The Knights of All-Faith

Any soul may kneel at an altar, but to truly wield the Pantheon’s silence and power requires years of cultivation under the Knights’ eye. Prospective initiates must attend a local Chapel for no fewer than five years, tithe faithfully, and demonstrate obedience to ritual law. Their every act, fasting, prayer, confession, is recorded by senior clergy who weigh them not only for devotion but for utility. It is whispered that those from noble lines are more often deemed “faithful” than commoners who may starve in their pews. If approved, the initiate undergoes the Rites of Faith, Virtue, and Sacrifice. These involve weeks of trial: fasting, physical scourging, and confession before both altar and crowd. The climax is the symbolic death of holy drowning in the Chamber of Enlightenment beneath Catcher’s Rest, where aspirants are submerged until consciousness flees, then dragged forth again as if reborn by divine breath. Those who fail to awaken are quietly interred beneath the Chapel floors, their names struck from record as though they had never existed.

New initiates are split into the two sacred paths, each tightly bound to Knight doctrine: Clerics, the soul-stewards and ritual minds, charged with healing, prophecy, and the preservation of faith’s machinery. Their roles often blur into bureaucracy: they manage tithe records, dictate moral judgments, and rewrite local scripture so that every god’s whisper becomes a chorus in favor of the Church. Paladins, the militant agents, anointed in blood and ordeal. They enforce doctrine with sword and steel, patrolling both frontier and city, rooting out heresy, and, when commanded, razing entire villages under accusations of Xaethra’s taint. Above them rise the tiers of hierarchy: Bishops, who command districts; Cardinals, who sit at the table of doctrine and law; and finally the Pope, Most Holy, who is said to commune with the gods themselves, though cynics whisper that his communion is naught but politics clothed in incense. Promotions are given not only for deeds or miracles but for loyalty, silence, and usefulness. Those who dissent rarely rise; many simply vanish.

All Knights live off the constant tide of tithe and tax, siphoned from every chapel and every city square. The rank and file receive modest bread, shelter, and robes, their lives meager yet secure. But the higher echelons reap extravagance: Bishops live in palatial chambers furnished with confiscated relics, Cardinals command whole retinues of guards, and the Most Holy dines from golden plates inscribed with Druvain’s hammers and Chiniae’s lilies. Holy exemptions shield them from taxation and often from secular law. The irony is not lost on peasants: the Knights rail against greed and envy, yet their coffers overflow with coin squeezed from the faithful. Their greatest privilege lies in access, exclusive rites, secret relics, and forbidden magicks that no common soul may glimpse, all hoarded under the justification that only the most faithful may endure them without corruption.

Membership in the Knights offers privileges few rulers could grant:

• The right to exorcise, sanctify, and bury, often for hefty “donations.”

• Immunity from civil law, with accused crimes tried only within the Church’s courts, courts notoriously lenient toward their own.

• Access to sealed relics and grimoires, many of which are outlawed for the laity.

• The authority to command local militia during “times of unrest,” a term often stretched to cover political dissent.

Perhaps most coveted, however, is the cultural shield. A Knight who murders, steals, or commits atrocity may still be praised as “faithful” so long as he bends knee to the Pantheon’s silence. To the fearful public, their robes are armor stronger than steel, for who dares raise blade against the gods’ chosen?

To preserve faith in the Pantheon, to heal the wounded, sanctify the dead, and purge spiritual corruption. They are the spiritual backbone of Everwealth, but some whisper their true goal is to monopolize belief, subtly control magick, and maintain divine favor as a political weapon. But many argue their price is too steep, their laws too rigid, and their concern for the poor performative at best. The Knights of All-Faith claim no single god as their master, but instead present themselves as custodians of the entire Pantheon. Their Chapels, whether carved into mountain keeps or raised in city plazas, each contain a shrine to all seven gods, ensuring that worship remains centralized under their control. In this way, they do not merely preserve faith, they monopolize it, drawing pilgrims, offerings, and obedience into their sanctified halls in very direct ways; A sharp contrast to their strange masters who answer prayers with omen and silence:

• Caelbrith - The Knights foster his worship through rites of purification and curse-breaking, branding themselves as guardians against hauntings. They alone permit mortals to speak his name in the cleansing of tombs and the unraveling of cursed lands. Worshipped for his domain of finality, where a swift end is needed.

• Chiniae - Chapels reserve her mercy for the tithed and the loyal. Healing miracles that could serve hundreds are rationed to nobles, soldiers, and the wealthy, while peasants are told that Chiniae’s forgiveness may only reach them if their faith, and their purses, are full.

• Druvain - His forge-fires burn in sanctified workshops under Church oversight. Smiths and laborers who wish to invoke his blessing must swear fealty to the Knights, who profit from every sanctified blade, plough, or tower stone.

• Ny’yala - Her cycles of time and fate are recited only through Knight-sanctioned prophecy. Visions are catalogued, censored, or reinterpreted to suit doctrine, making her name both a weapon of legitimacy and a justification for inaction.

• Orram - His dominion of secrecy and silence is woven into their confessional rites. Whispered truths belong to the Church alone, confessions sealed in chambers where Orram’s shadow ensures the Knights know more of the kingdom’s sins than any king.

• Thalyss - Memory and study are preserved in vast scriptoria under Knight control. They insist no true scholar may practice mnemonic magick without Church sanction, hoarding knowledge and branding rival non-religious academics as borderline heretics.

• Xaethra - Though reviled for her heavy hand in bringing about the Schism, even her envy and hunger are not forgotten. The Knights justify the existence of her worship by claiming only they can police the boundaries of her worship, executing heretics while quietly learning from the very envy they condemn.

Through these orders, the Knights of All-Faith ensure that every god’s worship, whether merciful or malignant, flows through their grasping hands. They frame this control as unity, as protection from the ruinous divisions of the past. Yet to the cynical, it is hypocrisy, they rail against slavery, yet use it for punishment; they denounce envy, while feeding upon it; they preach mercy, yet ration it like grain. In the end, their worship is not simply faith, but an edifice of power, a way to bind every god’s silence into a single voice that speaks only in their name.

To the people of Everwealth, the Knights of All-Faith are saints and sinners both, saviors and scourges draped in the same vestments. Their image depends on who you ask, and when. In the great cities, they are the miracle-workers who walk the streets with relics blazing, who lift curses from noble halls and banish devils with a word. Parents push their children forward to be blessed by their hands, while magistrates bow under the weight of their counsel. In these glittering centers, the Knights are revered, if not feared, an indispensable part of civic life. But in the rural provinces, their grandeur curdles into something harsher. There, they are seen less as guardians of the Pantheon and more as holy tax-collectors, arriving in gleaming armor only to demand tithes, levy “faith-dues,” or seize prisoners for “penance.” Villages whisper of clerics who refuse to heal a plague-stricken child until a tithe is met, or who declare a farmer heretical for nothing more than skipping a festival rite. In the same breath, though, those villagers still cling to them when curses rise or ghosts howl in the dark, for no one else comes when the night turns cruel. Among the nobility, the perception is sharper still. To lords and dukes, the Knights are both indispensable advisors and intolerable auditors. Their blessings can sanctify armies, their condemnation can unseat thrones. Many nobles bristle at their interference, yet none dare cut ties, not when their rivals can purchase absolution or condemnation with equal ease.   For every Paladin who stands as incorruptible arbiter of justice, there is another cleric who sells his sermon to the highest bidder, or a Cardinal who gorges on the very sins he condemns. This hypocrisy is an open wound in the Church’s reputation. They preach that slavery is an abomination, yet their gaols overflow with “penitents” shackled into labor often earning themselves hefty coin in-doing-so. They sing of mercy, yet Chiniae’s healing touch is hoarded like a treasure, bestowed only on those deemed worthy. Their Paladins condemn the lusts of Xaethra’s worshippers, yet countless clerics have been shielded by their rank from charges of assault, indulgence, or worse. Everwealth remembers every whispered scandal, but no scandal has ever toppled the Church, for when famine, war, or plague strikes, even their harshest critics are driven back to the chapel doors in desperation. To the common folk, the Knights are both beacon and burden. To the nobility, they are both shield and chain. To heretics and apostates, they are predators wrapped in scripture. And yet, to all of them, they are necessary. The Church has bound itself so tightly into the soul of Everwealth that even those who despise its hypocrisy cannot imagine life without its rites. Thus the Knights stand, not as paragons nor as villains, but as both at once: holy men whose miracles save thousands, and whose crimes fester in equal measure. In a world desperate for light, even a flame that burns the hand will still be carried through the dark.

Though the Church proclaims itself open to all, its hierarchy betrays its biases. Humans dominate the highest seats, from Bishops to Cardinals, whileDwarfish and Elfese are often relegated to scholarly or ceremonial posts, valued more for their knowledge than their leadership. Orcish, Lizard-Kin, and other “lesser” races such as the Goblins serve on the margins, tolerated but rarely promoted beyond local chapels. Their faith may be genuine, but their ascent is throttled by centuries of prejudice, cloaked in the convenient phrase “the gods have not chosen them.”

The Knights of All-Faith were born in blood and thunder, in the smoke-cloaked fields of the Battle of Catcher’s Rest. There, at the height of a holy war that pitted god against god and brother against brother, divine fire and shadow descended from the heavens. The many armies vying for supremacy to decide the faithful's direction now that the gods grew silent as the schism began to preserve the feeble balance; Once intent on annihilation, found themselves struck blind with awe as bolts of radiance and storms of ash forced them to shield one another instead of striking their fellow worshippers down. In that moment of terror and revelation, the survivors swore an oath, never again would the Pantheon’s worship be divided. From that vow, the Knights of All-Faith were forged, their mission to unify worship and preserve balance so that the gods’ silence would not plunge the world into ruin again. But noble vows are not iron laws. Some say their oath was already broken the moment the armies staggered home, blades still bloodied, villages still smoldering. When the Great Schism tore Gaiatia apart, the Knights rose as a bulwark in the chaos. They sanctified ruins, absorbed scattered cults, and promised salvation through unity. To the terrified, they were a beacon, bearers of divine healing, protectors against infernal resurgence, guardians of the faith. Famines were their pulpit, plagues their recruitment drives, war their excuse to claim ever-greater dominion. By the dawn of The Civil Age, their rule over spiritual life had hardened into law itself. For centuries, they spread across Everwealth, chapels growing like roots in every city, every fortified town, until they became not merely servants of the Pantheon but arbiters of law and morality. In their stained glass and sanctums, they spoke of mercy, sacrifice, and divine order. Yet on the streets and in the prisons, they became something else entirely, inquisitors, extortioners, and gaolers of the soul.   The contradictions of the order grew impossible to ignore. They condemned slavery in their sermons, yet chained convicts and heretics alike as “penitents,” selling their labor to fund chapels and crusades. They preach Chiniae’s mercy, yet her healing is dependant on coin, withheld from the poor unless tithes were paid in full, or unless their suffering could be spun into an example. Clerics who whispered of envy and sin from their pulpits were the same who whispered into the ears of acolytes in their beds, their crimes quietly buried beneath the weight of holy titles. Paladins who stood as shining arbiters of justice were often genuine, but even they could not scour corruption from an order that had become too vast, too entrenched, too politically necessary to ever be held accountable. The Knights’ dual legacy has endured ever since. To some, they are the guardians of Everwealth, healers, exorcists, and saintly warriors who keep infernal horrors at bay. To others, they are parasites: self-righteous tax collectors, hypocrites who drink deeply of sin while damning others to burn for the same. In taverns and whispers, it is said plainly, in a Church that spans continents, there is no hand steady enough to keep every blade clean, no eye sharp enough to catch every wolf in vestments. And so the Knights endure, too large to fall, too sanctified to question. Their history is not black and white but a tapestry of miracle and manipulation, righteousness and rot, each thread inseparable from the other. In Everwealth, faith is both shield and shackle, and the Knights of All-Faith have proven themselves masters at wielding both.

The weapons and instruments of the Knights are as much symbols as they are implements. To wield them is to embody doctrine in steel, scripture, and ritual, every piece reinforcing the Church’s monopoly on faith.

• Blessed Tomes - Scripture that sometimes glows faintly when spoken aloud.

• Icon-Blades - Swords and daggers etched with the domains of gods that knight worships, able to cut spirit as well as flesh and serving as a secondary sort of 'badge' of office unique to that knight.

• Silvered Prayer Chains - Carried for both ritual and restraint, their links said to burn the unholy.

• Exorcism Water - Flasks of sanctified brine, foul-smelling but feared by spirits and evil men.

• Magick-Sealed Armor - Steel made into living covenant, branded with the symbols of gods.

Each chapel stores more: relics no mortal should touch, blood altars still wet with offerings, and in Catcher’s Rest, vaults so old they are guarded by living saints and restless dead alike.

The Knights’ supply lines are not iron and grain, but rarities made sacred, materials that keep their rites effective and exclusive.

• Sanctified Ichors - Distilled from holy beasts, thick with latent divinity.

• Scripture-Bound Scrolls - Wards that cannot be burned or torn, used for sealing.

• Holy Glyph Chalks - To draw runes that trap spirits and close cursed spaces.

• Binding Brands - Heated sigils used to scar criminals and heretics alike with eternal marks.

• Votive Oils - Burned in endless quantities, turning prayer into smoke that coils through the sanctum.

Each ingredient is rare, costly, and tightly controlled, reinforcing the Church’s power by ensuring that faith’s raw currency can never fall into common hands.

The Chapels of All-Faith are not mere temples; they are part fortress, part reliquary, part court of law. Statues of Gods loom above whispering fonts, their carved eyes seeming to follow the penitent. Stained Glass Windows burn in divine colors, casting parables onto the pews. Confession Chambers smell of incense and blood, scrubbed clean after every penitent’s secrets. Labyrinth Sanctums beneath Catcher’s Rest are fortified with chained spirits, candle-lit wards, and inquisitors who practice rites too dire for common eyes. Here, mercy and menace dwell side by side, salvation for the devout, terror for the guilty. A Chapel of All-Faith is equal parts temple, courthouse, hospital, armory, and vault. Every chapel houses shrines to all seven gods, keeps ledgers of tithe and penance, stores relics and consecrated materials, and maintains cells for “penitents.” Each is both a place of petition and an instrument of control. Though shaped by local custom and circumstance, they all share this core purpose: to centralize worship, enforce tithe, and bind the faithful to the Knights’ authority. Most fall into common variations, shaped by wealth and infrastructure:

• Wayside Shrines - Rough alcoves or small huts at crossroads and pilgrim paths, marked by icons of all seven gods. A lone cleric or traveling paladin may keep them, performing quick blessings or chalking runes against spirits.

• Village Chapels - Modest timber or stone houses of prayer, supported by a handful of clergy. These handle births, burials, and seasonal rites. Villagers often see them as both lifeline and tax-collector.

• Urban Chapels - Larger complexes with full reliquaries, confession chambers, and spirit-trial courts. Paladins here train in small barracks, while scriptoria record tithe, omens, and censored prophecy.

• Regional Basilicas - Built in wealthy cities, these are fortified temples overseen by bishops. They store relics too dangerous for parish hands, muster faith-militias, and house tribunals where heresy is judged.

• The Great Chapel of Catcher’s Rest - The supreme seat of the Pope/Most Holy. Equal parts cathedral, fortress, and labyrinth, its reliquaries are said to hold relics predating the Fall itself. Guarded by living saints and undead inquisitors, it is the heart from which all doctrine flows.

From roadside shrine to soaring basilica, each site answers upward, feeding coin and confession into the same vast body of All-Faith. Lower chapels rely on upper ones for rare materials (ichors, brands, sealed scrolls) and for sanctioning major rites (resurrections, interdictions, mass exorcisms). Tithes flow upward; doctrine flows downward. Promotions and punishments are recorded at the basilica level to keep parish clergy leashed, at least on parchment.

The Church proclaims itself as servant of all, yet its miracles are rationed like coin, offered in measure to loyalty, tithe, and usefulness.

• Healing - Magickal restoration, though only for those able to pay or prove favor.

• Funeral Rites - To sanctify the dead and prevent necromancy, yet countless paupers rot unblessed.

• Exorcisms and Haunt-Cleansing - Expulsions of spirits, sometimes for whole villages, sometimes only for a noble’s estate.

• Spirit Trials -Divine arbitration, often more feared than secular courts.

• Blessings of Marriage, Birth, and Death - Milestones made into transactions of faith.

• City Defense - Paladins and clerics warding walls and gates against devilry or plague.

Each “service” is an offering wrapped in power, equal parts salvation and leverage, binding the people’s survival to the Church’s hand.

• Clerical Burnout: Healing magick siphons more than magickal energy, they say it costs belief and emotion if used excessively.

• Possession Risk: Failed exorcisms can infect the priest.

• Political Targeting: Church members are often assassinated by arcane cults or rival factions.

• Moral Erosion: Proximity to divine power without self-scrutiny breeds fanaticism, or worse, Tulpas.

• Doctrine Drift: Local Clerics sometimes reinterpret creeds for their own ends, resulting in miracles performed under false authority, a crime punishable by soul-undoing.

These dangers are whispered not only as warnings to initiates but as grim reminders, faith, or Everwealth at-all, is never safe.