In my never ending quest to ponder all things Cheliax, I was thinking about the Hellknights.
Uniforms - different badges for different ranks?
Weapons - greensteel blades forged in Baator?
Armor - again, greensteel? maybe different armor styles for different ranks?
I'm also wondering if becoming a hellknight means you get the Evil Brand feat? I'm thinking it might even mean signing an Infernal Pact, at least at higher ranks. Maybe branding and/or infernal pact is just at officer level.
hrm. going back to some of the ideas from my previous Cheliax thread, maybe orphans and street kids get scooped up and inducted into state run training schools. they get an education and a steady diet of propaganda. the rank and file of those graduates end up as law clerks and minor functionaries all across the Empire...but the best and brightest could end up being inducted into the lower ranks of the Hellknights. Just a thought.
comments? suggestions?
There's a lot of "hidden" Hellknight info already on these boards if you do a little digging, the most noteworthy threads being here and here. Beyond that, Pathfinder #27 is going to have a good sized article on the various orders of these intimidating lawbringers.
As for some of your direct questions, as I see it, a hellkinght's armor in part serves as its badge of rank. While the lowest squires don't receive their armor until completing some final trial, the majority of an order's ranking members share similar armor styled after the traditions of their order. Signifers and none combat members have different armor. And leaders too have designations built into their helmets as to be immediately identifiable on the field of battle. All of this is detailed in PF#27.
Greensteel, as far as I know, is not an open concept, and there for we can't use it. It's a fine idea, though, and right up the Hellkights' alley if you want to adopt it into your game.
As for the brand of evil and other more nefarious angles, no. You can check out the other threads I linked for more detailed discussions on the morality of Hellknights. The core of it, though, is that they are not just another cut and dry group of evil knights in scary armor. Their mandate is to enforce law and make the land safe for civilization, even if this means through extreme efforts. The group, as a whole, is LN, likely with members who are both LG and LE, but all are bound by the same ironclad code of conduct. Indoctrination into the Hellknights is by choice, and the various orders probably reject more petitioners who come to their citadels' gates than they accept, making such forced recruitment (at least sponsored by the Hellknights) unhelpful, wasteful, and - most importantly - unlawful. Also to remember, the Hellknights are mandated by Cheliax, but not owned or run by the crown. While they benefit from good relations and share many similar goals when it comes to enforcing law across the empire, the Hellknights obey a code of laws set at and continually developed since the group's founding, and one that does not bow to the whims of the tyrant of the day.
Looks like i'm gonna have to get a copy of Pathfinder #27 then!
As a concept, I like Cheliax quite a bit. I plan on using the border reason between Andoran and CHeliax as a springboard for my next campaign. I didn't realize that the concept of greensteel wasn't open source, which saddens me....not that I can't use it in MY games of course.
I'm also planning on using some aspects of the old Bloodwar as an angle in my campaign. Specifically, one of the patrons of the PCs will be a Lilitu demon disguised as a cleric working for the cause of freedom. They won't (hopefully) figure that part out until later...but one of the things I want them to consider is the conflict of law v chaos as entirely seperate from good v evil and how to balance those issues while trying to survive in a very hostile territory.
hmm...having now read those follow up links, I had not considered the possiblity of various hellknight orders. That said, the more I read the more I like.
So an order of mostly LN and a few LG hellknights working border control/interdiction opposed by a CE Lillitu demon freedom fighter (who's got a serious opera fetish) and a bunch of player characters caught in the middle.
I think I've got the core of my first story arc.
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I didn't realize that the concept of greensteel wasn't open source, which saddens me....not that I can't use it in MY games of course.
I'm pretty fond of the stuff, but it's just as easily replaced with Infernal Bloodsteel (or Bloodiron), or Abyssal Spitestone, or Soulsteel, or Hellsteel or whatever other substance you'd like to whip up, crafted from iron tainted by the blood of a fallen archdevil (perhaps one that still lives, in eternal anguish, as his wounds must contantly be torn open, so that his blood flows upon the mountainside, to 'grow' more bloodiron ore, to equip the smithies of hell), or crystals that grew up jagged and dripping from the ground below which an imprisoned diety lies forgotten, the stone itself tainted by his dark dreams of hatred and frustrated vengeance seeping up from the Dreamer in Darkness.
Back in the days of watching Buffy, I had the notion that the stones worn by vengeance demons were mined from hell, crystalized like amber from the spite that has poured forth from ten thousand tortured souls over millenia of stewing over the petty evils that led to their damnation (and, as is the nature of these souls, blaming anything and anyone but themselves for their situation!). The vengeance demons don't have 'the power of the wish,' they are tapping into the hateful rage and frustration of every soul in hell, wishing spite and misfortune upon those who do not share their fate, and using these gemstones, mined from misery, to do channel that limitless power.
To steal an idea from Wraith: the Oblivion, perhaps the preferred crafting material of hell is composed of souls, beaten until they are hard like steel, and crafted into terrible weapons.
Or, to steal instead from Monte Cook, perhaps the torments of the damned serve a very real purpose, as Liquid Pain is distilled and rarified until it becomes a solid substance, an oily dark metal made from misery and suffering itself. Alternately, perhaps the Liquid Pain is simply used to 'quench' the steel that comes from the Bloodiron forges, hardening and honing it to a cruel, bloodthirsty edge.
Arcana: Societies of Magic (Green Ronin) introduced the concept that the devils forge *demons* into their weapons, using their essence to empower items. This group of devil-worshipping smiths was, perhaps coincidentally, called the Green Steel Monastary, although the idea predates the notion of Baatorian green steel, IIRC. In this sort of situation, a 'Blood War' of sorts may exist solely because the devils need to use the essence of fallen demons to empower their best weapons, encouraging them to constantly make war on their abyssal kin.
Lots of room for introducing a suitably thematic replacement for Baatorian green steel, I would wager. :)
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I'm also planning on using some aspects of the old Bloodwar as an angle in my campaign. Specifically, one of the patrons of the PCs will be a Lilitu demon disguised as a cleric working for the cause of freedom. They won't (hopefully) figure that part out until later...but one of the things I want them to consider is the conflict of law v chaos as entirely seperate from good v evil and how to balance those issues while trying to survive in a very hostile territory.
If you're planning to have bloodwarish elements in your campaign, check Todd Stewart's post in the Great Beyond thread (brought to you here for your convenience).
Cheers!With /The Great Beyond/ it seems we've got huge, but finite, planes that have every incentive in the mulitiverse to harvest souls and grow. If you couple author's concept of ballooning out into the malestrom with the idea of actively ripping off bits of other planes, you've got the fixin's for a really dynamic planar set. This might already be mentioned in the book, which I don't have - /yet/.That was the intention. There isn't anything quite so monolithic as the Great Wheel's Blood War between the fiends, but in the Great Beyond, the conflicts are much more spread out and frequent, with enemies sometimes sharing goals in other areas (see demons and archons potentially helping each other fight astradaemons in the Astral to protect their rightful share of souls).
Hell, Axis, and Heaven war against the Maelstrom. The Abyss rages against pretty much everything. The Maelstrom rages against the lawful planes, but tends to leave Elysium alone as far as violence goes, but it goes after the Abyss with perhaps even more fury than it pushes towards Axis.
There's a lot more actively going on with the Chaos/Law axis in Golarion's cosmology as well as the Good/Evil axis versus the Great Wheel that was mostly Evil eating itself over Law/Chaos, and a polite, cold war among the celestials at times.