I do not offer you kind words. Nor do I offer repentance. I will not offer you understanding, compassion, or even a passing moment of regret. These things are the domain of my master. No such burden is laid upon me.
-- Paladin Bram Sullivan to Ssothu Ossrith
Forbidden from directly interfering in the affairs of the Prime Material plane, the gods, when they see fit to circumvent the Covenant, will oft carefully select, groom, and empower a mortal to do their bidding. These individuals, which we term paladins, are of great rarity and power. Often, they must operate in relative secrecy for as long as possible, else the other gods (and there are always other gods opposed to the paladin and her mission) may simply send their own paladins to interfere. This possibility of intervention by other, opposing divines has made the creation of a paladin quite a rare and risky stratagem for enforcing the will of the paladin's master. As such, paladins are treated with reverence and a great deal of awe if discovered, as some inevitably are, by the masses. But how does a paladin come to be? How are they selected, and once they are, what happens to them? Unfortunately, dear readers, we can only speculate based on the available evidence (that is, based on the paladins who's existence and histories we know of), but I will endeavor to combine the multitude of theories and hypotheses posited by the foremost scholars of our time into a cohesive explanation of how a paladin comes to be.
Most paladins are, before being selected, already devout followers of their empowering entity, often monks, priests, or extremely religious churchgoers. They must embody the teachings of their chosen god and be of appropriate maturity to be imbued with the powers of their lord. They usually need
not, as many prevalent myths insist, be "pure of heart" or virgin (worthless qualities to all but a few divines). Being of suitable character, the paladin will then be directly contacted by the divine entity who wishes to empower them, whether through a dream, via speaking through an animal, a direct manifestation of a mortal form, or some other such confrontation that the god deems suitable to the occasion. At this meeting, the divine will reveal the paladinic quest, and then extend the offer of paladinic power in exchange for service towards this end. Should the paladin choose to accept (there are no known cases of someone refusing to become a paladin), the power of the divine will be imbued within them, but in a much more potent and direct way than with a cleric or priest of their order. You see, clerics and priests and other practitioners of divine magicks do not innately
have the energy of their god(s), but are granted access to it. They are granted a link to the pool of their god's power which they can siphon to strengthen their magic. Paladins, by contrast, are given the power
within them such that they only need call upon their own energy to conjure and project these god-enhanced spells. In this way, they can become far more powerful, some ascending to near-divine status, and more directly embody the god whom they serve.
Once empowered, the paladin is loosed upon the world to enact their master's will. The divine will render what aid they can, but the paladin must largely provide for herself. The essentials for life (shelter, food, water, etc.) can often be furnished by mere reputation -- paladins of popular, palatable divines often reveal themselves to innkeeps in order to obtain these bare essentials. For the less popular, feared, or generally disliked gods, their paladins must either furnish all this without revealing themselves, or be made such that they do not require them. Once the necessities of life are acquired or made irrelevant, the paladin can then begin working towards fulfilling their oath in full. Often, this involves recruiting a band of worthy followers to assist in performing various tasks that are either too risky or too minor for the paladin to attend to personally. Some paladins have even been known to act
only through their followers -- avoiding personal action unless absolutely necessary in order to safeguard their secrecy from the public. To an outside observer, it may seem that the actions of the paladin are random and lead toward no end, but each is a calculated and necessary step along the road to a solution to their master's problem. Indeed, the god itself may plan exactly how to achieve their goals, and the paladin is made only to follow their master's plan to the letter, acting independently only when the unforeseen occurs.
To many, the paladin then seems no different than a warlock, but I assure you, dear reader, that the two are not the same. Warlocks are created when a creature of immense power, not necessarily a divine, forges a pact with a mortal and imparts to them a small fraction of its power. Warlocks hardly ever have a harmonious relationship with their master, and the pact is almost never in their favor. Paladins, by contrast, make no such concrete deal with their lord, and are often given free reign to determine how to accomplish their task. Furthermore, the paladin (normally) has already served their master long before becoming a paladin, and so their relationship is not marked by the scorn and deceit of a warlock's. While it is true that both serve a master to achieve a specific goal, the nature of the bond between master and servant is what differentiates a warlock from a paladin. Another common misconception is that paladins are always servants of "light" divines. In reality, there are warlocks of light and paladins of dark -- the elemental nature of the divine essence infused has no bearing on the good or evil of the empowered mortal. And, to dispel yet another common myth, there is no obligation that a paladin be virtuous by the standards of the lands through which he roams (Raash Uglub comes to mind) -- so be careful which paladins you welcome into your home!
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