Creating Your Own Faith in CK3: A Step-by-Step Guide

Faith plays a crucial role in Crusader Kings 3. It influences many facets of life and can either support or obstruct your ambitions. It governs gender roles, marriage norms, clergy responsibilities, and even how witches are treated.

Given this importance, it’s wise to adopt a faith that aligns with your objectives. If no suitable faith exists, you can create one. Although establishing a new faith can be costly and requires careful thought, there are strategies to simplify the process.

Updated February 16th, 2025 by Hilton Webster: Once you create a new faith, it’s vital to ensure broader acceptance. This article has been revised to explain how existing faiths will respond to your new one and its implications for the laws you can implement in your domain.

How To Create A Faith

Creating Your Faith

To start making a new faith, go to the religion screen and click the “Create New Faith” button at the bottom.

The first thing to know about creating a faith is that it requires piety, which you accumulate gradually, primarily based on your Learning skill. During this process, you’ll choose the tenets and doctrines that will define your faith.

Your current faith serves as the foundation for your new faith, and the cost will rise depending on how different the new faith is from the existing one.

After selecting your faith’s doctrines and tenets, you can name it, add a description, and spend some piety. Carefully consider your future plans when choosing these elements, as they can significantly impact your gameplay. Here are a few suggestions for making effective choices:

• If your succession law splits territory among heirs, opting for gender equality might lead to unexpected divisions of your realm.
• Switching Clerical Appointment to Temporal allows you to select your own Court Chaplain, providing greater control over your council and satisfying powerful vassals. For added flexibility, consider making this title revocable.
• Adopting Polygamy or Consorts & Concubines simplifies heir production for male characters, which can be strategic for succession or expanding your dynasty.
• While it may seem appealing to legalize all Criminal Doctrines, remember that crimes generate secrets, and secrets lead to hooks, which can be valuable for managing your realm.
• The Mendicant Preachers tenet hastens province conversions and is ideal for newly established faiths.
• The Pursuit of Power tenet is costly in terms of faith but excellent for expansion, offering powerful Casus Belli.
• Likewise, the Sacred Lies tenet benefits intrigue-heavy strategies by enhancing Agent Acceptance.

Here are some essential details to remember while creating a new faith:

• You can only create a new faith while you are at peace.
• You must be at least a duke to create a new faith; counts cannot.
• Upon establishing a new faith, you and your immediate family will automatically convert, along with your realm’s capital.
• Vassals can convert on their own, but you may also attempt to persuade them to join your new faith for a fee.

How Culture And Faith Interact

Generally, any culture can follow any faith. While it may seem unusual for an Islamic leader to arise in Europe, there is no technical restriction against it. However, certain aspects of faith extend beyond personal and external matters, impacting your realm directly.

The primary way faith influences your realm is through Gender Law. Most faiths default to Male Preference in inheritance, and few cultures embody the Egalitarian Ethos needed for changes. To shift from a male-dominated system or adjust inheritance laws to favor women, you’ll need both an equal faith and an egalitarian culture.

Conversely, some cultural ethos can facilitate faith changes. Cultures with the Spiritual Ethos naturally gain more Piety every month and enjoy a 20% discount on the Piety cost for reforming or creating a new faith.

How To Afford It

The pilgrimage event chain in Crusader Kings 3

Establishing a faith can become prohibitively expensive if it diverges significantly from your previous one. Fortunately, there are measures you can take to enhance your piety accumulation:

• If you can choose your heir, select one who excels at generating piety, looking for high Learning skills and traits like Zealous or Humble. If your faith allows, appoint your heir as your Court Chaplain to boost their piety before they inherit.
• Possessing virtuous traits instead of sinful ones is beneficial. The definition of virtuous and sinful traits varies by faith; virtuous traits have a green outline on your character profile.
• Going on a pilgrimage and obtaining the Pilgrim perk increases piety gain. Aim to undertake this every 15 years, favoring the longest pilgrimages for maximum immediate piety. Muslim characters can also perform the Hajj for similar benefits.
• The Church and State perk from the Theologian tree of the Learning lifestyle doubles your piety gain if your current faith has Lay Clergy. If your faith is Pluralist, the Defender of the Faith perk boosts piety gains by 20%.
• Acquiring specific provinces can enhance piety, particularly holy sites related to your faith or famous religious landmarks like Canterbury Cathedral or Notre Dame.
• Choosing a Celibate lifestyle also yields increased piety.

How Your New Faith Will Interact With Others

Faith Hostility

When you establish your new faith, be aware that the greater the divergence of the new Doctrines and Tenets you choose, the more Piety it will cost to implement them. This isn’t just a cost penalty; it also signals how your original faith will respond to your new faith.

Faith Hostility reflects this relationship: The greater the deviation in Tenets and Doctrines, the more antagonistic your original faith is likely to be towards your newly created faith. This is crucial to remember, as you want to avoid provoking a Holy War when you lack the military backing to defend yourself. If your vassals remain loyal to the old faith, defending against plots and factions will also be challenging.

Here’s a summary of the Faith Hostility levels and their implications:

• Righteous – This faith enjoys favorable relations with others and can usurp titles from followers of other righteous faiths.
• Astray – While this faith shares some beliefs, it varies enough to create some tension. Title usurpation is still possible, but followers of other faiths may look down upon you slightly.
• Hostile – This faith has diverged considerably and cannot usurp titles from opposing faiths. Holy Wars can be declared against this faith.
• Evil – This faith fundamentally opposes others, resulting in significant penalties to relations and a greater likelihood of Holy Wars. Interfaith marriages are generally rare.

Once your faith is established, there’s no method to alter the Faith Hostility of others unless you reform your faith to align more closely with theirs.

Fervor

This ties into Fervor, which measures how strong the faith is among its followers. A high Fervor indicates a committed group, making it tough for them to convert to other faiths and reducing the likelihood of heresies. Conversely, a low Fervor increases the chances of individuals changing beliefs and the rise of new heretical faiths.

When you first create your faith, it will start with a high Fervor due to its novelty and limited followers. Over time, Fervor naturally declines, especially as the faith matures and increases its follower count. Several factors can also influence Fervor:

• Specific decisions made during travels or court sessions.
• Results of Holy Wars – Victorious outcomes lower your Fervor, while defeats tend to raise it, as the faithful struggle to reclaim their faith’s prominence.
• Outbreaks of Heresy will significantly elevate the Fervor of the faith experiencing the growth.

Overall, Fervor remains relatively stable unless you actively spread it or engage with other faiths.