Knights of Adarnum

The Knights of Adarnum are a religious crusading force dedicated to Kirva's archangel, Adarnum.

Membership

The Knights of Adarnum draw much of their membership from the Shantine nobility, who seek to affirm their heritage of sainthood, but it is not uncommon for zealous commoners to join the order as Anophytes (not in the hierarchy) and to serve as men-at-arms or support staff. The Knights prefer to reserve scholarly functions for members of their order, however. All Knights are typically sponsored as squires first, typically on the basis of a family recommendation: squires are provided with religious instruction by their elder brethren, often without the direct involvement of Kirvan clergy. The result is a highly secretive, borderline heretical religious strand.

Relationship with Other Institutions

Kirvan Church

Among the Knights, the posture of Adarnum ranges from humble servant of Kirva exemplifying modesty and thankless service, to the role of a glorious archangel bordering on a god in himself: the private and public stance of the Knights vacillate with the interventions of the higher Church and with the timing between outright sectarian wars (at least one of the Shantine theocracies is known to have collapsed under a civil war between the Knights of Adarnum and the mass of Kirvan zealotry). Nevertheless, the Knights have only rarely been excommunicated outright even from local churches. Rather, the censure of the Knights has largely been from secular powers, such as the Alusian Despotate, which expelled the Knights of Adarnum permanently in the late 2nd century A.U.

Shantine Empire

The Knights are not strictly a Shantine institution; their members may answer to the Emperor or the Council of Patriarchs (typically the Grand Master will swear a personal oath to both), but the organization has no such vow. Many Knights and affiliates are recruited by the order in regions far outside the Shantine Empire – many a Kirvan missionary enjoys the protection of the Knights and their retainers and rewards them with promising recruits.

Organization

Though Knights-Errant may be attached to specific clergy or other notables or carry on personal crusades, the Knights are organized into Chapters, then Houses: a chapter has a specific geographic mandate and usually a particular mission portfolio, and it may be reformed or dissolved easily. A chapter might range from a dozen knights to the low hundreds, often with an assortment of squires, men-at-arms and retainers.

Chapters were the original organizations of the Knights millennia ago when their role expanded from line combat to intelligence and politics. Houses began as informal bonds among Chapters, but over time evolved (metastasized) into lasting fraternal organizations with their own lands and political influence. In time, Houses became politically significant enough that they gained recognition from the clergy.