Crusader Kings 2 easter egg lets you rule an animal kingdom

Finally, after years of waiting, you’ll soon be able to conquer Crusader Kings 2’s medieval world as a duck. This might be the Holy Fury expansion’s single greatest feature, but you probably wouldn’t find it unless you were looking. Not into fowl? You can play as a dynasty of hedgehogs, cats, elephants and even dragons. One of my neighbouring counts is an egg.

‘Animal Kingdom’ is a hidden setting for Holy Fury’s random maps. Instead of playing on the historical map, you can play around with a list of settings and have the game generate something new. The geography stays the same, but entirely new kingdoms, religions and characters are summoned into existence. They’re all human, however.

When you’re putting together your new world, you can pick between historical or random cultures, and it looks like that’s all. Keep clicking, however, even if it looks like you’re just seeing the same two options, and eventually you’ll find the easter egg. I say eventually, but really it’s just a few more clicks. Et voila! A world populated by aristocratic beasites, as well as humans living alongside them.

As King Darkwing, I ruled a large—but not the largest—kingdom of waterfowl in what is, in our reality, Central Europe. Things were a little tense for a while since my neighbour was a Holy Roman Empire analogue that was ruled by dragons. I didn’t fancy my chances in a war, so I married off my daughter, also a duck, to a scaly duke. There was a bit of strife within the kingdom itself, too, because it turns out that not all ducks follow the same religion.

Most the ducks, myself included, logically worshipped The Sky and followed the rules from The Books of Blessed Virtues, but there were also some loons who worshipped The Moon, of all things, and had their own holy text, The Hallowed Manuscript. I’m in the process of explaining why they are wrong and we are right. Mostly with swords. All of these religions are randomly generated.

So Crusader Kings 2 is Redwall now, I guess. I love it.

Holy Fury is due out on November 13.

Fraser is the UK online editor and has actually met The Internet in person. With over a decade of experience, he's been around the block a few times, serving as a freelancer, news editor and prolific reviewer. Strategy games have been a 30-year-long obsession, from tiny RTSs to sprawling political sims, and he never turns down the chance to rave about Total War or Crusader Kings. He's also been known to set up shop in the latest MMO and likes to wind down with an endlessly deep, systemic RPG. These days, when he's not editing, he can usually be found writing features that are 1,000 words too long or talking about his dog.