Quote:
Originally Posted by RGTraynor
My concept of knight is "someone who is a knight." GURPS not having character classes, the distinction is entirely social. Sure, people get knighted for brave deeds, but they also get knighted for service, for donating large sums to the crown (see Multi-Millionaire Guy above), for many reasons good or ill ... not to mention those cultures with the concept of hereditary knighthood. The rich guy might never have been within ten yards of a lance, never mind picking up Lance skill.
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There's also the "knight of the carpet," where knighthood is simply given to someone as a gift from the King of England on a holiday, rather than due to some service (although I'd imagine there was some political wheeling and dealing involved). And I believe in those cases where a knight was legally obligated to show up to fight (with retainers in tow), he could opt to instead pay some sum to the crown, and I'd imagine there were some "knights" without any notable combat prowess who did just that.
EDIT: Ah, I see from Kromm's post the latter bit I was referring to was called "scutage," and may well have been what the
majority of historical knights (rather than simply "some") opted to do rather than fight. That said, there's nothing preventing one from making a setting where knights
are all (or at least mostly) elite warriors, possibly even a setting where they can have Status 0 (lower than that is unlikely, however, at least not without largely doing away with what "knight" means).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rupert
If you want a really scary knight, try William Marshall. Way up the list of people you'd not want to mess with. |
I've always been partial to
Gotz von Berlichingen. Suffered a career-ending injury (loss of his right hand) early on but basically ignored it and went on to have a rather-successful career as a knight and mercenary, thumbed his nose at authority frequently enough that he got placed under the Imperial Ban (making him legally dead, so anyone could kill and/or rob him without legal repercussions) not just once but
twice, and still managed to live to the ripe old age of 81 or 82 (only the year of his birth is known, not the month or day, although month and year of death are known). The fact the protagonist of
Berserk was clearly (if a bit loosely) based off him doesn't hurt matters.