D&D General Neolithic D&D

[UngainlyTitan]

The cleric and paladin for a start. They are deeply rooted in D&D's brand of medievalism.

Yes and no, I think the cleric as conceived in D&D would be alien to a medieval audience. The paladin is based on a medieval literary trope but were there ever questing knights in the actual Middle Ages? outside of crusaders?
Ya know if one wants to drop the cleric and paladin for a non medieval game, I see no issue with that.

I will admit that when I think medieval by default I go to the High Middle Ages (1300 to 1500) when feudalism was pretty locked in and some monarchies were starting to centralise.
However, if one goes back to the earlier times it gets more D&D like but never the same. D&D is more inspired by pulp fiction that it is by the middle ages.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

were there ever questing knights in the actual Middle Ages

People enjoyed fictional stories about questing knights in the Middle Ages.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I think clerics as shrine keeper of regional sacred figure/entity works pretty well in any period or setting, getting powers from the communal sacred beliefs of their clan instead of a intelligent, all-powerful, law-giving divine personage.

Paladins are tougher. They rely a lot on civilization and have the word "divine" in like 75% of their things. But, if you have them somewhat close to Dark Sun's templars, being enforcers and defenders of the emergent power structures supporting the early civilizations, it could work. They would just lose the veneer of purity/goodness/divine duty they generally have.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Cleric I really had no issue with it. All sorts of priests and holy people have existed for a long time. But I made the distinction that clerics are specifically priests of gods, whereas druids are shamans that commune with nature spirits. So former might be more prevalent in the city states, whereas the latter are more common among nomadic people and hunter gatherers.

Paladin feels very medieval. I still included them in Artra. They're temple warriors, anointed champions of the gods. I think with proper flavouring it can work.

 

[Reynard]

I think clerics as shrine keeper of regional sacred figure/entity works pretty well in any period or setting, getting powers from the communal sacred beliefs of their clan instead of a intelligent, all-powerful, law-giving divine personage.

Thematically it's fine but the cleric as designed is a very specific thing. It would be easier, certainly, with 2E style specialty priests.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

People enjoyed fictional stories about questing knights in the Middle Ages.

I know that, I already said that, but I was asking are there any records of actual questing knights, aside from crusaders.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Thematically it's fine but the cleric as designed is a very specific thing. It would be easier, certainly, with 2E style specialty priests.

Indeed. Cleric in DnD is a really niche idiosyncratic thing. With all the talk of having too many Arcane casters and all that, I'm personally more in favor of revamping sacred magic and the archetypes using it.

I feel as the time passed, druid has become less and less divine, becoming closer to a hermetic geomancer, while cleric got really entrenched in the divine enforcer role, leaving the paladin as pretty redundant.

But my own classification of classes is not relevant, sorry here.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I know that, I already said that, but I was asking are there any records of actual questing knights, aside from crusaders.

Are there any actual super spies apart from James Bind?

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Are there any actual super spies apart from James Bind?

I really do not know where you are going with this line of questioning. It seems like you are trying to set up a gotcha but I was genuinely curious. I do not know of any actual historical questing knights outside of the romances but what do I know.

As for Bond, depends on whether one is talking about the movie one or the literary original. Flemmin worked for British Intelligence and knew a lot of people who could have been inspirations for Bond, though Bond appears to have a lot of Flemming's own habits.
Movie bond is a more outrageous figure, more movie action hero (though it has been a long time since I last read a Bond novel).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I really do not know where you are going with this line of questioning. It seems like you are trying to set up a gotcha but I was genuinely curious. I do not know of any actual historical questing knights outside of the romances but what do I know.

As for Bond, depends on whether one is talking about the movie one or the literary original. Flemmin worked for British Intelligence and knew a lot of people who could have been inspirations for Bond, though Bond appears to have a lot of Flemming's own habits.
Movie bond is a more outrageous figure, more movie action hero (though it has been a long time since I last read a Bond novel).

Fiction exaggerates. There have always people doing stuff, but they are never the big damn heroes fiction makes them out to be.

Consider William Marshall. He was a real medieval knight who did real important and influential stuff. But he wasn’t Sir Gawain.