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Mordvin Flavor Pack Guide
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For centuries, the two Mordvin peoples - the Erzyas and Mokshas - have dwelled in the forests and hills along the Volga River. Though they are known for their skills in beekeeping, and for resisting foreign incursions from Slavs, Turks, and more, foreigners don’t know much else about them, and have come up with stories - some quite fantastical - about who the Mordvins really are.

With the right leadership, however, it is here along the Volga River that the Erzyas and Mokshas shall thrive, and grow. They will honor their gods and their ancestors with their old, sacred rituals; they will extract wealth untold from the great hives of their apiaries; and they will fight to defend their homelands from whoever may come their way.

Features

Finno-Ugric Cultures

Erzyas and Mokshas

Other Changes

New Finno-Ugric Faiths

Ozks

Horse Sacrifices

Apiculture Flavor

Beekeeper Tradition

Bee Products

Extract Tribute

Selected Sources for Further Reading

Features

Finno-Ugric Cultures

Erzyas and Mokshas

Vanilla’s Mordvin culture is now split between the Erzya and Moksha cultures.

In real life, "Mordvin" usually refers to these two ethnicities collectively. While the term Mordvin was in use before the modern period and these two groups are closely related, they are still two distinct peoples.

As an aside, for those who might be snooping through the code, Eryzas are just vanilla’s Mordvin culture but relocalized (i.e. they are called “mordvin” in game code).

Other Changes

There have also been a number of other tweaks and changes to the Finno-Ugric peoples.

First, the Permic culture has been renamed to Komi, and a new Udmurt culture split off from it.

Secondly, a new tradition, Northern Sorcerers, is now available to Balto-Finnic, Volga Finnic, and Ugro-Permian cultures. By default, the Finnish, Sami, Estonian, and Karelian cultures start with it.

Historically, the Finnic peoples were reputed to be great sorcerers by foreigners, a reflection of the importance of shamanism and similar “magical” practices in their culture and faiths. The tradition only provides passive bonuses for now: it makes the mystic trait more common, and increases piety gain, intrigue per piety level, defender advantage, and dread baseline.

Lastly, most of the Volga Finnic cultures have had their tradition setup revamped for variety and to better reflect what little we know about them from historical sources and archaeology.

New Finno-Ugric Faiths

Vanilla’s Ukonusko faith encompasses a large group of peoples across a wide geographical range, and is the equivalent of putting Norse paganism, Hellenism, and Zoroastrianism in an “Indo-European” faith. As such, it has been split up. Most of the following new faiths and religions have been adapted from Naatturi’s Ukonusko Overhaul mod with permission:

Ozks

Ozks are a kind of public prayer ceremony performed by Erzya pagans. The most important of these is Raskeń Ozks which apparently was outlawed by Tsarist authorities in the 1600s before being revived a couple decades ago.

Anyways, Organize an Ine Ozks (meaning “Great Ozks”) is the festival decision for all faiths in the Mordvin religion. Like the usual religious festival decisions from RICE, it gives you some prestige and piety, and has various events trigger during the course of the festivities. It is meant to represent various Ozks in general, but draws much inspiration from the Raskeń Ozks.

Horse Sacrifices

Perform a Horse Sacrifice is a simple, minor religious decision available to certain faiths, including Mordvin, Tengri, Germanic/Norse, Magyar, Mari, and Permic pagans.

When you sacrifice a horse, you get piety, prestige, and a randomly chosen modifier with different positive effects. You can also choose how many horses to sacrifice. By sacrificing greater amounts, you gain more piety and prestige, and the chance of acquiring better character modifiers.

Apiculture Flavor

Beekeeper Tradition

Volga Beekeepers is a tradition available for cultures in the Volga river basin region. To access it, you need at least four counties in the Volga River basin region. A number of cultures start with it by default, including most Volga Finn cultures like the Mokshas and Erzyas.

Historically, many Finno-Ugric and Turkic peoples of the Volga river basin were famed for their beekeeping, including the Mordvins; this was noted by primary sources like the famed 10th century Muslim traveler, Ibn Fadlan. During the Tsarist period, these peoples often paid tribute with bee products given how lucrative they were.

In game, in terms of passive effects, the tradition gives a small boost to health and stewardship lifestyle experience, as well as a tax bonus in counties of that culture. It also unlocks several new features.

Bee Products

One of the new features is the decision to Acquire Volga Bee Products to buy honey, beeswax, or both for yourself.

These are character modifiers lasting ten years with various benefits.

Alternatively, you can take the character interaction to Gift Volga Bee Products to someone. Similarly, you can choose between honey, beeswax, or both.

This gives the target the character modifier in question and raises their opinion of you, while giving you a bit of prestige too. If you’re lucky, you might even receive these gifts yourself!

Extract Tribute

If any of your counties is of a culture with the Volga Beekeepers tradition, you can take the decision to Extract Additional Tribute from Beekeepers. Note that this is available even if your culture doesn’t have the tradition, nor is it necessarily available if your culture has the tradition – the main requirement is owning a county with a culture with this tradition!

Anyways, this decision adds a county modifier to every beekeeper county that increases its taxes a bit, at the cost of county opinion and development. You also get a negative character modifier reducing popular opinion of you.

However, to make up for these maluses, and the main reason for taking this decision, is that you get an immediate lump sum of gold. The amount is somewhat random, but the range of possible gold you can get depends on how many beekeeper counties as well as your stewardship. Even with low stewardship and one qualifying county, if you’re willing to pay the long-term costs, there’s still a decent chunk of money to be made, especially if you’re in a crunch and desperately need cash.

Selected Sources for Further Reading