I'm starting off a new campaign playing a Hellknight Armiger. The character is fairly ambitious if loyal and long term objectives include gaining influence in a major Order or founding their own minor one.
With this in mind I have a few questions about the size and composition of Hellknight Orders. How big is a major Order on average? What kind of magnitude, dozens or hundreds say? How many of those are Armigers? The majority or a small number at a time? Outside of the Order of the Gate how common are Signifers?
The only real context I've found has been the Order of the Torrent which is unusually small. I imagine there is vast differences between the Orders though.
I don't know about an average Hellknight Order, but Castles of Inner Sea gives a detailed description of Citadel Vraid, the main base of Order of the Nail, up to telling the number of its inhabitants:
Citadel Vraid houses nearly 400 occupants. Approximately 300 armigers and common Hellknights live in its barracks. These individuals serve under the command of some 40 veteran Hellknights, signifers, and other Hellknight officers who in turn answer to high-ranking Hellknight paralictors and paravicars, the Mistress of Blades, Paravicar Acillmar, and Lictor DiViri. The remaining population consists of slaves, prisoners, and indentured servants who live in the gulags and slave-trenches around and beneath the citadel.
There are also small detachments of Hellknights in Korvosa nad Magnimar, but I'd think these number in single digits. Unfortunately the division between armigers and novice Hellknights is not given, but I suppose that the number of common Hellkinghts should be significantly bigger than the number of officers, while significanly smaller than then number of armigers.
Altogether, I'd say that the total number of members of the Order of the Nail is around 200 armigers, 100 common Hellknights, 40 officers (Signifiers and Maralictors) and no more than 10 leaders (in rank of Paralictor or higher).
I would agree with Adjoint's assessment. I can't imagine any of the orders being over just a few hundred members.
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I own the Path of the Hellknight campaign setting book and the smallest of the major Orders - the Hellknights of the Gate - number in the few hundreds . If that is the case, the more popular orders - the Scourge and the Rack - must be in the several hundreds. I doubt members ever get too close to the thousands, so consider that, I guess.
The Order of the Torrent is noted as one of the smallest of the minor orders if not the smallest, and numbers two dozen full-fledged Hellknights. So that would be the minimum. Meanwhile, the largest of the major orders will easily number into the hundreds and perhaps even the low thousands.