Paladin

Often members of a temple clergy, Paladins are knights sworn to protect the innocent, often in the name of a deity. While not every Paladin is religious, many of them worship good-aligned gods. If one is regularly present at a temple, it is safe to assume that the knight is a follower of its associated deity. Most Paladins are good-aligned, and the class is quick to cast out those who fall into evil: these are named Hellknights instead. These were formerly called 'Death Knights', but many of these dark-elemental magic users repenting their evil ways have caused the fallen Paladins to be renamed, and the term to be repurposed for Paladins whose innate magical element happened to be darkness.    

Not Your Typical Knight

While the class is often associated with the use of light-elemental magic, the spells a Paladin uses can be of any element: the only diffrence between the elements are the type of spells a Paladin uses. For example: a Light-elemental Paladin might focus more on healing magic, while an Earth-elemental Paladin might focus more in spells that non-lethally incapacitate the enemy. Which is the innate element to the Paladin's magic also decides where the aspiring adventurer's training grounds at the College of Wanderers are. For example: the light-elemental Paladins have their training grounds near the Cleric's offices, so the two classes tend to share a strong bond. Training sessions with this class is how they learn their healing magic. The dark-elemental Paladins, the Death Knights, have their training grounds near the Necromancer's Crypts, and gain the ability to return from the dead as an Undead once due to a specific spell that a Necromancers casts during shared training sessions between the two classes.    

All but a dumb force

Paladins are known for their unshakeable wills and their steely determination: their mental strength can even hold fast against the mind-controling abilities of many monsters. While others might lose the battle to keep control of their body against such a power, a Paladin won't falter against it in the slightest. For example, a Siren's song might manipulate the mind of a Sniper, but it is completely useless against a Paladin, who would still be fully capable of striking her down upon hearing the song. An old saying goes: 'A Cleric is what a temple sends when they want to negotiate. A Paladin is who they send if negotiations have failed.' Once one has caught the scent of evil, they're unlikely to give up on the hunt. The Hoarfrost Orcs aren't the only fear of any local bandit lord: they pray to whichever deity will listen that a Paladin won't find their trail. There is still escape from the Hoarfrost warriors through flight: there is no such luxury if a Paladin was sent after someone. Eventually, they will find their prey, and enact their orders.    

Lasting wounds from the Cult Crisis

Historians would say that Xander the Mad sadly has left his mark on the adventurer class he fell from: While Paladins have been figures to be trusted and pillars of their community for a long time, this all changed in the years following the Cult Crisis. When it began, the College was quick to disown him: Before they struck him from the records as an adventurer and instead made a Threat Assesment File about him, they changed his status from Paladin to a Hellknight: the title for a fallen Paladin, which serves both as a way to shame one and mark them for death should they still be alive.   However, that is not where the effects that the Cult Crisis had on the Paladin class ended: thanks to Xander's actions, the Paladin Order itself was brought to deep shame through this event. The adventurers themselves curse this traitor to this day: During these years, Paladins worshipping any kind of deity were branded secret Azdar worshippers, and often arrested and jailed by the town guard without any charges when discovered. While Paladins wielding any elemental magic could fall prey to these attitudes, Paladins wielding light magic were disproportionately targeted, as Xander was known to use light-elemental magic. However, dark-magic wielding Paladins and those in the class with a darker personal aesthetic were often exempt from these attitude, as the people associated them with Sayen the Undertaker, and thus safe to have in their communities. Therefore, Death Knights often kept a lookout, while their brothers worshipped their good-aligned gods in secret. Nowadays, the arrests have stopped, but some bigotry against the class persists. However, this has not broken Paladin resolve to eliminate evil wherever they may find it, and they have actively worked to regain the trust of the people. Many Paladins have flushed out Cultists of Azdar in hiding, arrested them, and brought them to justice, which worked to shift attitudes back to their favor. Nowadays, members of this class at least can do their work in peace.