Baronial Knights

The Barony does not produce knights - the hereditary nobility of the petty kingdoms are expected to be capable administrators, planners, strategists, and logisticians - many of them also train with weapons, but this is mostly for personal, pragmatic reasons, and not socially expected. 

The culturally enshrined/romantic warrior archetype in the Barony is the mercenary soldier; usually the heavy infantry fighter, but also more specialised types: the fierce medium skirmishers known as arditi, valiant and clever kill team captains, and, of course, adventurers. 

Both light and heavy cavalry do feature in Baronial field armies, but neither is of especially high quality - competent and capable of everything you would expect them to be, but not elite troops. 

On the Southern steppes, by contrast, cavalry make up nearly the entire force of a given nomad army or warband, and fighting on foot is done only when there is no opportunity to avoid it (another post soon on the low-status but extremely nasty steppe foot troops, called variously 'legless', 'slow men', and 'untouchables'). 

The nobility there have developed chivalric codes, and heavily armed and armoured lone horsemen go questing to attain virtue. These are notably foreign ideals to most Baronials, but that doesn't mean that they haven't been adopted by a few eccentrics.

To wit:

Helen, Poet of Void

A Baronial with an actual star patron and weapon - probably the only one in the world. Helen was one of those unlucky(?) few who never emerge from their teenage years of sociopathy. She was born to a poor family, and left them when she was very young, surviving mostly by thieving and luck. She joined one of the church's kill squads when she was fourteen, and then made her way through the ranks until she found herself captaining a band of highly rated professionals. One of her contracts took her south across the border, where something happened - it's not clear exactly what - and her entire crew were killed. Helen won't talk about it at all.

She spent five years wandering the steppe. During this period, she composed poems to the glory of Sapphon, the constellation that the nomads say rules time and memory. She memorised these poems in a vast mental 'library', and none have ever been written down. She fought monsters, bandits, and, eventually (to hear her version of events) found and breached one of the sealed passages to the void labyrinth. 

What she found within, and what resides inside, she has sworn never to say. The star smiths usually kill those who attempt to access the labyrinth - Helen appears to be an exception. 

Now she is The Foreigner Whose Arms are Range Finder, and the Sound of Unseen Wings. Her star weapons take the form of a terrible monster which uses as a mount, something like a terror bird with a single cyclopean eye, wingless, and moving swiftly on four limbs, which she discovered and imprinted on inside the Void Labyrinth, and a strange piece of eye protection that kills those she gazes on with invisible fire.

Helen is regarded as an oddity in the Barony, but she has a broad readership, and her poetry is respected in the White City to the north. Her work deals in simple terms with human joy, loss, and heartbreak, set like precious jewels against unimaginable gulfs of time, the great, freezing arcs of the heavens, and the shifting of geological strata. 

Helen, Poet of Void

HD3, injector knife, The Sound of Unseen Wings, plate armour, movement: as human, disposition: extremely justice sensitive, and extremely violent with those she believes are behaving unjustly. Otherwise clipped and awkward in her manner, more concerned with the heavens and their mysteries than other people. 

Helen has an absolutely perfect memory for text. She has read a lot about poetry, mathematics, and astronomy.

Injector Knife: as light weapon -1, which contains a trigger on the hilt that will inject a single dose of deadly poison (2d8 poison damage, CON save for half).

The Sound of Unseen Wings: a strange set of lenses and white bone that sit over the eyes. A switch on the temple activates them, after which they set all creatures within 50ft, and inside a directional 90 degree cone, alight. Helen mostly eschews 'fair' combats, and uses this device in concert with Range Finder to kite enemies while she burns them to death. 

Range Finder

The great cyclopean beast of the Void Labyrinth, Helen's ally and companion unto death. Range Finder has stats as a Bird Thane that cannot fly, whose single cyclopean eye can force a CON save against one enemy per turn - a failed save will paralyse the enemy for a turn. Helen rides her into battle, and she wears an ornate harness and saddle of silver. 

Vauquelin, the Red Knight, the Knight of Dreams

A hardwood mannequin of enormous size and mighty strength, who rides a huge southern warhorse. The Red Knight is a folk legend among the people of the Baronial provinces, and is famous for hunting and killing church officials and especially angels. 

Vauquelin (he always refers to himself as such) is accompanied by a young child-squire, Jupiter Rex, of indeterminate gender, who proclaims him and negotiates with friendly woodworkers for his repairs. They communicate using a personal language of hand signs, 

Vauqulin's wooden body is painted with thousands of fine red roses, and his device is a red sun shining on a field of thorny rosebushes. None know how he acquired his titles and chivalric affectations. He is fond of using his swords to carve bloody 'H's into the chests and foreheads of slain enemies; when questioned on the practice, Jupiter Rex will say that the H means 'hypocrite'. 

The Red Knight is beloved by those in the Barony with reason to fear the church, and many (illegal) songs of questionable accuracy are sung of his heroic and selfless deeds in defence of the innocent and the meek. 

Vauquelin is also famous for patrolling the Dreamlands, where he takes the form of a monstrously tall man in crimson armour, with a large rose flower for a face. In that place he enjoys absolute immunity decreed by the Prince, and spends his time hunting and destroying angels and demons who seek refuge there.   

Vauquelin, the Red Knight

HD4, holds two heavy swords (one in each hand, attacks twice per turn with them), and a 'brace' of 4 blunderbusses, actually hung over his shoulder on leather thongs. Hardwood body gives him armour as chain and 1 DR against weapon attacks - he also floats in water. Movement: as human, disposition: in combat, the Terminator. Outside of combat, very gentle, very laidback, with a weird sense of humour. Rides a large warhorse with no special properties. 

In the Dreamlands, Vauquelin grows to twice his usual size, doubles his HP, and deals double damage. 

The church have a standing bounty of 1500s on the Red Knight. 

Jupiter Rex

Stats as commoner, rides their own horse and also takes care of the spares that travel with them. The only person who can speak Vauquelin's sign language. Loaded with treasure, and pays woodworkers extremely handsomely to make repairs to their master. 

Tanquebin, the Scholar Knight, Whose Arms are Before the Heavens Withdraw Their Grace

Tanquebin is a postgraduate of the Scholomance, whose subject interest and dissertation topic is the chivalric customs of the nomads. She has, progressively, over the years, 'gone native', and has studied the bow, the lance, nomad riding, and the norms of their chivalric codes with an obsessive intensity. She makes periodic research trips down south, and is known and loved there, although her home-made 'star weapon' Before the Heavens Withdraw Their Grace raises some eyebrows with more pious nomads. Tanquebin is keenly aware that she does not have a star patron of her own, and her current scholarly fixation is figuring out how she might acquire one.

Tanquebin is also famous for attempting the first detailed biological study of the Star People - she has been working on this paper for many, many years, and so far has not shown anyone the drafts. She is a tall, thin, loud woman with small round glasses, and when dressed for errantry, she wears baroque plate armour adorned with decorative steel centipedes and locusts, which she commissioned herself at enormous expense. 

Tanquebin, the Scholar Knight

HD2, heavy recurve bow, medium sword, Before the Heavens Withdraw Their Grace, plate armour, shield, movement: as human, disposition: extremely earnest, very loud, very excitable, too trusting.

Tanquebin is a surprisingly skilled combatant (she practices a lot), and gets a +1 to hit and to her crit range with both her bow and sword. She also rides nomad-style, without saddle or bridle, and can use two handed weapons while on horseback. 

Before the Heavens Withdraw Their Grace is a complicated firearm of her own design, which she claims was forged in something akin to a star trance, although she would also be the first to admit that her trance was a muddied and confused version of the real thing. In practice, a musket +1 that takes up 4 slots of INV which heats the bullets that it fires, such that they deal an additional d4 fire damage and set flammable objects alight. 

Bartholomew and Santigan, Society Knights

Bartholomew and Santigan are successful mercenary captains, and also initiates in the southern chivalric fighter cult. Unlike most members of the cult, the so-called 'Society Knights' have fully adopted the customs of their neighbours, swearing themselves to the Corpse Stars, and dedicating their lives to defending those weaker than themselves from the predations of evil. Their mercenary band that they lead are split on whether this is a sincere adoption of a foreign faith, or merely good marketing for clients back home.

The Society Knights are adept poisoners, siege engineers, and marksmen. Bartholomew also leads the company's arditi fighters, and Santigan their heavy infantry corps. Neither ride horses, considering that practice to be incidental to the true tenets of knighthood. They wear identical white flag-capes in the southern style, which proudly display their dedication to the Corpse Stars. 

The Society Knights are minor celebrities in the southern barony, and make good use of this reputation to command a premium for their services. They are less well-liked on the steppe itself. 

Bartholomew, Society Knight, Sworn Sword of the Corpse Stars

HD3, medium cross-sword, light knife, medium armour, shield, pistol, musket. Climbing gear and two fire bombs. Movement: as human, disposition: monied, confident, smiling, unflappable.

Leads a company of 18 arditi in the field. 

Santigan, Society Knight, Sworn Sword of the Corpse Stars

HD3, heavy estoc, light knife, plate armour, pistol, musket. Movement: as human, disposition: grim, quiet, watchful, miserly.

Leads a company of 54 heavy baronial infantry in the field. 

Bartholomew and Santigan are successful and experienced Baronial mercenaries, well used to dealing with the power games of the Baronial nobility. They each carry d4 doses of deadly poison on themselves inside hollow jewellery, and are very good at spiking food and drink with it without arousing suspicion. This is their preferred method of dealing with enemies, although neither has any compunction about ambushing someone and stabbing them to death, or shooting them from a hidden position in a second-storey window. +1 to poisoning, slight of hand, and to-hit rolls with muskets.  

They also truly do possess the favour of the Corpse Stars, which they are not themselves currently aware of. When either is slain, the body will continue attacking you with horrible, flowing, jerky, insectoid movements. The bodies will need to be literally dismembered to stop their attacks, and even then the individual pieces will try to get at you.