#i love her. she really becomes the ideal pathfinder

[the-rogue-mockingjay]

I'm leveling Brynja more along the lines of Sentinel this playthrough and DAMN is it fun!! In the past I've written and played her as more of a Vanguard, and it does suit her, but man I'm really vibing with this more tech-y approach

Tech armor saves my ass once again!!

(I never used to use it, but since having to relearn the game and start over from scratch without the benefit of having at least 4 different completed new game pluses under my belt, it's become a lifesaver. Miss my biotic jumps tho ;-;)

[2bit-sunshine]

Saw some tiktok like "its okay to mourn the life you thought you were going to have" and i just felt. Slapped. Like idk. Its no ones fault but my own but ive never known for the life of me what life i wanted. I think i wanted to be a therapist? I wanted to help people? But i remember as a kid being like. Idk if this is what i want but people have an easy time talking to me and i like psychology. So. Yeah.

All i know is i need to work to live. I need to drive to live. I need to do all the stuff i hate to live. Theres nothing i want but to make my loved ones happy. If it werent for them. If i were utterly alone in the world. Well i probably wouldnt be in the world at all for much longer. But i have loved ones and theyre happy to have me so i will live. Even if it hurts and i prefer dreaming to being awake. Ill make it work.

Idk what i want and am just. Drifting along. Idk if i have any ideal life to mourn. But i dont want to be mourned. Not yet.

I have a dog and shes chasing after rabbits in her dream i think. Shes laying with my mom whom i am thankful for all her help. Shes married to my dad who taught me good morals and kindness and patience. They had three other sons beforeme whom i love even if they dont always like eachother. Im thankful for john trying to be my brother. Im thankful for mike always trying to get me to think about the future. Im thankful for richard for showing me what it is i love in life. Video games and lore and music.

John started dating a woman along time ago, now married together, and she had a kid named Kyle before they met who is my best and oldest friend. He dated a fellow named Zoey whose become a great friend, even after their break up.

I dated a guy named Alex back in high school. It didnt work it out and it was far from perfect but is the happiest thing I have from those years. We still talk and hang out and hes another bestie. He got me back in touch with some other guys from high school whom he lives with and one to whom he is married to. Theyre both great fun and i appreciate them and their love for alex.

He got me in touch with an old friend from high school who graduated before us. Elliot tries hard and is just a swell guy.

I have friends I met through the Collective who I play Pathfinder with every week. If it werent for them id probably never to get to play a regular ttrpg. You guys know who you are. They have such fun characters and put up with my endless repeating questions.

I have other friends on here whom i love and other friends I havent mentioned from irl but i love all them too.

Lastly is my nephews. One is like 19 and grew up so fast I never really knew him. Love him to death though. Then theres my brother mikes son. So young and still learning to walk and talk. I dont want to leave a hole in his life before he starts to grow up. Ilove his babbling.

This has gotten really long but tbh ive been dealing with some heavy thoughts for a while. I think i needed the chance to count my blessings. Ill be okay though i promise

[qm-vox]

Let The World Never Falter - Playing Paladins in D&D

(Pictured: Anastasia Luxan, Knight of the Tainted Cup, one of only two people in her friend group that are not evil-aligned. Her wife Aisling is not the other good-aligned person. Characters are from my novel Mourners: Scum of Shatterdown; art credit goes to J.D)

Paladins are one of Dungeons and Dragons’ most striking, and most controversial, character classes. Few character classes and character concepts capture the imagination as quickly or start arguments of such ferocity. I’ve been in this game awhile - I remember when D&D 3e was released - and paladins have been one of my most loved and most hated parts of D&D and its legacy systems that entire time. So here I am again, about to write a long-ass article offerin’ my perspective on paladins through the ages (hopefully highlighting the strongest parts of each vision of them), talk about their pitfalls and problematic elements, and offer some advice on bringing your own paladin to life.

While this article draws on my long experience with D&D and will be citing specific sources, it would not be possible without the help of some other people in my life. I mention Afroakuma a lot in the context of D&D, and our friendship has once again been invaluable here. @a-world-unmasked , also one of my oldest friends, has long been a source of ethical discussion and debate, especially about thorny questions of justice & mercy, amends, redemption, and punishment, and provided information on D&D 4e’s paladins and paladin-like classes. SSG Jacob Karpel, United States Army, brought a Jewish perspective on paladins and their themes into my life and has borne questions of faith, dogma, and tradition with remarkable enthusiasm and patience. @swiftactionrecovery provided further perspective on D&D 4e, and her current paladin (”paladin”; it’s complicated), Aurora, is a great example of a non-traditional take that is at the same time very on-brand. Emerald has long provided the service of beating my ass when I start getting stupid about my own values and beliefs, and @ahr42p‘s fascination with fantasy ethics has informed a lot of my own thoughts on the same. None of this would be possible without you folks.

This article’s title is drawn from Maverick Hunter Quest, written by Cain Labs & Hunter Command. It appears as the motto of the 10th Urban Unit; dedicated soldiers whose specialty was preserving lives, preventing collateral damage, and steering disasters away from the innocent.

None of my articles are quite complete without Content Warnings; the following will contain mentions and descriptions of violence (including state-sanctioned violence such as executions), mentions of high crimes such as slavery and forced conversion, discussion of religion in both fictional and non-fictional contexts, and discussion of fascism and fascist ideology. It is also the end result of more than 20 years of both passionate love for paladins and equally passionate hatred of the same. If you’re wondering what some of that has to do with paladins...well, you’re in for a ride.

So, without further ado, let’s get into...

The Order Of The Kitchen Table - Paladins Through D&D’s History

I hope you like walls of text because I am about to fuck you up with some.

D&D and Pathfinder have a long history with paladins, and they’ve changed a lot through the ages. The following is an overview of the different editions of paladins, what each introduced, and their strengths & weaknesses as a vision of paladinhood. Though the advice in this article is weighted towards 3.PF and 5e, it should in theory be applicable to any of these editions; I should also note that while Pathfinder 2e has its own version of paladins, I am not familiar enough with its vision of paladins to be able to speak on it in good faith. Let’s start with the oldest first, shall we?

AD&D 1e & 2e: Rise A Knight - 1e and 2e were fucking wild. The original incarnation of the paladin showed up as a sub-class of the cavalier, a warrior-group class which had an aura of courage, rode a horse, and had other ‘knightly’ abilities. Paladins had to be a cut above and beyond cavaliers, but unless they also violated the code of the cavaliers in addition to the paladin code, they would become cavaliers when they Fell rather than fighters, which was a bit of a better spot to be in. These paladins were very specifically part of the military arm of a feudal state, with all that entails, and had restrictions on what they could wear and what weapons they could use that were rooted in their social status. In point of fact, in 1e? Paladins couldn’t use missile weapons at all; bows, crossbows, and their kin were for “peasants”. These paladins had to tithe 10% of all income to a ‘worthy’ institution (usually a Lawful Good church of some kind, but other examples include hospitals, charitable initiatives, orphanages, and monasteries), had sharp limits on how many magical items they could own & of what kind, and were beholden to a strict code of conduct rooted in medieval feudalism & romantic ideals of chivalry. While the very original paladin had many of the iconic powers associated with them today (laying on hands, curing disease, an affinity for holy swords), it was not until AD&D 1e proper that paladins developed the ability to cast spells for themselves.

AD&D 2e’s vision of paladins was similar in many ways; they had the same powers, similar ability score requirements, and were similarly rare and elite. They had wealth limits, had to tithe from their income, could only own certain numbers and kinds of magical items, and had to be of Lawful Good alignment. Where things get interestingly different here is who becomes a paladin, and why. In both editions, only humans could be paladins, but where 1e required paladins to be drawn from or else become nobility (because they were derived from cavalier, which was all about status), 2e opened up many origins for paladins. The majority of these can be found in The Complete Paladin’s Handbook, just under 130 pages of nothing but paladins. Reading that book is a fucking trip; it was published in 1994, and while I am not gonna pretend that it’s woke or unproblematic, it has some stunningly modern takes. Do you expect to open up an old D&D supplement about paladins and find it defending poly relationships as valid? NEITHER DID I.

It’s important to note that in both of these editions, paladins lacked magical avenues of attack entirely; Smite Evil was a later invention, and paladin spells, in addition to coming online late in their career (9th level), were sharply restricted to a specific list that included no offensive magic whatsoever. Therefore, any paladin origin had to explain from whence one’s martial skills came, since you are in many ways a warrior more than anything else. There’s some expected ones; religious patronage, which ignores social status but requires an organized church that’s permitted to raise men under arms. Government sponsorship, generally conducted in urban areas where you can actually retain recruiters. Inherited title, if you wanna run a paladin that really hates Mom for forcing them into this. Mentors, for running paladins that are just straight-up shonen protagonists, and my personal favorite, DIVINE INTERVENTION, where one day your god starts talking to you but instead of filling your soul with martial skill she makes you sew training weights into your clothes and miraculously makes a bear live in your house so you can learn courage. It’s fucking amazing.

From those origins, anyone who manages to swear their oath and become invested with the power is essentially part of the nobility from then on; paladinhood marks them as an exemplar of noble ideals, which even in a non-romanticized culture sorta grabs the bluebloods by the short hairs. It’s a bit hard to argue divine right if you try to throw the embodiment of your supposed ideals out of your house. Since these paladins were often, though not necessarily, members of militant organizations they were generally expected to have superiors to whom they answer, a chain of command of which they are part, and to eventually construct a stronghold of some kind and put its services at the disposal of that organization in addition to utilizing it to serve the needy and defend the weak. 2e was a lawless and strange time in D&D, in which building such a stronghold and hiring followers was a class feature of warrior-group classes, and one of the paladin’s key benefits was the opportunity, but not the promise, to acquire some manner of holy sword, which which she gained powerful protections against evil that let her stand toe-to-toe with powerful spellcasters.

Tying all of this together was an in-depth exploration of the most complex and probably the most nuanced code published for paladins in any edition. Though the default was a rigid and inflexible code which defined acceptable behavior, associations, and even employees for the paladin, The Complete Paladin’s Handbook introduced an alternate method of handling code violations that ranked infractions by their severity & intent, and assigned penalties accordingly. Was it perfect? No. Not even a little. The Code was, is, and probably forever will be the most trash part of paladin. But it was a damn sight better than basically any incarnation before it, and most of them after. This code was broken down into (in order of importance), Strictures, Edicts, and Virtues. Strictures are the things a paladin must do and have simply to be a paladin; they must be Lawful Good, they must tithe to a worthy institution, they must abide by their wealth limits, and they must not associate (here meaning ‘serve, be friends with, or knowingly hire’) with evil people. Edicts are the commands of those to whom the paladin is sworn to obey; often this will be a church, a government, or both, but a paladin might instead or also swear to obey edicts given by their family, their mentor, their secular philosophy, or even their wider culture. Military commands and orders are edicts, but so are daily practices such as keeping a kosher diet, maintaining a family burial ground, or obeying a system of formal etiquette. A paladin freely chooses the source of her edicts, but once she’s sworn to obey she cannot selectively turn down a given edict unless it would conflict with one of her Strictures (for instance, if her king orders her to beat a helpless prisoner) or with a ‘higher’ source of Edicts (in general, a paladins religion or philosophy takes precedence over her liege or mentor, who in turn takes precedence over family or culture).

Virtues are where we get real interesting. Lemme quote The Complete Paladin’s Handbook, page 32:

Virtues are traits exemplifying the highest standards of morality, decency, and duty. They comprise the paladin’s personal code. Although not specifically detailed in the PH definition of a paladin, a paladin’s virtues are implied by his strictures as well as his outlook, role, and personality. Just as a paladin must obey his strictures, he must also remain true to his virtues.

Though most paladins adhere to all of the virtues described below, exceptions are possible. For instance, a paladin from a primitive society may be so unfamiliar with civilized etiquette that including courtesy as part of his ethos would be unreasonable. All adjustments must be cleared by the DM at the outset of a paladin’s career.

No system was attached to virtue ‘violations’, because they weren’t oaths to keep as such. Rather, virtues represented commitments to a paladin’s ideals and worldviews; they were the behaviors and values which someone serious about being a paladin would live by because that’s the kind of person they are. They were very Christian and very European in nature, tied up in Catholic ideas of knighthood from which paladins as a class were originally drawn, but there’s definitely a point to be made here. If you don’t walk your talk, can you call yourself a paragon? We’re gonna get into this specific topic more later in the article, when I start discussing other the virtues extolled by other kinds of warriors, but the ones listed and expanded on in this book are as follows:

Fealty - A paladin swears loyalty and service to, at minimum, a faith or philosophy that is lawful good in nature. This forms the foundation of her convictions and informs the kind of good she tries to do in the world. A paladin remains conscious of the fact that she is seen as an embodiment of those ideals, takes joy in her service, and pays respect to those to whom she has sworn her troth. Notably, this is not classic feudal fealty; a paladin swears service to institutions, not people, with some exceptions (generally in the form of paladins who swear fealty to their mentors).

Courtesy - Paladins strive to show respect by following social customs, being polite and well-mannered, and treating even enemies with dignity. A paladin responds to insults with grace, considers the feelings of others, and does not stoop to insults or slander. Remember the Kingsmen gentleman rules? That. This is just that.

Honesty - A paladin speaks the truth as she knows it. She is free to withhold information (especially from enemies), and may state that she would prefer not to answer when asked questions - or that she is ordered, enjoined, or otherwise required not to answer, if that is the truth - but does not intentionally mislead or deceive others. If you ask your paladin friend a question and they say they would rather not answer, think real hard about how bad you want their opinion.

Valor - Paladins display courage in battle. Given a choice between many enemies, a paladin chooses the most dangerous. If someone has to take a risk to defend the innocent, cover a retreat, or ensure the success of the mission, the paladin volunteers for that risk. A paladin only retreats from battle to fulfill a higher part of her ethos.

Honor - A paladin conducts herself with integrity even when no one is watching or when it is of no benefit to herself. She shows mercy, refuses to inflict undue suffering even on such wretched beings as demons, does not cheat or cut corners, and does not compromise her principles. The description of the virtue of honor contains the rawest line in the entire book: “It is an admirable act to comfort a dying friend, but an act of honor to comfort a dying enemy.”

The above are the ‘universal’ virtues a paladin is meant to embody. The book briefly touches on the idea that a paladin might also choose to uphold other virtues and work them into her Code of Ennoblement, the ceremony by which she is invested with the power of a paladin...or isn’t. The sample ‘bonus’ virtues provided are humility, chastity, celibacy, and my absolute favorite, industry, in which you swear to have no chill at all, ever, until the day you finally die, and instead spend all of your waking moments in some effort of self-improvement or work such as reading, building houses for the needy, repairing tools & equipment, and otherwise being completely incompetent in the art of self-care. It’s great, I absolutely love it.

Together, this code and the paladin’s abilities present a vision of classical knighthood, something like, oh...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35GUTY_Gr14

That. A defender and paragon of medieval virtues, who lives to help others.

“Alright Vox, surely you’re reaching the end of AD&D 2e now?” you ask. “We’ve been through the mechanics, we’ve been through the vision of paladins as members of feudal states who are figuratively and legally ennobled by righteousness, we’ve even gone into more detail about the code than was strictly necessary. 3e time right?” AFRAID NOT, MY WILD RIDE DOES NOT END. AD&D 2e didn’t have feats, didn’t really have spell selection in this context, and while it had a sort of skill system (the Proficiency system, greatly utilized and suggested by The Complete Paladin’s Handbook) that was hardly a way to make one paladin feel mechanically distinct from others. So how did players do that? Ability score rolls and loot drops?

Nope! We had Kits.

Kits modify a class or multiclass combo (not relevant to this article, but as a f’rinstance, the original Bladesinger was an elf-only Fighter/Mage kit found in The Complete Book of Elves); they give it additional features and additional restrictions. They could, but did not always, have ability score requirements above and beyond the typical ones for their class, and they might also have backstory or roleplaying requirements. A kit might who your character is in the society of the game world, the abilities they brought to the adventuring party, or both. Like Pathfinder’s Archetypes, some kits would strip abilities from the standard class, but not all of them did so.

So what did paladin kits do? In short, they changed the kind of knight you were. An Errant, for instance, is kept on a long leash by their liege and does not often have to fulfill edicts - but in exchange, she’s on her own and cannot expect funding from the state. Ghosthunters, who specialize in the destruction of the undead, gain the power to dispel evil, immunity to paralysis, turn undead just as well as a cleric does, and get access to a holy sword a minimum of 2 levels earlier - but they can’t lay hands, cure disease, cast priest spells, or enjoy immunity to disease. Inquisitors (I know) are paladins who see magic as a good and benevolent force, which is corrupted - profaned, even - by the practice of evil magic; they’re similar to ghosthunters in a lot of ways, but also represent an organized philosophy. The Complete Paladin’s Handbook has 22 pages of kits for standard paladin alone, which you can mix and match to create your own unique take on the concept, plus information on “demi-paladins” - non-human fighter/clerics who slowly gain paladin powers in addition to their own. This was back in the day when certain races just could not be good at certain classes due to level restrictions or being unable to take those classes in the first place, but here was the first glimmer of D&D confronting some of its own bullshit; before this book, the implication was that no non-human race was moral enough to be a paladin.

There’s so much more in this book but I’m not gonna get into all of it or this article’s just gonna be a review of one supplement; if you can get your hands on a PDF or even a hard copy, I highly suggest it as a read. It’s not that I endorse its vision for paladins as being the best or as being objectively correct, because I don’t; the potential of paladins is much broader than this narrow vision of Christian feudalism. It’s that no other book, before or after, has paid such loving attention to who paladins are in the game world, including thought given to details like their mortality rate (paladins that manage to survive to 40 are forcibly retired in the hopes that they can teach the youngbloods to do the same), the economics of knighthood, meta-commentary about how the class’s aesthetic and presentation is built to enhance themes about the game and the setting, and even a chapter on weaving faith into your game world and thinking about your paladin’s relationship to her own. The great strength of AD&D 2e’s paladins is that they, more than any others, have this loving care devoted to them that makes them feel like a real part of the worlds in which they live, and their great weakness is a vision that is more narrow than it wanted to be. You can see the author grasping for something broader, something more inclusive, only for it to slip between his fingers.

D&D 3.5: Up From The Gutter - Ah, D&D 3.5, the demon that will not die. This game spawned a million spin-offs and heartbreakers, love for it contributed to the rise of Pathfinder, and it remains incredibly popular and played. It’s also garbage, but c’est la vie, c’est la morte. Its vision of paladin is not as detailed as AD&D 2e’s was, and its main innovations were mechanical in nature. However, 3.5 did offer some in-depth explorations on what it means to be Good-aligned that previous editions did not, and given the context that’s about to be important to talk about.

3.5′s vision of paladin mechanics was remarkably similar to 2e’s, with the most notable change being race selection (anyone can now be a paladin as long as they’re Lawful Good) and the addition of Smite Evil, which can be used a certain number of times per day to gain more accuracy and damage when attacking evil-aligned creatures. Paladins are still warriors, they still cure disease, lay on hands, detect evil, and own a horse; in other words, they barely changed. Unfortunately, the game changed, and this left paladins high and dry. I’m not gonna mince words: for most of 3.5′s run, paladins lagged so far behind in terms of combat prowess, skill selection, and general utility that they were essentially unplayable, including and in some ways especially against classic foes such as demons and dragons.

I’m not gonna get into why, because that is a separate and much angrier article that will spark a lot of controversy due to people who run their ignorant mouths like they know what the fuck they’re talking about, not that I’m bitter. The relevant part of this is that over 3.5′s run, paladin did in fact slowly improve. The Serenity feat, published in Dragon 306, (and much more easily available to you in Dragon Compendium) helped clean up the dizzying amount of attributes upon which they were dependent. Battle Blessing (Champions of Valor) made it easier to incorporate their native spellcasting into their play (though nothing ever quite solved their sharply limited spell slots), and Sword of the Arcane Order (Champions of Valor again) both opened up an alternate vision of paladins as a different kind of magical knight & offered broader utility in paladin’s spell list. The Prestige Paladin in Unearthed Arcana converted paladin from a base class to a prestige class, which let you build it off of more mechanically viable classes - further enhancing your ability to customize your paladin, especially since as a PrC you could stop taking Prestige Paladin at any time you felt you were sufficiently knightly. Access to these and other options eventually made paladin, if not good, at least viable, able to be played in most campaigns and pre-made adventures without undue worry or getting chumped out of basic encounters.

In all of their forms, these paladins still had a code. Observe:

Code of Conduct

A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits an evil act.

Additionally, a paladin’s code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.

Associates

While she may adventure with characters of any good or neutral alignment, a paladin will never knowingly associate with evil characters, nor will she continue an association with someone who consistently offends her moral code. A paladin may accept only henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good.

Ex-Paladins

A paladin who ceases to be lawful good, who willfully commits an evil act, or who grossly violates the code of conduct loses all paladin spells and abilities (including the service of the paladin’s mount, but not weapon, armor, and shield proficiencies). She may not progress any farther in levels as a paladin. She regains her abilities and advancement potential if she atones for her violations (see the atonement spell description), as appropriate.

Like a member of any other class, a paladin may be a multiclass character, but multiclass paladins face a special restriction. A paladin who gains a level in any class other than paladin may never again raise her paladin level, though she retains all her paladin abilities.

You know all the horror stories you’ve read of DMs maliciously making paladins Fall, or miscommunications in groups leading to alignment arguments? The ones about youth-pastor paladin characters sucking all the fun out of a party? Meet the culprit. 3.5 did not have The Complete Paladin’s Handbook’s discussion on same-paging with your group to prevent these problems, and this vague code wording paired with immediate and extreme consequences didn’t do it any favors. That’s not to say that this code is unworkable, exactly, but trying to sit down and agree with 4-6 other adults on what ‘gross violations’ actually means is essentially the world’s shittiest round of Apples to Apples and your reward for it is resenting the character you just built.

And that’s the paladin part, which means we have to get into the “being good-aligned” part. Lemme tell you about Book of Exalted Deeds, a historically significant garbage fire of a book that is somehow both the best supplement released about Good and the worst supplement released about Good at the same time.

For those of you with the fortune to have never played 3.5, its books are like that a lot.

So, bad parts first: all the mechanics. Just all of them. The prestige classes? Bad. The feats? Generally bad. The redemption rules revolving around Diplomacy? Sloppy. Magic items? Bad. Spells? Look up an online discussion about sanctify the wicked and then get back to me on that one; they’re bad too. Ravages and afflictions (good-aligned poisons and diseases) were a bad idea that were also a case of stunning hypocrisy from a book whose stance was that dealing ability score damage is ‘needless cruelty’. Even the write-ups for the planar NPCs kinda make them into these basic bitch pushovers, which, you guessed it, is bad. There’s a lot to say against this book and you can find someone saying it in most open web forums if you want to take a journey into the godawful design of the liminal space between 3.0 and 3.5.

But the good stuff was real good. D&D had/has long been stalked by ‘ethical dilemmas’ such as the so-called Goblin Baby Problem, where players would ask if it’s good to let goblin children live since they would only grow up to become goblin adults. Book of Exalted Deeds was the first D&D publication to make a hard stance against racial genocide (hell of a sentence, I know), and it doubled down on The Complete Paladin Handbook’s implied stance that all forms of romance and sexuality are valid as long as they’re between consenting adults that respect one another. BoED strove to define Good not just as the avoidance of evil (”The utter avoidance of evil is, at best, neutral.”) but as actively striving to respect life, practice altruism, and make the world a better and more just place. While its take on ideas like forgiveness, redemption, and justice were not necessarily perfect, it went out of its way to try to offer nuanced takes on those ideas and to note emphatically that practices such as slavery and racism do not become good just because certain historical cultures thought they were at the time.

The other notable thing that Book of Exalted Deeds did for the idea of a Good alignment was firmly state on the record that NG and CG are just as valid and Good as LG is. The existence of paladins and their alignment-locked nature had long implied that Lawful Good was the “best” Good, or the “most” Good, but Book of Exalted Deeds didn’t just introduce material for characters that were paragons of other Good alignments, it provided examples of such characters in action. D&D is still somewhat stalked by that “Law is Good and Good is Lawful” problem, but BoED and other books in its niche (notably including Heroes of Horror - I know, it doesn’t sound like it but trust me - and Champions of Valor) helped push back against that problem and open the floor to other heroes.

I wouldn’t be wholly done talking about 3.5 paladins without mentioning Unearthed Arcana, which introduced the paladin of freedom (CG), paladin of tyranny (LE), and paladin of slaughter (CE). Their hearts were in the right place here, but all three of them were...better ideas than executions, as it were, without much to talk about for them. Still, they make good examples of 3.5′s great strength in paladins: breadth of concept. Ideas that were previously impossible as paladins became commonplace, including paladin-like characters who were not members of the class and which I would absolutely consider paladins myself. It didn’t stick the landing on the mechanics, but that’s just 3.5 for you; if you weren’t a dedicated spellcaster, chances are you were gonna have some manner of bad time. This idea of paladins from all walks of life, from all levels of society and all peoples, has become a cherished part of the popular conception of paladins and it absolutely should be brought forward to other editions.

Which, honestly? It was.

Pathfinder 1e: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back - Pathfinder 1e’s baseline paladin release was essentially 3.5′s in many ways. The key mechanical differences were a revamped Smite Evil (which finally made it effective against its intended targets), the aura line of abilities that begin adding additional effects beyond Aura of Courage at 8th level and up, and Mercies - riders for the paladin’s Lay on Hands ability that cause it to also cure status effects, which in turn greatly enhances the paladin’s utility as a support class. Pathfinder also cleaned up some of 3.5′s attribute problems by orienting all of paladin’s magical abilities to Charisma instead of splitting between Wisdom and Charisma. Another small but significant note is the alteration from ‘gross’ violations of the code to any violation of the code. “Gee Vox, that doesn’t sound like it would really help code problems,” you say, to which I reply: it absolutely fucking did not.

Once we leave core, we get quite a few quality-of-life improvements. Though Pathfinder 1e lacks Battle Blessing, it replicates some of its effects by having many swift-action spells in-house for paladin, notably including the Litany line. Pathfinder’s archetype system for class customization offers options for the paladin that further customize its concept, though on the balance it’s harder to mix and match archs than it was to do so with kits. Archetypes always trade something, so in taking an arch you will lose some part of the base paladin kit and gain something which replaces it.

Narratively, things get more specific outside of core as well. Paizo’s one-and-only setting, Golarion, is one in which paladins must swear fealty to a specific god they serve above all others, and their power is derived directly from that god, who can grant or withhold it as they see fit. These gods (generally LN, LG, or NG in alignment, though certain specific CG deities sponsor paladins who must still be LG themselves) offer their own codes of conduct, which their paladins must follow. A paladin may be obligated to oppose ‘heresy’ as vigorously as chaos or evil, which is an awkward fucking feel, and paladins in Golarion’s setting can be found working for organizations such as the Hellknights, or in the armed forces of nations that practice slavery and forced conversion. That’s not to imply that they’re not also depicted in unambiguously good contexts, but when it comes to establishing paladins (or, well...anyone...) as good-aligned people Paizo has a bad habit of dropping the ball.

Like 3.5, the great strength of the Pathfinder 1e paladin is customization, and in this case a more solid mechanical base in comparison to the rest of the game. Pathfinder similarly flounders in that its vision of paladins is narrow and not fully realized in the game world.

Discussion of Pathfinder 1e’s paladin wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the Anti-Paladin, the only “alternate class” to see mechanical support beyond its initial publication. Baseline anti-paladins must be chaotic evil and have abilities that are the inverse of the baseline paladin; similarly, anti-paladin has archetypes available that change it to different kinds and methods of evil. It has its fans, and in terms of playability it’s as good, if not a little better, than paladin, but on the whole I tend to break on the side of thinking that Good and Evil are not mirror images of one another, and thus an anti-paladin is inappropriate as an idea. At least, one done in this way, as an explicit reaction to a supposed paragon of virtue, as things are about to get real interesting in...

D&D 4e: The Knight Unshackled - D&D 4e built off of the foundations laid down by the Book of Exalted Deeds and Unearthed Arcana by completely removing all alignment restrictions from both paladin and its counterpart class, blackguard. This section will also need to talk about cousin classes to paladin; specifically, the Avenger and the Invoker. Let’s start from the top, shall we?

Paladins in 4e are predicament dommes defenders; they use their abilities to place Marks on enemies, who then suffer damage if they choose to engage someone other than the paladin (all defenders in 4e force choices of a similar nature, though the penalty for failing to make the ‘right’ choice is not necessarily damage). In 4e, paladins are not granted their power by gods, nor are they empowered by their faith in righteousness alone; in point of fact, 4e paladins have no restrictions on their alignment whatsoever and are the first paladins to be open in this way. Instead, a paladin in D&D 4e is invested with power in rites kept secret by individual churches. Once invested, that’s it, no take-backs; the paladin remains a paladin even if they forsake that church entirely. The other classes I’m gonna talk about - avenger, blackguard, and invoker - are similarly invested, with invoker being the exception in how they get invested, but not in their no-takebacks status.

So, what powers a paladin after that investiture? Virtue; specifically, caring about others in some way. An LG paladin empowered by their belief in justice might be a classic knight in shining armor, defending her allies in righteousness’s name, but an LE paladin empowered by the same virtue might easily turn totalitarian, determined to establish justice no matter who has to suffer and die. In this model, evil-aligned paladins are those who care too much about something, to the point where they trample and harm others to see it fulfilled.

Paladin’s inverse, blackguard, is a striker class focused on direct damage. They gain their power through vice, inward-facing desires such as greed, selfishness, lust, or five pounds of nachos in one meal (don’t @ me). Blackguards are also not restricted by alignment. A classically selfish blackguard, out for their own power and safety, might be an amoral mercenary who kills because they can’t be bothered not to, but a good-aligned blackguard who’s selfish is, well, Tiffany Aching: protecting the world because it’s her world and how dare you fucking touch it.

Avengers have more in common with barbarians than paladins, but are notable here for their commonalities with paladin as a divine warrior concept, and also for having bones in with the later Oath of Vengeance concept in D&D 5e. Avengers are invested to smite the enemies of their church; they tap into their power by swearing an oath against specific enemies, and then dissociate until those enemies in particular are dead at their feet. Are you really into Alexander Anderson from Hellsing? Do you want to explore the terrible consequences of power, consequences that might not have been clear when you signed up to become an avenger? This could be for you.

Lastly we have invokers, the odd duck out. They are ranged controllers who fight with pure divine power. Invokers are created directly by gods, but unlike the previous three have no associations with churches; instead, their job is to look out for threats to all of existence and make sure that they don’t happen. Even evil-aligned gods create and tend to respect invokers, because you can’t conquer the world and rule it as its Dread Master if there’s no world left to rule. Because invokers are invested by gods directly, they tend to have a lot in common with the divine intervention paladin origin mentioned waaaaay up there in the 2e section; you’re minding your own business when one day God goes “TIME TO LEARN HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD” and that’s just your life now.

D&D 4e’s paladins and paladin-like classes fully realize the breadth of concepts and characters that paladins could fulfill; they offer intriguing possibilities for roleplaying, engaging character and plot hooks, and mechanically distinct interpretations of divine power. In unshackling paladins from alignment, 4e opens them up to questions of heroism, conviction, and belief that were in many ways previously closed, especially because paladins in other editions were often made to Fall for asking those questions. Their big weakness is, well, being in 4e. It’s not that D&D 4e is a bad game - in many ways it’s the most honest edition of D&D, and certainly the most tightly-designed - but rather that 4e’s context is highly specific. It can be hard to find players or DMs familiar with it, might be frustrating to gain access to its books, and once you do adapting its material requires significant narrative changes if you remove it from the context of the Points of Light setting.

D&D 5e: This I Vow - D&D 5e’s paladin is, in many ways, a combination of and refinement upon previous elements. Like 4e’s, it is not restricted by alignment (though the three Oaths in core do suggest particular alignments). Like 3.5′s paladin, it combines magical power with martial skill, though 5e’s paladin is both more overtly magical and gains access to better spells, faster, than its predecessor. Though the paladin gains some warrior-type abilities (notably including their choice of Fighting Style and the Extra Attack feature), the majority of their abilities are supernatural in nature, including Lay On Hands (in the form of a pool of hit points that can also be expended to remove poisons and diseases), immunity to disease, an array of defensive and utility spells (as well as the Smite line for bursts of damage), a Divine Smite that trades spells for damage directly, and native auras that protect the paladin’s allies as well as herself. Their defining feature, however, is the Oath they select at third level, which defines what sort of paladin they are.

Your selection of Sacred Oath nets your paladin 2 utility abilities at 3rd level, an additional aura at 7th, a strong upgrade of some kind at 15th, and a capstone at 20th that neither you nor any other living being will ever see because 5e campaigns barely get to 14th, God forbid 20th. Each Oath also provides a set of tenets that you are meant to live up to, but unlike previous incarnations of a Code of Conduct 5e’s relationship to these tenets is more...human. The following passage is from the Player’s Handbook, page 83 (”Creating A Paladin”):

As guardians against the forces of wickedness, paladins are rarely of any evil alignment. Most of them walk the paths of charity and justice. Consider how your alignment colors the way you pursue your holy quest and the manner in which you conduct yourself before gods and mortals. Your oath and alignment might be in harmony, or your oath might represent standards of behavior you have not yet attained.

Emphasis mine.

The baseline assumption for 5e’s paladins are believers in righteousness, whose faith in virtue empowers them to protect the weak, but more than any other edition, 5e recognizes that paladins are still people, who have flaws, strengths, and ambitions. Its Background system helps flesh out your character both mechanically and narratively, and material presented both in the Player’s Handbook and Xanathar’s Guide to Everything encourage you to think about the things that drive and oppose your paladin. Importantly, though the books say that evil paladins are rare, no actual alignment restriction on paladins exist, which opens up some interesting possibilities in terms of character creation. We’ll get more into that down the article a bit, when I talk about same-paging and refluffing.

Because Oaths come with both mechanics and an ethos, there is a strong incentive to create new Oaths for 5e if you want to embody a new ethos, but this may not always be strictly necessary. Additionally, the Player’s Handbook implies that paladins who flagrantly fail or abandon their oaths might become Oathbreakers (Dungeon Master’s Guide, page 97, under “Villain Options”), but this too may not be the correct move, especially in cases where a paladin abandons one set of high ideals for a different, but no lower, form of belief. We’ll get into that later too.

5e’s paladins are in the best mechanical position they’ve ever been in; they’re one of the strongest classes in the game line, easy to build and play, and difficult to fuck up. They have strong thematics with their abilities and especially their Oaths, and the way 5e encourages you to make your characters helps you realize them as people in the game world. The great weakness of this vision of paladins is customization; 5e lacks player options in many senses, and quite a few of those options are gated behind rules that may not be in use (such as Feats). It can be difficult, in many cases, to make two paladins of the same Oath feel different when the dice hit the table.

And at long last, we have finished the establishing-context section of this article, and can move on to the actual fucking article. I did warn you, way up top, that you were in for a ride.

Raise Thy Sword - Paladins At Your Table

The following section is meant to help you in making and fleshing out a paladin concept to play or even to use as an NPC. Most of the advice will be edition-agnostic; advice that isn’t will be marked as such. Also covered herein will be the related topics of same-paging, refluffing, and the common pitfalls that paladins have fallen into over the years (and how to avoid them).

Same-Paging - In Which We Communicate Like Adults

Same-paging is the practice of talking to your group in a way that helps set mutual expectations, and it’s something every RPG group should strive to do regardless of the system they’re playing in. You’ve probably done this to an extent before, as part of being pitched a game (”We’re going to do a dungeon crawl through the deadly halls of Undermountain”), during character creation, and the like. In the specific case of paladins, you want to talk to your group and DM about topics like alignment & alignment restrictions, your code of conduct or oath, and whether or not the group wants to handle things like ethical dilemmas and moral quandaries. Though paladins are famous for those last two, they’re certainly not a requirement; you can just as easily play a paladin in a campaign like Expedition to Undermountain or Princes of the Apocalypse where there is a very clear bad guy who needs to be stopped with enormous applications of violence and guile. However your group wants to play it is fine, but you want to be sure everyone’s on board for it and that you’re ready to rock. If your group signs on for a kick-in-the-door dungeon crawl and then the DM decides to make you pass a series of ethics tests, that DM is an asshole; likewise, if you agree that you want to explore the morals at the heart of your paladin’s ethos and then you just don’t do that, you’re causing the problem.

Who Is Your Deity, And What Does She Do? - Making Your Paladin

Once you and your group have communicated your expectations to each other (and, again, same-paging is something all groups should be doing regularly, not just ones in which you want to play a paladin), it’s finally time to start sketching out your concept! There’s many ways to start this, and while I personally tend to start at the roleplaying end (with ideas about who they are as a person and the themes I want to explore with them), starting with mechanical ideas, with questions, or even with specific dramatic scenes in mind, are also viable. That is to say, “I’m interested in how Aura of the Guardian (Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, page 39) can help me play a damage mitigation tank,” is just as valid as, “Kass, my character, was lifted from a life of crime by a paladin who reformed her neighborhood and campaigned against a corrupt system, and she’s striving to become a paladin in his image.” That said, if there’s one thing D&D and its related communities are good at it’s mechanical guides, so I’m not gonna try and write one here. We’d be here all day; instead, the following questions are things to consider for fleshing out your paladin’s backstory, personality, and goals.

Why did you become a paladin? The origins of your paladin will probably color how they think of their virtues, as well as how they think of evil. A beaten-down girl from the slums understands that kicking the shit out of muggers doesn’t give the downtrodden food, medicine, or roofs that don’t leak, while the third son of a noble family is in a position to understand the damage done by corrupt leaders and faithless lords. In addition to your background and home life, think about what motivated your character to become a paladin specifically. Were they mentored by an older paladin who saw potential in them? Recruited by the militant arm of a church? Did they grow up with stories of paladins and yearn to become the sort of person those stories were written about, or were they, perhaps, seemingly called to paladinhood without much conscious understanding of what it was?

Where did you learn to fight? Paladins are warriors, and even a paladin that Falls (for those campaigns that use Falling as a concept) remains a warrior. 5e paladins, the most overtly magical of all the available options, still spend a lot of time randomizing the atoms of evil with sharpened metal, and that’s a skill you only get through training and dedication. Who taught your paladin to fight? What’s their relationship with that teacher or organization, and how did it shape their ideas about violence? We all catch things off of our teachers, and your paladin’s instructor in combat will, for better or worse, be as big an influence on their life and ideals as their faith and family are. Don’t be afraid to get wild here; AD&D 2e had full-blown godly training montages where the voice of a god ran you through drills, and paladins join warlocks and sorcerers for being fertile ground for some of the weirdest shit. Did you fight daily duels against a stained glass knight only you could see? Did you find a scimitar in the gutter and pick it up to defend your friends from gangs? Were you bankrolled by an old man who later turned out to be a lich, whose motives you still don’t understand? Live your best Big Ham life if that’s the life you wanna live, this is the class for it.

How do you imagine good and evil? What does your paladin’s vision of a Good world look like? What is the face of wickedness that comes to mind when they’re asked to think of Evil? A knight from a kingdom plagued by portals to the Abyss is going to think of both of these things very differently from a gutter rat whose ascension came with a prosthetic hand to replace the one she lost to gangrene, to say nothing of differences in ideals when one factors in Law and Chaos. Your paladin doesn’t have to be perfect, or even, honestly, correct. Your classic ‘noble, but kind of a dick’ paladin (such as Corran d’Arcy in the novelization of Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor, who we’re gonna talk about more later because he’s a weirdly great example of an adventuring paladin) thinks of evil as evildoers, who must be Brought To Justice, which while not entirely wrong is lacking in important nuance. He may conflate manners with virtue, or allow his prejudices to color who he does and doesn’t think of as ‘good’, but that doesn’t change his fundamental desire to Do Good - a desire that could be the catalyst for personal growth. A flawed understanding of virtue and wickedness could be a great character arc for your paladin, especially if it dovetails with the themes of the campaign.

What do you enjoy? Paladins are still people (shocking, I know) and people tend to have hobbies, preferences, and goals. Xanathar’s Guide to Everything has some nice material to quickly flesh out some of those aspects of your paladin (a personal goal, a vice that tempts them, a nemesis that dogs their footsteps), and I highly encourage you to think about such things as well. Does your paladin crave glory, wealth, or revenge? What sort of things do they turn to when they want comfort, or to have a good time? Do they still practice a trade from their youth, such as painting or blacksmithing? The archetype of a knight looking for their true love (or at least a series of whirlwind romances that always seem to end in someone’s bedroom) is a staple, of course. These things don’t necessarily need to be sinister temptations that lead you away from justice; they can just be nice things you like, or comforts that sustain you in your long fight against evil.

How do you relate to your faith? Many settings (notably including Forgotten Realms & Points of Light in D&D, and Golarion in Pathfinder) explicitly link paladins to churches and patron deities, and even in ones where this explicit link does not exist you see paladins who fight in the name of their faiths, serve in the militant arm of their churches, and otherwise seek to live their lives in accordance with their religion. D&D’s history is also full of paladins whose relationship to their faith is more distant, more questioning, or even outright rebellious. In Eberron, for instance, a paladin might dedicate herself to the Kraken - an evil god embodying sea monsters and catastrophes - with her understanding of that faith being preventing monster attacks and protecting the innocent from hurricanes and tidal waves. A paladin might be retained by the Church of St. Cuthbert as a barometer for their own morality, trusted to leash his peers when their retribution grows out of hand & play the devil’s advocate against them, or a knight might simply try to live their lives in accordance with the ideals of beauty, joy, and wonder espoused by Sune Firehair, without being for or against the actual church. What or whom does your paladin believe in, and why? Remember as well that not all, or even most, faiths are particularly similar to Christianity, and as a result your paladin’s relationship to that faith might just be business as usual. A Jewish paladin arguing with God is Judaism working as intended; similarly, a paladin dedicated to the Aesir doesn’t get to act surprised when they come home one day and Freya is chilling in their bathtub with a glass of wine and a ‘small request’.

You Wouldn’t Download A Class Feature - Refluffing & You(r Paladin)

So: you’ve come up with your concept, you’ve asked yourself all the relevant questions, but damn, some things just seem to not be fitting. What do you do? It may be the case that refluffing - changing the flavor of a mechanical option to better fit your campaign or setting - may be the right move for you. Refluffing gets a lot of pushback from a certain school of tabletop gaming that believes the flavor of an option is part of its mechanical balance. These people are wrong and I encourage you not to associate with them, in particular because the first party publishers often refluff material for similar reasons. For instance, the setting of Eberron has ‘anything published in D&D has a home here’ as one of its meta-tenets, and in the process of giving many of those things a home it changed their identity. Those hordes of angry ancestor-worshiping elves? That’s refluffing elves. In 3.5 you can see explicit discussion of refluffing in Oriental Adventures, which...well...it’s a book that exists, let’s leave it at that. Oerth having an entire alternate Material Plane where all the mirror of opposition copies come from? Refluffing.

So, when do you refluff? An obvious example is when your group is comfortable with an option being on the table, but is not playing in the setting that option comes from (for instance, the Sword of the Arcane Order feat from Champions of Valor when you are not playing in the Forgotten Realms). Refluffing is also great for when the narrative you’re building for a character implies or requires certain mechanics, but the flavor of those mechanics does not fit that narrative. In the ancient past I briefly GMed a game where one of the PCs was a ‘barbarian’ - a mean-streets kid looking to make a better life for himself, whose Rage was just the fight-or-flight kicking in from living in the garbage parts of Waterdeep. The important things to keep in mind when you choose to refluff an option is to stay on the same page as the rest of your group, and also to not replace the original fluff with nothing; mechanics do help define flavor (they’re the tools with which you interact with the game world), but you still need some reason that your paladin casts wizard spells, or has the abilities of the Oath of Vengeance when the original version of that Oath doesn’t exist in this setting. A very common school of refluffing is changing the origins of one’s power; rather than pure faith, for instance, a paladin’s powers might come from her innate spiritual energy, or from the favor of kami rather than gods.

Refluffing is also great for playing paladins that don’t have levels in the class named paladin. This option is especially relevant in the context of 3.5 and Pathfinder, when it may be more suitable to the needs of the campaign for you to be playing a more powerful or versatile class. In this context, clerics especially make very competent ‘paladins’, as do wizards (you wouldn’t think so, but I’ve seen that campaign played), inquisitors, crusaders, and even druids depending on how your concept is. You don’t need Fall mechanics to follow a code, after all.

For What The World Could Be - Defining Your Paladin’s Ethos

More than almost any other aspect of the class, possessing and following an ethos has defined paladins through the ages. For many years, this was a very specific ethos based on European ideas of chivalry and Christian virtue, and there’s something to be said for it when done well (certainly the Arab warriors from whom Europeans acquired the code of chivalry were lauded for their honor and virtuous conduct, so at a bare minimum one set of folks following these ideals in the real world absolutely nailed it). This is not, however, the only set of high ideals to which a paladin might cleave or aspire, and many fine homebrewers, players, and dungeon masters out there have chosen to craft their own, or to represent their own beliefs in the game world. Many cultures throughout history and all over the world have retained elite warriors held to high standards of conduct, and those traditions are rife for representation as paladins.

I fully intend to provide some specific examples of ethea (evidently this is the plural of ‘ethos’, no I didn’t know that before I started writing this, yes it looks wrong to me too) beyond the ongoing D&D default, but before I do you may want to consider how your paladin relates to those high ideals. After all, these are virtues that your character holds dear, but not everyone does so in the same way. Does she believe that everyone would be better off if they tried to live up to her standards, or does she believe that only certain people should (or must) do so? Does she consider her virtues an impossible ideal, something to strive for rather than fulfill, or does she not harbor such doubts? Is your paladin an idealist, who believes in the power of Good in itself, or is she more cynical?

The answers to these questions don’t necessarily make your paladin less Good as a person. A warrior who believes that there’s always a selfish bastard reason to do the right thing, who sees Evil as suboptimal, could still be a paladin if they work to bring Good into the world. An idealist who still needs to learn about the real consequences of barging into complex problems in a morally complicated world is equally valid, to say nothing of just...playing a genuine in-the-bones Hero, here to Do The Right Thing. Each speaks to a different kind of virtue, and a different life that has led them to these choices, and each deserves their day in the sun. You might have a lot of fun playing someone whose view of what Good is, and why, is different from yours!

Some specific examples of ethea (god that looks so wrong) follow. For the sake of convenience I’m gonna skip anything that’s actually showed up in a paladin entry before, or I’m gonna be here until I die. I am also very much not a member of just about any of the cultures and/or religions I’m about to talk about, and while I have sought the advice and review of those who are, I’m not about to claim that I’m an expert. Any errors in what’s presented are mine, and not those of my friends & readers; I welcome correction and discussion.

Irish Celtic: Blood & Troth  - The ancient Celts were not a people shy about death, and excellence - skill, improvement, and genuine growth - in all of your crafts was one of their high virtues. In addition to excellence, a Celtic warrior was expected to be honest (to never tell a direct lie, and to keep all promises given), hospitable (to be a gracious host & and honorable guests, and defend the sanctity of the home), to be charitable with their skills and their worldly possessions (to give to the needy, defend the weak, and fight for the helpless), to display loyalty to their family, clan, and gods, and to be courageous. That last virtue is an interesting one, because it dovetails with excellence; it’s less about acting in spite of fear, and more about enjoying fearful situations and the call of battle. A paragon of Celtic warfare should love her job, perhaps even revel in it; she relishes combat and the mayhem of the killing fields. Paladins following these virtues are likely to be Chaotic in nature, skewing towards Chaotic Neutral as D&D thinks of these things, and prone to contemplation on concepts of obligation, truth, and the nature of political violence. The crows know that there is always a final answer to injustice.

Irish Celtic paladins are likely to look towards Fionn Mac Cumhaill as a role model; as warriors with magical powers of protection, defense, and healing, they would be valued as keepers of lore, wisdom, and art, more warrior-poet than berserker. If your paladin is part of a wider culture from which she derived this ethos, she was probably expected to both learn knowledge and pass it on to others, and to restrain more eager warriors in favor of cunning plans and clever tactics. Imagine the look on your party members’ faces when they meet your family and realize you’re the sane one; that’s the exact emotion you wanna look to create if you really want to bring this out in the classic vein.

Jewish: We Shall Serve The Lord  - Judaism places a lot of emphasis on the sanctity of life, restorative justice, and doing the good you can do here, and now, with what’s in front of you. Though there is no tradition of elite Jewish warriors in the vein of knights or samurai, Jewish citizens tend to serve under arms slightly more often (about 5% more often) than their countrymen, and defending the innocent & helpless is certainly one way to do good now. A Jewish paladin would be expected to uphold the sanctity of life (preservation of life is the highest calling; a Jew may do anything except deny God in order to preserve life), to practice the principle of Tikkun Olam (’repairing the world’, working actively to make the world around them a more just, peaceful, and pleasant one), to show compassion and generosity to others, to uphold and defend hospitality, to know the Torah and the Law, and, where necessary, to practice intelligent and purposed dissent and skepticism. In the context of D&D, such a character is not likely to be particularly scholarly (paladins haven’t needed a decent Intelligence score at any point in the class’s evolution), but they’re probably conversant in the techniques of reading and research, critical thinking, argument, and debate, if only through exposure. Jewish paladins are most likely to be Good, leaning Lawful, as D&D thinks of these things.

The Jewish ethos describes a set of minimum standards for a righteous person, the Noahide Laws, and greatly encourages you not to associate with any person or culture that can’t meet that standard. They’re honestly not hard to meet either; you basically have to not be a dick about God (don’t try to stop folks from worshiping, don’t spend your time mocking and blaspheming their faith), know that lying and murdering are wrong, don’t be a sexual predator, don’t eat animals that are still alive, and bother to establish a system of laws for self-rule. Though Judaism lacks an elite warrior tradition, you might look to people like Joshua, Judah Maccabee, or Solomon as inspirations for a Jewish paladin character; warriors known for their wisdom, determination, and and in many cases, self-sacrifice. Solomon is also notable as an example of someone who swore the Nazarite Oath, a promise to God to fulfill a mission or task, and to not rest until one has done so. Nazarites are held to higher standards than their peers, notably including the expectation that the object of their oath becomes their only goal until they get it done or die.

As stated before, I am not Jewish and while this information was provided to me by Jewish friends, it is far from complete. @oath-of-lovingkindness might be by to expand on it, if they’re comfortable doing so.

Kemetic Pagan: The Power Of Truth - It’s difficult to talk about how the ancient Kemetic faiths were practiced; there was a lot of strife between the various cults of the gods, sometimes backed by pharaohs who were willing to revise history to get their way about thing, and then the English got a hold of the records. The English getting a hold of your culture’s history rarely ends well for just about anyone. The modern practice of Kemetic worship places great emphasis on service and identity as a member of the community, the promotion and preservation of knowledge, learning, and education, opposing is/fet (’chaos’, here also very much including the breakdown of social bonds and the systems which sustain life), and truth. A Kemetic paladin would be expected to oppose chaos by sustaining or creating such systems (funding schools, founding a neighborhood watch, finding or creating jobs for the poor), defend the defenseless, further her own education and knowledge & teach the ignorant, to be honest and forthright in word and deed, and value strength and justice. They are likely to be Lawful, skewing towards Good, as D&D thinks of these things. For a society to be just, it must first be a society; preservation of the order (both natural and artificial) which sustains human lives comes first.

Kemetic paladins are unlikely to be priests or even to be formally part of a religious heirarchy, again because they have traditionally had issues being scholarly people; instead, they uphold ma’at (what is true, what is just, what is necessary; ma’at is the principle that establishes a community, that relates one person to all other people and defines obligations between them, and opposes chaos) by fulfilling roles that assist their community. Such a paladin might look to one of their patron gods as an example of both the behavior they wish to emulate and their role in the community. A defender and guardian who supports the rural folk might look to Sobek, whose great strength guards the Nile; a would-be hero who craves power and the glory that power might buy her could instead look to Set, who guards the sun-barge and tests the established order so that it can grow strong. This is an ancient faith with quite a few gods, and I haven’t even gone deep enough to say I’ve scratched the surface; if they’re comfortable doing so, @merytu-mrytw may be by to expand on this topic for those interested in learning more.

Samurai: Reaching For Heaven  - You knew we were gonna go here eventually. As famous as knights, and perhaps even more known for their strict code of honor, the samurai were the elite warriors of feudal Japan and members of its ruling class. A samurai was expected to be a warrior, to cultivate an appreciation for high arts such as calligraphy, poetry, and sculpture, to be a scholar or patron of scholars, and to otherwise serve their lord and establish justice in that lord’s name. Today the samurai ethos is often called Bushido (”the way of the warrior”), but that name and conception of their code of conduct is actually a relatively recent invention, dating back only as far as the 20th century. It has its bones in with a 12th century dramatization of a war between two proud clans, and the ideals embodied by the warriors of those clans. Notably, these ideals were considered unattainable; something to strive for, and in striving grow as a person, but not a realistic expectation for a living human in a physical body. I’m gonna go ahead and quote the breakdown of this code that was given to me, because I feel the long form is going to be helpful here. These were the things to strive for, if one wished to call oneself a samurai:

Your duty calls on you to die if necessary. Your honor is more than your life; to live in shame is worse than death. You are expected to be righteous - to have integrity, sincerity, and honesty. To display heroic courage - to be intelligently aware of risks, but to face them boldly, not rashly or foolishly. To be benevolent and compassionate - for you have strength of arms that others cannot fathom. To show respect, even to your enemy. Cruelty, mockery, showboating, boasting, these are against the samurai code. Your strength and stature come through how you stand in adversity, unyielding. To understand that there is no such thing as a promise, or "giving your word" - you do not speak unless you mean what you say. Meaningless words are for shameful people. To safeguard your own honor, for you are its judge - and you will know what will cause you to live in shame, which as noted above, is worse than death. To show loyalty and be dutiful - if you give your service to another, it is theirs to command, and if you set someone's life above yours, you cannot keep honor if you live and they die. To demonstrate self-control - excesses and wants are openings to great shame. Moral character lies in the desire being sublimated toward the better self and higher standing among men.

As the politics and culture of Japan evolved through the years, so too did attitudes towards, and understanding of, this code of conduct, but most dramatic and romantic depictions of the samurai ethos root back to something a lot like this. A paladin dedicated to this ethos is likely to be Lawful Neutral, bending towards Good, as D&D thinks of these things; it emphasizes the virtues of loyalty, duty, and the obligations of both lord and vassal to one another. It is particularly appropriate for characters who see high ideals of virtue as being an unattainable goal to strive for anyway, or for character-driven campaigns looking for high drama that comes from tensions between personal desires and societal expectations (you can see it used for this to wonderful effect in the Legend of Five Rings RPG, most recently published by Fantasy Flight Games).

There are of course many other potential sources for a paladin’s ethos; check out D&D 5e’s homebrew materials and the DM’s guild for just a few. If I didn’t include something here, I promise you that it’s because I’m either ignorant or not confident of my ability to speak on it even in this limited context, not because I was trying to deliberately leave anything out. As I said above, any errors here are mine, and I welcome corrections. I’m also eager to hear about other ethea and how they might be adapted for paladins, so if you’ve got some thoughts there, please, slap ‘em on! I’m quite literally begging to read your paladin takes!

That said, remember that these are real beliefs, that real people follow. If you’re looking to explore an ethos from a culture that is not your own, you should do so with respect and especially with consideration for others that might be affected. It’s one thing to realize 12 sessions into a campaign at your own house that you’ve been accidentally blaspheming someone’s religion; it’s quite another thing to realize that if you’ve been playing in a public place such as a library or a gaming store. Ask folks from the culture or faith in question about it if you can at all do so, and just...if you wouldn’t want someone to be depicting you in a particular way? Don’t depict them that way.

The Trolley Problem And Other Forms Of Psychological Torture - Paladins, Falling, & Alignment

All editions of paladins except 4e have some kind of rule for Falling; losing one’s paladin status and powers, generally because of violations of your code of conduct or a failure to maintain your alignment. 5e sorta-kinda has those rules in a “well if the DM says so” way, which is, in some ways, a worse situation to be in since it leaves the matter unclear. In particular, many editions of paladins require that you have and maintain a Lawful Good alignment, and completely strip you of all powers if you ever change alignment for any reason. If the above sections of this article didn’t make it clear already, I tend to break towards 4e’s school of thought and support unshackling paladins from both alignment and Falling mechanics for general play; they certainly haven’t been powerful enough in the meta to mechanically justify additional restrictions.

This isn’t to say that you can’t use Falling or the threat of Falling for interesting stories and excellent character moments, just that I personally feel that it’s not as necessary as some schools of thought seem to think it is. If you want to incorporate this idea into your campaign, make sure you bring that up when you’re same-paging with your group; it’s definitely one of those topics everyone wants to have a clear understanding about. From there, it’s on the DM to not be a dick about things. Using paladins to explore ethical dilemmas can be very rewarding, but putting one in an ‘impossible’ scenario is rarely any fun. For some great examples of using ethical dilemmas as a form of character growth and to explore the concept of morality, check out The Good Place if you haven’t already. Remember: it’s a game. The goal is to have fun, yeah?

Genocide Is Not An Ethical Dilemma - Common Paladin Pitfalls

This is the part of the article where I get very angry about things.

As I alluded to before, there have been some common pitfalls when it comes to paladins both in the history of their formal writing and in the way the fanbase has chosen to play and relate to them. This section is going to discuss those and what you can do about them, so without further ado:

Fascism  - Paladins have some unfortunate bones in with fascist ideology, particularly the Third Reich’s obsession with ‘will’, as well as the fascist preoccupation with the Crusades, the Crusades themselves, and with being members of social classes which are often oppressive in nature. You really do not have to go far to find some jackoff posting DEUS VULT memes about their paladin, and that’s a problem, first because fascists are bad, and second because that definitely misses the fucking point by a country mile. All editions of D&D and its legacy systems have struggled with this, but a shout-out goes to D&D 5e for publishing the Oath of Conquest, because we definitely needed to respond to this problem by creating an option that gives you heavier, more ornate jackboots to put on people’s necks.

So, what do you do about this? Well, for one thing if you find a fascist at your gaming table you throw them the fuck out into the street, and beyond that mainly you just...try not to play a fuckin’ fascist character. This isn’t really a problem you can solve at the table level, since it’s buried into the writing; all you can do is be aware of it, and not play into it. It shouldn’t be terribly difficult to not make a paladin who’s into kicking poor people and undermining the rights of sapient beings, yeah? Paladins tend to fall into these sorts of problems when they’re depicted as supporting strongmen, or as being the Special And Exalted People to whom the rules do not apply - basically the same situations that give superheroes as a genre their ongoing fascism problem. Keep a weather eye out.

Genocide - The two-for-one combo! Paladins have had a genocide problem as far back as AD&D 2e, where several had racial or religious genocide in their backstories. Sometimes those paladins Fell as a result, sure, but a disturbing amount of them didn’t. We also have such gems as, “A local paladin has started a crusade against half-breeds” (a plot hook published in Draconomicon for 3.5), that greentext story about the paladin and dwarf ‘bros’ who spend their free time murdering orc children, and everything that’s ever been written about how drow are characterized and treated by others. Now, in fairness to paladins, Dungeons & Dragons itself has problems with the themes of race and with its depiction of the morality of genocide, and paladins could be merely caught up in that. On a basic level, solving this issue is easy; don’t endorse genocide, don’t make edgy racist concepts to see if you can ‘still be good’. Even if that wasn’t already tired and worn, someone else already took that concept and went pro with it.

For more information about fantasy’s troubles with race and racial coding, I highly suggest this article & its sequel, as well as Lindsay Ellis’s Bright video.

Youth Pastor Syndrome - This one’s not as dire a problem as the other two; there’s a tendency to play paladins in a way that sucks the fun out of the rest of the group, either because you’re being a judgemental asshole in-character (and possibly out of it), or because they’re constantly having to tiptoe around you to get things done or do what they want in the campaign. In theory, same-paging should help solve this problem before it starts, and it honestly mainly stems from the various ‘association’ clauses in paladin codes through their history. An uptight paladin isn’t necessarily a bad concept, but make sure it’s the right concept for your group before you just go there. Your desire to run a particular character is not an excuse to shit on everyone else’s fun.

Sir Dumbass the Just - So this topic isn’t so much a ‘pitfall’ as something that doesn’t get talked about a lot. There has not been a single incarnation of paladin that is rewarded for investing in Intelligence; instead, they tend to crave Strength or  Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom and/or Charisma (depending on edition and build). Once your main three are solved, Wisdom is the next-most important ability score for an adventuring paladin, because it directly relates to detecting threats, seeing through illusions, and resisting mind control, which leaves Intelligence in the dust next to whichever one of Strength or Dexterity you didn’t pick. This means, more often than not, that paladins are going to struggle in scholarly pursuits, be bad at Knowledge-type skills, and otherwise be uneducated in many ways, which most assuredly influences both their internal culture and the sorts of people who become successful paladins. Give the matter some consideration when you’re making your own.

Lady Natasha Pointe-Claire of the Dust March - Paladins as NPCS

Related to what was discussed just above, not all paladins are necessarily adventurers. Though the image of the paladin as a knight-errant, wandering the world in order to defeat foul plots and punch demons in the asshole, is both valid and probably very relevant to paladin player characters, there are other roles that a paladin might fulfill in your campaign setting. Such paladins are still members of a warrior class, and will thus have things in common with player character paladins, but their different roles will encourage investment in other kinds of abilities and skills which might not lead to a successful adventuring paladin, but will lead to a pretty good life in the other job. The following examples are by no means exhaustive, but they should provide a good place for a DM to start if they wanna incorporate paladin NPCs into their games in roles other than fellow (or rival) adventurers. Mentor - Probably the most straightforward; this paladin was a successful adventuring paladin who ended up retiring due to age, injuries, or just to enjoy time with their loved ones/family/children rather than getting mauled to death by undead birds. Take a normal paladin build, ratchet them up into Middle Age or Old Age, call it a day. Such paladins are likely to be a lot calmer and more pragmatic than the younger set, with a combination of painful experience and perspective guiding the advice they give on how to fight evil and how to dodge the fireballs that evil be throwing.

Knight-Hospitaller - Hospitallers are healers, caretakers, and guardians of the sick, injured, and infirm. Such a paladin might help maintain a home for those who have been traumatized (abuse victims, soldiers, people laboring beneath magical curses), be employed at or run a hospital, or maintain a temple dedicated to a god of healing and medicine. Hospitallers tend to choose options that enhance their Lay on Hands ability, memorize more healing spells than attack or defense ones, and value Wisdom and Intelligence more highly than their peers, often at the expense of their Strength or Dexterity (or even their Constitution; paladins, being immune to disease, can afford to be surprisingly frail of body in this role).

Fortress Knight - These paladins have a lot in common with adventuring paladins, but are for one reason or another posted in one spot from which they do not leave. They might be the guardians of a frontier village, soldiers watching over a sinister portal, the personal bodyguards to a powerful noble, or any other role in which they take on a defensive, reactionary stance rather than actively seeking out new and exciting forms of evil. Fortress knights need a higher Wisdom and to invest in Perception-type skills, and will tend to focus on utility-type spells with a strong subtheme of attack; they need to be able to rouse the alarm, dispel magic on their allies, and keep an enemy pinned down.

Example Paladin - Corran D’Arcy

I promise you, your long journey through my article is almost over. I wanna talk about a specific paladin to kinda tie things together, as an example of some of these principles and ideas in motion and because Corran d’Arcy is just weirdly legit when he has absolutely no fucking reason to be. Corran appears in the novelization for Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor, written by Carrie Bebris. The book is based on the videogame of the same name, which in turn was made to celebrate the release of D&D 3.0. “Should I play this game?” you ask, to which I reply: absolutely fucking not, the game was a rough ride when it came out and it has not aged remotely well. 3.0 was rapidly updated to 3.5 because of deep and wide mechanical flaws that made the play experience almost physically painful, and converting it to a CRPG did not help that experience at all.

The book though? Excellent. Legitimately one of the best D&D novels. Spoilers for it follow, but I’d still suggest reading it if you get the chance.

The novel is told from the perspective of Kestrel, a petty thief trying to raise enough money to quit her life of crime and, ideally, die in bed of old age rather than of blood loss in some gutter. A series of poor and alcohol-related decisions leads her to volunteer to guard an evil pool of soul-stealing water, which is where she meets Corran d’Arcy, a paladin of Tyr and the third son of a noble family. The two get on like water and oil; to Kestrel, Corran is a pompous, classist piece of shit who judges her without knowing her, and to Corran, Kestrel is the exact kind of criminal and evildoer he so often fights in his day job. When another team opens a portal to beg for help while they’re being slaughtered, Corran quite literally throws Kestrel through it when she’s trying not to go, nearly killing them both.

This puts their professional relationship off to a bit of a distant start, as you might imagine.

Corran’s prejudice, as well as Kestrel’s more-justified-but-still-unhelpful resentment, hinder the party as they attempt to survive in Myth Drannor and defeat the Cult of the Dragon’s schemes there. Corran’s life of privilege has left him unfamiliar with Kestrel’s skills, and he consistently misuses those skills or forgets to ask for her opinion and expertise - to the detriment of the group. This painful oversight aside, however, Corran proves surprisingly practical; he works with the party’s wizard to create effective combat tactics, utilizes invisibility for surprise attacks against powerful foes, and coordinates well in the heat of battle; after all, the Cult of the Dragon is not taking requests for formal duels, and the fate of the world is at stake. Corran is polite even to his enemies, and openly negotiates with the minions and allies of the Cult in order to avoid combat - notably including drow houses that have made their homes in Myth Drannor. Through the course of the novel, he and Kestrel go from being openly antagonistic towards one another to developing a newfound respect, starting when Kestrel calls Corran out for endangering the party by refusing to retreat. Corran, in turn, forces Kestrel to confront the fact that she has been unhappy living her life with no purpose other than to die another day, a revelation that shakes her to her core.

Things come to a head when one of Corran’s decisions gets a man killed. Kestrel calls him out on it, accusing him - correctly - of hurting those he’s trying to protect by misusing her skills and ignoring the advice of his companions. Seeing his genuine anguish over these events softens Kestrel’s rage towards the paladin, enough that they essentially start their relationship over from the top with genuine change from both of them. A scene late in the book where Kestrel helps Corran find the confidence to attempt divine magic (a gift given only to ‘truly worthy’ paladins) cements what has finally become a trusting friendship.

Corran d’Arcy is an excellent example of a classic paladin archetype with life and humanity breathed into it. He has prejudices and insecurities; he feels pressured to live up to a long legacy of knighthood that intimidates him. At the same time, the virtues he lives up to reward him over and over again, from his bold valor (which sees to the defeat of many evildoers) to his courtesy and honor in social situations (which wins him unlikely allies in a ruined city overrun by wickedness). Though he starts out as a dick, Corran is not malicious, and it’s his genuine desire to do good by others that motivates the change in his behavior; when he learns that he is hurting his friends, he knows that he must change.

That’s the end of the article proper! I hope you found it informative and, more than anything, helpful in creating paladins for your game and campaign setting. I absolutely welcome questions, comments, critique, additions, and the like; my Ask box is open, and the Reblog button is right there.

That said, if you’re interested, Mister Vox’s Wild Ride is not yet over. I got bit by the homebrew bug halfway through this damnable thing, so here’s a paladin oath based on a family from my first completed interactive story, Dungeon Life Quest. Constructive critique of this material is also very welcome!

Oath of the la Croix (D&D 5e Sacred Oath)

(River la Croix, journeyman necromancer and demonologist, ex-mercenary. Character is from Dungeon Life Quest, art provided by Domochevsky.)

The la Croix family have been necromancers for longer than they’ve been the la Croix; they laid down much of the foundations of modern necromancy, and have, through the ages, been tyrants, villains, refugees and, these days, heroes. To be a la Croix is not a matter of blood, but of commitment to the family’s ideals; one must be willing to help those in need, to serve the community, be a level head in times of trouble, to show respect for death and the dead, and to make hard choices with a calm heart.

Though most la Croix are necromancers, alchemists, healers, or summoners of various kinds, every now and again a paladin-like warrior emerges from the ranks of the family, often by adoption. Whether or not such cousins are ‘real’ paladins is a subject of languid internal debate in the family - no la Croix has ever fallen to the point where she lost her powers, but a few have managed to go mad enough with that power to end up hunted down by the rest of the family. The question doesn’t really need answering, but it’s fun to argue about after three cups of wine.

Tenets of the la Croix The high standards expected of la Croix paladins are also expected of anyone who chooses to bear the family name. You can give up the name at any time, but most la Croix children - by adoption or by blood - try to wear it with pride.

Life is for the Living, Death is for the Dead. No one chooses to be born, and very few people choose to die. Respect these truths. Take life when you must, but not cruelly, and never for personal gain. Remember that you, too, are alive, and deserve the chance to enjoy that life as all people do.

Your Name is ‘Somebody’. If there is a call for help, you are the one to answer; when you hear ‘somebody do something’, ‘somebody help me’, you are Somebody, child of Anyone. If you can’t help directly, do everything you can anyway. None of us deserve to be alone.

Serve, Not Rule. A la Croix’s place in her community is service to that community. We are not nobles, tyrants, or generals; we dwell among the common people to protect and shelter them, and to remind ourselves of all the ways in which we are alike. Our power makes us different, not better.

They, Too, Are Victims of Life. You do not know the struggles others go through, just as they do not know yours. All are condemned to live and to die, and deserve your compassion even when you are moved to strike them down for the greater good. Bury your enemies and give them their last rites as if they were your own family.

Oath Spells You gain oath spells at the paladin levels listed.

3rd - bane, false life 5th - darkness, gentle repose 9th - bestow curse, fear 13th - phantasmal killer, shadow of Moil* 17th - danse macabre*, planar binding

*appears in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything

Channel Divinity When you take this oath at 3rd level, you gain the following Channel Divinity options.

Ancestral Protection - You can use your Channel Divinity to call upon your la Croix ancestors for protection. As an action, you suffer damage equal to your paladin level; this damage cannot be prevented or reduced in any way. Then, you and all allies within 30 feet of you gain a bonus to armor class equal to your Charisma modifier for 1 minute.

Balefire Blast - You can use your Channel Divinity to scourge an enemy with death-in-flame. Make a spell attack against a creature within 30 feet. If you hit, that creature suffers necrotic damage equal to your paladin level, plus fire damage equal to your paladin level. If it dies within 1 minute of being hit, it counts as dying of old age in addition to its actual cause of death (usually meaning that it is much more difficult to bring back from the dead).

Necromancer’s Aura Beginning at 7th level, you radiate constant necromantic wards that protect you and your allies. You and allies within 10 feet of you have resistance to necrotic damage and radiant damage, and you make saving throws against effects which would kill you outright with advantage.

At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet.

Friend of Death Starting at 15th level, you regain 1 spell slot of 3rd level or lower whenever a creature within 30 feet of you is reduced to 0 or less hit points. You can regain a number of spell slots this way equal to your Charisma modifier; once you reach this limit, you must finish a long rest to use this ability again.

Aphrael’s Chosen At 20th level, you gain the ability to enter a state of heightened necromantic power, in which you can channel far more sorcery than usual. As an action, you suffer damage equal to your paladin level, then begin channeling raw death magic for 1 minute. While in this state, you gain the following benefits:

- You are immune to all effects which would kill you outright - Whenever you cast a paladin spell, you can make a weapon attack as part of casting that spell. You are not required to make this attack. - Creatures make their saving throws against your spells with disadvantage.

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.

[mirage-babey]

Apex Legends Highschool!AU

as inspired by my conversation with @bisexualmirage

Wraith:

idk what her name is man like i can barely pronounce ‘redacted’ how am i supposed to come up with a name

‘Wraith’ online

still getting over that emo phase she had at age 14

introvert that wants to be friends with people but struggles talking to people

friends consist exclusively of Mirage and Pathfinder but like,,, they’re really good friends so it’s good

has a TikTok account only to look at the memes Mirage makes but over her dead body will she let him find out

(does not go by ‘Wraith’ on tiktok)

has thrown hands defending her friends before and she’ll do it again

she has a rep to upkeep okay so nobody knows wtf she does most of the time but like on the downlow,,,, she’s a big ol’ English Literature nerd it’s her fave class

probably the author of My Immortal

Mirage:

Elliott Witt

goes by ‘Mirage’ online

seems like the kinda dude that’d totally be into drama but like he’s actually a huge physics nerd

the Overconfident Dumbass persona covers up the fact that he’s lowkey a genius

he’s gonna go on to do some wicked engineering later in life

met Pathfinder in the robotics club

he’s like,,, weirdly good at doing magic tricks

he’s friends with everyone but he’s closest with Wraith and Pathfinder and literally nobody but them understands how this works

an actual TikTok god - but only actually shows Path and Wraith his memes before they go viral tho he also knows that Wraith has a secret TikTok account to follow him but he finds it too endearing to mention

listens exclusively to 00s pop music

has probably woken up Wraith at some point by doing the whole playing music underneath her window thing

Pathfinder:

okay so on the wiki it says his real name is MRVN so im gonna call him Marvin dunno what his surname is tho lol

goes by ‘Pathfinder’ online

head of the robotics club

a really really nice person, if not a bit naive at times

excels at STEM subjects

spent a lot of his youth in the foster system, doesn’t know who is birth parents are but is trying really really hard to find them

Mirage and Wraith help where they can

works part time as a tutor because he’s smart and he also really really likes helping people

his main ambition in life is to receive recognition for his work in the form of like a nobel prize or something (he’s also totally gonna manage it)

also probably has a semi-popular youtube channel dedicated to amusing science experiments and stuff

does rock climbing when he gets the chance

Bangalore:

Anita Williams

‘Bangalore’ online, after a nickname given to her by her parents

does army cadets most days of the week (she comes from a military family)

the kind of person that’ll go into the military and after years of service she’ll settle down as a PE teacher

has beaten literally everyone at the school except Gibraltar at arm wrestling matches

on literally every school sports team

nobody can figure out how the hell she has time for all of this like how does she do cadets, play on every school team, and keep up good grades

the only issue is that in the process of trying to be the best at everything she tries to make her parents proud, she’s also become distant from her family. she wants to fix this but at the moment the only way she can think of to do this is to try and work even harder

Gibraltar:

Makoa Gibraltar

everyone just calls him Gibraltar tho

head of the school’s human rights group

he’s genuinely just a really nice guy, that’s why he’s so popular

has a motorcycle. somedays you might catch sight of him and his boyfriend taking it for a spin in the late evenings

sociology is his fave subject

has a part time job as a lifeguard

grown up seeing his parents work in search and rescue, and hopes to do the same

he’s the guy the school asks to show around guests and stuff because he’s just genuinely got a great personality? and he succeeds in his work? ideal student tbh

the school turns a blind eye to his kinda rebellious streak (they’d prefer he didn’t bring a motorbike to school but that’s not gonna stop him)

Lifeline:

Ajay Che

between the way she’s always saving everyone’s asses one way or another and the fact that she’s already gained recognition for her medical inventions despite her young age, she’s earned the nickname ‘Lifeline’

co-deputy head of the school’s human rights group

Her grades are real good, she’s aiming to do a degree in medicine before channeling that into humanitarian work

she’s also got a pretty decent following on soundcloud; the girl likes music and likes making it

family is filthy rich but she makes her own cash, doesn’t like being dependent on some family fortune. feels like inheriting it is kind of a slap in the face to people who work themselves practically to death to stay afloat in this world

volunteers with various charities outside of school

of course spends a lot of time doing STEM subjects at school but she also really enjoys sociology

Bloodhound:

yeah again i don’t have a name for them someone else can think of that

called ‘Bloodhound’ online

co-deputy head of the school’s human rights group

despite going to the same school they only actually met Gibraltar at a local pride festival. the two became fast friends though

for some reason???? crows absolutely love them???????? nobody knows why but these birds follow them around all the time at school

(it’s because they feed them)

History and English Literature are their strong suits. also does well in RE lessons

sits next to Wraith in Eng Lit, the pair have sort of bonded over the way they both keep to themselves

was totally into Rick Riordan books (and still is)

does archery in their free time, and is a p damn good shot

Caustic:

Alexander Nox

Goes by ‘Caustic’ on various forums (doesn’t have any other social media)

why is he in the chemistry lab all the time

way too interested in war history

very much a loner and it okay with that - people generally see him as kinda creepy

his hair is either slicked back with gel or grease nobody can tell and honestly nobody wants to know the real answer

in all fairness though he’s got a good few scholarships under his belt for when he leaves school

[lilagraham]

      INFORMATION & STATISTICS FOR LILA GRAHAM

“The myth about the angel who rebelled against his Lord is the most beautiful of all myths, the proudest, the most revolutionary, the most immortal of them all.”                        - Yevgeny Zamyatin

ORIGINS & FAMILY:

Full Name: Lilith

Nickname(s)/Alias(es): Lila Graham, Lily, Mother of Demons

Date of Birth: Unknown

Age: Appears 36

Gender + Pronouns: Female, She/Her

Place of birth: Hell

Parents: Lucifer

Siblings: Basil & Abel

Relationship with family (close? estranged?): I wouldn’t go as far as estranged but pretty distant due to conflicting views

Pets: A golden snub-nosed monkey

PHYSICAL:

Height: 5′ 6″ (168 cm)

Build: Slim

Species: Celestial

Distinguishing Facial Features: Her eyes are a harsh blue, Her lip has this curve thing, Her chin

Hair Color: Red

Usual Hair Style: Loose curls, Chin length

Eye Color: Blue

Complexion (freckles, acne, skin tone, birth marks, scars): Fair Skin (Type 2), Tiny beauty marks here and there

Disabilities (physical or mental, including mental illnesses): Anxiety, Depression, Bipolar

What do they consider their best feature?: It’s the legs

Worst they’ve ever been injured (what, how did it happen)?: Unfortunately, she’s endure lots of trauma and can’t choose a worst experience

APPEARANCE:

Favorite outfit: Anything black and dressy

Glasses? Contacts?: No

Personal Hygiene: She’s pretty polished

Jewelry? Tattoos? Piercings?: No piercings, No tattoos but she’ll sometimes wear fake earrings

What does their voice sound like?: It sounds gentle and innocent but if you’re a really good listener, you can sometimes hear the anger beneath it

Accent?: Bristish

Unique mannerisms/physical habits: It’s the way she stands, head held high, hands gripped together in front of her; The way her lip quivers a tad when she’s angry and trying to keep her composure

Left handed or right?: Ambidextrous

Do they work out/exercise?: Not really

BELIEFS & INTELLECT:

Known Languages: She can understand and speak all languages

Zodiac: Unknown

Gifts/talents: The Gift of Creation, Jack of All Trades

Religious stance: None

Pet peeves: Does not like repeating herself; The dripping sound bothers her

Optimist or pessimist: Optimist

Extrovert or introvert: Introvert

INTIMACY & RELATIONSHIPS:

Relationship status: Single

Sexual orientation: Pansexual

Ideal mate/qualities they look for in mate: Someone who is straight forward and honest with her; Someone who will worship the ground she walks on but also isn’t afraid to express and stand up for themselves

Ever been in love?: She could possibly be right now but won’t admit it

What’s their love language?: Quality time, Physical touch

Most important person in their life?: Her brothers; her monkey

VOCATION:

Level of education: Not applicable

Profession: Owner of Curiosities Antique Store

Past occupations: She started off doing repairs at the antique shop and when the owners passed, they left it to her

Passions: Creating, Antiquing, Speaking her truth

Which is more important – money or doing something they love?: Doing something she loves

SECRETS:

Phobias: None

Life goals: To rule over Hell

Greatest fears: Her plan to become ruler of Hell falling through

Most embarrassing thing ever to happen to him/her: Getting chastised by Lucifer in front of her creations and/or brothers

Something they’ve never told anyone: She actually doesn’t see the harm in the surface dwellers. Her beef is with the Celestials

PREFERENCES:

Hobbies: Fencing, Collecting and Researching antiques, Various forms of martial arts

Favorite color: Black

Favorite smell: Campfire; It reminds her of home

Favorite food: Mediterranean

Favorite book: Dante’s Inferno

Favorite movie: The Silence of the Lambs

Favorite song: The Rolling Stones, 'Sympathy for the Devil'

Coffee or tea?: Tea

Favorite type of weather: Winter, she’s a fan of the snow

Most used word or phrase?: None

EXTRAS:

MBTI: ISTJ-A (The Logistician) - These people tend to be reserved yet willful, with a rational outlook on life. They compose their actions carefully and carry them out with methodical purpose

Alignment: Lawful Good - A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. He tells the truth, keeps his word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice

Enneagram: Eight - Eights are motivated by the desire to be independent and to take charge of themselves and others. They are assertive personalities and passionate about life

Celtic Tree: Alder, the Trailblazer - Natural pathfinders; They have the ability to move people and quickly gain followers to their cause. They possess a mystic charisma, confidence and strong self-faith

Temperament: Choleric - These people don’t strive to be polite, respectful, or friendly. They do stuff according to what is convenient to them and, most importantly, is in line with their goals

Hogwarts House: Slytherin- Often extremely honest and direct with their peers in a way that is meant to be helpful, yet can sometimes come across as crude to those who favor politeness over authenticity

Element: Wood - Lifelong students; always challenging themselves to learn and grow. Wood people are action-oriented, and do best if they feel in charge of their own destiny and have a sense of forward momentum in life

[eldritch-sanctum]

Why I am not fond of D&D alignments

A lot of people seem to defend D&D alignments, with arguments that they are just a tendency, not an extreme, that they aren’t meant to pigeonhole characters, just provide a basis, etc.  Or that anyone who doesn’t “get” alignments just doesn’t understand them.  

Personally I wonder why even have them in the first place.  However I understand that since it’s inception, D&D was highly influenced by Tolkien, which was influenced by biblical ideals of a rigid good vs. evil system.  Before that, the fantasy genre tended to be more on the “sword and sorcery” side with people beating up bad guys for money and glory.  

I think for the most part, people don’t really come into alignment conflicts or don’t see the issues that alignment has in most D&D or Pathfinder games.  For the most part you’re likely not going to see it.  

However, where alignment starts to fall apart is when you try to bring it outside of those worlds and start getting into thought experiments, philosophical analysis, but most of all when you try to ask yourself about giving an alignment to real people or complex characters outside of D&D.  It starts to seem as if the worlds of D&D and Pathfinder pigeonhole the very personalities and natures of people.

For example, how would you align historical figures?  This is where it gets really tricky and controversial.  How would you align Theodore Roosevelt, a man who has done a lot of good attacking big business and helping the environment, but also has done a lot of bad things like imperialism in Latin America?  Revisionist history likes to paint certain figures as bad or good based on modern moral ideals, but is that fair or not?  These are issues that are really for another day, but it’s these questions that I think can be used to exploit the weaknesses of the alignment system.  As a DM I would indeed try to do that shit for my players to challenge them.  

And really, real world politics is a minefield of this kind of stuff. 

Okay okay, that’s the real world, but even within fiction you can find examples of people who are hard to align.  Shakespeare is known for making some characters that it’s hard to know if you should love or hate them.  His depiction of King Henry V is very interesting, because he can be interpreted in so many different ways, is he good at heart or is he a lying scoundrel?  Where his actions just or not?  Should he have dumped his friends or not?  He comes across as a complete douchebag at times, and others as more sympathetic.  

A more modern character that touches on the same things, and I think also it feels that way is Vriska Serket form Homestuck.  Vriska is a character that has been endlessly debated over and over if she’s an evil, scheming, narcissist or is she a genuine hero?  She has very questionable methods, she done good, and she has treated certain others, especially Tavros, as utter trash just because to her they are weak or evoke feelings that she hates to have for him.  Does she do things because she really wants to be a hero or just for the glory and praise? 

Then there are some characters that it’s hard to even know what their real motive is, it feels like they are a total enigma.  Their actions can give us clues as to what they are like, what their beliefs, and ideals are-yet those same actions contradict each other.  My favorite example of course, is Magus from Chrono Trigger.  A man who has suffered greatly, and was raised by monsters, then chose to exploit those monsters for him to seek his own revenge against Lavos, meanwhile aiding in the death of many humans.  He later turns out not to be such a bad guy but still very sour, bitter, and salty; there does seem to be some goodness in him toward the end.  It’s just that his pursuit of revenge really drove him to be complicit and even aiding in evil, but when he realizes he can’t do it alone then he starts cooperating, and then you start to see that maybe he does really care, and maybe in a sense he really always had that care and it wasn’t just that he changed.  In Radical Dreamers we see his personality has changed to be much more mellow and wiser, more calm and has a greater understanding of the pitfalls of mindless revenge.  For these reasons I like to say his alignment is all over the place, or is just one of those people it’s difficult.  You can say maybe that he was Lawful Evil when you first encounter him, and that when he joins the party he’s Neutral or something, but it still doesn’t capture how he really is, and I think that is part of the interesting thing about him.

One could argue, with the examples above, that alignment would reflect who they really are on the inside regardless of what we know or don’t know about them.  However, one could ask, do they themselves even know?  What if it’s both?  What if Vriska both likes the praise she gets and becomes a hero because it feels good and because of altruism at the same time? Heck there’s an endless debate if true altruism even exists. 

Now this is just in the good vs. evil axis.  The law vs. chaos axis is even more nebulous.  Typically law is more about order, tradition, rules, honor, etc.  Chaotic ideals as even those put in the PHB are about freedom and experience.  However what if you had a character who was very rigid about certain laws and rules whose purpose is to give rights and freedom?  For example a real world one is the philosophy of “I do not agree what you said, but I will defend your right to say it.” It seems more like a chaotic value at first, but when there is a rigid law or rule behind it, then is it lawful?  When one right clashes with another right, some people will impose rigid codes wherein all rights and freedoms are considered equal, and others will give priority to certain rules and rights, and yet the rights and rules themselves are about freedom in the first place.

This debate also comes when playing characters like thieves and pirates, characters outside the law and disregard the law, but follow their own codes and rules.  In Volo’s Guide, pirates are listed as “any chaotic”, despite many people giving them more neutral or lawful alignments because of codes and order.

I could go on and on about the murkiness of when it comes to even making distinctions of the concepts themselves.  Philosophers have debated endlessly about what or who is good and evil, if moral relativism is correct or not.  There are scenarios and characters have been created to challenge these notions in the first place.  For example, Alan Moore’s Watchmen calls into question these things and if vigilantism is something we should really promote or glorify.  What about a character who genuinely thinks they are doing something good in their heart but its something that causes a lot of pain and suffering?  What about Deontological vs. Utilitarian ethics?

The thing though is that D&D is meant to be fun and usually easy-going,  these things aren’t meant to pop up otherwise your players would beat each other up or it stops being fun because of all these complex things going on.  I think that’s why people still like the alignment system because it just gives you an idea who to beat up and who not to with not many qualms about why and if you should have.

However, I am one of those people who tends to take the storytelling aspect a lot more seriously, and so I am one of those people who likes to be iffy about alignments and motives.  In the past I have created characters who are I would say have some rather radical ideals that put them in strange places in the alignment.  For example a drow warlock who has made a pact with a Far Realm entity, and wishes to destroy and eradicate all extraplanar sources of evil-even if it will piss off the overgod, especially if she allies herself with far realm entities who might or might not be evil.  She even goes as far as to say that the existence of planar extremes of good, evil, law, and chaos are oppressive to the free will of peoples. 

Speaking of Far Realm entities, those could be an interesting catalyst for alignment ambiguity.  Instead of listing them as evil, have them reflect the moral ambiguity and amorality their source of inspiration meant them to have.  Have ideals of good and evil, law and chaos, and yes, even neutrality be absolutely meaningless to them and act accordingly.

And another thing: Why are skeletons, usually mindless undead listed as lawful evil when they are mindless and usually without free will in the first place?  Why is a skeletal horse evil?  

And if you think about it, enchanters and some bards should be treated with more suspicion of evil than say, necromancers.  

Anyway, getting back on track.  I think the developers of D&D do have some awareness of these pitfalls now and then.  I remember the Book of Exalted Deeds bringing up some issues like in the first part.  Also I think in Hoard of the Dragon Queen, there is conflict about what should be done with chromatic dragon eggs, the Order of the Gauntlet wants them destroyed, but the Emerald Enclave wants them saved due to the “balance of nature” or something like that.  

Topics about nature, why nature is a certain way, does it have to be a certain way, why do these horrible parasites and disease exist etc. is another area of exploration for ambiguity, especially in a world where nature was designed by, or is maintained by gods, people can call into question if it’s right that nature should be cruel and amoral in certain ways.  

So basically these are places where moral ambiguity can come up.  Not everyone is going to like this sort of game, but I do.  In my homebrew setting, alignment is a thing many mortals believe in, but has no cosmic bearing at all, and in the world’s history has encountered instances where someone believed they were doing the absolute right thing by murdering someone who also believed they were doing the absolute right thing.  There are spells and items that do detect alignment-but what they yield depends on the user!  

[life-is-no-sugarlicking]

I found a Ryder Meme! Nobody tagged me BUT LIKE I CARE. I love talking about my babys and that’s the reason why I gonna make it. >w

So here is my favourite Baby: Samuel Ryder!

1. So, the basics! Name? Preferred nickname, if any? His name is Samuel. There was a time where he preferred to get call Sam or Sammy. Thanks Dad. 2. What was their first impression of Nexus leadership? A S S H O L E S. Except of Kesh and Kandros. Tann remind him on one of his most hated math teacher and Addison first harsh words, after the death of his father, is something he will never forget. 3. Who are they closest to on the Tempest? Except his one big love Vetra - the most beautiful girl in all galaxies and future wife plus future mother of their adopted kids? Gil and Liam. They are both funny guys and Samuel thinks that he is also really funny. 4. How did they react to becoming Pathfinder? “Yes! Finally my father is dead so I can do his job, even when I have no idea what I should do and everyone will die if I do my job wrong! :D” … he didn’t want this job. Cora should do this. 5. How is their relationship with their family? Did they get along with them, or were they more of a lone-wolf? Samuel is a fully family person. He loves his family, his father was always a hero for him. It hurt him that he never had enough time for the family. He and his sister are a good team. They fight often buuuut..they are a good team. 6. Did they have any other personal reason for coming to Andromeda? Adventure!! …everyone who was left from his family went also there? 7. Do they have any scars? What’s the story of how they got them? Some burned scares, one of them is on his face. He loves to work on Roboters and he thought it was a good idea to give one of them a flamethrower. Maybe it wasn’t. 8. What do they usually do to relax? Do something with his friends. Visiting Reyes in Kadara and steal some new drinks with him, play poker with Gil and lose everything, cuddle with Vetra,  make some jetpack-stunts with Liam….try not to get killed from Lexi, because of the stunts… 9. Do they have a favourite planet? Havarl!! He loves to play Tarzan there. The broken rips after it are totally worth it - even when Lexi says something different. 10. Do they have an LI? What is their ideal date with them? Vetravetravetravetravetravetravetra! ;W;

Everything is perfect when she is with him. But picnicking on the hill where they kissed the first time is on his top list he wants to do with her. 11. What is their preferred fighting style? He is a cheater. Fairness? HAH! HAHAHAHA. Nope. After he sends you his army of robots, you can be never sure that he will not standing suddenly behind you and stab you in the back. You want’s to kill him and his friends? Don’t wait for mercy. 12. Finally, did they bring anything important with them from the Milky Way? A old plush dog. His name is Sparky and most important - he was a present from his mum. Nobody is allowed to touch him….or wash him and thats why he is maybe a stinky old plush dog.

And now! NOOOOOW!! I gonna tag people because I can and I doesn’t care that the week for the meme is already over. Show me your fav Ryder! :O @blacksheep33512, @katherinecreeart, @notebookalpha, @pathfindersemail, @starsandskies , @dalish-quarian, @pinkcatpaw

[dragonswithjetpacks]

Tagged by @ladyinthebluebox <3

Whoever wants to do this, feel free to copy and my paste my darlings.

1. So, the basics! Name? Preferred nickname, if any?

Fiona Jade Ryder is her birth name. Of course, those close to her call her Fi.

2. What was their first impression of Nexus leadership?

“What a joke...” she felt the team was unprofessional and unorganized. Not that she felt she could do better. But she believed the bickering among them would be their downfall. 

She finds Tann... unreliable. More of a “save face” kind of guy and not the type to get things done. He leans on others but still doesn’t know how to make decent connections and relations. 

She has a lot of respect for Kandros. She could see herself really going to him if she really needed anything. But he reminded me way to much Garrus so I got a soft spot for the guy. 

Kesh is Kesh, of course. Probably the best of them all. She knows how to take care of any situation, even with a disadvantage. She’s honest and she’s tough.

Addison... can suck on a dead fish. No one likes her, so I’m pretty much rolling with that crew. She is unperson-able. Which is ironic. And Fiona can’t stand her power complex.

3. Who are they closest to on the Tempest?

Fiona get’s along with everyone on the tempest. She has a really laid back attitude and is known to slack off as much as everyone else. Most of her time is probably spent with Drack, though. She likes messing with him. But other than that, Vetra and Gil are a close second. Vetra is an older sister figure and Gil just get’s her personality.

4. How did they react to becoming Pathfinder?

Complete confusion. She is convinced that in reality, Scott would have been the next Pathfinder. But since he was unable to take the role, it somehow got passed to her. She found is feasible but not really practical. She would never admit it, though. She loved and respected her father. And never liked disappointing him. He was the biggest reason she wanted to be a part of the Alliance. Him and Scott. Fiona knew she had to live up to his name. And find a way to make him proud.

5. How is their relationship with their family? Did they get along with them, or were they more of a lone wolf?

Fiona has a rebellious personality. She does what she wants when she wants. And doesn’t really think things all the way through. She tends to lean more towards how it is going to affect her now rather than the consequences in her future. Therefore, her family relationships are a bit complicated. 

I’d say she get’s most of her brashness from her father. She wasn’t close to him. But they had an understanding about each other. She respected him. And wanted to do right by him. And she was his daughter who had inherited a little too much of his wild side. So he very rarely disciplined her.

Her mother, on the other hand, had a stricter hand. She expected more from Fiona and sometimes her daughter’s poor decisions caused their relationship to falter. But they were always very loving and honest with one another. And no matter how much trouble Fiona got into, she was always forgiven.

Now, Scott, or Slim, is the older of the two. He envies how Fiona can get by with just about anything. But because he is the more responsible one, life is a lot easier and he would never change that. He is entertained by Fiona’s decisions and likes to live vicariously through her. At times, he is often the one going into the middle of the night to rescue her. They are very close. And protective of each other.

6. Did they have any other personal reason for coming to Andromeda?

Family and adventure. She had a lot of friends in the Milky Way and a future. But she wouldn’t be happy without Scott. And even her father. Her family was invested into the Initiative and she wanted to be a part of that. Plus, there was no way she was turning down a pass at new worlds, new life, and new technology.

7. Do they have any scars? What’s the story of how they got them?

Oh, Fiona has many scars. Her legs are mostly scars from sports or vehicle accidents. And yes, there was definitely more than one accident. There is a nice curved one on her forearm from being attacked and bitten by a beast while on a mission.There’s a scar on her left shoulder blade where she was stabbed in a bar fight. She has one slight nick on her forehead from when Scott accidentally hit in with a pipe when they were kids. So, yeah... she’s littered.

8. What do they usually do to relax?

Eat, drink, and be merry. She likes to dance and listen to music. She’s a decent card player. She considers herself a movie buff. Not a big reader, though. She loves kick boxing. But doesn’t like to fight.

9. Do they have a favorite planet?

Voeld. Even though it’s cold, she thinks it’s beautiful. The mountains are amazing. The yevara sound beautiful. And whenever the sky was cleared, the colors took her breath away.

10. Do they have an LI? What is their ideal date with them?

Fiona has always liked the difficult ones. She sort of has a pattern and as much as she tried to resist, Reyes had managed to reel her in. Fiona’s ideal date would be to go on an actual date. Because their lives are so complicated, she wants one moment of normality between them. She wants to dress fancy, get picked up, and go out to have a nice dinner. Because she’s never actually been on a real date.

11. What is their preferred fighting style?

Sentinel. Judging from what you’ve read, it’s probably hard to tell that Fiona is incredibly intelligent. What you can tell is where most of her focus went with all her education. Other than your basic vandalism, Fiona was quite the hacker. She became a biotic, however, because she needed a way into the Alliance after her grades failed. And getting an implant was a good way to up her chances. So now, she is a tactics kind of girl. Surprise, surprise.

(I was a Vanguard but I wanted to change the way I was playing. Besides, the Sentinel fit her better. I started to use less and less of my shotgun.)

12. Finally, did they bring anything important with them from the Milky Way?

Her fishnets, her favorite beanie with a hole in the side, and black fingernail polish.

[inquisitorhierarch]

Read me Waffle About Andy!

I know this is supposed to be an ask meme for Ryders but @pathfindersemail must have known I’d answer about Andy, probably XD There’s a lot of questions in this so you can read the answers under the cut:

1. So, the basics! Name? Preferred nickname, if any?

Her full name is Alessandra Beneventi. Growing up and all throughout her Alliance career, she was mostly known as “Al” if she was called anything other than her last name (or rank). After she left the Alliance due to stress and trauma she needed a way to put her military career behind her, so she switched to using Andy, which was similarly simple, but different enough.

2. What was their first impression of Nexus leadership?

This is a tough one to give a good answer to. Andy was unfrozen post-first contact with the angara, and almost immediately was sent to Aya with Ambassador Rialla. Aside from Tann, who acts as kind of a “manager” for her, she hasn’t had much interaction with the other leaders aside from brief conversations with Kandros. She doesn’t like Tann much at all, and her first impression of him wasn’t really much better. Being unfrozen and tossed at a race of aliens as an intelligence asset doesn’t really endear one to one’s employers a great deal. On the other hand, she still prefers the... personal? Unpleasantness of Tann to the hungry, faceless machine of the government she used to work for.

3. Who are they closest to on the Tempest?

Lexi, no question. She sees the Pathfinder Team around often enough, and V (Valentina Ryder, who belongs to @biotic-commando) and Jaal love to hang around Andy and Evfra and force them to have fun, but Lexi and Andy connect in a way that the younger Tempest crew kind of don’t with either of them. A combination of the right amount of “those darn kids won’t get off my lawn with their happiness and such” and the loneliness that comes from being a woman in a demanding job (and also the shared understanding of how they’re both just expected to fucking shoulder that shit) really makes Lexi and Andy click. Their therapy sessions quickly turned into about half actual therapy and half venting about their jobs.

4. How did they react to (V) becoming Pathfinder?

Again, gotta modify this slightly, because Andy was unfrozen a while after V was already common knowledge as the Pathfinder. Basically, she wasn’t shocked. She knew Alec was an N7, and her time with the Alliance taught her that you basically serve long enough to see yourself go down in flames. She actually hoped that the relatively non-military V would do better than an old soldier; even if every other human in Andromeda died, she would never recommend herself for the job of Pathfinder.

5. How is their relationship with their family? Did they get along with them, or were they more of a lone-wolf?

Andy was recruited by the Alliance at the age of seventeen and barely spoke to her parents after that, though not because she didn’t like them particularly. Her father was a conductor for one of Earth’s most prestigious concert orchestras, and her mother the principal flautist; they were always on tour somewhere. If Andy wasn’t deployed, they weren’t home. Her father died while she was on a deep-cover operation in batarian space, and she managed to see her mum once between then and her mother’s funeral.

6. Did they have any other personal reason for coming to Andromeda?

Mostly looking for a new start. After retiring from the military Andy drove cargo ships between Eden Prime and other colony worlds, but only because she needed something to do. One day she encountered Legion on Eden Prime while he was looking for Shepard’s body, and helped smuggle him off-planet to Noveria. There she ran into Reyes, who she had a history with from her time in batarian space, and heard about the Andromeda Initiative - and at that point in her life, just about anything was looking better than where she was.

7. Do they have any scars? What’s the story of how they got them?

Andy would have way too many scars to name if her skin wasn’t enhanced with carbon polymer implants. In a more metaphysical sense, she has extreme PTSD from her time behind enemy lines in the Attican Traverse fighting batarian slavers, and a number of triggers, including nearby flames, being shot at while unprepared, and young girls screaming. All three come from one particularly disastrous spur-of-the-moment raid she had to undertake with no weapons against a vicious slaver with a flamethrower.

8. What do they usually do to relax?

Hahaha... relax... well, okay, working out or eating mostly. Andy’s metabolism is through the roof thanks to her extensive physical implants, and she can do chin-ups for just... like... days. It doesn’t so much relax her as bring her back to a consistently-sane level of neuroses. She also reads books, although slowly.

9. Do they have a favourite planet?

Being employed on Aya, Andy doesn’t really get to travel much, except when Evfra does (which is also relatively rare). She thinks Aya is gorgeous though - she grew up on spaceships and orbiting stations, and Eden Prime always felt super-fake to her.

10. Do they have an LI? What is their ideal date with them?

*cough* Evfra *cough* I know, I know, not canon, but neither is my OC XD As for ideal date, she’s pretty easy to please in that department. Maybe a trip to some waterfall or glade on Aya if it’s really fancy, otherwise she’d rather just stay home and be together.

11. What is their preferred fighting style?

Depends on the fight. Andy’s a trained assassin - sometimes that means tactical cloak and slitting fool’s throats, sometimes that means a geth “Javelin” plasma sniper rifle through the steel wall of a bunker. Her two main guns of choice are said plasma sniper rifle and a Carnifex pistol, though she has a collection of knives as well as the omnitool stabby-extendo-blade. She can also stove a kett’s head in with a couple of punches in a pinch and is skilled in hand-to-hand combat, specifically where biotics are concerned and a good blow to the ears will serve better than bullets against a barrier.

12. Finally, did they bring anything important with them from the Milky Way?

Her sniper rifle. She traded the injured Legion for her lighter shittier civilian Viper model that he shows up in ME2 holding, and as far as she knew at the time of leaving the Milky Way, the plasma rifle was one of a kind. There's certainly no others in Andromeda, and she made sure she got to bring it.

This was more fun than I thought it would be XD I hope it’s not too long or boring

[esperanzamontero-blog]

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[theherocomplex]

8, 11, 25!

I already answered 11 here. :D 

8. It’s all in the family. Explain their relationship with Alec, Ellen, and their sibling. If you changed anyone’s names or added a different sibling in your canon, explain why.

Alec: Her relationship with her dad isn’t the warmest; he’s not good at showing affection through words or gestures, and Gemma is very open and emotive. They don’t fight, but there’s a certain distance between them that they eventually learn to bridge with humor. The biggest issue between them is Gemma’s refusal to join the Alliance, even after her biotics start to manifest; Alec thinks she’s wasting her time on psychology and archaeology when she could be advancing scientific understanding of her abilities, and Gemma doesn’t want to get locked into a military dynasty. 

In time, it’s that ability to weather his disappointment and stick to her passions that helps Alec realize that Gemma would be an ideal candidate as a Pathfinder; it’s his own laser-focus on goals, just refracted and reshaped to fit a different personality. 

Working on the Initiative brought them closer, and Alec’s plan was to start training her as Pathfinder when they arrived (not as a replacement for Cora, but as a complement), but before they could really bond, Habitat 7 ensued. 

Ellen: Gemma kind of...hero-worshipped her mother, as a combined result of Ellen being so brilliant, and because they had such a warm, close relationship. Ellen encouraged the aspirational, romantic streaks in Gemma’s nature, and made sure to balance that by emphasizing working hard and being compassionate in all things. She got easily exasperated with teenage-Gemma, who had a crashingly predictably distraught relationship with a high school boyfriend, and finally say her down and said “Is this what you want to look back and know you’ve spent all your time on? This dude? You have talent and energy and you’re wasting it. That’s on you.” 

Gemma took that seriously to heart, after getting over the sting of the tough love, and while it took her a bit longer to dump the loser, she poured her energies into her athletics and her studies (in that order). Ellen breathed a sigh of relief, and was overjoyed when Gemma set a bunch of pole-vaulting and volleyball records at her high school. 

They stayed close, but Ellen also felt a bit of disappointment when Gemma refused to explore her biotics, and insisted instead on running off to a dig site for two years. 

Scott: Oh, man. Gemma and Scott are my darlings. They hit some bumps along the way, especially as it becomes clear that Scott is the favorite child (it’s never outwardly said, but it’s obvious that Alec is biased toward Scott, and even Ellen has her moments), but their loyalty to each other is unshakable. It helps that their interests and talents mainly lie in separate areas: Scott is a technical genius, who gets scooped up early by the Alliance -- he works mainly in R&D, creating and honing hardsuit systems, but he sees some combat, and ends up going through some of ICT -- while Gemma is intuitive, warm, and physically exceptional. 

(Fun fact: Scott’s full name is Geoffrey Scott, and Gemma’s is Gemma Sara; Scott starts going by “Scott” when, at ten, Gemma decides calling him “Gee-off” is a great goof, and is instantly dismayed when she switches to “Scoot”. He calls her “Gems”.)

Scott’s work on the Initiative continues in the same vein -- creating armor, hardsuits, and EVA equipment to protect the wearers from anything they may encounter on the other side. Gemma’s assigned to his team as a psychologist (it shocks their parents when she’s referred to as “Miss” at a meeting, and corrects them: no, she’s a full-fledged doctor, because there wasn’t a ton to do at the dig site during the monsoons except study), but as Scott pioneers the jump jet technology, he needs a test subject -- and Gemma volunteers. 

Her biofeedback control is legendary -- at a moment’s notice, she can cut her respiration or heart rate, which is crucial when exploring hostile environments -- and she ends up as the test subject for most of the innovations coming out of Scott’s team. Together, the twins figure out ways to integrate biotics into the jump jet technology, and Scott designs Gemma’s custom amp as a present for their last birthday before they leave. 

He has thirty-four patents by 2185, and Gemma’s name is on all of them. She only learns this much, much later, and it’s a light for her when she’s in a truly dark space. 

25. How do they feel about what they’ve accomplished in Heleus? Are they proud? Worried? Do they feel positive about the chances for a cluster-wide unity? If they could change anything that had happened since everyone arrived in the cluster, what would it be and why?

I think Gemma is proud, but sees what she accomplished as a team effort more than anything she spearheaded. Yeah, she rescued the Moshae, but it was the Moshae’s work before the Initiative showed up that endeared her to the entire angaran race. Yeah, the krogan and the Initiative are working together, but there are so many reasonable, intelligent, dedicated krogan already present that things would have worked out without her help. And all that stuff with the Remnant vaults? Anyone with a SAM implant could have done it. 

Gemma’s used to seeing herself as a second fiddle, so the fact that she’s looked to as a leader is a bit jarring, and she deflects a lot of the praise coming her way because it doesn’t feel quite real. 

Once her immediate relief post-game clears, she’s left wondering what the kett’s next move will be, and what the secrets behind the Remnant are, and just how much of that is about to fall on Heleus when they’re not prepared. She’s at a loss as to how to prepare, but with several outposts, a solid alliance with the angaran, on top of (redacted for spoilers), she’s optimistic about their chances. 

If she could change anything, it would be to have her father still alive, even if it means dying. She never feels like she’s done things quite as well or as effectively as he would have, and it takes her a long time to be convinced that she may have been the right person for the job in the end. 

[adriennefrank]

An Extraordinary Egg

Week 3 homework---The Day That Changed My Life

I made my sister take the picture.  The one of my face next to the children’s book, “An Extraordinary Egg.” It sat on a wooden shelf filled with books that were meant to entertain children while their mothers, and the women desperate to become mothers, waited.  The words stopped me in my tracks.  They were too appropriate: an extraordinary egg.  It was all I was hoping for, to be honest.  One extraordinary egg that might make me a mother one day.

Eighteen months earlier I had suited up for my first battle with oral cancer at age twenty-four.  Most decisions were made for me; I didn’t have the option of where the surgical site would be, the dose of radiation, or even the day that my chemotherapy infusion would take place.  Most of this nightmare felt out of my control.  So when my medical oncologist presented me with a choice, two options, I froze.  Did I even remember how to make decisions anymore?  

There were two chemotherapy drugs I could try.  One was new, with less data behind it. The side effects were manageable, hardly even worth mentioning.  I could deal with the acne and hair thinning.  But would it work?  Would it attack the cancer cells that had were holding my immune system hostage?  The other was industry standard, but the side effects were terrifying. Nerve damage wasn’t ideal, but my heart broke when I heard about the possibility of infertility.  The stakes immediately changed.  

The decision was overwhelming.  I remember pulling my gold Pathfinder into the Walmart parking lot because I could no longer see the road through my tears.  Would I gamble on this new chemotherapy or lose my dream of carrying a child in my womb one day?  Would I ever find a partner that might love a barren woman?  But if the chemotherapy couldn’t keep me alive, I realized there was no point in thinking about feeling tiny flutters in my belly one day.  

As a child, adults would ask me the typical question about what I wanted to do when I grew up.  I always answered with my dream of becoming a mother.  It was all I knew really.  My mother stayed home with her children, just like my grandmother, and great-grandmother.  Mothering was in my blood.  The thought of giving that up devastated me.  I always pictured my future with a husband by my side and children at my feet.  Wasn’t that my purpose as all the women in my line?

So I chose fertility.  And the new, more experimental drug.  I couldn’t bear to give up hope for a new, little life in the future.  I was willing to risk in order to hold onto my dream for as long as possible.

Months of surgeries, chemotherapy, and radiation followed.  Sometime that fall my body was scanned for any sign of the disease.  We found none.  I had battled and won.  I felt relief, exhilaration, and a sense of accomplishment.  Surely this was the end of my cancer experience.  Until the cancer cells began growing and multiplying again the following year.  One doctor told me that it was time to “pull out the big guns.” This time I knew what my future would hold, or rather, what it wouldn’t hold.  Not just fatigue, pain, loss of appetite, and other treatment side effects, but the possibility of infertility.

Before I had a chance to truly grieve this enormous loss, my doctor referred me to the reproductive endocrinologist.  There was hope.  Egg-freezing, she informed me.  The only issue is that my insurance was not willing to help out with any expense.  To them, this was unnecessary medical treatment.  Elective, they said. But how could it be elective when I knew since childhood that I was destined to be a mother?  At the same time, where would I find extra thousands of dollars on top of my mounting medical expenses?

It was the first time I made a decision based on which outcome I would regret more.  I weighed the two options in my head.  Would I regret spending thousands of dollars, hours and hours of time, and enough tears to fill bottle upon bottle only to never need the eggs we had harvested?  Or would I regret never being able to have a child, feel a baby grow in my womb, because my eggs were more or less, “fried?” (pun intended). The answer was obvious.

It was the beginning of November when walked into CVS to pick up my first and only packet of birth control pills.  I needed them to right my cycle prior to beginning the harvesting process.  I had headaches and hot flashes and swore I would never take them again.  My dad told me he felt like a junior chemist as he gave me my hormone shots each day.  I couldn’t bear to stick myself, and I couldn’t convince anyone else to do it.  My dad, who passes out while getting blood drawn, stepped up to the plate to help.  Thanksgiving dinner ended with a grand finale when family surrounded me to watch the needle dive into my belly.  I became a side show act.

And the added hormones flowing through my body made me really feel like I was part of the circus.  When the pharmacy gave me incorrect information about a prescription, I went home and sobbed into my pillow for an hour.  I wasn’t sure how to handle these new emotions that threatened to drown me.  I didn’t recognize this new person that had grown from the desire of my heart.  

Blood tests and ultrasounds monitored my progress every few days.  My body was responding.  I wanted my sister to see the process, but her weak stomach had her calling out, “where’s the bathroom?” while running out of the room.  The doctors told me they hadn’t seen anyone respond that way in all their appointments.  I just laughed.  It was all I could do.  Especially when the awkward young medical student had his head between my legs.

It didn’t take long before I got the call: we should be able to harvest your eggs on Wednesday.  December 3rd, 2008.  They were estimating I had about fifteen that could be extracted.  I was thrilled.  Thrilled at my body’s response.  Thrilled that I had made it through these tough weeks.  Thrilled that although some cells in my body wanted to kill me, still others were hell bent on creating new life.  Thrilled that I had hope in the midst of this dark time.

My mother brought me to the hospital that morning.  We walked up to that sterile, concrete building, accented in Carolina blue, and rode the escalator up to the second floor.  I pointed out the children’s book as we passed, and my mother laughed at the title.  

Facebook recorded my announcement that I was partaking in an “egg-citing adventure” and “putting all my eggs in one basket.” Only a select few understood my cryptic messages.  I’m certain the rest probably thought I had lost my marbles…or was adopting some chickens. The importance of modesty had been instilled in me at an early age, and I couldn’t imagine announcing via Facebook that I was going to be freezing my eggs.

The nurse wheeled me into the dimly-lit procedure room where the doctor waited.   The anesthesiologist couldn’t drip the Versed into my anxious body fast enough; I couldn’t wait to fall into that lovely, relaxing haze of amnesia.  Even though I was awake during the whole procedure, the medication allowed me to only remember setting my legs into the stirrups and then pulling them down when it was over.  After asking if I was okay the nurse wheeled me out into the recovery room where my mom was waiting.

I had been previously warned not to make any important decisions or “sign anything” that day, but I felt completely normal and alert.  Excited even.  I anxiously flagged down one of the doctors and asked how many eggs they had retrieved.

“Nineteen,” she said.  "But twelve are viable.“

Twelve eggs.  A perfect dozen.  Of course this is how many my orderly, efficient body would produce.  I shouldn’t have expected anything less than filling each space in an egg carton.  

"Are there any pictures?” I asked elatedly.

“Let me see what I can find,” she responded kindly.  I’m not positive, but I’m guessing I may have been the first person to ask for a picture of my little oocytes.  Do most people care what those tiny, microscopic cells look like?  I would guess not.  But, my sentimental ways won out.

Moments later, she returned with several pictures.  They looked like ultrasound pictures, dark and splotchy, and printed on that flimsy, thin, slippery paper.  I could make out round white shapes in the darkness.  These were my babies.  And this was their first picture.

No matter what the cancer and chemotherapy would take from me, I still had these eggs, frozen in a lab in North Carolina, waiting for me.  I still had the potential to one day become a mother.  To pass on my brown eyes, my skin that tans easily, and my love for words.  To fulfill the dream I had since I was a little girl.  December 3rd changed my life.  I had hope in the midst of those horrific days.  Something I hadn’t felt for a long time.

It was a cold March day, just over a year later, when I found out that those twelve eggs weren’t necessary.  A missed period and a positive pregnancy test and what the hell is happening???  But underneath all the fear and hard decisions, I knew this is what I was made for.  Cancer and chemo and crazy relationships couldn’t affect my calling to become a mother.

I smiled as I checked the book out from the library several years ago.  I think Cedar must have been four.  I explained this this book was very special, that, in a way, it was about him before he was even born.  We climbed into bed and I read the title to the small, sleepy boy, tucked under my arm: “An Extraordinary Egg…”

[inevitablyuncertain]

what's the premise of thrilling intent and what shows would you compare it to in terms of atmosphere/genre?

ok so thrilling intent is a youtube series of a pathfinder/D&D quest, so definitely fantasy genre. i don’t really follow any d&d podcasts/series besides the adventure zone, so i can’t really give any comparisons like that, but if you’re familiar with taz, i’d describe that as really plot-focused and thrilling intent as more interactions and character focused? the story doesn’t have as much of an end-goal as taz (finding the relics), it unfolds as they continues. (it also stays in the fantasy genre much better than the adventure zone). in terms of atmosphere it’s pretty lighthearted, the plot get more serious as it goes on, but it’s not a really serious series overall

the dynamics between the characters are actually really important with how the story progresses. the series follows the 3 main characters (+ a couple NPCs) on their adventures over the Free Isles. they initially start, just hired to take care of a problem in Meadshire (a fantasy adventureing facility? basically shitty fantasy LARPing), but end up becoming friends rather quickly and continue on together

the main characters are the tiefling sorcelock Markus Velafi (chaotic good), human fighter Gregor Hartway (lawful good) , and Aesling *Ashe (lawful neutral). -Markus, for all his pretty transparent tbh theatrics is just a really warm and caring person; he wants to help people. Dad Friend of the group, he’s the only one of the three with any emotional/interpersonal intelligence. -Gregor is the youngest (late teens) but he is very strong. his childhood (just his whole life then? he’s still a kid wtf) was kind of Fucked but it instilled in him a desire to protect people. he has very strong ideals that occasionally butt heads with the last member of the trio. -Ashe is the most closed off with her past and her emotions. she’s the angry mother hen of the group, which can quickly shift into just angry. her alignment is ‘neutral’ rather than ‘good’ like the other two and it becomes more apparent as the series progresses. in her words, she doesn’t care as much about the ambiguous ‘good of the people’, she cares about her friends, and in that regard she can get ruthless. more characters are added as the series goes on as well

the first couple of arcs are shorter and are more for setting up the characters. definitely watch them, they add a couple characters in that time, and it generally sets up how they get together into adventuring. you start on the meatier, continuous plots once you get to the Romance of the Four Clans. i will warn you, it’s pretty lengthy. 150-something episodes each like 20-30(?) minutes long but it’s really funny and the characters are really strongly defined. i myself am not quite caught up yet (almost) but i’m continually in love with how they love the plot forward

so those are kind of the basics. i hope it gives you an idea of series, but i’m only a few weeks into it. absolutely feel free to message me anything about the series, this is basically my favorite thing to talk about lately