The Hellknights

The letter of the law is absolute—and lest all civilization fall to dust, its enforcement must be swift and unfailing. None embody this harsh truth more than the Hellknights, an order of warriors dedicated to the protection and progress of society at all costs. In the decades since their founding, the knighthood has morphed into multiple branches that answer to none but their own vision of consummate law.
The Hellknights are a collection of knightly orders with a unique focus on the promulgation of law. They are interested less in the social goodness and charity typical of paladins, but rather in the foundation and stringent maintenance of order at all costs. In their iron-handed exaction of law—specifically, the laws of their various orders—Hellknights emulate the organized and effective armies of Hell. They are not concerned with morality or methods, only results. If people cannot be trusted to obey the law out of their own senses of civility and social righteousness, Hellknights provide the need to obey out of fear of a master's stern hand.

Philosophy

Hellknights believe that without their commitment to order, the fabric of existence itself faces jeopardy. Thus, Hellknights are dutiful law enforcers, rooting out those who would undermine order and peace. When anarchy looms, Hellknights are executioners of all things and people who would propagate the tide of chaos. The laws Hellknights defend are not those of a single nation or tyrant, but rather a codex all their own, collected from myriad legal codes throughout history and fortified with the strictures of the most lawful society of planes: Hell itself.
Regardless of their severity, Hellknights are not an inherently evil group; they are wholly unconcerned with morality. Although there are numerous evil members—particularly among their upper echelons—the majority of the orders are impartial arbiters and enforcers of order and justice. They see the study of Hell's tenets and even the summoning of devils as tools meant to intimidate and strengthen the individual resolve of the orders' members. Hellknights are taught to replace emotion with steely discipline, and are not interested in methods: only the end results matter.
To some Hellknights, Hell is an enviable ideal; to others, its order paves the way for the cosmos’ most reprehensible realms, and for that alone it must be respected. Regardless of their personal moral codes, Hellknights believe that Hell is the multiverse’s greatest forge, and that those fortified in its flames emerge unbending and unbreakable. Thus, aspiring knights willingly submit to the horrors of Hell, and only those who survive its gauntlet are worthy bearers of the Hellknight title.
Since the order’s founding nearly centuries ago, tested and inducted Hellknights have co-opted the imagery and inimitable lawfulness of the Nine Hells, wresting it for their own purposes. This fact is most obvious when Hellknights stand blazing and fearsome before their enemies—full Hellknight regalia includes head-to-toe black armor, evoking the epitome of an infernal warrior. Sculpted with stylized spikes and imprinted with emblems of diabolical menace, a Hellknight’s armor denotes to which sect they belong, and it invests them with their order’s full authority and capacity for merciless enforcement.
While Hellknights are widely feared and respected, the common Hellknight joins out of a sense of duty and a wish to be a part of something greater, seeing a world ruled by laws and free of rampaging beasts and cheating thieves as a future well-worth striving toward, even at the sacrifice of freedom. Countries and rulers sometimes invite Hellknights into their lands, leaving the dirty business of harsh law enforcement to an already loathed third party, although convincing Hellknights to leave once they have been welcomed sometimes proves problematic for more freedom-loving societies.

The Measure and Chain

All Hellknights enforce and execute the basics of what they call the Measure—the order’s massive collection of laws and strictures—and the Chain, a philosophy concerning itself with three utmost virtues. Order, discipline, and mercilessness make up the three links of the Chain, and each link involves a cornerstone of the philosophy that fuels all of these warriors.
In enforcing order, the Hellknights strive to create a world that is so peaceful and regimented that it has no need for them. Further, the Hellknights’ vision of order encourages each soul to punish those who hold back progress. Discipline teaches that no achievement occurs without loss, and emotions are a distraction at best—and at worst, a vulnerability. This includes fear, which all Hellknights attempt to dutifully master and turn into a weapon against the weak. In practicing perfect discipline, Hellknights prepare themselves to destroy all who would prevent them from accomplishing their goals.
The concept of mercilessness, the Hellknights’ third philosophical link, teaches that all are guilty of some infraction against order, and compassion is damaging to civilization and inhibits social progress. Exceptions to this rule, the Hellknights believe, pave a path to anarchy. As all have transgressed, none are worthy of mercy— including individual Hellknights themselves, who hold themselves to the highest standards of their own tenets.
The Hellknight order’s absolute zealotry toward law and discipline attracts many hopefuls who are cruel and evil at heart, and even some who revere Asmodeus’s wickedness above all else. However, Hellknight members as a whole are not necessarily evil. For those who seek it, there is room for goodness and morality within the Hellknights’ regimented ranks, as long as the Measure’s strictures are upheld. Evil hopefuls often find that while they assume the Hellknights might provide shelter for their wicked deeds, they themselves are too capricious to stand as a paragon of order. In any case, the screams of unsuccessful evil Hellknight hopefuls echo just as loudly throughout a citadel’s halls as do those of the weak and the wanting—and the pits of Hell are happy to welcome all failures into the eternal embrace of the damned.

Organization

All Hellknights must pass a simple but brutal test—besting a denizen of Hell in single combat—and adhere to the order’s overarching general philosophies. Beyond these shared elements, separate orders within the knighthood focus on specific aspects of quelling lawlessness and savagery. There are seven major Hellknight orders, each with a major citadel as their base of operations, and each commands chapters throughout the world. While directly acting in violation of an order’s specific mandate is even more egregious than violating the Measure and the Chain in general, Hellknights don’t tolerate infractions of any kind, no matter how small, and thus the orders don’t list specific anathema.
Numerous ranks exist within the Hellknight orders, but the following—listed from lowest in authority to highest—are the most pervasive.

Armiger

A Hellknight in training; a Hellknight squire. Armigers are considered affiliated with their respective orders, but they are not full members and have not yet earned their own set of iconic Hellknight armor, nor have they been issued their order’s formal weapon.

Signifer

A Hellknight spellcaster. According to the Measure, signifers rank nominally below rank-and-file Hellknights, who are granted the authority to give orders to spellcasters on the battlefield. The exception to this is the Order of the Gate, which has enacted a rider for its members that elevates its signifers over its Hellknights.

Hellknight

A rank-and-file Hellknight. Hellknights are imbued with the authority to undertake missions, travel and enforce the law in key places (depending on their order’s needs), and make field decisions as necessary to further their objectives. Hellknights wear iconic black full-plate armor and typically wield the signature weapons of their order.

Maralictor

A mid-level Hellknight officer, similar to a lieutenant. Maralictors with titular concerns or duties—such as the relatively common arms-maralictors, field-maralictors, and gate-maralictors—are of lesser rank.

Paralictor

A high-ranking Hellknight officer, similar to a major.

Paravicar

A leader of a Hellknight order’s signifers, equal in rank to a master of blades.

Master, Mistress, or Myx of Blades

A colonel of a Hellknight order, equal in rank to a paravicar.

Vicarius

A spellcasting leader of a Hellknight order, equal in rank to a lictor. This title is rarely used.

Lictor

A general and the highest-ranking member of a Hellknight order.

Training and Equipment

Hellknights train with summoned devils, the signifers of their orders coaxing the ingenuity of diabolical tactics from infernal tongues, while the rank and file members spar against the very denizens of Hell—making nearly any future conflict a far less daunting prospect. They learn that sacrifices must often be made for the greater good, obey draconian regimens of military conduct, commit to encyclopedic memorization of the laws of their orders and local governing bodies, and undergo constant drills to train their bodies and minds.
Every order of Hellknights has a distinctive, intimidating style of full plate armor that distinguishes them from the others that is only allowed to be worn after the individual Hellknight has defeated a devil in single combat.
All Hellknights wear the armor of their order as a matter of pride and are rarely seen without it. The Order of the Nail's armor, for example, features a horned helm and demon-faced breastplate. Deviation from this uniform is very rare; Even the spellcasting signifiers tend to wear at least some form of armor beneath their robes.

The Seven Orders

The seven major Hellknight orders are described below. While directly acting in violation of an order’s specific mandate is even more egregious than violating the Measure and the Chain in general, Hellknights don’t tolerate infractions of any kind, no matter how small, and thus the orders don’t list specific anathema.

Order of the Chain

The Order of the Chain’s knights are bounty hunters and jailers. They equally hunt bandits, murderers, and fugitives, imprisoning the worst offenders in their fortress-like citadel. These Hellknights specialize in fields such as tracking, criminal psychology, investigation, and interrogation. The order’s favored weapon is the flail.
Believing that everyone has a vital role to play in society, the order seeks to remove those who irredeemably deny their place and who actively impede civilization's progress. Rather than slaying criminals and nonconformists outright, the Order of the Chain forces most of its captives into lengthy terms of service in work camps. The most dangerous malefactors are sequestered in the order's fortress-prison, Citadel Gheradesca. Little strikes greater dread in a lawbreaker than knowing she has become a Hellknight of the Chain's quarry.
The Order of the Chain believes that every person plays a distinct and crucial role in the social fabric of every civilized land. As a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, a society is only as strong as its weakest member. Thus, anyone who would renege from their social duty and seek to escape or take advantage of the social bond, must be hunted down and chastised severely. Prisoners, slaves, and servants are bound to their masters by this steely credo, but the chain binds both ways: masters, slave owners, ship captains, and merchants who exploit or waste their people risk the wrath of order as well.
Unlike the other Hellknight orders, the Order of the Chain rarely executes those it captures, preferring to return slaves to their former masters, selling others into slavery, or else imprisoning them. The Order of the Chain's support for slavery has led to its members being unable to operate openly in lands where slavery is illegal.

Order of the Gate

The Order of the Gate is the smallest major Hellknight order. It’s also the only order where signifers—Hellknight spellcasters—outnumber rank-and-file knights. These spellcasters use all types of magic to devise new ways to bring law to the world, and they are known for using eldritch rites to sniff out crimes as they are committed or even as they are being planned. The order’s favored weapon is the dagger.
Punishment is a response to the failure of law. To the members of the Order of the Gate, true order can be achieved only when criminal behaviour is quelled before it is committed—preferably before it is even considered. The Order of the Gate does not seek to convince every free-willed creature of a lawful society's virtues, because its members believe that forces stronger than rhetoric must be used to prevent the sickness of criminal impulse. Thus, the Order of the Gate employs magic to enforce its vision of law.
Would-be Order of the Gate Hellknights can look forward to learning a measure of this spellcasting order's secrets, including invasive new scrying techniques, methods for shielding spellcasters, and the order's connections to planes beyond.
Members of the Order of the Gate believe that arcane magic, extraplanar knowledge and manipulation are essential tools for preventing great crimes. With their focus on the pursuit of knowledge given to them by their infernal servants, the crimson-cloaked signifers are seldom seen abroad. It is their extraplanar servants who perform most of the order's dirty work outside Citadel Enferac. Nevertheless, the other orders have learned to respect the Gate's effectiveness, citing the many occasions when what seemed to be just vague predictions turned into perfect clarity with time.
This order is shrouded in rumor and mystery, with the biggest being the true nature of the "gate" referenced in their name. Members of this Order dismiss this as simply metaphor bound to their belief in arcane and extraplanar magic, but rumors persist about a gate to Hell placed deep within the bowels of Citadel Enferac.

Order of the Godclaw

The Order of the Godclaw is the only Hellknight order to dedicate itself to faith. These Hellknights revere a unique dogma borne from a combination of the most lawful aspects of five lawful deities; Muir, Thyr, Vanitthu, Anumon, and Asmodeus. These Hellknights follow their doctrine, which they call the Godclaw, to stamp out disorder and oppose the forces of absolute chaos. The order’s favored weapon is the morningstar.
The order extols the virtues of all five of its chosen deities, distilling select tenets into a dogma far from any one deity's faith. Not content with seeking divine approval for their knighthood's righteous path, the Order of the Godclaw's members have sculpted their beliefs from the harshest, most exacting philosophies of the five lawful deities, regardless of the deities' approval. The five are remade as five stern, armoured paragons, collectively comprising the order's titular Godclaw.
These Hellknights follow revised doctrines to stamp out disorder, particularly its divine embodiments and beings of absolute chaos, with religious zeal. Rather than targeting the faiths of prominent religions, the order sets its eyes on supporting lawful crusades and being at the vanguard of battles against the forces of chaos. No land is beyond the lawfulness provided by Hellknights—a fact the Order of the Godclaw endlessly seeks to prove.
Although members of the Godclaw pay homage to the lawful doctrines of their chosen gods, it is uncertain from where they get their divine power; it may be the case that their magic comes from their own convictions. Other Hellknight orders enforce their visions of law out of duty and necessity, but the Godclaw is inspired by religious zealotry and a clear belief that the world must learn the righteous path through force. They call the enigmatic, imposing Citadel Dinyar their home, and from this holy castle they chant their dogma with conviction and determination.

Order of the Nail

The Order of the Nail dedicates itself to stamping out threats that lurk within the vast swaths of wilderness that threaten to choke civilized society. These Hellknights see roaming monsters, unchecked superstitions, and unruled frontier living as a threat to society. The Nail often dispatches contingencies of knights throughout the world to deal with what they see as rising threats. The order’s favored weapons are the halberd and lance; Hellknights who travel on foot prefer the halberd, while mounted Hellknights fight with lances.
To certain dogmatic, rigid-minded individuals, civilization seems under siege. Beyond the bulwarks of cities and national borders lies an endless expanse of wilderness populated by those who, all too often, shun the rules of settled, lawful societies and follow their own callings. To the Order of the Nail, these beings enviously prey upon the children of the law, seeking to draw civilization into a regressive mire. The Order of the Nail stands staunchly against what it views as barbarity.
The Order of the Nail consider the vagrant and uncontrolled Blood Hunters of The Via Venatori to be their mortal enemies, distrusting their use of mutagens instead of self-discipline to meet their enemies in battle. The Blood Hunters refer to their enemies hailing from Citadel Vraid as 'Nail-Knights', a mocking moniker that is sometimes used by distrustful frontiersmen as well.

Order of the Pyre

The Order of the Pyre concerns itself with rooting out dangerous religions, seductive perspectives, and revolutionary science that threatens society’s status quo. Members of this order see themselves as cultist hunters and witchcraft persecutors, and they view all faiths beyond Lloegyr's most common religions with suspicion. The order’s favored weapon is the glaive.
Whether unhealthy beliefs take root in the minds of religious fanatics, practitioners of strange mystical arts, or students of radical philosophies, the Order of the Pyre strives to stamp out all outlandish convictions. This philosophy has given these Hellknights a well-earned reputation as cultist hunters who are intolerant of religion. Yet the Order of the Pyre also seeks to thwart philosophical revolutions and the insidious spread of dangerous ways of thinking. The order uses the faiths and mores of the idealized Hellknight society as the standard of acceptable beliefs. The Akadian Coastal region's most common deities are acceptable to them, as are orderly philosophies such as diabolism and the Prophecies of Kalistrade. However, the order views whatever does not mesh with their line of thinking or does not have an existing role within society as dangerous.
The Pyre has few holdings besides Citadel Krane, whose walls are stained black from the ashes of countless burnt witches and heretical books. Members of this Order travel in small groups, staying close to hotspots of religious fanaticism. Hellknights from this Order often come from families with deeply religious backgrounds, or those who have lived through the ravages of cults and madmen.

Order of the Rack

The Order of the Rack is the enemy of decadent thinking, selfish desire, and fruitless fantasy—all vices they believe inhibit societal growth and progress. Of all the major Hellknight orders, the Rack is most hated due to the order’s reputation for raiding the homes of those who speak out against the status quo. The Rack is also notorious for breaking up groups of malcontents before they become guilds, unions, or revolutionaries. The order’s favored weapons are the longsword and whip.
The Knights of the Rack are the enemies of foreign ideals and innovations, not because they lack merit, but because they detract from what these Hellknights perceive to be the traditional values of powerful empires of old. Art and technology are viewed as wasteful or dangerous, especially when they meet in union. None can say how many valuable printing presses Hellknights of the Rack have destroyed, or how many thousands of pages of unique stories, songs, and philosophies they have burned in the shadow of Citadel Rivad. All of this is summarized in the Order of the Rack's symbol, the torturer's wheel, which the order sees as the embodiment of wayward thinking and the suffering manifested by those permitted to indulge their ideas.
The Order of the Rack inherited its founder's endless quest to destroy wasteful knowledge and indolent idealism before it can affect the simplicity of everyday life. They usually do so via book burnings and the suppression of rebellious groups; the grounds of Citadel Rivad are littered with centuries of ashes shed from incinerated tomes. They seek to avoid change through the elimination of any dissent and the control of information. Anyone and anything which would distract from the normal peaceful progression of existence, whether for good or ill, must be eliminated before it has a chance to infect and fester.

Order of the Scourge

The Order of the Scourge is dedicated to rooting out corrupt individuals and influences within governments and other powerful groups. Its members hunt for political manipulation and abuses of power, and their efforts also include waging an endless war against organized crime. The order’s favored weapons are the mace, scourge, and whip.
With anonymity and no consequences, every man becomes a criminal. The Order of the Scourge combats the lawless tendencies within mortal hearts through ever-present watchfulness and brutal reminders that no crime goes unpunished. The Order employs a vast network of informants, pays bounties for substantiated accusations, and publicly metes out grim punishments.
The oldest organization of Hellknights, the Order of the Scourge seeks to root out corruption in any form. Its members hunt for political manipulation and abuses of power, but their efforts also include an endless war against organized crime. At the fringes of its influence, the Order of the Scourge might hunt gangs of burglars or cutpurses, but in the heart of civilization in which they are allowed to operate, these Hellknights crusade against faceless guilds of thieves, sprawling criminal organizations, and nobles for whom crime has become a family business. This regularly pits the Knights of Citadel Demain against some of the most dangerous powers in these regions, including members of national governments.

"Hell marches where Heaven fears to tread."

Hellknight Orders

Order of the Chain

"All men lift themselves up upon the backs of others."

Order of the Gate

"Judgment in the face of depravity."

Order of the Godclaw

"Righteousness by obedience."

Order of the Nail

"Savagery must be quelled, in the land, home, and mind."

Order of the Pyre

"Reason's flame consumes the shadow of corruption."

Order of the Rack

"The venoms of the mind poison the body."

Order of the Scourge

"Without culpability chaos reigns."