House Ilios
The holy warriors of Sagosa, the paladins of House Ilios fight to stop dangerous knowledge from falling into the wrong hands and also fight to protect Elves, the mortal children of Sagosa across the planes of Kelbonnar.
Structure
Like all knightly Houses, House Ilios is a highly stratified system which operates in a similar manner to an army, with a linear chain of command. At the top of this chain is the Knight Sagacious, a member of the order who upon the death of their predecessor is appointed through trials of intellect and combat, and who is deemed to receive the blessing of Sagosa to command the house through success in these trials. The Knight Sagacious is the ultimate authority in the House and directs all of its actions with the help of their Council of Advisors, a group of the most esteemed or promising paladins taken from across the whole strata of the House.
Below the Knight Sagacious are the knights, also known as paladins, themselves. The hierarchical structure of the knights is very much based on time served, with each ranked based on the number of decades that they have served. For instance the most junior knights, who have yet to serve one full decade are referred to as Order less knights, those with one decade under their belts as Knights of the First Order, those with 20 years’ experience Knights of the Second Order and so on. As the House has a large number of Elves within its ranks there are a number of knights of the Fortieth and even Fiftieth Order.
Below the knights are the squires, those who have been accepted into training in House Ilios, but who have yet to pass the trials and become full knights. It usually takes five years of training for a squire to have gained enough skill and knowledge to pass the physical and intellectual trials to be knighted, but there are exceptions to this.
Divine Patron and Divine Purpose
House Ilios is dedicated to Sagosa the Divine whose domains are knowledge and secrets. This puts the knightly house somewhat at odds with the vast majority of those who worship her, as Sagosa normally attracts scholars, librarians and the like, those who wish to attain knowledge, as opposed to those who would wish to take up a life at arms. However, Sagosa is deeply concerned with secrets, and even more deeply concerned with especially powerful or potentially destructive secrets from becoming known, whether that be to individuals or to the world at large. As a result, the Divine very much sees House Ilios as their vehicle to protect all of Kelbonnar’s planes of existence from knowledge or secrets which could very well destroy the world in its entirety. In addition, as the original creator of Elves ] in Kelbonnar, Sagosa also views House Ilios as a way that she can continue to help protect her mortal children, even though it is only the High Elves who continue to hold her in the high esteem that she would like. This means that House Ilios is a key component in the struggle to keep the Vampires of Ymeris at bay, with its Paladins fighting against the ancestral enemy of the Elves perhaps even with the desire to one day completely cleanse the Desolation of Hissh of the vampiric scourge and return it to the glorious elven nation of old that once thrived there.Demography and Population
Its links to Sagosa mean that House Ilios has large number of Elves within its ranks, but it is a multi-species organisation and therefore has members of almost all species present within it. However, the hierarchical system, which is based on time served in service of the House does mean that there is an implicit bias towards to longer lived races. For instance, few Humans live to attain higher than the Sixth or Seventh Order.
Territories
House Ilios does not pretend to be a geopolitical entity, nor does it aspire to be one. The only territory that they claim is that around and on which their fortress home, the Swan Citadel, which is located in the southern half of the Wyrm Steppes, nestled in the foothills of the Dragons' Tears Mountains.
Military
All members of House Ilios are regarded as being mighty warriors in their own right, as is the case for almost all knightly houses. The total strength of House Ilios’ military might is estimated at being around 700 paladins of various orders of rank and around 200 squires. However, it would be a dire occasion indeed for all of the House’s strength to be concentrated in a single place, and most of the time their forces are spread out across Kelbonnar’s material planes, working either alone or in small groups.
Foreign Relations
Like most knightly Houses, House Ilios predominantly maintains neutral relations with the geopolitical entities of Kelbonnar so that they can work across borders without political issues or agendas getting in the way. However, the one exception to this is Ymeris, and the knights of House Ilios actively work against the Vampires of the Midnight Court at every opportunity that presents itself.
Education
House Ilios has a much stronger focus on the academic education of its members than other knightly houses, something that is principally due to their patronage by the Divine Sagosa. The work that Sagosa requires her paladins to undertake means that they must be intellectually prepared to identify and assess knowledge, secrets or items of the arcane that may pose a threat, which cannot be solves with the use of swords.
Founding Date
2612DP
Type
Military, Knightly Order
Alternative Names
The House of Ships & Swans / Swan Knights
Location
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