Hello everybody! Welcome to this Developer Diary explaining the creative vision behind Crusader Kings III’s first Core Expansion: Legends of the Dead, courtesy of one of our talented game designers (and resident historian on medieval plagues!)

► Discuss Dev Diary #144 on our forums!




In the year of the lord 1346 the Crimean port of Caffa was being besieged by the Golden Horde. The contemporary Italian notary de Mussis writes down that diseased corpses were thrown over its walls and thus, the Black Plague entered Europe. That same year, Edward III of England defeated the forces of king Philip VI of France in Crecy. Two years later, Edward would try to create the Order of the Round Table, inspired by the heroic deeds of King Arthur, and later transformed into the Order of the Garter.

As our Game Director already mentioned in last week's Chapter III overview, we're exploring a new type of expansion focusing on systems that affect the whole map, rather than just adding flavor to a specific region. We didn’t have a name for it at the beginning, but we knew we wanted to do something bigger with the time we had, while planning the next Major Expansion.

We've been wanting to cover Plagues since approximately the 12th of January 2021. We still have the early designs stored somewhere, but we put that aside for a while in order to develop the huge endeavor that was Tours & Tournaments. However, the team stayed highly passionate about plagues throughout the entire time (as many of us have fond memories of The Reaper's Due), and we knew it was something that we wanted to tackle again.

Soon after the release of Tours & Tournaments it became apparent that it was the moment to pick up plagues again, but that presented its own challenges, among them a very important one - how to make this distinct from its Crusader Kings II version?

We were also very aware of the circumstances of the world, so we decided it was important to have some hope spreading across the map as well.



When researching the way medieval people saw plagues, we noticed that on many occasions they moved towards blaming the monarchs; If they're a representative of divine power on earth, and God is punishing us, then it must be because the representative is doing a bad job, right? That made us think of the impact that would have on a ruler's Legitimacy... and then we started thinking about Legitimacy itself.

Sure, we already had Prestige in the game, but that felt like a representation of what you've done and how you present yourself, rather than "are you fit to rule?", "do people believe in you?", "are you really the right person for this?" Legitimacy was born as a way to represent these questions within the game, which raised the question: how do you prove your rule is legitimate?

Soon, we thought of the medieval royal genealogies, tracing back the lineages to Trojan heroes, Charlemagne, mythological kings and even gods. Proving that you're the descendant of Aeneas is the easiest way to say, "I am the right person to rule."

"To be noble," the medieval historian George Duby notes, "is to be able to refer to a genealogy."

This, obviously, led us to Legends, and legends certainly did spread during the Middle Ages. King Arthur and his knights became so popular that they soon received translations and new material in French, German, Spanish and Italian. Legends got out of control, changed and expanded through the centuries, creating new stories that had little to do with their original purpose.

In Legends of the Dead, we unite the brightest and darkest moments of humanity - tales of greatness illuminating a devastated land. Desolation and despair, but also the hope that comes after.

Plagues will ravage your realm, causing development to plummet, and kill characters indiscriminately, for Death knows no master. In addition to our existing diseases, you'll be able to suffer from Holy Fire, Bloody Flux, and Measles. Holy Fire was the medieval name for ergotism, while outbreaks of dysentery (frequently occurring in the wake of passing armies) were known as Bloody Flux. Measles in particular is a danger to infants, and could be a dynasty killer if players aren't careful.

We’ll cover these in more detail when we talk about Plagues in a later Dev Diary, however.



[Image: A Consumption outbreak follows the coast of the English Channel]


[Image: New (and full body!) graphics for measles]

Legends will allow you to write down the heroic deeds of your ancestors or sing about your own glory. Cover the map in the stories that you create, gaining powerful control and skill boosts, among other effects.

It’s not just the likes of Hercules who get their own legends, however; being a faithful devotee can also spawn legendary tales of martyrdom and sacrifice. And, of course, you'll be able to trace your Legend back to the most legitimate monarchs of the past. Spreading a Legend (and increasing its quality) will give you unique rewards, such as special Decisions or new Buildings. In such a highly systemic expansion with both Plagues and Legitimacy, Legends also allow for some nice historical flavor and roleplay elements.


[Image: The [/i]Custody of the Holy Site legend spreads over Galicia]


[Image: A Legendary Statue built to commemorate a hero's legend]


[Image: A legend turned into an artifact]



We will touch more on Legends and Legitimacy and how they work in-game next week, in addition to a deep dive into the heroic (and sometimes grimy) art created for this expansion! And worry not, Plagues - the most famous of them all in particular - will receive some more attention soon after.

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Write glorious new sagas of military conquest and romantic adventures with Chapter III.
This Chapter includes two expansions, one event pack, and one cosmetic enhancement. Enjoy new mechanics, new events, and new historical flavor to add greater depth to Crusader Kings III!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/38036

Join the conversation and connect with other Paradox fans on our social media channels! Official Forums Official Discord Steam Discussions Twitter Facebook Instagram Youtube

What good are grand accomplishments and heroic deeds if no one sings of them after you have gone?

Crusader Kings III: Legends of the Dead adds new heroic gameplay, letting you stoke the flames of your legends into a towering bonfire, as the greatest scourge of the Middle Ages strikes down noble and commoner alike.

Prepare your realm and your soul to face the Final Enemy, and live a life worth singing about!

Legends of the Dead releases on March 4th, but you can purchase Chapter III right now to receive all of the content within it as it releases throughout the year.

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Write glorious new sagas of military conquest and romantic adventures with Chapter III.
This Chapter includes two expansions, one event pack, and one cosmetic enhancement. Enjoy new mechanics, new events, and new historical flavor to add greater depth to Crusader Kings III!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/38036

Note from Community Management: If you missed the premiere video for Chapter III, you can see it below!

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Greetings!

I’m Rageair, the Game Director for Crusader Kings III, and today I’m excited to present to you Chapter III - in this Dev Diary we’ll briefly go over the themes of each of the expansions that will make up the full package and take sneak a peek at their features!

Chapter III is definitely our most ambitious chapter yet, with a Core Expansion, Major Expansion, and an Event Pack (as well as an instant chapter unlock!) New ways of playing the game, and big, sweeping systems is the name of the game this year. Let's have a look, shall we!

► Discuss Dev Diary #143 on our forums!



Legends of the Dead is all about the map - specifically that which spreads throughout it! Core Expansions will, as mentioned in previous Dev Diaries, focus on broad systemic changes to the core gameplay loop, or high-impact systems that affect large parts of the game world. As this is our first Core Expansion, we wanted systems that were big and all-encompassing, affecting all rulers on the map in one way or another! With that said, here’s a high-level list of what you will see in the Expansion and its accompanying update:

Tales of your or your ancestors' epic deeds will travel across the map, spreading news of your glory across borders into foreign realms. Embellished tales of heroism or piety were a massive and common part of medieval life, and here we’re allowing you to write your own saga - quite literally! As your legend spreads, a book will be updated with your story - and events you get along the way may allow you to… alter certain aspects to suit you better, after all perhaps it was a dragon that your grandfather slew rather than a bear! The more your legend spreads across the map, and the more rulers that propagate it, the more famed it will become.

Plagues are the second thing that spreads across the map, but unlike legends they are destructive and nefarious - with a promise to shake up the game! Deadly diseases can sweep across your lands, spawned by either random chance or the activity of armies, and they will destroy development and kill characters with a vengeance. All plagues are different, with varying effects - such as consumption ending the lives of elders with haste, measles shortening the lives of children, and Holy Fire (aka the Dancing Plague) making rulers… move erratically. Of course, there will be ways to combat and recover your lands from these terrible maladies!


[Image - One of the ways plagues are visualized]

A looming threat that appears towards the later eras - there is no escape from the Black Death, no matter how much you prepare, the end is nigh!

This is a new measurement of your right to rule and affects a whole host of other systems from factions, vassalization, and even title creation. Of course, this new value will heavily tie into both Legends and Plagues, but also a myriad of other systems. A legitimate ruler will have a much easier time running a realm… but some very tempting actions, such as unrightful title revocation, will decrease legitimacy - making it a precarious balancing act!


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Climbing your way up from Count to Emperor is a challenge - but to claw your way up the treacherous political ladder of the Byzantine bureaucracy or claiming a new realm as a destitute Adventurer are more challenging yet! This Major Expansion introduces two brand new ways of playing the game, one focused on the Administrative governance of Eastern Rome, and the other on traveling the map in search of fame and fortune. These features have been oft-requested since the early days of Crusader Kings, and we thought it high time to do them - we're pulling out all the stops!

Take the reins of a powerful Noble Family within Byzantium and lobby for powerful governorships. Use your influence to improve your standing, improve your estate, and ultimately convince the other families that you should rule as emperor!

Set out across the world as a historical adventurer, one of your own making, or keep playing your beloved character after being unfortunately deposed from your lands! Travel to distant realms, take on contracts, gather friends, wealth, and fame - do mercenary work, or settle in new lands.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that this expansion will be dripping with Byzantine flavor. From imperial fashion to new buildings, historical flavor, beautiful mosaics, and much more - the game will immerse you in the setting with a passion.


[Image - Everyone likes grapes]


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Travel is a mechanic that really connects your characters to the map, and in this Event Pack we want to flesh the mechanic out with even more reasons to travel, and things that can happen on the road - new sights to see, new paths to take, and new stories to weave together into an immersive narrative!

Is it about the journey, or the destination? Your characters can decide for themselves as they engage with a new Traveler Lifestyle!

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The French were a fancy lot, and with this Instant Unlock you can admire their splendor during the high medieval period. As always we’ve put a lot of effort into research to make sure that the clothes are not only glorious, but as historical as we can make them!


That’s it for now! Next week we’ll begin posting Dev Diaries for Legends of the Dead, so keep your eyes out! Also, a reminder that Chapter III is available right now, and if you purchase it now you will immediately get access to the Couture of the Capets (as well as the expansions as soon as they are released, of course!)

We’re very excited to show off the work we’ve done, this really is the biggest chapter we’ve ever done! Until next time!

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Write glorious new sagas of military conquest and romantic adventures with Chapter III.
This Chapter includes two expansions, one event pack, and one cosmetic enhancement. Enjoy new mechanics, new events, and new historical flavor to add greater depth to Crusader Kings III!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/38036

Hello everybody! With Chapter III now available, we're releasing the instant unlock for the expansion pass, Couture of the Capets. We're also adding some models from our Content Creator Pack, North African Attire, as personal and court artifacts for Berber Cultures.

Existing save games should be fully compatible with this update, but any mods that add or alter clothing may need compatibility patches to function properly on this version of the game.

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• Couture of the Capets - Added several new clothing items based on the fashions of High Medieval France.
  
• North African Attire - Made some props available as personal/court artifacts for Berber cultures.

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Write glorious new sagas of military conquest and romantic adventures with Chapter III.
This Chapter includes two expansions, one event pack, and one cosmetic enhancement. Enjoy new mechanics, new events, and new historical flavor to add greater depth to Crusader Kings III!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/38036

Interested in seeing what 2024 will bring to Crusader Kings III? Then be sure to check our YouTube channel on February 6 at 18:00 CET, where our Game Director will be giving a full breakdown of the next content drop for the game as well as an overview of all of the content releasing throughout the year.



Be sure to check out our social media accounts as well, where we're counting down to the reveal with a series of teasers. Join the rest of our community in deciphering the clues and see if you can discover what's coming up next!

Hello everyone! Today we're releasing version 1.11.4 of Crusader Kings III. This update brings in new cosmetics as part of our first Content Creator Pack, North African Attire. See the full changelog below.

As there are no script, code, or database changes, this version should be fully compatible with existing mods and save files.



Added new cosmetics focusing on North African culture.

• 10 new clothing items
  
• 16 new headgear items
  
• New sword and dagger models
  
• New cloaks, legwear, and patterns

A huge thank you goes out to Pierre "El Tyranos" Azuelos for this content pack; we're grateful for the opportunity to work with such a talented 3D artist and we hope we get to collaborate again in the future!

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In the first cosmetic content pack made in co-operation with a member of the Crusader Kings III community, Paradox Interactive joins modder El Tyranos in a Content Creator Pack to add even more style for the game’s characters.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2671030/Crusader_Kings_III_Content_Creator_Pack_North_African_Attire/

Hello and welcome to this developer diary introducing the Crusader Kings III Content Creator Pack: North African Attire, I’m Pierre “El Tyranos” Azuelos and you might already play with some of my work in the Community Flavor Pack mod.

I have been playing Crusader Kings franchise since 2012 and mod my favorite games since 2004. I naturally switched to CK modding as soon as 3D characters were announced. Since then, I have made over 260 models for my mod: headgear, clothes, artifacts, royal courts, ships, props, etc. I also broadcasted several video tutorials to help beginner artists to make their way inside the 3D engine.

Today, Paradox Interactive gives me the opportunity and immense privilege to release an official cosmetic pack for our favorite game, so let’s jump into it in detail!

► Discuss Dev Diary #142 on our forums!



The Content Creator Pack is an initiative that started at PDXCON 2022 when I submitted the idea directly to the Game Director for CKIII, Rageair. The decision to make “North African Attire” came after a process where I pitched different concepts for a Content Creator Pack, developing the philosophy, expectations, interests, risks and scope for 4 options. We then had a meeting diving deeper into what a cultural clothing pack would look like, this time with regional suggestions, and North Africa stood out from the rest. I documented for a few weeks until the project was finally ready to enter production.

The key objective of the project was to create something that added value to the game compared to a mod and blend in seamlessly with the rest of the content. Over the last 4 years, Community Flavor Pack received about 6 original clothings, the remaining ones are vanilla model retextures. Over the 260-ish models from the mod, clothing only represents a dozen. Why? The time and energy investments are barely worth it when you’re doing this for fun and for free. For example, I submitted 8 turbans in this Content Creator Pack that I never did before, because of their complexity. I dedicated more than 2 weeks just to manage to make the first one, see illustration below.


[From left to right: first trial, understanding the workflow, final sculpt of one of the models]

The Content Creator Pack, which becomes officially part of Crusader Kings III, comes with a higher quality standard: more attention to visuals, better optimization, models have all their blendshapes, there is a lot more time spent per asset. Paradox provides Quality Assurance and will offer official support for the content as well.

Why am I saying this? Paradox Interactive trusted me with an ambitious project when I submitted something I still had to prove I could do. Our collaboration was honest and benevolent, my creativity was respected and I tried to do my best in return, they guided me to achieve better visuals all while supporting my initiatives. I've done my best to push the sliders as far as possible, with the weight of not disappointing the community that has always supported my work and within the inherent limit to a commercial project.

The first thing to note is that documentation is woefully lacking, there is, to my knowledge, no surviving artifact but a pair of 11th century shoes. Another terrible fact is that medieval art shows almost no women and no other Berber than Andalusians… used in Fate of Iberia’s documentation!

Fortunately, Berber culture is very unique as it kept its own decorations and fashions all the way up from high antiquity all while being permeable to other cultures it met. This is the concept of “Berber permanence” (Gabriel Camps, 1987) and it helped a lot in the outlining of this DLC. Some simple examples: the traditional woman dress is a Greek peplum, the filigree silver work is Phoenician, the enamel techniques are Roman. Some geometric symbols can even be traced up to the Neolithic! There is obviously a deeper blending after Islamic conquests but no replacement, it is even considered that the Islamic art built upon the Berber abstracted symbols in its early stages.

What you will see below is only an abstract of the content pack, not everything is presented. As a matter of numbers, the production took 6 months - on top of my work and family life - and there are 33 new models added to the game.

I have done my best to represent an authentic version of the Berbers in the Middle Ages, with obvious biases due to the lack of sources. I hope you'll be able to get past my misinterpretations.



[Photos: Berber Arts Museum of Marrakech; “Berber memories: women and jewelry in Morocco”, Michel Draguet, 2020.]

This is a typical North African attire from the Atlas: the loubane amber necklace is prominent and the massive silver fibulas are holding the elhaf together, striking the eye with beautiful abstract engravings. The elhaf is a Dorian-style peplum and the appearance of this type of fibula dates back to the Bronze Age in the Maghreb (Camps-Fabrer, 1964). The tamizart cloak is stripped, similar to a 4-6th century BC artwork found in the Tumulus of Djorf Torba in Algeria (illustration).



[Photos by Michel Draguet, 2020; Illustration by Emile Galois, 1946]

At the royalty tier, the look is largely different. She wears a shirt under her elhaf, the fibulas are featuring enamel and complex silver filigree, representative of the Souss valley. The circlet is a talgamout with three hinged silver plates and glass cabochons, representative of the Tagmout tribe located in the central anti-atlas. Anti-atlas has always been a refuge against persecutions. It’s considered as a conservatory of the Berber culture as the weather is harsh and access is difficult, allowing vernacular forms of dress and ornamentation to survive. The top right image is a high-definition sculpture I made from the reference.



[Photos: Michel Draguet, 2020]

Imperial headwear (left) is a Taounza, again from the Souss valley while high nobility’s coin diadem is from Dadès valley in the High Atlas. As you can see the styles are completely different. Actually, there are so many styles with their own uniqueness and beauty that it was a nightmare to decide which one should make it into the project and at what tier.




Knights outfit was way more straight forward. It is based on a wall painting of Muslim knights during the conquest of Majorca, created around 1285 and conserved in Barcelona. The sword is a Tuareg takouba. Current learned opinion is that these swords are a distinct and entirely indigenous African type, although speculations of possible influence from Spain via the Almoravides in the 11th Century (Nicolaisen, 1997).



[Illustrations: Arab bearded scribe. He wears a turban tied around a conical cap. Cappella Palatina, Palermo, Sicily (1131-1140) and Drawing of Man with Lamp, Fustat, Fatimid Egypt, 11th Century. Keir Collection No. 75781]

Commoners wear a pointy hat with a tassel, held in place by a turban. Conical hats are widespread across North Africa, as seen on those paintings.



[Illustrations: Spanish Codices, 11th and 12th century; Men-at-Arms N°348, Osprey editions, 2001; “Costumes of Morocco”, Jean Besancenot, 1990]

Low nobles wear two kinds of wicker hats called tarazas. One is Algerian and the other one featured here is Moroccan. The hat is carried above the turban. This is a unisex fashion, and the oldest representations are in Andalusian art (Weiditz, 1530). The tunic is a jillaba, a long, loose-fitting unisex outer robe with full sleeves. Almost all djellabas of both styles (men or women) include a baggy hood called a qob. The hood has a different color and the cut is one of a city dweller, the most widespread.



[Illustrations: Sala de Los Reyes, Alhambra, 14th century]

This sultan carries a Tuareg tagelmust or litham with a golden plate showing his wealth, the litham became a distinctive sign of the Almoravids, meaning its wearer should be treated with honor and respect.
He also wears a kaftan based on the surviving marlota of Boabdil (Nasrid Dynasty). Interestingly, the modern “style of Rabat” kaftan looks a lot like it. In Morocco, the kaftan is a very old tradition, deeply rooted in the country's clothing habits. It is a unisex clothing that soon became a symbol of power and wealth among the moors, worn by royals, even up to the queen Isabella as she conquered Granada in 1492. However, the evolution and adaptation as a ceremonial dress for women has made it a very different garment from the Persian and Ottoman ones.



The pack finally includes a new feature (special_genes) which allows headgears to deform when a character has a long beard. It allows for models to get out of the way, reduces the amount of clipping and gives them a more organic look.



While I can only invite you to read and learn about this extremely rich culture, I hope you enjoy looking at characters’ garments during your next playthrough in North Africa.

Finally, I’d like to thank Paradox Interactive for the trust they put in this project as well as for the opportunity to bring my work to the next level. I extend all my gratitude to the members of the community, your support over the last few years helped me to continue working and honing my skills.

--Pierre

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In the first cosmetic content pack made in co-operation with a member of the Crusader Kings III community, Paradox Interactive joins modder El Tyranos in a Content Creator Pack to add even more style for the game’s characters.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2671030/Crusader_Kings_III_Content_Creator_Pack_North_African_Attire/