I just reformed the Slavic religion in my Lesser Poland/Wendish Empire Game.

After the reformation I noticed the portraits of my temple holding vassals were changed into white squares, though as nobody else mentioned this I assume it was the result of a corrupted download.

Thus my main complaint about the current system is that for the last step you need to give a zherca control of a full province with a holy place, a frustrating process if all of your holy places are owned by vassals. (In my game, I couldn't even revoke their titles as all three were vassals of vassals, so I started a series of wars against Bulgaria in order to take a new holy place, a few years after the reformation the independent theocracy got annexed by the Bulgarians whilst I was busy somewhere else.)
I can't really see why a landholding theocracy is necessarily, if a titular title can also function as a religious head (which also happened in my game after the Great Zerca lost his province to the Bulgarians).

Lastly I also have a suggestion about the reformation system: your ruler would need less diplomacy to reform if he holds multiple holy sites (so there would be more you could actively do to reform your religion (conquering new holy sites), then just hoping your vassals decide to elect a high diplomacy heir).

If that would make reforming your religion to easy you could ad another step to the process in the middle (I thought about 'creating religious institutions' like charitary organizations or temple schools, it would differ from the other steps in that it would require stewardship and gold instead of diplomacy and piety (and thus ad more variance)).

Thanks for post :)

White squares was reported in Paradoxplaza as graphical bug. I hope that in the next patch this will be repaired (if not - return to the standard pagan portraits).

In my opinion - to have a new "religious head" has respect and general authority must first have any secular power. If we get any fool out of the street and say "This is our new pope - we all must listen to him" - no one will listen to us. If we are tyrant - someone can listen, but after my death all return to old practices (look at atonism reformation in ancient Egypt). And slavism work in post-barbaric world, so and main priest must have power. Barbaric russian or polish folks will not listen to marionette - "Is he supposed to be our main priest? He is more swineherd than a religious leader - dont have power in hand, dont have soldiers, dont have money etc. He is loser, gull and slave of emperor."

Penultimate section - nope. Reformation by conquest and war is an Paradox concept, which I completely reject. We have an example of Huns or Mongols who controlled all sacred places of tengrism but did not reform the religion. Reformer must have great diplomatic skill, because must must convince other rulers and elites and low class peoples, that ideas from reform is real and needed as long-time things. Low diplomatic skills was (one of many) the reason for fall of Aton's reform in ancient Egypt.

Mod works wonderfully so far, and I'm happy to say it works perfectly fine with HIP without SWMH (haven't tested with)! Thought I'd stop by with a bit of constructive criticism and possible suggestions:

The English is passable, but could use some work. Not exactly anyone's fault as it is a localization issue, I think; sentence structure just doesn't seem natural a lot of the time. Literally one of my only complaints.

My only other complaint is that the society that is included with the mod is full of very short-term advantages; one-use armies, one-or-two year stat boosts, and inviting someone from the society to your nation. Once you actually get to conquering Poland / Pomerania / Ruthenia / Lithuania, the benefits very quickly drop-off since you can already start fielding generally large armies and few people will want to actively challenge you after this point. Hence, it's a very good early game society, but with lack of peace-time mechanics and interactions other than RNG events (which seem to have an oddly high chance of maiming, by the way), it becomes generally useless later on. Additionally, the 'power' to 'infect' one of your kids into the society doesn't seem to work correctly in my playthrough. I'd suggest to fix this, either have another separate society dedicated to peacetime advantages only and facilitate more RP, or attach a few more specific quests for members of the society to go on during peacetime. There seems to be a definitive lack of quests / interaction once you become head of the society - maybe have some kind of quest actively root out 'vǎrkolak's since they are an unholy / unnatural hybrid of man and wolf, or alternatively become one if they feel that's the better / correct path to take. Maybe hunt out 'vampires' instead, or something along those lines?

Other suggestions:

Events

Rare chance of male characters encountering a Wiła / Vila on a hunt / during a Neuri tribe wolf chace / custom event. Vila meets the character in the woods alone, asks character to dance with him. If character simply agrees to dance with the Vila, 50/50 chance of having a +1 or -1 to intrigue with the description 'Vila's Whim' or something like that; give an option to try to pluck her hair, and the Vila transforms into a woman who falls in love with the character, or the character fails and is either wounded, maimed, or killed by the Vila; give the option for the character to try and steal a 'piece of her skin', and the character has a higher chance of wounded / maimed / killed, but gains the object 'Vila's Skin', which gives +1 diplomacy, +2 intrigue, +.1 health. "This is the skin of a Vila, stolen from her through cunning wit; with it, the Vila is bound eternally to the holder's command. Even now, she aids the holder subtlely with her charms, unknown to others."

Could throw in some stuff about the Domovoi; if a character is slothful, have them receive some negative affects for being woken up by the Domovoi in the night, and by it trying to drive them to be less slovenly. Could have benefits for diligent characters?

Very rare chance Radegast comes to the player character in disguise, hoping to be invited to a banquet. Depending on how hospitable the player is - if they invite him in, provide him a place to stay for the night, cook him a lavish feast, entertain him, all at great expense - the god might reward them with bonuses to diplomacy, or with his spear or helmet if they do everything right and well.

Items

Golden Apple of Perun; should give a high martial advantage. "While this may not seem to be much of a weapon, the Golden Apple is a talisman of ultimate destruction. Ball lightning is said to be commanded by it, and has in Slavic lore slain its enemies, leaving no witnesses..."

Svetovid's Horn of Plenty; should give a moderate intrigue / stewardship advantage. "This horn of plenty appeared at Svetovid's statue in Arkona, and is ever-flowing with mead."

Hi Cerce! Current english localization is corrected by user "Wiggly". Part of his work has already been introduced into mod. About Neuri - this was my test about societies. I didn't want to make them too powerful, but also after "blobbing" anything is too weak ;) When I was target of Crusade any soldier was at a premium (my early feudal army was small, Perunian Order was used by Russians in war with nomads, my Arkonian Fanatics was source of great leaders but weak soldiers). Problem with "social powers" is in this, that powers can't be too great. Look at eg. hermetism or satanism. Any king with 40+ learning or mega spells are "legal cheats" (for me) and aren't good wat. Ofc, I must think about new elements for them (for fun). I'll think about your suggestions. Thanks.

byzsla, it's already known that before arrival of Rurik, Russia was called Gardariki. And it wasn't Khaganate or nomadic state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garðaríki

@Ballsofdoom - Gardariki is nordic name of North Russia. Not more and not less. In early medieval French was used term "Rhos" (look Annales Bertiniani words about AD 839; book is in Saint-Omer in Pas-de-Calais), not "Gardariki". This is first. Second is this, that term "Rus' Khaganate" was used in history and again - Annales Bertiniani give name "chacanus" (khagan) for early-medieval russian state. Even persian/arabian merchants wrote about this country as "hakan" so Khagan (in eg. Ibn Ruste, Gardizi, al-Marwazi, Khudud al-alam). And later term "khagan" was used for russian ruler (eg. Vladimir the Great). Third. Is few theories, why russian rulers had title similar to "khagan". After Rurik this is simple - tradition. Before isn't simple. Eg. Gedeonov wrote, that Russians was change style of goverment similar to Khazars because was part of Khazars Empire; other theory (eg. from Tolochko) wrote that this mean only that east-slavic-peoples was subjects of Khazar Kagan. Gorsky wrote, that one of relatives kagan of Khazars escaped to Russia and took power there by changing the regime and style of goverments. Ofc. is many anti-theories (eg. this was only nordic name of some chief, without any designation of the system). But I used more optimistic theories, for fun. Last ergo - please read more book, less internet ;)

@byzsla
Gardariki was a first state of Russia, ruled by Scandinavians. Not more and not less. You can check the list of Gardarikan konungs to prove my point. In wikipedia page I posted here you can also find the map of Gardariki, presented as a country. "Rus Khaganate" was (in theory) the first Ukrainian state, because in that time Ukrainian lands was the part of Khazarian Empire. Evidence of that you can find in their culture (cossacks, nomadic way of living, dances and ethnic clothing). But later they became the part of Rus so it's no surprise that title "khagan" was used. It was unofficial titile though, official was Knyaz.

There are many theories, but concepts that "Cossacks are legacy of Khazars" are wrong. The birth of the Cossack and Cossack style is only from the XV/XVIcentury. It is too late for the "Khazar influence". Fugitive peasants copied the Mongol and Tatar lifestyle and made own changes. Also term chacanus (Khagan) was used to north-russian-quasi-states-pre-Rurik (also in Annales Bertinian we have information). To main topic. Because there are many theories and none is 100% acceptable for all historian world, that's why Rus Khaganate is an optional way. I use theory, that this was a pre-Rurik an unsuccessful attempt to modernize a tribal life (unsuccessful because the Khazar-style double monarchy was to lead to chaos, which led to the election of Ruryk on konung). I am not a professional historian (I have historian study, but I retrain to engineer and work in this proffesion), but this theory is interesting so I use this :)

I gather ideas on "forgotten slavic bloodlines". Current I have Prince Krak (creator Krakow; dragon-killer in old legends; fighter againts Germans), Tatra Queen (giant-killer queen); Wizymir the Daneslayer (prince-pirate; fought with the Danes); Popiel (evil prince of Poles); Ivan Tsarevich (killer of Baba-Yaga <witch> and Koschei Deathless <liche>). Any more concepts?