Arturians

"Through law and order, shall our Risen find peace in this world. As is natural in free will, some shall resist. Where there are laws, there shall be lawbreakers. Where there are lawbreakers, there shall be law keepers. Whereas law shall be the anvil upon which a strong society is born, my Arturians shall be the hammer to forge them." - Artur, First of the Gods

Founding

The Arturians are almost as old as humanity itself. After the gods created each of their respective Risen, they set their minds on filling the rest of the world with their creations. Some focused their attention on creating aspects or ideas rather than physical beings and incarnations within the world. Artur created the idea of law and order and set forth his initial decrees of what laws should be upheld at the early age of the world. However, he did decree that all Risen would ultimately have free will. His laws were meant to guide them - not necessarily a strict, by-the-letter approach to building the world, but there were many wicked souls emerging from the Risen who acted in direct defiance and went beyond the realms of what he deemed acceptable. As long as they did harm to each other instead of directing it toward the gods, his own laws prevented him from acting out upon them.
To counter this, he founded the Arturians, one of the few factions on Nora who can trace their actual founding back to the physical hands of a god. The Arturians were meant to be the law keepers of Nora in his stead - judge, jury, and executioner. While their personal claims and decrees are simply for the protection of the Risen people, the Arturians are extremely militaristic. They pride themselves on remaining heavily equipped with arms, armor, and many magickal apparatus of the divine variety. Upon its founding, the order was completely comprised of humans. As the years have gone on, they have been accepting Risen of every race and creed into their number to spread over more territory with more representation across all nations. The faction prides itself on remaining unbeholden to any official government, operating as a side organization in the employ of the common folk throughout Nora.

Arturian Lawkeepers

The daily life and roles of an Arturian do not vary much between the ranks. There are three steps in the hierarchy; Lawmen, younger members who make the vast majority of the count, Judges, a type of officer that offers advice or assists Lawmen, and Arbiters, the leaders of individual chapters. Every Arbiter and chapter will answer to the Grand Arbiter, the penultimate member of the Arturian order. All members, including the Grand Arbiter, are required to take part in fieldwork. This covers a variety of activities between investigations, hunting perpetrators, and general mission work. In times of peace or when there is little crime in an area, local Arturians will assist in manual labor within their local communities. Assisting the lives of the sick and elderly is a de facto method of promoting order in the area. Creating a settlement without poverty or starvation will reduce the chance of crimes being committed by a large part. The Grand Arbiter herself has been seen plowing fields in La Patria. However, maintaining a perfect peace among these settlements is all but impossible.

"Throw a thief in jail, and he will steal on his way out. Take a thief's hand, and he will be much more careful with the next." - A common Arturian creed.

Originally, Artur's law was the only law of Nora, and as such, the Arturians had one simple set of laws to follow. As countries and societies evolved they began to form their own systems and laws that suited the individual needs of their area. With different populations and needs, different laws were needed to keep up. One of the founding principles of the Arturians was to follow the laws of the land - which now varied by the land they were in. Nioyaathep created such a loose and strange series of laws, it was nearly impossible to uphold them outside of their elite priesthood. The Freelands, having established nearly the entire continent to be void of all formal systems of law, have virtually no presence of Arturians outside of exclusive missionaries. One can not uphold the law if there are no laws to uphold. Where the law of the land supports it, primarily in human-founded countries and those surrounding the Worldspine, the Arturians are strict with their resolve on upholding them. Most laws in societies with a high presence of Arturians will have exceptionally harsh punishments relative to the crimes they are associated with. A thief will lose his hand, an adulterer an eye, a murderer a life. They strongly believe that a fierce punishment results in fierce results. In most cases, at least according to their own statistics, they have been correct.

Arturian Temples

Arturians are found in small keeps that they collectively refer to as temples. Each temple is centered around the namesake temple to Artur, which will be the largest and most extravagant building in the compound. Inside will be the actual church where worship ceremonies and official business alike will be conducted. The church will also possess bed chambers for the local judge, adjacent to which will also be the reliquary for the chapter's most powerful armaments. Underneath the church is where the prison is located, in which those deemed guilty enough to be extradited back to the temples will be kept while waiting for their trial to commence.
In addition to the actual temple, there will be a set of stables, barracks, and a training facility in each temple compound. Arturians are expected to live onsite in the temple barracks outside of their rare opportunities of leave. The training facilities are often quite advanced, consisting of target ranges, obstacle courses, and sparring pits for all manners of training. The faction members are expected to become masters in all forms of martial combat. When a temple has the extra space or the necessity, it will also feature a small smithy and granary. Many temples are simply too small or understaffed to accommodate such facilities.

Lawkeeper Arms

Members of the Arturians can often be recognized by their signature golden armor and iconography. They will often wear large white tabards and tan robes pinned over their armor which bear emblems denoting their worship of Artur. Most of them will wear a combination of plate and scale mail while their more agile scouts will lean more on leather armor. When out of their golden armor, they will still wear the tabards and robes but in a more loose and casual fashion. They can still be easily identified by the iconography, but will also be marked as off-duty and in more comfortable wear.
Their weapons are varied, but they tend to skew towards hammers, flails, and spears. Judges will often carry executioner swords in homage to Artur's own blade that he carried. Arturians are trained in all manners of physical combat, training in archery and crossbows for ranged combat as well as martial arts and wrestling for hand-to-hand situations. Each temple barracks is often equipped with a training facility and sparring area to constantly be working on their skills.
Arturians also possess a reliquary of powerful magickal apparatus and weaponry to be used when deemed necessary. Judges, when seldom deployed, are often equipped with powerful magickal apparatus, most often ones to counteract the use of Arcane Magick.

Manner of Work

As the Arturians operate outside of any government, they receive the bulk of their petitions to work from the local citizenship. A tithe is given alongside the petition according to the social status and monetary worth of the individual requesting their assistance. Commonfolk will need to offer very little to the church, often being reduced to a handful of gold bits or even a single livestock, while nobles will have to put forth a large sum from their coffers. Once the petition is received and approved by a Judge, they will send scouts to gather information and investigate the scale of the issue that they have been presented with. The scouts will return and deliver their reports to the Judge who will then determine the forces necessary and dispatch them with their orders.
The Lawmen dispatched will follow the instructions from their Judge in regard to the transgressing party. If enough evidence was gathered by the scouts, they will often administer their punishment directly in the field. This is often the case for straightforward murders or thievery. Otherwise, they will apprehend the subjects and bring them back to the temple for a trial. They are kept in a small prison beneath the church both while awaiting trial and while serving their sentence.

Type

Religious, Holy Order