#paladins :]

[official-dnd-posts]

official dnd post

sitting in the cuck chair in full plate mail long sword resting on my knees one foot propped up on a skull

[camelidae]

The modern dragon “slayer” knows that a little buttering up and a lot of sandwiches is usually all that’s needed to convince the average dragon to leave the village sheep alone.

[illustratus]

Astolfo in his turn is lured to Atlante's Palace of Illusions (Orlando Furioso) by Gustave Doré

[prokopetz]

Can you go over what is going on with Paladins and Clerics in DND, not from a mechanical or in universe perspective, but from what different sources/genres/tropes they are drawing on? They always seemed to have too much overlap in the basic concept to me to make sense as separate things in the dnd classes/stock character line up.

Clerics originated way back in the pre-OD&D days, when the game that would become Dungeons & Dragons was still a fantasy roleplaying add-on intended to be paired with your favourite historical wargame. One of the players in Dave Arneson's original Blackmoor campaign had an army whose commander/player character was a vampire named Sir Fang, who proved to be sufficiently overpowered that a mechanical "hard counter" was desired.

This ended up taking the form of a vampire-hunting priest character heavily inspired by Peter Cushing's turn as Abraham Van Helsing in the 1958 Christopher Lee adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula; that vampire-hunting priest in turn developed into what would become one of original flavour D&D's three core classes (the other two being the fighter and the wizard – the thief/rogue came later).

The paladin, meanwhile, was originally a direct, 1:1 lift of Holger Carlsen, the protagonist of Poul Anderson's 1961 fantasy novel Three Hearts and Three Lions, and was introduced as a subclass of the fighter – rather than a class of its own – in the 1975 Greyhawk supplement. Over the game's editions it's wandered from being a fighter subclass, to being a high-level "advanced class" to which qualifying characters can switch at 10th level, back to being a fighter subclass, and finally to a core class, where it's generally remained.

So, in short, the cleric was originally a purpose-built hard counter to vampire PCs loosely patterned after Peter Cushing's Abraham Van Helsing, while the paladin was originally for people who just really wanted to be one specific Poul Anderson character.

(I'm sorry if that's not a terribly satisfying answer, but you need to understand that practically everything in old-school D&D is a 1960s or 1970s pop culture reference – it just doesn't read that way to modern audiences because nobody gets the memes anymore.)

[lisawn]

handsome stranger

[asimovsideburns]

Thinking about. Paladins. And how I want to play a paladin. but also like there is a specific guy I want to play and he is a paladin but also weird in a way that doesn’t work with dnd and such. And also like requires a bunch of lore. Because of course it does because I’m incapable of not doing lore

[caemidraws]

[Studies 85/--]

[madcat-world]

Book of Blades Interior Illustrations (5 of 8) - Marcel Mercado

[j5daigada]

io

commission for anon

[farsight-the-char]

Nightwing, AZRAEL, and Batgirl, bring their wrath to those that threaten Gotham.

Detective Comics 1087 out next week.

[iron-sparrow]

⸺ raise me up again ♪

redux of this post // feat. @ahollowgrave

[broadsandbroadswords]

Say hi to Fsnowzombie (any pronouns), who loves drawing fantasy armor and weapons and hates drawing backgrounds. Check them out on Twitter and Tumblr as @fsnowzombie and get the zine to see their incredible original art here.

[paladin-tourney]

Round 1, Side A - Cassandra Pentaghast (Dragon Age: Inquisition) vs. Kaladin Stormblessed (The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson)

Propaganda:

Cassandra Pentaghast (Dragon Age: Inquisition)

Cassandra is the Right Hand of the Divine, essentially the sword arm of the fantasy pope. She's also a member of the Seekers of Truth, whose job is to root out corruption within the church... Currently with less than excellent results and methods. When she finds out about the corruption within her own order, she purges the whole thing because she still believes in its ideals of truth, honor, and justice. She also kicks off the events of the game by leading an investigation into the Divine's death and can possibly become the Divine at the end! By and by she's an incredible warrior with a good heart who lives by her creed to the best of her ability, even when (especially when) it hurts to do it. She's not perfect, but she's willing to learn from her mistakes. Also, she's really into trashy romance and is really embarrassed when anyone finds out. I love her so much.

Kaladin Stormblessed (The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson)

No propaganda submitted.

[gobertillu]

2nd PALADIN Oliver/Olivier Was Roland's best friend and confident and also the one to scold him with the most severity when he needs it. He was considered the wisest of the paladins and second in strength only to the likes of roland and renaud. his sword is called Hauteclaire.

[dr-wormman]

Just realized I have never posted the full image of this? Anyways…here she is :3

[allhailthepandicorn]

Okay. Hear me out. Angels in Supernatural are Oath of Devotion Paladins. They're devoted to Heaven yada yada But Cas is at his most powerful when he has Ye Olde Convictions. When he's devoted to something he's much stronger. And when his powers are on the fritz it's because he's either human, or, most importantly, away from Dean.

Therefore, Cas is an Oath of Devotion Paladin who changed his devotion from Heaven to Dean.

In this essay I will-