Executing Judgment On Paladins!

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Hey Zenon! Great to see you! Thanks!

Well, I would say that though in some areas of the empire, the locals may be friendly with a group of giants or minotaurs, but that knowledge isn't known everywhere, by everyone. Thus, paladins are allowed, as it were, to attack such creatures as a matter of course. That doesn't mean though that paladins are *required* to do so, necessarily.

Likewise, with the theft/deceit issue--if a paladin is in a position where lying will save the life of a person, but telling the truth will lead to the person being killed, it is a question of a heirarchy of values. All such things are important, and absolutely so, in their own way. But to exalt the value of "honesty" or "Not being a thief" over the life of a person is backwards. People are always of greater value than mere ideology alone. In such similar circumstances, the paladin must act with discretion and wisdom. All such activities would be cause for questioning, to insure the paladin is aware of exactly what he is doing, and not merely flaunting the ideology or taking liberties with using good sense in wanting to achieve a desired goal.

All of the values are absolutes, and they all exist at the same time, but exactly which value must have primacy is always set into equation with the rest of the values, based on the demands of the circumstances. The paladin after all, is expected to apply common sense in his devotion to the faith, and in living out the values of the faith and the strictures of the order. The goal of course, is to evenly apply all of the values, and to abide by them fully in every way, but the occasion of circumstances may not always permit their equal and full application, in the pursuit of the greater good. This is something that all paladins must be aware of, and conscious of in every situation.

What do you think?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Elder-Basilisk wrote:
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"SHARK, I find it interesting that your code seems to be almost a legal code complete with provisions for enforcement by the various orders of your world's paladins. How do paladins who are not a member of an order fit into this? And what if the paladin violates the code but doesn't get caught?

Do the gods of Vallorea nod and wink at such indiscretions, leaving it to their followers to mete out punishment upon transgressors? Or do they take decisive action from removing the aura of courage that surrounds the paladin to stripping him of his spells to perhaps even sending a team of Hound Archons with numerous fighter levels led by a Deva after truly wicked or apostate ex-paladins."
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Hey Elder-Basilisk! Well, some very interesting questions! I would say that paladins that are not a member of the order--well, they may be paladins, and not members of the specific order of Knight-Templars, and thus not gain the benefits thereof, but they enjoy a more decentralized chain of command. That means that while they are not necessarily Knight-Templars" and thus not obligated with some of the same duties, ranks, and so on, they are still paladins, and still trained and sponsored by the church. They are still under the authority of the sponsoring church, regardless of the denomination chosen. They are not free to just ride about, answerable to noone, and just doing whatever they want. They are still held to the same standards, just not all of the formal duties and obgligations. Thus, if a paladin was to breach the code of honour, then the paladin would suffer the same consequences!

Paladins that violate the code, but don't get caught, well, they may escape temporal judgment, for now, but they will not escape divine judgment. Initially, there may be nothing that appears to happen. The errant paladin is simply given enough divine rope to hang themselves with! The paladin may experience penalties to saving throws, sickness, ailments, and all sorts of problems, until the paladin either repents and confesses his sins, and prostrates himself before the gods in abject humbleness and seeks to correct his errant ways, or the paladin either formally rejects the faith, or even reaches a point of such spiritual rebellion that the paladin is judged entirely and condemned. This can take the form of all powers being stripped, and the paladin is simply a fighter, or such divine judgment may be highlighted in an official manner by Hound Archons being sent to punish the evil rebellious paladin by slaying him, or fighting with him, and simply tearing him down, and leaving him naked in the wilderness, forever forsaken. Of course, up to this, the church itself may become aware of such transgressions, by various means, and proceed to take specific actions, ranging from counsel and passionate encouragment, to public condemnation and arrest.

Generally, though, many of the more minor breaches are left to the earthly church to deal with. The gods do not necessarily sweep in with a hammer for the slightest infraction. There is room for mistakes and failure, in order to grow stronger and more righteous. Thus, there is a span of time, circumstance, and mercy for the paladin, until such a point in the individual's life as to demand relentless judgment.

How does that sound? What do you think?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[sword-dancer]

Greetings!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Hello SHARK

An Ecclesiastic Tribunal is held for any Paladins that are accused of violating Church Law, the King’s Law, or somehow have violated their code of Honor.

What reasoning gives the church the right to judge over

Being deceitful to save a comrade’s life is forgivable, while being

Whats the problem with this?

If the Paladin refuses a Lawful Order given by proper authority. (Higher templar officers, priests, the King, and various appointed authorities.) If the Paladin and his defense proves that such an order was unlawful, or despite being lawful, the disregarding of said orders was appropriate because of information that the Paladin possesses, but the authority in question does not, then no punishment is warranted

Lawful orders, but not good orders, btw what right of authority has the king over´paldins?

(1) If the Paladin commits rape.
3) If the Paladin purposely, and with malicious intent, murders someone who—

This would let the Pally lose Pallyhood in an instant, and atonement like the spell would not suffice.
Most likely nothing would suffice, an evil act done of delusion(if self delusion, or deluded by other, like attacking and killing unprovoked somebody he believes deserve death) or someone who really repents, would need years of atonement and reprimand?, holding the ExPally to the highest ideals, working to repay his guilt, and maybe the ExPally will reinstated, but this is the long a´hard road, punishing himself for the smallest failure.
And "often" the reinstatement will be given at the last battle when he has chosen self sacrifice, to dy as a Paladin.

Races of humanoids that have been officially judged Anathema, vile, wicked, and Evil are to be attacked and slain at every opportunity. They are the Spawn of Darkness! These races, enslaved to Darkness, must be rooted out wherever they are found. Death and Fire shall be their portion!”

Look above, OTOH since most humanoids even in an evil society are more or less neutral, someoone who is in the service of the enemy(evil) could be fought as been evil.
But for the killing of children and Noncombatants is called murder, and punished accordingly.

(6) If the paladin becomes involved within a lifestyle of sexual immorality, the Paladin can be certain that censure will some from any in the faith that discover such licentious or lascivious behavior. Depending on the particulars, the Paladin can expect various forms of punishment. Paladins of most orders are expected to be married; live a chaste life; or at a minimum, conduct their private affairs with the utmost in dignity and discretion.

A celtic lady to roman senatoress
"We have affairs with the best men open, you have affairs with the worst in secret." which is better.
This depends on the culture and when on the order, and the rules of the society, it could be unlawful or evil, or fully accepted, depending íf the vpartner would get a social stigmata or not, but the pally is responsible to care for his children, in material and personal way.

(10) If the Paladin should take direct actions, or refuse noble duties and requests,

What is if the Palkly could or want not longer to bear the burden of Pallyhood?

they are still paladins, and still trained and sponsored by the church. They are still under the authority of the sponsoring church, regardless of the denomination chosen. They are not free to just ride about, answerable to noone, and just doing whatever they want. They are still held to the same standards, just not all of the formal duties and obgligations. Thus, if a paladin was to breach the code of honour, then the paladin would suffer the same consequences!


How does that sound? What do you think?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Why it is necessary in Valnorrea to be trained and sponsored, and therefore be under the authority, of the church?

The old ritual of deknighting, but the actions of the other Pallys i would consider bad. dishonorable, it is right to punish and take the signs he had dishonored but not to make jokes with him.

My own are easy, Paladintrainig is mostly Personal one to one, a Paladin take a Person with Paldin Potential, drive or calling or whatsoever under his wing, as squire or as trainee(if to young or untrained to be a squire).
Educate him of the principles of the Paladins, this is mostly done to make the aspirant the principles clear and let him know there are diofferent kinds of Paladins, .(OK thats the theory).
Train him in the use of weapons, riding, often Temples and clerivs of the particular faith will have a helping hand in finding People with the drive.
Helping in educating the aspirant, especially when the mentor is out on a mission to dangerous, most good religions see it as a duty and many cleric sees themself priviliged to help in the educating of a paladin, teach him the finer philosophies of faith, good and evil, teach him skills, and so on, even if the Mentor found himself unable to train the aspirant to found another paldin to train.
And the gives the few who follow the path without formal training.If the gods of light accept your pledge then you are a paladin, if not then not.

 

[reapersaurus]

One question, SHARK:

would you allow a Paladin in your campaign that was not a member of this Vallorean order?

Not a member of ANY 'order' - just an individual who knows what's right and wrong and will fight to his death to defend others.

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Hey there Reapersaurus!

Reapersaurus wrote:

Quote:
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"One question, SHARK:

would you allow a Paladin in your campaign that was not a member of this Vallorean order?

Not a member of ANY 'order' - just an individual who knows what's right and wrong and will fight to his death to defend others."
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Yes, Reapersaurus, there are paladins that exist in other cultures, in other realms, and so it would be perfectly acceptable to have a paladin in the campaign that wasn't a member of this Vallorean order.

Yes, there are paladins that aren't members of any order in particular, but those paladins are still trained and supervised by members of the church. Only sophisticated urbanized cultures with highly organized religions are likely to develop the concept and standard of paladins--barbarian cultures would use different kinds of characters, obviously. Thus, in any such culture that is likely to have paladins, regardless of whether those paladins are organized into official orders of knights, the priests of the temples would still train, supervise, guide, and discipline individual paladins.

Paladins don't just wake up one day and say, "I'm a paladin!" Paladins are the epitome of law, goodness, and discipline. They aren't rogues, just travelling about and choosing to do whatever they want. The individual paladin may think he knows what is right and wrong, but it isn't the individual paladin that decides what doctrine forms the understanding of what is right and what is wrong. The paladin's gods, and the paladin's church, is responsible for determining and deciding that which is right and wrong. The paladin, having received this knowledge and training, submits in holy obedience and discipline, and goes forth to vanquish evil in the name of his gods and his church, whether that religion happens to be the Vallorean pantheon, or a religion in some other culture.

I knew you would love this! I reedited it, and added some additional material from the similar article that I wrote over a year ago.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[Nightfall]

Just curious Shark about a couple things.

1. Do you allow for much godly interaction. By that I mean like having one of the faithful pray and thus increase one of his/her dice rolls?

2. How do you treat foreign paladins/clerics that are not from Vallouran(sp) but from beyond the planes aka alternate Prime World? Do they lose contact and then have find alternate means for such gods?

3. Would you say that things like use of arcane magic by paladins (say by having sorcerer as part of their class) would make them be viewed with suspicion? (Just curious since I don't remember how you deal with arcane and divine magical seperation.)

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Hello Nightfall!

Nightfall wrote:

Quote:
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"Just curious Shark about a couple things.

1. Do you allow for much godly interaction. By that I mean like having one of the faithful pray and thus increase one of his/her dice rolls?

2. How do you treat foreign paladins/clerics that are not from Vallouran(sp) but from beyond the planes aka alternate Prime World? Do they lose contact and then have find alternate means for such gods?

3. Would you say that things like use of arcane magic by paladins (say by having sorcerer as part of their class) would make them be viewed with suspicion? (Just curious since I don't remember how you deal with arcane and divine magical seperation.)"
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(1) Yes, Nightfall, I certainly do allow prayers to be effective and divine blessings to occur.

(2) I haven't had any players that have had paladin-characters from a different plane, or alternate prime-material world. If I did, they would probably lose contact with such deities, and need to convert to a faith from the new world.

(3) There is both divine and arcane magic in my campaign, and there aren't any restrictions from me, as DM, for paladins having levels of sorceror or wizard before they became a paladin. Once they became a paladin, though, only sanctioned classes can be attained concurrently with being a paladin. In the campaign, there are many areas of the empire that would have no problem at all with such a paladin. There are some areas, though, that if the paladin was involved with anything other than divine magic, then the paladin may be vigorously questioned, interrogated, or even arrested by zealous members of backwards, superstitious, and isolated communities.

How's that?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[sword-dancer]

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK [/B]

Hello SHARK

Only sophisticated urbanized cultures with highly organized religions are likely to develop the concept and standard of paladins--barbarian cultures would use different kinds of characters, obviously. Thus, in any such culture that is likely to have paladins, regardless of whether those paladins are organized into official orders of knights, the priests of the temples would still train, supervise, guide, and discipline individual paladins.

1 Why must a sophisticated culture be urban?
2 Why could only highly organzed religion develop the concept of Paladinesse?
3 Why should the cleric have any authority over the paladins especially supervise and discipline them?
Paladins are judged by a higher standard usually then clerics.

Paladins don't just wake up one day and say, "I'm a paladin!" Paladins are the epitome of law, goodness, and discipline. They aren't rogues, just travelling about and choosing to do whatever they want.

No when the god accept the fealty and bestows him with the duty and powers he is a paladin, not the decision of the church.

The paladin's gods, and the paladin's church, is responsible for determining and deciding that which is right and wrong

The church may interpret, clarify or explain the ethos of the gods what is good and evil, but the last decision of what it be is by the gods.

It is totally reasonable that even a LG religion is not overly sructurde, and ranked.
It is possible that the clerics are no more than spiritual guides, and the leaders of the temples and so not more than administrators nd organizers, with not a bit more religious authority than any other cleric.

Their is no necessity of be an servant to the priestrhood, service to the church.

BTW how would the valnorrean establishment react if they meet an Paladin of a non valnorrean faith, who didn`t accept the valnorrean authority to rule his actions?

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Hey there Sword-dancer! Guten Tag! Wie alt bist du?

Sword-dancer wrote:
Quote:
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"1 Why must a sophisticated culture be urban?
2 Why could only highly organzed religion develop the concept of Paladinesse?
3 Why should the cleric have any authority over the paladins especially supervise and discipline them?
Paladins are judged by a higher standard usually then clerics."
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(1) Generally speaking, through the discipline of Anthropology, it can be seen that the development of urbanization is essential for a society to advance beyond barbarian/non-literate/Chiefdom-level societies. The lack of urbanization stands as an obstacle to increased labour and resource organization, and to the finely honed specialization of crafts and professions that make further advancement possible.

(2) Paladins, being an outgrowth of the age of chivalry, was a complex of concepts and ideas that grew out of a particular set of political, religious, economic, social, and technological factors. Though many cultures throughout history have shared similar values to the paladin, regardless of urbanization or technology, the mere sharing of values or even ideals does not a paladin make. The paladin is a particular development of religious faith, fuedalism, sophisticated government, sophisticated moral and religious concepts, a specific class consciousness, and a particular technological level that offers lances, platemail, steel helmets, jousting, tournaments, and a crusading ethic. The complex of ideas needed for paladins doesn't seem to be present with simpler, less sophisticated, and less organized religions.

(3) Clerics should have authority over paladins in the whole process of organizing and forming paladins, including discipline, knowledge, and training. Where else would the paladin recieve training? Where else would the paladin understand religion? Where else would the paladin even receive the understanding of the identity of being a "paladin"?

In my view, paladins don't develop from a vacuum. Paladins don't develop out of a wild, barbaric, nomadic culture of horsemen, herders, and raiders, or some forest-dwelling barbarian tribe that doesn't have horses, or has a highly individualistic, free-wheeling religion, or culture. The same would apply to a more sophisticated urban culture that had a much more diverse, individualistic, and free-wheeling religion and culture, because the concepts, and the organization to even conceive of the identity of a paladin, or the "need" for paladins, would be absent. Such individualistic cultures might have religious champions, even religious warriors devoted to protecting their god or their temples, but that, again, isn't really what makes paladins, "paladins."

I also can't see how paladins without the discipline, training, and supervision of a sophisticated organized religion would ever become paladins, or avoid getting into anti-nomianism.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[sword-dancer]

Greetings!

Hey there Sword-dancer! Guten Tag! Wie alt bist du?


SHARK

Hello SHARK

1 How did you define sophisticated civilization?
The celtic culture AFAIK was not inferior to the roman, looking at the arenas, mass slavery, a few murderous roman emperors, Nero Caligula,
And btw barabarian means only non greece speaker,

2) Yes and this ideals was hammered into the noble class to stop their marauding, plundering and slaughter.
Gottesfrieden/Gods peace, the church not allowed the nobles to feud for a part of the weak " that the peasants could sow the field", forbids to take from the peasant the oxen etc.
Paladins this word comes AFAIK from the palatin(palace) officers of charlemagne.
And sophisticated was not something i would describe them.
Maybe barabarians like the celt, germanic tribes, goth needn`t a few because they didn`t bow of an tyrannic or other unworthy ruler.
The eastgoths condemned Theodahad the Traitor King to death.
The /noble knight(Paladin) ideal is european mediveal, but the d&d paladin is not necessary the questing knight on tour de chivalry to rescue damsels in distress,
The Paladin is the barrier between the innocent and the evil, the champion of good, if he uses a 1 1/2 hand sword or a greataxe or Staff didn`t matter.

3) Another Paladin, could/should teach the aspirant, or the aspirant pledge his fealty to the god(s) of light/Good.
Take la pucelle Jehanne d`Arc, she was called by the saints and the holy mother to fight the enemy of france, not by king or church?
What need has the paladin to understand religion(theology)?
The decision of being a paladin isn`t made IMPOV in the pragmatic mind but in his heart, in his definition what is right or wrong, and the decision why how to act then!
Why he fight against evil defines if he is an paladin, the motivation is the point what counts!

I´m 33 years old
bye

Sword-dancer