Knight of the Order 5e
You belong to an order of knights who have sworn oaths to achieve a certain goal. The nature of this goal depends on the order you serve, but in your eyes it is without question a vital and honorable endeavor. Faerûn has a wide variety of knightly orders, all of which have a similar outlook concerning their actions and responsibilities.
Though the term "knight" conjures ideas of mounted, heavily armored warriors of noble blood, most knightly orders in Faerûn don't restrict their membership to such individuals. The goals and philosophies of the order are more important than the gear and fighting style of its members, and so most of these orders aren't limited to fighting types, but are open to all sorts of folk who are willing to battle and die for the order's cause.
The "Knightly Orders of Faerûn" section below details several of the orders that are active at present and is designed to help inform your decision about which group you owe allegiance to.
Source: Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide
Skill Proficiencies: Persuasion, plus one from among Arcana, History, Nature, and Religion, as appropriate for your order
Tool Proficiencies: One type of gaming set or musical instrument
Languages: One of your choice
Equipment: A set of traveler's clothes, a signet, banner, or seal representing your place or rank in the order, and a pouch containing 10gp
Features
Knightly Orders of Faerûn: Many who rightfully call themselves "knight" earn that title as part of an order in service to a deity, such as Kelemvor's Eternal Order or Mystra's Knights of the Mystic Fire. Other knightly orders serve a government, royal family, or are the elite military of a feudal state, such as the brutal Warlock Knights of Vaasa. Other knighthoods are secular and non-governmental organizations of warriors who follow a particular philosophy, or consider themselves a kind of extended family, similar to an order of monks. Although there are organizations, such as the Knights of the Shield, that use the trappings of knighthood without necessarily being warriors, most folk of Faerûn who hear the word "knight" think of a mounted warrior in armor beholden to a code. Below are a few knightly organizations.
Knights of the Unicorn: The Knights of the Unicorn began as a fad of romantically minded sons and daughters of patriar families in Baldur's Gate. On a lark, they took the unicorn goddess Lurue as their mascot and went on various adventures for fun. The reality of the dangers they faced eventually sank in, as did Lurue's tenets. Over time the small group grew and spread, gaining a following in places as far as Cormyr. The Knights of the Unicorn are chivalric adventurers who follow romantic ideals: life is to be relished and lived with laughter, quests should be taken on a dare, impossible dreams should be pursued for the sheer wonder of their completion, and everyone should be praised for their strengths and comforted in their weaknesses.
Knights of Myth Drannor: Long ago, the Knights of Myth Drannor were a famous adventuring band, and Dove Falconhand, one of the famous Seven Sisters, was one of them. The band took its name to honor the great but fallen city, just as the new Knights of Myth Drannor do today. With the city once again in ruins, Dove Falconhand decided to reform the group with the primary goal of building alliances and friendship between the civilized races of the world and goodly people in order to combat evil. The Knights of Myth Drannor once again ride the roads of the Dalelands, and they've begun to spread to the lands beyond. Their members, each accepted by Dove herself, are above all valiant and honest.
Knights of the Silver Chalice: The Knights of the Silver Chalice was formed by edict of the demigod Siamorphe in Waterdeep a century ago. Siamorphe's ethos is the nobility's right and responsibility to rule, and the demigod is incarnated as a different noble mortal in each generation. By the decree of the Siamorphe at that time, the Knights of the Silver Chalice took it upon themselves to put a proper heir on the throne of Tethyr and reestablish order in that kingdom. Since then they have grown to be the most popular knighthood in Tethyr, a nation that has hosted many knighthoods in fealty to the crown.
Knightly Regard: You receive shelter and succor from members of your knightly order and those who are sympathetic to its aims. If your order is a religious one, you can gain aid from temples and other religious communities of your deity. Knights of civic orders can get help from the community – whether a lone settlement or a great nation that they serve, and knights of philosophical orders can find help from those they have aided in pursuit of their ideals, and those who share those ideals.
This help comes in the form of shelter and meals, and healing when appropriate, as well as occasionally risky assistance, such as a band of local citizens rallying to aid a sorely pressed knight in a fight, or those who support the order helping to smuggle a knight out of town when he or she is being hunted unjustly.
Suggested Characteristics
Use the tables for the Soldier background as the basis for your traits and motivations, modifying the entries when appropriate to suit your identity.
Your bond almost always involves the order to which you belong (or at least key members of it), and it is highly unusual for a knight's ideal not to reflect the agenda, sentiment, or philosophy of one's order.
Should You Be A Knight of the Order?
Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold
If Soldier doesn’t do enough for you, you could consider this side-grade option limited to the realm of the Sword Coast! It’s the Solider background with a faction stapled to it, no land vehicle proficiency, and a different set of skills that I rate worse on a character whose supposed to be physically imposing.
Feature: Knightly Orders of Faerun and Knightly Regard
Knightly Orders of Fearun gives you a faction of knights you work within. None of them grant you specific abilities or anything- this feature just lets you pick one of the three presented options as an organization you belong to.
Knightly Regard is a classic Player’s Handbook feature in that you can rest somewhere without worry should it be accessible to you. That’s not a particularly relevant ability 99% of the time while adventuring. Even compared to Soldier’s Military Rank, this is pretty pitiful.
Skills:
Persuasion is a handy charisma skill to have access to specifically on charismatic characters that tend to make the social checks for the party. Paladins are the obvious overlapping class that makes the best use of it.
The other four options, Arcana, Nature, History, and Religion are all some of the least commonly used skills in the game. Arcana and Nature are the two most common, as they are occasionally used to detect danger from magic and nature respectively, with Religion tending to come next when divine magic is involved. History rounds out the four as a skill you’ll rarely gain the means of progressing with.
Crucially, Soldier, the direct comparison to this, comes with Intimidation, a skill often used alongside or instead of persuasion, and Athletics. Knights usually want to be the ones making the physical checks for the group. Lacking that skill here makes this option substantially less appealing.
Other Proficiencies
A gaming set or instrument is a fine enough proficiency bonus, but not something I rate higher than a kit or artisan’s tool proficiency. A language rarely offers much of a boon, and is the kind of proficiency I’d expect to only come up once or twice a campaign, tops.
Soldiers get land vehicle proficiency- while not universally applicable, steering carriages, chariots, or other land-based transportation can matter, and having proficiency with it is a major boon compared to these options.
Equipment
The equipment section takes the Soldier equipment and gives you a signet for your Knightly Order in place of the generic “insignia of rank” soldiers get. Soldiers also get a flavorful trophy and a gaming set. Knights of the Order don’t even get the gaming set or instrument they start with proficiency in.
Bonus Tables
You get none! You use Soldier’s! No fun for you! I’d want at least a table for each different order to give some examples of traits that differentiate them, but nope, you’re pointed to the better background.
All Together
If you want to be a knight of one of these orders, I’d just play a Soldier and pledge allegiance to them in your backstory. There is no other compelling reason to take this over the base Soldier from the Player’s Handbook. It shouldn’t exist in this form, and likely should be part of a faction system for the Sword Coast.
Thank you for visiting!
If you’d like to support this ongoing project, you can do so by buying my books, getting some sweet C&C merch, or joining my Patreon.
The text on this page is Open Game Content, and is licensed for public use under the terms of the Open Game License v1.0a.
‘d20 System’ and the ‘d20 System’ logo are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
and are used according to the terms of the d20 System License version 6.0.
A copy of this License can be found at www.wizards.com/d20.