“One for all, and all for the collective enforced equality of society!”
From MyHeroAcademia
Digress: D&D is feudal by nature. It lends itself to inequality. There’s a literal class structure that actually determines ones proficiencies. High level players and characters are essentially superhuman, and society finds itself structured around these people. Look at the inequality in real life, and then imagine if Bill Gates could cast Wish, never aged, and could lift a tank.
Even worse, many of these gifts can be hereditary. Sorcerer bloodlines, inherited magic items, or even family blessings all make for a fundamentally unequal society (which in turns plays into why D&D’s most common governance structure is feudal; but frankly there’s enough to talk about how the class-leveling system interacts with systems of governance to post about another day). Now, there is a very important distinction here; while D&D is inequal, it is very equal in its inequality. Most people have the capability to reach amazing heights, and regardless of your background, the people who make it have the power to restructure society around themselves.
However, that is still an unequal society; basically, even in a democratic nation, if the epic-level characters all vote no while everyone else votes yes, the vote only matters if the epic-level characters agree to abide by that decision (or, “Do those character view getting their way as more important than having a democratic system?”). Todays freedom fighter is tomorrows tyrant, best intentioned or not.
That is where the Knights Enfilade come in.
The goal of Knights is simple; prevent any one person (or group of people) from becoming too powerful. Sometimes they truly are the most heroic warriors: valiantly saving the common folk from otherworldly foes, sealing away magic that could destroy the world, and assassinating corrupt bishops and cursed occultists. There are also times where “radical anarchists” would fit them better, as they target civic institutions to slow down the march of empires, steal potent magic from adventurers who seem too careless with their power, and hijack missionary trips to prevent any one deity from claiming too many worshipers.
Any Knight (who admits to being a Knight) will say they are a part of a grand knightly order of noble warriors, born out of the poor and wealthy alike, but in all actuality they function much more like a secret society, comprised of a decentralized cell-structure broadly linked by certain ideological tenants. This leads to the order lacking any fully centralized leadership (beyond the leaders of well-funded or organized cells) and to an incredibly diverse range of accepted behaviors and views. While each Knight is part of one of the three main orders, each cell focuses on a specific target.
The Order of the Bronze Baronet, for example, is well known with its goal to protect the Bronze Blades.
While each order could probably have its own article, a quick summary of the three main orders is probably for the best.
The Order Magico
The Order Magico is the first of the three main orders, and the most powerful. The Order Magico is devoted to the prevention of “destabilizing” magic in the world. They really don’t care about +1 swords or even vorpal swords or staves of the magi drifting around- they care about the Invulnerable Adamantine Army of Chalca, the Captured Word of God, the League of Eight, the Orbs of Nod and Beyond. Things and beings that can rewrite reality and destroy cities… or even continents.
Broadly, they worry about two main agendas:
- Magic items that are too powerful to use safely or make the wielder too powerful. Their most common strategy is to seal such items away, and guard them so that no one can use them, but they are also known to use indirect tactics as well, potentially aiding enemies of the wielders of the magic item.
- Beings that are too powerful; if the answer to the question “could this person/thing/creature/entity wipe out a city singlehandedly?” is yes then they may be under the watch of the Order Magico
Intent is (generally) very important to the Order Magico. If a hero gets a ring of wishing, and uses it to improve his home’s roads and waterways, the knights likely won’t give him or her much trouble; not because they want him or her to have the ring, but more because of priorities (you don’t worry much about Aragorn forging Anduril when Sauron might get the one ring) and because they still need to convince people to join them.
Ultimately, as devoted as the knights are to the idea of total equality, most people won’t turn against the seemingly peaceful/benevolent (or even rather neutral) person or organization. Basically, this is because it’s hard to transform normal people into “freedom fighters” unless they’ve been personally affected. This is true for all the orders.
If power is used responsibly, the knights are unlikely to recruit many people. The knights tend to recruit a lot of people.
Also, they tend not to worry as much about stuff that isn’t getting used. Yes, Versilliax the Radiant, Lord of the Vorpal Sand Desert, could probably destroy a city, and yes, her hoard does in fact contain enough magic weaponry to equip an army… but since all she does is sleep, she’s kind of the best guardian for those weapons possible. Dragons and the Knights Enfilade have a very love-hate relationship.
Pictured, the type of stuff the Order Magico worries about.
The next biggest order is the Order Politico. The Order Politico worries about abuses of political power, and dominance of any one society. They run the gauntlet from anarchists who want to dissolve society entirely, to oddly “conservative” knights who simply want to maintain a stable status quo in the world.
They are active in three types of realm.
Expansionist kingdoms are often targeted, but these are often targeted the least intensely. The order acts subtly, perhaps assassinating a key public figure, or by quietly feeding aid and information to the realm’s enemies. While expansionist realms are dangerous, the danger rarely materializes; most would-be empires collapse in on themselves pretty quickly.
Oppressive kingdoms tend to have more substantial activities. Resistance cells need to be funded after all! The Knights take key roles in establishing and funding counter-authoritarian action, generally through revolt, sabotage, and violence.
The Death of Julius Caesar by Vincenzo Camuccini
Finally, hegemonic empires are targeted most intensely but least directly. Hegemonic empires, especially benevolent ones, are targeted with the bane of tyrants with gloved hands everywhere; civil disobedience, peaceful unrest, and good-old fashioned espionage. Sometimes shipments get lost, or a previously peaceful province is having a resurgence in banditry due to a poorly worded policy. The costs of empire are well known; the knights greatly aggravate the mild inconveniences of empire.
Finally, the last order is the Order Theocratico. The Order Theocratico is the least defined and the most mysterious. They work against cults that threaten to dominate entire regions and cosmic beings that could consume the world. They are men who set themselves against gods. No member of the order will ever self-identify with the order; there’s so many curses lain on it by dead or dying gods that doing so would leave them blind, deaf, amnesiac without even a name, cancerous, allergic to dairy, and mildly radioactive.
Unlike the other branches, the Order Theocratico actually is a cult- frankly, gods are often required to kill other gods. Unfortunately, their order, gods, and how they relate to them, deserve an entirely separate post.