ARCHETYPES
Character Archetypes are identities within the world of SOVEREIGN that define some of the specifics of a character's capability. They're essentially "Classes," in that their initial descriptors are exactly what you'd expect.
They're generalized and simplified in order to make them easier to imagine and customize.
They're divided into TERRESTRIAL and ESOTERIC Archetypes
TERRESTRIAL ARCHETYPES
Fighters. warriors, Soldiers, honor-bound men and women both with and without station, they make their living by arms and armor, horse, combat and strife. They find honor and riches through sweat and blood, the knowledge of warfare, the hunt, or how to take advantage. Even the most generalized is a specialist in violence.
ARMSMAN
Fighters under some local authority who do not adhere to Knightly Orders. They typically work for pay via a stipulated contract between themselves and their employer. Acting in any number of roles, from skirmisher to bodyguard to any line of the battlefield, the Armsman is part mercenary, part hardened warrior. They're often very familiar with the locality in which they reside, and are typically called upon first should the territory come under assault. Occasionally employed as local law-enforcement during levy shortages.
KNIGHT
Having sworn to one of the Knightly Orders, Knights are formidable fighters in melee and mounted combat, both heavily armed and armored and extremely well-trained. Representative as they are of specific ways of living, their lives being very monastic when otherwise not in the thick of warfare, they are often employed in large groups and are rarely seen individually unless on Pilgrimage to achieve a closer relationship to God or on Quest at the behest of themselves or their Order to better improve their skills and lot.
BLACKGUARD
Cast-offs from any number of battlegrounds, shamed Knights stripped of title, holding or forcefully barred from most places of worship for a myriad of reasons, the Blackguards are the polar diad of the common Knighthood. Forced by law to paint their arms and armor all black lest they be confused for honorable soldiers, the Blackguard tend to ply their strength for the highest bidders in the lowest places. Though their equipment tends to be of lower, well-used quality than their Knightly cousins, they also tend to swear by it all until they die in it ignominiously in grim defiance of God and Lords both.
PALADIN
The absolute apex of devout Knighthood, the Clergy gone to war. Paladins are amongst the most faithful of their Knightly brethren, swearing to honor God as well as the rulers of the lands in the service of its peoples. Very often set apart from the Knightly Orders simply as a matter of higher standards, noble blood or of having a specific calling within their Order, they are as much practiced priests as they are scholars of bloody warfare. Occasionally called upon to enact justice in the smaller localities, they may find their responsibilities considerably more in line with abject commoners than the typical Knight.
STRIDER
As fit across hill and dale as they are through alley and across rooftops, Striders are a brotherhood of inconspicuous naturalists who adapt to their surroundings as well as any forest animal or gutter vermin might. As familiar with pioneer plainsmen as they are with hovel-dwelling immigrants, an experienced Strider knows the lay of all the land they survey. They favor shorter blades and quieter fights from a distance than most would, but typically aren't afraid to get their hands dirty when push comes to shove.
MARKSMAN
A crisscross mix of historical ranged technique and technological mastery, the common Marksman is anything from a practiced woodsman adept with bow and arrow, to an enlisted Soldier in the King's Own Riflemen. Their power on the battlefield has marked them as the combination of an old and newer age, as deadly at a mile as they are a foot away.
CANNONEER
HIGHWAYMAN
ESOTERIC ARCHETYPES
Unlike the Terrestrial personas, the Esoteric groups tend to revolve around studies of that which few actually understand. They tend to overlap each other, similar functions going by different names to the rest of the naïve populace, yet the actual practitioners would argue both the accuser and each other into apoplexy with specific details of how they decidedly are not alike.
ABSOLVER
Pugilistic worshippers of the might of God, the Brotherhood of Absolvers seek clemency, forgiveness and penance via the raw, unadulterated power of hand to hand combat. Brutal practitioners of all forms martial, their Priestly representation only barely acknowledged due to their gifts of physically beating Demonic influence out of the local populace, forcing them to ride a fine line between the Terrestrial and Esoteric disciplines. Only the gratefulness of that same population allows them to remain a viable group capable of supporting themselves.
SEER
Benighted futurists of a prior age, Seers are rare in the Kingdom of Forthright as much for the questionable dangers of their profession as they are for the curse they were put under after the fall of the ancient Empire. Even those who held their secrets close couldn't keep the mystery of their gifts hidden forever, now finding themselves sought as much for their cunning and wisdom as their ability to see afar through both time and space.
HEDGEMAGE
THEURGE
MYSTIC
ELDRITCH
SHAMAN
CHARLATAN
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:58, Fri 16 Sept 2022.
