1 The Goddess’s Sword

A Paladin playbook for the shining city-states. Written against Wizards & Lizards v0.10 (BETA, not yet playtested).

The Shield guards, the Hand mends, and you are the Sword: the militant arm of a city-goddess, sworn to carry her light into the dark places and strike the things that would snuff it out. You stand in the front rank in shining mail, your blows burn the unholy, and you call down a measure of her grace on the wounded and the wavering. You are an oath that walks, and you do not break.

1.1 You Carry the Light

You hold the line, keep the pressure on, and pick your allies up, a holy warrior who does all three and never breaks doing it. Like the Hand, your power runs on stress, the strain of holding the goddess’s grace in a mortal frame, and like her, your divine gifts work unhindered in armor. You stand the front rank longer than most, your Smite gives the unholy no rest, and when a comrade reels you put the strength back in him before he falls. You will not out-duel the Steel or raise the Fallen the way the Hand can, but where you stand, the line stands.

1.2 Make Your Paladin

Your Might begins at +2. Agility, Wits, and Presence begin at +0; the tables below will raise them. (Presence is your grace, your fuel, so tend it.)

You begin with:

• Hit Points 16 (you are built to hold the front).
• Speed 2.
• Stress 4 + your Presence.
• Defense = Agility + shield + cover.
• Training in armor up to plate and the shield, and in knightly arms; and, like the Hand, your prayers work in armor.
• Smite, the goddess’s wrath in your hand (below), and a vow from your calling.
• Heraldry, the orders, oaths, and blazons of the knighthood that raised you.

Now walk the tables. Roll or choose; take what each one grants.

1.2.1 Which goddess claimed your oath? (1d6)

1. The Walled Mother, who guards the fortress-cities. (+1 Might · Soldiery)
2. The Dawnbringer, whose light burns the unhallowed. (+1 Presence · Devotion)
3. The Just Scales, goddess of law and the courts. (+1 Wits · Oratory)
4. The Lamplighter, who keeps the dark from the streets. (+1 Agility · Vigil)
5. The Green Lady of the faewood marches. (+1 Wits · Nature)
6. A fallen or hidden goddess, whose last knight you are. (+1 Presence · Old Lore)

1.2.2 What does your vow demand? (1d6)

1. To shield the weak, whatever the cost to you. (skill: Bodyguarding)
2. To hunt a particular evil until it is ended. (skill: Tracking)
3. To speak the goddess’s truth to the powerful. (skill: Courtesy)
4. To tend the faithful in body and spirit. (skill: Medicine)
5. To never retreat while an ally still stands. (skill: Resolve)
6. To redeem a sin you will not name. (skill: Insight)

1.2.3 With whom did you share your vigil?

Choose another player’s character, the one who kept watch with you the night you took your oath. They gain +1 to any one skill. And once per session, when you call the goddess’s light, they may share it: heal as your Lay on Hands would, or steady against fear, at no cost to you.

1.2.4 Your holy token (1d6)

1. A blade blessed at the high altar. Your Smite costs no stress against the undead.
2. A tabard bearing her sign. Allies beside you ignore the first point of any fear penalty.
3. A reliquary of a saint’s bone. Once per day, your Lay on Hands also clears a condition.
4. An oath-ring that warms near evil. You sense the unhallowed nearby.
5. A warhorse trained to the trumpet. You begin mounted; it fights at your word.
6. A cracked icon of a dead goddess. Once per session, refuse a death: an ally stays standing.

1.3 Grace

Your gifts are worked through your hand and your stress:

• Smite (part of a Strike, 1 stress): your blow strikes as magical harm and deals +2 damage, or +4 against the undead and the unhallowed. The wraith that turns aside steel does not turn aside the goddess.
• Lay on Hands (1 action, 1 stress): touch a willing ally (or yourself) and restore 4 Hit Points. You mend, but you are not the Hand: you cannot raise the Fallen, that prayer is hers.
• Your prayers work in armor, and you may Smite and Lay on Hands in the same fight as freely as your stress allows.

Spend your grace where the line is thinnest.

1.4 Advanced Actions

You have Smite already. Choose one more now; you will gain others as you rise.

• Lay on Hands. The goddess’s mending, above. (Take this unless your token already grants it.)
• Aegis. A reaction: when an ally within reach is struck, mark 1 stress, once per round, to ward them, halving the blow with a flare of her light.
• Consecrate. Spend an action to raise a holy ground: until your next activation, allies beside you gain +1 Defense and may shake one condition.
• Zealous Blow. When you Smite a foe you have sworn to destroy (undead, your vow’s enemy), the strike also Staggers it.
• Divine Health. Your Hit Points rise by 4, and you cannot be Frightened.

1.5 Your Actions

Like every adventurer you have the shared actions, roll 3d6, add the attribute, read the ladder (8- miss, 9-12 partial, 13-17 success, 18+ critical):

Strike (Might) · Shoot (Agility) · Defend (Agility) · Maneuver (Might/Agility) · Endure (the fitting attribute) · Skill (use one of your skills). And you may always mark stress to push a roll, resist a blow, or work your grace.

1.6 As You Rise

You grow over five levels. At 2nd and 4th level you gain a new skill and a new Advanced Action, a deeper prayer, a sterner ward, a brighter light. At 3rd and 5th level you raise an attribute (to a cap of +3) and your blows hit harder. Raise Presence when you can: it is more grace to spend.