Ysvalian Organizations

Most organizations and social groups in Ysval revolve around the Galadyan Faith, be it in a spiritual or military capacity.

The Galadyan Temple of Light
The most important organization in Ysval, and the most important church of Valerna by far, is the Galadyan Temple of Light, the religious system that guides the Alliance’s culture, beliefs and society.

Evolved from repentant Null worshippers, the Temple of Light works on the discovery that Null magic can be purified and turned into a force of healing and power. Through their own inner emptiness, or absolute bliss, lightpriests can share a holy light with others. The Temple focuses on spreading the faith, as the more people accept its tenets, the stronger their magic becomes. With a whole Realm accepting the Galadyan teachings as truth, the magic of lightpriests is mighty indeed.

The Temple employs both priests and knights; every knightly order in the Realm is assumed to belong to the Temple, and work under its sanction. Knights that refuse the Galadyan Faith lose their powers after a short while, and are quickly turned away from service - and from the Alliance.

Priests rarely lose their faith, as they are the very fuel of the Galadyan flame among mortals. They learned their rituals and magic from Galadyn, whose name the Temple adopted; he was a simple whaler and manure trader who could perform miracles through inner light - a power that could be spread and learned among those that accepted the light within. After Galadyn’s first followers founded the Temple, it quickly became the most influential organization in the Realm, with every citizen, knight and Duk seeking its spiritual and magical support.

Today, lightpriests can be found at every city and village in the Alliance. Any citizen that shows an affinity for light magic is inducted into the Temple, and taught the proper rituals to perform Galadyan magic. It’s not something one can choose; a person must perform some light miracle first, and then choose to join the Temple.

Each lightpriest is expected to own a harpoon-staff with a magic light, which shines brighter as their wielder’s faith or power grows. The brightest light is that of the Lightbearer, the highest-ranking priest in the Temple, who upon being appointed discards their own staff and assumes responsibility over the staff of Galadyn, the Neverending Lantern - a magic harpoon, purportedly owned by Galadyn himself, whose flame cannot be put out by any known means.

Contrary to most other jobs and social ranks in the Alliance, lightpriests are expected to serve for life. They shed their family name, assuming instead a honor name from the Book of Galadyn, and adding their home city as reference, such as Lucek of Armme, the Flamebrand, or Edyan of Mannor, the Whitewisp. Lightpriests may marry or have families, but they rarely do, as they would then be expected to tend to their farmstead and support their community, which often interferes with preaching duties.

The Knightly Orders
The protectors of Ysval, its military and police force, and also the enforcing hands of the will of both the Duks and the Temple, are the Knights, an elite corps of soldiers that protect every city from danger and chaos.

Each Alliance city has its own knightly order, numbering in the hundreds - or thousands in the case of Ysval and Vaden - with their own colors, identity and fighting style. More than anything, knightly orders identify themselves by their chosen animal, which they use as their order’s name. All the knights of an order use the same type of mount in combat, and base their military tactics on the strengths and characteristics of these mounts.

Every Order is absolutely loyal to their Duk, to the people of their Dukedom, and to the Galadyan Temple. While every citizen and neighbor is expected to take up arms when their Dukedom is threatened, the knights are all elite fighters, equipped with blessed gear and possessed of light magic to complement their combat ability. Only the most devout and experienced soldiers are chosen to the knightly orders, and they are expected to give their skill and their lives for the Alliance.

The Knightly Orders
The following are the sanctioned knightly orders active in the Holy Alliance as of the Return of the Dragonbonded. They each have their own combat specialties and distinctive mount.

Order of the Griffon
The largest and strongest knightly order in the Alliance, Knights of the Griffon guard the city of Ysval itself, and march into war under direct orders of the Holy Duk. They are known for their strength and bravery, reflecting the pride and power of their griffon mounts. The Griffon Knights were founded in times of the Delivered Five, shortly after Galadyn’s death, and their motto is Swoop Down on Fear, meaning that a flying knight soars above land-bound horrors, and thus must protect those on the ground with speed and courage.

Ysvalians first tamed mountain griffons with the help of Hmyr beast-speakers; lone hunters and watchers used griffon mounts to patrol the wildlands surrounding their town or city. While not numerous, griffon breeders were not unheard of, and some families would buy a griffon egg to raise the hatchling as a beast of burden and loyal mount. As the knightly orders flourished, griffons were the obvious choice for their first order. They are strong, fast and fearless, their pride and ferocity a reflection of knighthood ideals. In peacetime, it is common to see griffons in the nests, pens and streets of Ysval, interacting with humans like pet birds, tended to by their knights or their families.

Griffon knights are a very balanced unit, with a mix of speed, strength and bravery that no other order can match in battle. Their presence in the battlefield remains the most inspiring sight to any Alliance warrior, including members of other knightly orders.

Order of the Kite
Knights of the Kite were formed when the Yrl families of Dornat, looking to distinguish their knightly order from the others, explicitly asked Sikarian creature-mages for gigantic raptors that could be trained for war. The result was a knightly order of proud knights in shining armor, riding ferocious and impressive teratorns that reflect the sunlight on their feathers before feasting on the enemy’s blood. Kite Knights believe in tactical and moral superiority, as evidenced by their motto Fight From Above.

As opposed to griffons, which are a common domesticated animal in all Ysvalian cities and farms, only the Kite Knights use Sikarian teratorns. Bred by express commission to the blue elves, teratorns are majestic, immense silver raptor birds, not as strong or smart as a griffon, but nearly twice the wingspan, much faster - and much prettier.

With their raptor mounts, Kite knights are the swiftest and most elegant in battle, entering and leaving the fray like the wind itself. They avoid the ground as much as possible,  as teratorns don’t fight well when landbound.

Order of the Reindeer
Formerly a wandering order of mercenaries, tied to no city or Dukedom, Knights of the Reindeer, or Reinknights, travelled the Alliance offering their services as reinforcements for other combat units, or watching the roads for safety. Their motto, Always Grounded, is a sliught pun on their often dirty uniforms, differentiates them from those knights that use flying beasts, and calls them to be loyal to their land and their people.

Reinknights were known as coarse and dependable, and always a welcome sight in the dangerous wilderness. After the defection of Raven knights, however, Reinknights were given the city of Vaden to protect, and have now become the second most important of knightly orders.

Reinknights ride Tundra Charger reindeer, the first animals ever domesticated by Ysvalian settlers, and the most common of Ysvalian knight mounts. Tundra chargers are large antlered steeds, strong and aggressive despite being herbivorous, and famed (and named) for their unstoppable charges.

Like their mounts, Reinknights are known for their offensive strength, their combat resilience, and their well-organized, unstoppable charges.

Order of the Foghorn
The youngest and smallest of knightly orders, the Knights of the Foghorn are an all-female unit, founded at the behest of the Duk of Mannor when the town was chosen to replace Dukke as one the Five Cities. Knights of the Foghorn are the ideal of the Ysvalian warrior - burly women, scarred and boisterous. Their motto is Strong and Head-on, celebrating their toughness, stubbornness and fearlessness.

Foghorn Knights are thus known for they ride the mighty and massive Foghorn; a huge woolly pachyderm with a single horn on its enormous heads. Foghorns were considered untameable, but the Hmyr helped Foghorn Knights to make them loyal and dependable in a fight. Foghorns are rare as they are powerful, so the order remains small and elite. While they are slow and clumsy, there is no stronger animal among the knight mounts in Ysval. Only Gellan mammoths can withstand the onslaught of a Foghorn, and sometimes the Foghorn wins anyway.

Of all knightly orders, Foghorn riders are the slowest, but also the strongest, their mounts able to trample a full squad without slowing their ponderous, relentless pace.

Order of the Foghound
A small but very elite order, formed only by the most faithful and disciplined soldiers in the city of Armme, the Order of the Foghound is the second oldest of the Alliance, founded shortly after the Griffon Knights. They rely heavily on their faith and light magic, and are known as the most devout of knightly orders, their spells the most powerful. Their motto The Light Conquers All refers to their tireless hunt of dark things and enemies of the light.

The Ysvalian Foghound, a giant carnivore found only in the Ysvalian Tundra, is one of the most voracious and hostile creatures on Valerna. Resembling a mix between a giant dog and a bear on all fours, foghounds can kill and gorge on even larger prey, and are known to attack even mammoths if they cross their path. Foghound Knights tame these ferocious, terrible beasts by powerful Galadyan magic, which turns the beast’s hunger into devotion to the Light, leading it to hunt and kill evil as if it was prey.

In battle, Foghound Knights are slow to move, but quick to strike, with mighty attacks that outmatch those of any other Ysvalian unit, save for Wolf Clan Hmyr.

Order of the Aurox
The brutal Order of the Aurox, the most violent and savage of Ysvalian orders, had a grim outlook and a dark reputation even before defecting to Tyveria as the first Ysvalian maghyr house. But before the War of the North, Aurox knights loyally served the Alliance as frightening shock troops, putting the terror on enemies of the Alliance with their vicious, relentless combat style. Their motto, Until They Die, refers both to the knights themselves and to any that stand against them.

Fiercer than Foghorns and stronger than tundra chargers, the white Aurox is one of the toughest, most brutal herbivores in Ysval, its hump standing at over 10 feet on the largest individuals. Only the Knights of Dukke dared to tame it, trying to outdo Reinknights with their massive tundra chargers. The result was the Order of the Aurox, a knight regiment that charged into battle like a stampede of carnage and fury.

Under maghyr rule, Aurox knights have become even more aggressive, to the point of bloodthirst; they establish blood bonds with their mounts, whose eyes turning red when they advance on the enemy.

The Fellows of Freedom
This offshoot of the Galadyan Temple was founded in recent years, after the War of the North, when the malcontent light-caster knight Reia of Armme began preaching and providing light blessings without the explicit sanction of the Temple. Reia called herself the Kindler, and performed as a senior Galadyan preacher, only her teachings differ from the Temple in that she promotes freedom as a necessary element of community. Shunned by most of the Temple, persecuted by some, and loved by the common people, Reia has begun a peaceful revolt, speaking at more and more towns, and amassing a growing - and threatening - following, calling themselves the Fellows of Freedom.

This organization consists of farmers, independent priests, militia and deserter knights, who reject the orthodoxy of the Temple but remain faithful to the Galadyan Light, and thus retain their powers. Their very existence, not to mention their popular campaign, has sparked the flame of doubt among the people. Does the Galadyan Temple have the only truth? Do we need them? For this reason, more than anything else, the Temple sees the Fellows of Freedom as a growing danger to Ysvalian society.

The Monitors
The enforcing branch of the Holy Temple in the City of Armme, and lately expanding to other cities, are the Monitors, a specialized unit of priests with the ability to detect criminals, track evil forces, find clues and point out heretics. They help the people live in peace by hunting criminals and encouraging neighbors to denounce each other for slips of faith; they also exact harsh punishment on those that break the laws of Galadyn or the sanctity of community.

The leader and founder of the Monitors is Lucek the Flamebrand, the high priest of Armme, and he is currently recruiting important priests from other cities, having established chapters of their society in both Ysval and Dornat. The Monitors’ main goal is to pursue crime, but their current priority is to find and capture Reia the Kindler, and disband her Fellows of Freedom before they further undermine Ysvalian society.