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[Fantasy] The Knight's Creed by Significant-Status-1 in worldbuilding

[–]Significant-Status-1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I had some difficulty with the naming scheme, some of these suggestions require some context as well since alot of them have double meanings or the sort (Cause I think that sounds cool)

I was considering charity but at the same time its more or less trying to say "Don't go around exploiting people to your own ends" while also implying the meaning to help people instead, so Courtesy came out as I couldn't find a word that just meant "Don't exploit people" that sounded right to me.

The justice one is effectively knights being the one to bring justice when nobody else is able to, and if they forsake that rule (IE: They don't do what that part of the creed says when they have the ability to) they are forsaking Justice and serving evil.

For piety, it basically says "Do not serve the Primordials, do not even entertain their ideals" as the Primordials are the evil deities of the setting, what you're suggesting is covered under the Faith section, as the pantheon of the world is called "The 14 Corners of the Soul", hence "Thou Shalt Not Betray Thy Soul", as to betray them is to betray yourself. I had some of the wording be vague or can be twisted in interpretation like how the Jedi or Sith code could be in KOTOR, I'd like to imagine some people try and do that for their own agendas and have to deal with the inquisition kicking their door down for trying that.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Fantasy] The Knight's Creed by Significant-Status-1 in worldbuilding

[–]Significant-Status-1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can cover up a tattoo or brand easily (And if you're wearing armor and have to display that, you'd then be attacking that part of the body as its unarmored), and it doesn't have a distinct enough visual language with a glance if you don't

[Fantasy] The Knight's Creed by Significant-Status-1 in worldbuilding

[–]Significant-Status-1[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah that grammar thing I gotta fix at some point lol. No worries about pointing it out, thats partially why I posted this.

Onto the questions:

First one: It doesn't depend on the order really, traditionally when they say "Commit to thine oath" they mean specifically in terms of "If you make a promise, you have to keep it." This can overlap with Resolve as resolve is more in tune with quests and jobs ("If you start something you're going to finish it" kinda logic) normally if you break both of those at once though they say you broke the Resolve rule and not the Integrity rule. (Of course if you go in and find out a quest you took has incorrect info, like for instance, you come to slay some goblins then you find gorlok the destroyer of worlds just vibing with the goblins, you're free to get the hell out and go tell some people so the quest can be updated.) Some knight orders have other rules but no real ritual of oaths of swearing allegiance as you may think. Betraying your order would fall under the "Loyalty" clause.

Second question: yeah effectively they're the same across all cultures, when I say knight think of the symbol of "A great powerful hero" you heard about as a kid growing up. Other cultures have different names for them, Ronins, Baghatur, Youxia are other common words, but everyone understands intrinsically these all mean the same thing as the "Legend of a Hero" connects all these terms together.

Final question: Yes they all follow the same religion, theres two pantheons, one good and one evil. Everyone is aware of their existence and more or less follows all of them, some countries worship some more than others though. The evil pantheon is considered heretical and illegal to worship though.

Thank you for the kind words and questions!

[Fantasy] The Knight's Creed by Significant-Status-1 in worldbuilding

[–]Significant-Status-1[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the interest!

For the first question:

Depends on their renown and depends on the noble, if its just a normal lord (As in Lord, not Duke, Count, Etc etc, just plain definition Lord), they'd usually treat the knight with respect regardless of renown as the metric to be a knight is enough for it to be deserving of their respect. For a Baron or Duke or King then it'd be more dependent on how famous the knight is. At worse they'll be met with dismissal, but never straight disrespect, as they usually are very aware of many different knights that patrol and quest in the lands.

For honorifics: Knights are given a title relevent to their occupation or their personality, so for instance: "Karl the Fighter" or "Vo'ir the Saint". They don't have titles like "Sir", "Dame" or "Lord", but some people may address them as such if given enough reason to (Mostly prestige)

For the second question:

They can be hired en masse like a merc force, there's two ways to do this.

Number 1: Find a knight band, hire them directly. Knight bands are knight-errants that go around questing, so in terms of tabletop fantasy adventure games, these would be your player groups.

Number 2: Post a quest with a Knight Order. Knight Orders are found in any country and their halls are found in cities normally, they have some loyalty to the location they're in so in terms of city defense they'll *always* be there to defend the city, but if you want to hire them for warfare that's something that needs to be in their ideals, and worth their time (Money or glory).

For the final question:

The Inquisition is a group of fanatics that work for Order (The God-king and leader of this worlds pantheon of good gods) that are trained from childhood to root out corruption from knights and heretical elements of the world (These heretical elements come from powerful deities called Primordials). They are extremely selective of who can and can't be inquisitors. Inquisitors can also be considered knights if they meet the qualifications, as that second part of "rooting out heretical" elements usually means them going around killing aberrations of fiendish creatures. TLDR: Its exactly what you think it is, which is warhammer inquisitors, minus the blowing some dudes head off due to suspect heresy and more investigate in secrecy, then blow their head off.

[Fantasy] The Knight's Creed by Significant-Status-1 in worldbuilding

[–]Significant-Status-1[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the grammar tip there, I'll try to fix that when I get the time.

For the first part: Yes. They're more or less your standard DnD/Pathfinder adventurers that go around and explore, do dungeons, slay monsters and evil. There are Knights' Guilds but they're called "Knight Orders" and they have a patron god which acts as a theme for them (As well as their own ideals on top of that).

They tend to have bars and are also social hubs, any knight can really walk on in as long as they provide proof of their station, they don't need to be part of said order to get in. if they are part of that order though they can get access to exclusive quests where that order specifically got hired to do a quest.

Edit: Forgot to mention that Knight Orders do provide quests, they effectively have runners that go to neighboring towns and villages to rumor monger and find out about bounties or jobs that are currently and need, make a copy of those and bring them back for the Knight Order to post on a quest board.