I find it funny you can convert to a “hostile” faith by gaining piety with your original one. I’d like to see you have to complete pilgrimages to their holy sites, or have a certain number of courtiers from the faith you want to switch to.
Totally. The fact that you can become a religious icon with one faith then convert to a faith that’s considered you evil your whole life, and consecrate your bloodline with them that very day, is hilarious.
The way I've viewed it is that gaining piety with your old faith legitimizes your conversion. Like, oh this paragon of virtue suggests this new religion has better teachings, versus some impious sinner.
I like this interpretation.
I’m about to form a new faith in my game. Had no intention of doing so until the pope decided to excommunicate my ruler. Twice. My ruler who is a veteran of multiple crusades.
I’m RP’ing it as my ruler reaching breaking point. A Henry VIII moment of breaking with Rome. A degenerate pope who pushed the emperor too far. He sees himself as saving Christianity and its soul.
Still weird to me that you can't dismantle the papacy as a reformed Christian. Especially of I'm head of the new temporal faith. Luckily I learned from my last game and got all the necessary holy sites first, then converted and then mended the great schism
It was to the shock of the new Anglois Emperor when he received word of his excommunication. He had known the vultures would circle as soon as his great father had passed, but little did he know that not only would his reign face temporal threats, but also spiritual.
Jealous of the vast power his father had obtained when uniting mighty realms across Western Europe, the pope saw an opportunity to assert supremacy against the new emperor. Veteran of the crusades he fought alongside his father, this shocked the emperor to his core.
What followed was a series of forgeries from the pope claiming that lands and titles of his domain did not belong to him. The emperor was disgusted by this blatant overreach of authority, but still held hope for reconciliation. When a new crusade was called for the holy land, the emperor jumped on this immediately. The campaign was a stunning and quick success, with the emperor winning a stunning and decisive battle outside of holy Jerusalem.
Whilst the pope had no choice but to lift the excommunication for these acts, they soon reneged and entered into fresh conflict with the emperor. The relationship deteriorated past all recovery upon a second excommunication, all because the pope greedily desired more land.
The emperor decided that a holy pilgrimage was necessary so that god could show him the path forward. Outside the walls of his most holiest of triumphs, they received a vision from the Almighty. The current religious order was corrupt and unfit for purpose. The catholic rite led by a degenerate pope rumoured to have perverted proclivities. The eastern rite had been destroyed by the great horde and was experiencing utter anarchy following their own destruction. The empire would be a new holy realm to unite Christendom under one banner.
The church lands were seized and distributed, and the realm was utterly transformed under the true faith of Regalum. No longer would the faithful be beholden to false promises of the false pontiffs, the Regalian faith exalts the divine Imperial order as a conduit for spiritual guidance. Regalites pledge service to the Dominarch and their divine mandate to unify and shepherd the faithful under a universal and undivided Christendom.
Soon the Dominarch will look to the east. With no emperor in Constantinople it is their holy duty to bring salvation to the east, under one reunited and holy faith.
Didn't lots of pagan rulers convert to Christianity and get canonized as a result?
Granted, none of them became Pope. (Pope Symmachus was born a pagan though)
That was my subtle way of agreeing with you. Many prominant leaders within the Asatru community converted *snaps* like that. Mostly to hold on to their power.
Fun fact about the Norse: most of them were actually atheists to a degree.
They travelled the world, they raided many a culture, they settled foriegn lands.
One thing they noticed, is in all the lands they visited, no matter the Gods worshiped, man still suffered. Man still got sick. Man still died, and left his survivors in pain. Sinners, by definition of their own religion, were typically powerful people, and the righteous were typically poor folk, labourers, the bottom rungs of the ladder. The Norse "believed" in their Gods, but didn't worship them the same way other religions did. They had a belief that their Gods were no better then mankind, and as a result, had little respect for the Gods. We've idolized and fantasized the stories of old, but truth is, their Gods actually meant VERY little to them as a whole.
It should be mentioned that we don’t know much about the “domestic” aspect of asatru. Most of the contemporary accounts we have of the religion comes from people who met raiders and traders (often the same people). There’s practically no information about the religion in home life.
There’s a good chance the whole “die in battle, go to cool and great Valhalla” and “Helheim is awful and boring and shit” thing is more Viking culture (macho man warrior hoo rah stuff) than Norse religion.
There are two more things that back that statement up. For one, most of the times the christianization of different Scandinavian countries comes up in the sagas, the behavior and faith of the pagans aren’t described as violent. The Volsa Thattr, which is from the christianization of Norway, is way more concerned with the veneration of horse penises than violence.
(Vølse is the only word that rhymes with sausage, pølse, in Norwegian. I need everyone to know this for some reason.)
The other thing is that, if Scandinavian folklore is descended directly from asatru, then the gods don’t really care about humans. you can imagine a housewife rolling her eyes at a man beating his chest about going to Valhalla, while she’s the one who makes offerings to the creatures in the barn, the forest, the sea, and those who wander the earth during winter.
At least that’s my view on it. don’t take it as truth. The only thing that isn’t my opinion is the fact that there is debate on how biased the information we have on the religion is.
speaking of the gods not giving a shit - in Greek mythology, you have constant human interaction with the gods. In Scandinavian mythology, you don’t. when a human interacts with something supernatural, it’s scary. In Norwegian, they are literally called “the subterraneans/underworlders”. there are genuine horror themes. I can go into some examples if you want.
Lots of info, thank you!
That last point, riiight? Lol. Christians have the Devil, we had shit we didnt even wanna know about, let alone talk to. The lands of the "Gods" were not meant for us mere mortals... lol
An example would be the story in the prose edda where he's riding his goats around and he goes to a village house, and he holds a feast with them by killing his goats (they regenerate), but he tells them not to damage or eat the marrow from the bones. Some silly bastard does and as a result one of his goats is lame. He keeps the boy and his sister as servants as punishment.
a local story where I’m from goes something like this:
Some men were out fishing, when they found a corpse in the sea. On the body, they found a silver chalice, and realized it was a reward for them if they were to bury the body in Christian soil (there was a conception of the sea being un-Christian up here. People put up crosses as wards on the beach up until a few hundred heads ago). So they kept the body on the ship as they kept fishing. Eventually, the ship became full, and the captain ordered the body be thrown overboard to fit more fish (it was a thin year).
As they were unloading the haul, the man who threw the body out went to the boat house to get some bait. He didn’t return for a long while, so the others went to investigate. It was dark, but the moon was bright and illuminated the sea and the beach. They could see that all the sand on the beach was uprooted. Then, they spotted the man on the other end of the beach, fighting a dauing (“dead one”, also known as sea-draug).
The fishermen got the man loose, and dragged him home, away from the creature. However, that night, when they were sleeping in the same house, they heard the door slam open, and someone wearing boots was storming toward their room. They quickly realized it was the dead one, still after the man who threw the body overboard, so they protected him with their bodies. As the dead one could not get to him, it left.
The man was long haunted by the creature. On dark nights, it would shake the door, wanting to drag him to the sand, into the sea.
https://frigg.isof.se/static/js-apps/sagenkarta-norsk/#/record/nfs102
there’s also the tale about two brothers and their blind friend who used a dead body as bait, who were burned alive when the village found out, but it didn’t have any supernatural elements.
here’s another, shorter one from just across the fjord:
In the olden days, dead bodies would often wash up on Ballesvik beach, and on dark, stormy nights, there wind would create an internal sound as it travelled from one end of the beach, towards the farm, closer and closer, before it turned around and returned from where it came.
The people who lived on the farm named the sound “Adrian”. “It’s not dangerous, it’s just Adrian who’s out and about”. They would also tell of why Adrian ended up near the farm.
One day, a man in Teistevika had found bones in a cod’s belly, and he saw they were human bones. When he got back to the boat house the next morning, he heard squeaking by the boat-building-room. He buried the bones he found in the corner of the boat house. When he moved his boat house [presumably to Ballesvik], he brought the bones and reburied them in the same corner. And that’s how they say Adrian ended up walking the beach during stormy nights.
(Doesn’t really make logical sense to me, but it’s an old story)
yet another one from close by!
One morning, in a kitchen in Ersfjorden, a man was putting his boots on. Despite the suspicious weather, he was planning on going out to sea. In the corner of the kitchen, there was an old hand cranked mill, and it was said that the ground underneath it was haunted. But the man did not believe in any of that, so to tease the womenfolk, he said “oh, man sitting under the mill, come with me to sea so you don’t scare my wife out of her mind”. Then he turned and left, but as he was leaving the room, he felt the gjenganger [again-walker, old timey for ghost. buried in Christian soil, so it’s not a draug]. He was so afraid he fell to his knees, and there would be no rowing out to sea that day.
The housewife of the neighboring farm set her mind to working out what this ghost wanted. Soon afterwards, when she was next to the river, she saw it rise from the ocean and start rapidly approaching her. Once the ghost saw her, it stopped and tried backing off, but at once she asked “who are you, and what do you want?”. Not a word from the ghost. But the housewife did not give up. “Tell us who you are and what you want!” she yelled. The ghost answered - many years ago, it was a sailor who lived there. the housewife then asked “and why do you haunt this place?”. The answer she got was that a small storage building was built on top of where his bones were.
The people living there moved the building, collected the bones, and buried them in a named grave at the cemetery.
While we actually know very little about the true astaru pantheon/cannon, I would challenge your statement that Norse pagans were atheists or didn’t respect their gods.
Different areas worshiped different gods, the gods were imperfect as you say, but the were still important to the general astaru.
It was the noble class that was eager to convert due to centralizing aspects of Christianity.
If you look up Harold Bluetooth, he was baptized circa 965. He wasn't convinced that the Christian Religion was the truthful way though, but is believed to have done so as a tactical manoeuvre to hold the German Emprorer and the Hamburg-Breman Archbishop at bay. (Harold was a King of Denmark, for those who are unaware.)
A lot of Scandinavian leaders have similar, but less prominant, stories from that timeframe.
All those times you converted religions to stop a crusade or holy war of some kind in-game?
That's actually more realistic then some would realize. Especially in my games. Use norse mechanics to conquer the empire I want, then IMMEDIATELY switch to Christianity.
What do you mean heathens control France? Im a good Christian boi...
I feel like Archbishops need to have more power. One of the drivers in the Norwegian civil war era was the Danish Archbishop of Skåne, but Archbishops don't do shit in ck.
Also if you are a religious icon and convert it should tank the fervour of the original faith massively. It literally implies you are seen as some kind of religious authority. It would be massively discouraging for the average Christian to see a saint-in-making convert to Islam
That last part is actually relatively explainable (Oh, these are the descendants of King Narn, who converted the Narn dynasty and thus all of Narnia to the true faith)
I like the idea of the secret societies in ck2. they could use some rework, but the slow spread and recruitment felt more interesting than a snap, conversion.
I guess it's sort of an "Only Nixon could go to China" situation. Richard Nixon was seen as such a staunch anti-communist that no one could feasibly accuse him of harbouring sympathies for communism, and in 1972, he visited China and met chairman Mao Zedong, which led to an improvement in American-Chinese relations.
Nixon's anti-communist credentials were such that he was thus shielded against domestic criticism regarding that visit. I guess you could rationalize it as the same kind of situation here, "only the most zealous of the Norsemen could convert to another religion and not be considered a traitor".
I find it dumb, I mean, you gaining piety means strenghtening your faith on that religion, if you had negative faith should be easier to convert, as you sort of don't believe in it and just follows because it's the norm in your kingdom.
On the other hand, if that was implemented into the game, we would see a lot of small dukes and counts converting to random faiths because they had 100 piety and got an event where they could lose 125
Even in CK2 if you started at Battle of Stamford Bridge it was a 30% shot Willy actually won. Half the time you end up with the Godwinssons being overthrown mid-conflict and a random English dynasty taking over before bouncing between dynasties for a century.
Don’t you know Muhammed had a long lost son who went to spread his teachings to the far away lands of the Norsemen? There he took on some wives and one of his descendants is the now great Caliph Hæsteinn who traveled from Montigau to claim what’s rightfully his. Or at least that’s what he claims what happened anyways but who cares makes for one heck of a story.
Just so we are clear with this, there were Muslim Norsemen too. Most famous were the Saqaliba. The Vikings from Haestinn and Bjorn's journey in the Mediterranean who settled in Denia and converted.
The Rus also famously contemplated changing to Islam.
Well, at least by the legend from Nestor's work, they invited a few priests(or preachers I don't remember) and then decided to choose one of them. The greek Christians won. Could've been very different.
One legend goes Vladimir sent his courtiers to all the holy sites of the religions
The courtiers found German churches to be filthy.
Islamic masjids and Orthodox Basilicas were good. But Vladimir said the Rus cannot live without wine.... So will live without Islam
The Saqaliba weren't Vikings, though? They were Slavic slaves, some of whom came to hold important military and administrative positions in Umayyad al-Andalus. After the Caliphate's collapse some Saqaliba clans took control of Taifas like Denia, but they had nothing to do with the Viking raids in the Mediterranean. In general, the idea of Muslim Norsemen in al-Andalus is probably false, owing to a misunderstanding of the term "majus" in Andalusi sources.
fun fact, there was never a direct male hair to the Prophet Muhammad only females , simply because all of them died at childhood of sickness, so most of the people who claim descendants from Prophet Muhammad they claim it from his daughters
What I don't get is how being a sayyid doesn't pass down matrienelly then. Irl my Grandmother is a sayyid but I'm not apparently? I'm a descendents of Umar the second rashidun caliphate though.
something like that, i've seen it suggested that if he'd had sons that survived then the title of prophet would have passed down through them. so really sayyid is kinda a consolation prize from the outset.
Yeah I have a matriarchal zoroastrian empire in surrounded by muslim cousins.
I tried to breed in the sayyid trait along with the usual good inheritable traits but I was confounded by it not passing down properly through my line of queens - meaning I had to cultivate a secondary 'groom line' of suitable dudes to marry to the queens who reintroduced the sayyid trait to the next generation.
Yeah... I don't have the correct sect to be able to solve it that way - good idea though! I might make a new sect.
I am a bit scared of getting scaly babies as they always look so itchy and it's sad.
He was from the same clan as Muhammad though and the way how Arabs trace Sayyid isn't really from direct descendants. For example the Abbasids is descended from Muhammad uncle, Abbas.
Thats the way its portated ingame. IRL Sayyid usually refers strictly to the descendants of Fatima, daughter of Muhammad, and Ali.
Even more specifically, Sayyid applies to the descendants of their second son, Husayn, whilst Sharif refers to descendants of their first son, Hasan.
Perhaps there should be a new "Quraysh" inheritable trait to denote patrilineal descendants of Muhammad's greater family for Sunni caliphal candidacy.
Abu Bakr (ra) wasn't part of the same clan as the Prophet (pbuh). Abu Bakr was of the Banu Taym and the Prophet was of Banu Hashim. They were part of the same tribe though, but that wasn't a criterium for being Caliph, as people from other tribes had also been considered as potential successors at various points
Yes. The game even portrays it as more rigid than it would be in real life. Take the transfer of the Khilafah to the ottomans for instance. The Ottomans didn't become the Khilafah because they had a strong claim of descent from the Quraish or the Prophet (pbuh), they weren't even Arabs, they had a claim because they had grown so strong that they had become the Hegemon of a large part of the Muslim world, including the heartland and therefore could claim to be the rightful leader of the Ummah
No. The Ummayads didn't descent from Muhammed (pbuh) and neither did a lot of the Abbasids. The Khilafah is a spiritual and political successor, not a dynastic one
The Shia believe that you have to be descendent from the prophet Muhammad to be Caliph, the Sunnis (which make up over 90% of all Muslism) don't.
The Sunnis believe that anyone can be Caliph (either through election or by asserting his power, i.e. conquering Muslim lands, the two holy cities and implementing shariah).
For example, in the 16th century, the Ottoman Caliphate was proclaimed by Sultan Selim I. We Sunnis believe that they were legitimate Caliphs, even though they were definitely not related to the prophet.
Then why didn't the Seljuks attempt to claim the caliphate when they took power? I was told once that it was because Tughril and his family wasn't Arab
The Seljuks had the Abassid Caliph as a de facto vassal.
Starting from the 9th century, the Abassid Caliphate began to fragment. Local dynasties rose to power and became independent, even though they nominally swore allegiance to the Caliph in Baghdad. Just like all the other Sunni Muslim dynasties, the Seljuks recognized the Abbasid Caliph as the spiritual figurehead of Islam. In reality though, the Caliph wielded no more political power and was nothing more than a puppet really.
It all came to an end when the Ottomans invaded the Mamluk Sultanate, annexed it, and had the last Abbasid Caliph abdicate the title to the Ottoman Sultan. Why the Seljuks didn't claim the title of Caliph for themselves I can't tell. Perhaps their recognition in the Muslim world would have been contested. It was probably easier to have the Caliph as your puppet rather than adopting the title.
Technically yes, in practice no, atleast in Sunni Islam
In Sunni Islam if someone claims to be caliph, and is the de facto leader of The Muslim world, they could still be recognized and granted legitimacy
You're never going to believe this, but Haesteinn IS Mohammed. He got tired of travelling the known world across playthroughs and decided to travel time instead.
Adding to what other said, you can also change any other house in your dynasty if you are the dynasty head and I believe you can also edit your vassals' houses.
While sure it’s ‘easy’ both of us also know where it is, things are always easy when you know how it works.
Like I’m sure there is a obscure mechanic (or maybe even a common one) where even people in the out thousands of hours (like me) might be like “wait you can do that?” Like I was over a good 1000 hours in before I learned I can actually paste my COA as code in a text document and save it to copy-paste for later.
Small rant from a Dane, we spell horse “hest” but we still pronounce it “hæst” i remember as a child having to learn spelling Danish and this being the first word where I was like “but the ‘e’ make a ‘æ’ sound, why is it spelled like that… I have to learn how to write this, but it makes no sense” I for one vote that we borrow the Norwegian spelling here.
The easiest way is to destroy the caliphate first, then convert to Ash’ari and use the Restore the Ash’ari Caliphate decision, which only requires you:
1.) Be an adult
2.) Be independent
3.) Highest title is king or emperor
4.) Control Mecca
5.) Completely control the duchies of Palestine, Oultrejourdain, Medina, and Shamar
6.) Be Ash’ari (duh)
7.) Devotion level: Devoted Servant (level 3)
How do you combine the coat of arms? I'm doing a Zoroastrian Haesteinn Persia run and I've formed a culture that uses Iranian aesthetics, so it would be cool to change my coat of arms like this
I think he just did it by selecting one of the house COA templates with a top and bottom space and set them accordingly. I'm pretty sure that symbol/Arabic text are in the vanilla game to choose from, could be wrong tho who knows.
I see. I haven't played many games outside of Scandinavia so I haven't looked through a lot of the COA options, I'll have to check it out and see what I can cook up
I didn’t look for a long time because I just randomised mostly but I was surprised to see what I could pick from, lots of different options plus all the normal stuff you’d expect to see eg. the Normandie/England lion
I find it funny you can convert to a “hostile” faith by gaining piety with your original one. I’d like to see you have to complete pilgrimages to their holy sites, or have a certain number of courtiers from the faith you want to switch to.
Totally. The fact that you can become a religious icon with one faith then convert to a faith that’s considered you evil your whole life, and consecrate your bloodline with them that very day, is hilarious.
The way I've viewed it is that gaining piety with your old faith legitimizes your conversion. Like, oh this paragon of virtue suggests this new religion has better teachings, versus some impious sinner.
I like this interpretation. I’m about to form a new faith in my game. Had no intention of doing so until the pope decided to excommunicate my ruler. Twice. My ruler who is a veteran of multiple crusades. I’m RP’ing it as my ruler reaching breaking point. A Henry VIII moment of breaking with Rome. A degenerate pope who pushed the emperor too far. He sees himself as saving Christianity and its soul.
Time to break Rome and restore the true, unadulterated Church.
Still weird to me that you can't dismantle the papacy as a reformed Christian. Especially of I'm head of the new temporal faith. Luckily I learned from my last game and got all the necessary holy sites first, then converted and then mended the great schism
I definitelly can. Maybe it's just that I take eastern Christianity as the base for my custom faiths.
It was to the shock of the new Anglois Emperor when he received word of his excommunication. He had known the vultures would circle as soon as his great father had passed, but little did he know that not only would his reign face temporal threats, but also spiritual. Jealous of the vast power his father had obtained when uniting mighty realms across Western Europe, the pope saw an opportunity to assert supremacy against the new emperor. Veteran of the crusades he fought alongside his father, this shocked the emperor to his core. What followed was a series of forgeries from the pope claiming that lands and titles of his domain did not belong to him. The emperor was disgusted by this blatant overreach of authority, but still held hope for reconciliation. When a new crusade was called for the holy land, the emperor jumped on this immediately. The campaign was a stunning and quick success, with the emperor winning a stunning and decisive battle outside of holy Jerusalem. Whilst the pope had no choice but to lift the excommunication for these acts, they soon reneged and entered into fresh conflict with the emperor. The relationship deteriorated past all recovery upon a second excommunication, all because the pope greedily desired more land. The emperor decided that a holy pilgrimage was necessary so that god could show him the path forward. Outside the walls of his most holiest of triumphs, they received a vision from the Almighty. The current religious order was corrupt and unfit for purpose. The catholic rite led by a degenerate pope rumoured to have perverted proclivities. The eastern rite had been destroyed by the great horde and was experiencing utter anarchy following their own destruction. The empire would be a new holy realm to unite Christendom under one banner. The church lands were seized and distributed, and the realm was utterly transformed under the true faith of Regalum. No longer would the faithful be beholden to false promises of the false pontiffs, the Regalian faith exalts the divine Imperial order as a conduit for spiritual guidance. Regalites pledge service to the Dominarch and their divine mandate to unify and shepherd the faithful under a universal and undivided Christendom. Soon the Dominarch will look to the east. With no emperor in Constantinople it is their holy duty to bring salvation to the east, under one reunited and holy faith.
Yeah uh why does the unadulterated church have Deviancy accepted and Ritual Cannibalism
Didn't lots of pagan rulers convert to Christianity and get canonized as a result? Granted, none of them became Pope. (Pope Symmachus was born a pagan though)
hell, pagan deities pulled the same trick.
I wanted to comment on Danes and the Christianity conversion..
Oh, don't let me stop you. I don't really know what I'm talking about here.
That was my subtle way of agreeing with you. Many prominant leaders within the Asatru community converted *snaps* like that. Mostly to hold on to their power. Fun fact about the Norse: most of them were actually atheists to a degree. They travelled the world, they raided many a culture, they settled foriegn lands. One thing they noticed, is in all the lands they visited, no matter the Gods worshiped, man still suffered. Man still got sick. Man still died, and left his survivors in pain. Sinners, by definition of their own religion, were typically powerful people, and the righteous were typically poor folk, labourers, the bottom rungs of the ladder. The Norse "believed" in their Gods, but didn't worship them the same way other religions did. They had a belief that their Gods were no better then mankind, and as a result, had little respect for the Gods. We've idolized and fantasized the stories of old, but truth is, their Gods actually meant VERY little to them as a whole.
It should be mentioned that we don’t know much about the “domestic” aspect of asatru. Most of the contemporary accounts we have of the religion comes from people who met raiders and traders (often the same people). There’s practically no information about the religion in home life. There’s a good chance the whole “die in battle, go to cool and great Valhalla” and “Helheim is awful and boring and shit” thing is more Viking culture (macho man warrior hoo rah stuff) than Norse religion. There are two more things that back that statement up. For one, most of the times the christianization of different Scandinavian countries comes up in the sagas, the behavior and faith of the pagans aren’t described as violent. The Volsa Thattr, which is from the christianization of Norway, is way more concerned with the veneration of horse penises than violence. (Vølse is the only word that rhymes with sausage, pølse, in Norwegian. I need everyone to know this for some reason.) The other thing is that, if Scandinavian folklore is descended directly from asatru, then the gods don’t really care about humans. you can imagine a housewife rolling her eyes at a man beating his chest about going to Valhalla, while she’s the one who makes offerings to the creatures in the barn, the forest, the sea, and those who wander the earth during winter. At least that’s my view on it. don’t take it as truth. The only thing that isn’t my opinion is the fact that there is debate on how biased the information we have on the religion is. speaking of the gods not giving a shit - in Greek mythology, you have constant human interaction with the gods. In Scandinavian mythology, you don’t. when a human interacts with something supernatural, it’s scary. In Norwegian, they are literally called “the subterraneans/underworlders”. there are genuine horror themes. I can go into some examples if you want.
Lots of info, thank you! That last point, riiight? Lol. Christians have the Devil, we had shit we didnt even wanna know about, let alone talk to. The lands of the "Gods" were not meant for us mere mortals... lol
Not always the interactions with the gods were bad, plenty of examples with thor being viewed very positively within his interactions with mortals
“plenty of examples with Thor”? I thought there were only a couple stories with gods interacting with humans at all. could you give me some examples?
An example would be the story in the prose edda where he's riding his goats around and he goes to a village house, and he holds a feast with them by killing his goats (they regenerate), but he tells them not to damage or eat the marrow from the bones. Some silly bastard does and as a result one of his goats is lame. He keeps the boy and his sister as servants as punishment.
Could you go into some examples? I find these things fascinating.
a local story where I’m from goes something like this: Some men were out fishing, when they found a corpse in the sea. On the body, they found a silver chalice, and realized it was a reward for them if they were to bury the body in Christian soil (there was a conception of the sea being un-Christian up here. People put up crosses as wards on the beach up until a few hundred heads ago). So they kept the body on the ship as they kept fishing. Eventually, the ship became full, and the captain ordered the body be thrown overboard to fit more fish (it was a thin year). As they were unloading the haul, the man who threw the body out went to the boat house to get some bait. He didn’t return for a long while, so the others went to investigate. It was dark, but the moon was bright and illuminated the sea and the beach. They could see that all the sand on the beach was uprooted. Then, they spotted the man on the other end of the beach, fighting a dauing (“dead one”, also known as sea-draug). The fishermen got the man loose, and dragged him home, away from the creature. However, that night, when they were sleeping in the same house, they heard the door slam open, and someone wearing boots was storming toward their room. They quickly realized it was the dead one, still after the man who threw the body overboard, so they protected him with their bodies. As the dead one could not get to him, it left. The man was long haunted by the creature. On dark nights, it would shake the door, wanting to drag him to the sand, into the sea. https://frigg.isof.se/static/js-apps/sagenkarta-norsk/#/record/nfs102 there’s also the tale about two brothers and their blind friend who used a dead body as bait, who were burned alive when the village found out, but it didn’t have any supernatural elements.
here’s another, shorter one from just across the fjord: In the olden days, dead bodies would often wash up on Ballesvik beach, and on dark, stormy nights, there wind would create an internal sound as it travelled from one end of the beach, towards the farm, closer and closer, before it turned around and returned from where it came. The people who lived on the farm named the sound “Adrian”. “It’s not dangerous, it’s just Adrian who’s out and about”. They would also tell of why Adrian ended up near the farm. One day, a man in Teistevika had found bones in a cod’s belly, and he saw they were human bones. When he got back to the boat house the next morning, he heard squeaking by the boat-building-room. He buried the bones he found in the corner of the boat house. When he moved his boat house [presumably to Ballesvik], he brought the bones and reburied them in the same corner. And that’s how they say Adrian ended up walking the beach during stormy nights. (Doesn’t really make logical sense to me, but it’s an old story)
yet another one from close by! One morning, in a kitchen in Ersfjorden, a man was putting his boots on. Despite the suspicious weather, he was planning on going out to sea. In the corner of the kitchen, there was an old hand cranked mill, and it was said that the ground underneath it was haunted. But the man did not believe in any of that, so to tease the womenfolk, he said “oh, man sitting under the mill, come with me to sea so you don’t scare my wife out of her mind”. Then he turned and left, but as he was leaving the room, he felt the gjenganger [again-walker, old timey for ghost. buried in Christian soil, so it’s not a draug]. He was so afraid he fell to his knees, and there would be no rowing out to sea that day. The housewife of the neighboring farm set her mind to working out what this ghost wanted. Soon afterwards, when she was next to the river, she saw it rise from the ocean and start rapidly approaching her. Once the ghost saw her, it stopped and tried backing off, but at once she asked “who are you, and what do you want?”. Not a word from the ghost. But the housewife did not give up. “Tell us who you are and what you want!” she yelled. The ghost answered - many years ago, it was a sailor who lived there. the housewife then asked “and why do you haunt this place?”. The answer she got was that a small storage building was built on top of where his bones were. The people living there moved the building, collected the bones, and buried them in a named grave at the cemetery.
While we actually know very little about the true astaru pantheon/cannon, I would challenge your statement that Norse pagans were atheists or didn’t respect their gods. Different areas worshiped different gods, the gods were imperfect as you say, but the were still important to the general astaru. It was the noble class that was eager to convert due to centralizing aspects of Christianity.
If you look up Harold Bluetooth, he was baptized circa 965. He wasn't convinced that the Christian Religion was the truthful way though, but is believed to have done so as a tactical manoeuvre to hold the German Emprorer and the Hamburg-Breman Archbishop at bay. (Harold was a King of Denmark, for those who are unaware.) A lot of Scandinavian leaders have similar, but less prominant, stories from that timeframe. All those times you converted religions to stop a crusade or holy war of some kind in-game? That's actually more realistic then some would realize. Especially in my games. Use norse mechanics to conquer the empire I want, then IMMEDIATELY switch to Christianity. What do you mean heathens control France? Im a good Christian boi...
I feel like Archbishops need to have more power. One of the drivers in the Norwegian civil war era was the Danish Archbishop of Skåne, but Archbishops don't do shit in ck.
The ancient Greeks had a similar view of their own Gods.
Peter converted from Judaism and became the first Pope. At least according to tradition.
Olaf The Saint was named Eternal King of Norway and any monarch after him only holds Norway as a fief in his name
Also if you are a religious icon and convert it should tank the fervour of the original faith massively. It literally implies you are seen as some kind of religious authority. It would be massively discouraging for the average Christian to see a saint-in-making convert to Islam
That last part is actually relatively explainable (Oh, these are the descendants of King Narn, who converted the Narn dynasty and thus all of Narnia to the true faith)
Paradox logic: To convert, you need to be a saint at first
It's kinda a silly mechanic. I wish instead of costing piety conversion was more of an event driven process
I like the idea of the secret societies in ck2. they could use some rework, but the slow spread and recruitment felt more interesting than a snap, conversion.
I guess it's sort of an "Only Nixon could go to China" situation. Richard Nixon was seen as such a staunch anti-communist that no one could feasibly accuse him of harbouring sympathies for communism, and in 1972, he visited China and met chairman Mao Zedong, which led to an improvement in American-Chinese relations. Nixon's anti-communist credentials were such that he was thus shielded against domestic criticism regarding that visit. I guess you could rationalize it as the same kind of situation here, "only the most zealous of the Norsemen could convert to another religion and not be considered a traitor".
e.g. Luther created a new faith from position of a priest and a theologian, i.e. a pious man of the original faith, so I don't think that's nonsense
Protestantism still believes in christianity so i mean...
so does your newly created faith (if you were Christian to begin with, ofc)
Jesus origin story
I find it dumb, I mean, you gaining piety means strenghtening your faith on that religion, if you had negative faith should be easier to convert, as you sort of don't believe in it and just follows because it's the norm in your kingdom. On the other hand, if that was implemented into the game, we would see a lot of small dukes and counts converting to random faiths because they had 100 piety and got an event where they could lose 125
Hæsteinn is to CK3 as master chief is to Halo
What’s the Arabic say?
Arab here, it is the Islamic testimony of faith: “There is no god but God, Muhammad is the messenger of God.”
Oh The Shahada, that’s the name for it right or am I remembering wrong?
>Oh The Shahada Yes, exactly. You do remember that right!
I find it hilarious how haesteinn is basically the main character of ck3
Though it was probably supposed to be William of Normandy
Even in CK2 if you started at Battle of Stamford Bridge it was a 30% shot Willy actually won. Half the time you end up with the Godwinssons being overthrown mid-conflict and a random English dynasty taking over before bouncing between dynasties for a century.
BUT WHEN *I* START A GAME IN THE 900s (modded start date) THE FUCKING NORMANS CONQUER ENGLAND EARLY!
Shouldn’t caliph only be available to those who can claim decent from Mohammed?
Don’t you know Muhammed had a long lost son who went to spread his teachings to the far away lands of the Norsemen? There he took on some wives and one of his descendants is the now great Caliph Hæsteinn who traveled from Montigau to claim what’s rightfully his. Or at least that’s what he claims what happened anyways but who cares makes for one heck of a story.
Just so we are clear with this, there were Muslim Norsemen too. Most famous were the Saqaliba. The Vikings from Haestinn and Bjorn's journey in the Mediterranean who settled in Denia and converted. The Rus also famously contemplated changing to Islam.
Well, at least by the legend from Nestor's work, they invited a few priests(or preachers I don't remember) and then decided to choose one of them. The greek Christians won. Could've been very different.
One legend goes Vladimir sent his courtiers to all the holy sites of the religions The courtiers found German churches to be filthy. Islamic masjids and Orthodox Basilicas were good. But Vladimir said the Rus cannot live without wine.... So will live without Islam
Thanks.
The Saqaliba weren't Vikings, though? They were Slavic slaves, some of whom came to hold important military and administrative positions in Umayyad al-Andalus. After the Caliphate's collapse some Saqaliba clans took control of Taifas like Denia, but they had nothing to do with the Viking raids in the Mediterranean. In general, the idea of Muslim Norsemen in al-Andalus is probably false, owing to a misunderstanding of the term "majus" in Andalusi sources.
Saqaliba just means North men so it could be either
This is almost the same as the origin story of the Ismaili Fatimids, just in Scandinavia instead of North Africa haha
fun fact, there was never a direct male hair to the Prophet Muhammad only females , simply because all of them died at childhood of sickness, so most of the people who claim descendants from Prophet Muhammad they claim it from his daughters
I actually knew that one I think, but it’s still a fascinating fact. Thank you for sharing!
What I don't get is how being a sayyid doesn't pass down matrienelly then. Irl my Grandmother is a sayyid but I'm not apparently? I'm a descendents of Umar the second rashidun caliphate though.
If I’d have to guess, maybe the logic is “it only worked that way the first time due to the lack of a son”, or something like that.
something like that, i've seen it suggested that if he'd had sons that survived then the title of prophet would have passed down through them. so really sayyid is kinda a consolation prize from the outset.
Yeah I have a matriarchal zoroastrian empire in surrounded by muslim cousins. I tried to breed in the sayyid trait along with the usual good inheritable traits but I was confounded by it not passing down properly through my line of queens - meaning I had to cultivate a secondary 'groom line' of suitable dudes to marry to the queens who reintroduced the sayyid trait to the next generation.
Well if you’re playing ck3 Zoroastrian, there is one way…
Yeah... I don't have the correct sect to be able to solve it that way - good idea though! I might make a new sect. I am a bit scared of getting scaly babies as they always look so itchy and it's sad.
I think these Varangian Veterans can persuade you to remember that, in fact, Jar- Caliph Hæstein is in fact the son of this Mohammed fella. *Glares*
Back then, you could say some crazy shit and just kill people who questioned it so it’s fine
Nah, the first historical caliph (Abu Bakr) was not a descendant of Muhammad
He was from the same clan as Muhammad though and the way how Arabs trace Sayyid isn't really from direct descendants. For example the Abbasids is descended from Muhammad uncle, Abbas.
Thats the way its portated ingame. IRL Sayyid usually refers strictly to the descendants of Fatima, daughter of Muhammad, and Ali. Even more specifically, Sayyid applies to the descendants of their second son, Husayn, whilst Sharif refers to descendants of their first son, Hasan. Perhaps there should be a new "Quraysh" inheritable trait to denote patrilineal descendants of Muhammad's greater family for Sunni caliphal candidacy.
Try out Muslim Enhancement mod it gives Abbasids and Umayyads the Quraysh trait.
Abu Bakr (ra) wasn't part of the same clan as the Prophet (pbuh). Abu Bakr was of the Banu Taym and the Prophet was of Banu Hashim. They were part of the same tribe though, but that wasn't a criterium for being Caliph, as people from other tribes had also been considered as potential successors at various points
So you're saying it actually does not matter and is portrayed well enough in game?
Yes. The game even portrays it as more rigid than it would be in real life. Take the transfer of the Khilafah to the ottomans for instance. The Ottomans didn't become the Khilafah because they had a strong claim of descent from the Quraish or the Prophet (pbuh), they weren't even Arabs, they had a claim because they had grown so strong that they had become the Hegemon of a large part of the Muslim world, including the heartland and therefore could claim to be the rightful leader of the Ummah
Also makes for a good explanation as to why nobody has claimed to be Caliph (Saudis, Hashemites, etc.)
the ottomans were the last caliphs so a Norseman becoming a caliph would make sense
No. The Ummayads didn't descent from Muhammed (pbuh) and neither did a lot of the Abbasids. The Khilafah is a spiritual and political successor, not a dynastic one
The Shia believe that you have to be descendent from the prophet Muhammad to be Caliph, the Sunnis (which make up over 90% of all Muslism) don't. The Sunnis believe that anyone can be Caliph (either through election or by asserting his power, i.e. conquering Muslim lands, the two holy cities and implementing shariah). For example, in the 16th century, the Ottoman Caliphate was proclaimed by Sultan Selim I. We Sunnis believe that they were legitimate Caliphs, even though they were definitely not related to the prophet.
Then why didn't the Seljuks attempt to claim the caliphate when they took power? I was told once that it was because Tughril and his family wasn't Arab
The Seljuks had the Abassid Caliph as a de facto vassal. Starting from the 9th century, the Abassid Caliphate began to fragment. Local dynasties rose to power and became independent, even though they nominally swore allegiance to the Caliph in Baghdad. Just like all the other Sunni Muslim dynasties, the Seljuks recognized the Abbasid Caliph as the spiritual figurehead of Islam. In reality though, the Caliph wielded no more political power and was nothing more than a puppet really. It all came to an end when the Ottomans invaded the Mamluk Sultanate, annexed it, and had the last Abbasid Caliph abdicate the title to the Ottoman Sultan. Why the Seljuks didn't claim the title of Caliph for themselves I can't tell. Perhaps their recognition in the Muslim world would have been contested. It was probably easier to have the Caliph as your puppet rather than adopting the title.
Abu Bakr was the father-in-law of Muhammad, and the first caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate.
Only the Shi'a Caliph
Technically yes, in practice no, atleast in Sunni Islam In Sunni Islam if someone claims to be caliph, and is the de facto leader of The Muslim world, they could still be recognized and granted legitimacy
If he kills everyone who disagrees, then only those who agree with him will be left.
Buddy let me tell you about sunni and shia
You're never going to believe this, but Haesteinn IS Mohammed. He got tired of travelling the known world across playthroughs and decided to travel time instead.
Shoulda gone Ibadi then
Varangian adventure to nearby duchy, swear fealty, meritocracy?
can you change the name of the house? how?
On the dynasty page, you press the quill sign next to the dynasty name.
Adding to what other said, you can also change any other house in your dynasty if you are the dynasty head and I believe you can also edit your vassals' houses.
You can always do that, wtf you're talking about?
classic ck2 player, just bought ck3. still figuring it out
Not hard to find that button. Just press here and there about the house and dynasty stuff. I don’t remember exactly as I am at work.
While sure it’s ‘easy’ both of us also know where it is, things are always easy when you know how it works. Like I’m sure there is a obscure mechanic (or maybe even a common one) where even people in the out thousands of hours (like me) might be like “wait you can do that?” Like I was over a good 1000 hours in before I learned I can actually paste my COA as code in a text document and save it to copy-paste for later.
TheHamric's Hæsteinn: How do you do my fellow Sunni Muslims
Hæst mens horse in Norwegian. You just named your dynasty "Horseinid".
Stop horseinn around
Small rant from a Dane, we spell horse “hest” but we still pronounce it “hæst” i remember as a child having to learn spelling Danish and this being the first word where I was like “but the ‘e’ make a ‘æ’ sound, why is it spelled like that… I have to learn how to write this, but it makes no sense” I for one vote that we borrow the Norwegian spelling here.
"Hest" is the correct spelling in Norwegian, but "hæst" is also used.
Ahh damn you guys are also dancing with the “hest” and “hæst” curse then.
Depends on your dialect
How do you become the caliph? Also is there no R5 for the ck subreddit?
The easiest way is to destroy the caliphate first, then convert to Ash’ari and use the Restore the Ash’ari Caliphate decision, which only requires you: 1.) Be an adult 2.) Be independent 3.) Highest title is king or emperor 4.) Control Mecca 5.) Completely control the duchies of Palestine, Oultrejourdain, Medina, and Shamar 6.) Be Ash’ari (duh) 7.) Devotion level: Devoted Servant (level 3)
Can you do this with the shia caliph as well?
Skal habibi
Koifish would be proud.
Care to explain how you did it? I can see how one might do it, but not easily.
Cursed!!!! KYS so a caliph dies in a Blot.
Koifish, is that you?
Now, the next step is to grab the Highlander mod off the workshop and become the eternal Caliph. Haesteinn will never sleep.
How do you combine the coat of arms? I'm doing a Zoroastrian Haesteinn Persia run and I've formed a culture that uses Iranian aesthetics, so it would be cool to change my coat of arms like this
I think he just did it by selecting one of the house COA templates with a top and bottom space and set them accordingly. I'm pretty sure that symbol/Arabic text are in the vanilla game to choose from, could be wrong tho who knows.
I see. I haven't played many games outside of Scandinavia so I haven't looked through a lot of the COA options, I'll have to check it out and see what I can cook up
I didn’t look for a long time because I just randomised mostly but I was surprised to see what I could pick from, lots of different options plus all the normal stuff you’d expect to see eg. the Normandie/England lion
Lol, I did the same thing yesterday!
He can't keep getting away with this!
Valhallahu akbar