Hey Pal(adin), I’m having trouble playing more generic paladins and was hoping for some advice? I can play paladins of unusual races such as vampires, drow or kobolds, or with unlikely such as cowardice, or resentment, but I can’t figure out how to play an interesting paladin who is more like the typical ideal of a paladin.

panopticoblin:

wearepaladin:

Then allow me to try to explain. 

You exist in a world where Evil, Pure Evil, is real. This is not philosophical concept where the most spineless of thinkers attempt to render everything to the most base of ambiguities. It is an animating force of the hungry dead, the banner of fiends hungry for souls to enslave for eternity, the Darkness pooling from the outside, bringing with it horrors unmentionable. And it can be read upon the hearts and souls of people, even yourself.

And in turn so is Good. It is the energy that births worlds, the miracle stuff that can birth souls from the inanimate. Lords of the Empyrean, the Honorable Archons teaching the codes that promise justice, the Noble Angels instructing the promise of love in all its forms, the Brave Azata showing all souls how to be free from chains and darkness. It is the beauty of an old man teaching his grandaughter stories of how to be kind and brave, and her, even when she is alone in this world, remembering what he told her and making the quiet fire of what she learned burn brightly forever.

To be a “generic” paladin, is to realize not only is there a Darkness to be faced, it’s not enough. You must be everything the Darkness is not, the promise of Light in a frail mortal shell. Whether the gods found you worthy or your faith was bright enough alone, you made the Oath that no Darkness can defeat or understand. To Rage Against the Dying of the Light, To Be What the Darkness Cannot Comprehend.

That alone makes you extraordinary. You make a choice and make it again and again to speak for what makes these worlds worth saving.

I’m getting kinda sick of this modern idea that to be good or beyond reproach is boring. It manifests a lot in resentment towards Superman stories, and the idea that Paladins are “boring” or one dimensional by nature…like- sure we’re all flawed by why do we call anyone who strives to rise above “boring”??