TIDES OF WARCRAFT
DEV DIARY 3: RELIGIONS

Hello and welcome to the third dev diary for the Tides of Warcraft mod for Crusader Kings II. The topic of this one, religion, may not be exactly exciting, but religion plays a big part in the mechanics of CK2 and thus we must talk about it.

While there certainly are priests and shamans and druids and others running about, religious conflict is quite rare in Warcraft. You'll be hard-pressed to find a large number of faiths that could be called heresies, even. This is reflected in a few ways in the mod. First is that there are very few heresies in the mod. Second, standard holy wars have been disabled; groups that actually wage religiously-motivated wars, such as the Scarlet Crusade, will get their own CBs instead. Finally, the opinion malus to heretics and infidels was removed and is, instead, replicated through an alternate system.

Due to changes in a recent patch, opinion values from hidden modifiers and traits are also now hidden in the tooltip that shows the reasons for a character's opinion towards you. So if you see any of these, they are related to inter-religion opinions.

Another thing to note is that a few religions are not actual religiosn at all, but rather philosophical stances or ways of life. This is, again, due to the low importance of religion in Warcraft outside specific circumstances like priests.

There are currently eight religious groups. While their purpose is more thematic than anything else, it is still important in its own little way. The groups are: Arcane, Draconic, Elemental, Fel, Goblin, Light, Void, and Wild Gods. The goblin groups was a result of the fact that the goblin "religion" doesn't really fit in any of the others at all.

[Picture of the religion array]

When naming religions, we opted, with a few exceptions, to name each of them after their object of worship. This was done for both brevity and clarity. In the picture above are the icons of all the religions included in the mod. From left to right they are: Holy Light, Holy Light heresies (Scarlet and Argent), Forgotten Shadow, Demonology, Burning Legion, Arcane, Sunwell, Loa, Hakkar (Loa heresy), Twilight's Hammer, Mercantilism, Life-Binder, Dreamer, Spell-Weaver, Timeless One, Destroyer, Draconic group heresies (Earth-Warder, Infinite One, Emerald Nightmare), Lich King, Old Gods, Azshara, Shamanism, Geomancy, Pyromancy, Hydromancy, Aeromancy, Old Ways, and Druidism.

While most are recognizable, I should explain the ones that are not and the reason behind their existance: Demonology was created as a religion for warlocks, and demons, who are not aligned with the Burning Legion yet are also not of a religion that tolerates warlocks. Mercantilism, meanwhile, represents the goblin drive and obsession for ever greater profits, regardless of risk or morals. The four "-mancy" religions represent the worship of their respective elements and elemental lords. Finally, Old Ways was the religion of humans before they discovered the Holy Light and converted en masse.

The specific mechanics of each religion will be covered later. Some on their own, and some together with other features. For example, the mechanics of both Loa and Hakkar religions will be covered together with the mechanics for Trolls.

Next dev diary will be about our Class system. Thanks for reading and see you next time.