Dragon magazine	-	Classes	-	Dragon #94
The origin of the knights	The organization of the knights	-	The Cataclysm and the present	Additional notes on Solamnia

Much of the background on the world of
Krynn is presented in the AD&D® game
module DL 5, Dragons of Mystery. However,
several important aspects of the world
of the DRAGONLANCE saga still remain
to be revealed. This article deals with one of
those aspects -- the history, development,
and organization of the Knights of Solamnia.
Players who are using the character
Sturm in the DRAGONLANCE adventure
series will need to know much of this
material in order to role-play that character
in greater depth. Other player characters
directly associated with the Knights will
appear in later modules.

The origin of the Knights
The Knights of Solamnia came into being
nearly 2000 years before the War of
the Lance, rising like a phoenix from the
ashes of the empire of Ergoth. The isles of
Ergoth were, in those days, one with the
continent and not separated from Ansalon
by any waterway. From that region, during
the Age of Dreams, arose Ergoth. But as
the years passed, Ergoth grew into such a
vast. and sprawling empire that it could no
longer be governed effectively. The emperor,
Thal Palik, was the worst of a long
line of rulers, impractical and inept; the
only way he knew to keep his subjects in
line was to govern with an iron hand. His
army of knights was of prime importance to
him. He lavished the treasury?s money on
it, depleting the empire?s finances and
bleeding the peasants dry with taxes.

The people of the eastern plains of Ergoth
were a proud, noble, and independent folk,
and soon rebelled against the emperor?s
treatment of them. Having feared rebellion
all along, Thal Palik was prepared. He
called for the captain of the guard, Vinas
Solamnus, and ordered his knights forth to
crush the rebellion.

Vinas Solamnus, commander of the
palace guard in the capital city of Daltigoth,
was a pious man, a gallant warrior, and
much beloved by his men. Noted for his
honor, his greatest fault may have been that
he was too loyal to his emperor and was,
consequently, blind to what was happening
in the empire. Although he started out
firmly determined to destroy the rebels as
his emperor commanded, Solamnus was
soon repelled by the terrible conditions and
oppression under which the people lived
outside the capital.

When he reached the northern plains,
Vinas let it be known that he would meet
with the rebel leaders under a banner of
truce to hear their side of the story. So
widely respected and trusted was Solamnus
that the rebel leaders came willingly to his
camp and detailed their grievances. Solamnus
?s investigations soon proved the stories
to be true. The knight was appalled at the
corruption and deprivation he witnessed.
What was worse was that Vinas knew he
had unwittingly been a part of this evil, by
his failure to see what was happening before
his own eyes.

Solamnus called his knights together and
presented the case of the people. Any
knights who believed in the cause of the
rebels were entreated to stay. Those who did
not were given leave to return to Daltigoth.
Even though his men knew that doing so
meant exile and possibly death, most chose
to stay with Solamnus. Only a few returned
to Daltigoth, bearing a message from Solamnus
for the emperor. Either redress the
wrongs of the people, the message read, or
prepare for war. Thal Palik denounced
Solamnus as a traitor, and stripped him of
his lands and title. The people of Daltigoth
prepared for war.

Thus began the War of Ice Tears. Although
Ergoth was in the grip of the most
terrible winter ever chronicled, Solamnus
and his dedicated army of knights and
frontier nobles marched on Daltigoth and
laid siege to it. Solamnus personally led
daring raids into the city itself. These raids
had a twofold purpose. First, they reduced
the city?s food supplies; second, the raiders
spread the news of the emperor?s corruption
among the people of the capital, showing
how they were being made to suffer while
the emperor remained hidden away safely
in his palace. Within two months the capital
fell. A revolt of the people, led by some of
the knights Solamnus had allowed to return
to Daltigoth, forced the emperor to sue for
peace.

As a result, the northernmost part of
Ergoth gained its independence. The grateful
people supported Vinas as their king and
named their new country Solamnia in his
honor. Although it never attained any great
power during the rest of the Age, Solamnia
became synonymous with honesty, integrity,
and fierce determination.

The organization of the Knights
Vinas Solamnus organized the Knights of
Solamnia during the Age of Dreams, and it
has changed little over the subsequent centuries.
The Knights subscribed to two
codes: The Oath and The Measure. The
Oath was Est Sularus oth Mithas -- "My
Honor is My Life." The Measure was an
extensive set of codes, many volumes in
length, the purpose of which was to define
"honor." The Measure was complicated and
exacting; only a brief summary of its laws
concerning organization can be given here.
A complete set of the tomes of The Measure
was known to exist in the great library of
Astinas of Palanthas.

The Knights were led by the Grand
Master, who sat in judgement on matters of
importance to the Knights and, subsequently,
the nation of Solamnia as a whole.
Below him were three posts: the High Warrior,
the High Clerist, and the High Justice,
representing the three major Orders of the
Knights. They were, according to The
Measure, the embodiments of Honor, Wisdom,
and Loyalty. All three ruled the entire
knighthood jointly, though they governed
the three Orders separately.

The three Orders of the Knights of Solamnia
were named the Rose (honor), the
Sword (wisdom), and the Crown (loyalty).
Squires accepted into the Knights of Solamnia
entered under the Order of the Crown,
learning the laws and codes of loyalty first.
They then had to demonstrate their acceptance
of the codes of that Order before progressing
to the Order of the Sword. The
testing was rigorous, requiring great deeds
of bravery in battle as well as strict adherence
to The Measure in all aspects of life.
Entry into the Order of the Rose, the
highest-ranked order, could be attained only
by those of noble blood; thus was the great
Huma excluded from that order, though he
was considered by many to be the greatest
of the Knights in all aspects of honor, wisdom,
and loyalty.

The military power of the Knights was
carefully structured. As set forth in The
Measure, the three Orders of the Knights
were to maintain seven armies apiece. Each
of these twenty-one armies was jointly ruled
by three Lord Knights, one from each of the
three different Orders. This arrangement
apparently helped to temper the leaders?
judgment in battle, and kept the knighthood
unified.

Each knight wore a clasp bearing the
symbol of his Order (a rose, a sword, or a
crown) which was used to fasten his cloak to
his armor. All knights carried a shield bearing
the symbol of the Knights of Solamnia:
a kingfisher with wings half extended, a
sword grasped by both its claws; a rose
centered on the sword between the claws;
and a crown held over the bird?s head in its
beak. By these signs the Knights were
known wherever they went.

The Cataclysm and the present
The Kingpriest of Istar brought down the
wrath of the gods upon Krynn, and the
gods punished the people for their pride by
casting a fiery mountain down on the land.
The destruction and desolation caused by
the disaster disrupted the world for months.
Although their land had been spared the
worst of the blow, the people of Solamnia
still suffered greatly during that time. Evil
creatures, long banished, returned to the
land. Many of the Knights perished fighting
the unknown and unspeakable horrors that
ravaged the countryside.

In the end, it was the common people of
Solamnia who cast the Knights into disgrace.
For centuries, the Knights had kept
the peace and safety of the realm. Now, in
the hour of their most desperate need, it
seemed that the Knights were powerless.
Rumors began to spread that the Knights
had foreseen the coming of the Cataclysm
and had done nothing to stop it. Some
knights, it was said, actually intended to
profit by the disaster and increase their land
holdings

Before long, knights were jeered in public
and openly reviled. Darker acts were also
committed: knights were foully murdered,
their castles and homes invaded, and their
families slain or driven into exile. So it was
that the Knights silently disappeared from
the knowledge of most common men.

Of far greater consequence to the knighthood,
more damaging than the Cataclysm
and more relentless than the hate of the
common people, was time itself. The Oath
and The Measure had held up, in the
knights' eyes, for more than a thousand
years. Yet during that time, the world
changed in many ways which the writers of
The Measure could not have foreseen. The
code of laws by which the knights measured
their every action was outdated and ponderous.
It gave no practical answers to the
questions that time and change had brought
about. The Measure was law, but it was an
unbending law, not tempered with a sense
of justice. Many of the newer knights secretly
questioned how much longer it would
be before justice demanded that the ironclad
rules of The Measure be broken.

The knights who remained found themselves
forced to roam the countryside in
secret and under false names, lest they be
discovered. Still, they kept their ideals and
their honor, and did what they could to fight
the growing evil in the world. A few knights
who found their loss of status intolerable left
their homeland and settled across the waters
on Sancrist Isle. To this day, a strong group
of knights exists there, while only covert
organizations survive within Solamnia.

At the time of the War of the Lance, all
the high ruling posts (Grand Master, High
Warrior, High Clerist, and High Justice)
are vacant. Sixty-three warriors of various
Orders remain in the world (that are known
of), and all are vying for the high posts by
their performance of great deeds in the
world. Tension is running high as rivalries
develop between the different orders as well
as among the knights themselves. Traditionally,
one of the Lord Knights of the Rose
would take the place of the Grand Master.
However, no one strong enough to be a
publicly acclaimed leader has come forth,
and the contention for high rank among the
knights continues.

Additional notes on Solamnia
Solamnia is on the silver standard; the
most valuable coin of the realm is a silver
monarch, equivalent to 506 sp in the
"world" outside Krynn. Silver castles
(worth 10 sp) and silver tharns (worth 1 sp,
the lowest-valued silver coin) are used.
Copper equivalents of these coins exist, and
are respectively worth 50 sp, 1 sp, and
1/10 sp. If a gold coin is minted, its value is
always given in silver pieces.

Several legends are common to all of
Solamnia and may have particular relevance
to the Knights (and thus to players
who have characters that are members of
the Knights). Two of these legends are
briefly described below.

Bedal Brightblade was a hero said to, have
fought the desert nomads to a standstill,
holding a pass into Solamnia singlehandedly
until help came. His sword, Brightblade,
was said to be of dwarven make and never
rusted or dulled despite vigorous use. His
tomb is somewhere in the far southern
mountains in an unknown location. It is
rumored that Bedal will return to aid Solamnia
in its time of need. Sturm
Brightblade might be a distant descendant
of this legendary figure.

Huma Dragonbane, known as the most
perfect of the knights, gathered together a
group of heroes to destroy the dragons and
drive them from the lands of Solamnia.
Huma's legend, compiled by the great elven
bard Quivalen Soth, is fragmented now.
Many doubt that Huma ever really existed
(the same people who now doubt the existence
of dragons). But the story of the last
battle between Huma and the leader of the
dragons is still told, along with the tragic
love Huma bore for the Silver Dragon. (See
the "Song of Huma," in the book Dragons
of Autumn Twilight, the first volume of the
Dragonlance Chronicles.)

Huma managed to slay, the evil dragon leader
with the Silver Dragon?s help, but in
doing so he sustained a mortal wound. By
some accounts, Huma died on the field of
battle; others, however, say that he lingered
for days in such pain that the gods themselves
suffered in sympathy, inflicting terrible
thunderstorms upon the land. To this day,
you will find people who say that when
lightning and thunder strike the land, it is
in memory of Huma?s agony.

Huma was buried with great reverence,
and for many years those who aspired to
join the Knights made a pilgrimage to the
tomb of Huma, which -- so legend had it
-- was carved in the shape of a Silver
Dragon. As the world descended into evil,
the road to Huma's tomb became dark and
dangerous to travel. Soon afterward, people
began to question Huma?s very existence,
and now the location of his tomb and his
body are not known.