How to play as Manwe or Morgoth

In this guide I will go through the steps to playing either Manwe, ruler of the Valar, or Morgoth, the Dark Traitor in the Middle Earth Project Mod for Crusader Kings II. If you want to translate this, you are welcom to, just be sure to give credit to this guide.

Bit of lore

Manwe and Melkr were to strongest of the Valar, who helped create the world of Arda (Which Middle-Earth is part of) with Eru Illuvatar, who can be considered the equivalent of God in Tolkien's Lengendarium. Manwe can be considered the pinnacle of good, while Melkor was the opposite, and would become the spawn of all evil, including orcs, trolls, dragons, balrogs, and Sauron, one of his most powerful servants. Because of this he is called the First Dark Lord. By the end of the First Age, he was captured and his fortresses and armies destroyed at great cost by the host of the Valar (Including men, elves, dwarves), and imprisoned in the void for eternity until Dagor Dagorath, where he will escape and summon all hosts of evil to his side, and the Valar will respond by summoning all hosts of good for a final battle where he will be defeated one final time, and the world will be made anew.

For more information, I am leaving two links to their Tolkien Gateway pages below.

http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Manwë

http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Morgoth

Getting started

Load up the mod, and select a time period, it doesn't matter who you pick to play as. It is important that you disable ironman mode, as console commands are needed to play either of these characters.


When your game loads, go down to the bottom right corner of your screen below the mini map, and select the Find Character option.


Make sure you select any realm, and either search Manwe or Melkor. They should pop up soon.

Console Commands

Open up the console (By default it should be set to your ~ key on the top left of your keyboard). Type in "Charinfo" (Without quotes). This comman basically lets you see hidden details of various characters, traits, and counties, and is usefull overall.

Hover over the portait of either characters you want to play, and find their Character ID.


Now type in console "play [Charcater ID]" (Without brackets). This works for any character, even landless ones, however that ends the game immediately. You should now be playing either character of your choice.

An important note is that Melkor tends to be imprisoned by Manwe, using "debug_yesmen" may work, however in a custom game I did (A few decades after the Battle of Five Armies start) I found him to be free from Manwe in The Void. Whether this was a bug or the AI I don't know.

What Now?

Both Manwe and Melkor are incredibly powerful in terms of stats and traits, albeit playing them can be lorebreaking. As both are technically landless, having no land on the map, thus no men or income, I recomend using "charinfo" again and hovering over any county icon you want to start with. Doing this will display the county ID.


Use the command "claim_[Holding Type]_[Holding ID]"

In the above example I am making a claim on Andrast, a kingdom. because of this I use k for kingdom in the holding type portion of the command. If you're claiming a county you use "c", an empire you use "e".

I should note, from some testing, you seem to be able to interact with anyone when you don't hold land on the map, even Meneltarma, which isn't accessible from any point of the map being too far away, so use that knowledge to put yourself in a location of your choice.

I also recomend using "debug_yesmen" to win the war, as you will instantly lose otherwise, and to claim everything in the territroy you want as to establish yourself better without angry vassals. You can also use the "play" command to play as other Valar after landing them. Government-wise, Manwe uses Just feudalism, while Melkor uses Dark Despotism. The game may crash, though that isn't anything unusual for this mod, atleast for me.

Some possible story explanations I came up with are as follows:

Manwe establishes a presence in Middle-Earth for whatever reason, to either fight for or against evil. Similarly, Melkor has escaped and is setting himself up in secret, either to take his servant Sauron's work, or to come back as his master. If you have more explanations, feel free to give me them.