Order of the Nail

The Order of the Nail is a Hellknight Order that operates out of Citadel Vraid in Varisia.

The Order of the Nail specializes in patrolling the fringes of society, guarding it from primitives and throwback to more savage eras. Beyond obvious enemies, such as bloodthirsty orcs and hordes of other brutal humanoids, the knighthood doesn’t discriminate by race, beating back even tribal and unconventional human cultures to make way for their “civilized” brethren. The Nail doesn’t seek out people to purge, instead confronting those who threaten civilized lands or lie directly in the path of expansion.

Order of the Nail

"Savagery must be quelled in the land, home, and mind."

Symbol: Thick nails forming a sunburst.

Headquarters: Citadel Vraid, near Korvosa

Leader: Lictor Severs “Boneclaw” DiViri (LE Male Human Hellknight)

Members: Frontiersmen, settlers, victims of barbarian and monster attacks

Armor Features: Breastplate emblazoned with a fiendish face, horned helm

Favored Weapon: Lance or halberd

Reckoning: Pierce your flesh with sharp metal.

Philosophy

Order of the Nail Hellknights believe that civilization requires peace to ﬂourish. They seek to shield quiet communities from the depredations of chaos while preparing new lands to yield to civilization’s needs. The Order of the Nail believes that although enemies of justice might ﬂourish within a nation’s rules and walls, its greatest enemies lie without. Thus, the Order of the Nail seeks to strike against those foes, laying them low before they jeopardize communities or taking from them the lands and riches they would squander. At the least contentious level, the Order of the Nail seeks to destroy monsters, violent humanoids, and outlaws, but some take the knighthood’s doctrine even further, viewing tribal cultures, druidic traditions, and freedom-loving wanderers as enemies of order. While the Order of the Nail is not beholden to the nation of Cheliax, it idealizes the Chelish people’s achievements as the pinnacle of Avistani civilization. Any creature or group that would oppose the progress and expansion of southern Avistani culture are thus perceived as the Order of the Nail’s enemies.

In 4682 they were coaxed into relocating to the Varisian frontier by Queen Domina, where it has served its interests quite well, doing much to deter the Shoanti of the Storval Plateau against threatening the settlers of the region’s lowlands. Most members of the Order commonly arise from the people of the eastern Varisian lowlands, though some occasionally join from Lastwall and Nirmathas, where questing Hellknights do battle with the orcs and fey of those realms. Feared and misunderstood by both the populace and the city guard, the Hellknights are sometimes referred to as “Domina’s Devils”.

History

Leadership Lictor Severs "Boneclaw" DiViri (sometimes spelt DiVri) is the leader of the Hellknight Order of the Nail in Korvosa. He resides in Lictor's Keep (also called the Keep of Tyranny) in Citadel Vraid to the south of the city, and only rarely leaves his post there to travel into Korvosa and work directly with the field marshal of the Korvosan Guard.

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