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Pretty much the thread title. The Hellknights have been an iconic organization for Pathfinder and Starfinder for years, and we got their latest iteration in the Galaxy Guide, complete with their Archetype to play as. And I have things I like about how they've been fleshed out from the relatively sparse info they had in 1e of how they'd evolved since the Gap...but there's other aspects that make me feel like more than ever now they make better antagonists than protagonists.
The Hellknights of yore straddled an interesting line in terms of their beliefs, regarding Hell as a model of efficiency and order, but that its malice held it back from embodying true order as much as Heaven's softheartedness did. They wanted to learn from Hell but Hell was not their master. This is why the Test that an armiger takes to graduate into full knighthood is fighting and defeating a summoned devil in single combat, to prove themselves above Hell's temptations and capable of improving on and turning their tactics against them.
That being said, their reality rarely lived up to that supposed ideal, with various Hellknight orders subverted by devils into serving Hell's agenda, whether unwittingly or willingly. The Order of the Gate was probably one of the starkest examples, given their Paravicar was a full-on diabolist and the Order trying to figure out ways to divine crimes before they happened a la Minority Report. We can only wonder how much worse the situation will become in the upcoming Inner Sea War when Abrogail Thrune nationalized the orders to fight on Cheliax's behalf.
And it looks like by the time Starfinder occurs, it looks like much, MUCH worse. According to the Galaxy Guide "They don't support any corporation or government directly--they bow only to Hell" implies that the corruption of Orders like the Gate has spread to the entire Hellknight cause. The ideal of taking Hell's order and improving upon it, of learning from it but not taking orders from it, seems to have been discarded, leaving only obedience to Hell's cruel agenda in its place. They've even opened membership to literal devils, with the devil soldier Loomarch rising to become Lictor of the Order of the Pyre.
The other Orders don't seem much better. The Order of the Crucible "tests" alien civilizations, the text noting the arbitrary nature of said tests and calling it "winnowing." The fascist undertones are clear, especially when that's followed by mentioning one of their "success stories" is the Gideron Authority, a civilization that's repeatedly been painted as villainous by the text compared with the Marixah Republic throughout 1e Starfinder.
The Order of the Eclipse produces planet-wide media blackouts in its quest to protect against "dangerous media" and "infohazards," a mandate that will likely chafe with the majority of characters and their players through a shared cultural mistrust of censorship.
The Order of the Chain seems on first glance to be the tamest of the four, indeed improved from their initial Pathfinder days where their bounty-hunting included slave-catching for Chelaxian nobles. But what does an order of bounty hunters tracking criminals and fugitives need with an orbital laser?
This, along with the softening image of the Free Captains by emphasizing the anarchist collective aspects of the organization rather than ruthless piracy (though the capstone ability of their Archetype that lets them force the soul of a slain enemy into eternal service for them at least shows they're not complete Robin Hoods now) gives a strong impression of where our sympathies should lie, in my opinion. I don't think it's necessarily a BAD thing overall, the Hellknights have started many, MANY debates on these forums throughout their existence, and the direction the writing is going in is part of a wider cultural trend towards rejecting hierarchical systems of authority and skepticism towards law enforcement. Hellknights are, at the end of the day, cops. And as the popular anarchist slogan goes "All Cops Are Bastards." (a popular sentiment as well, considering the strong critical response to the Agents of Edgewatch adventure path's writing seeming to encourage and make excuses for PCs behaving in a corrupt and violent manner the way your average police procedural show does). Plus, the Knights of Golarion are RIGHT THERE as unambiguously heroic knightly figures, with an added opposition TO the kinds of tyranny Hellknights get contracted to enforce (emphasized further by an explicit rivalry between the two organizations).
That being said, however, I feel if that's the way they want to take the Hellknights, why even have a player Archetype for them anymore? The text strongly signals to me that the Hellknights have gone full-villain-mode, and bright spots like the Order of the Torrent and the Pike have either disbanded or have discarded the Hellknight "brand" and we wouldn't recognize them as such now. Despite all I've said above, I do still have a soft spot for the "Lawful Good Hellknight" character trope, the dark-armored, brooding hardass who nonetheless maintains their moral compass and is a hero because they hold themselves to the same rigorous standards they hold for the world. Discworld's Sam Vimes would probably be the most easily recognizable character of this kind to the netizens of these forums.
But what do you think? Would it be better if Starfinder just leaned into the Hellknights as villains and stopped trying to accomodate PCs joining the organization? Are there ways to roleplay modern Starfinder Hellknights in more heroic ways that don't just gloss over the now much more overt and concrete service to Hell and all that implies? Or is the only way to be a "good" Hellknight now is to quit? Please, PLEASE be respectful to each other in discussion, I'm well aware that the position Hellknights occupy in the narrative touches on real-world issues people have very strong feelings about all over the political spectrum. Indeed part of my reason for thinking about this in the first place is because my own positions on these issues have evolved and changed over time and I see the Hellknights differently than I did when I first started playing Pathfinder. Thank you.
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I don't have strong opinions about the Hellknights in lore as an organization, but there's plenty of evil PC options out there (Unholy gods, evil champions, undead archetypes, etc.). So even if Hellknights are fully becoming the baddies in lore that doesn't mean they can't still be an archetype.
This post feels like it would make more sense if framed around them being legal in Starfinder Society.
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I just took it to be one of the more villainous player options. The Hellknights can still be expected to fight the Swarm or even the Azlanti Star Empire, so there's plenty of space for them in games. I just think there's less "You can totally be a good person emulating Hell!" to try to soften what the Hellknights actually do. I definitely want evil player options (or the shady side of neutral), even if the Hellknights in particular aren't my cup of tea.
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I dislike the idea that the Hellknights would turn into full on evil Hell serving organization.
They were far more interesting to me as a group who emulated Hell, for the parts of it they thought were efficient and made civilization better as a whole.
And there were certainly orders that were pretty evil. But there were also orders that were good, and many which maintained neutral (but not nice) relations.
It made them a more compelling group to interact with. Making them pretty much outwardly evil makes them much less interesting to me, because you don't need any nuance when dealing with them.
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Isn't the purpose of these factions to give GMs tools to help flesh out their campaigns? I don't think John Paizo will repossess your hardbacks if you decide to cast the Hellknights as a morally gray or even heroic organization. Not to say you can't be disappointed in the writing or anything--I personally much prefer it when authors leave it up for individual tables to make moral judgements themselves--but the only real consequence here is the need to make some extra effort with your players/GM to get the tone you want, right?
That said, the vibes I got from GG were that the Hellknights were a bunch of edgy rent-a-cops, same as always. The writing in GG is a little more conversational and less academic than most 1e material, so it's less interested in staying neutral. As I said before, this isn't quite my style, but I think it works fine so long as you recognize that the lore isn't presented objectively and that you can/should put your own spin on it.
Which is why I will be roasting the hell out of the Free Captains for trying to dress up their criminal organization as a leftist commune, and also maybe do a corruption plot within the Knights of Golarion as a treat. Good guy/bad guy divisions are a little dull; it's much more fun to let the players make friends and enemies themselves.
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Hellknights have always had a fashy edge, even when efforts have been made to try and present them with some degree of nuance, but it's interesting that they seem to be committing harder to outright being evil scumbags in recent PF2 books and SF2 as well.
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Then again, I'm always kind of confused at how evil some of these evil empires are supposed to be. Empires Devoured assumes a shocking amount of getting along with the Azlanti- I thought they were like, ancient time traveling space racists?
Yeah, that's pretty apt.
But also the Veskarium is like lizard Klingons (prior to the Klingons having peaceful relations with Starfleet) with no peace or mercy being options and at constant war (though not all Vesk agree with this behavior). So both are pretty big enemies to the Pact Worlds.
Then again, I'm always kind of confused at how evil some of these evil empires are supposed to be. Empires Devoured assumes a shocking amount of getting along with the Azlanti- I thought they were like, ancient time traveling space racists?Yeah, that's pretty apt.
But also the Veskarium is like lizard Klingons (prior to the Klingons having peaceful relations with Starfleet) with no peace or mercy being options and at constant war (though not all Vesk agree with this behavior). So both are pretty big enemies to the Pact Worlds.
The vest are not so much no mercy but they very much want to win and conquer. Still they respect fighting ability of others look at polonis. They respected that the cat people saw a moment of weakness and threw off the the vesk and allied with the pact worlds. They still intend to try to conquer them again but they acknowledged that victory and are giving them some space to enjoy it as their due.
The vesk are always going to look for an opportunity to conquer another nation/planet/system but if it looks like too even of a match they are okay with trade too with the knowledge if that balance ever changes then their choice can change at a drop of a hat.
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Alright the early Veskarium was very much no mercy or peace, to the point where one of the races sharing their home planet tried to surrender and where killed despite that.
Admittedly, they have probably changed since then.
Alright the early Veskarium was very much no mercy or peace, to the point where one of the races sharing their home planet tried to surrender and where killed despite that.
Admittedly, they have probably changed since then.
I suspect that happened because at the time there only was one world and they didn't yet have the ability to achieve space flight. The other planets in their system they went and conquered but most of them once as long as they acted defeated the vesk did not go in and genocide them. They even incorporated a lot of the various races of their system into their society and military.
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I suspect that happened because at the time there only was one world and they didn't yet have the ability to achieve space flight. The other planets in their system they went and conquered but most of them once as long as they acted defeated the vesk did not go in and genocide them. They even incorporated a lot of the various races of their system into their society and military.Alright the early Veskarium was very much no mercy or peace, to the point where one of the races sharing their home planet tried to surrender and where killed despite that.
Admittedly, they have probably changed since then.
I think of the Vesk being a bit like space Romans.
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There's plenty of room for nuance yet with the Hellknights, but they're clearly starting to falter against the diabolic temptations. This feels *right* given that managing to stay clear of temptation for so many generations makes devils look bad at their jobs. This also opens up room for drama when they discover some pre-Gap information that proves how far they've fallen. Imagine a galaxy-spanning Hellknight civil war! And remember, it's not impossible for fiends to reform...
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The origin story of the Hellknights in Starfinder is in Era of the Eclipse. I'm only on chapter 10, so I'm not sure yet how that lines up with how they are in the Galaxy Guide, but from what little I know from Era of the Eclipse so far, I'm not expecting Hellknights to remain unchanged from the PF2e timeline, Hellknights waking up from the Gap is frightening...
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I'll be honest, I've always considered the Hellknights to be evil with a capital "E". To the point that when I was watching a video about the Hellfire Crisis one of my first reactions was "Wait... there are NON-EVIL Orders within the Hellknights!?"
(And yeah, there are indeed a few Hellknight Orders who responded to Abrigail Thrune with basically, "We don't take orders from you, so stop trying to tell us what to do.")
After thinking on it some more, I realized that the Hellknights are less "pure evil fascist police staters" and more like the Marines from One Piece, just replace "JUSTICE" with "LAW". Some are good, some are bad, some are ruthless, some are murderous zealots.
What I'm saying is: You want some good (or at least, not evil) Hellknights? Make your own Order for them to come from.
You could have an Order dedicated to going through business/governments with a fine-toothed comb to root out any corruption, because "corrupt makes people doubt Law, which invites CHAOS!!!"
...It also just now occurs to me that you could compare the Hellknights to the Inquisitors from Warhammer 40k...
Like HolyFlamingo! said, Paizo won't force you to adhere 120% to just what they've written about a group. Feel free to make your own lore or talk with your DM about it.
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The origin story of the Hellknights in Starfinder is in Era of the Eclipse. I'm only on chapter 10, so I'm not sure yet how that lines up with how they are in the Galaxy Guide, but from what little I know from Era of the Eclipse so far, I'm not expecting Hellknights to remain unchanged from the PF2e timeline, Hellknights waking up from the Gap is frightening...
I gotta get my hands on that book.
I'll be honest, I've always considered the Hellknights to be evil with a capital "E". To the point that when I was watching a video about the Hellfire Crisis one of my first reactions was "Wait... there are NON-EVIL Orders within the Hellknights!?"
(And yeah, there are indeed a few Hellknight Orders who responded to Abrigail Thrune with basically, "We don't take orders from you, so stop trying to tell us what to do.")After thinking on it some more, I realized that the Hellknights are less "pure evil fascist police staters" and more like the Marines from One Piece, just replace "JUSTICE" with "LAW". Some are good, some are bad, some are ruthless, some are murderous zealots.
What I'm saying is: You want some good (or at least, not evil) Hellknights? Make your own Order for them to come from.
You could have an Order dedicated to going through business/governments with a fine-toothed comb to root out any corruption, because "corrupt makes people doubt Law, which invites CHAOS!!!"...It also just now occurs to me that you could compare the Hellknights to the Inquisitors from Warhammer 40k...
Like HolyFlamingo! said, Paizo won't force you to adhere 120% to just what they've written about a group. Feel free to make your own lore or talk with your DM about it.
A good example of a non-evil Hellknight order in PF's time (Outside the obvious Order of the Torrent, given whilst they're *the* "Good guy Hellknights" group they're also a pretty minor order) are the Order of the Scourge. Single oldest & most prestigious order among the Hellknights and exists to root out gov. corruption. Its current leader was a former detective who decided to join after getting told to stop pursuing a case one too many times and is very much in a "I know Abrogail and the house of Thrune in general are committing numerous illegal acts for the sake of power. I just gotta prove it so I can tear them down."
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I only know them from class related game material,but to me , Hellknights are just the Church of Policing.
If you expect a bunch of fanatical cops to not be corrupted by power,run them that way.
To me, the controlling nature of most policing and most religion makes a holy order of knights that emulate the lawfulness of hell becoming outright evil after countless millennia seem surprising only in that it took that long for them to fall only this far.
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The origin story of the Hellknights in Starfinder is in Era of the Eclipse. I'm only on chapter 10, so I'm not sure yet how that lines up with how they are in the Galaxy Guide, but from what little I know from Era of the Eclipse so far, I'm not expecting Hellknights to remain unchanged from the PF2e timeline, Hellknights waking up from the Gap is frightening...I gotta get my hands on that book.It's a good read; I'm basically necro-ing this thread to say that, lol.
Though I wouldn't use it as any sort of accurate depiction of the Hellknights. Characters at multiple levels of the story question the reliability of Tyrcell, the primary source of information in the text; Tyrcell themselves is pretty open about making up dialogue for events they didn't personally witness, for example.
Yup although it is pretty clear he was not totally off base either in what he was saying. Honestly the hellknights reaction to suddenly they no longer remember the laws they are supposed to be enforcing going well if we don't remember the law then the law is what we say it is and enforce it seems to be pretty in keeping with that kind of organization.
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I only know them from class related game material,but to me , Hellknights are just the Church of Policing.
If you expect a bunch of fanatical cops to not be corrupted by power,run them that way.To me, the controlling nature of most policing and most religion makes a holy order of knights that emulate the lawfulness of hell becoming outright evil after countless millennia seem surprising only in that it took that long for them to fall only this far.
Falling to evil, or even most orders being evil, isn't that surprising.
But becoming servitors of Hell is frustrating, because Hellkngihts weren't Hell's lackeys before this new publication. Honestly, to me it makes Hellknights worthless if they're just aligned with Hell and serving those ends as mortals rather than devils.
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I only know them from class related game material,but to me , Hellknights are just the Church of Policing.
If you expect a bunch of fanatical cops to not be corrupted by power,run them that way.To me, the controlling nature of most policing and most religion makes a holy order of knights that emulate the lawfulness of hell becoming outright evil after countless millennia seem surprising only in that it took that long for them to fall only this far.
Falling to evil, or even most orders being evil, isn't that surprising.
But becoming servitors of Hell is frustrating, because Hellkngihts weren't Hell's lackeys before this new publication. Honestly, to me it makes Hellknights worthless if they're just aligned with Hell and serving those ends as mortals rather than devils.
I think the Hellknights staying perpetually independent of Hell just makes the devils look too laughably incompetent. A group models themselves after you, uses your kind to train, bargains for passage with you, worked for a government you influence, and you still can't make them lapdogs after thousands of years? Who could devils corrupt if not the "Hell is making a lot of good points" Hellknights?
Not working for Hell always seemed like a self-deluding fiction to launder their reputation, at least to me, not something that was actually true in a functional "the Hellknights aren't furthering Hell's agendas" way.
Especially in Starfinder, where they have had Helldrives and devil advisors since SF1. That's not new.
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I only know them from class related game material,but to me , Hellknights are just the Church of Policing.
If you expect a bunch of fanatical cops to not be corrupted by power,run them that way.To me, the controlling nature of most policing and most religion makes a holy order of knights that emulate the lawfulness of hell becoming outright evil after countless millennia seem surprising only in that it took that long for them to fall only this far.
Falling to evil, or even most orders being evil, isn't that surprising.
But becoming servitors of Hell is frustrating, because Hellkngihts weren't Hell's lackeys before this new publication. Honestly, to me it makes Hellknights worthless if they're just aligned with Hell and serving those ends as mortals rather than devils.
Exactly, hence my mixed feelings.
Generally not a fan of classes and archetypes where the lore of the game kind of soft-locks you into either being a villain or so self-righteous/deluded you don't realize you are one (a la my recent thread over in the Lost Omens Campaign Setting board about necromancers).
I love me some villain options, personally. Hellknights are just have too much "knight" for me to enjoy, regardless on how much Hell has taken over their management.
But, that could also be why I always saw them as Hell's flunkies- there wasn't any benefit for me to them actually being independent. They're mostly just knights either way.
I only know them from class related game material,but to me , Hellknights are just the Church of Policing.
If you expect a bunch of fanatical cops to not be corrupted by power,run them that way.To me, the controlling nature of most policing and most religion makes a holy order of knights that emulate the lawfulness of hell becoming outright evil after countless millennia seem surprising only in that it took that long for them to fall only this far.
Falling to evil, or even most orders being evil, isn't that surprising.
But becoming servitors of Hell is frustrating, because Hellkngihts weren't Hell's lackeys before this new publication. Honestly, to me it makes Hellknights worthless if they're just aligned with Hell and serving those ends as mortals rather than devils.
Exactly, hence my mixed feelings.
Generally not a fan of classes and archetypes where the lore of the game kind of soft-locks you into either being a villain or so self-righteous/deluded you don't realize you are one (a la my recent thread over in the Lost Omens Campaign Setting board about necromancers).
Hmm,perhaps the explicitness of their fall does take something away from their allure.
Like,it's better if they dress the part, and walk the walk and are still in denial.That leaves them available to fight evil,or be getting evil or both.
Yes, I can see how a morally Schrodinger's Hellknight is more fun than the-openly-loyal-to-Hell-Hellknight.
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Just going to swap a letter here and...
A H A B
This was always going to be the fate of the Hellknights. They willingly associated themselves with entities that specialize in corrupting systems of power and institutions. The thought that they would be the ones to turn Hell's tools to their own ends was simple hubris the entire time. They even tipped their hand by choosing Hell as their model.
Sure they can claim that they wanted to leave aside Hell's evil aspects to pursue a more perfect order and that Heaven's goodness was a similar weakness but... like... there already are outsiders of perfect order that are not aligned to good or evil but no one is going around calling themselves the Axisknights.
What Hell always offered was power and that's at the core of what the Hellknights have always wanted too. Given a galaxy to play with, the mask has simply come off as they grow beyond the previous bounds to become the perfect minions of Hell. They aren't directly controlled by Hell from what I've seen but they don't need to be. They are a perfectly refined machine crafted over centuries by subtle diabolic influence to operate autonomously in the galaxy at large.
Narratively unsatisfying in some aspects? Sure. A well observed truism about what power and authoritarian tendencies do in the long run? Definitely.
(Ironically, this is the first time I've actually been interested in playing a Hellknight. The idea of breaking from the current paradigm and trying to reclaim some of the earlier goals of the orders, even if it is a deeply futile exercise is appealing to me.)
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It seems to me that the Hellknight order that came closest to representing their platonic ideal of LAW was the Order of the Godclaw. They studied all aspects of Law from deific representatives of Heaven, Hell and Axis equally. They were also mostly about self-perfection rather than imposing their beliefs on others and usually only got involved in worldly affairs when another order asked them for backup.
I agree that the other orders studying Hell alone was a recipe to get manipulated.
Interestingly right now during the Hellfire Crisis it's the "Good" Orders like The Scourge and the Pike that are under the most direct threat from Cheliax's Nationalization. It makes you wonder if they'll still be Hellknights when it's all over.
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Whether or not it's 'realistic' (which tbh I'm not sure even means anything) it's a bit boring.
It flattens a mixed narrative coalition of organizations with its own set of motivations and complexity into just generic bad helldudes.
I don't think the argument that it's only natural that they fell or that it's an expected evolution really makes sense either. Most organizations with continuity between systems have largely remained the same in broad tone.
Moreover, the ones that have changed significantly usually have story elements drawing attention to that change. With the Galaxy Guide hellknights this is simply how they're described as being, there's no nod toward a major shift in the organization's core philosophy. It reads more like a writer just took the name at face value and riffed off that.
Ultimately it's not a big deal, but it is kinda lame.
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After using hell drives for 300+ years, why wouldn't Hell Knights have a closer relationship with hell?
Helldrives run on fuel condensed from damned souls, and some planar scientists speculate that the very act of operating a Helldrive is akin to signing an infernal contract, with the user’s soul pledged to become fuel for the next generation of Helldrives.
Era of the Eclipse also shows an early relationship with devils right after the Gap, especially devil lawyers drawing up contracts.
I had no interest in Hell Knights in SF1e, and no idea what they do in PF2e, but they seem much more interesting after reading Era of the Eclipse and the Galaxy Guide.
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I too have mixed feelings about this development for the Hellknights, though for different reasons: it's clear the organization is basically an allegory for fascism, and they're alluring in pretty much the same way people find IRL fascism alluring, whether it's the zero-tolerance approach to rule-breaking or the pageantry of wearing Hellknight armor. Given the developments we're seeing in the real world, it doesn't strike me as a huge leap that the fictional organization that's all about rejecting empathy in the pursuit of order would become openly cruel and malevolent.
The main difference here, however, is that IRL fascists don't openly worship devils. They still think they're the good guys.
And that I think is probably what doesn't do it for me if we're really trying to create real-life parallels: there isn't really an opportunity for any Hellknight to ask themselves "are we the baddies?" when they and their organization openly serve the forces of evil. That kind of setup doesn't really leave room for stories where people join the Hellknights believing they're on a mission from Heaven, all the while being turned away from the core heavenly tenets of compassion and altruistic love. As a much more minor point, if the Hellknights had taken the official position of aligning themselves with Axis, while still being fundamentally evil, that I think would have managed to both be even more on the nose with the real-life references and yet still more capable of nuance.
I also think this makes things very awkward when it comes to Hellknight PCs, because any player who wants their character to be a Hellknight is basically saying: "I want to roleplay a fascist." Paizo have gone to great lengths to scrub player options from editions past that involved the ickier excesses of human behavior, and while there are still evil PC options, giving players the tools to roleplay characters that are gleefully bigoted and possibly outright genocidal, all in a manner that mirrors real-life oppression against many players among us, is likely to make a lot of people very uncomfortable. And again: if the Hellknights presented themselves as neutral, with potentially even the option of being virtuous, that could at least set up stories where a PC joins the organization thinking they want to do good in the world, and then have a change of heart when they find out what the Hellknights are all about. When the Hellknights are openly evil and fully aware of it, though, that narrative doesn't really work.
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The main difference here, however, is that IRL fascists don't openly worship devils. They still think they're the good guys.
And that I think is probably what doesn't do it for me if we're really trying to create real-life parallels: there isn't really an opportunity for any Hellknight to ask themselves "are we the baddies?" when they and their organization openly serve the forces of evil. That kind of setup doesn't really leave room for stories where people join the Hellknights believing they're on a mission from Heaven, all the while being turned away from the core heavenly tenets of compassion and altruistic love. As a much more minor point, if the Hellknights had taken the official position of aligning themselves with Axis, while still being fundamentally evil, that I think would have managed to both be even more on the nose with the real-life references and yet still more capable of nuance.
100% this. I hadn't figured out how to express my thoughts, but you've captured it well.
By becoming direct servants of hell, there is no illusion of any possibly being "the good guys". As such, there's no room for people to join thinking they're serving the greater good by helping order.
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There's room for developing essentially a punk metal version offshoot of Hellknights through a civil war that rejects devils but still carries some of the feel, but in a defaced way, in the way that tieflings might acknowledge their heritage while rejecting its ethos. They might even do things like Hack Hell to sabotage it, screw with their records, etc. Hellpunks could be a good time while further exploring the topic area. They could even be reforming devils here and there. Plus the art would be amazing.
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An adventure centered around Hellpunks pulling a massive raid on an infernal prison or something would rock so hard.
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I'm really excited by the Order of the Eclipse. They seem to be in complete opposition to Zo!, which means that at some point, Zo! might need the help of the Starfinder Society to deal with the Order of the Eclipse. If not in organized play, maybe in Guilt of the Grave world.
Also, having com units and the infosphere completely changes how Starfinder feels from Pathfinder. But having that kind of access to communication and information all the time can get in the way of telling some types of stories. Having the Order of the Eclipse show up and block communication could be a useful tool.
If you call yourself hellknights, and wear cosplay armor to look the part, and you go around enforcing strict law and order at all costs, if people want it or not, why wouldn't actual Hell decide to influence, manipulate, help, and infiltrate your organization? At some point, that help comes with a contract, then it's too late to go back. I kind of see the average Hellknight like how some Americans are useful idiots for other countries, whether they know it or not. The Hellknight leadership likely knows what's going on and is likely under some kind of Hellish contract.
The original question misses it is okay to make evil campaigns. PF2e has lich archetype too and no one thinks we are trying to reform liches. Its not an archetype for all games. It might work for a reformed Hellknight who still fights like one even if that is no longer their cause. Could be your token evil team member who is tolerated and tolerates because there is something worse than peace, love, and freedom to stomp on right now. Or as said in the top, its an evil campaign and everyone is a bastard.
No reason to remove Hellknights from PC options. Just an understanding of what kind of story the group is telling and setting some ground rules and boundaries at session 0.