History Videogame / CrusaderKings

[[folder:General Tropes]]

[[folder:Tropes Present in All Games]]

The third game, ''Crusader Kings III'' was released on September 1, 2020. In addition to having [=3D=] character models that are affected by traits, [=CK3=] reworks several of the core gameplay systems to be more intuitive and expands the map to Central Africa and more of South Asia.

[[folder:Crusader Kings III]]
* AlbinosAreFreaks: Characters with the Albino trait get penalties to everyone's opinion of them, but get a bonus to their Dread.
* AllDesertsHaveCacti: The icon for the Desert Warrior trait shows a saguaro cactus, even though the game is entirely set in the Old World.
* AndNowYouMustMarryMe: It's perfectly possible to coerce a character into a marriage they wouldn't otherwise agree to if you have a sufficiently strong "hook" on them.
* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking:
** Not necessarily your character, but the characters marked as "knights" (or the cultural equivalent) in your court will rack up a lot more kills than any of your men-at-arms or levies, if they're competent.
** This can also be Averted: this game actually decouples Martial stat from Prowess (which governs personal combat ability), so it's possible to have character with high Martial but very low prowess. These characters are better suited as commanders than as knights.
* {{Blackmail}}: Discovering another character's secrets (for example, if they're having a scandalous affair, or murdered their cousin to take the throne) can give your character a "hook" on them, which can be used to secure titles, marriages, or even assistance in your own nefarious schemes. The hook will be lost if it's exposed, however.
* CastFullOfGay: One of the game rules can make the dominant sexuality of characters homosexual. There are also options to make bisexuality or asexuality the dominant sexualities.
* ComfortFood: A possible coping mechanism characters may develop is to overindulge in food when stressed. May also be {{Inverted|Trope}} by the inappetitic coping mechanism, in which the character loses their appetite from stress and tends to waste away.
* TheConfidant: Finding a trusted confidant is a rare but highly effective coping mechanism that unlike most coping mechanisms, has no drawbacks.
* DemotedToExtra:
** Merchant Republics are the only rulers that were playable in [=CK2=] that are no longer playable, due to Paradox being unsatisfied with their mechanics. Paradox has said that they may make them playable once more through DLC.
** There are no Zunist, Yazidi, Taoist rulers or counties in either start date, although these faiths can be revived at a very steep piety cost.
* DevelopersForesight:
** Like in [=CK2=], the Prophet Muhammed has a character profile, but does not have a character model.
** The list of faiths includes completely dead religions like Hellenism and Zunism.
* {{Diary}}: One of the healthiest coping mechanisms a character may develop is keeping a journal or diary. Unlike most coping mechanisms, this has no direct negative effects.
* DrowningMySorrows: Characters may turn to alcoholism as a method of coping with stress, which carries significant statistical penalties and minor health penalties.
* FantasticReligiousWeirdness: Religions are far more customisable in Crusader Kings 3, with tenets and doctrines being alterable. This can lead to some wild interpretations of virtuous behaviour: you can make a religion in which lying and scheming is seen as a virtue, cannibalism is a sacred ritual, and marriage between close relatives is acceptable. Downplayed in that you can't just create a new religion overnight; you need a lot of piety and clout to make it stick, and the more you deviate from your parent faith's core beliefs the harder it will be to sell it to your subjects and the world at large. Also downplayed in that you can't just attach any tenet to any faith as some require the new faith either be part of or not be part of certain other religions or religion groups - for example, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic faiths can never practice human sacrifice, while pagan and eastern faiths can't embrace iconoclasm like Abrahamic faiths can.
* FunctionalAddict: One of the many coping mechanisms characters may develop over a lifetime of stress is the consumption of hashish, which while carrying significant statistical penalties, isn't particularly more disadvantageous than other coping mechanisms.
* HairTriggerTemper: Stress may cause a character to become perpetually irritable. Especially for an already impatient and wrathful character, this can make them a ticking time bomb of violence waiting to be unleashed on friends, family, courtiers, guests, vassals, and anyone else unfortunate enough to be nearby.
* InUniverseCatharsis: A character with a coping mechanism may indulge one or more of their coping mechanisms every few years to reduce their stress at the cost of some penalty (eg. Self-flagellating wounds you and aggravates your injuries further if you're already wounded and if you're already at the highest-level wounded trait, kills you. Engaging in sex for solace at the local brothel can be expensive and is a good way to pick up venereal diseases. Going on a big exercise binge leaves you sweaty and smelly enough that you get a general opinion debuff). In general, indulging coping mechanisms with greater penalties to yourself, such as whipping yourself bloody, burns off more stress than those with smaller penalties like going on a shopping spree, which is just a monetary cost.
* KarmaMeter: A new metric called Devotion; your faith will have an opinion of you based on your behaviour. This is a tiered ranking that greatly affect your piety gain and limits what you can do with your amassed piety. All your religious brownie points you've earned in the past count for very little if your religious peers consider you the lowest kind of sinner.
* NoNudityTaboo: Adamite Christians and Yapanyia Jains, as well as any other faith with the Natural Primitivism tenet practice universal nudism. Additionally, Digambara Jains (the most mainstream Jain faith) have the special Naked Priests doctrine, in which nudism isn't expected of all practitioners, but priests and zealous characters reject clothing.
* OldMaster: Characters whose dynasty has completed the kin legacy no longer suffer a penalty to their combat prowess with old age, meaning that they'll be every bit as deadly a knight at age 70 as they were at 20.
* OneManArmy: Skilled knights can individually kill dozens of enemies every battle. It's possible for ten good knights to rack up kills in the hundreds.
* ReligionOfEvil: The religion system allows you to found custom faiths that view scheming and cannibalism as virtuous.
* RetailTherapy: Among the coping mechanisms a character may adopt is consuming goods beyond their means and compulsively spending.
* RichInDollarsPoorInSense: A possible coping mechanism characters may develop is compulsive donation to charities far beyond what is financially sound. This is even more financially deleterious than taking up compulsive shopping.
* SanityMeter: The Stress meter, which is primarily affected by how well your character's behaviour fits with their personality [[note]]Other things that can affect it includes death of loved ones (lovers and soulmates can hit especially hard), or being locked up in prison for too long[[/note]]. Taking decisions that give you lots of benefits is great, but your character may disagree with the action and become stressed from having to take it (for example: executing your treacherous cousin plotting to take your throne makes perfect sense, but a kind-hearted character will still be broken up inside by having to do such a thing.) Too much stress can lead to a mental breakdown, with such effects as drunkenness, gluttony, sexual deviancy and depression. [[note]] The developers added this to encourage role-play and to eliminate the "no-brainer" decisions from previous games, where only hardcore role-players would take the bad choices. [[/note]]
* ScarsAreForever: Whether as a result of participating in battle or other causes, characters who gain large scars keep them for the rest of their life. This can be limited to some superficial scars that don't have any impact beyond cosmetic "[[GoodScarsEvilScars showing of character]]", all the way to a person who's lost AnArmAndALeg or even more serious and debilitating maiming.
* TheSecretOfLongPorkPies: There is one possible event where your character, after some snooping in the kitchen, discovers that their chef is feeding them children. You can choose either to punish the chef, or to let it go since it was just so delicious, netting you a slight health boost and the "cannibal" secret.
* SelfHarm: A coping mechanism characters may adopt is self-flaggelation, which carries a significant health penalty and actively indulging it inflicts the wounded trait on the character or advances it to the next level of injury if they're already injured or maimed.
* SexForSolace: Among the many coping mechanisms a character may develop is frequent sexual intercourse, especially at brothels.
* TheShutIn: Characters may come to cope with their stress by routinely locking themselves in their room, often to the neglect of their duties.
* SilverFox: In full force for men and {{downplayed}} for women with positive attractiveness traits under normal circumstances - positive sex appeal modifiers stop applying after a certain age (50 for women[[note]]up from 42 in the previous game[[/note]], 65 for men), which allows characters to remain attractive to others into middle age, and even old age for men. However, the dynastic bloodline legacy and fecund trait can reinforce this, as the fecund trait and the final perk in the bloodline legacy each extend a character's life expectancy by five years, which also extends how long they're fertile, how rapidly their portrait visibly ages, and how long sexual attractiveness traits apply for them, extending to as old as 60 for women and 75 for men.
* WorkingOutTheirEmotions: One of the rare coping mechanisms with purely positive effects is for a character to channel their stress into exercise.
* ZergRush: Downplayed from previous entries; while it is still possible to overwhelm your opponent with a massive doomstack, far more emphasis is placed on the composition of your armies, the skill of your commander, prowess of your knights and the suitability of your men-at-arms to the terrain. A high quality but small army can easily curb-stomp a huge army consisting of nothing but levies (who are basically peasants given a sword and told to fight.)

[[/folder]]

* AllMythsAreTrue: Just about every ruler of dubious historicity and every distant dynastic connection only attested in sources written centuries after the fact is given the benefit of the doubt and represented in the game. For Example, ninth-century Lithuania is ruled by the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palemonids Palemonids]], most Irish counts are linked to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conn_of_the_Hundred_Battles Conn of the Hundred Battles]], the future kings of Sweden are said to be descended from the legendary Viking [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnar_Lodbrok Ragnar Lodbrok]], and the Arpad kings of Hungary are presented as relatives of the Khans of Old Great Bulgaria. Justified by the fact that the lack of sources in most of these cases means that the alternative is just making people up entirely, and that in the eras covered, the people involved ''did'' take such claims seriously. Following the ''Charlemagne'' DLC, Ragnarr Lodbrok is actually playable.

* {{Blackmail}}: Discovering another character's secrets (for example, if they're having a scandalous affair, or murdered their cousin to take the throne) can give your character a "hook" on them, which can be used to secure titles, marriages, or even assistance in your own nefarious schemes.

* SuddenlySexuality: Downplayed - Every character older than 10 has a chance to discover their sexuality from a choice of four: Heterosexual, Homosexual, Bisexual & Asexual. Additionally, characters will also discover their ''romantic'' preference, which may be completely different to their sexual preference. By default, Heterosexual and Heteroromantic are the most common, but the ratios can be tweaked in game rules to enforce EveryoneIsBi, EveryoneIsGay, Everyone is "A", or anything in-between.

* SanityMeter: The Stress meter, which is affected by how well your character's behaviour fits with their personality. Taking decisions that give you lots of benefits is great, but your character may disagree with the action and become stressed from having to take it (for example: executing your treacherous cousin plotting to take your throne makes perfect sense, but a kind-hearted character will still be broken up inside by having to do such a thing.) Too much stress can lead to a mental breakdown, with such effects as drunkenness, gluttony, sexual deviancy and depression. [[note]] The developers added this to encourage role-play and to eliminate the "no-brainer" decisions from previous games, where only hardcore role-players would take the bad choices. [[/note]]

* SilverFox: In full force and {{downplayed}} for women with positive attractiveness traits under normal circumstances - positive sex appeal modifiers stop applying after a certain age (50 for women[[note]]up from 42 in the previous game[[/note]], 65 for men), which allows characters to remain attractive to others into middle age, and even old age for men. However, the dynastic bloodline legacy and fecund trait can reinforce this, as the fecund trait and the final perk in the bloodline legacy each extend a character's life expectancy by five years, which also extends how long they're fertile, how rapidly their portrait visibly ages, and how long sexual attractiveness traits apply for them, extending to as old as 60 for women and 75 for men.

* ComfortFood: A possible coping mechanism characters may develp is to overindulge in food when stressed. May also be {{Inverted|Trope}} by the inappetitic coping mechanism, in which the character loses their appetite from stress and tends to waste away.

* InUniverseCatharsis: A character with a coping mechanism may indulge one or more of their coping mechanisms every few years to reduce their stress at the cost of some penalty (eg. Self-flagellating wounds you and aggravates your injuries further if you're already wounded and if you're already at the highest-level wounded trait, kills you. Engaging in sex for solace at the local brothel can be expensive and is a good way to pick up venereal disease. Going on a big exercise binge leaves you sweaty and smelly enough that you get a general opinion debuff). In general, indulging coping mechanisms with greater penalties to yourself, such as whipping yourself bloody, burns off more stress than those with smaller penalties like going on a shopping spree, which is just a monetary cost.

* SelfHarm: A coping mechanism characters may adopt is self-flaggelation, which carries a significant health penalty.

* AffablyEvil: The game gives bonuses for virtuous traits, such as being kind, humble, or charitable. However, having these traits does nothing to stop you from ordering the murder of children or amassing territory through brutal conquest. The trait-modelling system itself can occasionally cough up [[SoftSpokenSadist a charitable, soft-spoken young man whose chief hobby is impaling people on stakes]].

* AffablyEvil: The game gives bonuses for virtuous traits, such as being kind, humble, or charitable. However, having these traits does nothing to stop you from ordering the murder of children or amassing territory through brutal conquest. The trait-modelling system itself can occasionally cough up a charitable, soft-spoken young man whose chief hobby is impaling people on stakes.

** There no Zun or Taoist rulers or counties in either start date, although both faiths can be revived at a very steep piety cost.

** The list of faiths includes completely dead religions like Hellenism and Zunbil.

[[index]]

[[folder:Crusader Kings II]]
* FourOneNineScam: You can be contacted by someone claiming to represent an Abyssinian prince. If you have the "Scholar" trait, you can reply by pointing out that the names in the message aren't Abyssinian.
* AbductionIsLove: Subverted. Pagans and tribal Christians may abduct female courtiers when they sack settlements, and the rulers have the option of taking them on as concubines -- even if they're already married to someone else. However, this carries hefty opinion penalty, ensuring she will hate her abductor. It's possible for the "Fell in Love" event to happen between a ruler and their stolen concubine, but the event is bugged, and treats that concubine as an illegitimate mistress in related sub-events.
* ActionGirl: While it's perfectly possible for women to have high Martial skill and traits of good generals such as "Skilled Tactician", most of the time they're not permitted to command. However, female rulers (that is, queen regnant, not queen consort) can take the field with their troops, as can the character from the JeanneDArchetype event. Cathar realms and realms with ''Conclave'''s full rights of women law can also freely have female commanders. As of the patch accompanying ''Reaper's Due'', Germanic Pagans can create shieldmaidens, who can also command in battle. As well, ''Holy Fury'' lets you make pagan religions gender-equal (the Equality doctrine immediately enacts Full Status of Women) or even matriarchal when you reform them.
* ActuallyPrettyFunny: [[invoked]] One possible event while conducting the Summer Fair event as a Christian ruler is for a jester at the fair to accidentally hit you in the face with one of his baubles to much hilarity from onlookers. From the button text it seems your character thought it was funny, too.
* AdiposeRex: Your ruler can gain the Fat trait if they lead a sedentary lifestyle. You can choose to shape up by going on a diet or continue stuffing your face; if you got the trait by throwing frequent parties and feasts through the [[LifeOfTheParty Carousing focus]], you can choose to embrace it, and get a special “Munificent” bonus to vassal opinion that comes from being a BigFun.
* AdultFear: With ''The Reaper's Due'' DLC, your infant child can develop cancer.
* AerithAndBob: Expanded upon from the original game significantly:
** The second game lets players choose the name of his/her character's newborn children, so one can either avoid this trope or intentionally cause it.
** In addition, there is a random chance for the child to be named for a parent or grandparent ''from both sides of the family''. This means that if you give a character a silly name, chances are it will spread.
** Some cultures follow a given name plus fathers name with adjective for their full name (with their dynasty name being left out but considered a part of their longer name). Combined this with the parental name sharing aspect mentioned before and this can result in such things as Bob Johnson with a son named John Bobson or even Bob Bobson. [[TruthInTelevision Not that this is unusual in, for instance, Iceland.]]
* TheAgeless: ''The Reaper's Due'' includes one supernatural event chain that allows your character to go on a quest for immortality, which will protect them from the effects of aging and illness (though they're still vulnerable to crippling or mortal injuries). [[spoiler:There's a large chance (about 80%), however, that the quest-giver will be a fraud, dooming you to mortality no matter what you do. Alternatively, the event chain may end with you dying and being reincarnated as a newborn child.]]
* TheAlcoholic: Some characters may become Drunkards, which negatively impacts their Stewardship skills since they spend so much of their waking life under the influence. It also affects their personal combat skills for battles and duels.
* AlcoholInducedIdiocy: No matter how carefully you choose your plotters, there's always going to be that ''one'' plotter who blabs the whole thing while he's in his cups...
* AllJewsAreAshkenazi: Even though the Jews are introduced in ''Sons of Abraham'', [[AvertedTrope this trope is averted]] when you account for the Khan of Khazaria in 867 or the Duke of Khazars under the Tengri Cumanians in 1066 - both, naturally, have Turkic cultures. ''Rajas Of India'', which expanded East Africa, introduces the ''very'' Ethopian Duke of Axum in 867 and the Duke of Axum in 1066 for more variety. Furthermore, Jewish courtiers also come with Sephardim cultures.
* AlienSpaceBats: The 'Sunset Invasion' DLC for ''Crusader Kings 2'' involves the Aztecs invading Europe in the 13th century. [[http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/content.php?1153-Crusader-Kings-II-Sunset-Invasion-Announced Yes, really.]] Although reaction has been mixed since it goes well beyond the usual alternative history of the games, from a gameplay standpoint, it balances out the fact that Western Europe rarely has to worry about the arrival of the various Hordes in the east which can decimate eastern nations.
* AllThereInTheManual: Of a sort - if a character has a [[HistoricalDomainCharacter basis in historical records]] and has a Wikipedia entry, the game usually allows you to click an external link to go ''to'' that entry (some articles use differing names, which breaks this). ''Which'' wiki it points to is moddable, so total conversions and {{Game Mod}}s can have links to [[TheWikiRule the relevant wiki]].
* AllowedInternalWar: With higher Legalism technology you can pass laws (Crown Authority without ''Conclave'', Vassal War Declaration with) restricting or eliminating the ability of your ''de jure'' vassals[[note]]That is, vassals that are (in game terms) traditionally considered part of the lands under your held titles.[[/note]] to declare war either on each other or on foreign lands. This represents the strength of the liege compared to his vassals and the development of codified laws. With ''Conclave'' you can also use your council to "Enforce Realm Peace", which blocks all vassal war declarations for a period of time and ends any wars in progress.
* AmbiguouslyBi: Characters with the "homosexual" trait can and will still marry and have children. On top of that, a combination of the "homosexual" and "lustful" traits results in a fertility stat higher than that of a character with neither trait. This can be explained one of two ways: either it's a case of them fulfilling their dynastic obligations despite not actually swinging that way, or it represents the outdated idea that homosexuality was something people did rather than an inherent quality of an individual, which leads to people attracted to both genders being considered people who perform homosexual acts.
* AmbitionIsEvil: {{Downplayed}}. The "Ambitious" trait provides boosts to several stats, but causes the character to -25 dislike anybody getting in the way of said ambition (typically the liege, especially if they control a title you want); you also get a mutual -5 with anybody else who has the trait. Ambitious vassals are therefore more prone to revolt. It's not so much ambition making you evil as it is ambition making you a {{jerkass}}.
* AncientTomb: The Great Pyramid of Khufu and the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus are both present in the game as Great Works. Additionally, independent rulers can build their own Mausoleums.
* AnimalisticAbomination: Immortal and insane rulers who make their horse immortal may have to contend with attempts on their life by [[spoiler:Incitatus, Trampler of Nations. A bloodthirsty immortal talking horse whose centuries of existence have made him far more powerful than any mortal horse, and more intelligent than the vast majority of humans. Particularly diplomatic characters have [[DidWeJustHAveTeaWithCthulhu the opportunity to recruit him]] for his impressive array of skills]].
* TheAntichrist: There's an event chain in ''Sons of Abraham'' recreating ''Film/TheOmen'' which may end up in you ''playing'' as the spawn of Satan himself and ruling a dark, unholy kingdom, backed up by the forces of TheHecateSisters of [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Circe]], [[KingArthur Morganna]] and [[Literature/TheBible Jezebel]].
** InTheBlood: If your son has the demon spawn trait, then he will grow up to be evil. Even if you educate him to be good, his sixteenth birthday will see him lose all his good traits and replace them with evil traits. If you play as the demon child you can [[ScrewDestiny try to play him]] [[AntiAntiChrist as though he were a good person]], possibly subverting his satanic lineage.
* AppealToForce: The Faction system allows angry vassals to gang up on their ruler and force him to change "The Rules" to their liking if they can beat their liege in a rebellion (or if the ruler is weak enough he'll accept their ultimatum). Usually, the demands will be about either a change in [[SuccessionCrisis Succession Law]] or [[AuthorityInNameOnly Lower Crown Authority]], though some wish to replace the ruler with a claimant.
* ApocalypseCult: With ''The Reaper's Due'', one of the side effects of the Black Plague epidemic is the rise of a "prophet of doom" who blames the nobility's excesses for the epidemic. If left to his own devices, he'll gather a cult and eventually incite a rebellion against your rule.
* ArabianNightsDays: All of the peoples of North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant are lumped into a single Arabic cultural group with four cultures (Bedouin, Berber, Egyptian and Levantine), which is a significant understatement of the true cultural diversity in the region. However, Berbers have the distinction of being the only culture within this group which can raid, potentially starting the age of the Barbary pirates a few centuries earlier.
* ArchEnemy: Characters can gain rivals, either through random events or after getting caught trying to screw them over in some way. Rivals get a massive mutual opinion malus, making it unlikely they'll ever see one another in a positive light, and are more likely to plot against one another.
* ArtifactOfDoom: An event chain for Indian rulers in ''Rajas of India'' has you create one, in the form of a Hope Diamond expy.
* ArtifactTitle: Zig-zagged. The [[DownloadableContent DLCs]] for the second game allow you to play as [[PerspectiveFlip a heathen]], [[TheRepublic a plutocrat]], or centuries before the Crusades began (even with the early Crusade triggers, from the ''Charlemagne'' start date, it's still 131 years until the very earliest Crusades can begin in defense of Christianity), and even the original game allowed you to play as a non-royal noble, a non-Crusading Orthodox ruler, or [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking a woman]]. However, there's plenty of kings going on crusades throughout most of the game, even if you're not one of them. Furthermore, most non-Catholic religions get their own means of waging holy war on unbelievers. Finally, said heathens and plutocrats are only available to the player if they decided to spring for the DLC; those who choose only to play the base game only have access to Christian feudal lords, as was the case in the original game.
* ArtificialStupidity:
** Before the system was reworked, the AI had no clue how to deal with the Decadence system for Muslim rulers in ''Crusader Kings II''. As such, most of the larger Muslim dynasties had a nasty tendency to implode if left in the hands of the AI for too long. After the reworking, male relatives no longer automatically generate decadence (only doing so if they have the Decadent trait), making it much easier for the AI to handle the system. Unfortunately this also makes certain large Muslim realms (e.g. the Umayyads in the ''Charlemagne'' 769 AD bookmark) annoyingly hard to eliminate without player intervention. 2.6 managed to find a reasonable middle-ground and the Muslims will now sometimes collapse due to decadence and sometimes not.
** Because of its BackFromTheBrink nature, there are very few [[{{UsefulNotes/Zoroastrianism}} Zoroastrian nobles]] in the game. Nobles marrying courtiers get huge hits to Prestige, and the AI tries its best to avoid such marriages. In addition, the Zoroastrian AI prefers to set up [[IncestIsRelative marriages to close relatives]] for the boost to vassal relations. The result: it's difficult to ignore the incest when your landed son constantly asks for betrothals to his eight-year-old sisters [[WifeHusbandry (who he may or may not be educating)]].
** Similarly, some cultures (most notably the Basques and some of the Celtic and Baltic tribes) only have a few provinces at game start and are usually steamrolled by their more formidable neighbors. In particular the game simply doesn't model the logistical issues that made Asturias not worth the Moors' trouble to conquer, so Al-Andalus usually overruns it in early starts unless West Francia and/or Lombardy (or an interested PlayerCharacter) are able to intervene.
** Generally, if you're playing as a vassal of a realm bordering religious enemies or as a patrician of a merchant republic who cannot hold onto the title of Doge, you need to pray that this trope does not happen.
** AI armies are known to frequently run off to completely unimportant objectives rather than attaching themselves to allied player forces. Or march all the way around the Mediterranean to get to Africa and lose hundreds or thousands of troops to attrition instead of using their ships.
** [[http://imgur.com/a/cl6fR AI rulers are hilariously bad at accounting for potential war targets' allies, particularly in the case of the defensive pacts added in 2.5.]]
** In ''Conclave'', the AI has no idea how to use the Heritage and Faith focuses properly, and often educates heirs with event-generated courtiers of different cultures or religions. This can have bizarre results such as random Jewish or pagan kingdoms popping up in the middle of Western Europe.
** In fact, this game is notable for making ArtificialStupidity an individual character trait. Each NPC has a hidden Rationality stat which influences their decisions. Very rational rulers will try to avoid wars they can't win or murder plots they don't benefit from. Rationality is influenced positively by traits like [[TheGoodKing ''Just'']],[[TurnTheOtherCheek ''Patient'']], [[OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions ''Cynical'']] and ''Genius'', and decreased by traits like ''Arbitrary'', [[HairTriggerTemper ''Wroth'']], [[TheFundamentalist ''Zealous'']], ''Imbecile'' and especially ''Lunatic''. This for example means that while on paper the historical Charlemagne's stats are very good, his AI isn't very smart, as he always starts with the ''Zealous'' trait and no positive Rationality modifiers to compensate, and he will often fail to create his empire because he prematurely starts a war with the Umayyads he can't win.
* AscendedGlitch:
** ''Conclave'' modifies the preexisting CaligulasHorse event with Lunatic rulers to make the horse an actual NonPlayerCharacter with "Horse" culture. Though Glitterhoof's "Horse" trait is supposed to both make him/her infertile and prevent him/her from being granted titles, players quickly discovered [[https://kotaku.com/that-time-a-horse-conquered-the-ancient-world-1757913762 exploits]] to switch their dynasty to Horse culture (along with a whole lot of other nonsensical-in-context oddities, such as Glitterhoof plotting a murder or [[BestialityIsDepraved being made a concubine]], that usually end up in the forum's Strange Screenshots thread). Upon realizing how funny the players thought the whole thing was, Paradox first announced they would not [[ObviousRulePatch patch the bugs around Glitterhoof]], then in ''Reaper's Due'' they added an additional horse and an event chain where you could make either of them immortal (which may lead to you being attacked by an immortal stallion named Incitatus after Caligula's actual horse). ''Jade Dragon'' added cat and bear [=NPCs=] with whom you can do many of the same things. ''Holy Fury'' has an "Animal Kingdoms" option for random world generation, which prepopulates the world with entire playable realms of horses, cats, dogs, elephants, ducks, bears, hedgehogs, red pandas and even dragons alongside human realms. And in the 3.1 "Great Works" update, one of the ways to unlock the ability to build a statue of a horse as a great work is to be of Horse culture (the others being either Nomadic government, or a Lunatic).
** ''Holy Fury'''s new duel system allowed characters to escape an incoming CurbStompBattle by dropping an artifact from their inventory and making a run for it while the opponent got the artifact. This system forgot to make [[ComedicUnderwearExposure exceptions for armour]]. Paradox quickly took note, but instead of fixing it added a unique event text if your opponent decided to strip naked to escape you.
** A longtime bug with an event where a MookCommander is [[MindScrew killed in battle by another commander when no opposing commander existed]] led to the game recording the character as having died in battle against himself. Rather than fix it, PDX eventually added an event pop-up that the character mistakenly fell on his own sword.
* AscendedMeme:
** ''Sunset Invasion'''s ahistorical Aztec invasion[[note]]The Aztec Empire didn't exist until the very end of the game's timeline and no First Peoples cultures had shipbuilding technology sufficient to cross the Atlantic.[[/note]] led to wisecracks that the next DLC should include undead Vikings. Come ''The Old Gods'' and the FlavorText for the "Viking" trait (gained by raiding as a Germanic pagan) includes a comment that tales are told of PlayerCharacter and his undead warriors.
** The "secret bears" meme originated as [[https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/next-exp-dlc-will-be.693277/page-2#post-15583353 a joke by Paradox's Darkrenown]]. ''Jade Dragon'' added an [[https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/shhhh-secret-bears-confirmed.1046304/ actual event]] where a courtier turns out to have been a bear all along, [[RuleOfFunny somehow]].
* AsianBabymama: It is possible to seduce characters with cultures and even religions different from your own[[note]]If a character is of another religion group you can only seduce them if they are in your court[[/note]], but the resulting illegitimate children will have the culture and religion of their mother. This can make it problematic to legitimize them, because French Catholic vassals will resent being ruled by a Berber Sunni bastard.
* AsskickingEqualsAuthority:
** Differs from the first game significantly; the "Invasion" ''[[PretextForWar casus belli]]'' works like this. Essentially, you petition the Pope/Ecumenical Patriarch/Caliph/other relevant religious authority to sanction an ass-kicking to steal someone else's title. If succeeded you will get a strong claim on the target, this is exceptionally powerful because the claim can be a regal or even imperial one and typically you only get a ducal claim at best; This however only works if you're smaller than the target, or you have a corresponding weak claim already. If the invasion is successful you even get a nickname for it!
** The Adventurer system and Peasant Rebellions also allows for unlanded title claimants to amass their personal army to invade you for land.
** Pagan rulers from ''The Old Gods'' or ''Holy Fury'' DLC can invade any single province that borders their lands and claim it without giving a hoot for any of this "legal basis" business. The Norse can do this to any non-Pagan coastal province.
** This trope can be seen from a different point: when a ruler crushed a rebellion against his rule by a pretender or some disloyal vassals, the other vassals' opinion of him increases significantly. Therefore, these vassals will less likely join factions or rebel against their suzerain. In fact, it's a recurring scenario throughout the game (and real life, occasionally): the old wise king dies after a long reign of prosperity and peace, and his young son faces an obvious choice: show his vassals who is the boss by vehemently crushing any opposition to his rule, or see his kingdom fall into chaos of internal conflicts, being overthrown by his relative or have his land fall apart as the 'Independence' faction win war against him.
** If a ruler is sufficiently more powerful than their vassals, the vassals will not join a faction against their ruler, even if they dislike their ruler and aren't barred by council laws from joining factions, as they know who is the boss and that revolt against their liege would be a HopelessWar.
** A powerful vassal can use their asskicking capability to demand that they be installed as liege, even if they don't have a claim, and if the liege doesn't step down, said powerful vassal and anyone who backs them may attempt to seize authority via kicking the ass of the person who currently holds nominal authority.
* AuthorityInNameOnly:
** The concept of "Crown Authority" measures how much power a king holds over the nobility - A king with little or no crown authority can't even revoke vassal titles or prevent nobles from waging independent wars.
** ''Conclave'' replaces Crown Authority with a set of discrete Council Power laws which determine whether the ruler can take certain actions (declaring wars, handing out titles, executing or releasing prisoners, etc.) without submitting them before the Council for a vote. Trying to rule the realm with an uncooperative council that vetoes everything you want to do is a challenge in and of itself, and while they can be overridden, this incurs a tyranny penalty and makes the council non-content, which allows council members to join factions.
** Independent dukes and counts can disregard the crown laws of their ''de jure'' kingdom if the king of said kingdom is of another religion.
* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: The Crown Authority mechanic encapsulates this trope. The higher it is, the better a ruler is able to keep his vassals in line, preventing them from launching independent wars, attacking one another (overtly), or passing their titles to another ruler's vassal by inheritance when they die.
* AwesomeMomentOfCrowning:
** Coronation is an important part of every Catholic and Fraticelli king and emperor's reign with ''Holy Fury'' enabled. If the king or emperor has not yet been crowned, they get a stacking opinion penalty with all of their Catholic vassals and don't get a [[CoolCrown crown on their portrait or to equip any crown artifact they may possess]]. While a ruler can be crowned by a low or high ranking Catholic or Fraticelli bishop for relatively small demands and to quickly remove the uncrowned penalty, to truly have an AwesomeMomentOfCrowning, getting crowned by the Pope (or Fraticelli Pope) himself is clearly the only way to go, though the Pope may make significant demands of a ruler before deciding that personally crowning them is worthy of the Vicar of Christ's time. The awesomeness of the coronation has long-term effects, as the higher the rank of the priest doing the crowning, the more monthly piety and prestige the ruler gets and the larger the opinion boost they get with their clergy, and potentially even their vassals.
** There is also an alternate method of crowning that is arguably more awesome, not for how pious or proper it is, but rather, for its brazen defiance of the Pope's divine right to determine rightful rule - with the right traits (possessed, lunatic, ambitious while ruling with imperial authority, or as a member of a satanist cult), it is possible for an emperor to steal their crown from the Pope and crown themself, declaring that they give themselves the right to rule, rather than the Church. This is worth twice as much prestige as a Papal coronation and a significant opinion boost with feudal vassals, but pisses off the Clergy and both the current Pope and future Popes and is the only coronation trait that ''loses'' piety.
** Having a "Become King of [Kingdom]" Ambition, taking control of enough territories to create said kingdom, then doing so, makes you "[[Literature/ConanTheBarbarian King by your own hand]]" as it were, and are your ruler's first steps towards carving their name into the history books.
* BackFromTheBrink:
** Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Zunism all start the game with a very small selection of independent rulers surrounded on all sides by aggressive religious enemies. Restoring the Kingdom of Israel, becoming the Saoshyant (which involves restoring the Persian Empire to its traditional borders as a Zoroastrian), and reforming the Zunist faith and ruling an "Empire of the Sun," respectively, are considered significant achievements.
** Depending on your starting date, you can get to play as some of the last Pagan rulers, who are already in the process of losing their last lands to the Christian lords, and depending on your choices, you may be able to restore and reform their respective religions. For example, in the default 1066 start date, Slavic Paganism has been reduced to a pair of independent dukes in Pomerania, Bön is down to a small handful of counties left, and there are no independent Germanic pagans above count rank. One of the most extreme possible cases, however, is the Fourth Crusade start (1204), at which time, there is a single Germanic pagan ruler left in the world, and his (dirt poor) county has been converted to Catholicism.
** The goal of the "Heathenous Ways" achievement - as Jarl Erik 'the Heathen' af Munso in the Stamford Bridge start (the highest ranking Germanic pagan left at that time), become king of Sweden (overthrowing the Catholic Stenkiling family) and reform the Germanic faith.
* BackFromTheDead: Not people-related, but religion. There are zero Hellenic characters alive when the game starts, and the only Hellenic province is found tucked away in a corner of Greece at the 769 start, and usually converts to Orthodoxy within a few turns. However, in the ''Holy Fury'' expansion, an Italian or Greek character who rules a Hellenic holy site can delve into the works of ancient Greek and Roman philosophers and decide that hey, those gods are pretty cool and I should worship them and maybe bring back their religion! Alternatively, a Greek or Italian ruler who restores the Roman Empire gets a one-time decision to bring back the old gods, fighting a massive civil war against his own realm. If you win, Hellenism will be in a fairly strong position to immediately reform the religion. If you lose the war, you lose your head, and if your heir isn't Christian, you lose the game, period- the Christians who beat you aren't about to crown your Pagan heir, after all.
* BadBadActing: The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvO50GYniiI last of the Seven Deadly Sins trailers]], intentionally so.
* BalkanizeMe:
** With ''Jade Dragon'', having extremely high favour with the Chinese emperor allows you to ask them to invade a realm of your choice. They will do so with the "Shatter Realm" CB, which on victory destroys ALL Empire and Kingdom level titles in the realm, potentially reducing a continent-spanning Holy Roman Empire into dozens of independent duchies.
** Also with ''Jade Dragon'', it is possible to declare war on the emperor of China (only when China is stable or better), and if you lose, your realm gets shattered in addition to the other effects of losing.
** Winning a dynamic Crusade for Thrace against the Byzantine Empire (modeling the Fourth Crusade) destroys the Byzantine Empire, reducing the Byzantine Emperor to their next-highest title, freeing most of their vassals, and creating an independent kingdom of Trebizond, while the victorious Catholics establish the Latin Empire.
* BarbarianHero:
** ''The Old Gods'' introduces adventurers, who can be both significant threats and potential allies.
** The ''Horse Lords'' expansion added deeper mechanics for steppe hordes (nomads), including a unique mechanic where sons are sent to become wondering mercenaries.
* BastardBastard: If you knock up your courtier, then the resulting bastard could become this. Even if you legitimize him, there is still the chance he will be evil. If you don't, he may want revenge.
* BattleCouple: As a female ruler, part of a Cathar or Messalian (or any form of Paganism that has the Equality or Harmonious doctrine (Enatic Clans, however, doesn't work, as it bars ''men'' from being commanders)) realm, or by passing the equal rights for women law in ''Conclave'', women can lead troops in battle. It's also possible to make her husband another {{Mook Commander}} and put them on the same battlefield. It's even possible for the wife to [[VictorySex become pregnant on the campaign trail]] and [[PregnantBadass lead troops into battle while pregnant!]]
* TheBeard: An event chain deals with rumors about your character being a closet homosexual. You can then choose to embrace them and [[ComingOutStory become a homosexual]], or prove them wrong by [[HaveIMentionedIAmHeterosexualToday visiting several brothels]] [[RatedMForManly and becoming a "whoremaster"]].
* BeliefMakesYouStupid: Generally inverted; a focus on theology increases your Learning stat. The one place where this trope does apply is when you're building an observatory to study astronomy, which is likely to lead to you finding answers about the heavens [[TheHeretic that don't align with official doctrine]].
* BelligerentSexualTension:
** There is one event chain that starts with a neighbour complaining, potentially followed by you sending roses, potentially followed by romance.
** Additionally the attraction opinion modifiers always have effect. So if you are playing as a male (or a homosexual female) then your opinion of a woman whose traits include strong, brawny, attractive, seductress, gregarious, and socializer will be 110 points higher due to sexual attraction. If said woman is your rival (which gives a -100 opinion malus) then your combined opinion of her will be a net positive 10.
** If you have a rival is the correct sexual orientation, and you raise their opinion of you, then you can seduce him or her. If you choose to have them as a regular lover then they'll still be your rival at the same time.
* TheBerserker: If your character is a [[HornyVikings Viking]], they can become one in battle and gain a trait for it. This gives their martial and personal skill a substantial boost, but reduces their diplomacy.
* BestialityIsDepraved: Averted, to much hilarity. Events in the ''Conclave'' and ''Reaper's Due'' expansions add horse characters as {{NPC}}s, generated by events connected to Lunatic lieges. Due to a [[GoodBadBugs programming oversight]], a number of events don't check whether the participating {{NPC}}s have the "Horse" trait or culture. Which means characters with the "Lustful" trait may try to seduce the horse, or even make them a concubine if they meet the requirements.
* {{BFS}}: As of the 3.1 patch, characters of specific cultures[[note]]Germanic, Latin, Celtic, and Iberian[[/note]] who also have a Great Fortress wonder with an armory can have their smith specially create a two-handed sword for them. It requires both the proper culture and either very high personal combat skill or to be brawny, strong, or a giant, but provides tremendous bonuses as compared to other smithed weapons.
* BigFancyCastle: The Grand Fortress is a castle large enough to qualify as a Great Work, and which greatly adds to the fort level of whichever county it is in.
* BigFancyHouse:
** Patricians in ''The Republic'' get a family palace that is treated as a completely separate holding from those that are on the map. Like any other holding, it can be upgraded to provide bonuses to income, levies, and other areas. It also has unique structures that improve character attributes and, in one case, fertility as well.
** Since patch 3.1, one of the buildings available to an independent ruler of any government is the Royal Palace. It's highly expensive to build, but it can provide many bonuses to it's owner.
* BigFriendlyDog: If you get the hunting dog from the Hunting focus and then switch to the Family focus, one possible event has the dog becoming best buddies with children in your court.
* BigFun: Fat characters who lead a Carousing lifestyle can get a special “Munificent” opinion modifier, that improves Diplomacy as well. It’s a great way to make friends with your vassals and courtiers.
* BillBillJunkBill: Played with in the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kX5ggw5AIU "Sloth"]] live action trailer for Crusader Kings II.
* BlackVikings:
** The strictest interpretation is [[SelfImposedChallenge technically]] [[http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=83133&d=1371182597 possible]] as of ''The Old Gods''. Even in the base game, though, it's possible for a character to inherit his name, culture, and religion from his native-born father but his looks from his exotic-born mother. Displaced courtiers will also try to find a court that's most similar to their own culture and religion, which is usually fairly nearby but can end up being quite far afield indeed. For instance, Abyssinian Miaphysites ending up in Greece or Asia Minor [[CurbStompBattle after the Fatimids steamroll their corner of the world]]. There's also an event in the ''Republic'' DLC that has a MerchantPrince acquire a African wife, which can breed black people into Europe, otherwise the game uses Turkic Portraits to portray people of MixedAncestry.
** The game considers all pagan religions to be a part of the same "religious group" for marriage purposes, so it is possible to wed your Norse prince to a Tengri princess end up with a Turkish-looking Swede leading Viking raids. This used to allow true Black Vikings as well, although the diplomatic range added later makes it harder.
* BlingOfWar: Kings and emperors leading troops will get special helmets and armor added to their portraits that have crowns worked into them.
* TheBluebeard[=/=]BlackWidow: One of the people whose death you can consistently plan is that of your spouse. There's even an achievement for doing so named “[[BlackHumor Till death does us part]]."
* BodyguardCrush: With the Seduction focus, a female (or gay male) character can win over a bodyguard, who can either be [[LadyAndKnight promoted to]] TheSquire (and thus a named character) or kept on the side as a bodyguard lover (providing a bonus to the character's Martial skill and ability to uncover plots).
* BondOneLiner: The button text for most successful murder plots consists of your character making a snarky remark regarding the target's fate.
-->'''blown up in manure explosion:''' [target] went out with a bang.\\
'''poisoned wine:''' I think I shall celebrate with... beer.
* BonusBoss: Invading China. There are steep requirements to fulfill before it is even possible[[note]]You must be an Empire-tier ruler, you must have 300 counties in your realm, you must border the eastern edge of the map, and China must not be destabalized[[/note]], the war itself is difficult (China sends larger doomstacks than even the Aztecs while all your counties have -75% replenishment), and losing the war means your primary title is destroyed. Essentially the only players who can attempt this are ones who have already conquered most of the world.
* BoringButPractical:
** The Family focus has no active actions you can take or ongoing event chains, and the events in it mostly give small relationship bonuses with close family and do not fire often. However, staying on the path gives you 20% fertility, +2 diplomacy and +1 health, a close to 100% chance you'll fall in love with your spouse (+50% fertility) and the ability to become ThePatriarch or [[ApronMatron The Matriarch]] for your dynasty, which gives you an additional +1 diplomacy and +20% fertility, making it the perfect option for rulers who want to live long and leave a healthily growing (and landed) dynasty behind. Unlike Rulership and Theology it also has no downsides; the worst Family focus will do to you is cause you to become Proud.
** Extracting tribute from neighbours. The attacker is spared the trouble of actually managing the defender as a vassal or his lands (if the war was over territory), and strengthens himself at the expense of the defender.
* BornInTheSaddle: ''Horse Lords'' adds a Nomadic form of government for steppe tribes to reflect their more fluid and less settled way of life. Nomad armies are heavily structured around cavalry (including the infamous HorseArcher), and horses feature prominently in their special mechanics and event chains.
* BornUnderTheSail: In ''Crusader Kings II'', any nation with a lot of coastline can become a serious contender at amphibious warfare, and merchant republics require coastal access to build trade routes, but the true sea kings are the Norse. All counties of Norse culture get free level 1 shipbuilding tech when the "Dawn of the Viking Age" event fires around 790 AD (and start with them in the 867 AD start date), while [[Myth/NorseMythology Germanic pagans]] (also chiefly Norse, though the Saxons follow the same faith) can sail up major rivers to raid inland and portage ships between them, and may declare county conquest wars against any coastal province (instead of merely ones on their own borders as other pagans, Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims can). They also have a slew of traits they earn by raiding.
* BreadEggsBreadedEggs: There is nothing stopping the player from playing odd religion-government type combinations. Muslim merchant republics? No problem. Buddhist nomads? Possible. However, for them to be playable, you would require the corresponding expansions.
* BrickJoke:
** There's an event chain which begins with a neighbour boring you and sending envoys asking for money, and you can nail the envoy's hat on his head or send roses to him. If you nail the hat, [[HistoricalInJoke you become an]] [[UsefulNotes/VladTheImpaler impaler]] and makes everyone around mad at you, with an option at the end of the chain saying something along the lines of "Perhaps I should begin planting roses?"
** In one of the Improve Intrigue event chains, you can frame a nobody for jewellery theft. Thirty years of in-game time later, your ruler will suddenly wake up in the night and realize the man is still in the dungeons for a crime he didn't commit, and will rush to the dungeons to let him out after a nightmare, while your character takes a hit to their piety. After seeing what a foul condition he is in, [[KickTheDog you tell the guard to close the door]].
* BullyingADragon: Factions gauge their chance of successfully rebelling based on how many soldiers the members of the faction have in relation to how many you have, without taking gold or alliances into account. This mean your vassals might form a faction and revolt against you thinking they have the advantage, only for your mercenaries to crush them all.
* CadreOfForeignBodyguards: You can recruit landless foreign noblemen and use them as {{Mook Commander}}s. They usually have to be in your own religious group (otherwise the fact that you're infidels relative to each other tends to put the noble's RelationshipValues below the required threshold), and it helps if they have a claim on a title that they think you might help them win, but it's completely possible to be an Irish Catholic duke with a Greek or African general leading your army.
** Byzantine rulers can create the Varangian guard as a vassalized mercenary company. If you're a Norse ruler, your unlanded sons may ask to serve there, and refusing them causes you to take a prestige penalty.
* CaligulasHorse: Lunatic event chains in "Conclave" allow you to gain horses as courtiers. Apparently they can be pretty good ones too. [[spoiler:If you find a way to make your horse immortal, Caligula's actual horse will show up and challenge you to a duel to the death.]]
* TheCanKickedHim: The apparent fate of those who die from dysentery, as the tooltip on their character portrait states they died "[[UnusualEuphemism while attending to]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamber_pot 'chamber business']]". There's also an assassination plot where you blow someone up with manure.
* CareerEndingInjury: There's a chance that a character leading troops into battle may suffer a particularly bad blow to the head that renders them incapable, meaning they'll need a regent if they happen to be the ruler.
* TheCasanova: The ''Way of Life'' DLC gives us the Seduction focus, which allows rulers to actively target other characters in order to seduce and sleep with them, and (sometimes) take them on as lovers.
* CassandraTruth: One of the potential trials of immortality is to steal an item from a shopkeeper. If you get caught, you try to persuade the shopkeeper that you are his liege lord, but the shopkeeper doesn't believe you and has his guards beat you to near death.
* CastOfSnowflakes: Due to a more random generation system, characters in CKII are more individualised as compared to [[YouAllLookFamiliar the first game]]. Furthermore, portraits change in relation to traits (battle scars, boils) or when characters are assigned jobs. Marshals and army leaders wear helmets and armor, dukes wear golden tiaras outside of battle, spymasters wear hoods, [[EyeScream blinded characters have dark, ugly voids where their eyes once sat]], and so on. DLC content packs expand this further.
* {{Catchphrase}}: Characters with the family focus get "Family first!" as a personal motto.
* Catch22Dilemma: Due to an UnwinnableByMistake bug in ''Conclave'', {{player character}}s [[https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/nomadic-conclave-madness.917207/ sometimes end up in a bind]] where the members of their realm council dislike them because the PC holds too many titles (feudal)/want more land (nomads), then disagree with giving out land because they dislike the PC due to wanting more land. The only reliable solutions are to fire the council altogether (which pisses them off even more) or bribing enough councillors to agree (which can get expensive), though sometimes granting titles to relatives of council members works.
* CategoryTraitor: Zealous characters take a dim view of their co-religionists having sympathy for other faiths.
* CatsAreMean: Zigzagged. On the one hand, it's perfectly possible to have a sweet, caring pet cat. On the other, FunnyAnimal cats in a random world have a bonus to murder plots, and the cat character [[CaligulasHorse a mad ruler may make spymaster]] comes with the Deceitful, Wroth, and Proud traits (while still being a normal cat).
* ChaoticStupid: The Arbitrary trait is described as a character that cares little for right and wrong, and choosing things almost at random (it is represented by a six sided die). It also comes with a decent drop in vassal's opinions and stewardship. A lunatic, on the other hand, will do extremely random things (or nods to historical deranged monarchs, such as [[CaligulasHorse assigning their horse to the council]]) and your vassals will LOATHE you for it. Arbitrary can also lead to StupidGood or StupidEvil when combined with the Kind or Cruel traits.
* CharacterCustomization: One of the lesser [=DLCs=] for the game is a ruler designer that allows you to create and customize your own rulers to replace any of the default ones. Another DLC, released later, allows you to change existing characters names, portraits and dynasty names mid-game.
* ChildByRape: Rulers who follow certain religions can [[SexSlave force captive women (and sometimes men) to become their concubines]], with all that entails.
* ChinaTakesOverTheWorld: Downplayed. While China will sometimes become expansionist and force other Empires to be tributes, and while it can produce armies far in excess of what most other Empires can field, only realms on the eastern part of the map need worry about this.
* ChokepointGeography:
** Patches of no-man's-land are sometimes used to represent impassable peaks on the map, with gaps between them for mountain passes. This is especially evident in the Alps.
** At a tactical level, commanders may be able to find a chokepoint in battle, limiting how many troops on can face each other on a given flank, helping offset a numerical disadvantage.
* TheClan: Happens more or less by default if a family has upwards from 5 or so members who hold a title (i.e. Gavelkind inheritance will sooner or later result this). All of these family members get a small opinion buff for same dynasty (and were automatic military allies in versions before 2.5), but they also tend to have a design on each other's titles (''especially'' if they're closely related since they'll have claims on their relatives' titles) and frequently send assassins after each other. Some (in)famous historical examples are the Rurikids who collectively rule most or all of Russia divided into half a dozen Grand Duchies and the Karlings who hold most of Central Europe during the 867 start.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Lunatic characters appear to live in their own little bubble of reality, one they share with [[LetsMeetTheMeat talking smoked fish]] and [[NinjaMaid murderous]] gopher maids. They're also prone to passing laws to ban things like violence [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and pants]] for "the salvation of the realm."
* CoitusUninterruptus: Feast event chains such as pagan religious festivals may lead to one of your guests banging a serving girl in full view of the party. They may get embarrassed and stop, or keep going.
* ColourCodedForYourConvenience:
** Crusader Kings II uses different hues of the same colour to indicate similarity in its various map modes. On the political map mode, the Iberian Christian kingdoms for example share similar shades of yellow and red, while their Muslim neighbors are green. Similarly in ''De Jure'' Duchies mode, all English, French and German duchies are coloured in different shades of red, blue and white, respectively. The Kingdom of Burgundy is ... well, guess.
** For the Religion map mode, Shi'a and Sunni Muslim are represented by similar but distinct shades of green, while Orthodox Christianity is purple and Catholicism is in white. Heresies have differing shades from their mother religions (e.g. Fraticelli is light brown, while Cathar is light blue). Realms with different religions from their liege have strips across them.
* ComebackMechanic:
** Crusades and Jihads can trigger early if core Christian or Islamic lands are threatened, and if this happens, reformed Pagans with religious heads gain their Great Holy War ''casus belli'' shortly after in retaliation, and to enforce their use as a ComebackMechanic, Crusades, Jihads, and Great Holy Wars can be used if their religion has even a paltry 5% Moral Authority and have very high weights for lands that the faith would likely already control if they weren't under threat.
** Furthermore, when the Crusades begin early, Catholics gain two to four holy orders immediately to help them push back, and the formation of holy orders gives a temporary boost to the religion's Moral Authority. Similarly, when Jihads begin early, Sunni and Ibadi Islam may get their holy orders early depending on which sites were lost to non-Muslims (The Shi'ite holy order, however, only forms after 1089), and if core Indian lands are taken by non-Dharmic faiths, Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism can all get their holy orders without a single ruler controlling all five of their faith's holy sites.
** Similarly, if one Pagan faith reforms, ''all'' Pagan faiths get +5% Moral Authority for several years to encourage a broader Pagan revival and a rallying of all Pagan faiths against the various Abrahamic and Dharmic faiths.
* ComicallyIneptHealing: Given the state of medieval medicine, some of the treatments (especially the more "experimental" ones) your court physicians can suggest to your sick ruler seem utterly nonsensical or counterproductive. [[SubvertedTrope The kicker is, sometimes they work anyway.]]
* ComicallySmallBribe:
** A random event involves your character selling out someone close to them (permanently denting their relationship) at the behest of one of that character's rivals, in return for a portion of said rival's wealth. If the rival (picked at random) is a courtier with no personal wealth, your character will then sell out their close friend/wife/family member for as much as that courtier can offer... ''A whole shiny gold piece''. And no, you have no option to refuse.
** Normally, a gift of wealth is scaled to the target's annual income (minimum of 20 ducats). In some versions of the game, giving a gift to someone who newly enters a position is treated as having minimal monthly income and may therefore be subject to a comically small gift that improved relations.
* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard:
** [[TheHorde The Mongols]] have giant armies that completely ignore supply limits, thus allowing them to concentrate in unbeatable numbers, while the player cannot counter this due to still being limited by supplies. Ditto the Aztecs in ''Sunset Invasion'', though [[TacticalRockPaperScissors as their troops are mostly infantry, cavalry-rich realms have an easier time]].
** During peasant/religious/liberator uprisings, the AI is regularly able to levy armies ten to twenty times larger than the player is allowed to get out of those same territories.
** [[InvokedTrope Possible to outright enable as a game rule]] - provincial can be boosted to as much as six times their normal strength (or disabled), at which point a peasant revolt in Kola or Targhaza may muster more troops than the entire Byzantine Empire.
* TheComputerIsALyingBastard: Due to the relatively simple algorithm the game uses to determine the advertised difficulty levels of various starting options, and factors it doesn't consider, what it says is the easiest possible start to the game... isn't. It calculates it as such because you start with a large empire with a strong power base... but neglects to factor in that you're playing an elderly, weak ruler with loyalty issues among his vassals, and at least one costly civil war is effectively inevitable shortly after starting.
* TheConqueror: Any character who presses an Invasion claim can receive this nickname if they wins (and they'll deserve it, since winning an invasion results in conquering at least an entire kingdom in one go (winning an invasion nets the targeted ''de jure'' kingdom, plus any and all baronies that the attacker has taken control of during the invasion, regardless of if they're in the targeted kingdom). They may also be a YoungConqueror, depending on their age.
* ContractOnTheHitman: Implied by the flavor text for some successful assassinations:
-->''I must make sure the assassins stay silent...''
* CoolCrown:
** With ''Monks and Mystics'', rulers can have crown jewels smithed, which include a crown or circlet for all Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, and all Pagans except African Pagans (who get bracelets like Muslim rulers do). Even as other faiths, it's possible to inherit or steal a crown from someone who owns one.
** With ''Holy Fury'', Catholic and Fraticelli kings and emperors aren't allowed to wear their crowns until [[AwesomeMomentOfCrowning they've been coronated by a religious official]].
** With ''Holy Fury'', reforming a Pagan faith (except for Bön and Hellenic, which get a [[StaffOfAuthority scepter]] instead) with Temporal leadership, the reformer gets a special fancy crown, which is even reflected in the wearer's portrait when equipped.
** Also with ''Holy Fury'', various unique crowns can be acquired by forming certain titles, such as restoring the Persian Empire as a Zoroastrian.
* CoolHorse: Nomad khagans can buy and name their very own sturdy war horses, which provide a small prestige boost to the character that owns them.
* CoolAndUnusualPunishment: Rulers who are poets are able to punish prisoners by reading them bad poetry.
* CosmeticallyDifferentSides: Averted.
** ''Sword of Islam'', as Muslims have their own mechanics, such as decadence and polygamy;
** ''Legacy of Rome'', which made the game slightly different for Greek and Orthodox characters;
** ''The Republic'', which adds special mechanics for Patrician families in [[TheRepublic merchant republics]];
** ''The Old Gods'', which adds new mechanics for the now playable pagan nations, including raiding;
** ''Sons Of Abraham '', adding new features to '''all''' of the Abrahamic religions ''and'' adding Judaism to the mix;
** ''Rajas of India'', which lets you play as Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains in India, with their own mechanics.
** ''Charlemagne'', which introduces tribal rulers (as opposed to feudal lords).
** ''Horse Lords'' introduces nomad mechanics for rulers of the steppes, such as clan management, lack of holdings, manpower, etc. (Games without the DLC will have nomad rulers behave like tribal ones instead.)
** Different culture groups and religions also get different features, such as each culture or culture group having its own unique retinue and certain cultures (mainly Norse and Altaic) having the permanent ability to raid.
* CrazyCatLady: ''The Reaper's Due'' adds cats and the possibility of adopting one for your own (or, well, having it adopt you, really), followed by the possibility of adopting several more. A large herd of cats provides some measure of protection from the Plague, but cats' association with witches may inspire peasant revolts.
* CreatorProvincialism: Sweden-based Creator/ParadoxInteractive has given '''much''' more attention to Germanic pagans, who get a lot of unique events, traits, decisions and other exclusive stuff (Fylkir, Blot, runestones, river sailing), compared to the other pagan religions who have very little to distinguish from each other. This has only gradually been somewhat mitigated in patches in the years since ''The Old Gods'' was released - other Pagans have gained quite of bit of content since then, but they've never really fully caught up to Germanic Paganism's level of attention.
* CreepyCathedral: Any Grand Cathedral with the Gargoyles, spikes, or a torture chamber qualifies as this.
* CrutchCharacter:
** Certain historical rulers have high predefined stats and positive traits, which makes playing as them easy. However, their ahistorical descendants have their stats and traits determined by the player and RandomNumberGod, which means that the player has to start relying on their own skill at the game after one generation.
** King Karl of West Francia (the historical UsefulNotes/{{Charlemagne}}) in the 769 start is the most extreme example of this. Not only does he have decent stats and traits, he also has several scripted events that make it easy for him to form the Holy Roman Empire and conquer most of western Europe. However, his descendants don't have this luxury, which means that the player has to rely on their own skill to prevent their massive, culturally diverse empire from disintegrating after Karl dies.
** Also potentially inverted when stronger player-ruled realms (especially Catholic realms) end up propping up weaker countries across half of Europe against rapacious Norse and Muslim conquistadors.
** Pagan realms are powerful early game, but weaken as time goes on (or more accurately, everyone else surpasses them and they become ''comparatively'' weaker). In addition, several early-game advantages eventually get cancelled out: Pagans can become very wealthy early on with their ability to raid provinces, especially Germanic Pagans given their free ships, ability to navigate rivers, and strategic location, but eventually targets will consolidate and fortify to the point where raiding is no longer practical and rivers are locked off. Passive defensive attrition is brutal for enemies wanting to invade Pagan realms to the point where it's often better to assault Pagan holdings than siege them, but this only applies to a Pagan's homeland territory (on top of the fact that converting provinces to extend their homeland is difficult because of the Pagan religions' low Moral Authority rating) and is eventually negated by technological progress. In addition, Pagans have access to special casus belli (officials reasons to go to war) that allow for fast expansion, but their realms are unstable to due being locked into succession types that split territory among their children, meaning holding a powerful realm together for long periods of time is difficult at best. In addition, Tribalism (the starting government type of most Pagans) is powerful early on because of rulers' large demesne limits and abilities to call vassals to war rather than getting smaller levies, but large tribal realms hit a peak as tribal rulers do not get troops from vassals of vassals unlike feudal rulers.
* CrystalDragonJesus: Sufficiently strong pagan rulers can, under the right circumstances, reform their respective faiths, creating an organized religion with a formal priestly hierarchy and written holy texts, and it's implied that these reforms are inspired by contact with and directly patterned after the Christian and Islamic religious bodies.
** With ''The Old Gods'' (but NOT ''Holy Fury''), these reforms are predefined and most pagans adopt a Catholic-like structure with a single strictly spiritual religious head who can call Great Holy Wars. Germanic pagans, however become much more like Muslims: the reformer becomes the head of the religion in a manner similar to the Islamic caliphs and holds both spiritual and temporal power.
** With ''Holy Fury'', the reforms are much more flexible and can range from very closely following Christianity (Hierocratic leadership for Catholic-like or Autocephalous leadership for Orthodox-like, Proselytizing nature, and Monasticism and Ancestor Veneration doctrines), Islam (Temporal leadership, Dogmatic nature, and any combination of Religious Tax, Polygamy, and Agnatic/Enatic Clans doctrines), or Dharmic faiths (Autonomous leadership, Peaceful (specifically Jain-like) or Cosmopolitan nature (more Hindu/Buddhist/Taoist-like), and any combination of Meritocracy, Stability, and/or Monasticism doctrines), to completely {{avert|edtrope}}ing the trope and doubling down on their old ways or even becoming something entirely different.
* TheCuckoolanderWasRight: The law of anti-violence is actually how our modern human rights pretty much work. Alas, the game occurs in the era where [[DeliberateValuesDissonance people go to war and plunder cities for prestige]].
* DareToBeBadass: A tagline from the "Seven Deadly Sins" promotional shorts reads: "Many are called; few are chosen."
* DealWithTheDevil:
** If you end up playing as [[TheAntichrist demon spawn]], [[PrivateMilitaryContractors mercenary companies]] following the same religion as you will still fight for you against the inevitable [[LaResistance rebellion]] if you [[EveryManHasHisPrice can afford to hire them]]. They're willingly helping the literal Son of Satan in exchange for a stack of gold.
** Joining Lucifer's Own in ''Monks and Mystics'' involves a lot of these; pretty much the only ways to gain favor and Dark Power involve bloodshed in Satan's name. The other 'Devil-Worshipper' societies are pretty much the same, just with the dark forces you (think you) make deals with tailored to the faith in question instead of being the Devil.
* DefensiveFeintTrap: This is the Altaic cultures' signature tactic, "Retreat and Ambush." It's widely considered one of the most powerful tactics in the game. You can also do this on a tabletop in the "war games" event chain, slowly withdrawing troops from the center of your formation to trap your opponent between your flanks and encircle them.
* DefiledForever: A subtle example -- married courtiers are not exempt from pagan concubinage, and being taken as a concubine cancels the marriage automatically.
* DarkHorseVictory: There's an achievement for conquering England as Svend II of Denmark, a somewhat more obscure monarch who also had a claim on the throne, rather than William of Normandy or Harald of Norway.
** It's also possible for the Children's Crusade to actually reach the Holy Land and have their battle for Jerusalem end in a victory--most likely thanks to the help of sympathetic rulers.
* DeathByDespair: While characters with depression can commit suicide, this isn't the only way depression can kill. It's possible for a ruler with depression to go to sleep one night and just not wake up the next morning.
* DeathOfTheOldGods: Unreformed pagans are more easily converted by Abrahamic, Zoroastrian, and Dharmic missionaries, have a harder time of winning converts of their own from those religions, and are very prone to splintering amongst themselves. If no single leader arises to reform a given pagan faith into an organized religion, it's quite likely that that faith will wither away under the pressure of holy wars and missionaries.
* DefeatEqualsFriendship: In "Holy Fury", one outcome of a duel is the participants being impressed with one another's skill and becoming close friends.
* DeliveryStork: Used in the trait icon for pregnancy.
* {{Demonization}}: With [[Myth/HinduMythology Kali]], yes and no. Kali is a perfectly legitimate deity for a Hindu to worship, but one can also be a Kali cultist with the devil-worshipper mechanics. (The latter are, in all likelihood, thuggee magicians rather than mainstream Kali followers.)

** Mechanics existed for immortal characters, even before immortality was added to the game.
** Since the historical archives go back so far, UsefulNotes/TheProphetMuhammad is listed in the database. If you look at his character sheet, however, his portrait is [[HeWhoMustNotBeSeen blocked out]], the only portrait in the game to have this property.
** If you only read the drop down when [[StartMyOwn using the Liege Creator DLC]], you would think that being openly (well, as openly as medieval times allow for) homosexual is purely a penalty to the diplomacy stat. Well, it does more than just that. Most people will dislike you for being homosexual... except other homosexuals who will like you better. This opinion bonus also stacks with attractive...
** The act of offering up Native Americans as human sacrifice during a blót has its own special flavor text, even though it is a rather unlikely event.
** Also, in the unlikely event that a Norse pagan worms his way into India, some of the rivers there are navigable by longboat.
** After the release of the ''Horse Lords'' DLC, players can now find Marco Polo hanging around Kublai Khan's court if they choose to start at the appropriate date. His father and uncle are also there, and all three are friends with the Khan!
** The ''Conclave'' DLC added different names and graphics for different government types in the kingdom rules tab. Most of these are mundane names like "Noble Republic" or "Elective Aristocratic Empire", but if your ruler has the relatively rare "Spawn of Satan" trait - welcome to the "Kingdom of Terror" (or the ''Empire'' of Terror - the first part is based on the primary title's rank).
** Discovering and publicizing the heliocentric model of the solar system hundreds of years ahead of its time by studying the stars will expose your ruler to ridicule and religious sanctions (unless the religious head is [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem you]]) -- except among Zunist pagans, who worship the sun in the guise of Zun, the Bringer of Justice.
** By default, Islam is the only polygamous faith in the game, and doesn't allow matrilineal marriage or female inheritance, so normally you cannot enter a polygamous marriage as a female - but flavor text and event data still exists in the game files for a female player character in a polygamous union, including rivalries with your husband's other wives, and attempting to get your son named as your husband's heir.
** If you [[OldSaveBonus export a CK2 game]] to ''VideoGame/EuropaUniversalis IV'' and had "Sunset Invasion" turned on, you'll find that the cultures of the New World are considerably more advanced technologically than they normally are. Furthermore, if your ruler has become immortal in ''Crusader Kings II'', this will be retained in ''Europa Universalis IV''.
** The game has text for duels won while wielding every type of weapon--and that includes the one-of-a-kind Hermetic handgun. (The results are [[NeverBringAKnifeToAGunFight predictable]].)
* DevilButNoGod: Or so it seems with [[MagicalRealism Supernatural Events and Lucifer's Own on]]. The Hermetic Society and various monastic orders get relics that could well be pure psychological in benefit, and MaybeMagicMaybeMundane scrying and attempts to communicate with Divine Beings in trances. Lucifer's Own can conjure demons to possess targets and cast curses that give a very-likely lethal disease to the victim.
** Actually, there are two holy relics with effects that are definitely [[DoingInTheScientist magical]]: the first is the Seal of Solomon, which renders you immune to possession, and the second is the Holy Grail[[note]]The holy_grail, not the holy_chalice. The game has two, the chalice is less impressive in terms of health benefits[[/note]], which gives a +4 to health, which is a massive bonus, while all other holy artifacts that give bonuses to health give +1 at most, with many only giving 0.25-0.75, meaning it is most definitely not psychological.[[labelnote:Further Examples]]A +4 is enough to cancel out almost any disease, with the only diseases that have a higher health reduction being ''the bubonic plague'' and ''rabies'' (both at -7). The Holy Grail can allow you to easily shrug off ''cancer''(-3 health)[[/labelnote]]. Then there's the Holy Prepuce[[note]][[{{Squick}} Jesus' foreskin]][[/note]], which provides 15% fertility increase. There's also [[AngelsDevilsAndSquid Cthulhu]].
** Also, several Holy Relic weapons give bizarrely high bonuses to the wielder's Personal Combat Skill, usually significantly higher than the 14 given by Tier 4 forged weapons. While one could argue that things like the Lance of Longinus or Axe of Perkunas are simply normal but really well made weapons, and the further increase in skill is psychological, it's a bit hard to argue that there's nothing special about the Staff of Moses, which appears to just be a really fancy staff, but is a more effective weapon than ''the most expensive craftable weapons in the game'', and the Babr-e-Bayan, which appears to be a regular leopard pelt, but is better than any armour in the game, even the Hermetic's Plate Armour. And Mjolnir offers a +20, which is ridiculously high just for someone having psychological benefits, and the second highest bonus to Personal Combat Skill of any in the game, after the Prosthetic Leg[[note]]And that's only that high because it's to partially offset the -30 penalty given by the one-legged trait[[/note]]. Add onto all of this the fact that they only work for the followers of certain religions...
* DifficultButAwesome:
** The Rulership focus leaves you entirely at the mercy of the RNG and will either give you an [[TheGoodKing Ambitious, Diligent and Just ruler with +6 stewardship and a +10 to vassal opinions]], or a depressed, stressed-out wreck that burns out and dies mere months later.
** Succeeding as the Byzantine Empire (see NintendoHard below). It's hard to play it well, but once you do, not only can you avert the tragic fate of the eastern half of Rome, but you can also turn the table and restore the Roman Empire not only as it once was but stronger than ever.
* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu:
** In the Franchise/CthulhuMythos event string, you can choose to ram your ship into the awakening Deep One to stop it from rising again [[spoiler: in reference to how "Literature/TheCallOfCthulhu" ended.]]
** One of the possible outcome of the Literature/TheMasqueOfTheRedDeath event string is Death himself gets set aflame on spot.
** In one event where a traveling pilgrim came to you asking for a place to stay, they reveal themselves later as Death. You can attack them first and may win the fight, or you can stall and defeat them in a game of chess. It's easier to just attack Death than play chess, as Death always come with Game Master trait.
* DigitalPiracyIsEvil: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvO50GYniiI This trailer]] puts Piracy in the Seven Deadly Sins and mentions that pirates don't get the full functionality of the game (multiplayer and DLC). Not quite parodied, but definitely joked about.
* DirtyOldMan: It is common for a duke in his late fifties to be married to a woman half his age, and to be cheating on her with three teenage courtiers.
* DisabilitySuperpower: Averted; where negative congenital character traits, such as being inbred or having dwarfism, generally lack a positive bonus. The same goes for negative Health traits, which will affect either your fertility (ability to make heirs) or stats.
* DiscOneNuke: Nomads, as in introduced in the Horse Lords, DLC on the earlier starts. Nomads have a relatively stable, easy to game succession system, require much less micromanaging, and have "horde" stacks composed enterely of Cavalry (which gets a ton of buffs from upgrading your main holding) that can positively [[CurbStompBattle trounce]] most of the world's armies (which have to make do with mostly Light Infantry), and you'll be drowning in gold from raiding and controlling silk road posts, many of which are in steppe territory or very close by; revolts become very small nuisances, even the Clan Revolts that spawn disproportionately large stacks can be beaten pretty easily. All that said, nothing is easier in CK2 than conquering the entire world as a nomad, or at the very least playing really wide.
* DishonoredDead: A pope who dies with the [[SinisterMinister "Wicked Priest" trait]] will trigger an event where his corpse is put on trial for his crimes. This was inspired by the real-life [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod Cadaver Synod]] of Pope Formosus by Pope Stephen VI. There's even an achievement for getting a "Wicked Priest" elected Pope in an Ironman game. [[UpToEleven And another one for getting a Satanist priest elected Pope.]]
* DisinheritedChild: Landed nobles can force their vassals, including their children, to join monastic orders/nunneries which removes them from the line of succession.
* DownloadableContent: Crusader Kings II has two types of [=DLCs=]:
** "Bonus" cosmetic additions that add extra portraits, historical dynasty flags, unit sprites and music...
** ... [[ButWaitTheresMore And]] mini-expansions like ''Sword of Islam'' and ''Legacy of Rome'' which make Muslim rulers playable and add new gameplay mechanics for Orthodox rulers, respectively. Paradox kept its promise to add new features to the basic game so players won't be forced to buy the expansions, but this hasn't stopped [[BrokenBase some fans]] [[FanDumb from accusing Paradox of money-grubbing]]. The game plus all current DLC can run in excess of two hundred dollars, which ''is'' a bit pricey, especially for an older game.
* DrivenToSuicide: If you have depression or are [[WhoWantsToLiveForever an immortal over the age of 100]], you can actually invoke this and end it all. It costs 200 prestige. Which is a surprisingly useful option, as the game lacks any abdication mechanics, so this is the only truly reliable way to choose exactly when you want your heir to take over.
** As of a recent patch, committing suicide will incur an opinion penalty that will be immediately inherited by your next character, so you'll have to deal with that if you use this strategy
* DuelToTheDeath:
** With the War focus from ''Way of Life'', you can challenge rival characters to duels. It's mostly AwesomeButImpractical: even if you win, if you give a CoupDeGrace to your opponent you'll get a permanent "Merciless" opinion malus (however, this is not incurred if you finish off a defeated opponent in a battlefield duel), whereas otherwise your opponent is likely to just be wounded or maimed, which doesn't help a lot unless you were trying to reduce their health or Martial score so they'd be more likely to die of natural causes.
** As of version 3.0, there are "Strong Claim Duels" that can only be waged by tribal rulers when one has a strong claim on the other's title(s) and if the claimant wins, they get to take those titles. While normal duels are rarely fatal, Strong Claim Duels are almost always to the death.
* DuelingScar: It's possible to receive anywhere from one to ''eighteen'' in battles and/or duels. It's shown on the character portrait and adds a small monthly prestige bonus.
* DummiedOut: "Enatic" and "Enatic-Cognatic" gender inheritance laws (meaning female only and female before male inheritance, respectively) exist in the game files, but are disabled by default. With some simple hacking, they are easy enough for players to enable, but attempting to use them ingame is hopeless - thanks to ArtificialStupidity, they are buggy as hell, largely because the AI simply has no clue how to properly handle marriages, vassal behaviour, etc under such laws. Subverted by ''Holy Fury'', you can choose to have Enatic tribal, feudal, nomadic, and republican realms now. Just reform one of the Pagan religions with the Enatic Clans doctrine or have the "Blood of Bayajidda and Magajiva" bloodline, which enables Enatic-Cognatic succession.
* DumpStat:
** Learning does almost nothing that couldn't be handily compensated for through other means, and even the things it does are of questionable importance at best (small monthly boost to piety and technology growth, as well as being some help in religion-related events). This is somewhat lessened in ''Monks and Mystics'', should you become a Hermetic: they can use Learning for a lot of good things.
** Certain technologies, such as Religious Customs or Trading Practices if you're inland and not on the Silk Road are very low priority to boost and by having at least one low tech level, you can keep your Spymaster studying technology somewhere, which periodically yields an extra 50 tech points in one category at random, even if you lead in all techs in that category.
* DungFu: A possible assassination method involves filling a building's basement with exploding manure. (This is ArtisticLicenseChemistry: [[http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/02/explosive-hog-farm-manure-foam Manure explosions in real life are believed to be due to factory farming practices that didn't exist until the 20th century.]])
* EarlyGameHell:
** This can hold true for a lot of games, especially if you're playing as a kingdom with few provinces (like vulnerable Navarre or Georgia) or a ruler with powerful rivals or nearby religious enemies. But it's especially true if you're starting out as a Zoroastrian ruler (and you're determined not to convert). Basically you start out with no advantages except a large starting army (if you're playing the satrap of Karen) that cannot be replenished, virtually no one to make alliances with because of religious differences, and completely surrounded by hostile pagan and Islamic rulers who can gang up against you and will sooner or later, and probably sooner, attack you - and even if you do survive for a couple of centuries you'll probably be right where you'll have to deal with swarms of Seljuk Turks. Even strategies posted online by veteran players can only recommend the "gamey" strategy of pledging allegiance to a neighboring Muslim monarch and exploiting the game's mechanics to try to seize their territory from within, or at least play aggressively and rely on luck, or just pick a stronger and more secure pagan ruler and convert to Zoroastrianism (which is itself tricky, since it usually means you'll have to capture a Zoroastrian woman and make her a concubine).
** Most realms in the earlier bookmarks start out with Gavelkind Inheritance. This means that when the ruler dies his realm is divided among his sons. Most players attempt to switch to a less-crippling inheritance system as soon as they can. Pagan realms are stuck with the even-harder-to-control ''elective'' gavelkind[[note]]successor to primary title is elected by vassals from among dynasty members, while any available titles are created for junior heirs, who get the option to go independent[[/note]] unless they convert to a non-pagan faith or reform their own.
** Playing as the Byzantine Empire. Where to even begin with them? First of, it's impossible to have any inheritance law other than the elective imperial autocracy system. This means that the emperor title will go to someone else upon your death unless you can get your heir elected. You are always under extra pressure not to let your ruler die early and to make sure that your heir is at least presentable to your vassals. However, even if your heir is perfect, that's still no guarantee that they will be supported and may end up losing to some talentless hack with good connections. Second of all, it's very easy to rack up a lot of relation maluses with your vassals simply by breathing around them. You get -10 relation simply by being emperor, and that's not going into the maluses you get from your policies. Be ready to fight civil war after civil war as discontent vassals plot to overthrow you at the drop of a hat. Your council is empowered by default, which makes it hard for you to push your policies. Revoking that power is a surefire way to add even more fuel to the civil war dumpster fire. Now, civil wars aren't terribly hard to put down, but they will happen in the most inconvenient of times and mess up your carefully constructed plan. The real kicker is that civil wars don't stop happening even if the empire is in the middle of a foreign invasion, so be ready to lose the game because your vassals have the foresight of a blind frog. Speaking of foreign powers, the Catholics and the Muslims are always at your throats and a few crusades/jihads away from completely destroying you. Mustering an effective defense is usually an exercise in futility as your realm is probably too busy fighting each other to fight the invaders. Retaking your lost territories is equally hopeless as civil wars can occur halfway through or the council will block you from even starting the war in the first place. Unless you are an experienced player, playing as the Byzantine Empire is an endless loop of internal conflicts while external enemies tear the empire apart. Survive long enough though, and you will begin to have enough prestige to create enough kingdom-level titles to consolidate power in the hands of a few loyal viceroys. After this, you can begin to build up an effective defense and eventually a fearsome invasion force.
* EasterEgg:
** Paradox Development Studio's main staff are in-game as landless Swedish courtiers in the Stamford Bridge start.
** The code for ''The Reaper's Due'' includes commented-out code for [[https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/death-by-platypus.967227/ death by platypus]], apparently meant as a template for creating new methods of execution. (The studio's logo is a platypus skeleton.)
* EasyEvangelism:
** It's a lot easier for a Christian to convert counties to his faith than it is for members of other religions. Unlike other examples of this trope this is less of an AuthorTract and more of a way of representing Christianity's evangelical nature and encouraging the game to simulate the historical conversion of Europe to Christianity. That said, "easier" is a relative term. It can take years to convert one of your own provinces even if you are a Christian, and pagan rulers are likely as not to throw out your missionary the first time one of his courtiers is converted. By contrast, religious conversion ''to'' unreformed pagan faiths is next to impossible.
** {{Inverted|Trope}} by the Romuva faith practiced by Baltic pagans. Romuvan provinces are much more resistant to conversion, and Romuvan characters require +50 positive opinion to accept a conversion request as opposed to the standard +30. This is meant to model the Baltics as being the last, most robust holdout of paganism in Europe.
** With ''Holy Fury'', Pagans can accept "Mass Conversions", wherein the liege and most or all of their non-zealous vassals will all adopt an organized faith at once.
** Also with ''Holy Fury'', on reformation, Pagans can take the Proselytizing nature, which puts them fully on par with Christians for conversion power (otherwise, reformed Pagans are much better than unreformed Pagans at proselytizing, but not as good as Christians) and abilities, including proselytizing in other realms, as well as becoming more interested in sponsoring Mass Conversions.
* EmperorScientist: One possible result of taking on and putting a lot of money and effort into the Learning focus. However, the religious authorities being what they are, the "scientist" part could well lead to the "emperor" part being violently revoked. Joining the Hermetics in ''Monks & Mystics'' bolsters this, if with something of a mystical bent -- membership gives a learning bonus and an opinion penalty for church lords, and its events includes alchemical experimentation, going on expeditions to find lost knowledge and doing more things with the observatory the Learning focus lets you build.
* EmptyShell: Characters with the "Incapable" trait are locked in a permanent state of catatonia and unable to function on their own. Incapable rulers get a regent who rules the kingdom on their behalf.
* EunuchsAreEvil: If a nobleman whose liege is Greek or Chinese decides to rebel and gets imprisoned, then he can find himself castrated. This will make him hate his liege even more, so he is even more likely to do things like rebel or plot to kill the king.
* EvilChancellor: Duke Hunoald Loping of Aquitaine is this to Charlamange. He starts out as your chancellor, and whether or not you replace him it is almost guarinteed that he will join or lead a faction to severely limit your power, break away from your kingdom, or outright usurp your throne.
* EvilMakesYouUgly: For demon-worshippers, abusing dark magic tends to give them bad physical traits.
* ExoticExtendedMarriage: Muslims and reformed Pagans with the Polygamy doctrine can have a maximum of four wives. Pagans, Zoroastrians, tribal Christians, and members of the three Indian religions get one wife and the option of multiple concubines, all of whose children are considered legitimate. Women of the Bön and African Pagan faiths, as well as any reformed Pagan faiths that take the Enatic Clans or Equality doctrines can take up to three men as consorts in addition to their husband, and the children of consorts are considered legitimate.
* ExpansionPackWorld: The patch that comes with ''Rajas of India'' extends the game map well to the East, including the entire Indian subcontinent and more of Siberia and the Central Asian steppes. Earlier expansions already extended the map southward into Africa, though on a much smaller scale. ''Horse Lords'' has additionally opened up new tracts of the Central Asian steppe, though the map boundaries remain the same.
* EyeScream:
** ''Legacy of Rome'' gives Byzantine emperors the option of putting out the eyes of captured pretenders. This feature also gets extended to all leaders with Greek culture.
** ''Holy Fury'' and ''Reaper's Due'' give plenty of other ways to lose one or both eyes, such as in duels, as sacrifices to the gods, and as a potential experimental medical treatment.
* FantasticRankSystem: The game has a dynamic rank system that generates titles based on combinations of characters' rank, culture, religion, and style of government. Some are historical ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince-bishop prince-bishop]][[note]]Christian bishop who is also a secular count[[/note]], [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Mayor lord mayor]][[note]]count-level mayor[[/note]]), while others are fictional (wali-emir[[note]]Muslim MerchantPrince, i.e. duke-level mayor[[/note]], witch-king[[note]]Slavic or Suomenusko pagan priest who is also a secular king[[/note]]).
* FemmeFatale: As a ruling queen, seducing your most powerful and potentially troublesome vassals in order to keep them under your thumb is a perfectly legitimate tactic.
* FeudingFamilies:
** Patrician families in ''The Republic'' can start long-running vendettas, complete with StarCrossedLovers.
** Steppe nomad clans in "Horse Lords" can start blood feuds, which can only end when one clan pays a blood price in gold to the other or when one of the clans is wiped out.
* FloweryInsult: The standard kind of insult in the game.
-->''[[https://www.mobygames.com/images/promo/original/50939cbdeb554d5cb95cb587858f857b.jpg Tales of your misdeeds are told from Ireland to Cathay!]]''
-->''[[http://i.imgur.com/QALGAw4.jpg?1 Your low character is the subject of Greek plays!]]''
* FoeRomanceSubtext: With the ''Way of Life'' DLC, a landed character can seduce any adult of the appropriate gender and orientation. Even if that character [[ArchEnemy is your rival]] or otherwise has [[TheResenter -100 opinion of you]]. And after seducing this character you can choose to start a long-term sexual relationship.
* TheFoodPoisoningIncident: Food Poisoning is one possible ailment your characters can suffer from with ''The Reaper's Due'' active.
* ForeignCultureFetish: Countries within diplomatic range of China can indulge in quite a bit of Sinophilia. They can use grace [[note]]which represents good relations with the Chinese Imperial Dynasty[[/note]] to hire Chinese Advisors, request Chinese Artifacts, and even marry the Chinese Emperor's daughter. It's possible to gain grace by sending the Emperor artifacts, castrating your courtiers and shipping them off to be the Emperor's courtiers, giving your female relatives to the Emperor's harem, and even [[PoseOfSupplication traveling thousands of miles to kowtow to the Emperor]]. This is justified in that China in this time is a superpower and gaining their favor has a lot of benefits.
* ForeignRulingClass: The game makes a distinction between a province's culture and religion, and that of the character holding the title (who will spawn courtiers, minor nobles, of his own culture). The province will tend to shift to match that of its ruler over time, or the ruler can change cultures to that of their capital province, but in the meantime there's a small increase in revolt risk. Additionally, some cultures, such as English and Russian, are programmed to be created by having a province of one culture be controlled by a ruler of a different culture.
* ForScience: Invoked with the "studying stellar movement" event chain branch from the "building an observatory" decision (requires the Scholarship focus). The chain allows the player character to eventually figure out heliocentrism if pursued to its end. During the discovery phase, you can choose to rebuff your religious head (assuming you're not said head yourself) when he asks you to stop. At the very end, you can choose to publish the results of your research, further snubbing the clergy, but earning considerable prestige at the same time.
* FriendOrFoe: [[https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/friendly-fire.906562/ Due to a long-running bug]] it's possible, though rare, that your troops may accidentally kill their own commander in battle.
* FriendsWithBenefits: The friend mechanic allows you to become friends with characters in your court, including friends of the opposite sex. If you end up seducing and/or marrying your friend, then it is this trope. Can also go the other way, since most marriages are [[BureaucraticallyArrangedMarriage arranged for political reasons]] (or just to have someone to put a potential heir into), but certain events can trigger one actually [[PerfectlyArrangedMarriage falling in love with one's spouse.]]
* FullBoarAction: One of the potential encounters while out on a hunt is a wild boar. It has a small chance of killing or injuring you if you choose to dispatch it yourself, but bringing it down also gives you a fair bit of prestige.
* FunnyAnimal: Due to [[GoodBadBugs some programming oversights]] with Glitterhoof and Horse M.D. (both being horses you can acquire as courtiers through Lunatic events in ''Conclave'' and ''The Reaper's Due''), it is possible to produce entire dynasties of horses that otherwise act exactly like human characters. The "Horse" trait they both have makes it impossible to impregnate them or grant them titles, but it's possible to educate children with them or nominate them to Catholic bishoprics, which creates ''literal'' Horse Lords that will generate horse courtiers. But if you don't try to break the game with them, Glitterhoof can cause a lot of hilarity because, "Horse" trait aside, s/he can do all the same things as a human character.
** Eventually, ''Holy Fury'' introduced this as a semi-hidden rule in random world generation. Said horses, cats, dogs, [[RunningGag polar bears]], hedgehogs, ducks, elephants, red pandas, and [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers dragons]] all become fully playable.
* FunnySchizophrenia: Insane characters. Between chasing imaginary gophers, outlawing pants, trying to seduce rose bushes, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and occasionally banning ethnic and religious discrimination in their realm]], Insanity is mostly PlayedForLaughs.
* GambitPileup: Crusader Kings II introduced the ability for characters to form secret conspiracies to achieve some goal or another, called "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Plots.]]" It's pretty much inevitable that at least two are going to crash into each other sooner or later.
* GameBreakingBug:
** At one point a King-Bishop was allowed to become the predicted next Cardinal, but not allowed to become a Cardinal. Thus, if a King-Bishop became the predicted next cardinal (which was highly likely due to the "secular power" modifier) he would prevent others from becoming Cardinals while himself never becoming a Cardinal, inevitably reducing the College to a tiny number.
** ''Rajas of India'' adds temporary titles for revolts. If you manage to inherit one but not the revolt somehow (for example, a Duchy-level revolt in your Kingdom takes land and all of the eligible heirs die), you will be unable to arrange marriages, give out titles, create retinues, or do countless other very important things.
** The Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Church frequently inherits control of the Byzantine Empire, which converts the government to a theocracy with open elective succession (picks basically at random from courtiers) and makes it extremely difficult for secular rulers to regain control.
* GameFavoredGender:
** [[DeliberateValuesDissonance In keeping with the values of the time]], men tend to be have the advantage. ''CKII'' allows a male-biased inheritance law that allows women to inherit if no males are available for all non-Muslim religions (''agnatic-cognatic''), and full female inheritance rights for the Basque culture and Cathar and Messalian heresies (''absolute cognatic''). Even then, though, female rulers and/or heirs result in opinion penalties without the "full status of women" law enacted, which doesn't affect male rulers and/or heirs, and any males with weak claims on their titles can press them at any time simply because of their gender. Paradox ''did'' add female-preference inheritance in a later patch, but only for modders until the ''Holy Fury'' DLC added ways for religions to enable it outside of modding. What is ''not'' moddable is that the default marriage is patrilineal (the children is of the father's dynasty), with a marriage being matrilineal having to be specifically chosen (and the AI prefers not to accept such marriage offers unless it directly benefits them). Played straight with the merchant republics and Muslim realms. Women from patrician houses can ''never'' be elected Doge or become head of their houses. They cannot be married off matrilineally either, nor can they inherit titles.
** Some of the expansions downplay it, however: in ''Rajas of India'', there is no opinion penalty for having a female heir or being a female ruler as a Dharmic ruler, and with ''Sons of Abraham'', Cathars, Messalians, and Bogomilists similarly have no such penalties, nor do the Bön or African Pagans (though they're only playable with ''The Old Gods'' or ''Holy Fury'' for both, while ''Jade Dragon'' unlocks Bön, but not other Pagans), ''Conclave'' adds various options to expand the rights of women by passing laws and at full status of women, nearly all gender bias is removed[[note]]At full status of women, women can hold all council positions regardless of personal relationship to the ruler, opinion penalties for female rulers and heirs are removed, and even Muslims can enact agnatic-cognatic and absolute cognatic succession. What ''isn't'' negated is that this still allows male only or male-preference succession, but doesn't enable female only or female-preference, still leaves patrilinneal marriage as the default, and that merchant republics are still strictly agnatic only and still cannot carry out matrilinneal marriages), and ''Holy Fury'' allows any Pagan faith to {{avert|edtrope}} it with the Equality doctrine, which also locks in Absolute Cognatic succession.
** The favored gender can be inverted by the Enatic Clans doctrine in ''Holy Fury'', which blocks Agnatic, Agnatic-Cognatic, and Absolute Cognatic succession, only allowing Enatic and Enatic-Cognatic succession (female-only and female-preference) and barring ''men'' from leading armies or holding council titles or receiving landed titles (unless they are already landed). When combined with the Warmongering nature, it also enables the Matriarchal Deposition ''casus belli'', giving a realm with Enatic Clans ''casus belli'' on any neighboring realm ruled by a man, with the goal of overthrowing the ruler and installing a woman on the throne (of the same dynasty as the defender if possible, skipping over any women whose religion has the Agnatic Clans doctrine or are incapable, and favoring close relatives of the defender and women of the same religion as the attacker, and generating a new female character to rule if no valid candidates of the defender's dynasty exist) as well as enforcing full status of women and enatic succession (unless the new ruler is of a religion with the Equality doctrine, which enforces absolute cognatic inheritance) and making the realm a tributary of the attacker and counting as a holy war for moral authority purposes[[note]]Combining the Agnatic Clans doctrine and Warmongering nature gives the similar, but gender reversed and understandably less target-rich Patriarchal Deposition CB[[/note]]. Unfortunately, the AI isn't fully aware that Enatic Clans makes women the GameFavoredGender for the faith and has a bad habit of engaging in dynasty-ending patrilineal marriages.
** Ensuring that there are enough suitable heirs is also much, ''much'' harder for female rulers. Muslim men can have up to four wives, while men of Pagan, Mazdan, and Dharman faiths can have three concubines in addition to their wife (whose children are considered legitimate, and they can be dismissed and replaced at will), so there is basically no way they can ever ''not'' have an heir. Women, however, can only ever have one husband to father their heirs - and there is always the off chance that a female ruler, even if she is the player character, will die in childbirth. Even with the addition of male consorts for female rulers of the Bön and African pagan faiths in 3.0, as well as any Pagan faiths that take the Equality or Enatic Clans doctrines, ruling women are still limited by their ability to only carry one (or maybe two, in the very rare event of twins) child at a time, while male rulers can father up to four children with their wives/concubines all at the same time.
** In ''Crusader Kings III'', every faith that exists at the start of the game is either male-dominated or has gender equality, with male-dominated being far more common. In a male-dominated faith, the most woman-friendly succession law allowed is agnatic-cognatic/male preference (women can only inherit in the absence of a male heir), women cannot be granted land, and knighthood and most council positions can only be held by men and women facing an opinion penalty when ruling. When founding a new faith or reforming a pagan faith, the dominant gender of the new faith may be changed between male dominance, equality, and female dominance, and the clerical gender may be set independently with the options of all-male priesthood, gender-neutral priesthood, and all-female priesthood. A game rule can fully avert this by making all religions have the equality doctrine or may be set to flip the game-favored gender such that all starting religions that would normally be male dominated instead female dominated.
* GenocideBackfire:
** When an enemy ruler raids your lands he becomes hostile to you for a year, so if you can catch the raiders before they escape you can put all of them to the sword. If you are feeling really vengeful, you can sail back to the raiders home and siege down their settlements to take their gold and imprison their courtiers.
** When nomads pillage settlements in conquered lands, the revolt risk in those settlements greatly increases. On ground level, this translates to people tired of watching their families being butchered and rising up to fight for their survival or at the very least to take as many death squads down as possible.
** If a peasant/heretic rebellion kills all but one member of your house, then the SoleSurvivor can torture the RebelLeader to death and spend the rest of his life squeezing money out of the peasants.
* GirlOnGirlIsHot: In the event where two of a Muslim lord's wives fall in love, there's an option to "scold them tonight!" that gives the Lustful trait. Apart from that, many players intentionally marry women with the "homosexual" trait to [[MamasBabyPapasMaybe ensure their children is really theirs]].
** If you're playing as a man, have an affair with another man, and the affair is exposed: You lose 500 Prestige and 250 Piety, and get a twenty year -10 opinion penalty with everyone, as well as a further -10 to relations with church officials. Your affair partner also gets the relations penalty. But if you're playing as a woman and your lesbian affair gets exposed, you lose only 100 Prestige and 50 Piety, you don't get the opinion penalty, and your affair partner receives no penalty whatsoever.
* GladiatorGames: Any independent ruler of Roman, Italian, or Greek Culture, or of Hellenic religion, can construct a Grand Amphitheater. In this Great Work gladiators fight animals and each other, and can even do so in navel battles. It's even possible to recruit gladiators to serve in your court.
* GoMadFromTheRevelation:
** The Scholarship focus allows you to research the Franchise/CthulhuMythos. Insanity is a common side-effect.
** A ''very'' rare event can return an Incapable ruler back to life, at the cost of making him/her permanently insane. Depending on the quality of said ruler this is either a small trade-off or a massive annoyance.
* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen: Naturally, a female ruler of kingdoms or empires would invoke this trope if she acts tyrannically. Human players would likely exercise more caution while playing as a female ruler due to lower opinion from male vassals due to her gender.
* GoingNative: Highly recommended, if you conquer a large realm with a foreign culture. Bringing them all to speak your language is borderline impossible, so you may as well assimilate yourself to reduce the likeliness of revolts. Otherwise expect to routinely have to deal with the OccupiersOutOfOurCountry movements.
* GoldColoredSuperiority: Two highest feudal titles, kings and emperors, have golden rings around their portraits, which are also jewelled in emperors' case.
* GoldFever:
** Downplayed with the "Greed" trait. While characters with the trait may love gold more, it rarely reaches the levels commonly associated with the tropes.
** Meta-wise, the ''Horse Lords'' expansion allows the waging of war to extract tribute (gold) from neighbours, the Silk Road adding the opportunity for rulers to earn even more gold. Combined with the accompanying patch loosening the requirements for raiding, and the advantages of having lots of cash, it's not surprising for players to develop a love for the yellow metal.
* GratuitousLatin:
** The decision seal reads Audaces Fortuna Juvat, or in English, "Fortune Favors the Bold".
** The concepts and distinctions between ''de facto'' [[labelnote:Lat.]]literally, "from fact"[[/labelnote]] and ''de jure'' [[labelnote:Lat.]]literally, "from law"[[/labelnote]] is important for players to grasp. It is possible for a king who controls an area ''de jure'' to set laws which are different from the king who controls the area ''de facto''.
* GreatWhiteHunter: Taking the Hunting focus of ''Way of Life'' represents your character aspiring to be this, with multiple event chains representing what can happen to them in their pursuit of worthy prey.
* TheGrimReaper: Several of the supernatural events in the ''Reaper's Due'' involve encounters with the Reaper themself, in various guises, [[OtherworldlyAndSexuallyAmbiguous male and female alike]]. Usually it results in a trail of bodies, though it can end well if the character who attracts their interest proves worthy.
* GroinAttack: As of ''Legacy of Rome'', castration is an option for Byzantine emperors to inflict on their captured foes.
* HangingUpOnTheGrimReaper: One way to become immortal in the DLC ''The Reaper's Due'' is to bet your life in a chess game against Death. Win, and you become TheAgeless.
* HearingVoices: This is the chief symptom of Possessed characters. While characters in-universe interpret it as demonic (or, sometimes, angelic) possession, [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane it's entirely possible they're merely mentally ill]].
* HermeticMagic: The Hermetic Society, naturally, tries its hand at this. [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane Its success is uncertain]], but even if it's superstition, [[MagicFeather it grants some nice bonuses]].
* HellGate: One chain of events has an actual Gate to Hell open as a result of an earthquake, complete with wailing and gnashing of teeth. Fortunately, it's not too hard to close. Although it's not made entirely clear [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane whether it's a genuine gate to Hell or just a sinkhole seen through the lens of medieval superstition]]. (Note, however, that this event chain can still happen if you disable supernatural events in the game settings.)
* HelloInsertNameHere: You can name all your children in ''Crusader Kings II''. Since the AI often names children after their parents or grandparents, it is entirely possible to accidentally introduce a branch of the family who all name their children "[[EmbarrassingFirstName Poo Pants]] [[UnfortunateNames McTwat]]".
* HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic: Mostly averted: rulers and courtiers assigned to lead troops or as a realm's marshal will don armor in their portraits, helmets included. However, this doesn't include priests or members of societies with special garments: their vestments apparently override this. Granted, there is nothing to indicate that this is what they actually wear into battle.
* HereditaryRepublic: While all merchant Republics in ''The Republic'' DLC are elective, if you're good (and rich) enough, your family can just keep winning election after election with sufficient funding.
* HermitGuru: Indian princes can seek these out and try to lure them to their court to serve as advisors. It's often worth it, since said gurus often have ''very'' good stats. [[spoiler:Take care, not every guru is genuine.]]
* HeroicBastard: You might end up having one if you cheat on your wife with the courtier, or if your wife cheats on you. The heroic part will be if the child grows up to have enough positive traits, and if he doesn't murder his brother.
* HeroicLineage: As of Holy Fury, certain accomplishments, both for good and ill, can now establish "Bloodlines," which grant certain bonuses that follow down to your descendants. Whether an ancestor of your has been declared a saint, or established your dynasty over an empire, or if that's all too complicated, you could also forge an ancestry, like from Alexander the Great, for example.
* HeroicSacrifice: If you are ill, then your Court Physician will try to cure you with his medical knowledge. However, if your Court Physician studies the Occult then his attempt to cure you will involve shouting "for you my Liege!" before slitting his own throat.
* HollywoodSatanism: Lucifer's Own are [[CardCarryingVillain shamelessly evil blighters]] who commit HumanSacrifice and blasphemy for all sorts of dark powers. They also tend to rapidly accumulate sinful traits.
* AHomeownerIsYou: Each great house in a merchant republic has its own mansion. The patrician of that family can spend money to build upgrades that provide special bonuses to their house.
* HomosexualReproduction:
** The Way of Life [=DLC=] made it easier to target people for seduction, and if the target was a woman, said woman could easily get pregnant... even if the seducer was female. Obviously a bug, and eventually fixed.
** Before this, it was possible for a while for men to impregnate their lovers - gender was irrelevant. This bug was fixed.
** It remains mechanically possible for events or console commands to create children with two mothers, though for mechanical reasons, one of them has to be the "father", though there are no longer any events in the un-modified game that display this behavior.
* HopelessWar:
** This is what Harold Godwinson's defence of England is ''set up'' to look like during the conquest. He faces not only the larger army of William the Conqueror, but also Harald "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Hardruler]]" of Norway. Luckily, Harold has some very loyal vassals and a superb-rated spymaster. The sanest way to keep the throne as Harold is to assassinate William the Bastard, since his claim on the English throne dies with him.
** Subverted in the early releases of Crusader Kings II, as the [[ArtificialStupidity AI for Harald Hardruler tended to be overly cautious when it could grind Harold Godwinson's army into the ground.]] In later releases the AI becomes much better at fighting this war and is more willing to assault holdings and attack Harold's army directly.
* HornyVikings: ''The Old Gods'' lets you take control of a selection of Norse warlords during the height of the Viking invasions of Western Europe. They don't, however, have horns on their helmets. How well they fit [[TheBerserker the]] [[ProudWarriorRace other]] [[RapePillageAndBurn aspects]] of the trope is up to you, though Germanic Pagan rulers suffer Prestige penalties after too long at peace, encouraging a certain amount of raiding and/or conquering.
* HotConsort: Your spouse can have the "attractive" trait. The actual appearance of the character can sometimes subvert this--they might appear to be very beautiful or handsome, but various traits they possess will make them repulsive to everyone.
* HumanSacrifice: Employed by all non-Zunist pagans in various forms (especially the Aztecs, though they ironically get little benefit from it) and Hindu followers of Kali. In secret, it's also practiced by all devil-worshippers. In "Holy Fury", reformed pagans with the "Bloodthirsty Gods" doctrine can perform Aztec-style human sacrifices, gaining bonuses with the more infidels sacrificed by the same ruler.
* HuntingAccident: One of the potential assassination plots involves arranging one to happen to the victim, in good old medieval tradition.
* HuntingTheMostDangerousGame:
** Rulers with the Game Master or Hunter traits might execute their prisoners in elaborate hunts.
** As a warrior lodge interaction in ''Holy Fury'', it's possible to engage in a human sacrifice carried out as a hunt that ends with the sacrifice being brutally torn apart.
* HurricaneOfPuns: Alongside many a ShoutOut, everything related to the "Animal Kingdoms" setting in a randomized world with ''Holy Fury''. For instance, there may be a Cat King of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_the_Cat Morrisia]], with its de jure capital in ''Qattara'', Egypt.
* IfItsYouItsOkay: With the Family Focus, you will eventually make your spouse fall in love with you. Even if that spouse is homosexual. Additionally there are some other events that makes your spouse love you regardless of orientation.
* IHaveYouNowMyPretty: Followers of certain religions are able to force captured women to become their concubines.
* IllegalReligion: Heresies are religious sects that pop up when religious authority is too low, and are usually immediately stamped out by the province's ruler. However, if a heresy gains enough power it can eventually displace the orthodox faith, turning into the legal religion and turning the old orthodoxy into a heresy.
** Additionally, with high enough Crown Authority, a ruler can force a vassal to convert or revoke his title without any opinion penalty from other vassals.
** Any character caught worshipping satan (or his religion's equivalent) can be burned at the stake by his king with no penalty (in fact said liege even gets a small piety boost). If the satanist is independent, then others can wage holy wars against him.
* ImAHumanitarian: ''Way of Life'' introduces an event chain that can end with you accidentally (or "accidentally") eating one of your friends during a party. Devil Worshippers also might have a little snack during a demonic orgy.
* ImmortalitySeeker: In Reaper's Due, characters approaching middle age can begin contemplating their mortality and seeking various questionable methods to extend their life and achieve immortality. [[spoiler:With supernatural events turned on, they might succeed. [[TheAgeless As long as nobody sticks a sword through their gut or a knife through their backs]], [[DecadentCourt always risks in Crusader Kings]].]]
* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: Can happen if you run afoul of a character with the "impaler" trait.
* ImprobableAntidote: With ''The Reaper's Due'' installed, your Court Physician may offer an experimental cure, which may be amputation, a potion that drives you insane, throwing a jar of live and pissed-off bees at you then legging it, or offering their own life in a ritual sacrifice. Sometimes they actually work.
* ImproperlyParanoid: While it's true that plots against your life are common and the paranoid trait is helpful for uncovering legitimate plots, it also provides a lot of false positives, which have been known to induce poor decision-making not just in the AI, but in players. For example, a paranoid husband is likely to suspect his children are actually bastards and that his wife has been sleeping around, even when he really is the biological father.
* IncurableCoughOfDeath: ''The Reaper's Due'' replaces generic illnesses with specific symptoms which may be revealed to be caused by more serious diseases. That cough your ruler has might be a symptom of an oncoming bout of pneumonia... or it might be just a cough.
* InformedAttractiveness: The "Ugly" and "Attractive" character traits in CKII have no effect on the character's portrait, so these tropes can sometimes happen.
* IntrepidMerchant: The ''Way of Life'' DLC allows characters with the Business focus to send caravans to distant lands in order to make a profit.
* InvertedTrope: The achievement "The British Raj" is awarded for controlling Britannia as a Hindu, Buddhist or Jain (the real one was the other way around).
* InvoluntaryDance: A rare event can infect rulers with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_mania the dancing plague]], which can cause those infected to die of exhaustion from dancing too much.
* IstanbulNotConstantinople: Patch 1.09 for the ''II'' introduces this system, with certain provinces and titles being renamed depending on the culture of their ruler. "Suomi" will become "Finland" under Norse or Swedish rule, for example.
** Individual cities and domains can also be renamed by the player who owns them, who can then invoke this trope, as well as {{Egopolis}}.
** There's also an achievement called "Nobody's Business But the Turks" where you take over Constantinople as the Turks, meaning you can indeed rename it to Istanbul around 500 years earlier than it happened in real life.
* ItWillNeverCatchOn: An event from ''Sunset Invasion'' has the player's ruler informed that the Aztecs has brought many strange and new but edible crops with them, such as tomatoes, potatoes, corn, and cocoa, which are becoming delicacies all over Europe. In response, the ruler will scuff at it and call it "a passing fad".
* JeanneDArchetype: An event chain in ''Sons of Abraham'' can put one in your court, provided that you're a Christian of any denomination except Cathar or Messalian and don't have Full Status of Women (as these allow women to be commanders anyway, and thus make a martially-inclined woman like JeanneDArchetype rather less noteworthy). They even get a special exemption to the prohibition of women being marshals and leading troops.
* KeystoneArmy:
** For many patches, any given Crusade acted as one of these. Many Catholic realms band together to capture the Holy Land or drive the pagans out of Hungary or whatever, but technically, all of those realms are in the war as allies of the Pope, who actually declares the war. The Pope is politically very powerful, but he typically only controls one or two counties in his own right. As such, if the defenders could capture Rome, the Crusade would fall apart immediately. However, it was eventually required that to reach 100% warscore, one side had to fully siege down ''all'' enemies, win a major battle in the field in addition to siege warscore, or the war had to have gone on for at least five years.
** While ''killing'' a warleader won't win any wars, ''capturing'' them generates 100% warscore in nearly all cases, making it pretty much a guaranteed victory.
* KickedUpstairs: Most honorary titles can be used to invoke this trope somewhat, as you can give them to a potential troublemaker to grant them an "office of state" for an opinion boost without actually making them more powerful by giving away land or promoting them further up the feudal hierarchy.
** This is the only possible way to get rid of an [[EvilChancellor unwanted regent]]. Since only courtiers or direct vessels can be regents, you can give your current unwanted regent a small land title and transfer his vassalage to someone else.
* KingBobTheNth: The game keeps track of all past rulers of any title that's Duchy-level or higher. If a ruler shares a name with a past ruler, he'll end up with a number next to his name.
* KingmakerScenario: Rival claimants to a contested throne don't always have their own landed titles, so they'll often depend on the backing of a powerful noble within the realm to lead Factions to enforce their claims. These nobles frequently end up being Kingmakers both figuratively and literally, at least when their faction wins.
* KingOnHisDeathbed: Rulers who are rendered Incapable get a regent appointed on their behalf, with all the court intrigues and power plays that that implies. They also usually don't last very long.
* KnowWhenToFoldEm: In war, the AI will sometimes offer to surrender even if you haven't met warscore requirements to enforce your demands. This is expanded with the 2.8 ''Jade Dragon'' patch: the redesigned Tributary casus belli offers the defender a decision to acquiesce peacefully, and a sufficiently high disparity in power may lead to the AI giving in before any battles are fought.
* LaResistance: Peasant revolts can occur in areas of high revolt risk, particularly if the nominal ruler is of a different culture or religion than the ruler.
* LethalDiagnosis: A consequence of the way the game is set up to handle diseases. The health penalty for having a particularly severe disease doesn't actually affect a character until the nature of the disease itself fully manifests, most usually after being diagnosed by your Court Physician if you have ''The Reaper's Due'' involved. It's still present but less noticeable (though also more randomized) without the DLC, which uses a generic "Ill" trait instead of specific symptoms to model the evolution of a disease.
* LowFantasy: A realistic depiction of the Medieval Era... where your son may be the ''literal AntiChrist'', the Seal of Solomon prevents you from being [[DemonicPossession possessed]], the Holy Grail can keep you from dying from cancer, you can find magic axes, and you might end up fighting ''Cthulhu'' or ''Death itself''. ''Holy Fury'' will take this UpToEleven, by allowing you to play on a randomised fantasy map rather than on Earth.
* LovePotion: They do exist, apparently, but it's likely you'll be on the receiving end of it, after a "witch" [[SlippingAMickey doles it out to a would-be hunter ruler]]. Fortunately, she's so interested in you in return that she'll come back to your court, with great stats! [[spoiler:Unfortunately, she's also evil. Should have seen that coming when her full name ends with "[[Franchise/DragonAge Of the Wild]]".]]
* LoveTriangle: If you're married and have another lover on the side, an event can fire where your lover and your wife both want to you to spend time with them for a special occasion. You can choose whether to spend time with one and ignore the other, or [[TwoTimerDate arrange a ball and try to discreetly spend time with both there]].
* LittlestCancerPatient: As of Reaper's Due, your best heir will be this inevitably, at some point.
* MadeASlave: If an unlanded woman is captured by a ruler who follows Zoroastrianism, Paganism or one of the Indian religions, or is tribal or a nomad, he might force her to become his concubine. Bön and African Pagan women, as well as those of any Pagan faith that takes either Enatic Clans or Equality as a reformation doctrine can do the same to any unlanded man she may capture.
* MadScientist: The Hermetic Society explores the limits of medieval science, without regard for the opinions of the clergy.
* MagicRealism: With supernatural events turned on, the game takes on the mantle. Some of the supernatural events are ''unambiguously'' supernatural, like characters [[LivingForeverIsAwesome attaining immortality]], discovering the [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos Necronomicon]], or becoming TheAntichrist and regenerating lost limbs through Satan's unholy power. Even these events, though, are mere wrinkles, complications, and details in a fundamentally realistic depiction of Medieval Europe.
* TheMagnificent: Characters can gain monikers based on their traits and actions. These range from [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "The Great" and "The Holy"]] to [[TheCaligula "The Cruel"]] and [[TheAlcoholic "The Drunkard"]].
* TheMaidenNameDebate: In very rare cases, characters can arrange matrilineal marriages, whereby the groom and any children the union may produce are adopted into the bride's dynasty instead of belonging to his own.
* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: The goal of any "Murder Character X" plot.
* MarryThemAll: If you are playing as a Muslim ruler, then it is possible to marry upwards of four wives. This means that if you are caught in a love triangle, then it is not so much choosing between which to marry as which is the main wife. (Mind you, wives have been known to murder each other over who gets to be the main wife.) However, this is subverted if you happen to be in love with more than four women. Non-Hellenic Pagans, Zoroastrians, Indians and non-Muslim tribal chiefs and nomadic khans can have up to three legal concubines, who have no legal rights, but their children are still considered legitimate, but with ''Holy Fury'', Pagans may take the Polygamy doctrine, which replaces concubinage with secondary wives, much like Islamic rulers have.
* TheMarvelousDeer: Your character states his goal to find the fabled White Stag whenever you choose to go on a hunt. There's a small chance of actually encountering one as well, which gives a prestige boost if you manage to bring it down.
* MechanicallyUnusualClass:
** Merchant republics. Unlike the feudal states that (at game start) make up the majority of the game's playable options, they rely mainly on coastal trade posts rather than landed holdings as a source for their wealth and power. They also have a special form of elective inheritance, with control of the republic itself passing to one of five heads of patrician families based on seniority, prestige, and [[EveryManHasHisPrice the amount of money they're willing to spend on bribing voters]]. It's also possible to create a vassal republic under a feudal king by granting a duchy to the mayor of a town within it, a move that will typically provide a nice boost in your tax income.
** Tribal rulers count as well. Personal valor counts for a lot more than it does in feudal or republican realms, to the point that tribal holdings are typically upgraded with Prestige points rather than gold as is the standard elsewhere. Tribal vassals also don't contribute levies directly to their liege but rather must be called into war as allies. This is somewhat mitigated by the fact that tribal powers typically have more options on hand for fighting and raiding than their feudal counterparts, including the fact that ''all'' tribals have access to raiding mechanics (whereas normally these are restricted to non-Abrahamic religions).
** Nomads, introduced in the ''Horse Lords'' DLC. They are unusual in the sense that games without ''House Lords'' will depict ''all'' nomadic rulers as tribal rulers instead. Previous government/religion types locked by DLC will allow the AI to use said government/religion types.
** Muslims' Iqta government is designed to encourage a far more aggressive playstyle than Christianity, between its increased conquest focus, polygamy ensuring large numbers of children, a "to-the-strongest" succession system, and the Decadence mechanic that's supposed to put a Muslim realm on a constant treadmill to expand or die. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking It also allows secular temples.]]
* MentorArchetype: You can choose wards to educate your children once they reach six years of age. Depending on the mentor's personality, they can [[{{Mentors}} run the whole gamut of mentor tropes]].
* MercenaryUnits: Mercenary companies can be hired for a sizable down payment and a continuing salary, while holy orders take piety.
* MerchantCity: ''The Republic'' DLC makes merchant republics a playable government type, including making the PlayerCharacter a MerchantPrince. Several, including a number of Italian city-states and the Hanseatic League, exist from the beginning, and it is possible to convert a tribal county to a merchant republic by decision.
* MessianicArchetype: If you reforge the Persian Empire as a Zoroastrian ruler in "The Old Gods", you can declare yourself [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saoshyant Saoshyant]], the Messiah foretold by Zoroaster himself, who will put the world to order before it ends. This will give you a huge relations bonus with Zoroastrian vassals, and a smaller one to your descendants (similar to how Muhammad's descendants get a bonus with Muslims). [[DarkMessiah Actual messianic character may vary.]]
* MilitaryCoup: Fail to pay hired mercenaries and they may declare war on ''you'' and try to seize some of your territory to become an independent realm. [[http://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/167118/20160517144946_1.jpg This can have interesting results if successful.]]
* MischiefMakingMonkey: A pack of 'em can sometimes show up during the Diwali festival and cause all sorts of mayhem among the guests.
* MoneyForNothing:
** Prestige is a borderline useless currency for feudal rulers, unlike in ''VideoGame/EuropaUniversalis''. It provides a small opinion bonus with other rulers and unlocks certain [[TheMagnificent nicknames]], but that's it. The unreleased 2.8 DLC has been announced to include additional ''casus belli'' that are paid for with Prestige. It's much more important for tribal rulers, who pay for most improvements to their holdings with Prestige.
** Piety as well, except for Muslims: you use it to pay for several religious ''casus belli'' (with the "Invasion" CB costing a whopping ''1000'' piety) and will need it to order dynasty members to "straighten up" if they become decadent.
* MookCommander: The traits of your army's commanders positively or negatively influence the effectiveness of any flank they're placed in command of. For example, a commander with Holy Warrior will give your soldiers a 30 percent boost against religious enemies, while a commander with Craven gives penalties to army morale.
* MultipleGovernmentPolity: In ''Crusader Kings II'' it is entirely possible to mix-and-match government forms within a given realm, with some areas controlled by theocracies, others by republics or merchant republics, and others under feudalism. There is a -20 opinion penalty from vassals ranked count or above towards a liege of a different government type. It's particularly common for players with feudal [=PCs=] to create a vassal merchant republic, which tends to pay more taxes than feudal vassals do.
* MurderTheHypotenuse: Besides the obvious one where your wife tries to have your mistress killed or vice versa, there's events with Muslim polygamy where secondary wives try to murder the primary wife. This can backfire, as the husband may [[HoistByHisOwnPetard force the murderess to drink her own poison as punishment]].
* MyBelovedSmother: In the second game, all female characters automatically get a huge relationship bonus with any of their children that will not diminish over time, which makes mothers some of the most loyal courtiers available in the game. They will even occasionally hatch plots which benefit one of their children rather than themselves.
* MysticalPregnancy: The Lunatic event where your character has sex with a rosebush (ouch) [[RuleOfFunny can actually produce a child]] -- though, in the game's [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane ambiguous]] style, it could just be the child of a poor yet clever commoner who found the perfect opportunity to deposit a DoorstopBaby.
* NatureAdoresaVirgin: Well, the Pope does. If a Catholic noblemen the celibate trait, then the Pope will sometimes send them a letter applauding their virtue. Even if a celibate lord is non-Catholic, the trait will still give a nice piety boost. Inverted with certain pagan religions (like Germanic), where Chaste rulers can get an event where your prudishness causes your court to lose respect for you.
* NeverBringAKnifeToAGunFight: If the Hermetic Society manages to invent an anachronistic firearm, and its owner has the [[FantasyGunControl carefully guarded secrets]] necessary to make the weapon's blackpowder, it provides the largest single bonus to personal combat ability in the game. (Tied with a prosthetic leg, though a prosthetic only serves to incompletely counteract the devastating loss of personal combat ability coming from being one-legged.) With the Hermetic Society being as secretive as it is, there's NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup for this devastating weapon.
* NoBisexuals: {{Downplayed}}. While Homosexual characters can still have children with opposite-sex spouses, they cannot use the Seduction focus on members of the same sex. [[https://www.usgamer.net/articles/paradox-answers-12-major-questions-about-crusader-kings-3 The third game adds bisexual characters, in addition to asexual characters.]]
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: ''Conclave'' adds an event for Lunatic rulers where they appoint their horse as realm chancellor, in imitation of [[UsefulNotes/{{Caligula}} Caesar Caligula]].
* NobilityMarriesMoney: Patricians and other members of merchant republics can marry into noble families, but doing so requires paying a significant dowry to their new noble in-laws. It's still worth it if the marriage brings a significant prestige boost or a good alliance to the table.
* NobleFugitive: You can invite claimants to other titles to your court. If they accept, you then have the option of fighting on their behalf, whether their claim is rightful or otherwise. Succeed, and you've won an ally for life.
** Alternately, they could serve in your court as one of your advisors, and you can marry them to your sons or daughters (matrilineally) have have their children in your dynasty inherit their claims.
* NomDeMom: Children from a matrilineal marriage are considered part of their mother's dynasty rather than their father's.
* NonNaziSwastika: Appears as a crest for many Indian titles in ''Rajas of India''. [[https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3102536643095582&set=gm.2381568861955118&type=3&theater&ifg=1 Including if you manage to turn Germany Hindu.]]
* NoobCave: Ireland from the 1066 start until January 1st, 1172[[note]]At which point the island is mostly-to-entirely feudal; the 769 and 867 starts have the island dominated by Tribal chiefs, which are considerably harder for new players to master. If you go to January 1st, 1172 or later, most of the south is controlled by England, while the remainder is primarily independent counts hoping someone keeps the English busy[[/note]] acts like this, at least in the earlier start dates. A bunch of relatively isolated counts (and sometimes a duke who controls two provinces), who are all pretty much equal in strength, nobody outside the island has any major claims on them most of the time, and you don't have a bunch of religious enemies, hordes, or major powers on your borders. It's a fairly good place to learn the basics and get your footing.
** It's also a fairly good place for those learning to play as Tribal in the earlier start dates, since they're Catholic, and don't border any non-Tribals, so they don't have to worry about groups of angry, well-armed Franks, Germans, Russians, Muslims, or Steppe nomads deciding they want their land, unlike the pagan and Miaphysite tribals. It also helps that the nearest feudal states, England and Wales, are divided into several bickering duchies and counties in the ''Charlemagne'' start, or divided into several duchies getting invaded by a horde of Vikings in the ''Viking Age'' start, so you don't have to worry all that much about them. It's especially better than the Baltic pagan tribals in the later start dates, since they don't have to deal with a Catholic [[UsefulNotes/TheTeutonicKnights holy order]] formed for the specific purpose of invading them.
* NothingIsScarier: The Chinese Emperor is the only character in the game to have no traits, no stats, and no character ID. And he's in charge of an empire that can send out doomstacks at will.
* NotWhatItLooksLike: If you are warding a child, you will get an event where you catch said child emerging from the dungeon with a bloody knife. Obviously your child has been torturing prisoners, right? Not exactly; if you are playing as a child, you get the same event from the other perspective. The child just wandered into the dungeon and picked up a knife.
* NothingButSkulls: If the ruler of a steppe horde clan manages to pillage every holding in a province, they have the option of erecting a [[ThroneMadeOfX throne made from the skulls of the former residents]] that gives them a small monthly prestige boost.
* ObligatorySwearing: A probably unintended example happens if you're playing a Finnish pagan. Since all references to divine figures in event flavour texts are replaced by pagan gods, one event has the possible response: "Thank Perkele [my child] isn't shy." Perkele was an alternate name for high god Ukko in pagan Finland, but in modern Finnish it's a swear word, equivalent to the English [[PrecisionFStrike "fuck"]]. The response becomes very humorous with this added context.
* ObviousRulePatch: There was a long-running exploit in the alliance system in the game where, to get around the penalties for [[RefusedTheCall declining a call to arms from an ally]], a PlayerCharacter could [[CavalryBetrayal accept the call to arms but then not actually send troops]]. The 2.8 patch (the ''Jade Dragon'' update) closed the loophole: an AI ally may now break off the alliance if you don't send troops to the war theatre within a reasonable amount of time.
* ObviouslyEvil: Even if you aren't a member yourself, high-ranking satanist sect members are ridiculously easy to spot. Hint: It's the ones who have all negative character traits, a disturbing number of [[EvilMakesYouUgly physical deformities]] and had [[OffingTheOffspring most of their children]] [[PoweredByAForsakenChild disappear completely without a trace]].
* OffTheRails: To the extent that the game ''has'' rails, it's more than possible to turn history completely inside out.
** In the ''Charlemagne'' start, [[UsefulNotes/{{Charlemagne}} Karl of West Francia]] gets a number of scripted events to allow a player to play as him and follow more or less what historically happened. [[https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/most-fun-piece-of-dickishness-you-ever-did.989274/#post-22244866 However, if Karl dies unexpectedly, the Carolingian Empire invariably blows apart in spectacular fashion and the French will spend the next few centuries fighting over the pieces.]] There's also an achievement for creating the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire as his younger brother Carloman (who is strongly implied to be assassinated by their mother when playing from Karl's perspective).
** You can play as King Harold and defeat UsefulNotes/WilliamTheConqueror's invasion (that it happens is scripted, whether it succeeds is up to the player), or play as either of the two other historical claimants (Harald Hardrade of Norway, who is allied to William, and the little-known Svend II of Denmark), and there's achievements for ruling England as any of the three potential invaders.
* OffingTheOffspring: Usually averted (characters are blocked from plotting to kill their own children, which forces them to imprison and execute unwanted kids and usually gain the very nasty Kinslayer trait). However, when playing as Charlemagne, your mother will eventually ask you to let her meet with your brother-turned-rival Carloman to end the feud between the two of you in a rather ominous tone. If you let her go, then a few months later Carloman will suddenly die a natural death and you'll inherit all his entire demesne even if you aren't his direct heir.
* OminousLatinChanting: [[https://youtu.be/EybyugKINho The game's theme tune]] consists of a men's choir singing to an orchestral march. There ''is'' some actual Latin in there but most of it is CanisLatinicus.
* OneManArmy: It is possible for a small group or even a single soldier to hold off a massive siege by themselves for days or weeks at a time if they're the last defender.
* OnlyInItForTheMoney: Mercenaries. If you can't pay them anymore, dismiss them ''immediately''. At best, they'll stop fighting for you, at worst, they'll [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder change sides or declare war on you to conquer your territory for themselves]], sometimes in the middle of a battle!
* OpportunisticBastard: The AI will often use your wars as a time to have factions present their demands or other rulers press their claims, even if the plan wasn't very powerful before the war started. If the AI is lucky, you're hit with too much of a TraumaCongaLine to deal with all the threats.
* OurGiantsAreBigger: In years where no other significant events occur, the chronicle of your realm will automatically invent something. Such as a giant appearing and trampling villages. It's left as an exercise for the player [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane whether this actually happened, or if it was just peasants telling tall tales]].
* OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: Sometimes characters can become them. Again, the text leaves it ambiguous as to [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane whether you actually transform or just go berserk on the full moon]].
* PantheraAwesome: Indian rulers can organize tiger hunts. Killing one yourself gives your ruler a nice amount of prestige (and an achievement in Ironman), but beware its claws...
* PassedOverInheritance: The second and third in line for a title get strong claims on that title when the heir inherits. Even if they aren't particularly ambitious themselves, other nobles may start factions on their behalf to put them on the throne, even without their express consent. They can even end up backing a different claimant, meaning these factions are occasionaly ''in spite'' of their express wishes.
* PayEvilUntoEvil: When you only execute prisoners with the "cruel" and [[AxCrazy "impaler"]] traits.
* PermanentElectedOfficial: Doges under the new mechanics for Republics are elected for life, not any set term like in modern representative republics. Ditto elective monarchies.
* PerpetualBeta: The patches accompanying the various expansions often change the game at a fundamental level. In addition, Paradox opens up more areas of the code for modding with each major patch, allowing mods to change the game in greater ways.
* PersecutionFlip:
** It's possible for a heresy to gain enough moral authority to supplant the religion it spun off from, at which point adherents to the original religion are considered heretics and subject to persecution.
** Sunset Invasion has Native Americans (more specifically, the Aztec Empire) invade the Old World with intent to conquer it.
* PintsizedPowerhouse: Merchant republics are usually just a single province, rarely two. A single province that has more disposable income than an empire covering third of a continent. And they only snowball from there with improved technology and infrastructure, gaining additional trading ports. This allows to ''both'' maintain a huge retinue (further bolstered by special bonus doges have to retinue size) ''and'' hire mercenaries without fear of going bankrupt.
* ThePlague: ''The Reaper's Due'' adds special mechanics for the march of the Black Death, the [[TropeMaker historical plague that inspired the trope]], as well as for lesser (though still quite nasty) epidemics.
* PleaseSelectNewCityName: Names of some places change depending on the culture of the owner of the province: for example, Novgorod the Great becomes Holmgard if conquered by the Norse. The player can also change the names of provinces and settlements within them, and with the Customization DLC, they can change the names of titles they either possess or rule over, so long as they aren't a vassal to someone else.
* PointBuildSystem: Used by the Ruler Designer DLC, after a fashion. Different traits either add or subtract years to your characters age, meaning that having only good traits will make the character too old to last long. However, it is possible to create one using a mod which changes the character creator.
* PoliticallyCorrectHistory: Played with. Skin color does not factor into AI calculations for relations, so it is entirely possible to have a full-blooded African as the beloved ruler of, say Sweden. If the king has a culture other than Swedish (or the relevant culture of his vassals), then he gets a significant opinion malus as a "foreigner."
* PooledFunds: If a patrician's palace has the hidden vault upgrade, it's implied the vault's owner swims through the treasure in it.
* PoseOfSupplication: One of the ways to gain grace with the Chinese Emperor is to travel to the capitol and kowtow to him. If you annoy him then he won't let you kowtow in person and instead demands you kowtow in front of a painting of him.
* PowerBornOfMadness: Hilariously, if a character has the trait "Possessed" (read: is dangerously insane), they can receive a buff called "Jesus gives military advice." This buff adds a staggering +20 martial skill, when 20 martial skill would by itself make a formidable general. Essentially, you can end up having your armies led by a Napoleon who has to spend all of his off-duty time in a straightjacket.
* PraetorianGuard: Certain Mercenary groups start the game at certain dates as the vassals of a king or emperor level ruler, and essentially serve as that particular realm's trump card, given that this makes them unavailable for other realms to hire. Most notable are the Varangian Guard (who can only be hired by the Byzantine Emperor) and the Mamluks who will only fight for the Sultan of Egypt (at least until they take over the country).
* PrayerIsALastResort: Some characters (Aztecs, Germanic Pagans, Satanists, etc) can perform human sacrifices of prisoners. Occasionally when you do this the person being sacrificed spends his last moment in prayer. While this won't save his life, the person likely hopes that it will save his soul.
* PregnantBadass:
** The "Pregnant" trait surprisingly has no effect on MookCommander's abilities, so assuming you have access to female commanders (or are female yourself), you can certainly have one of these.
** {{Downplayed|Trope}} after the dueling overhaul in 3.0, wherein being pregnant carries significant penalties to personal combat skill and prevents engaging in duels, though the penalty is small enough that a badass woman can still kick most people's asses, even while pregnant. Difficult and troubled pregnancies, however, can be downright debilititating and carry large enough penalties that it's very unlikely that anyone would be capable of badassery during them, and unless pregnancy events are completely off, they're not likely to be in any condition to be leading armies.
* PressXToDie: Depressed characters can commit suicide from the Intrigue menu. This can actually be useful if your current character is iffy but your heir is good. You can also perform any number of tyrannical acts before offing yourself, allowing your heir, who remains blameless, to reap the benefits without the (very severe) penalties that normally follow. (Although if you piss your vassals off too much, the heir will still be hit with a temporary "Negative Opinion of Predecessor" penalty to vassal relations.)
* PrivateMilitaryContractors: You can hire bands of mercenaries to assist you in your wars, though as this costs money up front plus a monthly salary it can be too expensive for smaller realms. ''Horse Lords'' expands the mechanics by making them generated dynamically and increase in size as they earn money, while ''Conclave'' allows the PlayerCharacter to create a mercenary band of their own from their demesne levies, offering them as hirelings to AI rulers. Holy orders operate similarly to mercenary bands, except the initial down payment is made in Piety instead of Wealth. This makes them marginally cheaper at the cost of only being able to use them against religious enemies.
* ThePromisedLand: As of ''Sons of Abraham'', it's possible for Jewish kingdoms to return to and restore the Kingdom of Israel.
* ProperlyParanoid: {{Downplayed}}. Rulers with the Paranoid trait have a tendency to see plots against them and their loved ones ''everywhere'', and frequently suspect, rightly or wrongly, that [[YourCheatingHeart they weren't responsible for their wife's pregnancy]]. People ''do'' sometimes plot to kill them, and some of their children might not actually be theirs, but most of these plots aren't real. A good rule of thumb for the player is, if ''you'' think there's a plot, there probably isn't one, but if your ''spymaster'' thinks there's a plot, it's real.
* ProtectiveCharm: In ''Sons of Abraham'', you can buy a holy relic, which gives a major boost to your piety, can be paraded around to help pacify the peasants, and gets passed down to all future rulers. Of course, whether it actually ''is'' a relic (or at least whether you're willing to knowingly forge one) depends on how cynical you are.
** There's also the Seal of Solomon, which ''does'' work, preventing the owner from being possessed.
* ProudMerchantRace: Jews. They're heavily involved in banking in Christian and Muslim realms, and the Radhanites are important traders along the Silk Road.
* ProudWarriorRace:
** Unreformed Norse and Tengri pagan rulers are required to fight wars regularly in order to maintain their stability. The latter group includes the much-feared Mongol hordes (as if they needed incentive enough).
** Members of the Altaic culture group (including the infamous Mongols) have access to a Tribal Invasion ''casus belli'' which allows them to essentially launch wars for entire kingdoms whenever they want to, though they lose access to it if they become Christians.
** Muslims also fit. They have an Invasion casus belli of their own, and one of the best ways to reduce [[WeHaveBecomeComplacent decadence]] is to fight and conquer. The original idea for the religion was that it'd be immensely powerful when expanding but quickly weaken and fragment in times of peace; this isn't quite how it worked out.
* PutOnABus: In ''Jade Dragon'', characters that are sent to China are effectively considered dead by the game mechanics.
* QuarantineWithExtremePrejudice: Whenever an epidemic breaks out in your demesne, you have the option of going into seclusion along with your court in an effort to prevent the disease from reaching you.
* RagsToRoyalty: This can happen a few times.
** Defeat a [[LaResistance peasant revolt]], release the RebelLeader from prison, [[StandardHeroReward marry him to your daughter]], and die. Someone who has a trait describing him as "a jumped up peasant who revolted against his betters" is now royal consort to an Empress and father to her heir.
** Conversely, if a [[LaResistance peasant revolt]] is sucessful and captures enough land, the leader can potentially declare himself a King.
** In a new update, there will be a chance for the peasant's crusade to break out. If this happens, there is a slim chance it will succeed and the peasant leader of it will become King of Jerusalem.
* RasputinianDeath: It's been patched for a while now, but in early versions of the game, assassinations could become these if you had multiple plots succeed against the same target simultaneously.
--> '''Popup 1:''' ''Our squad of bowmen hid in the shadows and pelted (Targeted Character) with [[MacrossMissileMassacre dozens of arrows]] as he/she rode by, killing him/her instantly! They all escaped without a trace, and we've even been spreading a rumor of [[HistoricalInJoke "A Lone Bowman"]] to cover our tracks.'' \\
'''Popup 2:''' ''With a little bribery and good timing, we managed to send (Targeted Character)'s carriage [[DisneyVillainDeath sailing over a cliff,]] with them in it! We also [[RewardedAsATraitorDeserves killed the driver, to get rid of a potential witness.]]''
* RapePillageAndBurn: Pagans (except Zunists and Hellenics), Hindus, tribes, nomads, and members of Altaic, Norse, Berber, and Turkic cultures can raise armies in peacetime to raid provinces bordering the realm, or any coastal province if they have access to ships. In addition to being basically the only way tribes can reliably earn money, it can be used to capture concubines (which can be useful for acquiring claims on foreign lands), and sacking a temple raises the moral authority of your faith by one point and decreases the target's faith by one point, making it a reliable way for a pagan to help their faith towards reformation. Nomads can also pillage permanent holdings in conquered lands, destroying buildings in exchange for gold and eventually demolishing the settlement entirely, freeing up territory for grazing.
* ReadingsAreOffTheScale: The Emperor of China has no visible traits, and all of his stats are shown as "[[MyNameIsQuestionMarks ?]]". This makes him as close to a HumanoidAbomination as possible in-game[[note]]Well, besides the Devil Spawn kid and their three generals from ancient mythology, who are ''literal'' [[HumanoidAbomination humanoid abominations]][[/note]], since everyone else, up to and including Saint Peter and the Prophet Muhammad, is represented with stats and traits.
* ReassignedToAntarctica: With "Jade Dragon", you can send your courtiers (including your relatives) to serve in China as commanders and eunuchs in order to get grace from the Chinese Emperor. Since the trip to China is ''very'' long and difficult, you can be sure that they'll never come back. In terms of game mechanics, being sent to China isn't different from being dead.
* RebelLeader:
** As of ''The Old Gods'', random peasant uprisings are now led by named characters (typically Lowborn) with whom you can interact. [[{{Realpolitik}} If said rebel is a co-religionist in a province led by a heathen, he can become your best friend.]] He even comes with a trait called "Peasant Leader", which literally reads: "This man is a jumped up peasant who revolted against his betters".
** Also in ''The Old Gods'', random heretic uprisings are led by named characters, also Lowborn, who can be interacted with. Unlike their peasant counterparts, they get the "Heresiarch" trait.
** ''Legacy of Rome'' introduced a Factions mechanic, allowing vassals to unite against their liege over some common grievance. When the faction finally makes its bid for power, the leader of the faction also leads the rebellion. ''Rajas of India'' further refines the Faction system by granting the Rebel Leader a temporary title of equal rank to his liege's, with the other faction members serving as his vassals for the duration of the conflict.
* RegentForLife: Underage rulers have regents, and sometimes regents won't give up on their power so easily.
* RegimeChange: You can press the claims of anyone in your court against any other title. If it's a lower-tier title, the claimant is landed, and you win the claim war, the new holder becomes your vassal; if it's the same level as yours or higher and independent / under the same liege, it translates to an automatic alliance.
* {{Reincarnation}}: Characters in Dharmic faiths may occasionally seem to recognize places and situations from their "past lives" as one of their ancestors. Like a lot of things, what's really going on inside their heads is left ambiguous, though the ''characters'' certainly seem to believe it's actual evidence of reincarnation.
* RelatedInTheAdaptation: There is no indication, that [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_of_Novgorod Oleg (Helgi) the Seer]], prince of Novgorod and Kiev and regent for Rurik's young son Igor, was a relative of the Rurikids. In the ''Old Gods'', Helgi is a bastard son of Rurik.
* ReligionIsMagic: Played with for the most part. In later updates you can adjust the game before you start, meaning you can choose to deactivate Supernatural Events and Devil Worship. Most supernatural events are a case of MaybeMagicMaybeMundane, but some play this trope straight. [[ReligionOfEvil Satanic]] Characters get access to BlackMagic, but even characters who follow the lighter side of their faith can get some magical seeming events. Characters with the "Voice of Jesus" trait get events where Jesus gives you virtue traits, Dominican and Benedictine Poetry can cure depression, prayer can cure insanity, and demonic possession can be removed with exorcism.
* ReligionOfEvil:
** Aztec Paganism and Germanic Paganism allow such things as human sacrifice and murder.
** Likewise Satan Worshippers can perform human sacrifice, use black magic, and torture people to death for fun.
** With ''Holy Fury'', any Pagan faith, even the normally relatively peaceful Bön faith, can be turned into a violent faith with human sacrifice (eg. Bloodthirsty Gods and to a lesser extent, Haruspicy doctrines), a culture of glorified raiding and foreign conquest (Germanic or any other Pagan faith with both Sea-Bound and Daring), and/or glorified [[IncestIsRelative incest]] (Divine Marriage and Dawnbreakers doctrines).
* TheRemnant: If the Chinese Imperial dynasty is overthrown, a prince from that dynasty might come west and become an adventurer, raiding provinces until he is wealthy enough to try to create a new empire through conquest.
* RewardedAsATraitorDeserves: Several versions of assassination note that your character has the assassins themselves killed to eliminate potential witnesses.
* RightlySelfRighteous: Every male character who joins a Catholic Holy Order, whether by choice or by force, gains the celibate trait. In other words, no matter how cynical or lustful a character is he will still honor his Templar Vow of Chastity.
* RiteOfPassage: African Pagans (reformed or not) and any reformed Pagan faiths that take the "Animistic" doctrine have a rite of passage that characters can go through upon reaching adulthood.
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: In ''The Old Gods'' bookmark, there is not one but two of these. Ivar the Boneless and his brother Halfdan Whiteshirt are both Viking warlords invading the lands of King Ella of Northumbria. If you click on either of the brothers, you can see that King Ella executed their father Ragnar Lodbrok.
* RobinHood: A secret event chain in the sequel deals with this famous brigand and you have a chance of playing the legend straight or trying to subvert it.
* RoyalHarem:
** Muslim rulers get multiple marriages, while Zoroastrians, Pagans (except Hellenics), tribal Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Taoists get concubines to go along with their one legal wife. All children from a Muslim father are considered legitimate, unlike those produced by mistresses in Christian nations. Children of concubines are equivalent to legitimized bastards, save for not incurring a relations penalty with legitimate children or costing prestige. With ''Holy Fury'', Pagans can take the Polygamy doctrine and have multiple actual wives like Muslims can.
** Gender-flipped by Bön and African Pagans, as well as any Pagans who take the Equality or Enatic Clans doctrines on reformation, which allows female rulers of the faith to take up to three men as "consorts" in addition to their one legal husband.
* RoyalInbreeding: Both Zoroastrianism and Messalianism allow (and encourage) full-on BrotherSisterIncest and / or ParentalIncest. Even in other religions, however, KissingCousins are hardly unusual, and consistent intermarriage between dynastic lines is one of only two ways to establish an alliance with a kingdom that lasts more than a generation or two (the other way being to ensure the ruler himself is of your dynasty). The expanded Reformation mechanics in ''Holy Fury'' will allow any reformed pagan religion to do this, if the reformer chooses the proper traits.
* RuggedScar: Battle wounds can heal into scars, providing the character with a small monthly Prestige bonus. With the 3.0 patch, this has been expanded to up to 18 potential scars and three levels of the "scarred" trait (scarred, grievously scarred, and horrifically scarred), resulting in increasing amounts of prestige, and for the second and third levels, combat bonuses and attraction bonuses.
* RussiaIsWestern: A common outcome if the 867 start date is picked. The Rurikids who rule over Rus will often convert to Catholicism due to proximity to, and power of the western catholic realms, and will not convert to the Orthodox church. This will lead to close diplomatic relations with western kingdoms, them joining crusades, etc.
* TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized: Normally when an enemy army captures a holding, any characters inside are taken prisoner. If your holding is captured by a Peasant rebellion, any characters inside are murdered.
* TheRevolutionWillNotBeVilified: If a peasant rebellion somehow succeeds, the leader of the rebellion gains the title "the Liberator".
* SaintlyChurch: Monastic Orders[[note]]the Benedictine Order, the Dominican Order, the Community of Saint Basil, the Community of Saint Abraham, the Community of Saint Anthony, the Adavita Matha, the Savaka-Sangha, and the Sravaka-Samgha[[/note]] have missions that encourage members to turn away from sin and become virtuous. If you stay in a Monastic Order long enough and make the right decisions then it is likely you'll end up with all the virtue traits. If you have a high enough rank then you even get the ability to cause other characters to gain virtue traits.
* SaltTheEarth: Rulers of the various steppe hordes (including the Mongols) can pillage any settled holdings they directly control, which grants them a measure of extra gold, technology points, and population in exchange for destroying improvements and ''significantly'' ramping up the province's revolt risk for a time. Destroying every settled holding in a province causes it to revert to a pastoral state, giving the horde more grazing lands to support them.
* SaveGameLimits: Ironman Mode, which is the only way to earn achievements, only allows you one save per session and periodically overwrites the save file to prevent SaveScumming.
* SayYourPrayers: When a character who can perform ritual human sacrifice as part of their religion sacrifices a Christian or Muslim, the victim may utter a few last prayers from their holy book.
* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: Having a large pile of gold lets you easily shift people's opinions of you around, wrap your religious leader around your finger, hire huge armies of mercenaries to easily win wars against opponents who should otherwise crush you, enact most of the decisions you'd want, buy unrefusable favors and wriggle out of favors you owe others, and build all those nice shiny holdings you want. And unlike Prestige and Piety, you don't lose your gold when your current character dies. Being rich can be an outright GameBreaker.
* SculleryMaid: With the Seduction focus, a male (or lesbian female) character can win over a maid, who can either be promoted to TheMistress (and thus a named character) or kept on the side as a maidservant lover (providing a bonus to the character's Intrigue skill and ability to uncover plots).
* SecondPlaceIsForLosers: In each the contest during the tribal festivals added in ''Holy Fury'', whoever comes in second gets an insulting nickname.
* SeductionProofMarriage: It isn't impossible to seduce someone who's in love with their partner, but the odds are heavily stacked against it. If the target starts rejecting all seduction attempts, then it becomes impossible to even target them.
* SelfImposedChallenge: The only game over condition in the game is dying or losing all titles above baron rank without having an heir of your dynasty to take them up. Coupled with the sandbox nature of the game, this leads to a lot of them.
** Any of the hardest starts in the game (Generally considered to be, in order: Satrap Vandad of the Karen Satrapy in the Old Gods start, Isaac, Duke of Khazars, a Jewish vassal to the Tengri Cumanians, and the Khan of Khazaria in the Old Gods start, who is also Jewish, but even harder to play as due to a lack of a liege to protect him).
** Also playing as the Jewish Duke of Semien/Axum in Ethiopia and trying to reestablish the Kingdom of Israel, because you're surrounded by [[Theatre/{{Spamalot}} heavily armed Christians]] and have no ability to create marriage alliances with ''any'' realm (unless you manage to convert them to Judaism by proselytizing). If you survive long enough as a Jew to break out of Ethiopia, you then have to contend with the Muslims and Christians vying for control of the Holy Land.
** Upon the release of the ''Charlemagne'' DLC, playing as the only Zunist character in the world became another self-imposed challenge for many.
** ''Jade Dragon'' derived an achievement, "The Conqueror", from one player-imposed challenge, the establishment of English culture from a Norse ruler. This requires a Norse ruler to rule a French, Occitan, or Breton province to unlock Norman culture, then conquest of an Anglo-Saxon province (most of England in ''Charlemagne'' and ''The Old Gods'') to unlock English culture. Oh, and to get the achievement you have to also be Christian and hold the Kingdom of England. Oh, and those culture flip events don't happen until roughly the 900s and 1100s, respectively, so prepare for a long game.
* SentIntoHiding: Characters can go (or be sent) into hiding if there is reasonable evidence for a plot on their lives. This option is available to both the player and the AI; while active, assassination plots cannot trigger. However, going into hiding is not without its drawbacks. Characters will take prestige hits while hidden, and those who are in hiding for an extended period of time may become stressed, depressed, or even go insane.
* SexSlave:
** Pagan (except Hellenic), Zoroastrian, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain rulers, as well as all nomadic and tribal rulers, can take captive women as concubines and breed heirs upon them.
** Women of the Bön and African Pagan faiths, as well any form of Paganism that take the Equality or Enatic Clans doctrines on reformation, can do the same to men, taking up to three as consorts in addition to their lawfully-wedded husband, and much like taking women as concubines, prisoners can be forced to become consorts, and their opinion of the woman who forced them into consortage is not particularly relevant to their ability to (be made to) father children with them.
* ShownTheirWork:
** The amount of research put into history and genealogy is incredible. One can find lists of Byzantine/Roman, Russian or German rulers dating back centuries to Augustus, Rurik and Charlemagne, including character traits and family relations. Even minor Irish counts can trace their family line all the way back to the fourth century, and the Papacy goes back to St. Peter the Apostle.
** ''Sword of Islam'' expands on this, giving Muslim characters the ability to observe Ramadan and go on pilgrimages to Mecca. Its main feature, the dynastic decadence system, is based on medieval Muslim historiography, especially as described in [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muqaddimah the Muqaddimah]].
** The Umayyad rulers always have Bedouin culture to begin with, which makes them somewhat unpopular with their vassals in Iberia. Why? Historically, they were always known for strictly observing the etiquette they had in Mecca rather than the local customs, which did indeed make them unpopular.
* SignificantWardrobeShift: Characters of different ranks and cultures wear different clothing in their portraits, and will change clothes accordingly if these change. For example, a Celtic duke wears drab clothing and a brown leather circlet with gold studs, but a Celtic king has brightly colored clothing and a gold circlet. Council members and commanders will also change clothes on duty, such as donning armor and a helmet if acting as marshal or leading troops. {{Game mod}}s like [[http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=242601880 Better Looking Garbs]] can add to this, such as making Catholic bishops shift to the famous red robes upon elevation to cardinal.
* SillinessSwitch:
** ''Sunset Invasion'', [[OutsideContextProblem where Aztecs invade Europe]].
** To a lesser extent, playing as a Lunatic unlocks unique events to reflect the way the world looks from their quite off-kilter perspective.
** As of the ''Holy Fury'' patch, a rule has been added to allow for absurd events to be turned on or off before starting a new game.
** ''Holy Fury'' also allows for silly results in random world generation, such as realms ruled by sapient animals.
* SilverFox: {{Averted}} for women and {{downplayed}} for men - positive sex appeal modifiers stop applying after a certain age (42 for women, 65 for men), which while technically enough time for either to be a grandparent (the youngest a character can become a grandparent is 33), falls short of the trope for women and is decidedly limited for men. Also, if you attempt seduction on anyone old enough to have the "old" portrait (55+), the flavor text treats it as scandalous unless you're similarly old.
* SinisterMinister: Clerical rulers are just as prone to {{realpolitik}} as anyone else in the game, Muslims in particular due to their special Iqta government allowing feudal rulers, normally restricted to castles, to also own temples. There's also traits for each faith, such as the Abrahamic "Wicked Priest", denoting especially poor and sinful clerics, with special events such as the Cadaver Synod if acquired by a religious head.
* SoldierVsWarrior:
** Most realms rely on levies of warriors for their armies, which are typically dismissed once no longer needed. Tribal governments can also call up large numbers of warriors or raiders with councilor missions or by decision. With the ''Legacy of Rome'' DLC, richer, typically kingdom- or empire-tier, realms can afford to create retinues, professional standing army units which are more expensive to create and maintain than levies, but also have higher stats.
** Also seen in the distinction between "offensive" pagan realms (Germanic, Tengri, and Aztec) and "defensive" pagans (Slavic, Suomenusko, Romuva, and African). Offensive pagans get bonuses to levy size and pay no opinion penalty for raising vassals' levies, but if you're not at war, raiding, or bound by a truce, you lose a considerable amount of prestige each month. Defensive pagans get larger garrisons and a large buff to attrition losses suffered by (non-unreformed pagan) invaders.
* SomethingCompletelyDifferent: The first two major [[DownloadableContent DLC packs]] were ''[[ArabianNightsDays Sword of Islam]]'', which made Muslims officially playable, and ''[[UsefulNotes/ByzantineEmpire Legacy of Rome]]'', which expanded the Byzantine Empire. The third was ''[[{{Mayincatec}} Sunset Invasion]]'', or the Aztec Invasion of Europe DLC. [[http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?643376-Crusader-Kings-II-Sunset-Invasion-Announced!&p=14551861&viewfull=1#post14551861 Much confusion ensued]].
* SorcerousOverlord: Any ruler who's part of a devil-worshipping cult is this, able to murder and heal through magic and blood sacrifice, and maintaining their temporal power in part through cult magic.
* SpitefulAI: Let it be known that the AI of the second game has not only read Machiavelli, but rather swallowed it whole and probably took lessons from Ivan the Terrible and Otto von Bismarck on top that. It has no qualms whatsoever about executing their siblings, murdering their spouses, rob their vassals and militarily inferior neighbors of their land and money, or other things that are best left to the reader's imagination to increase their share of the cake, unless it has traits that specifically prevent such behavior. Spiteful doesn't even begin to describe it. It's SO spiteful that it mostly turns these tendencies against itself, unless YOU happen to be a family member. It's not certain whether it's due to a specific programming influence or a natural occurrence of priorities, but AI characters are either incredibly protective or vindictively aggressive towards blood relatives.
* StaffOfAuthority:
** Upon reforming the Bön or Hellenic faiths with temporal authority, the reformer receives a special scepter as a badge of their office.
** Characters who follow an Abrahamic faith (any denomination of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam) can find the Staff of Moses. Unlike most other staves and scepters, it can be used as a highly effective weapon as well.
** Christian and Jewish characters who have crown jewels smithed receive a scepter as part of the set, and Zoroastrians and Zunists receive a staff. Characters of other faiths can use them, but they'll have to either steal them or receive them as a gift.
** Characters who follow Dharmic faiths may find and use a scepter called the Jeweled Danda.
* StartMyOwn: As of ''Sons of Abraham'', if a Fraticelli ruler captures Rome, they can install their own Fraticelli Pope as a religious head totally separate from the Catholic Pope. Likewise with Iconoclasts who hold Constantinople, for an Iconoclast Patriarch.
* STDImmunity: Very averted. Extended use of the Seduction focus almost invariably causes a character to contract "Lover's Pox" (herpes), or more rarely "Great Pox" (syphilis). Great pox can even be passed from parent to child.
* SuicideIsShameful: Subverted. If a character commits suicide, then that character gets -50 general opinion with everyone and loses 200 prestige. However the succession image that pops up whenever your character dies does not judge that character based on how he or she dies, so the final judgement might say something along the lines of "King Charles has died at age 25. [[DrivenToSuicide He committed suicide]]. [[AllLovingHero Known to be Kind]], few had a bad word to say about him. [[RealMenLoveJesus A godly man]], [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Heaven Charles is with Jesus now]]". Additionally, if your character commissions a runestone for a parent that committed suicide the stone does not condemn your parent's decision; instead it simply states that your parent committed suicide and that you hope he found the peace in death that was denied to him in life.
* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: One of these can feature on a runestone raised by a Norse character who killed their own parent. "This stone was raised by Hrolfr in memory of Arni, Hrolfr's father and Ragnar's son. He lived a good life and died peacefully in bed. His death was not the result of foul-play, and Hrolfr certainly had nothing to do with it. Ever will stand this memorial."
* TalkingDownTheSuicidal: There is an event chain which can improve your diplomacy. A suicidal man is about to jump off a building, and you can either try to talk him down or just pull him back from the edge by force. Talking him down will [[spoiler:result in the man jumping off to his death. You still get more diplomacy for it.]]
* TestosteronePoisoning: The EXTREME release trailer for ''The Old Gods'' practically runs on this. Witness it yourself [[http://youtu.be/Y53_GV2aAg8 here]].
* TooDumbToLive:
** If you can't afford to pay a mercenary company then it might defect to the enemy's side ... even if it is in the midst of your much larger and better equipped army of demesne and vassal soldiers.
** Faction Power is based on the amount and type of soldiers present, with money being unaccounted for. This means a vassal with 1000 soldiers might press a faction demand against you when you can only raise 500 soldiers ... even if you have 8000 gold and can hire enough mercenaries to wipe him out several times over.
** When your kingdom is fighting for its very survival against a rampaging mongol horde, your vassals should put their differences aside and band behind you if for no other reason than that a defeat will mean their heads too. Yet instead Vassals use this distraction to make unreasonable faction demands.
* AThreesomeIsHot: If two of a Muslim lord's wives fall in love, one option is to claim them for a little teamwork. This gives the lord in question the Lustful trait.
* ThrownDownAWell: You can throw prisoners into an oubliette if you want them to hurry up and die but can't or won't execute them yourself for whatever reason (for example, to avoid getting the very nasty Kinslayer trait for killing a close relative, [[LoopholeAbuse which only applies if you ordered their execution]]).
* TitleDrop:
** There's a possible random event during the summer fair intrigue event where a wandering band of minstrels are playing in your fair. Your options to respond include requesting that they perform the play "The Crusader Kings".
** There is also a pop-up that shown before the standard crusade pop-up if no earlier crusades have been triggered titled "Crusader Kings"
* TokenYuriGirls: In CKII, there's a specific event where two wives in a Muslim ruler's harem end up falling in love. You can choose to accept it, banish them, or execute them. In the later cases, there is the possibility they end up [[Film/ThelmaAndLouise driving over a cliff on a carriage together]].
* TopWife: Muslims can marry up to four wives, with one holding the coveted position of "first wife".
* TortureForFunAndInformation: While you mechanically cannot torture prisoners for playable information, random events of torturing prisoners (which doesn't require you to actually have any who exist as separate characters) can give you the very useful "Impaler" trait, representing a [[TheDreaded horrific reputation]] that grants bonuses to Intrigue and Learning and increases your troops' damage to enemy morale.
* TrialByOrdeal: Zunist rulers can submit prisoners to the judgement of the Sun, where prisoners are tossed out into the scorching desert without supplies and left to their fate, usually resulting in the death or madness of the prisoner as a result of dehydration and baking under the sun for days.
* TroubledAbuser: Possible with some characters due to the implications of event-driven trait acquisition. Characters can potentially receive negative traits from abusive actions taken by their parents, and these traits may make them more likely to be abusive themselves (at least in AI hands).
* UngratefulBastard: Do not trust your vassals. It doesn't matter if they have 100 opinion of you, they will still form factions for no other reason than to ruin your life. Additionally if you act magnanimous (such as by trusting him with a new title or pressing a claim) the opinion bonus will only last for a few years before he's back to his old tricks.
* UnstableEquilibrium:
** Religious Moral Authority tends to work like this. If Moral Authority is high, there will be few heretic revolts and generally greater internal realm peace and higher conversion power, allowing the faith to spread. Meanwhile, if Moral Authority is low, heretic revolts start happening, and if they win, they further lower Moral Authority, prompting even more heretic revolts. Furthermore, the internal chaos makes realms following religions with low Moral Authority easier targets and even if the realm can hold together, it will have a hard time consolidating its gains due to low moral authority.
** The big reason why EndingFatigue happens is how once the ball starts rolling for your holdings, there is very little that can stop it, eventually making things trivial and simply boring. Becoming an "unified" kingdom or setting up even a minor empire means the player has nothing to fear and nobody to really stop or oppose him in any goals, removing any sort of challenge from the game.
* VictorySex: See BattleCouple, above. Probably unintentional, but it can seem like a ruler's wife ([[ActionGirl or ruler herself]]) is more likely to get pregnant after a great battle is won.
* VigilanteMan: Normally characters can legally commit a lot of heinous acts with impunity, and it's more likely than not the Pope won't bother to excommunicate him. However, if you have high Intrigue then you can take matters into your own hands and kill evil characters yourself.
* VirginSacrifice: With the ''Monks and Mystics'' DLC, members of the Lucifer's Own cult can sacrifice prisoners to Satan for Dark Power. Virgins and Clergymen yield more dark power than normal sacrifices.
* VowOfCelibacy:
** Roman Catholic bishops (including cardinals and the Pope) are supposed to be celibate, though Catholic court chaplains are not. It is possible to appoint a married man to a bishopric, in which case he'll divorce his wife. (It's not possible to play as a Catholic religious ruler without mods, due to the object of the game being to ensure the continuance of your ''genetic'' dynasty.)
** If playing as a Catholic, Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, or Reformed Pagan with the Monasticism doctrine (which also disallows priests of that faith from marrying) ruler, you can also order courtiers to take the vows, which disqualifies them from succession. Of course, just because they've ''taken'' the vows doesn't mean the character will necessarily ''abide by them'': with the Seduction focus from the ''Way of Life'' DLC, it's not unheard-of for Catholic clergy up to and including the Pope to end up with mistresses and bastard children. However members of Catholic Holy Orders like the Knights Templar actually do follow their vows all of the time, as they gain the celibacy trait upon entry.
** Orthodox clergy cannot marry, but they will stay married if they had a wife before their investiture.
** The Chaste and Celibate traits increase piety and grant opinion bonuses from Christian clergy, at the cost of decreasing fertility (the latter trait decreasing fertility to -5000). Good for Catholic bishops you hope to turn into cardinals, not so much for rulers who need heirs. They also can cause pagan rulers to lose respect from their subjects.
** Due to a developer's oversight, the Celibate trait provides a piety bonus in all religions, including religions that don't practice religious celibacy.
** Pagans who take the Monasticism doctrine on reformation have similar vows of priestly celibacy to their Catholic counterparts and rulers can similarly force their vassals to take the vows.
* WeHaveBecomeComplacent: The decadence mechanic for Muslim dynasties. Unfortunately it doesn't always work.
* WeirdCurrency: Lunatic rulers may randomly declare turnips the new currency of the land. This does nothing other than annoy one's vassals to the tune of -10 opinion ("Enacted insane law").
* WhoShotJFK: {{Parodied}}. The FlavorText for one version of the "assassination" plot, which comments that the victim was killed with an arrow between a "scrolls depository" (i.e. library) and a grassy knoll. It goes on to say that your co-conspirators are spreading rumors of a "lone bowman" (unless your character was the victim, in which case the button text says "This was no lone bowman!").
* WhoWantsToLiveForever: Ordinarily, a character must have the Depressed trait to attempt suicide. Immortal characters, however, can do it at any time after they turn 100.
* WhyWontYouDie: If you are playing an infant ruler who is unfortunate enough to have a regent who hates you, he may make an attempt on your life. You have a small to decent chance of surviving each assassination attempt as your regent encourages you to go for a stroll in the deep forest, chase pigeons off the roof, etc. and if you are so lucky, the final attempt on your life has your regent fail to cut your throat in the dead of night before being dragged away by your guards screaming "WHY WON'T YOU DIE?!"
* WineIsClassy: One of the upgrades for the Patrician's palace in ''The Republic'' is the Wine Cellar, which [[ButLiquorIsQuicker provides a boost to your characters' fertility]].
* WorldOfHam: [[TheLowMiddleAges The 867 start date]] from ''The Old Gods'', being from a time ShroudedInMyth, inevitably seems like one to modern ears. Try saying [[RagnarLodbrokAndHisSons "The Sons of Ragnar"]] in a non-melodramatic fashion. Go on, just try it.
* WouldHurtAChild:
** Especially if you are behind said child in the line of succession. A plot to assassinate a child may get [[DevelopersForesight special text]] involving hiring a maid to [[VorpalPillow suffocate the child in their bed]].
** You can execute children captured during sieges. Usually there is no benefit for this other than ForTheEvulz (unless inheritance is involved), since you can often ransom them off instead.
** Even if you don't execute children, others will. [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized Peasant Revolts kill children when they capture castles]], and and muslim wives assassinate the children of their rivals to put their own ahead in succession.
** There is an event where a child climbs up to the top of a broken tower, and the child's guardian has the option to either lecture/congratulate them on their dangerous/brave behavior, or [[DeathByFallingOver push them off]], with a 50/50 chance of maiming them or killing them outright.
* WretchedHive:
** Any court of a ruler with low authority and/or stats, but the Byzantine Empire is probably a standout with an average of three murder plots per province per month.
** If a ruler is bankrupt then Bandits and Smugglers can move into his counties and fill them with crime.
* WorstAid:
** ''Reaper's Due'' introduces the concept of hiring a Court Physician, a learned man that you use to make sure that you don't fall prey to any deadly diseases... if they don't kill you with their own administrations under the guise of "curing" you. Among other, 'normal' ways (leeches, potions, poultices), treatment can conclude with swarms of bees, putting out an eye, or flat out sawing off a leg due to gout, which has about all the negative effects on your health that you'd imagine.
** Surprisingly subverted as even the really strange treatments can potentially work. Not only that but they can potentially provide the best healthcare based benefits possible. Who'd have thought a hug of angry Hornets could be so healthy?
** Brave characters with highly skilled or mystic physicians can request "mystic" or "experimental" treatments, which can involve things like amputation and castration, a potion that drives the drinker insane, or the physician offering themself as a HumanSacrifice, all of which can actually work, leading to outcomes like being cured of the bubonic plague by having your left eye removed.
* YouKilledMyFather: Characters whose parents are murdered become rivals to the murderer and are likely to plot against them.
* YoungConqueror:
** The fundamental goal of the "Lord of the Flies" achievement - in a Random World start, begin as a 0 year old count, and become a king or emperor before reaching adulthood (within 16 years).
** A natural result of extended play as steppe nomads or any culture/religion that gets access to the invasion ''casus belli'' - at some point, you or an AI are likely to perform and win an invasion at a young age.
* YouOweMe: ''Conclave'' introduces a favor mechanic. Picking certain options in events or performing other actions on a character's behalf can give you the option of calling in a favor at a later date, which you can call in to, for instance, force your liege to press claims that you hold, or to override the character's opinion preferences when requesting them to end a plot or join a faction. Favors can even be used to circumvent otherwise-ironclad limitations, such as arranging marriages across religion group boundaries.
* YourCheatingHeart: It is possible for you to cheat on your wife if a female courtier likes you enough, and it can be to your advantage if you want an extra child or two. Your spouse isn't adverse to it either, or even having illegitimate children.
** Deliberately used as a strategy by some players, who will marry old, infertile, or celibate women for stat bonuses and/or alliances, while having many bastards with courtiers. Since bastards cannot inherit unless legitimized, a player can simply choose to legitimize whichever bastard they want to be their heir (usually the one with the best stats or traits), giving them a great deal of control over the inheritance.
** Legitimizing a bastard will ''seriously'' piss off your wife and legitimate children. If you father a bastard with a married woman and her husband finds out, he will be absolutely furious with you, and will probably plot to have you murdered.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Crusader Kings III]]
* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking:
** Not necessarily your character, but the characters marked as "knights" (or the cultural equivalent) in your court will rack up a lot more kills than any of your men-at-arms or levies, if they're competent.
** This can also be Averted: this game actually decouples Martial stat from Prowess (which governs personal combat ability), so it's possible to have character with high Martial but very low prowess. These characters are better suited as commanders than as knights.
* {{Blackmail}}: Discovering another character's secrets (for example, if they're having a scandalous affair, or murdered their cousin to take the throne) can give your character a "hook" on them, which can be used to secure titles, marriages, or even assistance in your own nefarious schemes.
* CastFullOfGay: One of the game rules can make the dominant sexuality of characters homosexual. There are also options to make bisexuality or asexuality the dominant sexualities.
* ComfortFood: A possible coping mechanism characters may develp is to overindulge in food when stressed. May also be {{Inverted|Trope}} by the inappetitic coping mechanism, in which the character loses their appetite from stress and tends to waste away.
* TheConfidant: Finding a trusted confidant is a rare but highly effective coping mechanism that unlike most coping mechanisms, has no drawbacks.
* DemotedToExtra:
** Merchant Republics are the only rulers that were playable in [=CK2=] that are no longer playable, due to Paradox being unsatisfied with their mechanics. Paradox has said that they may make them playable once more through DLC.
** There no Zun or Taoist rulers or counties in either start date, although both faiths can be revived at a very steep piety cost.
* DevelopersForesight:

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: not necessarily your character, but the characters marked as "knights" (or the cultural equivalent) in your court will rack up a lot more kills than any of your men-at-arms or levies, if they're competent.

* FantasticReligiousWeirdness: Religions are far more customisable in Crusader Kings 3, with tenets and doctrines being alterable. This can lead to some wild interpretations of virtuous behaviour: you can make a religion in which lying and scheming is seen as a virtue, cannibalism is a sacred ritual, and marriage between close relatives is acceptable. Downplayed in that you can't just create a new religion overnight; you need a lot of piety and clout to make it stick, and the more you deviate from your parent faith's core beliefs the harder it will be to sell it to your subjects and the world at large.

* HairTriggerTemper: Stress may cause a character to become perpetually irritable.

* SexForSolace: Among the many coping mechanisms a character may develop is frequence sexual intercourse, especially at brothels.

* ReligionOfEvil: The custom faith system allows you to found custom religions which view scheming and cannibalism as virtuous.