The Sword of Enlien

[ghost681]

In the book Player's Secrets of Medoere, on page 31 in the secret sections, it talks about the sword of Enlien. It states that the sword is a holy avenger. It also states that the sword will function as described in the DMG as a Holy Avenger if it is in the hands of a True Paladin who believes in Rournil. Last I checked, there were no Paladins of Rournil, so how does the regent find a champion? Am I missing something?

[kgauck]

The published materials are full of exceptions to rules stated elsewhere. There are several solutions.

• A standard paladin can be devoted to Ruornil, its just very, very uncommon
• Ruornil has their own paladins based on enforcing the five oaths, or combating undead and the Shadow World, or something else very Ruornil.
• A ranger of Rournil might make more sense, defending sacred places, and selecting undead as a favored enemy
• Any number of interesting classes, like the hexblade, could be understood to be a paladin of Ruornil
• Its a mistake, please disregard some or all of the text

[graham anderson]

There are the mage knights sort of thing in vosgaard you could do it for the mage knights of ruornil. They sound paladinish.

[irdeggman]

They only way to interpret this in a way that makes sense (at least to me) is to go with the broader definition of a paladin and not the "class" description. A holy knight, totally dedicated to the deity.

But technically it was not possible to have this weapon meeting the requirments so specified. Again, as has been pointed out the 2nd ed material was full of inconsistencies and some flat out errors.


As a gaming point of reference in our very first BR running, I was playing a paladin of Haelyn and a friend was running a half-elf fighter/wizard who was worshipping Rournil.

Well, eventually the DM had the friend's PC "hook up" with Suris and get "married". He then was awarded the sword.

This really pissed me off, since at the time my PC was 6th level (almost 7th) and still hadn't gotten his "mount" and then another PC gets a Holy Avenger. Man talk about totally unfair. {I wasn't even after a holy sword, only the "mount" that my PC had been "entitled to" since 4th level. I gave the DM plenty of notice before reaching the level and then afterwards so that he could do something about it. Good gamer, bad DM.}

But the idea of his PC filling the requirement for a paladin of Rournil made a lot of sense. A fighter/wizard with ideals that matched Rournil's.

[geeman]

At 03:34 PM 1/10/2007, ghost681 wrote:

>In the book Player`s Secrets of Medoere, on page 31 in the secret
>sections, it talks about the sword of Enlien. It states that the
>sword is a holy avenger. It also states that the sword will
>function as described in the DMG as a Holy Avenger if it is in the
>hands of a True Paladin who believes in Rournil. Last I checked,
>there were no Paladins of Rournil, so how does the regent find a
>champion? Am I missing something?

Here`s the little vignette I wrote up to go along with the Sword of
Enlien issue. It works on a couple of levels if one doesn`t include
a "standard" paladin of Rournil in the BR setting because the True
Paladin has his origin outside of the standard setting, so his origin
can remain mysterious, exceptional (and a little funny....) This bit
goes along with the write up for the Nightowl (an ershegh) but one
doesn`t need that to use it.


Good Knight Folks

The existence of the Sword of Enlien has long foretold the coming of
a hero of Medoere who would wield the powers of a paladin to fight
for Medoere and do battle with the forces of the Shadow World. A
band of refugees has arrived in Medoere led by one who would claim
the sword as his destiny. One would think the people of Medoere
would embrace the champion of prophecy, but he is not at all what
anyone expected. These new arrivals are halfling escapees from the
Shadow World led by Dale "Digger" Degby. He has claimed the sword as
his birthright, and after investigating the matter in the Shadow
World himself, the Nightowl has endorsed his claim.

Gary

[cutenfluffy]

Going off albiet an old version of the playtest rules, but Chapter Four explicitly states under the heading 'Faiths of Haelyn' that Faiths of a deity can be one step away in alignment from their deities, and clerics of a deity to be one step away from their Faith. Thus a priest of Ruornil could theoretically be of any alignment, provided their were members of the right Faith.

I don't think it is a stretch to allow this sort of criteria for paladins, allowing them to serve deities two alignment steps away, provided they were memebrs of a Faith which was LN, LG or NG. Thus a revised list of deities who allowed paladins would now include Erik, Kriesha, Laerme, Ruornil, Kartathok and Torazan.

[kgauck]

Another nifty thing to do with the sword of Enlien is to make it a Weapon of Legacy using the rules from that book. Such a sword would be a minor magic weapon for most peolpe, but the character who performs the right rituals (often repeating a formative heroic act) unlocks some power in the weapon.

Such weapons also have the virtue that they can be introduced early in a campaign (unlike other powerful magic items) because unlocking power has a minimum character level requirement and requires the performance of rituals.

Of course this is about the nature of the sword, but its also about the person who wields it. They only need be a champion capable of performing the rituals.

[Magnus Argent]

I can envision Ruornil taking on a paladin I suppose but I didn't read PS Medoere as saying that the True Paladin had to worship Ruornil, only believe in him. Haelyn IS the God of Justice, after all, and the Ruornites were treated unjustly simply for the fact that they worshipped a different god. One man acting as a champion for Medoere doesn't really do all that much.. but a Paladin of Haelyn who champions Medoere's cause would be huge (politically speaking)..

[irdeggman]

Another nifty thing to do with the sword of Enlien is to make it a Weapon of Legacy using the rules from that book. Such a sword would be a minor magic weapon for most peolpe, but the character who performs the right rituals (often repeating a formative heroic act) unlocks some power in the weapon.

Such weapons also have the virtue that they can be introduced early in a campaign (unlike other powerful magic items) because unlocking power has a minimum character level requirement and requires the performance of rituals.

Of course this is about the nature of the sword, but its also about the person who wields it. They only need be a champion capable of performing the rituals.

I like Weapons of Legacy for a lot of things. This is a real good application.

It also goes back to the paladin not being the "class" but the characteristic as a holy warrior of the deity.

IMO it fits real, real well.