Ring Knights of Riatavin

Whether ruled by Amn or Tethyr, Riatavin has always been a

frontier city, distant from other major settlements. Although various
castles and border forts have surrounded it at times, the city has
always looked to its own defense, maintaining not only a city watch
but a standing professional military. These men and women are the
Ring Knights, and they have a long, proud history of defending
Riatavin’s walls and patrolling the surrounding lands.
Riding out from the imposing Citadel of the Ring in the
Ironstreets district, the Ring Knights are a highly-trained military
company deeply loyal to the Merchants’ Chosen. Unlike in many other
parts of Toril, noble birth is not required to become a Ring Knight - in
fact, they have the right of conscription in times of great danger to the
city, though in Riatavin’s entire history this right has never been
exercised. Instead, the Ring Knights strive to be merit-based.
Technically, the Ring Knights have no jurisdiction within
Riatavin’s walls except in times of siege. Their role is to patrol the
surrounding countryside, protecting farms and estates from the
depredations of monsters and bandits, while the Leatherjacks protect
the city streets. Recently, however, this distinction has begun to erode.
With agents of the Night Barony infiltrating the city and the
Leatherjacks gaining a reputation for corruption, Ring Knights are
being deployed within Riatavin’s walls with greater and greater
frequency.
This transition is putting immense stress on the Ring Knights. At
the city’s height they numbered some three thousand mounted
warriors, counting Knights and Squires, but this number has fallen to
two thousand as population decline and deaths in battle have ravaged
their numbers. With the massive organized threat of Night Barony
bandits raiding across the border, with Riatavin as a primary target,
they are stretched thin in their traditional role, let alone a new one.
While the Ring Knights are immensely popular with the average
Riatavi citizen, they are seen as pompous, self-righteous, and
impractical by the Leatherjacks, whom they in turn view as coarse and
ignoble. The professional rivalry between the city’s two protectors has
come to blows several times, and though these brawls have not yet
resulted in any deaths, the seeming favoritism that the Five Families
show the Knights means that tensions may yet truly boil over.

Life of a Knight
 Any Riatavi family can present a son or daughter aged seven to
twelve to become a Page, and orphans of the city are almost always
sent as well. Under the supervision of adult servants, these children do
much of the manual labor around the Citadel of the Ring, from mucking
out stables to preparing and serving meals. They are also given a basic
education and carefully watched for the virtues that Ring Knights must
possess: strength, courage, and dedication.
When the children turn fourteen, a decision is made. Many of
these Pages are not chosen to advance, and instead continue as
servants at the Citadel, modestly paid. Those who catch the eye of an
instructor, however, advance to become Squires, and are rigorously
trained for the next seven years in combat, horsemanship, and knightly
virtues. Squires serve the full Knights, taking care of their armor and
horses and riding beside them on patrol and in battle.
At the age of twenty-one, surviving squires who have shown
promise are knighted by the Five Families on Founding Night, an
evening of wild celebration throughout the city. This is as far as most
Knights advance, and they spend the remainder of their days either
training or on patrol. Those who distinguish themselves both in combat
and in learning are promoted to Knight Commander, and lead
companies of fifty Knights. Companies are numbered First through
Fortieth.
Five Companies form a Division, numbered First through Eighth
and headed by a Knight Superior. Divisions often patrol adjacent areas
together so that they can call for support if engaged. This has become
especially important now that the Night Barony has begun fielding
large and cohesive armies of raiders, though the Ring Knights have
struggled to bring the elusive bandits to battle so far. No Company, let
alone a Divison, has yet been broken on the field of battle.
Becoming a Knight is considered a lifetime commitment; Knights
who survive to an age when they are no longer able to serve in the
field become instructors at the Citadel, councilors to the Merchants’
Chosen, diplomats to foreign cities, or occasionally community leaders
among the fringe farmsteads. Knights who attempt to leave the order
are hunted down and hung as deserters, but this is incredibly rare.
There have been only six in Riatavin’s history.

Assets of the Ring Knights

A Ring Knight’s most important equipment is her horse. Locally
raised Valashari Destriers are strong, heavy, fearless warhorses, and
the Ring Knights have the first pick of them each year. Both Knight and
horse are outfitted in chainmail, which is more practical and affordable
for their smiths to produce and repair than innumerable suits of plate
armor. The armor, horse, longsword, shield, and lance of each Knight
are property of the Citadel, not the individual.
The Citadel of the Ring is the primary base of the Knights, and
takes up a large section of the city with its innumerable forges,
barracks, stables, and training grounds. However, it is not large enough
to comfortably house all two thousand Knights and their mounts at
once. Except in times of crisis, only two Divisions rotate through the
Citadel at a time. The rest are out in the countryside, either encamped
on the road during patrols or ensconced in a chapterhouse.
Chapterhouses of the Ring Knights are all former hill forts of
Tethyr, built around the time of Riatavin’s defection from Amn. Each is
large enough to house a single Division, and the six Divisions on patrol
rotate through them over time. Apart from a small group of smiths,
cooks, and stable keepers, they have no permanent residents, but are
always occupied by a Division unless they have been called out to
support another Division or recalled to Riatavin’s walls.

Example Knights
Elodie Valebreeze (STATS) is a third-year Squire serving with
Twenty-Eighth Company. Born to an Elven father and a Human mother
who were killed by a mob in the early days of the Wealing War, she
grew up in the Citadel and has known little else. She idolizes Lord
Commander Jashire, and will eagerly recount Lady Steelbraid’s
exploits in excruciating detail to anyone who mentions her. Lean and
gangly at seventeen, Elodie rides better than she walks, and is a little
clumsy on foot. She wears her honey-blond hair short, just barely
beyond the base of her slightly-pointed ears.
Tychan Alloro (STATS) is the Knight Commander of Thirty-First
Company. Forty-four years old, he worries that time is running out for
him to advance to Knight Superior, which he hopes will finally make his
dismissive merchant family proud of him. Dour and ascetic, he does
not drink or gossip idly, but passes his time by drilling his men or
practicing alone. Sparring with him and performing well can earn his
respect. Shaven-headed but with a thick greying beard, Tychan is a
devotee of the Red Knight, minor goddess of strategy, and wears her
symbol around his neck at all times.
Lord Commander Aerlyn Jashire
The Jashire family is widely renowned as purveyors of wine and
excess, but Aerlyn Jashire (STATS), better known as Lady Steelbraid,
has spent her entire life distancing herself from that reputation. The
third and youngest child of then-ruling Wine Lord Endro Jashire, she
demanded at ten years old to join the Ring Knights as a page. When
her father refused, she went on a hunger strike until he relented, the
first of many acts of utter determination in her long career.
As a Page, Aerlyn was noted for her hard work, quiet discipline,
and utter fixation on becoming a Knight. She was among the first
chosen as a Squire and quickly proved that decision to be a good one
when, at the age of only fifteen, she single-handedly slew a marauding
troll by riding it down with a lance coated in burning pitch. Her exploits
did not stop there, and by the time of her knighting ceremony, local
bards had already dedicated several songs to her deeds.
Promoted to Knight Commander at only twenty-five, Aerlyn was
immensely popular with the Knights under her command, many of
whom were considerably older. She gave credit where it was due
rather than take it for herself, and commanded with regard for the lives
of both her Knights and those they were sworn to protect. Raised to
the position of Lord Commander of the Citadel at age forty-two, she
was the youngest Lord Commander in Riatavi history.
Now fifty-one and known for wearing her bright grey hair in a
tight coil around her thin, hawkish features, Lady Steelbraid fights to
lead the Ring Knights through perhaps their most challenging days.
Lacking for the manpower she needs to effectively defend the entire
Riatavi periphery from large and vicious bands of Night Barony raiders,
she is frustrated to see her Knights pulled away to fight crime and
corruption within the city itself. She despises Lord Commissioner Torra
Fallowe of the Leatherjacks; the loathing is mutual and shared by their
respective troops.
The Lord Commander hides a damaging secret: she is not
actually a Jashire. She was conceived while her father was away at
the family resort on Lake Esmel, a secret her mother took to her grave.
Her true father was a member of the Shadow Thieves, a fact that Lord
Commissioner Fallowe has recently discovered thanks to a well-paid
diviner. She knows that Lady Steelbraid will never bow to blackmail,
but revealing (and playing up) her rival’s true parentage might help
Fallowe advance her own career to Lady Aerlyn’s cost.