Hellknight

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Source: Pathfinder d20pfsrd.com

Not all who join have what it takes to become a full-fledged Hellknight, but those who do receive a wide array of abilities as they grow more and more powerful.

Hit Die: d10.

Requirements

To qualify to become a Hellknight, a character must fulfill all the following criteria.

• Base Attack Bonus: +5.
• Skills: Intimidate 5 ranks, Knowledge (planes) 2 ranks.
• Armor Proficiency: Must be proficient with heavy armor.
• Alignment: Any lawful.
• Special: You must slay a devil with HD greater than your own. This victory must be witnessed by a Hellknight.

Class Skills

The Hellknight’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Intimidate (Charisma), Knowledge (local) (Intelligence), Perception (Wisdom), Ride (Dexterity), and Sense Motive (Wisdom).

Skill Ranks at Each Level: 2 + Intelligence modifier.

Hellknight
Level	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special
1st	1	1	0	0	Aura of law, detect chaos, smite chaos 1/day
2nd	2	1	1	1	Discern lies, Hellknight armor 1
3rd	3	2	1	1	Discipline 1, force of will 1
4th	4	2	1	1	Smite chaos 2/day
5th	5	3	2	2	Hellknight armor 2
6th	6	3	2	2	Discipline 2, force of will 2
7th	7	4	2	2	Lawbringer, smite chaos 3/day
8th	8	4	3	3	Hellknight armor 3
9th	9	5	3	3	Discipline 3, force of will 3, infernal armor
10th	10	5	3	3	Hell’s knight, smite chaos 4/day

Class Features

The following are all class features of the Hellknight.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Hellknights gain no proficiency with any weapon or armor.

Aura of Law (Ex)

The power of a Hellknight’s aura of law (see the detect law spell) is equal to his total character level.

Detect chaos (Sp)

This ability functions like a paladin’s detect evil ability, save that it detects chaos.

Order

A character must choose one Hellknight order to join. The choice of order determines what disciplines the character gains access to.

Smite Chaos (Su)

This ability functions as the paladin’s smite evil ability, but against chaotic-aligned creatures. This ability is twice as effective against outsiders with the chaotic subtype, chaotic-aligned aberrations, and fey.

Discern Lies (Sp)

At 2nd level, a Hellknight can use discern lies as a spell-like ability a number of times per day equal to 3 plus his Charisma modifier. His caster level equals his total character level.

Hellknight Armor (Ex)

At 2nd level, a Hellknight earns the right to wear Hellknight armor (below). While wearing this armor, the Hellknight reduces the armor check penalty by 1, increases the maximum Dexterity bonus allowed by 1, and moves at full speed.

At 5th level, these adjustments increase to 2.

At 8th level, these adjustments increase to 3.

Hellknight Plate These distinctive suits of armor are a special type of Masterwork full plate that, when worn by a character with levels in the Hellknight prestige class, grants  additional effects. Price 2,000 gp Armor Bonus +9 Max Dexterity +1 Armor Check Penalty (ACP) -5 Arcane Spell Failure  Chance 35% Speed (30 ft.) 20 ft.2 Speed (20 ft.) 15 ft.2 Weight 50 lbs. 2 When running in heavy armor, you move only triple your speed, not quadruple.

Disciplines

A 3rd-level Hellknight  gains access to his first discipline, choosing one that is associated with his specific order.

At 6th level, the Hellknight gains a second discipline, chosen from any listed as being available to ‘any order.’

At 9th level, the Hellknight gains his third discipline, choosing this one from any of the disciplines listed below, even those not from his own order, with the exception of Pentamic Faith. When applicable, the save DC to resist a discipline’s effect is equal to DC 10 + the Hellknight’s level + the Hellknight’s Charisma modifier.

The Hellknight can use any one discipline a number of times per day equal to the total number of disciplines he has access to, so at 3rd level he may use his discipline once per day. At 6th level, he may use both disciplines twice per day each. At 9th level, he may use all three of his disciplines three times per day.

Brand (Sp; Order of the Pyre): The Hellknight can use mark of justice as a spell-like ability.

Censor (Su; Order of the Rack): When the Hellknight uses smite chaos on a creature, he can strike the creature mute for 1d4 rounds unless it makes a successful Will save. A mute creature cannot speak, nor can it cast spells that have verbal components or use language-dependent effects.

Fearsomeness (Ex; any order): A Hellknight who uses the Intimidate skill to cause a creature within 10 feet to become shaken can instead cause that creature to become frightened.

Onslaught (Su; Order of the Nail): Once per day as a free action, a Hellknight increases his base speed by +10 feet and gains a +4 bonus to his Strength for 1 round. If the Hellknight is mounted, these bonuses also apply to his mount.

Pentamic Faith (Ex; Order of the God Claw only): This ability allows the Hellknight to select one of the following domains: Artifice, Glory, Knowledge, Law, Magic, Nobility, Protection, Rune, Strength, Travel, and War. The Hellknight gains all of the granted powers (but not domain spells) of that domain, treating his Hellknight levels as Cleric levels to determine what domain abilities he has access to.

Shackle (Su; Order of the Chain): When the Hellknight uses smite chaos on a creature, he can impede its mobility. The creature can negate this effect with a Will save; otherwise, it is affected as if by a slow spell for 1d4 rounds.

Summon Devil (Sp; Order of the Gate): The Hellknight may use summon monster V as a spell-like ability to summon 1 bearded devil.

At 6th level, this spell-like ability is replaced by summon monster VI, allowing him to summon 1d3 bearded devils, or 1 erinyes.

At 9th level, this spell-like ability is replaced by summon monster VII, allowing him to summon 1d4+1 bearded devils, 1d3 erinyes, or 1 bone devil.

Tracker (Sp; any order): The Hellknight can summon a creature to aid him, either in battle or to track an enemy, as if using a summon monster spell, save that the summoned creature lingers for 1 hour before vanishing.

A 6th-level Hellknight can summon either an eagle, a riding dog, a wolf, or a leopard.

A 9th-level Hellknight can instead opt to summon a dire wolf or a hell hound.

Vigilance (Su; Order of the Scourge): The Hellknight gains Low-Light Vision (this effect is constant). In addition, as a full-round action, the Hellknight can see through up to 5 feet of stone, wood, or similar barriers as if they didn’t exist. Metal or denser barriers block this effect. Each use of this ability lasts as long as the Hellknight concentrates, up to a number of rounds equal to the Hellknight’s level.

Wrack (Su; any order): The Hellknight may make a touch attack as a standard action to cause a creature to suffer incredible pain. The creature touched takes 1d6 points of damage + the Hellknight’s Charisma modifier, and must make a Will save to avoid being staggered for 1d4 rounds.

Force of Will (Ex)

At 3rd level, a Hellknight gains a +2 bonus on Will saves against spells with one of the following descriptors: charm, compulsion, glamer, fear, figment, pattern, or phantasm.

At 6th level, the Hellknight chooses another subschool or descriptor to gain a +2 bonus on his Will save against, and the bonus provided by his first selection increases to +4.

At 9th level, he chooses from the list again, and both previous selections increase by +2, so that he has a +6, a +4, and a +2 bonus, respectively, against the three different effects.

Lawbringer (Ex)

At 7th level, a Hellknight’s attacks are treated as lawful for overcoming damage reduction.

Infernal Armor (Su)

As long as he wears Hellknight armor, a 9th-level Hellknight gains a +2 bonus on all Charisma-related checks made while interacting with nongood lawful creatures. In addition, he gains the ability to see perfectly in darkness of any kind, resistance to fire 30, and resistance to acid 10 and cold 10.

Hell’s Knight (Su)

At 10th level, a Hellknight can grant a weapon he wields or touches the axiomatic, flaming burst, or unholy weapon quality. This weapon maintains this new quality as long as the Hellknight remains within 100 feet of the  weapon – a Hellknight may maintain only a single weapon’s granted quality at a time. The Hellknight also becomes immune to fire while wearing Hellknight armor.

Structure and Leadership

Organization

The leader of a Hellknight order is known as the Lictor. Beneath him are the order’s Master of Blades (field commander) and Paravicar (leader of the order’s arcane/religious forces). Beneath them, paralictors (Hellknight officers), signifiers (Hellknight spellcasters), rank and file Hellknights, and armigers (Hellknights in training) flesh out the ranks.

Major Orders

There are numerous orders of Hellknights. The majority have holdings in Prussia, but a few have expanded or moved to operate outside the country, most typically in regions formerly held by the empire.

At the current time there are seven major orders:

• Order of the Rack at fortress Dirlow near Pomerelia
• Order of the Scourge at Citadel – iauliai near Samogitia
• Order of the Nail at Kuressaare Castle on Saaremaa island, in western Estonia.
• Order of the God Claw at Citadel Dinyar in Livonia
• Order of the Chain at Jacob’s Fortress on Jacob Island’s Gambia
• Order of the Gate at fortified town of Visby on the island of Gotland
• Order of the Pyre at the Kõpu Lighthouse near Dagö

Lesser Orders

Numerous lesser orders of Hellknights exist, although few are known outside the borders of the State of the Hellknight Orders. Although less pervasive, these smaller orders are only slightly less feared than their better-known brethren.

• The Order of the Coil is based in the former colony of Sargava and seeks to prevent the “pollution” of the colonists by native cultures
• The Ösels’ Order of the Pike hunts down monsters
• Neumark’s Order of the Scar stalks assassins

Extinct Orders

Order of the Crux (although three undead members remain)

All Hellknight orders have unique methods and interests.

The Order of the Chain

The only major order with headquarters outside of State of the Hellknight Orders, the Order of the Nail relocated from Ventspils to Jacob Island in the Gambia River in the country of the Gambia. They have erected a major slave fort on the island. The backs of others are steppingstones to power, or so believe the Hellknights of the Chain. Fugitive slaves, escaped convicts, and runaway indentured servants are their favored quarry, although freedom fighters, revolutionaries, and ‘on a more altruistic note’ slave owners who keep their servants past a prearranged term also capture the chain-clad Hellknights’ attentions. Unlike many of its brethren, the Order of the Chain rarely executes those who offend its code, either returning its quarry to their proper bondage, reselling them as slaves, or permanently detaining them in the order’s prison headquarters on Jacob island. Master of Blades Mardinus is the former slave of the order’s Egyptian-born  Lictor Uro Adom, and holds himself as an example of the heights one can attain  through obedience to the social order.

The Order of the Gate

From its fortified town of Visby on the island of Gotland in the Baltic sea, the secluded Order of the Gate deals and bargains with fiends in ways that give even the other Hellknight orders reason to dread. The crimson-cloaked signifers of the order outnumber the rank-and-file Hellknights three to one, and they claim to be granted otherworldy knowledge of egregious crimes before they are committed. While the signifers’ infernal servants wreak their will in the world beyond, the order’s actual members turn their efforts toward gleaning knowledge from the planes and the guardianship of some vague charge. The Hellknights of the Gate have no lictor, and are instead overseen by the ever-masked Vicarius Giordano Torchia.

The Order of the God Claw

The pentomic Order of the God Claw extols variations and virtues of five lawful deities, distilling select tenets into a dogma far from any one god’s faith. Although the God Claw venerates aspects of Abadar, Asmodeus,  Iomedae, Irori, and Thor, it is unclear from which of these gods it draws its power; indeed, it is possible that its own convictions grant it divine strength. Where other orders of Hellknights enforce their visions of law out of a sense of duty and grim necessity, the God Claw does so out of religious fervor and a belief that the world must forcibly be set upon a righteous path. The sharp-tongued Lictor Resarc Ountor preaches his order’s iron shod doctrine from its fortress Turaida Castle, in the Vidzeme region of Latvia.

The Order of the Nail

Located in Kuressaare Castle on Saaremaa island, in western Estonia. Tenacious hunters of brigands and crusaders against savagery, the order members’ interests often parallel those of local law enforcers. Lictor Severs ‘Boneclaw’ DiViri so nicknamed for the distinctive gauntlet he wears to cover his fire-withered left hand- commands the order and proves markedly open to requests for his Hellknights’ aid.

The Order of the Pyre

The Hellknights of the Pyre view faith as the clearest window into the darkness of the heart. Seeking out cults of imaginary gods, crude shamans, and backwater witches, the order sees heathenish belief as an impediment to civilization and an excuse for lawlessness. Hunts for practitioners of godless faiths often lead the Hellknights far from their home of the Kõpu Lighthouse on the Estonian island of Hiiumaa. Particularly into the depths of the Middle East. A strict atheist, Lictor Rouen Stought eyes the strange religions of Arabia with particular distaste, and while wise enough not to provoke the Arabs on their island home, her followers frequently hound travelers from Arabia.

The Order of the Rack

The Hellknights of the Rack contend that knowledge can wound as deeply as any blade. With this in mind, they seek out and cleanse dangerous knowledge wherever they find it. What qualifies as unlawful information varies, from the unholy texts of demonic cults, to revolutionary prints from Galt, to many of the more egalitarian philosophies of the ancient Azlanti. The order takes the rack, an example of dangerous learning, as its symbol, and often puts the rack to use to prove the danger of misguided invention.

On the second Oathday of every month, Lictor Richemar Almansor hosts public burnings of confiscated texts in the shadow of fortress Dirlow near Pomerelia.

The Order of the Scourge

With anonymity and no threat of consequences, everyone is destined to become a criminal. The Order of the Scourge combats the lawless tendencies within mortal hearts through ever-present watchfulness and brutal reminders that no crime goes unpunished. It employs a vast network of informants, pays significant bounties for substantiated accusations, and publicly metes out grim punishments to perpetrators. Under the perfectionist Lictor Toulon Vidoc, the Hellknights frequently travel from Citadel ‘iauliai near Samogitia to patrol crime-ridden slums and annihilate criminal organizations.

Lesser Orders

Numerous lesser orders exist, although few are known outside the borders of State of the Hellknight Orders For example, Neumark’s Order of the Scar stalks murderers and assassins, while the Whisperwood’s Order of the Pike hunts down monsters that flourish in civilized lands. These smaller orders are only slightly less feared than their better-known peers.

Hellknight Titles

Hellknight orders are first and foremost military organizations, and as such, they share a system of ranking individuals based on their skills, experience, and exemplary enforcement of their order’s tenets.

• Lictor: A general of a Hellknight order.
• Vicarius: A scholarly leader of a Hellknight order.
• Master/Mistress of Blades: A marshal commander of a Hellknight order, second to a lictor and equal in rank to a Paravicar.
• Paravicar: A leader of a Hellknight order’s signifers, equal in rank to a Master or Mistress of Blades.
• Paralictor: A high-ranking Hellknight officer.
• Maralictor: A mid-level Hellknight officer, similar to a lieutenant.
• Signifer: A Hellknight arcane or religious spellcaster.
• Hellknight: A typical soldier in a Hellknight order.
• Armiger: A Hellknight in training; a squire.

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