I have decided that I should show some loyalty to the rest of the DR community and just roll whatever lore is out there despite any person opinions on it.
If I'm going to embrace some lore, I might as well -seriously- embrace some lore.

Here goes....

Blackfire Knight

- Introduces Items:
-Alchemic Mineral Dust = Crushed Cambrinth And Rune Items Into Material Dust
- Runic Infusion = Combination Of Every Arcana Material Dust And Water
- Runic Weapon/Armor = Channels Glyph Abilities / Contains “Socketed Runes”

THE GUILD BACKGROUND
- Sworn To Serve And Obey “The Divine Conclave”:
- 7 Conclave Members: Hav’roth, Everild, Meraud, Chadatru, Kertigen, Tamsine, Eu
- Sworn To Aid Divine Conclave In Permanently Destroying The World Dragon
- They will go to extreme lengths to save the entire world. This includes Sorcery except Necromancy.
-RP: Designed to blend Arcana/Crafting skills with combat
- RP: Uses a psudo-samurai-style loyalty/philosophy system and constant checks to contain emotions.
- RP: Created/Trained to provide the holy element of Blackfire using Soul Pool.
- RP: Uses A “Partitioned Mind” Training Ritual To Partially Associate With 2 Mana Frequencies- Holy And Elemental. This also creates a separate, alter-ego personality that lives inside of the Blackfire Knight. This personality may be so weak as to be negligible or so strong as to cause social issues.
- The Blackfire Knight Will Only Actually Perceive One Selected EMBRACE Frequency Or None At All. Blackfire Knights That EMBRACE EVERILD Will Take Both Mana Streams On Faith And Raw Emotion. {Everild Knights never directly perceive any mana streams in any logical fashion.}
- Gains SOCIAL OUTRAGE system but does not get into Divine Outrage themes. {ARRESTED = BAD}
- RP: Favored Enemies: Constructs and the perceived ‘world enders’ such as World Dragon, Dragon Priests, Adam’f, Vykathi, Undead, and Demons
- Guild Halls:
-Guild Advancement Costs 1 Silver Per Gained Circle Up to Circle 15, Then 1 Gold Per Gained Circle After. {The Blackfire Knight Guild has to buy a lot of tolerance.}
-In the hidden fortress above the Vykathi Hive, a human guildmaster maintains sanction through a treaty requiring submission to both Ilithi and Zoluren governments along with generous monthly financial contributions and a promise of guild protection
- In Forfedhar, a gnome guildmaster aids the dwarven lords against the dragon priests
- On secluded Aesry, a prydaen guildmistress teaches guild secrets far from both the scrutiny of civilization and the potentially corrupting influences of the far West.

GUILD TRAITS
WEAPON PRIMARY, ARMOR SECONDARY, LORE SECONDARY
- 2+ Weapon Requirements, 1+ Armor Requirement, 0 Shield Requirements, , 1 Crafting Hard Requirement, Arcana Hard Requirement, Sorcery Hard Requirement, Logical other circling requirements based on skill category and spheres of influence
- Possesses A Soul State Like A Paladin Through Divine Conclave:
- First Aid Does Not Restore Soul State At All
- Prayer Badges/Religious Items Restore Soul State At Half Normal Rate/Amount
- Performing Crafting Skills Slowly Restores Soul State
- Gains 1/3 Base Soul Pool Of A Paladin; Bonused By FEALTY System
- Gains SMITE Ability Through Divine Conclave. Gains 1/3 Base Smite Pool Of A Paladin
- Gains Guild-Specific Glyphs
- Gains ATTUNEMENT Based On EMBRACE Ability.
- Being found guilty of crimes / Social Corruption System will inflict penalties.
- Advancing in Circle costs coin to pay for lore research, political bribes, and upkeep costs

SPHERES OF INFLUENCE
- Statistics: Strength, Charisma, Discipline
- Skills: TH/L/S Edged Weapons, Brawling, Polearms, Melee Mastery, Parry, Tactics, Brigandine, Chain, Defending, Evasion, First Aid, Locksmithing, Primary Magic, Attunement, Sorcery, Arcana, Scholarship, Appraisal, Mechanical Lore, Forging, Alchemy, Engineering, Outfitting, Enchanting
- Crafting Affiliations: Weaponsmithing, Artificing, Binding

SPELLBOOKS
FIRE, AETHER, JUSTICE, TECHNOMANCY

-Other-guild spellbook spells remain associated with their normal mana frequencies.
-Technomancy spells use both Holy and Elemental mana streams and thus also Sorcery Skill/Backlash.
-Other-guild spells just might cost Blackfire Knights more slots than they do Paladins and Warrior Mages.

FEALTY SYSTEM:
- RP: Designed To Maintain Sanity And Check Emotions By Leaning On/Obeying Each Other
- Blackfire Knight Kneels And SWEARS FEALTY To Another Blackfire Knight
- Character Swears Fealty To Guild Leader At Circle 2
- Maximum number of sworn character relationships is influenced by Charisma
- Number Of Lower-Circle Knights Sworn To You Increases Maximum Soul Pool
- Number Of Higher-Circle Knights You Have Sworn To Increases Soul Pool Regeneration
- Gain RP/Mechanical Effects/Bonuses With Sworn Allied Blackfire Knights
¬- Social Outrage Slows Down Soul Pool Regeneration {hurts entire guild; patrons are not pleased}


EMBRACE SYSTEM
EMBRACE [Divine Conclave Diety]: CIRCLE 2:
- Determines Character Frequency ATTUNEMENT:
-Elemental EMBRACE Dieties: Hav’Roth, Meraud, Eu
- Holy EMBRACE Dieties: Chatadru, Kertigen, Tamsine
-Elemental = Perceive Elemental Mana, Bonus / Penalty To Attunement Skill Based On Area Holy Mana
-Holy = Perceive Holy Mana, Bonus / Penalty To Attunement Skill Based On Area Elemental Mana
-EMBRACE EVERILD:
- RP: Grants Title “Rage Mage”
- RP: Casts Spells Almost Purely Through Frenzied Emotional Outbursts
- Does Not Naturally Regenerate Attunement At All
- Takes More Damage From Sorcerous Backlashes
- Gains Bonus Magic Resistance Based On Remaining Soul Pool Amount
- Taking TM Damage And Saving Against A Spell Causes Attunement Regeneration
- Gains both Glyph of Meditation and Glyph of Salvage
- POWER command for an Everild Blackfire Knight will simply display Soul Pool / Attunement Ratio For Meditation

-EMBRACE Influenced Holy Glyphs: Circle 2:

- Glyph of Meditation: Everild/Chadatru/Tamsine/Eu
-Consumes Soul Pool To Restore Attunement
- Ratio of Soul Pool to Attunement Gain is influenced by Elemental and Holy mana available.

- Glyph of Salvage: Everild/Meraud/Hav’roth/Kertigen
-Destroys 1 Arcana Item To Restore Attunement.
- Amount of Attunement gained depends on the item type/charges/storage


HOLY GLYPHS
- Glyph Of Mana: As A Paladin.

- Glyph Of Inspiration: Circle 15: Grants A Bonus To Specific Skills Based On EMBRACE Selection
- The larger the number of affected skills, the smaller the bonus. All should be balanced out.
- The bonuses have a very small minimum but grow with Circle and Charisma.

Bonus: Highest : Middle: Lowest:
- Havroth: Crafting Skills Survival Skills Lore Skills
- Meraud: Magic Skills Lore Skills Crafting Skills
- Chadatru: Armor Skills / + Perception Magic Skills Lore Skills
- Kertigen: Crafting Skills Magic Skills Lore Skills
- Tamsine Crafting Skills Survival Skills Magic Skills
- Eu: Survival Skills Magic Skills Crafting Skills
- Everild: Weapon Skills Survival Skills Armor Skills

- Glyph Of Blackfire: Circle 20:
- Glyph May Be RELEASED
- Ends if Glyph of Conviction is traced
- Duration influenced by Circle, Charisma, and Sorcery skill.
- Purely Elemental Spells Reduce Attunement Less
- Glyph Transforms Any Fire Spells Cast For 1 Second Per 2 Circles Into Blackfire.
- Uses CAST [Spell] BLACKFIRE
- Blackfire Deals Fatigue Damage = Vitality Damage Fire Inflicts
- Blackfire Deals Spirit Damage = 1/3 Vitality Damage Fire Inflicts
- Blackfire Spells Deal Bonus Holy Damage Based On Soul State
- Blackfire Spells Deal Bonus Fire Damage Based On Sorcery Ranks
- Casting Blackfire Spells Costs Caster Fatigue
- Casting Blackfire Spells Consumes A Tiny Portion Of Soul Pool

- Glyph Of Conviction: Circle 25:
-Glyph May Be RELEASED
- Ends if Glyph of Blackfire is traced
- Duration influenced by Circle, Charisma, and Sorcery skill.
- Pure Holy Mana Spells Reduce Attunement Less
- Aether Lance/Lash Is Imbued With Holy Energy For 1 Second Per 2 Circles
- Aether Lance Also Deals Two-Thirds Attunement Damage
- Aether Lash Consumes Smite Pool And Gains SMITE Damage Bonus
- Aether Lance/Lash Deal Bonus Holy Damage Based On Soul State
- Aether Lance/Lash Also Deals One- Third Spirit Damage
-Aether Lance/Lash Consumes A Tiny Portion Of Soul Pool Per Cast
- Stun Foe Is Imbued With Elemental Energy For 1 Second Per 2 Circles
-Stun Foe Deals Bonus, Randomly-Selected Fire/Cold/Electricity Damage
- Stun Foe Consumes A Portion Of Caster’s Fatigue Per Cast
- Stun Foe Consumes A Tiny Portion Of Soul Pool Per Cast

-Glyph Of Binding: Circle 50:
-Required in the creation of Runic Weapons and Runic Armor.

- Glyph Of Armor Channeling: Circle 25:
- The Blackfire Knight gains a % chance that any sorcerous backlash will destroy a Socketed Rune instead of deal damage.
- This glyph may only be traced if the Blackfire Knight is wearing one or more Runic Armor pieces. More coverage provided by Runic Armor will increase the duration of this glyph.

- Glyph Of Weapon Channeling: Circle 50:
- Blackfire Knight Uses Arcana Skill To CHARGE [Bound Runic Weapon]
- Weapons Holds 1 Mana Per 2 Blackfire Knight Circles + 1 Mana Per Weapon Volumes
- Next Blackfire Spell Cast Is ‘Memorized’ By Wielded Runic Weapon After Tracing Glyph
- SMITE BLACKFIRE Releases Memorized Blackfire Spell On Impact, Consuming Stored Mana
- SMITE BLACKFIRE Also Consumes A Tiny Amount Of Soul Pool To Provide Holy Infusion

BLACKFIRE KNIGHT RUNIC ITEMS:
- Someone POURS “Runic Infusion” Into Molten Metal Inside A Crucible
- Recipient Blackfire Knight traces a GLYPH OF BINDING upon a quenching tub. The item cooled by the tub during crafting becomes bound to the specific Blackfire Knight in terms of extra abilities.
- The Crafting Smith Forges “Runic Alloyed” Ingot Into Desired Armor/Weapon

RUNIC ARMORS:
- Rune Armor Stores 2 Mana Per Piece Volume
- Runic Armor will never leak mana.
- Runar Armor will never discharge energy if that would mean causing a spell to backfire.
- Runic Armor Pieces Gain Socketed Rune Slots Based On Body Part Coverage
-Character May Fill 1 Socketed Rune Slot At Circles 25/50/75/100/150/200
- Character Selects 1 Armor Slot Except Eye/Neck to utilize Socketed Runes with
- Character May WEAR more runic armor pieces than they can actually utilize at that circle
- A Spell Pattern Is Etched Into The Runic Armor Piece {Example: Protection From Evil}
- Etched Grooves In Runic Armor Filled With Alchemic Mineral Dust {Example: Indakaar Dust}
- This Creates An Arcana Item ‘Worn’ Inside The Runic Armor Item {Example: Indakaar Rattle}
- INVOKING A Socketed Rune Carries A % Chance of Not Consuming A Charge
- % Chance Determined by Circle, Charisma, Arcana Skill, And Soul State

RUNIC WEAPONS:
- Runic Weapons Store 1 Mana / Weapon Volume + 1 Mana / 2 Circles Of Blackfire Knight
- SMITE BLACKFIRE With Runic Weapons Under Glyph Of Channeling Fires A Blackfire Spell
- Runic Weapon Strikes Will Mildly And Randomly Bonus Arcana, Attunement, Or Sorcery Skills


TECHNOMANCY SPELLBOOK SPELLS:
- All Are Esoteric
- All Use Both Holy And Elemental Mana
- All Cause A Fatigue Hit When Cast/Pulsed/Used

- Arcanamach: Utility Ritual, Cyclic:
- {Perhaps some type of worktable/lab or other furniture item could be a ritual focus for this?}
-Produces (Mana Spent / 20, Minimum 1) Arcana item charges and randomly distributes the charges to items worn and stored on the character’s person.
-Casting/Using/Releasing this spell imposes a long cooldown where the Blackfire Knight cannot give any Arcana items away.

- Mana Shield: Warding, Battle:
-Mildly reduces magical attack damage
-Reduces more damage from mixed frequency magical attacks
-Significantly reduces sorcerous backlash damage at the cost of spirit and a stun.
- Experiencing sorcerous backlash will immediately end this spell.

-Holiomagnetic Smite: Augmentation, Battle:
-This spell uses faith-guided, elementally-created magnetic attraction/repulsion to attempt to reduce the roundtime of any smites attempted with a runic weapon down to 1 second.
-This effect comes with a Soul Pool hit determined by number of RT seconds eliminated.
-The % chance of this happening is determined by Mana spent, Arcana skill, and Soul State

- Deconstruct: TM Battle, Cyclic: Deals Triggered Elemental + Holy Damage To Constructs/Undead
- Deals full damage to Constructs and one-quarter damage to Undead
- Damage is influenced by caster’s Arcana skill.
- Triggering Actions: Aether Spells (+Moderate), Blackfire Spells (+Low), Smites (+High), Brawling Strikes (+Moderate), Grappling Position (+Low, Pulsing)

-Corporealize: Debilitation, Battle:
- Causes 1 incorporeal creature to be treated as solid by all characters in the Blackfire Knight’s group. The duration of this spell is influenced by Soul State.

Another group of knights? The ones we currently have (Paladins) aren't working very well. I like some of these ideas, but I think they should be incorporated into the Paladin guild rather than made into a completely new guild. Especially since this Blackfire Knights' guild seems like it would just further serve to step on the toes of the Paladins' guild.

- Thanks! I can creatively write quickly but currently can't code to save my life. Go figure! Perhaps I should figure out how to about learning.

- I should have really read up on Aether again. Those changes you mentioned would actually be nice for making the guild rely on blackfire for 'special guild damage' and just nix/rewrite Glyph of Conviction.

- I 100% want to see the Paladin guild expanded/Fixed first and then this changed to suit the paladin guild, definitely. Paladins, as 'holy + knight', should thematically overlap at least a little with the cleric guild and this guild I imagine.

- The 'dark knight' theme in DR is not very deeply explored and I wonder if 'desperate to kill the World Dragon and other potential world-enders' might facilitate the niche. One difference is that paladins are generally RP'd and mechanically designed to be loved by established authority (with exceptions of course) while the Blackfire Knights would have to bend over backwards and outright bribe people to exist (and thus charge coin for members to circle up)along with only opening up guildhalls in places where a new player wouldn't just stumble past.

- This guild calls Constructs and the ever-improving methods to create them incredibly dangerous, "Skynet style". They, ironically, use non-self-activating technology and Arcana skills to combat them.

- The Paladin guild tries to make everybody as happy as possible in terms of morality and social status. This speaks for guild design, direction, and image rather than any specific character RP.

- The Blackfire Knight guild instead calls into question the differences between how the Immortal's view morality and how mortal society views it. No Immortal will tolerate necromancy even for these desperate reasons. That said, the Divine Conclave is made up of the select Immortals that each hates the Wold Dragon with a passion even relative to the other Immortals. They toss down the divine edict "You bunch do what you gotta do to help us get this done."

- The theme of emotions is explored very deeply in this guild. They may overlap a bit with Bards on this. I would imagine even guild-required quests revolving around the knight tackling a particular emotion or inner conflict like hate, love, and guilt.

Paladins are protectors of the innocent and make overt efforts to maintain their own real/perceived purity. These are the dark knights that make physical, moral, and social sacrifices to secretly save the entire world and hope no one lynches them for it before they can end the World Dragon's slumbered breathing.

Thanks for the responses!

>>Paladins are protectors of the innocent and make overt efforts to maintain their own real/perceived purity. These are the dark knights that make physical, moral, and social sacrifices to secretly save the entire world and hope no one lynches them for it before they can end the World Dragon's slumbered breathing.

I don't think the way Paladins are currently being fostered in DR are explicitly protectors of the innocent who care about what other people think. Forever ago, Paladins were more "LAWFUL GOOD YOU WORSHIP CHADATRU GOOD DAY" but now some Paladins might be the type to burn a whole village of orphans down because they heard a Necromancer once did a thing there. It just happens that a lot of mortal laws tend to mesh nicely with the rules Immortals want the unwashed masses to follow.

---

Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

I like the guild CONCEPT, except you shouldn't use Blackfire.

Blackfire specifically only does one thing, ever. It burns things, not just physically, but in a "I just used some divine influence to burn this out of past/present/future and left a scar that wont heal on the world" sort of way. All incarnations(to date) of blackfire have been about this in varying degrees, and unfortunately it's not a flexible definition, so it couldn't really be a disable or glyph.. or touch anything like a weapon with out burnination. Oh and it leaves a scar on your soul/psyche for knowing how to do it according to the books(didn't have an in game component to the spells like incinerate)

Also, Aether and Electric books are sort of pseudo elements, they're VERY new as far as elemental magic goes(having the longest history in magic except for priest/shaman types.) and would probably be hard to work with for a fringe group, though this is personal opinion only.

I also don't think the Citadel is up for grabs, being a large part of Warrior mage lore(what there is) and still partly occupied, again this is my preference, nothing says it couldn't be the super secret base.


Generally just trying to give some reasonable feed back, there always seems to be misconceptions about black fire and Blackfire(sound familiar?) but there are actually books on this one in game. You'd almost be better off going for an extremist sect of fire mages that use different color flames for distinct effects, which is also documented loosely in game, though Warrior mages have off and on petitioned for spells based on this and been turned away.

There are a lot of interested books on how old Elemental mages were basically like this already in the shard library, and the story of Corik's ride. They were Pre-Paladin guild Paladins who used elemental magic instead of holy, they were knights, and they screwed things up pretty bad.

Good luck!

Thanks! That's great feedback. I actually thought a bit about these very same concepts as I was writing that.

- The lore about Corik is great! I should look more deeply into it. It seems like a great historical tie-in.

- Multi-colored sorcerous magics I would be in favor of.

- Perhaps something in that treaty used to set up shop in the hidden fortress is signed by Gauthus? That might be some fun RP. I imagine it would take some serious motivation, like a real threat from dragon priests again or some such, to get the any paladin guildleader to sign said treaty. I imagine the guild to be like provincial black-ops: the government will tell you that they exist in some form but no, they don't want to talk about it and that's final or book a stay in a cell.


The Blackfire stuff I've thought about:

-The Divine Conclave is willing to scar the world in order to save it but the initial choice to reach out to blackfire was initiated by mortals. The Conclave just took a look at the Blackfire, then took a look at the World Dragon, and said "Well heck nothing else has worked yet. A half-scarred world is better than no world at all. Lets see if we can burn up its life force and then rebuild what's left."

- As far as flexiblity goes, I might be alone here but I'm willing to shrug my shoulders and say "With divine help these guys just figured out how." Nothing says current Elanthians know all there is to know about magic. I will read the IG lore one more time- thanks! :)

-The insanity theme is very much worth exploring. I wrote a Bushido-type, Vulcan-ish system of guild-based checks and balances to keep all this turmoil in check within individual Knights. The FEALTY system is meant to help address this- supernaturally bonding to each other for, literally, emotional support. Their psyches are stronger combined than they are alone.

I'm glad you like the concept!

Oh, I can understand that, not saying Elanthians know nearly everything about magic, but Blackfire is a fire cabal discovery from before the establishment of ANY guild EVER, and it was one of a variety of effects they produced from experimenting, it just happened to be the most purely destructive one and caused the war which ended up in the unifying of elemental mages, that war ended in the only thing worse: Voidspell

For good reads on related lore, see:

History of Dertalriosh Endaertheal'a, Volume 1
https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Book:HmkDE1

And

History of the Warrior Mage Guild, Volume 1
https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Book:HmnWM1

Cheers.

>>any guild that uses magic must have Lore as a Secondary or higher as a DR design rule.

Skill sets were defined in the very early days of DR and never changed since then (With the exception of adding Necromancers and, once you get past the survival primary vs magic primary thing, fall out quite cleanly). Was there once a rule in place that to use magic you had to have Lore secondary? It's been said before (Technically it was said you needed to be Lore secondary to be Magic primary - otherwise Rangers break this rule), but did it date back to those times? Dunno. Maybe? We've never been in a situation where enforcing it actually came up.

There are some things* we'd do differently with skill sets if we were to start again from day one but even with the scale of changes 3.0 brought is skill set placement isn't something we don't want to mess with.

-Raesh

*Notably the fact that Clerics and Warrior Mages have the same skill set up. The obvious answer is for Clerics to swap Armor and Weapons, but that would further cause problems with Clerics and Paladins secretly being the same guild. There's also the extremely skewed balance between how many guilds are primary/secondar/tert at each skill set. This is most glaring for Lore (two tert guilds) and Armor (seven tert guilds).

"The obvious answer is for Clerics to swap Armor and Weapons, but that would further cause problems with Clerics and Paladins secretly being the same guild."

I'd have found a way to make Clerics Lore primary, and weapon/armor tertiary. If any guild should be Lore primary, it's Clerics. I mean ... they're Clerics. Clerical duties should come first and foremost.

Honestly, I'd like to just change the guild name from "Paladins' Guild" to "Knights' Guild." That, I think, would really sum up the direction the guild should move. That is to say ... very far away from the D&D Paladin and closer to more real-world sources of inspiration.

<Sad gnome time. I am going to miss paladins. :(>>

Paladin's aren't going anywhere as a guild. Sheesh.

--Just a Squire

Where does a Paladin go?

Wherever he pleases.

-Raesh

"Ever notice that B.A.'s flavor text swells in direct proportion to how much one of our characters is getting screwed?" - Brian Van Hoose

<<Where does a Paladin go?

He goes palad-in and palad-out.

Yeah I know. Bad.

Before this gets too out of hand, let's stop horsin' around and get back to last knight's topic.

Feel free to continue the (medi)evil humor down in The Social Side of DragonRealms. I'm positive Annwyl needs some old fashioned rescuing via clanking.

Helje
DragonRealms Board Monitor

If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at MOD-Helje@play.net, Senior Board Monitor Sidatura at DR-Sidatura@play.net, or Message Board Supervisor Annwyl DR-Annwyl@play.net.

Thank you for the feedback and thanks for those that expressed appreciation for the reading and thought I put into it. Perhaps after Traders get Attunement, Paladins are made whole again, Warrior Mages have more uses for Summoning, and Enchanting and other crafts are fleshed out.... some of this could be looked at again. Perhaps 'Rune Warrior' or 'Rune Knight' would be a better direction. I personally like the idea of a guild that combines weapons with arcana.