Greyhawk paladin lore help

[Seekergeek]

So I’m playing in a homebrew game DMd by a good DM who is sticking very close to the 3.5 greyhawk lore. My character died and I’m in the process of creating a replacement. Sadly by table rules that means starting at half-level to the rest of the party. Ah well. Anyway, I’m going to play a paladin and given the nature of the campaign (tame this wild frontier of monsters and also whoops you unleashed seven ancient evils you dopes, clean that up while you’re at it), I want to lean toward a sort of monster hunter. Oath is less important to me now than is an established paladin order that would have been involved with such work. I’m surprised I haven’t been able to google-fu anything myself so I thought I’d turn to you guys for help. It’s a broad question, I know, but any help would be much appreciated! If it helps we’re in perrinland, though I don’t have to have come from there.

[DanyBallon]

Sadly there aren’t many known paladin orders per say in Greyhawk.

I’d suggest that you look for knightly orders instead. Most of theses orders have paladins in their membership, and it may help you more for your character creation.

Since knightly orders are often affiliated with kingdoms, do you know in which region your adventures takes place, or could it be plausible that your character originated from a kingdom afar?

[Seekergeek]

Yeah, aside from Heironeous I couldn’t find much. As a god he’s maybe too far on the good spectrum. I’d like to lean more lawful neutral than lawful good. We are in Perrenland on it’s eastern border. There is no restriction as to where we can be from, however.

[DanyBallon]

If you consider your paladinhood through the spectrum of a god, your options are quite limited in Greyhawk as the lore dated from a time where paladin where exclusively LG human following Good deities. Hence why Heironeous comes up so often.

If you play in Perrenland, being a knight of the Hart from the High Forest could be a good fit (except that they are exclusively elves and weren't paladin as per older editions rules) or you could be from the Furyondy branch which is more open on it's membership, but also focus a bit more on the political affairs of the world.

As far as 5e goes, you don't need to follow a god to be a paladin.
If your DM would let you play an elven paladin, then you follow the oath of the ancients (fits thematically with elves and fighting monstrosity unleashed upon the world or even follow the oath of vengeance to avenge the ones that suffers from those monstrosities. Corellon Larethian could be you patron deity, or if your DM allows it, then Solonor Thelandira, as the elven god of hunt could fit your monster hunter theme.

If instead you choose to play a Knight of Furyondy and focus on the taming the wild and expanding the kingdom side of the campaign, then following the Oath of the Crown could be a good fit. Heironeous would then be a good patron deity, and Rao, would be an excellent fit for a devotion or redemption paladin.

I hope this will help :smallbiggrin:

[jmberry]

Lawful Neutral who fights monsters?

Saint Cuthbert, full stop.

[DanyBallon]

Lawful Neutral who fights monsters?

Saint Cuthbert, full stop.

I’m not quite sure Saint Cuthbert is a good fit. He’s a LG deity with LN tendencies bent on converting people to its tenets. It favour law and despite evil in everything.
Paladins of Saint Cuthbert are the armed force that fight enemies of the faith, which are almost everyone not following Saint Cuthbert... They rally heretics and try to convert them.

Fun fact, the very two first deities created for Greyhawk (Saint Cuthbert and Pholtus), were LG with a strict faith and their followers were zealot fighting heretics.

[Seekergeek]

Lawful Neutral who fights monsters?

Saint Cuthbert, full stop.

I was leaning toward cuthbert as a first choice myself, given the church has a roll in the campaign - but felt restricted by the cannon options. The DM has since loosened that up a bit to give me some latitude to create an Order within an appropriate church to be a part of.

[JackPhoenix]

I’m not quite sure Saint Cuthbert is a good fit. He’s a LG deity with LN tendencies bent on converting people to its tenets. It favour law and despite evil in everything.
Paladins of Saint Cuthbert are the armed force that fight enemies of the faith, which are almost everyone not following Saint Cuthbert... They rally heretics and try to convert them.

Fun fact, the very two first deities created for Greyhawk (Saint Cuthbert and Pholtus), were LG with a strict faith and their followers were zealot fighting heretics.

Cuthbert's LN in both 3e and 5e.

And St. Cuthbert and Pholtus don't like each other because they're so similar.... each of them thinks he's the one who knows best.

[DanyBallon]

Cuthbert's LN in both 3e and 5e.

And St. Cuthbert and Pholtus don't like each other because they're so similar.... each of them thinks he's the one who knows best.

OP was asking about Greyhawk lore and Saint Cuthbert was listed as a LG deity with LN tendency when created. In 3e due to the lack of LN deity in the PHB (the other one being Wee Jas and she's associated with death…) they made him a LN god. The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, the most reliable Greyhawk source in 3e, kept the LN alignment of the PHB, but specified the strong LG tendency to reconcile with its origin, they even gave him the Good domain to reflect that!

Still if OP's DM loosened up St. Cuthbert cannon for his homebrew, then all the better as it's a good fit for any paladin fighting evil and lawbreaker :smallsmile: