CK3 RICE Mod Dev Diary #49 || Zhangzhung Flavor Pack (Part 1): Cultural and Historical Additions for Tibet!
Happy New Year! I'm Cybrxkhan, creator of the Regional Immersion and Cultural Enrichment (RICE) mod, which adds simple "Flavor Packs'' to different parts of the world. Today, we have the first of two dev diaries for RICE’s next flavor pack, and the first for 2025 – Zhangzhung: Land of Hidden Treasures. Please note all screenshots here are WIP. Feel free to check my mods' website, discord, and twitter for more info, previews, and updates!
Now, we often see Tibet as a united land of mystical, timeless Buddhism, but there’s more to its history. The little-known Zhangzhung civilization, which lasted from the Bronze Age to the 7th century, is one piece of the puzzle that is Tibet’s history. Though the Zhangzhung kingdom (if it existed) is long gone by CK3’s timeframe, its influence and legend endures, particularly in the indigenous Bon religion of Tibet.
As such, the Zhangzhung update focuses on adding flavor not just for Zhangzhung, but the Bon religion and Tibet in general, especially Western Tibet.
Himalayan Cultures and Traditions
Let’s start off with changes coming to culture! There are two new traditions coming to the region. One is called Auspicious Mountain Stonework and is available to Zhangzhung or cultures descended from Zhangzhung. It unlocks a few decisions related to the Zhangzhung, and provides some hill and mountain bonuses.
The Zhangzhung had some differences with what we consider Tibetan, especially before their conquest by imperial Tibet. For instance, Zhangzhung archaeological sites are dominated by all-stone buildings often in the sides of caves and mountains; these are very distinct from the architectural styles we normally associate with Tibet.
Another new tradition is Changthang Nomads, available to any Tibetan culture. Only the Zhangzhung and Sumpa have them at game start. They provide hill and mountain bonuses, unlock a special Drokpa Horsemen MAA, give you a small amount of piety when traveling for an activity, and improve the success odds of the Himalayan salt decision (more on that later).
In Tibet, nomads, who still make up significant chunks of the population, are called drokpas. The highlands of Upper Tibet, known as the Changthang region, is particularly rugged and harsh even by Tibetan standards, and the drokpas who live there are famous for being especially hardy and tough, even during the CK3 timeframe.
Lastly, a new culture, taken from the Rajas of Asia and Dharmachakra mods, is Gandhari. They are remnants of the Gandhara civilization that was prominent in antiquity and played a major role in Buddhism’s spread in Asia, including to Tibet. They have a unique tradition, Gandharan Art, a reference to how Gandhara’s art, a syncretism of Hellenic and Indic styles, was a major influence on Buddhist art and religion elsewhere.
For those who don’t know, Dharmachakra is a mod focused on adding Indian flavor, while Rajas of Asia is a mod that adds in the rest of Asia to the map, and includes plenty of new flavor and mechanics for Asia to go along with it. RICE has collaborated extensively with both before, and I’m glad to work with them again.
Losar
Another thing I’m integrating from Dharmachakra and Rajas of Asia is the Losar Festival, an activity available to anyone with Tibetan heritage. Losar is the Tibetan New Year, for those who don't know.
While my implementation is mainly based on Dharmachakra, I’ve made tweaks, fixes, and minor additions to it. Similar to other RICE festival activities, you can gain prestige, piety, stress gain or loss, and various positive modifiers. In particular, there is an activity option where you choose how much of a gift you want to give to the commoners, which will decide the strength of a county modifier placed in your capital that improves county opinion and development.
An important part of Losar are dances that make use of colorful, vivid masks and which are intended to instruct and bring good karma to all who watch them. As you might notice in the below screenshot, I’m also starting to make more use of the gloss tooltips the devs added with Roads to Power.
Restoring Zhangzhung
But enough about random cultural flavor. What new content is actually directly related to Zhangzhung?
Zhangzhung is an interesting enigma in historical studies because we still don’t know a lot about them. They left no written records, so the best we have is archaeological sites and what was mentioned in sources dated to centuries after their conquest by Tibet. Bon, the indigenous religion of Tibet, believes that Zhangzhung was once a powerful kingdom that was the source of their religion. However, academic scholars are more divided. Some believe a Zhangzhung state never existed, and they were just a group of small local polities at best. Others think Zhangzhung did exist, but perhaps they may have been more of a decentralized confederation.
Whatever the reality, the legends of Zhangzhung remain quite popular even nowadays, especially among Bonpos. Anyhow, rulers with the Auspicious Mountain Stonework have access to a decision to Revive Zhangzhung if you seek to recreate this ancient state.
To take this decision, you need to be an independent king who fully controls Guge, Maryul, and a bit of the Pamir region. You also need to be of a culture that has the Auspicious Mountain Stonework tradition (like Zhangzhung).
Besides the Zhangzhung Empire title, you’ll also get some prestige and renown bonuses, and piety depending on your faith. Additionally, if you’re Bon, you’ll also get a unique dynasty modifier, depending on whether you follow old Bon or new Bon. Every county in the new Zhangzhung Empire’s de jure borders also have a chance of converting to your faith.
According to legend, the capital of Zhangzhung was called the Silver Castle of Garuda Valley. Once the Zhangzhung Empire is founded, you can take a decision to Rebuild the Silver Castle. It’ll give you some legitimacy and adds a permanent county modifier to your capital county with various bonuses.
Miscellaneous Decisions
Supplicate at Pillars
There are also a couple minor decisions associated with the Zhangzhung region.
One odd trait at Zhangzhung archaeological sites in western Tibet, particularly those that appear to have ceremonial functions, are the presence of multitudes of stone pillars. Sometimes, they appear seemingly randomly in the wilderness, without any attached buildings. The last of these pillars appear to have been erected during the imperial era of Tibet, before game start.
These mysterious pillars, even nowadays, are believed to have powerful, sometimes destructive, supernatural powers. People tend to avoid them and the deities associated with them, unless they want to ask for their favor. You can do just that, with the decision to Supplicate at Ancient Pillars. It gives you a good or bad modifier (or nothing at all) based on your traits and piety level.
This decision is available for anyone who owns land or has a domicile in Western Tibet. If you have the Auspicious Mountain Stonework tradition, however, you can take the decision from anywhere.
Salt
Salt played an important role in Himalayan economic history, and the salt trade was often heavily taxed. Salt itself can be found in large quantities in various salt lakes and salt pans in western and northern Tibet. Thus, there is now a decision to Fund a Himalayan Salt Expedition if you own a county in Western or Northern Tibet.
Traditionally, drokpas would regularly make trips to harvest this profitable salt in these regions. Because these lakes and pans were often considered sacred locations, the trips would often involve a number of special rituals and cultural customs, such as prayers to specific Buddhist religious figures, and speaking in a secretive 'salt language' during the expedition.
The decision works similarly to the Whaling decision previously added by RICE: you pay an upfront sum, and hope that you gain a larger sum of gold in return later on. The chances of success for this decision, and how much gold you could earn, is based on your traits, skills, and piety level. You can also spend some extra piety to increase your chances of success.
Guge Flavor and History
The Zhangzhung kingdom, if it did exist, was no longer around by CK3’s timeframe, as it was conquered by the Tibetan Empire. Yet the latter itself had fallen too, replaced by several successor states. One such states, located where Zhangzhung was, was Guge, which lasted well into the 17th century. During its political height in the 10th and 11th century, it played a major role in the spread and growth of Tibetan Buddhism.
While CK3’s depiction of Tibet is decent (for instance, a lot of fictitious rulers come from real, if obscure Tibetan clans), there is room for improvement, and several new historical characters and dynasties have been added to Guge. One such character is a new bookmarked character for the 1066 start date, Dpal Dus Sgra, a councillor of Guge who has been attested in inscriptions in modern-day Ladakh.
In the first half of the 11th century, during the reign of king Ödétsen, he governed a border territory known as Brusha, perhaps corresponding to lands inhabited by the Burusho people in the Pamirs, which Guge subsequently lost at some point.
If you play as him, you’ll get a series of events that explain your situation and let you set up your starting situation if you want. Dpal Dus Sgra also starts with a modifier, Former Governor of Brusha, with various bonuses. The county of Purig, which he now controls, also gets a county modifier for 25 years to represent the aforementioned inscriptions, which were carved in the second half of the 11th century: In Solemn Praise of Brusha's Governor.
Besides Dpal Dus Sgra, several characters have been added from the Hrugs or Hrugs Wer clan, including a couple playable rulers. They were prominent supporters of Buddhism in Guge, and their members included Rinchen Zangpo of the Yudra family, one of the most renowned translators and scholars of 11th century Tibetan Buddhism (though he is deceased by 1066).
Rinchen Zangpo is a major figure in the region’s Buddhist legends, as he is said to have founded many monasteries in Western Tibet. As such, the Hrugs dynasty in-game get a dynasty modifier, Rinchen Zangpo's Clan, to represent this.
New Landless Characters
A few historical landless adventurer characters (playable if you have Roads to Power) have also been added to the Himalayas as well:
- Khutsa Dawo (Bon, 1066)
- Drapa Ngönshé (Nangchos, 1066)
- Sangye Lama (Nangchos, 1066)
- Nyangrel Nyima Özer (Nangchos, 1178)
These men are not only Tibetan religious figures, but are in fact important lay Tertöns. In Tibetan Buddhist and Bon tradition, a tertön, or treasure revealer, is someone who discovers hidden spiritual teachings or artifacts called terma. I am planning a major mechanic related to that for the Zhangzhung update, but I’ll discuss that more in the next dev diary.
Buildings
Lastly, before we close off this dev diary, I want to mention a few special buildings that will be added to Tibet and Northern India as part of this update. Hopefully, this will make the region a bit more interesting especially given the paucity of buildings there in vanilla.
The buildings, and the baronies they are in, are in alphabetical order:
- Alchi Monastery (Leh): One of the oldest surviving Buddhist monasteries in Ladakh.
- Kangra Fort (Kangra): One of the oldest and largest fortresses in the Himalayan region.
- Lake Dangra (Nyima): A sacred lake believed to be the source of the universe among local Bon followers.
- Phuktal Monastery (Padum): A remote monastery in Ladakh that has housed many famous Buddhist masters over the centuries.
- Tabo Monastery (Tabo): One of the most important medieval monasteries of the Kingdom of Guge.
- Tsaparang Fortress (Tsaparang): The capital of Guge; the palace/fortress is perched atop a pyramid-shaped rock.
Concluding Remarks
That concludes our first dev diary about the Zhangzhung flavor pack! The second dev diary will focus on new religious content for (Tibetan) Buddhism and Bon. For those who are interested in my sources, I’ll provide my traditional list of sources in that second dev diary.
Currently, the ETA for this update’s release is sometime in late January. We’ll see if that timeline holds.
As an aside, if you haven’t seen it, I recently released a discussion and analysis of the results of the 2024 VIET/RICE Survey I put up earlier in 2024. If you’ve played VIET/RICE in the past, and are bored and have time, it might be worth taking a look at if you want to see what other people thought. Thanks to everyone who took the time to give back feedback!
Anyhow, that's all for today. Once again, happy New Year to everyone!
Mod Credits and Other Mods Used in Screenshots: