Knights of the Blighted Gate
The ancient order of knights, sworn to guard the world against the Witchblight and to stand vigil over the Blackgrave Isles
Structure
The Knights of the Blighted Gate are structured very similar to a regular Knight Order - these ranks are listed below and described in short detail. Notably, the Knights of the Blighted Gate do not preform Knighting Ceremonies, so any being wishing to become a member of the order must first become a Knight themselves.
The Grandmaster - The leader of the Knights of the Blighted Gate, who serves for life. However, as the role is a martial one, many often die on the battlefield before they can serve for an incredibly long time.
The Chaplains - The spiritual caretakers of the order's members, as much of spiritual and religious guides as they are priests, clerics, and paladins who fight alongside the order's knights in battle. They are in charge of supervising the last rites of the victims of the Witchblight as they are carried by way of the Order's insidious "Blackships" to the Blackgrave Isles to be abandoned and left to die, and tend to the spiritual needs of the order's members. They are typically curated exclusively from within the ranks of the Order itself, and do not accept outsiders.
The Sergeants - The members of the order who handle much of the non-combat duties neccesary to the continued existing of the Order as a whole - they bring valuable skills and trades such as smithing, building, and the like as well as the vital task of managing the Order's armies, navies, and the lands that it owns. In short, they form the ranks of the 'commanders' of the Order, who manage its finances and other non-combat matters but serve alongside the Noble Knights as needed. Not all members of the Sergeants rank are senior members of the order Per Se(As some are even subordinate to the Knights), but on the whole they make up the skilled workers and management staff of the order, as well as some of its senior positions.
The Noble Knights - The rank-and-file members of the order, who make up the bulk of its military forces. They are divided into many ranks, but are regardless made up of knights and highly trained veteran warriors from across Zheng-Kitar who either come to the order to join its ranks or who are brought up and/or trained within the order itself by full members of the order. They are divided into Knights, Knight 2nd Class, Knight 1st Class, Knight Commander, as well as into the special ranks Knight-Incendior(Knights of the Order's Incineration Squads), Knight-Magi(Knights of the Order's Witchhunting Squads), and Dark Knight(Knights of the Order that run its navies "The Blackships", organize the shipments of infected to and from the isle, and lead expeditions far afield to round up infected for transport).
The Squires - The lowest rank, usually reserved for those who wish to join the order but do not have the skills nor knighthood required to do so. They aid and assist the Knights and other full members of the order with non-combat tasks and aid with upkeep and other duties around the Order's ports of call and power centers. They typically are assigned to a specific Knight after an initial trial period if they display an interest in learning the ways of the order's military knights - though they must go on a pilgrimige to earn knighthood elsewhere at the end of their training.
Culture
Most notable facet of the Knights of the Blighted Gate is their nature as an all-male Knightly Order - though there has a push in recent years to change this, they were found as and remain as an All-Male order. In addition to this, they abide by a series of tenets described in the "Blighted Rule" laid down by the Order's first Grandmaster, Jaques de Lévêque - while not listed in their entirety, some of the most notable are listed below:
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- Knights of the Order serve for life, barring extreme circumstances.
- Knights cannot surrender unless the Flag of the Order has fallen.
- Knights cannot leave the battlefield until all Flags of the Order have fallen.
- Knights must wear their black mantle at all times without exception, even when sleeping and eating.
- Knights must swear an oath of poverty - all personal belongings must be forfeited upon entry.
- Knights of the order are honor-bound to report the taint of Witchblight wherever it is found.
- Knights are sworn to oppose the forces of the Demon Queen, her damnable spawn, and followers at every opportunity. ...
Public Agenda
The public agenda of the Knights of the Blighted Gate is to remain constantly vigilant against the threat of the Witchblight, the re-emergence of Dahmunara Worldthrone or any of her spawn such as Jilixia Worldthrone, and to safeguard the world from all such threats relating to these objectives.
Assets
The Knights of the Blighted Gate have only three locations that belong entirely to them - Blackberth Harbor, home of the majority of the Order's infamous "Blackships", Northwatch Harbor, home of the Order's greatest fortress designed to keep watch on the island's denizens and prevent their escape, and Fellharbor, the formerly least of the three that has slowly become the most well-fortified and well-defended in recent years due to the breakthrough of the Heihaizi onto the small island that the harbor resides on, previously thought too far for the Apex Lifeforms known as the Heihaizi to reach, which has now come under assault by the apex predators after they swam across the stretch of water seperating the island from the rest of the Blackgrave Isles and laid siege to the harbor city.
Aside from these locations they maintain fortress-temples across Zheng-Kitar to serve as localized hubs from which they scour the land for signs of infection - as ancient treaties and pacts beholden most all Governments of Zheng-Kitar to offering them whatever assistance they require in their task(Which even nations such as the Kassau Matriarchy abide by), they gain all the rest of their assets from these bases and the aid provided by the nations such places reside in.
History
The Knights of the Blighted Gate were formed in the wake of the collapse of the empire of Dahmunara Worldthrone and her armies of evil as the mysterious sickness known as Witchblight swept across the continent in the wake of the Demon Queen's defeat - an insidious, incurable disease that struck children in the cradle and, left unchecked, would turn them into horrendously powerful monsters that would subjugate and destroy all in their path, growing at a rapid rate into bloating monsters beyond imagination.
With this disease also proving itself highly contagious, the Knights of the Blighted Gate were formed as an organization that would exist independent of any governmental entity or country, whose sole goal would be to stop the spread of Witchblight - in time, as the countries of Zheng-Kitar made the decision to abandon the infected on a long-distant series of islands, the Knights of the Blighted Gate were put in charge of seeking out such infected children and ferrying them back to Blackgrave Isles, new dumping ground for the infected where they were to be abandoned and left to die away from civilization.
Though the Witchblight has lessened significantly in recent centuries, the Order remains as stalwart as ever and maintains its vigil over the Blackgrave Isles to prevent the Isle's denizens the Heihaizi from ever escaping its shores.
An eternal vigil, An eternal flame.
Founding Date
4050 ASK
Type
Military, Knightly Order
Alternative Names
The Abductors, The Dark Knights, The Witchburners
Training Level
Elite
Veterancy Level
Decorated/Honored
Demonym
Knight
Leader Title
Location
Controlled Territories
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