Knight

Character Type Description

A knight is the archetypal figure of errantry, a highly trained warrior of the “heavy cavalry” type. Typically, he or she is found riding a horse, wearing armour and bearing a shield, a lance (often with a banner), and a sword, mace or battleaxe.

The knight is bound by the Knightly Code to protect the weak, defend the right, honour the church and be always courteous. However, some renegade Knights set up as “robber barons” in remote regions, and misapply their training and weapons to the purpose of gaining wealth and power.

Subtypes and Crosstypes

The subtypes of the Knight are as follows:

Any Knight other than a Black Knight (with exceptions as noted shortly) gets 1 penalty die to physical attacks when fighting a woman or an Ecclesiastic, regardless of their past or present actions towards him. This represents the inhibition of the knightly code.

Lady Knights do not suffer from this inhibition when fighting women, and Church Knights do not suffer from it when fighting Church Knights of rival Orders.

The crosstypes of the Knight are as follows:

Names

Refer to the List of Names. When initially encountered, the knight will be described by the device on his or her shield, banner and surcoat (the sleeveless cloth garment he wears over his armour), for example “the Knight of the Sun”, “the Black Knight”, “the Knight of the Green Tree”.

The colours of heraldry are black (sable), red (gules), green (vert), blue (azure) and purple (purpure). There are also two metals: silver (argent) and gold (or). It is a principle of heraldry that a metal should not be placed on a metal or a colour on a colour, for the sake of contrast (exceptions did exist).

The two main colours of the shield (or escutcheon) are the ‘field and the charge or device. The field is the main colour, the charge is the image on it. Both field and charge can be of several colours, you can have charges on charges, etc. For simplicity, you may want to stick to a field of a single colour or metal, with a simple, representational charge in another metal or colour. (Many charges are geometric and have their own complex language; see the Wikipedia article on “Charge (heraldry)”.)

Abilities and Secrets

Closed Abilities

These abilities are restricted to the Knight character type. Nobody who is not a Knight can take these abilities.

Jousting (Valour) Jousting is used to hit a stationary or moving target, such as another knight’s shield, with your lance while riding.

Closed Secrets

These secrets are restricted to the Knight character type. Nobody who is not a Knight can take these secrets.

Secret of Knightly Discipline Because of the rigourous training given to a knight, in any given encounter you can choose any one of the abilities given in the Abilities Chart which you have not taken as a specific ability, and add a free bonus die to it. You can choose a different ability in each encounter, but only one per encounter.

All Knights, both quest characters and encounter characters, automatically possess the Secret of Knightly Discipline.

Filling Out the Character Sheet: Encounter Characters

The following instructions apply only to Knights who are encounter characters (those which are encountered by the main quest characters during their quest). To create a Knight who is a quest character, see the instructions under Creating a Character.

If the character becomes significant enough that he or she effectively becomes a quest character, use the main character creation rules to fill in any missing detail such as the maximum size of their pools. Obviously, take into account the randomly generated information.

Pools

The number of points in a knight’s pool are determined by the suit of the three cards drawn (Encounter card, Tens card and Ones card). The Encounter card determines the Valour pool, the Tens card the Courtesie pool, and the Ones card the Artes pool.

Spades give zero points, Clubs 1 point, Diamonds 2 points and Hearts 3 points. Tick the boxes up to, and including, the column marked with the relevant suit.

Add one extra (bonus) point to the Valour pool, as this is the Knight’s characteristic pool.

Abilities

The Abilities of an encounter character are determined, again, based on the suits of the three cards drawn, in all possible combinations. The possible combinations, with the numbers of boxes to tick next to the ability, are:

• Encounter card and Tens card (4)
• Tens card and Ones card (3)
• Encounter card and Ones card (3)
• Tens card and Encounter card (2)
• Ones card and Tens card (2)
• Ones card and Encounter card (2)

Ticking the boxes indicates the character’s rank in the ability, from one tick (Novice) to five ticks (Grand Master).

If your suits are such that the same ability comes up twice or three times, add one tick (only) for each time after the first. If this boosts the character’s ability beyond Grand Master, select another ability freely and set it to Journeyman.

Possible rule to increase number of ticks to match quest characters better goes here.

All characters also have three innate abilities: Endure, React and Resist. Give each of these as many ticks as the points in the corresponding pool, including the bonus point in Valour.

If your character is a crosstype (Lady Knight, Enchanter Knight, Church Knight etc.), this may entitle him or her to additional abilities. Start these at Journeyman level (level 2).

Secrets

The Secrets of an encounter character are also determined based on the suits of the three cards drawn, but this time it is all three suits at once, in any order, which determine the Secret. Some combinations do not yield a Secret.

Circle the Secrets possessed by this encounter character.

All Knights automatically possess the Secret of Knightly Discipline.

If your character is a crosstype this may entitle him or her to between one and three additional Secrets. Circle those Secrets for the crosstype that correspond to the suits of the three cards.

Keys

The Key of an encounter character is determined based on the subtype and the denomination of the Encounter card. Circle the Key which applies.

Weapons and Armour

This section of the encounter character chart should be left blank unless the encounter character becomes a fully-fledged quest character. At that time you may choose to spend some of the character’s advances on weapons.

Initial Attitude

An encountered knight will usually be initially friendly and well-disposed to you, though this “friendliness” may consist in challenging you to fight, if you are also a knight.

A Black Knight, however, will always be hostile to you and will remain so, unless won over to a reform of his life.

A Robber Knight will always attempt to rob you, but may do so in a friendly manner; use the Initial Attitude Determination Method in the Character Type Charts introduction to determine the intial attitude of a Robber Knight.

Retainers and Companions

A knight may, at the Tenens’ option, have the following types of retainers/companions, who may or may not be with them when they first appear:

Squires, pages, men-at-arms and captains are not designed to be fully realized characters, and have no pools. If a Squire or a Captain needs to become significant to the story, he should be made up as a Knight with lower abilities.

Complete Worked Examples

Example 1: Black Knight (JH, 5S, 2C)

Choose a name for your Black Knight from the Noble Names Table if you like. We will refer to him simply as the Black Knight for this example.

The Black Knight’s pools are:

• Valour: Encounter card (Hearts) = 4 points (with Knight’s Valour bonus).
• Courtesie: Tens card (Spades) = 0 points.
• Artes: Ones card (Clubs) = 1 point.

His abilities are:

• Hearts and Spades, Jousting (Master).
• Spades and Clubs, Sword (Journeyman).
• Hearts and Clubs, Battle (Journeyman).
• Spades and Hearts, Sense Danger (Apprentice).
• Clubs and Spades, Aim (Apprentice).
• Clubs and Hearts, Sway (Apprentice).

He has the Secret of Knightly Discipline and no other Secrets.

His encounter card is a Jack, so his Key is the Key of Bloodlust.

He is hostile to you, because he is a Black Knight.

Example 2: Church Knight (QC, 10C, 5D)

Let’s call our Church Knight Sir Jaufre of the Sorrowful Countenance.

Sir Jaufre’s pools are:

• Valour: Encounter card (Clubs) = 2 points, with the Knight bonus.
• Courtesie: Tens card (Clubs) = 1 point.
• Artes: Ones card (Diamonds) = 2 points.

His abilities are:

• Clubs and Clubs, Battleaxe(Master).
• Clubs and Diamonds, First Aid (Journeyman).
• Clubs and Diamonds, First Aid (boosts ability to Master).
• Clubs and Clubs, Battleaxe (boosts ability to Grand Master).
• Diamonds and Clubs, Mace (Apprentice).
• Diamonds and Clubs, Mace (boosts ability to Journeyman).

His Secrets are:

• Secret of Knightly Discipline.
• Secret of Knockback (club, club, diamond).

His encounter card is a Queen, so his Key is the Key of Charity.

As a (non-evil) Knight he is friendly towards all comers.

Errantry copyright 2006 by Mike Reeves-McMillan. Released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License(approve sites).

These are notes for a work in progress. Don’t expect everything to be consistent or make sense.