Collected Paladin Tenets.

[Belac93]

Liberality.
Good Faith.
Courtesy.
Lawfulness.
Bravery.
Pride in one’s actions.
Humility in one’s deeds.
Unselfishness.
Good-temperedness.
Wisdom.
Piety.
Kindness.
Honor.
Law.
Loyalty.
Courage.
Responsibility.
Honesty.
Compassion.
Duty.
Kindle the light.
Shelter the light.
Preserve your own light.
Be the light.
Fight the greater evil.
No mercy for the wicked.
By any means necessary.
Restitution.

This is a list I have made of the paladin oath tenets. Taken from SCAG and PHB. What combinations have you made for your characters?

One of mine, a darkness focused vengeance paladin, (who sadly has not seen play yet) has Wisdom, Compassion, No mercy for the wicked, and By any means necessary. I feel like No mercy and Compassion could have interesting conflicts, as well as Wisdom and By any means.

[Talamare]

We need someone to make a TRUE Paladin which follows EVERY Tenet

[Addaran]

tl:dr Skip the first text.

Not in D&D but in a LARP, i'm playing a Paladin from Vauraken. Vauraken is a God and the head of the country named after him. Without going into all the secret story (long and complicated) he's tyrannical, revisionnist, with a special secret police and there's mandatory prayer each morning and night. If you don't say the prayer, he knows it (he's a god after all) and you might disapear not too long after. On the other side, he's also the biggest defense against the world of death that's now on the material plane (about the size of a state and growing) and his country is the one who wasn't affected by the Great Big Plague (he cured it). People growing there don't have a choice, they are raising thinking that Vauraken is the Creator, the only real God and that everything is his will.


My paladin's tenets in order of importance:
1)Vauraken (God) is the most important thing, period.
2)The end justify the means
3)Never stop fighting Vauraken's enemies (God and Country)
4)Always work for the good of Vauraken (country)
5)Be loyal and trustworthy to your allies
6)Don't abuse of your powers and position for your personal gains (very relevant cause of how corrupt the country/faith is)
7) The general stuff: be proud, honorable and honnest

As you can see, some can be pretty contradictory. The paladin is good, but working for a very dictatorial God, and willing to do horrible things.
Summoning and exorcise are the favorite spell of his follower, depending their view. He took both, being willing to use demons on his enemies (Vauraken created them, their are his to command) but being able to keep them in check or banish(or kill with blessed weapons) them if they aren't doing Vauraken's will. He wants to make the world a better place and have people be happy, but for him, it's through his god only that it's achievable. If all worship him, we'll be protected from the deads, no more war and we'll be able to achieve everything.


Turns out that Vauraken is kind of a secret tragic martyr that ended up being corrupted by a major demon while saving the world from total annihilation. It does makes more sense for the paladin now (about the corruption or the things that didn't make sense with the revisionist) and his faith/tenets are slowly changing. First order of business is to cure Vauraken, then know what his will really his. Probably also eliminate all the corruption in his followers, because in that setting, the faithful influence the God. (i.e. a God of protection and war could end up losing protection while focusing on war if the majority of his followers are bloodthirsty warriors/barbarians)


Sorry for the long rambling, i'm excited cause we have a feast-LARP tomorrow. :smallbiggrin:

[Corran]

What a nice thread! I am looking forward to draw a lot of ideas from the paladin concepts other people will present here. Anyway, here are 2 of my most memorable paladins I've played.

1) During a campaign of 4e, I played a longtooth shifter paladin, who was raised in a city under the heavy influence of a very extremist clergy of Erathis (law, civilization, etc). He grew up with these teachings, to become a paladin who hunted lawbreakers with extreme zeal (like Javere from the miserables). His moto was that mercy is evil in disguise, that justice is often upseting to witness, and that the rule of law must be held high at all costs. He had also learned to restrain his savage nature (even detest it, I remember that I was having him shave his ever fast growing facial hair every morning), although the occasional grawls would occur from time to time when he was getting really angry (still, always in control, he would resist the urge to jump and start biting whomever it was that was aggravating him). He also had a very poor opinion about nature-related stuff, including druids, rangers and the like individuals. He was also always bluntantly honest, and very reluctant to break his word once he gave it.
I would say that his tenets were : Law-lawfulness, No mercy for the Wicked - restitution, Honor, Bravery and Loyalty.



2) Another paladin I've played, that also strayed somewhat from the norm, was during the playtest phase of 5e. The campaign took place in Chris Perkins' Valoreign setting (for those who know of it).
Basically Valoreign is the country the campaign takes place, and Nirvan is a neighboring country, and the history between these two countries had a fair share of conflict over years past, with a fragile peace going for a couple decades now, actually more like a cold war state. Think of it like England and France in the past.
So the paladin I played, was a sinister version of Jeanne of Arc. She was a Nirvish spy, who was trained-brainwashed from almost as long as she was able to walk, and who was sent to live in Valoreign from a very young age (yeah, like in Salt, though I swear I hadnt seen that movie yet). As the years passed she managed to find herself in the ranks of the Valish military, and using connections and acquaintances (eg, another PC who had been befriended by her was a noble - noble background- and helped quite a bit with her advancements) she kept pushing through the ranks. She used persuasion and deception with high efficiency, always trying to befriend people in important places, as she was trying very hard to always expand her circle of friends and achieve further advancements. And ofc she fed critical information to her Nirvish spymaster. You see, she had that weird impression, that Valoreign was a ''bad'' nation, that God (monotheistic campaign setting) hated the Valish, and that she was doing God's work by undermining and ultimatelly trying to destroy Valoreign from the inside, by feeding crucial information that would provide a critical advantage when war would finally break out again. Part of that because of her upbringing (brainwash and propaganda) and part of it because of her own unstable nature, which she concealed very well under a facade of a loyal officer of the crown of Valoreign. In fact, she was loyal indeed, but to her country of birth (Nirvan) and to her spymaster (closest thing she had to a father).
Basically I tried to play around the idea that one nation's traitors are another nation's heroes and stuff like that. In her mind, she was a true patriot who was doing the God's work and a service to her country. And from her point of view, it took great inner strength and courage to live constantly among enemies and far away from her beloved homeland. The tenets imo would be: By any means necessary, Duty, Loyalty, Courtesy (maybe twisted by underlying intention) and Courage. I am tempted to add Fight the greater evil, though the warding always gets me confused.