DnD/Class Handbooks/Paladins/Call of Duty - Paladin

Call of Duty – A Paladin’s Sourcebook: Chapter 3: A Variety of Paladins
Paladin Orders
Paladins, due to their lawful nature, usually belong
to some type of organization. Most paladin
organizations are called “orders”. Orders can be
secular or religious, and may be part of a larger
organization, such as a church or kingdom. Some
orders are autonomous and take commands only
from the divine.
Orders are typically well organized with a
military-like hierarchy. Everyone knows their place
in the chain of command, and understands their
responsibilities to the letter. Some orders are not
like this at all, however. Some are loosely
organized associations of paladins adventuring in
the same geographical area, and may not even
have a formal name, headquarters, or leader.
These types of orders are commonly referred to as
brotherhoods (for those with male and female
members) or sisterhoods (for all female groups).
The first step to creating a customized paladin
order is to decide why the order exists in the first
place. You can pick more than one, and the
order’s purpose may have changed over time.
Even if you pick several purposes, choose one as
its primary function in current times.
Some Purposes for a Paladin Order:
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• Specific Enemy: Long ago, a great evil
threatened the land. Many paladins united
in an order dedicated to destroying that
evil, and the organization still exists. The
ancient threat that catalyzed the birth of
the order may be destroyed, it may still be
active, or it may be dormant. Perhaps it
has been sealed away beneath the order’s
headquarters.
• General Defense: The paladins are there
to protect the land from invasions of any
sort.
• Law Enforcement: The order is there to
enforce the laws of legitimate authority.
This could be the laws of a king (secular)
or of a church (religious).
• Tradition: The order has been around so
long that no one knows why it was formed,
but it has a grand history and joining
brings much prestige. These types of
orders usually have a lawful neutral tilt.
(See Chapter 2 about alignment tilts).
• Source of Power: In some campaign
worlds, it may be that a god of paladins
requires them to join the order. Being
expelled from the order results in a
becoming an ex-paladin until you are
allowed to rejoin. Instead of a god, it
might be the presence of the other
paladins that is it the source of their
power, or some mysterious artifact that the
paladin order guards.
• Religion: Paladins may be required to
take a vow of loyalty to an organized
church or temple. The paladin order may
be merely a department within a large
church hierarchy. It may be a department
with much freedom, or it may serve the
priests. The paladin order could be
answerable only to the highest religious
leader or leaders, and could act as their
right hand as a sort of elite divine task
force. Violating the commands of a priest
may be considered a gross violation of the
Code, but it is likely that paladins in such
an organization would know their chain of
command very well, and would certainly
know who has the right to order them
around.
• Cadre: Paladins sometimes form the core
of a larger military organization. They are
often the elite fighting force within a lawful
good military. Some orders define an
entire knighthood, for example, while other
orders may be elite units within a larger
organization of knights.
• Camaraderie: Paladins share an
uncommon bond. They enjoy each other’s
company and want to adventure with each
other. Paladins have a strong sense of
duty, however, and go where they are
needed. An organization based on
camaraderie may be loosely organized to
enable members to come and go as they
need to, or it might even be mobile.
• Prestige: Paladins are rarely proponents
of pride, and usually let personal glory
take a backseat to protecting the innocent
and fighting evil. Nevertheless, there are
those who take great pride in simply being
paladins, and see others as less worthy.
Such individuals often band together in
very formal knighthoods to revel in their
own godliness. Unfortunately, orders of
this type sometimes fall into corruption as
a whole, creating powerful legions of
blackguards.
Example: We will create a religious order that
now exists primarily for law enforcement.
After you have decided what prompted the
creation of the order, you need to answer some
critical questions about the order.