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A Court of Beasts and Crowns

The menagerie has arrived.

Ever had to stop and go, “What exactly is an Honorable Opportunist or a Rapacious Absolver?” I mean, sure, a “Treacherous Villain” screams do not marry, but a “Content Opportunist”? That sounds like my landlord. I appreciate Paradox’s effort to make personalities sound grand and nuanced, but half the time I need a philosophy degree to decode them. I wanted to glance at a character and get an instant vibe check, no reading test required. So I figured: why not lean into humanity’s oldest rating system? If someone’s clever, they’re a fox. Deceptive? Snake. Regal? Lion. Problem solved, crown included.

A Court of Beasts and Crowns assigns every adult character a Beast Archetype—a symbolic animal identity that reflects both their personality traits and how the world perceives them. A calculating schemer might become a Scorpion, a proud knight a Lion, and that pious hermit who won’t shut up about humility? A Crane, obviously.

Each archetype grants unique attribute bonuses that scale with Fame, representing your legend growing teeth (or claws). The higher your renown, the more your myth bites back. Prefer a gentler, lore-only approach? A sub-mod lets you turn off bonuses entirely, keeping it cosmetic for roleplay purists.

There are several other larger mods out there that attempt to do something similar, but I found them to either be too wide-reaching in their changes or out of date. This is my attempt to create a seamless personality archetype that (ideally) fits within the vanilla vibe and aesthetics of the base game.

Because power in CK3 isn’t just what you are, it’s what everyone thinks you are. This mod makes that legend visible, mechanical, and just a little feral (I regret nothing).

It also makes you smarter. No more clicking through dozens of character sheets like a desperate matchmaker, each archetype trait shows you exactly who you’re dealing with at a glance in the character search window. Need a loyal badger for your council? A silver-tongued swan to marry off to your useless son? Done. The whole point is to make the realm’s personalities readable, strategic, and a little bit wild.

No vanilla files harmed. Should play nicely with almost everything short of mods that replace the personality system outright. If a mod adds additional personality traits, these will not be included as part of the archetype event that determines what beast you become.

This is a storytelling layer, not a balance overhaul. It’s meant to make your rulers feel mythic, infamous, or ridiculous. It is also meant to help the player quickly glance at a character and their traits and go, "They're a Rat. And I made them my steward. Damn..."

The goal is to reduce cognitive loads on the player and provide a personality snapshot without having to try and interpret the strangely complicated "ruler personalities" that comes with vanilla. The animal archetypes generally correlate to the already established vanilla personalities (e.g. Fearless Raveners are often Bears, Bold Planners tend to be Wolves, and Resentful Fools tends to skew towards Rats), but there are many varieties and pairings that can occur.

1. Is this performance friendly?

Yes. There is one big event that fires at the start of the game to assign all living adults (16+) their beast archetype trait. This may cause a momentary pause or hiccup at the start. After that, the event only fires when a child turns 16 and when a character has a change in their prestige level. There is a safety check event that fires when a new character joins your court (player only) to ensure they have an archetype trait when they become relevant to you.

2. What if I don't like my character's archetype? Is there any way to get a different one? I want to be a dragon!

You can pick your archetype as a standard personality trait (without any restrictions) when first creating a custom character if you have something specific in mind. However, if you pick your three standard personality traits (e.g. Just, Honest, Lustful, etc.), you will automatically get assigned an archetype at game start if you do not take one in character creation.

After the game has started, there is a character interaction (with your character only) that allows you to change your archetype once in a lifetime. It costs Prestige and Gold, and if you accept the price, will change out your current archetype for another that you qualify for. If this offends you (like it does me), there is a game rule to disable to feature. Embrace them piggies and bunnies!

3. Some of these animals are a little immersion breaking. Why are there Elephant leaders in Norway? How do they know about Dumbo?

Listen, I get it. This is one of those things where I went back and forth on. Do I limit which animal archetypes show up in certain regions for immersion? Or do I unlock all animal options for all characters, and assume stories of these exotic beasts have reached the local populace? I ultimately decided to build in an adjustment to chance, rather than a full ban. Elephants, tigers, crocodiles, and leopards are less likely to show up with European leaders, but it's not impossible. Likewise, badger and bear archetypes may show up in the south where people are less likely to have encounters with those animals locally.

But the whole goal of this mod was to give the player a quick, less than 1 second clue to who they're dealing with. And you (I'm assuming) know what an elephant, tiger, and badger represents characteristically. It also allows for a greater archetype pool, which I think outweighs any necessary eye squinting.

4. I'd like to make my own version of this mod, may I?

Yup. Go for it! The modding community is made stronger when we create together. Different visions, ideas, and takes on mods is good for everyone.

5. I don't like the bonuses to attributes that these archetypes give. Can I turn them off?

Yes. There is a sub-mod that allows you to turn the attribute bonuses off, and just keep the opinion modifiers.

I know, I know, I could have made a game-rule to turn it off. But it meant either duplicating the traits (which then makes searching for them confusing, as there are always two versions of the same trait) or putting in performance heavy condition statements for the traits, both which irked me.

6. Are you planning on adding more archetypes?

Eventually. There are currently 33 animal archetypes (plus 1 mythical animal archetype), which I feel represents a huge swath of personality types out there. But there's always room for more. If you feel like there is a glaring, obvious animal archetype I've missed, please share it with me! Maybe I'll consider adding it in.

7. Is this save compatible?

Yep. There is a character interaction (not limited by diplomacy range) that you may use to assign an archetype trait to an adult that slipped through the cracks and may have skipped out on the trip to the zoo. This action will check all characters across the world and ensure all adults have been assigned an archetype (thus, making it possible to add this mod mid-save). I opted for this player intervention decision to save on creating redundant, yearly events that fire and check every living character (which would drag on performance over time).