Orders of Knighthood

[GRWelsh]

Have you guys done much with the orders of knighthood in the World of Greyhawk? One of my paladin players, Brian, came up with a background for his character Osoric that his father has been missing for ten years and was a knight... We decided he was a Knight of the Watch. From the Guide (p. 79): "Knights of the Watch: Certain stout soldiers from the lands of Bissel, Gran March, Geoff, and Keoland are invited to join this order, which is pledged to protect the east from the incursions of the Paynims and the other Westerlings. These knights hold certain castles, keeps and strongholds along the Ketish border and elsewhere in the western mountains. The Watchers are a near-monastic order and very strictly disciplined. Their current Grand Commander is Hugo of Geoff. There are reported to be 5,000 in the order. The coat of arms of the Knights of the Watch is sable, and owl displayed argent." This order is obviously an homage to the crusades and Hugues de Payens (aka Hugo de Peans) co-founder and first Grand Master of the Knights Templar. But it also made me think of the novel DRACULA with the Europeans holding the Turks at bay, and later on the Siege of Vienna in 1529 and the Battle of Vienna in 1683. So perhaps the Knights of the Watch were based somewhat upon the Holy League of 1594 aka the Christian Coalition Army?

[Scott]

My current campaign is the first long running campaign I've had in a long time. The PCs are more of the murder hobo mold. I'll probably knight the fighters after the current series, but they would not be associated with any order, but when Corbek's henchman, who is from Bissel, reaches name level I was going to make a loyalty check to see if he stays on as a henchman/vassal, or returns to Bissel to join the Knights of the Watch.

[grodog]

Sept 24, 2021 8:26:44 GMT -5 GRWelsh said:

Have you guys done much with the orders of knighthood in the World of Greyhawk?

I’ve used the Demonic Knights of Doom in the past, and am playing around with the founding structure of the Knights of Holy Shielding from the Shield Lands, but I’ve not otherwise explored knightly orders much.

Allan.

[geneweigel]

Mostly Knights of the Hart for the Furyondy/Veluna and Verbobonc/Hommlet area with different castles all over the region. I have a cavalier PC who joined the Keoland Knights of the Watch. I had an evil group of knights from the Great Kingdom who were not associated with the Demonic Knights of Doom. I later brought them into the Swordlands. I had characters knighted by Furyondy but they were not part of a knightly order.

[geneweigel]

I didn't run the Knights of the Watch as a Dracula type setup initially it was more Knights Hospitaller (Hotel guards) than Templar (actual crusade) where pilgrim trains were going back and forth to knight strongholds with no explanation AlA 1982 Conan movie where he sneaks in. Then when I made the cavalier PC which featured more of a focus on crusade talk slowly hyping it into that zone of what am I going to talk about? PAYNIMS! Then DMing the KOTW became more fierce like they wanted to retake the Baklunish Empire (Again for no real reason).

The Hart not so much energy went into it except to make them as generic as possible for the big region and make sure them lean towards "Aragorn" in outlook.

The Great Kingdom knights were all evil except for the "Knight Protectors" mostly based out of Almor.

My brother created a Norse knight order in the barbarian lands which was the basis for all his cavaliers but no one else wanted to subscribe to his big armored mostly, half-elf, "arrogance" squad.

In contrast, my outlook was make things approachable for players and make their foes nasty. He did not get that. The Great Kingdom evil knights were began with an evil fighter (pre-cavalier) that I had when I rolled him a low strength and I pictured him being more of a comic relief who had ties to this great (but rotten) organization that I thought could only exist in "Mordor" hence the Great Kingdom choice.

[geneweigel]

I do recall using the Knights of Holy Shielding but not much though went into it except to make them again "Aragorn-ish" rather than crusader in regards to the region