AEQ Knights Thing

The Knights of Basette are the model for all Noble Knight orders, including the Order of the Griffin as I pictured it. The KoB were an order that lasted centuries, formed before even the Great War, and took the Aefirla style of knight to its logical conclusion. The most physically capable youths would be chosen, though not everybody was tested, and those that didn't have the magical, mental or physical ability to actually join the ranks of the KoB would be rejected. As knights still tend to favour transmutation over evocation (because the former doesn't use formal training, allowing more time spent on martial disciplines, and tends to be better at empowerment) this meant that there wasn't much crossover with mages. As armour that enhanced the user's abilities wasn't as widespread as it is now for a variety of factors, the KoB knights used their own magical powers with armour that was simply stronger, lighter and had magical protection in it. The Order was a good two thousand strong at its peak, prior to the shadowbeasts, but would have had auxillaries to support it. Noble Knights today still follow their model, but have better equipment to supplement the fact that they don't train and cull as heavily as the KoB. With few exceptions, probably limited to the major knightly orders in Ahm and the RSK, veteran knightly orders like the Golden Bears would only be a match for the less experienced KoB.

The Templars were something that I never really mentioned, because they were related to a subplot I dropped. I never mixed them up with the KoB, except where you or others may have assumed I was referring to them indirectly. I think the confusion over Sala comes from earlier scenes where she may have compared him to the KoB (which makes sense given he is a model knight, if a damned good one and with astral power that takes him beyond them) but I was thinking of the subplot where she contacts Malataine about a historical order of knights. That subplot never got brought up before I wrote the Lore doco, so the Templars just seemed to appear out of nowhere. The Templars are in a league of their own, however. The best KoB would be more than a match for Talon at the start of the quest; knights like Arquin. The better Templars would be the same, with the truly excellent ones like Saareg being a cut above Talon and God-Knights but falling short of elite God-Knights, Great Knight Candidates and Great Knights. Although it's a very weak variant (in most cases, Saareg is a stupidly large exception - he has a little in common with Talon but never touched Pandemonium) the Templars weren't uplifted, so they relied on skill and talent whereas the God-Knights were given it. Most GKs rely on their innate abilities, whereas the Templars worked hard to be as good as they are - the better Templars would probably have weaker stats than the GKs, but have the range of powers of all three variants of GK put together (Iron Body, Wondrous Body, Astral Projection, Empower Self). The normal templars wouldn't have as many abilities, probably limited to Empower Self and maybe one other. The lorebin doesn't do them much justice, which is why I should probably actually finish writing it.

Spellblade are a different beast entirely, with minimal relation to the concept of Knights. They're more like glass cannons that rely on magic to protect themselves. This leaves them open to magic-resistant armour and shock charges, but they can dish out huge amounts of damage as they're basically throwing around battlemage firepower in melee while moving really fast. They have formal training in evocation, which typically means they start learning magic as a teenager - I'll be having the spellblade academy be picking up recruits that have been learning magic from mages around the country but it will still be 5 years of training to get them to the point of Green Spellblade after spending five to ten years learning the basics. Battlemages have it easier, as they don't need to learn as much as Spellblades. If I've said that the KoB or other knights are outright superior to spellblades, then I shouldn't have said that. Situationally, the elite units of the KoB could break a spellblade formation and could very likely defeat one in single combat - HMKs could do the former but not the latter, as they're not as well trained as proper Knights. The better Templars would go through spellblades like a hot knife through butter, for the same reason Talon could defeat Rayza (barriers, tough as nails etc).

All three of these groups have different magical sources. Knights tend to rely on ad hoc magic, which means transmutation and thus good empowerment. Spellblades use formal evocation, which lets them use powerful AoE spells and good barriers but aren't as tough. Templars use astral power, which makes them lean more towards the Knight side of things but gives them a bit more flexibility than most Knights get (Astral Projection, namely). There's also Mage Guard Wardens, which are basically Knights of Basette but with specialised anti-mage abilities and a few tricks thanks to their spiritual techniques, though they fall well short of the Templars.

Comparing these to other races, you find that only the elves really get the best of both worlds. Dwarven Rune Knights tend to be like super Knights, with equipment that is still better than anything humans produce, naturally stronger bodies and vastly more experience - the youngest Rune Knights have decades of experience and training, as much as the oldest of the KoB. Elven Knights have a form of transmutation that is better than what humans do, because they can summon more power with it. Their offensive spells aren't as devastating as a Spellblade's but they have more punch, they have excellent equipment that doesn't quite match the dwarves, superb empowerment ability and, again, decades of experience and training before they even really start being considered Knights. It should be noted that Daerfir have more in common with the KoB due to their healing powers than they do with Elven Knights.

>Also said that the Knights of Basette had significantly better ranged capability than our ranged units, which is probably a lot more accurate defensively than offensively.


This seems like a silly thing for me to say. Not sure why I would say it. The KoB would have developed archery ability but they would have fallen short of Arcane Archers. They developed specially articulated armour for their bows, which is the reason I'm saying Talon can use one despite the armour being bulky (yes, this is basically handwavium). I may have been thinking of a faction that is modelled a little on the KoB when I said that, because I can't think of any other reason I would have. The KoB don't have the same magic as Seraphi Nobles either, so they shouldn't be competing with them in the archery arena (I may have thought differently once?). The astral arrow is a big deal - Mal never really commented on it because lots of other crazy shit happened when you first showed it off. I can see some of the KoB matching his prior technique, which was just armour-piercing and with more power, but they would be short of the Seraphi Nobles. Maybe Skill 3, Pen 4 and the same range as archers?


Okay, so now for the other thing that I think we may have our wires crossed on. Short-term vs long-term. Short-term, the Order of the Griffin is hamstrung by the fact it's leaning heavily on veteran soldiers to fill the ranks - they've been adjusting to their new armour, new comrades, new leadership and learning to fight a lot better in general. A Griffin Knight could defeat one a DracoGriff in single combat, and in turn be beaten by a Black Stone Knight. That's because Noble Knights get a level of training that mage-knights don't (because the latter are primarily soldiers, who learn to fight on battlefields and in drilled formations). These veteran soldiers are getting a lot of experience and bashed around by Lynn, and are from good stock - but they're still primarily drawn from Darlesia and Vitria (and some from Taour and Termina now). They haven't been picked up at a young age and been drilled, trained and tested for a decade before hitting the battlefields. Short-term, with Source abuse and Lynn's leadership, the current batch will top out as Elite Noble Knights, which is pretty good. This is stuff I've already agreed to, back when people were talking about the dungeon diving in the Marnn mountains.

Long-term, you can push them to Knights of Basette level and a little further. This would involved earlier recruitment and training, including picking out those with better magical power. There's logistical difficulties in the latter, even with abilities to try to read magical potential (which aren't perfect, particularly with humans who have little magical power innately), but they can be overcome over time.

Now for a little statistics: If I were to stat the KoB, they'd be split into two units. The first would be the NKs, except the general KoB would start as Veteran NKs, the experienced KoB would be Elite NKs. The second unit would be statted like Wardens, but with lower DQ and Pen and no anti-magic tricks. The most elite of the KoB (like Arquin's guard) would top out as Veteran Wardens, effectively. For reference, Templars would be running with stats like Spellblades and would have narrative abilities that would give them an edge over many units and let them compete with GKs a little.

What this means is that the human peak for Knights is basically that of an Elite Warden (which means +1ABL, making them the same as Elven Knights). Equipment could be used to possibly create hybrids between Knights and Spellblades to breach that wall, but I haven't thought much about it. Long-term, if you were to start mixing in other races, mages and whatever to create mixed units or something that seemed to gel well together, I might look at creating a new unit for them. I'm hesitant to make them too much stronger, as it would create power creep, particularly with the GKs and another faction sitting where they are.

>Makes sense, though it does lead to the question of how anyone got the idea that the KoB were as good as the Astral Adepts given that they would have fought them in the Great War.


Well, the Knights of Basette are well known and people have turned them into legend. That sort of thing happens even historically. With that said, the KoB did well against the Great Knights in the war due mostly to numbers and tactics. The GKs stretched themselves too thinly, they still need to eat and sleep but had pushed far beyond the loyal cities, were relatively few in number and could become exhausted from constant battle. The defenders were numerous, coming from all around the world, on the defensive with good supply lines and could control the flow of the war if they did well. A lot of weaker forces still got steamrolled by the sheer power of the GKs, but the KoB would have been several hundred capable knights (well beyond most of what humanity could muster) leading a huge army - good tactics, plus the ability for the KoB to actually harm GKs and even outnumber them, meant that the KoB were one of the few human forces that were genuinely holding them back.


>Makes sense, though I'd argue you're selling the noble knights of the lords a bit short, and probably the Farlou as well historically (they had loads of magic and were right next to the elves).



Well, I'm not sure the Lords will have many Noble Knights - most of them would get uplifted and become God-Knights. Farlou was... a bit funny. They never had the knightly traditions but instead had many more mages and spellblades (or spellblade equivalents) plus different martial traditions - think Muscle Wizard.



>I assumed the training times where much shorter. How the heck are the Mage Guard going to have some spellblades by the end of the timeskip?



Initially I had the training times set to just two years, but that was absolutely silly when you consider the ability of spellblades. Magic has to be a difficult discipline, otherwise many of the agriwizards would be far more capable. It's time-consuming nature is why most mages don't make magister until their 30s or 40s, and many never at all. Spellblades are pretty good at magic, otherwise they'll just be battlemages - they tend to be talented but without the mindset to create and modify spells like combat magisters. So turning a battlemage or an apprentice into a spellblade is difficult.

The main reason the Mage Guard have spellblades is that they would start recruiting some from afar, they would have some hidden spellblades as well as mages that can be cross-trained into them that have secretly been training or were close enough to quickly be repurposed. I'm actually going to add some spellblades to Vitria, as it doesn't make much sense for the towers there not to have any now that they have more political power - beforehand, they restricted their military might because the noble houses might have reacted poorly and were the richest patrons of the mage towers. None of these will be close to the industrial training ability you'll have with the Academy. Once up and running, the Academy will churn out a yearly troop of spellblades, battlemages and whatever else until you hit certain numbers (which change depending on the size of the empire and the current situation, to represent aging and people moving on) which will be greater than what you'd get otherwise.