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Message: <blockquote data-quote="humble minion" data-source="post: 8052006" data-attributes="member: 5948">Insert the 'why not have both?' GIF here?My personal image of templars is heavily influenced by the Lynn Abbey books.  In those, Hamanu (there's not much spoken about other how sorcerer-kings work) has a Templarate to enforce the law, do his will in Urik, but there's a wide range of people and skills in that templarate.  Some are conventional spellcasting templars who draw on Hamanu's power (generally a bit cleric-y in their powerset, but not entirely), but also there's talented people in other classes who Hamanu can give a medallion to (or who can grow into the templarate via the ophanages or Urik) who can be part of the organisation of the Templarate, but who don't necessarily take levels in the Templar class.  There's psionicist, fighter, 'deadheart' (possibly necromancer, and/or defiler?) and even druid individuals who act as part of the templarate - generally by being given a medallion of office (a medallion being a minor magic item that allows in extremis communication with the sorcerer-king).From a purely game-mechanical point of view, I'd be inclined to open a lot of options here.  'Templar' might be a background, and in addition, you might also have Templar clerics who gain spells from the sorcerer-kings and/or warlocks likewise.  So someone who grew up in a Templar orphanage but became a headkicker rather than a spellcaster, then maybe you're a Templar background fighter, while if you're a self-taught psionicist who came to the attention of (for example) Hamanu and were 'offered' a position in his service, then maybe you're a psionicist of a non-templar background who was granted a templar's medallion in play, etc etc etc. However, all this is (frankly) a bit moot unless the designers make the decision to allow/promote Templars as PCs.  And that's a setting theme decision they're going to have to ponder over quite a bit.  Not to beat around the bush, but as written in both 2e and 4e, the templarates are in most cases profoundly oppressive institutions enforcing brutal order (under the guise of law) in tyrannical slave states ruled by immortal genocidal monsters.  This is not to say this portrayal is universal.  Oronis of Kurn is an LG avangion wannabe and he has a templarate, and it's no doubt much different in character to (for instance) the templarate of Guistenal or Eldaarich.  And the portrayal of Hamanu's templarate (and his rulership in general) in Lynn Abbey's books is very, very different to how it's portrayed in the majority of the 2e game line.  The majority of templars are the quintessential bad cops working in a system that encourages them to be bad.  While my personal mental Athas is heavily Abbey-influenced so i'd like a more ambiguous templarate and a less nakedly moustache-twirlingly eeevil set of sorcerer-kings for them to serve in the interests of setting complexity and drama, I have to acknowledge that this flies in the face of the heavy majority of 2e/4e source material.  And in the current climate, and given their currently-expressed commitment to paying more attention to minority views, does WotC really want to be bringing out a setting where one of the standard PC options is oppressive enforcers of an evil slave state?  Cos that is 100% what templars are.  To be honest I reckon if we see an official 5e Dark Sun, the only place we see templars may well be in the monster manual.</blockquote>

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