Knights of Golarion
The Knights of Golarion are a military organization with strong ties to The Pact Worlds, the church of Iomedae, and the children of the missing planet of Golarion. Though worship of Iomedae is not a requirement for membership, and some members even worship different gods, all Knights take sacred vows to uphold the Code of the Inheritor, a 10-part oath requiring courage, fair treatment of prisoners, honor, and temperance in action. They are also instructed to regularly study The Acts of Iomedae, the goddess’s holy text.
The Knights of Golarion are dedicated to promoting justice and righteousness in all forms, spreading their goddess-granted understanding of morality throughout the Pact Worlds, frontier settlements, and lawless territories. To many, this makes the Knights classic heroes, laying down their lives to protect the innocent—whether it be from rampaging monsters or the predations of criminals and tyrants—and embodying the ideals of military camaraderie and death before dishonor. Yet unlike the Stewards, the Knights feel no need to honor local laws they consider unjust—theirs is the law of Heaven, and mortal structures that violate it deserve to be broken. They deeply value law and order, but they have no tolerance for those who twist it to persecute others or truck with inherently evil creatures like devils or the undead. The resulting friction means that while the Knights have been repeatedly instrumental in defending the Pact Worlds, the Stewards do their best to point them toward apolitical struggles like Corpse Fleet attacks, demonic incursions, or problems on worlds outside the system, and the Knights of Golarion use their fleet of powerful Avenger-class cathedralships as bases of operation rather than residing on any particular Pact World.
The Knights of Golarion work closely with the church of Iomedae, yet unlike AbadarCorp, they’re careful to maintain a distinction between their order and the church itself. In this way, the Knights remain free to deal with developing threats quickly and in whatever manner they see fit, without dragging the church hierarchy into every decision. While bound by honor to protect all innocents, the Knights see their goddess as the patron of all the refugee races of Golarion, especially humanity. Financial support for the group comes from tithes by colonies, companies, and other organizations the Knights have defended in the past, but these are truly gifts, not fees for service—the Knights of Golarion are nobody’s security contractor.
The Knights of Golarion mix military structure and ranks with older ideas of knights-errant and feudal lords. Rank-and-file soldiers operate under the command of officer-knights, yet knight-lieutenants and higher ranks are sometimes assigned to “errant duty,” in which Knights are trusted to seek out injustice and deal with it, calling upon whatever allies they can independently gather to their banner.
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