The Road to Knighthood

Most knights must be squired to a noble lord or knight, and then trained in the arts of war by their masters. One cannot just choose to be a knight and sign up somewhere. Still, there are other ways to attain the status of knight without this long training process, but they usually involve great risk to one’s health and almost foolish bravery.

In some campaigns, the DM can choose to assign knighthood to a character at first level, assuming that his training as a squire was completed on the way to manhood, and now the young warrior is ready to step out on his own.

However, depending on the campaign, this may not be the best way. After all, where is the great deed done in service to god, king, or country? Face it, at first level, killing an ogre is a great act of heroism, but it doesn’t rank up there on the royal top ten of heroic acts, now does it? Also, more importantly, where’s the character development? Does the whole story get made up and wasted in 100 words or less on a 3” x 5” card?

It seems more logical to allow the young cavalier or paladin to train until manhood and then be allowed to make his own mark upon the world. Some knights-in-training stay back and train the next group, guard the fort, or take a safe job at home with “Daddy.” Those are the NPC kind of knights. They reach name level at the age of 50 and get knighted for “meritorious service in the name of the kingdom,” which is a fancy way of saying “he didn’t get killed or screw up real badly in all his years.”

But PC knights-in-training go out and seek little dragons. As they years go by, they gradually allow their increased skills and abilities to guide their sight’s higher and higher until they are confronting world-shattering horrors and standing alone against the greatest of foes. Training for levels can be done on the road, as earned by deeds, or by the PC’s lord, who gets to keep tabs on him and continues his fatherly guidance over those years.

It is also suggested that, in a feudal campaign, the criteria for obtaining a stronghold not be fixed at 9th level. Being knighted, which may or may not come at 9th level, should be the campaign criteria for such an important event. It makes the gift more logical in such a setting and gives the character an obvious reward to work for in his travels and battles.

You can become a squire through bribery, by being left on a doorstep, by cooking an unusually good rabbit for a knight, by calling in an old family favor, by being chosen by the High Priest at festival time, or by sheer luck. In any case, the imagination of the DM is the only limit, and as we all know, there is no limit to that.