Hell Knight Orders

The Hell Knights are affiliated knightly orders devoted to the swift, merciless enforcement of law. These crusaders of lawful neutral ideals care nothing for goodness, evil, or exceptions. Theirs is the path of unflinching obedience to the law, vicious defense of social order, and the tenacity to punish the servants of chaos.

Hell Knight Tenets

The following tenets and practices—the Measure and the Chain, the Hell Knight test, and Hell Knight reckonings—are central to the various orders.

The Measure and the Chain

The Measure: A massive codex of duties, laws, and crimes, the Measure serves as a guide to a strict, ordered society. Based upon centuries of legal codes from ancient empires, as well as passages from the strictures of Hell itself, this body of laws extols justness rather than justice.

The Chain: This philosophy encourages discipline through trial, whether such tests involve memorizing and meditating upon the Measure or exposing oneself to stress and pain that threaten to break the weak. At its more philosophical level, the Chain concerns itself with three virtues: order, discipline, and mercilessness.

In Action: Hell Knights strive to live by the tenets of the Measure and the Chain. Among their peers (and to their victims), they regularly repeat favored maxims from the Chain. Most at least occasionally fall short of their cold, emotionless philosophies, though. To police their own thoughts and deeds, Hell Knights regularly perform reckonings (see below). Those of insufficient will might eventually suffer mental breaks, leave the Hell Knights, or worse—and this number includes some who have already demonstrated the courage and determination to endure the deadly Hell Knight test. Upholding the Measure and the Chain is its own lifelong trial.

Reckonings

Similar to an ascetic’s flagellations or a paladin’s atonement, Hell Kknight reckonings are rites of mortification a Hell Knight uses to focus her mind, excise unwanted thoughts, and bring herself closer to the champion of law her order idealizes. A reckoning is typically a personal matter, performed in private by a willing, unarmored Hell Knight while she meditates on some aspect of the Measure and the Chain. Hell Knights are assumed to police their own thoughts and perform reckonings as necessary. If a Hell Knight doesn’t regularly perform reckonings as part of her scheduled meditations, she doesn’t lose any abilities or suffer negative effects—however, she might be censured by her fellow Hell Knights if they learn of this dereliction.

Performing a Reckoning: Performing the physical component of a reckoning typically takes 10 minutes and deals 1d4 points of nonlethal damage. A particularly righteous or conflicted Hell Knight might choose to perform a longer, more extreme version of a reckoning. In this case, the reckoning deals 1d4 additional points of lethal damage. A devoted Hell Knight with the Hell Knight Obedience feat can undergo an hour-long nonlethal reckoning to gain the benefit of a special ability, in addition to boons available for those with 12, 16, or 20 Hit Dice. See the sections on the major Hell Knight orders for descriptions of their specific reckonings and the boons these provide. Additionally, Hell Knights with the Hell Knight Obsession feat who choose to deal the lethal damage to themselves can access a suite of beneficial effects. The damage a reckoning deals cannot be reduced by any damage reduction or other ability or effect.

The Test

To become a Hell Knight, one must literally face an immortal champion of Hell. The specifics of the test differ in minor ways between Hell Knight orders, but for all of them, it is a somber, trial-like rite conducted at dawn twice per year. A high-ranking officer oversees this test, which is administered by a signifer (usually with the infernal challenge spell) and witnessed by every available member of the order.

Not all tests are ceremonial spectacles. By the word of the Measure, any Hell Knight can serve as witness for any worthy soldier who bests a mightier devil in single combat. If a Hell Knight vouches for an individual and swears that the challenge conformed to the test’s standards, the victor can join any Hell Knight order that accepts him as a true Hell Knight.

Running a Hell Knight Test: The Hell Knight test requires each would-be Hell Knight to slay a devil whose Hit Dice exceed her own. Such a test is typically performed to fulfill the requirements of the Hell Knight or Hell Knight signifer prestige class, which many classes can access by 5th level. As such, 6-HD bearded devils are the fiends most commonly battled during the test (higher-level initiates must face higher-level devils). Those taking the test are allowed to carry into battle any weapons, armor, wands, potions, and other equipment they wish. Additionally, they may receive the benefits of allies’ magic, so long as it is cast prior to the test’s start. The ceremony preceding the test typically lasts over an hour, meaning that spells with a duration in minutes typically wear off before combat begins. During the test, should an armiger receive aid from outside the testing ring, she is disqualified and imprisoned (along with her conspirators). Such cheaters typically face a brief trial and execution.

Major Orders

There are numerous orders of Hell Knights, but seven major orders are the best known. These allied groups share the same fanaticism for realizing their vision of law, but their methods vary. The members of most orders are heavily armored fugitive hunters and gangcrushing juggernauts. Others are maskwearing spellcasters called signifers who use magic to smite criminals and coerce confessions. Yet members of any class might join the Hell Knights, as long as they have the resolve to be implacable weapons of order.

Order of the Chain

Source PCS:PotH

Hell Knights of the Chain value social order and responsibility, seeking to root out anarchists and fugitives. They have reputations as relentless hunters who drag lawbreakers away in chains. These Hell Knights keep meticulous count of the number of criminals they’ve brought to justice; they never abandon the pursuit of a fugitive, and they believe everyone has a specific, crucial role to play in society.

Symbol: hand wrapped in chains

Members: guards, sleuths, trackers, victims of outlaws

Armor Features: lock-and-chain design, manacle-like gauntlets, helms reminiscent of iron prisoners’ masks

Favored Weapon: flail

Reckoning: Crush your limbs with tightened chains. Gain a +2 bonus on combat maneuver checks when attempting to disarm, grapple, or trip opponents.

Tenants

• I will remove those who create barriers to the people’s future greatness.
• My desires are secondary to the good of my order, my nation, and my people. They will not distract me from my tasks.
• I will remove the foes of the people, both those who call themselves enemies and who call themselves friends.
• My quarry and my captives are my charges. I am responsible for their deeds, their lives, and their deaths.
• Those in my charge deserve neither mercy nor cruelty.
• I will warden first and judge second. I will uphold the law, no matter the cost.

BOONS

1: Taken Alive (Ex) You are an expert in hunting your quarry and capturing it alive. You take no penalty on attack rolls for using a flail to deal nonlethal damage. Additionally, while performing your reckoning, you can focus on understanding one specific individual. For the next 24 hours, you gain a +4 bonus on Perception, Sense Motive, and Survival checks that relate to noticing, seeing through the disguises of, interrogating others about the location of, or tracking that individual, or any activity directly related to doing so.

2: Pierce Disguise (Sp) You are suspicious of everyone, and your wariness grants you senses others do not have. You can use true seeing as a spell-like ability for a number of minutes each day equal to half your character level. These minutes do not need to be used consecutively, but they must be used in 1-minute increments.

3: True Identities (Su) You are not easily fooled by those who would hide their true natures. You gain a +4 bonus on Will saving throws to disbelieve illusions. Three times per day, when you successfully disbelieve an illusion that has a duration of longer than instantaneous (normally or using true seeing), you can attempt to dispel the illusion as a free action. Treat this as a targeted dispel, as per the spell dispel magic, but targeting only illusions and with your caster level equal to your character level.

Order of the Gate

Source PCS:PotH

Order of the Gate Hell Knights seek to curb and prevent lawlessness through magic and manipulation. They have reputations as mysterious, emotionless, and sometimes cruel magic-users. Many are convinced that the Order of the Gate’s Hell Knights are spying on them or already know their secrets. Sometimes this fear is true, as the order’s members prefer preventing crime to punishing it and often use manipulation, information-gathering, and spying to further their agenda.

Symbol: infernal eye staring out from a swirling portal

Members: devil worshipers, intellectuals, planar-blooded outcasts, spellcasters

Armor Features: helm with a vortex-like pattern, crimson robes

Favored Weapon: dagger

Reckoning: Etch complex symbols of penitence into your flesh with a dagger. Gain a +4 bonus on Will saving throws to resist divination spells and spell-like abilities.

Tenants

• Lawlessness is a failing of the leaderless and unwatched. I will mind those who would go unnoticed.
• My power is a gift, not to me, but to the world. It is my responsibility to use it to forge greatness.
• I will pursue perfection, ever knowing that I will truly master nothing.
• Knowledge is not the same as wisdom. I will hone my iron judgment upon the stones of experience and worldliness.
• There is cleverness in chaos. There is deceit in ruin. I will never underestimate either.
• My face must be forged of iron. It must never crack, regardless of the circumstance.

BOONS

1: Focus of Mind (Su) You gain one gaze ability from the list detailed as part of the assiduous gaze class feature of the Hell Knight signifer prestige class. You can choose only a gaze that a Hell Knight signifer could choose at 4th level. If you already have the assiduous gaze ability, you can select one additional gaze. Additionally, if you do not already have one, you receive the mask described in the prestige class’s signifer mask class feature, as well as the benefits of the Hell Knight signifer prestige class’s signifer mask supernatural ability; you must be wearing a signifer mask to use this ability.

2: Armored Spellcasting (Ex) You have mastered the delicate and yet taxing art of casting spells in your Hell Knight armor. You can ignore the spell failure chance of any armor with “Hell Knight” in the name.

3: Unfathomable Gaze (Sp) You are able to focus your staunch Hell Knight training into a spell-like ritual that allows you to glean information that could be vital to your mission of enforcing the law. Once per day, while wearing a signifer mask, you can use vision as a spell-like ability, treating your total character level as your caster level. Unlike casting the spell normally, you are not fatigued after this ability is complete, as your training allows you to shake off what might tire lesser individuals.

Order of the Godclaw

Source PCS:PotH

Order of the Godclaw Hell Knights enforce law with a crusader’s zeal, going where they’re needed most in the fight against the forces of chaos. They know no bounds or borders in the quest for absolute order. To Hell Knights of the Godclaw, the cause of order is a holy mandate for which they will travel far to battle chaos in lands that know little of civilization. To others, these Hell Knights’ faith is likely inexplicable—some believe the members of the order are experts in all five individual faiths or even that they are heretics.

Symbol: five-pointed iron star

Members: crusaders, religious zealots

Armor Features: breastplate with clawlike vambraces, clawlike helm

Favored Weapon: morningstar

Reckoning: Flagellate yourself with a five-tailed lash. Whenever you are the target of a lawful divine caster’s spell that heals hit point damage, you heal 1 additional point per die rolled. Additionally, if you cast divine spells, you can use the holy symbols of some gods (which can’t be named here for legal reasons) interchangeably.

Tenants

• I will eliminate chaos, whatever its form and wherever it exists, resting only when the world is right.
• I will destroy those who root lawlessness in weak hearts and minds.
• I will strive to be worthy of not one, but five.
• I will seek the great principles behind life, the truths spoken through many voices.
• I will be a paragon of order—an unassailable example that others might follow.
• I will commit what I don’t know or can’t understand to the judgment of the five.

BOONS

1: Pentamic Zeal (Sp) You can cast bane, bless, tireless pursuit^APG, or wrath^APG as a spell-like ability three times per day, with your effective CL equal to your character level.

2: Tireless Judgment (Su) Three times per day as a swift action, you can gain a +3 sacred bonus on attack rolls, and a +6 sacred bonus to confirm critical hits. At 20th level, you can use this ability four times per day, and the bonuses increase to +4 and +8. Otherwise, this functions as the inquisitor’s justice judgment^APG. If you already have access to judgments, you can use the justice judgment three times per day (four times at 20th level) without it counting toward your daily uses, or you can add the justice judgment’s effects to another judgment without it counting as a second or third judgment.

3: Blessing of the Five (Su) Once per day as a standard action, you can brandish a holy symbol to heal all living creatures in a 30-foot-radius burst centered on you. Creatures in the area heal 10d6 points of damage. You can choose up to three creatures in the area that are not healed. Additionally, if a creature in the area has died within 1 round and this brings its hit point total to a negative amount less than its Constitution score, the creature returns to life and stabilizes. This ability can only revive one creature per use, and a revived creature gains a temporary negative level that lasts for 1 day. This ability cannot be modified using any feats or other abilities that affect channeled energy.

Order of the Nail

Source PCS:PotH

Order of the Nail Hell Knights idealize civilized societies and seek to unite all people in advancing that cultural baseline. In fact, the Order of the Nail’s members preach that anyone who doesn’t embrace their own culture is a criminal and heathen who must be destroyed. The order’s members idealize the lifestyles and challenges of frontier settlers, no matter the displacement, indignation, or cruelty they might visit on those who were there before.

Symbol: thick nails forming a sunburst

Members: frontiersmen, settlers, victims of barbarian and monster attacks

Armor Features: breastplate emblazoned with a fiendish face, horned helm

Favored Weapon: lance or halberd

Reckoning: Pierce your flesh with sharp metal. Gain a +4 bonus on Knowledge (geography) checks. Additionally, if you are trained in Knowledge (geography), you automatically succeed at attempts to use that skill to identify a creature’s ethnicity or accent, as long as you are familiar with that ethnicity or accent.

Tenants

• I will strike against civilization’s foes, braving both thicket and darkness.
• I will rid the world of threats to civilization and make it fit for the law to flourish.
• I will fear no creature, though the enemies of order are terrible.
• I will not be merciful, though the enemies of order may bear familiar guises—and may even be individuals I have considered dear.
• I will seek allies and advantage, confounding luck with wisdom.
• I will be the face that monsters dread: fierce, sharp, and unflinching.

BOONS

1: Domination (Ex) Select a creature type from the ranger favored enemies table. You treat that creature type as your favored enemy, as per the ranger ability. If you choose humanoid (human), you can select an ethnic language or clannish or tribal language (at the GM’s discretion). If you choose an ethnicity, the bonuses on skill checks, weapon attack, and weapon damage rolls increase to +4, but you do not gain any bonuses against other humans. These bonuses stack with any favored enemy bonuses gained from other classes.

2: Identification (Su) Three times per day as a swift action, you can choose a living creature within sight and know its creature type, ethnicity (if any), and alignment. Additionally, for a number of hours equal to your character level, that creature is treated as though you had cast the spell status upon it. Though unaware of your probing, the target can attempt a Will saving throw to negate this ability (DC = 10 + 1/2 your Hit Dice + your Charisma modifier). Spells such as undetectable alignment may prevent a portion of this information from being gleaned, while spells such as nondetection stymie this effect entirely. This is a divination effect.

3: End Superstition (Sp) Once per day, you can cast mage’s disjunction, using your character level as your caster level.

Order of the Pyre

Source PCS:PotH

Hell Knights of the Order of the Pyre seek to combat outlandish faiths and beliefs, preventing them from gaining purchase in the Inner Sea region. They are cult hunters first and foremost, but also fight to repress other philosophies they deem dangerous. These Hell Knights hate and vocally condemn cultists, priests of rare religions, and followers of mystical orders.

Symbol: tower rising from flames

Members: atheists, former cultists, members of mainstream religions, victims of dangerous radicals

Armor Features: bladed armor, horned and skull-like helm

Favored Weapon: glaive

Reckoning: Burn yourself over an open flame. Once per day as an immediate action, you can gain fire resistance 10 for 10 minutes. This does not stack with resist energy or any other abilities that provide fire resistance and overlaps with protection from energy.

Tenants

• I will not tolerate the weight of unfit gods upon mortal shoulders.
• My fire will burn those thickets of philosophy that crowd the path of progress.
• Blasphemy knows no borders—land or sea. I will pursue it where I must, and where I find it, I will be relentless.
• Zealots walk the path of destruction, regardless of the names on their lips.
• I will not mistake clever trickery for power or power for divinity.
• Manipulators of divine magic and esoteric eldritch powers must prove their trustworthiness to me, for trust breeds dangerous complacency.
• I will focus my iron scrutiny on any faith I find appealing. Whatever I worship must be worthy of me.

BOONS

1: Favored Cult (Ex) You can hone your skills to become a bane to those who worship a divinity you hate. Each day while performing your obedience, choose a divine power that grants four or fewer domains. You gain +2 bonus on Intimidate, Knowledge, Sense Motive, and Survival checks against those who worship that power. Additionally, you get a +1 bonus on weapon attack rolls and weapon damage rolls against the worshipers of that deity.

2: Immolation (Sp) You can channel your wrath into power that can scorch your foes. Once per day, you can cast delayed blast fireball using your character level as your caster level.

3: Quell Zealotry (Su) You can tear the divine power from the grasp of those who would use it to stand against you. Once per day as a standard action, you can target a divine spellcaster within 100 feet. If your target fails a Will saving throw (DC = 10 + 1/2 your Hit Dice + your Charisma bonus), it loses access to any spellcasting and all the supernatural and spell-like abilities it gains from any of its divine spellcasting classes for a number of rounds equal to half your character level. When a creature under the effects of this ability tries to use an ability to which it no longer has access, instead of its god’s favor, it feels only a profound, black emptiness, as if its deity no longer existed.

Order of the Rack

Source PCS:PotH

Order of the Rack Hell Knights hate wastefulness of both thought and deed. They crush pointless dreams, end rebellions, and trample frivolous or dangerous inventions. They also closely observe individuals, seeking hints of destructive ambitions and wasteful vices, and are skilled at destroying seditious writing and strange inventions.

Symbol: a spiked wheel

Members: denigrators of art and poetry, patriots, technology-haters, traditionalists

Armor Features: muscular design, sleek helm, flayed cloak

Favored Weapon: longsword or whip

Reckoning: Endure internal burns. Gain a +4 bonus on Fortitude saving throws to resist poison. This increases to +6 against ingested poisons.

Tenants

• I will seek the chaos that manifests in common words and thoughts.
• Those who lack direction will find guidance by my hand—whether the palm or the fist.
• I will take the tools from the grasp of those who would craft their own dooms, whether they would do so intentionally or unintentionally.
• Though the flag of no nation has my alliance, every rebel is my foe.
• My discipline is the same as my honor. I will make myself worthy of our brethren’s tradition of greatness.
• My mere presence will represent the pinnacle of orderliness. I will save my words and deeds for when they are needed most.
• I will not allow the shedding of tears to rust the wheels of progress.

BOONS

1: Mute (Su) Three times per day as a standard action, you can target a single creature within 100 feet. If the creature fails a Will saving throw (DC = 10 + 1/2 your Hit Dice + your Charisma modifier), the creature cannot make any sounds for a number of rounds equal to your character level. This prevents the target from speaking, otherwise making noise, casting spells with verbal components, and using similar abilities with auditory effects. Each round on its turn, the target can attempt a new saving throw to end the effect. This effect is dismissable. It does not make the target immune to sonic or language-based attacks, spells, or effects.

2: Dismantle (Su) Once per day as a standard action, you can cause a cloud of thick, brown fog to arise from a chosen point within 200 feet. This cloud functions as per fog cloud, using your character level as your caster level, except the fog spreads in a 10-foot radius, and every creature or object within is affected as per rusting grasp, without any touch attacks required. Attended metal objects, including weapons and armor, receive a Fortitude saving throw to negate this effect using their wielder’s Fortitude saving throw bonus (DC = 10 + 1/2 your Hit Dice + your Charisma modifier). Creatures within the cloud are affected by the rusting effect only once, not every round, but creatures that move back into the area are exposed again. You and your possessions can enter the cloud and not be affected. This effect is dismissable.

3: Ruin (Sp) Once per day as a standard action, you can use greater shout as a spell-like ability (DC = 18 + your Charisma modifier).

Order of the Scourge

Source PCS:PotH

Hell Knights of the Scourge seek out corruption within order and laws not fit for the lawful. They question and seek to determine the difference between what is legal and what is for the greater good—owing allegiance to no one nation or ruler. Their quests for order often take them places that other Hell Knights cannot tread, both physically and philosophically. As a result, their commitment to the Measure and the Chain must be beyond reproach.

Symbol: star of bleeding lashes

Members: constables, informants, the poor, victims of organized crime

Armor Features: serrated breastplate, horned helm

Favored Weapon: heavy mace, scourge, or whip

Reckoning: Lash yourself with a scourge or whip. Take 1 fewer point of bleed damage per round when you are affected by an ability or effect that causes bleed damage and gain a +4 bonus on Heal checks to stop bleeding.

Tenants

• I will hunt down those who pervert the law to serve selfish ends.
• Laws are not lawful merely by virtue of being laws; they must be examined lest they be corrupted.
• Those who don’t fear justice will fear me.
• A broken law is a broken vow, and penance must be paid in blood.
• My fist will strike only the enemies of order, not their neighbors if they are innocents.
• I will be mindful of danger, for every street and hall is a battlefield.
• In my armor or without it, I am first and always a Hell Knight.

BOONS

1: Spill Guilty Blood (Sp) The end of a lawbreaker invigorates you like nothing else. Twice per day, you can cast death knell as a spell-like ability, using your character level as your caster level (DC = 12 + your Charisma modifier). If you do not have a caster level, instead of a +1 increase in effective caster level, this ability provides you a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls for 10 minutes per Hit Die of the target. If you have a caster level, you can choose to gain this bonus on attack and damage rolls instead of to your effective caster level.

2: Terrible Justice (Sp) You end a foe’s life with a brutal display of force. Three times per day, when you perform a coup de grace, all foes within 30 feet must succeed at a Will saving throw or be affected as per the spell fear (DC = 14 + your Charisma modifier).

3: Reason to Fear (Su) You fear nothing, as you know you are a source of nightmares. You are immune to fear (magical or otherwise). Three times per day, when you are the target of a fear effect or within a fear effect’s area, you can target the creature from which the fear effect originated with a phantasmal killer spell effect (DC = 14 + your Charisma modifier) as a free action when you strike it with a weapon. You must deal at least 1 point of damage to use this ability. This functions in all other ways as if your weapon were a spell storing weapon with a phantasmal killer spell stored within.

Lesser Orders

The vast majority of Hell Knights encountered belong to one of the seven major Hell Knight orders. However, a minority of Hell Knights belong to other, lesser orders.

Lesser Hell Knight orders usually consist of only a few dozen members. Some are long-lived remnant groups that the major orders have sanctioned. Others are offshoots of the larger orders. Still others are pretenders; they are Hell Knights in name only, but consider themselves no less legitimate than any of the other orders. Regardless of their status, lesser orders are not represented in the Council of Hell Knight leaders unless their leaders are specifically invited to attend, usually to serve a specific advisory or other tertiary role in the gathering. However, despite all of this, the Hell Knights of major orders do not look down upon members of minor orders—after all, doing so would show a lack of emotional discipline—but neither do they go out of their way to aid them, as they might assist members of major orders. The Hell Knights of major orders often closely watch the members of minor orders, holding them accountable not just for crimes but for deeds that might tarnish the Hell Knight name.

The following present seven of the most active minor Hell Knight orders. Along with an overview of each lesser order, each entry notes the major order to which it is most similar. This analogous order does not necessarily share any special relationship with the lesser order, but players who wish to create a character who is a member of a lesser order should look to the corresponding order to fill in specifics that these summaries don’t detail, such as the boons accessible through the Hell Knight Obedience feat.

Order of the Coil

Source PCS:PotH

Among the smallest Hell Knight factions, the Order of the Coil viciously seek to tame tribal natives and put an end to their backward pollution of the outside world. Seeing the efforts of scholars and adventurers—particularly Pathfinders—as spreading a disease of savagery by carrying curios from the jungles into the world beyond, the Coil hunts down and destroys such explorers and artifacts, notorious for ending these perceived corruptions with poison and flames.

Analagous Order: Order of the Nail

Symbol: headless snake circling three drops of poison

Members: colonialists, imperialists, racists

Armor Features: fanged helmet, snakelike visage on breastplate

Favored Weapon: greataxe

Reckoning: bite your own flesh

Order of the Crux

Source PCS:PotH

One of several bands of mercenaries dubbed Hell Knights during a civil war, the skull-clad Order of the Crux refused to disband after the revolution. Hunted down and destroyed by the Order of the Scourge, the butchers were slaughtered and their fortress put to the torch. However, 25 years later, three graveknights clad in scarred Hell Knight armor rose from the ruin. Calling themselves the Order of the Crux, the undead triune lurks, seemingly biding their time.

Analagous Order: None

Symbol: three shattered femurs with a starburst of bone shards

Members: undead Hell Knights

Armor Features: spiked helm, horned fiend-skull breastplate

Favored Weapon: heavy flail

Reckoning: strike your femur repeatedly

Order of the Glyph

Source PCS:PotH

The Order of the Glyph was formed in the aftermath of a civil war. The order was created in order to safeguard the true history of their homeland, unaugmented by propaganda and the manipulation of fact.

Analagous Order: Order of the Pyre

Symbol: runed padlock encircled by a chain

Members: archivists, cultists

Armor Features: serpentine designs and tower shields

Favored Weapon: battleaxe

Reckoning: ingest smoldering ashes

Order of the Pike

Source PCS:PotH

This small order of Hell Knights organizes expeditions to seek out and slay a variety of monsters. The order was disbanded after a civil War, but it was officially reinstated 30 years ago thanks to its members’ continued efforts to weed out monsters.

Analagous Order: Order of the Scourge

Symbol: dragonlike creature pierced by three black spears

Members: frontier dwellers, monster hunters, victims of monsters

Armor Features: bestial bone-and-skull designs

Favored Weapon: longspear

Reckoning: run a bone knife over your skin

Order of the Scar

Source PCS:PotH

The Order of the Scar was originally formed to protect the King from assassins. After more than 40 prevented assassinations, the order nearly dissolved after a successful attempt. The order now has a reputation as mercenary assassin-hunters skilled at creating safe houses and tracking and slaying assassins, snipers, and poisoners.

Analagous Order: Order of the Chain

Symbol: red eye centered on a black palm with a red dagger at the wrist

Members: bodyguards, failed constables, former assassins

Armor Features: helmet with a scar-crossed visor, armor etched with stylized, scarlike markings

Favored Weapon: rapier

Reckoning: shallowly cut your palm or wrist

Order of the Torrent

Source PCS:PotH

The Order of the Torrent were mandated in the wake of the civil war after the order’s founder rescued the abducted son of the then lord-mayor. In honor of this accomplishment, the Order of the Torrent has focsed itself on rescuing the abducted. The Order of the Torrent appeals to lawful good Hell Knights—they have never knowingly had an evil member among their ranks. The order has diminished in recent years to a historic low of 23 members. Most of them search for the lost and taken but they also often serve as mercenaries aboard ships in waters sailed by slavers.

Analagous Order: Order of the Scourge

Symbol: twisted, armored eel

Members: constables, detectives, negotiators

Armor Features: aquatic themes with fin-shaped flourishes

Favored Weapon: halberd or longbow

Reckoning: suffer simulated drowning or extreme holding of the breath

Order of the Wall

Source PCS:PotH

The Order of the Wall is charged with defending the boundaries of civilization.

Analagous Order: Order of the Rack

Symbol: crenellated skull

Members: soldiers

Armor Features: angular mantle, cylindrical, castle-like helm

Favored Weapon: lucerne hammer

Reckoning: repeatedly strike bricks or stone