In the strategy game simulation Crusader Kings 3 (Steam), things are usually realistic. Players can step into the shoes of historical figures from the Middle Ages, perhaps playing as the Viking lord Björn Ironshield or Alfred the Great, the English king. But there are also quirky characters. Today we present to you possibly the quirkiest character in Crusader Kings 3.
This is how the characters in Crusader Kings 3 are: There are 3 different start dates in Crusader Kings 3 and a huge number of pre-made, fixed characters. When starting in the year 1066, the game features 22,418 characters on day 1.
Every historical figure that held a noble title and possessions at that time is represented in the game, with appropriate age, skills, and attributes that match the historical counterpart.
There are also over 100 known historical figures who, while they did not own land, were significant. They appear at certain times through events. These include warriors and warlords like William Wallace from Braveheart or poets, bards, and famous clergy.
In addition, there are randomly generated characters who are born or randomly created when figures are needed for the storyline, such as the NPC created for the “Kaspar Hauser” event.
From these tens of thousands of characters, the player recruits their court, selects their knights, lovers, clergy, or turns them into bitter enemies who then attempt to eliminate them through assassination.
Here you can watch the announcement trailer for Crusader Kings III:
All negative traits are combined in one character
This is the quirkiest character in the game: In the start date 1066, there is a character named Ewan “the Trustworthy” Cowhig Croft in the English province of Heartfordshire.
The man is 27 years old and has some of the worst traits one can have in Crusader Kings 3: he is a drunkard, a weakling, a dimwit, has only one leg and one arm – furthermore, he has a terrible education, being an amateur. Cowardly and stubborn he is as well.
He has a mediocre score of 11 points in Intrigue, a fair rating in all villainous and mean attributes, and is otherwise of no use.
The character should actually fall dead immediately, but no one lives longer
This is the special joke of the character: Many who stumble across the trustworthy dimwit will notice that he lives remarkably long, even though he is so heavily marked by fate that he should actually have a low life expectancy.
A player noted, for example, that Ewan was still alive and going strong at 77, despite all his ailments. Normally, at his age, with his condition, he should either have been dead long ago or at least at death’s door.
But in Crusader Kings 3, there is a hidden value “health,” which usually hovers around 5. However, for Ewan, it shows a 14. This means that the man can live up to 150 years old – as experiments show, this is the maximum age for characters.
Other characters in Crusader Kings 3, like the marauding Viking Haestein, also have artificially increased health values and therefore regularly live up to 80 years old, while normal mortals often check out around 60.
A YouTuber has brought the character with all longevity traits to his 147th year of life:
Ewan is actually a developer at Paradox in Stockholm
What is behind the character? Ewan belongs to a fourth, special category of characters in Crusader Kings 3 – he is an “Easter Egg” character.
Ewan is “in real life” a developer of Crusader Kings 3, who was written into the game as a gag.
The man works in real life in Stockholm and has risen from game tester to game designer at Paradox over 6 years. One can only speculate what kind of reputation he enjoys among his colleagues to earn this virtual version.
Another employee of Paradox says of the character on Steam: Our people just think it’s funny to pack an absurdly ridiculous number of negative traits on their Easter egg characters.
Paradox presented how Crusader Kings 3 will continue in 2025 before Christmas. MeinMMO has published the relevant information and an assessment of what DLCs we can expect for the strategy game on Steam: I spent 1,463 hours on a game on Steam – 2025 is set to become much bigger
