Albion

The Duke does not rule Albion — he rules his land. The twelve King-Dukes each hold an isolated castle, govern their vassals, make war and peace by their own judgement, and gather but rarely in the Council of the King-Dukes. None has ever been named supreme; none ever shall be. The Duchy's cohesion comes from faith, not from institution.

A Duke of Albion enters battle at the head of his Knights of the Realm, lance high, helm struck with ducal arms. He has sworn the Vow of the Realm before the Damsel of his House, which is enough to make him a man whose word holds. He scorns Imperial engines as a grown man scorns the cry of a child who has not learned to speak. When the Empire blares its cannons at the marches of Roncevaux, the Duke lifts the lance, and the lance answers.

The Baron is the younger son of a great House or the heir to a modest fief. He has sworn the Vow of the Realm as a Duke has, but without the gold and lands to sustain a Court; he leads a regiment, sometimes two, and stakes his honour on the quality of his lance. In Albion's hierarchy he is freer than a Duke — no Court to hold, no vassals to arbitrate — and more bound than a Knight Errant — a fief already, peasants who depend upon him.

Barons are the pillars Dukes send when they cannot ride out themselves. In the field they command bands of Knights of the Realm, defend the marches against the Beastmen of the Vermont, or join the Crusades of the Dawn into the vampire deeps. Many die young, far from their fief. The Damsels mourn them in the chapels; the peasants remember the name a generation, two perhaps.

The Paladin is more than a knight — he is a man of Virtues held. He is past the age of seeking a fief, has completed his years of errantry, seen the Sovereign at least once and lived, and bears on his cuirass the marks of three layered Vows (Realm, Quest, Dawn — not always in that order). He serves a Duke or rides as companion to the Knights of the Dawn; rarely both in the same season.

In battle he is harder than the Errants, more measured than the Questing Knights, calmer than the Pilgrims. His Virtue of Temperance is learned in blood. The Damsels respect him and seek his counsel when a Duke hesitates. When a Paladin falls in battle, Albion says a Virtue has gone out that day — eleven remain, until the next. The superstition is admired more than believed, but custom calls for a three-day fast.

The Prophetess is the spiritual authority of a Duchy. She has spent her entire childhood at the Mother-Forest, followed the novitiate of the Damsels, seen the Sovereign rise from the sacred lake's waters, and bears now the great veil and the pale-gold crown of her office. No Duke makes war without receiving her blessing; no Council of the King-Dukes convenes without her presiding.

She channels the Way of the Sovereign — Life and Light entwined, never any other — and casts her spells from the heart of the rearguard, veiled in white, escorted by Damsels chanting the psalms of the Gift. Her magic does not strike: it heals, hallows, protects, dispels shadow. When the enemy advances, the Knights are within reach; when the enemy withdraws, she has spoken. A Prophetess rarely dies in battle — who would bear the weight of such sacrilege — but when one falls, the Duchy mourns a year and a day.

The Damsel is the young novice of Albion's all-female clergy. She left her House at twelve, followed the Mothers of the Damsels to the Mother-Forest, and spent two decades there learning the spells of the Gift, memorising the Psalms, serving the Prophetesses in the chapels. She now rides with the ducal armies in formation, never alone, never to the front.

In the field she keeps close to a Duke or Baron, bestows the blessings of the Vow before the charge, casts modest spells (Gift of the Sovereign, Burning Gaze), and tends what wounds she can. She does not fight — her magic is defence, never attack. If she survives ten campaigns and sees the Sovereign with her own eyes in the lake's water, she will become Prophetess. Many Damsels fall before. Albion's female clergy is small, and every death is a Court in mourning.

The Sergeant-at-Arms is the peasant officer — the rank a Man-at-Arms may reach by merit, valour, and surviving enough battles. He bears no blazon: he is no knight. He wears the ducal coat-of-arms, the longsword, and the leather brassard that sets him apart from the commons of his rank. He commands the Men-at-Arms, has them dress their line, holds them firm against the shock that would scatter any churl.

His charge is thankless. Knights do not greet him, Damsels overlook him, peasants fear him more than they love him. But the Duke owes him the holding of the field when the cavalry charges, and a good Sergeant is worth his weight in gold. When one dies, he is buried with dignity — never in the chapel — but in the meadow beside the soldiers. It is little for a life of service; it is more than most will ever earn.

The Green Knight is the mythic-mystic figure of the Mother-Forest. None knows whether he is man, spirit, or direct manifestation of the Sovereign herself — the Damsels refuse to answer, the Prophetesses frown when asked, old peasants whisper that he is all three at once. He has been seen three times in a thousand years: at the Battle of Roncevaux against the Empire, at the Crusade of the Seven Dukes against the Vampires of Solmarche, and at the Defence of Brionne against an Ereban horde.

Each time he appears alone, mounted on a destrier of moss and leaf, clad in armour seeming hewn from living wood and bark. He fights without name, banner, or war-cry. He chooses his foe (an enemy hero, never a common soldier), undoes him in a duel without speech, and is gone before the mêlée resumes. No Albéen would dare claim to be the Green Knight; no Damsel would dare bless him if he returned; no Duke would dare ask his allegiance. He comes when the Sovereign wills. He leaves when She calls him back.

Sir Enguerrand de Valcourt, the Dragonbane, is the most illustrious living Knight of the Dawn. Younger son of House Valcourt, he swore the Vow of the Realm at sixteen, the Vow of the Quest at twenty-two, and the Vow of the Dawn at forty-seven — after slaying the dragon of Tournay during the last Crusade against the Watchers. The beast, sixty paces long, had laid waste three villages of the southern marches; Sir Enguerrand met it alone, lance and afoot, and brought it down after a day of combat. The skull hangs now in the chapel of Valcourt, a silent witness.

He has passed seventy years, no longer fights in pitched battle, but resides at the southern marches where he trains young Errants. When a Duke calls him for a major Crusade, he comes. His lance is shod with a Shard of the Dawn he recovered in the dragon's cave. His Virtue of Temperance is legendary; his Virtue of Boldness less so, owing to a certain dragon. The Knights of the Dawn name him their tacit dean; the Damsels make him their reference figure; the Council of the King-Dukes confers upon him the right to arbitrate in silence.

Lady Yseult de Brionne, Voice of the Sovereign, is the Chief Prophetess of the northern Duchies — the heir of a line of twelve women who have held the office for three centuries. She has seen the Sovereign not once but seven times; no other living Prophetess can say as much. Her mount is a white mare the Damsels say was born of a Pegasus and a sacred horse of the Mother-Forest; no official source confirms this.

She resides at the chapel of the lake of Brionne, where she receives the Dukes on pilgrimage and counsels them in silence — convention dictates that her words pass through a subordinate Damsel, never from her own mouth in public. In the field, she accompanies only the gravest Crusades, never ordinary battles. Her magic is immense — she can heal a thousand wounds in an hour, dispel a horde of undead by mere presence, fell a daemon with a syllable — but she does not fight. She stands at the rear, veil lifted, paying no heed to arrows that bend a pace from her. When she speaks, the Dukes go silent. When she is silent, all Albion listens.

Knights of the Realm on Foot are what a knight becomes without his mount — by loss, by siege, by circumstance, or by choice. They fight in the same full cuirass and great shield, but without the lance; in its place, the longsword or warhammer. Their formation is dense, their Virtue is Constancy, and their superiority over Men-at-Arms is beyond debate.

In sieges, defiles, narrow passes, keep stairs — wherever a horse cannot go — they hold. In the open field, they are committed at the pivot point, where the enemy seeks to turn the ducal line; there they plant their footing and the day is decided. They despise Imperial pikemen as gaunt and slow; they respect Cathayan pikemen they have never seen. When the Duke rides on, they follow afoot to victory, or until a mount is found to put them back in rank.

The Knight Errant is a younger son without title, a forgotten heir, a noble orphan who has sworn the Vow of the Realm without land to bear it. He rides in full plate, proud, ardent, ready to charge death itself for the right to a fief — land the Duke may grant, perhaps, after enough battles endured. Most die before. Many turn afterward to the Quest.

On the field they charge first, in close formation, lance low. Their Virtue of Boldness is sincere and youthful; they revel in the shock, do not reckon fatigue, do not measure losses. Dukes employ them as the opening lance — to break a flank, to cleave a path through the enemy mass, to sign the battle with the inaugural charge. It is a cruel and honoured use; the Errants know it and are not wounded by it. To die in the opening charge is a death the Damsels will sing of.

Mounted Knights of the Realm are the spine of any ducal host — vassals of the Duke in full age, fief secured, lance honed, mount proven. They have passed errantry, sworn the Vow of the Realm, and now defend the land that feeds them. When the Duke raises the lance, they answer in great number, sometimes five hundred lances for the richest Houses.

Their charge is Albion's most effective: not the reckless fire of the Errant, not the abstract mysticism of the Questing Knight — the deliberate charge of a man who has a fief to recover, peasants to protect, and a name to pass on. They charge in ordered formation, hold the line through the shock, rally promptly after the mêlée. Empires, facing them, fear their lance more than their cannon. Imperial knights acknowledge it in silence; Albéen knights know and do not mention — an unspoken compliment is still a compliment, and Virtues hold to measure.

The Man-at-Arms is the armed peasant — neither serf nor knight. He wears the ducal coat-of-arms, the riveted kettle helm, the short blade or long spear by terrain and the Sergeant's order. He learned arms in the village, line discipline at the yearly muster, shock-drill in two or three past campaigns. He knows why he is there, and he knows his son will plough the land if he does not return.

His formation is the infantry screen that holds the centre of a ducal line, long enough for the cavalry to pivot. He does not attack — he receives, he jostles, he buys a minute. Dukes owe him that minute and know it. When a Man-at-Arms dies nameless in the meadow, the Duke walks the field the next day and lays a silver coin in the father's hand. It is no life; it is more than nothing, and it is what Albion offers its peasants.

The Peasant Bowman is Albion's improvised marksman — a peasant levied for the season, fitted with a longbow cut from the village ash, a thin quiver, an unmailed coat. He learned the bow before letters, as all Albéen children do. At harvest he aims at crows; at the muster he aims at men. The transition comes without ceremony; some never make it.

He shoots in loose formation behind the infantry line, aims at the enemy mass without picking, and trusts in the number of shafts more than in precision. A volley of fifty archers is worth more than one exceptional shooter — arithmetic, not chivalry. Dukes respect their bowmen little but count them; Damsels bless them briefly without lingering; Knights ignore them. The archer minds little: he will return at harvest, his wife will have sown without him, and the arrow will have flown.

The Squire is the young man not yet Knight but aspiring to be. Younger son of a modest House, or orphan taken in by a Duke, he attends a knight of fief — bears the shield, tends the horse, polishes the armour, and learns all he observes. When the knight rides, the Squire rides too, but in the rear rank, withdrawn, without lance.

On the field, Squires form a light company — reduced armour, shorter lance, swift mount — covering the flanks and harassing the enemy. They do not engage the main shock; they have not the rank for it. They disturb, tire, cut off. When the chance opens, they charge a minor target (enemy banner-bearer, isolated wizard, fleeing wounded) to seal their Virtue of Boldness and earn the Vow of the Realm. Many die before. Those who endure ten seasons and see a Damsel acknowledge their valour pass to Knight Errant at next dawn. The ceremony is sober. The career begins.

Questing Knights are Errants who have seen the Sovereign — not in a dream, not in a vision, but in the flesh of the sacred lake's water at the Mother-Forest, beneath a veil of mist. The sight has marked them: they no longer ask for a fief, no longer serve a Duke, they ride to render Her homage by being what She saw in them. They charge with the cry of Quest, lance high, taking no count of angle, reckoning no return.

They wear full plate, the great lance, sometimes a modest Sacrament received from their native Damsel. They disdain the Errants they were yesterday; they respect the Dawn Knights they hope to become tomorrow. On the field their charge is mystic — they strike where the Sovereign moves them, and the Sovereign often moves toward the enemy hero, the banner-bearer, the exposed wizard. Many die striking true. A few endure long enough to bear a Shard. The rest carry on the Quest, without term, without rest.

Pegasus Knights are Albion's flying elite. The Pegasus is no common winged horse — it is a creature of the Mother-Forest, caught young by the Damsels in a remote meadow, broken for three years, then given to a knight whom the Sovereign has named by sign (a glint on the water, a feather on the bed, a name spoken in the mother's dream). To refuse a Pegasus is to refuse the Sovereign; the knight has no choice.

They fly above the host, dive upon enemy flanks, strike siege engines, fell standard-bearers, harry the rear. Their aerial formation — three Knights and a Champion — pivots in a half-circle above the mêlée and falls when the enemy thinks itself out of reach. The cruel fate of the Pegasus: a steed cut down dies with its rider, and the pair is funereal. Damsels bless the harness and grieve when one is missing at dusk. The Sovereign lends, does not give — every fallen Pegasus returns to its place in the Forest.

Mounted Yeomen are Albion's peasant light cavalry — march wardens, scouts of the borders, former poachers come into ducal service. They ride harvest horses rather than destriers, carry short bow or javelin, wear leather and not plate. They do not charge the mass; they find.

Before the battle they scout the ground, report to the Duke the enemy's positions, count the opposing banners. During the battle they hold the flanks, harass enemy scouts, pursue routers when the chance opens. They despise — moderately — the Men-at-Arms who cannot ride, and the Peasant Bowmen who cannot keep ranks on the move. The Knights ignore them as all plate cavalry ignore light cavalry. But without Yeomen the Duke advances blind, and all know it — Yeomen included, who say so aloud around the fire, out of chivalric hearing.

Pilgrims of the Dawn are peasants who have touched a Shard of the First Dawn — by chance, by grace, by revelation. They have left the soil, abandoned the trade, donned the pilgrim's sandal, and now walk behind a Reliquae bearing the fragment they protect. None has sworn the Vow — they are no knights — but their faith burns hotter than any written Virtue.

They fight in disordered hordes, unarmoured, armed with iron-shod staves, hatchets, sometimes rusted swords found on past battlefields. Their frenzy is devotion; they charge with the cry of Dawn, do not retreat, do not yield. The Reliquae at their centre draws enemy blows like a lodestone — each Pilgrim fallen is replaced by the one behind, and the Reliquae advances. Knights regard them with pity mingled with awe; Damsels bless them briefly. Where the Shard passes, the dead do not walk — that is their proof, their solace, their faith.

The Knight of the Dawn is Albion's spiritual apex. He has sworn the three Vows, walked the Quest for years, seen the Sovereign repeatedly, and recovered a Shard of the First Dawn from a vampire crypt, an elven ruin, a Watcher desert. The Shard rides with him now — sewn into his sword's pommel, set in the helm, or simply hung in a pendant beneath the cuirass — and where the Shard passes, the dead do not walk.

They are few — a few dozens across Albion, sometimes fewer. They serve no Duke, belong to no House, live in perpetual errantry between Crusades and chapels. In the field, their charge is ontological — they do not kill the enemy, they unmake it; a vampire struck by their lance dissipates, a barrow stirred by their passage falls back to dust. The Vampire Counts fear them. The Watchers shun them. No mortal knows how many Shards lie scattered across Aldémoros — perhaps twelve, perhaps a thousand — but every Knight of the Dawn is a walking Crusade, and the Sovereign smiles in the water when one rides by.

The Field Trebuchet is Albion's siege engine — purely mechanical, no powder, no rune, no alchemy. Five peasants serve it: a master-machinist who calibrates range, two men to wind the counterweight, an aimer, a munitioner loading the stone. The piece is slow — one shot every two or three minutes — but its stone is heavy, and where it falls, the enemy's siege engine fires no more.

Dukes have few and employ them at sieges rather than in open field. In the open, two or three are mustered to answer Imperial cannon or Cathayan ballista; that does not suffice in rate, but it suffices in pride. Refusing gunpowder is doctrine — Albion does not soil her host with foreign engines — and the Trebuchet is the compromise: pure mechanics, multiplied human force, no alchemy. Imperial Forge-Magi snigger in silence; Albéen peasants approve aloud; the Duke holds his measure between the two.