Even in the wake of its sequel, Crusader Kings 2 remains my most-played game on Steam, having swallowed a full 585 hours of my life since it released all the way back in 2012. To be honest? It’s a bit of a cakewalk these days. I’m so familiar with the game and all its systems that it’s not long in any campaign before I’m ruling over all of Europe with some kind of semi-immortal dynasty of genetically perfect demigods. 

Is there anyone out there who can help add some challenge back into one of my favourite games of all time? Can anything be done to make the trials and travails of ruling Europe a bit more trialling and travailing?

Introducing Leper Roulette, a crime from CK2 modder Gembleton. 

Gembleton is relatively taciturn in the description for Leper Roulette on Nexus Mods, gnomically describing it as a mod “in which a random dynasty member is given leprosy every ~7 years.” Perhaps this is what happened to Baldwin IV.

Much like real life, finding a loved one arbitrarily struck down by a Biblical plague of the flesh really makes it difficult to focus on your various admin tasks, layering on the challenge to a game that’s long-since been broken over players’ knees in its decade-plus on the market.

“No particular reason,” says Gembleton of what compelled them to make the mod, “It just has a chance to really ruin your game.” A quick glance at our hero’s Nexus files page reveals a penchant for mods in this vein. One of them—a mod called GL’s Negative Start—has an even more laconic description than Leper Roulette. It simply reads “I want die.”

Gembleton does mention a figure named “Lybon” in the author credits and description for Leper Roulette, so it’s probably all their fault. For purposes of drama, I am choosing to imagine Lybon as a figure like Twin Peaks’ Killer Bob, a malignant spiritual presence that occasionally drives Gembleton to evil.

If you’d like to experience that evil for yourself, you can download Leper Roulette from its files page on Nexus Mods, at which point you can stick it in your Crusader Kings 2/mod folder in Documents. If you’d rather skip the tedium and get straight to the leprosy, though, you can just subscribe to it over on the Steam Workshop.