Hi all! I am Karolus Magnus, programmer at Crusader Kings II. Now is finally the time for my first dev diary! Today I will be talking about the Silk Road and Raiding Adventurers.With Horse Lords we are adding in an addition to the trade system which is the major trade route of the Silk Road that stretched all the way from Cathay to the Italian States. It does not require you to be a Patrician or Republic however to utilize this system. As long as you own the provinces yourself you are allowed to build Trade Posts along the trade route no matter what government form you are. You can upgrade these trade posts to make the Silk Road worth even more.However the Silk Road is much more dangerous to deal with than normal coastal trade posts as it relies on safe passage through land. If a war breaks out and a part of the trade route is caught in the conflict, the trade will be cut from that province and onwards for that branch. The trade will instead go through any other branch and result in them receiving more of the trade than they normally would. The Silk route can be viewed from the Economic mapmode but also in more detail from the Trade zone mapmode.Next feature is Raiding Adventurers. This system was made to better represent the Normans in Northern France and Sicily in how they settled in foreign land. It is also used for nomads who lose their home. The Germanic raiding adventurers spawn with ships, but even nomads who do not get ships can travel far, as these raiders unlike others can raid in any province (except the provinces of the one who conquered your home lands).Raiding adventurers will use the money they gain from raiding to recruit more troops, and when they have grown to a certain level, they will try to become landed. A ruler can offer to settle these raiding adventurers, giving them coastal or border provinces. They might however refuse to be settled if they do not like the lands that you are offering. Ambitious raiding adventurers will usually not be settled unless they are given a duchy. If no such offer is made however, they will eventually start a war on one of the rulers they have raided, targeting a duchy.The same Settle Adventurer interaction can be used to settle the dynamic mercenaries we already covered, if you have managed to make them your friend. Settled raiding adventurers will become Feudal or Iqta depending on their religion, and also be disinherited from the nomad realm from which they came from.One of the benefits of settling a raiding adventurer is that the provinces that are given away will be blocked from raided again in the near future.Raiding adventurers that do not spawn from being conquered as well as dynamic mercenaries will get the Adventurer trait that makes the character much more ambitious and military capable. So even if they give you several benefits to settle, they can become dangerous for your future generations.That's all for this week! Next week we are going to go through map and culture revisions and new events!