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What does a paladin do (or should be doing)?
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<blockquote data-quote="KesselZero" data-source="post: 5938829" data-attributes="member: 6689976"><p>There's often an argument that the paladin was created out of whole cloth for D&D, that it has no literary or mythical precedent. I'm not sure I agree with this, and other examples have been given, but the ones I think of are always Lancelot and Galahad. I'll admit up-front that my Round Table knowledge comes almost totally from <em>The Once and Future King</em>, but I understand that cleaves pretty closely to Malory and anyway, I'm sure EGG et al read their T.H. White and it counts as a literary source as much as anything.</p><p> </p><p>Lancelot and Galahad are definitely not fighter/clerics. Aside from the fact that a cleric was something quite different in both actual history and the Arthur myths, their power comes not from a special communion with a god or God in which they beseech him/her/it for spells. Rather they're the absolute ideals of knighthood and chivalry. Lancelot is tricked into losing his virginity and is crushed because he loses his power to perform miracles along with it. Galahad is destined to win the Holy Grail and is described as the best knight in the world. Not because he's necessarily the best fighter but because he's the most pure. I think this is the archetype that the original paladin rules attempted to emulate-- talented knight, ability to work miracles (i.e. laying on of hands), extremely strict code of conduct (which if broken meant a loss of your powers, a la Lancelot). The code of conduct <em>is</em> the source of power, because it represents a holy purity and innate connection to the divine rather than the cleric's prayer-and-ritual based one. Clerics are theoreticians of the gods; paladins live their virtues.</p><p> </p><p>In a pantheistic setting this concept must be expanded outward from the Christian virtues expounded in the Grail legends. Perhaps a paladin of Moradin may never back down from a fight and always party hard. Or maybe paladins should be restricted to LG gods only to emulate the original archetype. I'm not sure, and I'd be okay either way (though I tend towards giving more options, not fewer). But to me, a paladin is an embodiment of virtue whose power comes from his innate spiritual purity. He loses his powers if his code is broken. This is the archetypal and unique space that I believe paladins, and not clerics, can and should fill.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="KesselZero, post: 5938829, member: 6689976"] There's often an argument that the paladin was created out of whole cloth for D&D, that it has no literary or mythical precedent. I'm not sure I agree with this, and other examples have been given, but the ones I think of are always Lancelot and Galahad. I'll admit up-front that my Round Table knowledge comes almost totally from [I]The Once and Future King[/I], but I understand that cleaves pretty closely to Malory and anyway, I'm sure EGG et al read their T.H. White and it counts as a literary source as much as anything. Lancelot and Galahad are definitely not fighter/clerics. Aside from the fact that a cleric was something quite different in both actual history and the Arthur myths, their power comes not from a special communion with a god or God in which they beseech him/her/it for spells. Rather they're the absolute ideals of knighthood and chivalry. Lancelot is tricked into losing his virginity and is crushed because he loses his power to perform miracles along with it. Galahad is destined to win the Holy Grail and is described as the best knight in the world. Not because he's necessarily the best fighter but because he's the most pure. I think this is the archetype that the original paladin rules attempted to emulate-- talented knight, ability to work miracles (i.e. laying on of hands), extremely strict code of conduct (which if broken meant a loss of your powers, a la Lancelot). The code of conduct [I]is[/I] the source of power, because it represents a holy purity and innate connection to the divine rather than the cleric's prayer-and-ritual based one. Clerics are theoreticians of the gods; paladins live their virtues. In a pantheistic setting this concept must be expanded outward from the Christian virtues expounded in the Grail legends. Perhaps a paladin of Moradin may never back down from a fight and always party hard. Or maybe paladins should be restricted to LG gods only to emulate the original archetype. I'm not sure, and I'd be okay either way (though I tend towards giving more options, not fewer). But to me, a paladin is an embodiment of virtue whose power comes from his innate spiritual purity. He loses his powers if his code is broken. This is the archetypal and unique space that I believe paladins, and not clerics, can and should fill. [/QUOTE]
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