[mod] CK3 Storyline Editor

[gianclod]

View File

CK3 Storyline Editor

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Hi everyone,

I've been working on a small browser tool for CK3 story mods for a while and I feel it's finally in a good enough state to share it with you guys.
Hopefully it will empower some of you to make cool mods

 

So what is it and what can it do?

• CK3 Storyline Editor is a visual editor that runs fully offline in your browser.
• Event chains on a graph
  • nodes are events, edges are “this choice leads here.” 
• Forms instead of script
  • titles, descriptions, options, triggers, and effects are filled in through the UI. The tool generates localization, trigger_event links, and the rest of the CK3 script for you.
• More than just events
  • you can create story starts, repeatable events, decisions, character interactions, custom traits (including tracked traits with XP), triggers, flags, dynamic story characters, and add custom images (backgrounds, trait icons, etc.) converted to DDS on export.
• Sanity checks before you export
  • live preview and “Walk chain” mode, let's you play a mock of the mod without having to run it in game (they approximate triggers; they're not the real game engine).
• Save your work: project JSON for backups, autosave in the browser.
• And Finally a one click button to export a fully working mod ZIP.
  • you can also import a mod ZIP (works fine with mods exported by this tool, don't expect it to work correctly with any mod tho)

 

How to run it?

• download the ZIP from here
• double click index.html

 

There's a bundled demo (Dragon Slayer Saga) that you can just load the JSON and export as a mod, and a few starter templates if you want to click around before building your own mod from scratch. The templates are in order of complexity to showcase a bit of everything this tool can do.

 

Export has been tested on quite a few story setups and generally works well for tool-authored mods. That said, If something breaks in-game, please send me your error.log (from Documents\Paradox Interactive\Crusader Kings III\logs\) along with a short description of what you were trying to do. That helps a lot to fix all the issues. 

 

Mods you make are yours; no permission needed to publish them. A casual “made with CK3 Storyline Editor” credit is appreciated but not required.

Feedback welcome.

 

Full disclosure: this tool was built with substantial help from AI (coding assistant + iteration).

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• Submitter
  gianclod
• Submitted
  06/10/26
• Category
  Crusader Kings 3
• Requirements

 

[Beasstmaster]

I love and hate you at the same time, mate. I've been learning with gemini how to do this ck3 mods shit. And now here you are simplifying it like that. Awesome!!! hahahaha. Though i am sure you're a godsend for a whole bunch of folks. And for me as well.  Downloaded it. Checked it out. Awesome!

 

Any thoughts on adding: activities, modifiers, portrait_modifiers or a trait directory-thingy, wherein you could save traits to use later or have the traits from carnalitas, phaze and co as sort of references you could tie events to?

 

TLDR.: You're a godsend!

[gianclod]

7 minutes ago, Beasstmaster said:

I love and hate you at the same time, mate. I've been learning with gemini how to do this ck3 mods shit. And now here you are simplifying it like that. Awesome!!! hahahaha. Though i am sure you're a godsend for a whole bunch of folks. And for me as well.  Downloaded it. Checked it out. Awesome!

 

Any thoughts on adding: activities, modifiers, portrait_modifiers or a trait directory-thingy, wherein you could save traits to use later or have the traits from carnalitas, phaze and co as sort of references you could tie events to?

 

TLDR.: You're a godsend!

 

hey hey, thank you!!

 

activities might be a good one to add. for traits coming from other mods, technically if you know the trait key you should be able to interact with it with mod from this editor as well, a bit limited but it should kinda work. something similar to this maybe? 

another idea could be, i embed some of the most popular custom trait of those mods directly in the editor, but it can break things if then you don't have those mods installed. I'll have a think.

 

For your other questions:

You can make traits on the left panel

 

in both events and choices you can then add effects

 

 

for character portrait under the appearance tab of an event you can choose which character, which animation and outfit (i just added either normal clothes or naked for outfits)

 

[Lyskorie]

1 hour ago, Beasstmaster said:

I love and hate you at the same time, mate. I've been learning with gemini how to do this ck3 mods shit. And now here you are simplifying it like that. Awesome!!! hahahaha. Though i am sure you're a godsend for a whole bunch of folks. And for me as well.  Downloaded it. Checked it out. Awesome!

 

Any thoughts on adding: activities, modifiers, portrait_modifiers or a trait directory-thingy, wherein you could save traits to use later or have the traits from carnalitas, phaze and co as sort of references you could tie events to?

 

TLDR.: You're a godsend!

 

Using a LLM to learn how to mod CK3 (or to write code for a CK3 mod) is a terrible idea, given the scant documentation from even official Paradox sources. It will, among other things: make up triggers, effects, modifiers, etc. rendering it infeasible. It is brought up often enough that the CK3 Modding Co-op has a FAQ entry on why you shouldn't be using a LLM to mod CK3 (and why you shouldn't dump code output by a LLM and expect someone to come around and make it game-legible).

 

 

And here's Saltfish, one of the biggest CK3 modders in the sinosphere, making the same point

 

 

You are better off learning through trial and error, while dissecting vanilla CK3 files and/or other mods' implementation of functionalities you want to apply; and using the script_docs command in the console dumps logs referring to triggers, effects, modifiers, etc. and its documentation. In the event that you do build a hyper-specialised model trained in whatever amount of CK3 structure that is available, you'd still need to know the difference between functional code and LLM hallucination.

 

Even then, mods that use AI extensively on other departments such as graphics, localisation, etc. (e.g. Elf Destiny, or anything Phaze made) are still at the end of the day scripted by a person. If any part of making a CK3 mod shouldn't be handed over for a mindless language model, it's the scripting.

Edited 6 hours ago by Lyskorie