What Foolish Desire Drives Me (GLOG Class: Paladin)

Roger délivrant Angélique by Louis-Édouard Rioult, via Wikipedia

Time to hop on the paladin bandwagon! The following folks have already joined the lemming train: Vayra, deus ex parabola, Loch, semiurge, Vulnavia, primeumaton, Louis, and Gokun. They've all made excellent posts; be sure to check them out.

 

It has been a long time since the Empire of Kashkhorshid was great. Her cities, tall and proud and ancient, are rubble, strangled by the Serpent. Her horsemen, their armor glimmering in the sunlight, are vanished, decimated by beasts. Her markets, filled with the din of a thousand yelling merchants and a thousand jingling trinkets, are sadly withered and empty. And yet, when you visit the Imperial Court in the city of Daryacheh, it is impossible to not feel that glory in the air like the heaviness of an impending rain. The walls are sheathed in rich tapestries depicting days long gone, the Empress still glitters and chimes with the golden finery of her foremothers—and the paladins still make their merry feasts at her laden table, with axes hung on the wall awaiting the call of adventure. Aye, the paladins, those mighty warriors, who serve the people of the Empire with loyalty and grace. Once they were myriad, and only the finest received the incomparable honor of riding a hippogriff. In these fallen days they are few, and horses are even rarer than alchemical beasts, but still those that remain ride out a-questing on their steeds.

Class: Paladin 

 

Only a Kashkhorshidi woman (or someone who passes as such) may become a Paladin.

Skills (1d3): 1. Courtly Manners, 2. Songs of Yore, 3. Ballgame

 

Starting Equipment: A copper greataxe (heavy, fragile), an ancient steel shortsword (light, +1), copper panoply (heavy, fragile), a tabard emblazoned with your heraldry, a twelve year-old squire (HD ½, noncombatant), and a personal favor from the empress (see the table at the end of the class).

 

A: Questing, Hands, +1 to-hit

B: Mount, +1 to-hit

C: Favor, +1 to-hit

D: Ferocity, +1 to-hit

Questing: What a fine and sunny day it was when Lady Xiana the Sad started on her journey. She would not return for ten long years.

When you accept a noble quest, gain a Questing Die (1d6), which may be rolled and added to damage, attack, and skill rolls, as well as to reduce damage from an incoming attack. When you roll a 6 on the QD, it is depleted and removed permanently. If you conclusively fail to complete a quest, all QD you currently possess are depleted. If you are not proudly displaying your colors, your QD instead deplete on a roll of 5-6.

 

Hands: They say that Lady Maruxa of the River wept as she cradled the corpse of her son, and that he awoke when he felt that bitter salted rain. 

When you touch someone who is injured or ill, you may choose to roll a QD to restore hitpoints equal to the roll or to grant them an additional save against an ongoing illness, injury, poison, or the like.

 

Mount: The name of Asbi the steed is almost more well known than that of his rider, Lady Madina the Savage, After all, it was he who saved her from the marsh.

In recognition of your deeds, the Empress grants you a steed from the labs of the imperial alchemists. Most mounts take the form of a hippogriff, a beast with the front half of an eagle and the rear half of a horse, but other variants are known. By default, your mount has 2 HD, 10 AC, Atk 1d4 (claws), and move 60', and it may glide downward at a rate of 10' vertical per 100' horizontal. It can understand Kashkhorshidi and follow instructions, but cannot talk. It is perfectly loyal but is still an animal with a will of its own, it will permit no one other than you or your squire to ride it, and it can carry you and one other person. You may pick one additional feature for it at each of B, C, and D templates from the list particular to that template. With a month of downtime and access to the imperial labs, you may switch its selected features. If your steed dies, all of your QD immediately deplete. The alchemists will be displeased when you ask for a replacement.

• B: 12 AC, Atk 1d6 (bite), swim 60', healing tears (as Hands, 1/day), blindsight 30'.
• C: +1 HD, 14 AC, Climb 30', flaming breath (2d6, 20' cone, 1/day), detect magic 30'.
• D: +1 HD, 16 AC, +1 attack/round (1d4, claws), speech, fly 60' (1 hr/day), teleport (line of sight, 1/day). 

Favor: Lady Asiri the Green was the first paladin. When she left to kill the Dragon of Sefidab, she went with the shawl of Empress Zarina tied around her arm. 

While openly wearing the favor of your true love, your QD become d8s and deplete only on rolls of 8, or 7-8 while your colors are concealed.

 

Ferocity: It took three hundred men to kill Lady Miske the Perfect. Only one of them walked away. 

When you kill or otherwise defeat a target with an attack, you may immediately make another attack against a different target.

 

Imperial Favors (d8):

1. A silver locket containing a shard of Empress Zarina's left tibia. When the wearer would die, they don't, and the bone fragment burns to ash.
2. A lance with an ancient head of pattern-welded steel (medium, +1) and a much newer shaft of elm. The wielder cannot be unsaddled.
3. A much-nibbled pickled dragon's tongue in a green glass jar. Eating a bite of the tongue grants the power to speak with birds for a day. Five bites remain.
4. A rukh's feather from the highest peaks of the Garnet Mountains. Snapping it grants the power to fly like an eagle for a day.
5. A golden needle, said to have been a gift from the spirit of the Lake to a long-dead Empress. Thread sewn by it is strangely tough, allowing the wielder to repair armor with merely a bit of sinew and a night's labor.
6. A plain sack containing a hundred shells from long-lost seas. Currency is little-used in what remains of the world, but shells are still accepted as a common denomination. A hundred of them is half a fortune. 
7. A velvet cloak edged in vermilion. The wearer does not need to eat or drink.
8. An orichalcum saber (medium) in an archaic style. The sword contains 2 MD, which may only be used to cast murder of crows. The MD refresh when the sword is immersed in snow.

This is, of course, a GLÅUGUST post, for the prompt "class referencing the previous 17 entries in a fictional, didn't-actually-happen class bandwagon." I hope you enjoyed said previous entries as well. (No aspersions were intended by the association of name to song! They're all lovely people and none of them are Nazis or South Africans or Rick Astleys at all!) I promise I will get to your Superman prompt eventually, deus ex parabola. I just haven't been inspired yet.