Crusader Kings Chronicles I: All Hail the Teenage Dragon Queen

 
Be you. Be Bahamut, teenage dragon queen. Your kingdom straddles the Elbe River in Europe, from South Bohemia up through Brandenburg. Now, if you’re like me, then your European geography gets spotty as soon as you head anywhere east of Germany. But that’s where you are. Here in the dense forests and gently rolling plains of Northern Europe. It’s a lovely, mild winter. And in 1066 A.D., you rule a poor tribal land peppered only with small villages.

In a real map of 11th century Europe, you’d be owning a little bit of Poland and a little bit of the Holy Roman Empire. But this is the animal kingdom Easter egg found in Crusader Kings II: Holy Fury. You select Animal Kingdoms from the dropdown menu. You hit the randomized map generation button. Now red pandas run Western Europe and North Africa. Dogs rule Constantinople, not yet Istanbul. Horses have both Mecca and Medina under their hoof. And William the Conqueror is supposed to be invading England at about this time in history, but now ducks are running an already united kingdom, so who knows.

That’s confusing. Here’s a picture of the map to help.
 

Welcome to the best thing that’s happened to Crusader Kings II in seven years. Who knew this was all it would take? All roads lead to the elephants’ Rome. Scandinavian Vikings now huddle around the Black Sea that inspired the stories of Conan the Barbarian. And the Knights of the Round Table could eventually be formed by a flock of Pekin ducks. This whole map is bonkers. A simple click of the button and it’d be completely scrambled up again.

You, Queen Bahamut, are thrifty, have a harelip, and are generally trusting, kind, temperate, and content. Your council of dragons hates you. Your bronze scales preside over a modest collection of Catholic and Pagan tribes nestled comfortably in the middle of dragon country.

Your daughter, Puff, is still an egg and heir to the throne. Though unborn, she has an opinion of 73 in favor of you. You being her mother is 75 points of that, so there are negative factors, too. That you're another dragon gives your egg a -10 disposition towards you already. Dragons don’t like other dragons, apparently. The fact that you’ve had only a short reign over this land is another -7. Wow, kid. You’re doing your best, Queen Bahamut, but this is the thanks you get.
 

All of that is better than your relationship with your dragon husband, King Scorch. He’s a masterful tactician, but he’s proud, cynical, and cruel. Probably none of that meshes well with you being trusting, kind, and temperate. But opposites attract. Love finds a way, you know? Even if his opinion of you is at a chilly -15.

Yikes. You thought relationships existed on a 100-point scale, where it couldn’t go any lower than zero. But no. It’s a 200-point scale. Once you seemingly hit rock bottom at zero, it goes another 100 deep into the negatives.

So, you do what any married couple in a fight does: you antagonize your husband even more. It will either drag his opinion of you down further, until you’re basically at grounds for divorce, or it’ll actually lighten up the old grouch. Sometimes you can get a smile out of cynical people (sorry, sorry, dragons) by fighting a little fire with fire.

Well, that must’ve worked. Because now you’re pregnant. You picture yourself as a pregnant human woman, it seems. That can't be healthy, though. Humans have impossible beauty standards. Especially for a dragon.

You’ve gained prestige from this stork-happy event. But “pregnancies come with considerable risks.” You should consider appointing a regent who can take over if anything should happen to you. Someone’s got to rule your economically destitute, tribal, mostly Catholic country. You have just the dragon in mind, you think to yourself. But you really don’t. Not a clue.

You look through your vassals for a regent. They all hate you. They are all penniless and have opinions of you ranging from -25 to -60. If opinions were a temperature, we’re talking Arctic Circles, here. You will sift through your court, your inner circle, but it’s looking just as bad there.

Oh my. You’ve gotten smoother skin, shining eyes, fuller curves. Your pregnancy is working wonders for your looks. Not bad for a dragon that was never pretty to begin with. Your “fuller curves” are distracting others from your harelip. You’re not humble, so you go ahead and be sexy pregnant. Despite the morning sickness, there's a glow about you, boosting your sex appeal. We’ll see if your cynical husband lightens up, even as you continue antagonizing him for kicks.

Back to appointing a regent. You could still die in pregnancy, despite the wonders it’s doing for your skin, so this is important. Your husband actually likes you a little now, but it’s too late for him. Jab, jab. Who’s this tall glass of dragon water, Xemcel?

Xemcel is dragon commander of your kingdom. He only has an opinion of 3 towards you (3 out of 100, remember, so, not great) but at least the feeling is mutual. Your opinion of every other member of your court is in the negatives, so 3 is astronomically good at this point.

Your husband is a tactician, Xemcel is a commander. It appears you have a type. Plus, Xemcel is lustful. Your pregnancy glow is working in your favor there, too. Couldn’t hurt that he’s almost 40 and you’re only 17. It’s possible you’re considered an adult at, like, 12 in Crusader Kings II. Can’t be sure yet. The age difference between you and your dragon commander wouldn’t appear to have any immediate effect. Except that 40 probably doesn’t trigger a “midlife crisis” in the Middle Ages. It might be more of an end-of-life crisis.

Oh look, some other menu you’ve stumbled across informs you that Xemcel desires to get married. Not to you, necessarily, but just to get married in general. That could come in handy if things go sideways with your antagonized husband. Xemcel is both temperate--meaning he’s good with money--and also an indulgent wastrel--meaning he’s terrible with money. Ah, the duality of dragons. You designate him as regent so he’ll handle things if you die in childbirth. Er, dragonbirth.

You look at your egg heir and wonder when she’ll hatch. Then you wonder how you know it’s a she when she’s still an egg. Or if she’s simply drawn as an egg even though she’s already hatched. Because you’re pregnant and that child does not appear in your list of children, although your egg Puff does appear in your list of children. You have questions.

You also lack ambition. Sorry to break it to you. So, you’re prompted to choose an ambition. They all sound too far reaching. Like becoming a Paragon of Virtue, which means attaining a Piety of 2,000. You look at your piety. It’s 24. Or you could improve your Intrigue level. You would need to mature your Intrigue to 8. But it’s currently 0, and being trusting, kind, and content aren’t doing you any favors in the Intrigue category. Perhaps you could amass 500 personal wealth? You’re at 93. That’s good, right? But your country is dirt poor and tribal. You’re not even sure you’re collecting any taxes. Plus you could draw a hard line between the rich and the poor in Europe, where the elephants, ducks, and red pandas in the west are rich, while dragons, hedgehogs, horses, bears, and cats in the east are all below the poverty line. Like, there’s not even a middle ground here.

So, since you’re already pregnant, thanks to your hateful husband, your ambition is now to have a son. You hope that if you have a son it doesn’t remove your egg daughter as heir to the kingdom. She’s only a few months old at most, but you imagine good things for her. She will inherit this poor dragon country in Eastern Europe and she’ll like it.

You have no idea what else is important. Among these menus stacked upon menus, you have no concept of what you can or cannot ignore. That makes everything important and unignorable. It makes this more intimidating than it needs to be. But another prompt tells you that your entire council is sitting idle. Doing nothing. Just chilling here around your throne, throwing you some side eye.

You crack the whip and put every last dragon in your council to work, all five of them.

The court chaplain, Drdrake (which you pronounce “Dr. Drake” like he’s the dragon counterpart to rapper Dr. Dre), you send down the Elbe River to proselytize in your county of Lausitz. You want this place topped off with Catholics. None of this half-pagan population stuff happening in that county.

You send your spymaster, Deathwing (overdo the name much, Deathwing?), to the city of Cologne, just on the other side of the Rhine River. That puts your spymaster right inside the door of the duck empire—duck dynasty. Hopefully he’ll send back some juicy piece of technology for you to use.

You look around in vain for something to build. You want to grow your tribal villages into richer market towns, but your dragon-pile of gold is looking mighty thin. Since you have nothing you can build, there’s no need to send your steward, Benedict, to oversee construction of anything. You attempt to have him settle a dragon tribe in the duck kingdom somewhere, anywhere, in order to increase the chances of the duck population becoming more dragon-like. Kinda subversive. Not sure I want an Israeli-Palestinian-style conflict on my hands. But what else is your steward going to do, build your legend? What legend?

Fine. You tell your steward to build your legend. Tell the people of all the great deeds of Teenage Dragon Queen Bahamut. You hope this doesn’t raise any eager warriors that will get angry when, ultimately, you don’t send them off to war to fight in your name and plant your flag.

Marshal Piton heads upriver to Zatec and train dragon troops. You don’t know what you’re going to do with a bunch of dragon troops either. You're not here to paint the map red. Hopefully, having a bunch of listless, unfocused dragon troops standing around doesn’t make them all decide to plunder your treasure room instead.

Chief Dragon of Lausitz--“Dragon”? We’ve got an entire country full of dragons but he got the name Dragon? Either way, Dragon doesn’t like you, of course (-25), but you need to improve diplomatic relations among your vassals, who all hate you at least as much as Dragon the dragon hates you. Maybe you could improve things in duck country. Thanks, Dragon, that’d be great.

There. Your entire angry council is out working, at least. Your council chambers are empty. Oh look, it’s almost Christmas in the Year of our Dragon Lord 1066. It’s only been a couple of months. Things are looking only somewhat bleak. Winter isn’t coming; it’s here. Though it’s mild and snow isn’t even sticking to the ground. You’re making decisions, you’re pregnant-hot, you’re too poor to build up your country’s infrastructure, and your angry dragon husband hates your marriage. But at least your little dragon egg loves you. Hope no one acts surprised when you keep this dragon matriarchy going.