Noble Fates Principles: Best Beliefs for a New Kingdom
Noble Fates principles decide morality, cannibalism, race and honour. What each stance does, and which combination fits your playstyle.
There is no universally best principle. Pick the stance that matches how you actually want to play: honourable for trade and alliances, purity for a tight one-race court, cannibal for raider income. Then keep your actions consistent, because a kingdom whose ruler contradicts its principles breeds disloyal nobles.
The character creator asks you what your kingdom believes. It reads like flavour text. It is not. Principles are the political spine of the game: they shape how nobles judge you, which neighbours will deal with you, and what you can get away with.
What principles actually control
From the store page and the 1.0 notes, principles decide four kinds of thing:
- Morality stance. Good or evil, and how far you are willing to go. This is the axis the game calls alignment.
- Cannibalism. Whether eating the dead is taboo, tolerated or a sacrament. This changes food economy and how other kingdoms see you.
- Race policy. All high elves, a human supremacist clan, or a bit of everything. This changes recruitment, loyalty and diplomacy.
- Specific tenets. 1.0 added principles such as Skinner, Tame and Battering Ram, which package behaviour into a cultural rule. Mods add more, including race-specific principle sets.
The important detail is that principles are not a difficulty setting. They are a social contract. Your nobles remember what you promised.
The four axes, explained
Good versus evil
Good kingdoms gain opinion from fair dealing, releasing prisoners and defending the weak. Evil kingdoms gain from conquest, exploitation and fear. The 1.0 notes softened the morality penalty for conquering and exiling, which means aggressive play is less punishing than it used to be, but it still moves the needle.
Alignment is not cosmetic. It changes how NPC kingdoms treat you and how your own nobles feel about your decisions. The alignment guide→ goes deeper.
Cannibal or not
Cannibalism is a food and morale decision disguised as a moral one.
- Allow it: corpses become meat. In a starvation winter this is the difference between a bad month and a dead kingdom. Other kingdoms find you repulsive.
- Forbid it: you need real food security. Nobles who grew up in a cannibal culture will resent the ban.
The cannibal raider sect in the store description is not a joke option. It is a coherent playstyle: raid, eat, expand, ignore diplomacy.
Race purity versus a mixed kingdom
Purity means one race, high cohesion and easy loyalty inside the court. Mixed means trade, diverse skills and constant friction with purity-minded neighbours.
Both work. What does not work is picking purity and then recruiting every visitor you meet, or picking mixed and then exiling every outsider. Consistency is the mechanic.
Honour and other tenets
Honour principles govern how you treat prisoners, guests and rivals. 1.0's surrendered-ruler system makes this concrete: when an enemy ruler surrenders, you decide their fate and their kingdom's fate. A gracious ruler earns a reputation; a ruthless one earns fear and a shorter list of allies.
Best principles by playstyle
The builder kingdom: honourable, mixed, no cannibalism
- Why: you want long peaceful stretches, trade partners and a growing population. Honour keeps neighbours willing to negotiate, mixed recruitment keeps the labour pool deep, and a cannibalism ban keeps foreign opinion clean.
- Race: Humans or Dwarves, so you can mix freely.
- Watch out: you will be the kingdom that raiders target, so invest in gate houses and patrols early.
The raider kingdom: evil, cannibal, purity
- Why: raiding is income, corpses are food, and a single-race court stays loyal through a brutal campaign. Pillage petitions lower enemy income for four years, which compounds.
- Race: Orcs.
- Watch out: no allies means no trade for the things you cannot make, and every neighbour is a potential war.
The isolationist fortress: purity, honourable, no cannibalism
- Why: one race, one mountain, one gate. You do not need the world.
- Race: Dwarves.
- Watch out: population growth is slow when you refuse outsiders, and you will run out of specialised labour before you run out of ore.
The merchant court: mixed, honourable, pragmatic on cannibalism
- Why: visitors, envoys and traveller trade are a real income stream. A mixed, honourable court attracts them.
- Race: Humans or Halflings.
- Watch out: moral flexibility reads as hypocrisy. Pick a line and hold it.
Principles change what your nobles tolerate
Every noble carries opinions, memories and loyalty. When your actions match the principle, loyalty holds. When they contradict it, you get quiet resentment, then defiance, then desertion.
Practical rules:
- Do not execute prisoners in an honourable kingdom unless the noble in question deserves it in the court's eyes.
- Do not exile nobles casually. It creates rivals and, in 1.0, it still costs morality, just less than before.
- Do not flip principles mid-game. The game is built around a stance; changing course reads as betrayal.
If a noble is already unhappy, the schedule, room quality and food are often the real cause. Check those before blaming ideology. The tips page→ lists the mood levers.
Mods and principles
Mods can add whole principle sets: kobold principles, high elf principles, lizardmen principles. These are not cosmetic. They add beliefs your kingdom and AI kingdoms can adopt, which changes diplomacy on a modded map.
Read the mod page before installing a principle mod, and expect save compatibility to depend on whether the mod is loaded. The mods guide→ has the full list with notes.
Sources
Official source: Noble Fates on Steam ↗
- Steam store page ↗ for the cannibal sect, supremacist clan and elven convent examples.
- 1.0 patch notes ↗ for Skinner, Tame and Battering Ram principles.
- Steam Workshop ↗ for principle-adding race mods.
FAQ
Can I change my kingdom's principles later?
You can change course through play, but it costs opinion and creates inconsistency. The cleaner option is to start a new kingdom with a stance you actually intend to keep.
Do principles affect difficulty?
Indirectly. A cannibal raider kingdom faces more wars and fewer allies, which is harder in the mid-game. An honourable kingdom faces fewer wars but has thinner income.
What are the best principles for a beginner?
Honourable, mixed, no cannibalism, with Humans or Dwarves. It is the most forgiving combination because it keeps food, trade and recruitment options open.
Are principle mods safe to install mid-save?
Treat principle mods as save-affecting. Install them before a new kingdom, not in the middle of an established one.