Bastards and Banners

A wise user of the paradox world once said…. *ahem*

"Are you bothered by the cruel and unusual violence that the game inflicts upon your dynasty’s Coat of Arms when someone forms a cadet branch? Do you squint reeeeaaaally hard when you see a massive inconsistency between pre-made houses and gameplay-generated ones?"

I know I was affected, and it made me sad. So sad that I….I..I-just……*muffled crying noises*

Well, I suppose we should do something about fixing those feelings, shouldn’t we? And, perhaps, why don’t we give all the unwanted bastards of the world a bit of love as well? Perhaps we can combine the two to create a wonderful synergy of beautiful heraldic banners and benevolent heroic bastards! Hmmmm…. Banners….and Bastards…. BASTARDS AND BANNERS! YEAH! WHOOOOO!!!

…..With that out of the way, I hope you enjoy! Here’s a chicken. 🐓

A pair of game rules that allow you to decide how Cadet Branches generate their Coats of Arms ✨automatically✨ and how your many, MANY bastard family members can be retained with your dynasty as branch members! The rules function independently from one another, so if you only want the bastard changes or the banner changes, that is a-okay.

Bastard Founders are more better and cooler and nicer and prettier than ever! Instead of potentially losing a branch of your family to a random dynasty, bastard founders can form their own branches as a part of your dynasty! Think of it as playing as Jarl Dyre the Stranger, but for everyone! Bastard founders do not change the succession of your dynasty, meaning that if your firstborn is a bastard and becomes a founder, he does not usurp your other children’s position as heir. You can, of course, play as these houses by choosing a new destiny upon succession, so landing them or playing as adventurers is viable even in ironman mode.

Live out your dream of forming the House of Trastámara and overthrow your silly legitimate brother! It’s just a word that doesn’t mean anything after all! Or what about a nice Braganza in this trying time? Or maybe you just want to play Count Tancred de Hauteville in the 1178 start without leaving the Hauteville dynasty? We all have our reasons… Mine? I like pretty banners and names.

There is also additional logic for determining which dynasty bastards will join, generally following faith laws of the parents, though I am open to suggestions regarding this part. Regardless, if some tantalizing lowborn Occitan seduces the Queen of France during a rigorous grand tournament, her little brat can be safe in the knowledge that he will follow his mothers dynasty if he becomes a father. But if the father had nobility of his own, that could be a different story…

Also if there is a bastard that, for whatever reason, has a kid of the same dynasty before becoming a bastard founder such as through adoption or set on game start (once again looking at you Tancred de Hauteville), worry not! The lovely "no child left behind" logic will transfer the bastards kids to their new house!

Quartering begone! The banners of houses are now whole and beautiful at your leisure! No more staring at your Sigurdr dynasty and seeing the stark contrast between game start houses and newly formed cadet houses! No more triple quartered Karling banners infesting the 867 start as they spread like the plague! Now, coats of arms can be inherited in multiple circumstances, be it from the capital barony, the original Dynastic crest, or a random design appropriate for the characters culture and religion.

As of All Under Heaven (1.18), different cultures handle their CoAs differently. To avoid messing with the new templates, the functionality of this mod is limited to cultures that have no special CoA templates, so generally the western parts of the map (yes, even the Frankish heritage goobers who gained a new naming scheme based off titles)

This mod does not modify CoA’s by themselves, simply the means in which they are generated and obtained by houses, meaning this mod should be compatible with mods that make changes to banners themselves.

This mod is a vanilla enhancement and not meant for use with total overhauls
This mod modifies the following vanilla Scripted Effects: found_cadet_house_decision_effect
This mod modifies the following vanilla game file: dynasty_on_action.txt
❤ This mod does NOT modify the Create Cadet Branch decision availability or requirements.
❤ This mod should be compatible with most game rules, CoA customization and non-total overhaul mods.
❤ This mod should be compatible with achievements

Crusader Kings 3, version 1.18.*.* (As it uses the new cadet branch banner files as of all under heaven)

The following languages are up to date for the game rules and descriptions:

English
Russian – Translation credit

I am also looking for more people to translate localizations for the current game languages! Please feel free to add me!

This mod would not be possible without the Coat of Arms work done by Team Nessassity! This is, in the end, a sort of a "combination" mod where I hope to keep the Happy Heraldry mod alive with updates now that it is deprecated, as well as finally implement a few personally developed systems (and perhaps multiple more in the future, such as serving as knights or knighthood in general).

Regardless, please, after subscribing to this mod, look at the work of Team Nessassity and also rate the original Happy Heraldry mod linked 👉HERE👈 to give them due credit!

Just wanted to add that if you encounter any problems with the mod, have any questions, or suggestions for things to be added or changed, feel free to comment on this mod and I will try to respond to you! If it is a real interesting idea, or perhaps a collaboration wants to be done, I am very much open to talk as well! I’ve also thought about extending the bastardry aspects further, such as allowing title inheritance via decision, additions to bastard branch CoA’s to make them stand out or forcing bastards to become adventurers by a dynasty head decision. Theres also ideas about updating naming schemes for dynasties as to not have the "-" or special cases such as Fitzroy. All things to think about.

Please do not simply copy my entire mod into your mod without credit.

Regardless, this is a great game, and I truly want to expand upon or mod more for the public rather than small changes for myself. Anyways, thanks for reading and looking at the mod!

…. By the way, it seems you dropped this. 👑