A Plethora of Paladins

The paladin has always been a class that vexed me. Paragons of human virtue and justice in the wildly unjust and unvirtuous world, the paladin serves his (or her) Lawful Good patron deity with unwavering faith (or else).

Humans only. Lawful good only. Ridiculous stat prerequisites. Now, I'm sure this is meant to indicate the rarity of the paladin. They are truly one in a million (okay, maybe a thousand).

Why do only deities of Lawful Good have paladins? Why only humans? What's with the laundry list of stat prereqs? These questions received treatment in later editions by broadening the terms under which a paladin could be borne to service. However, in Dragon magazine #106, an article titled A Plethora of Paladins (by Christopher Wood) explained who and what paladins of other alignments were (except the Anti-paladin which is from Dragon #39). The result was a compiled list of classes (NPC only) that made me jealous not to be permitted player access. I highly recommend getting your hands on a copy of this issue if you can find it. Having been published in 1986, that would be unlikely. I know there are some .PDF copies hosted online for those of us unscrupulous enough to download them (got my digital copy from 4shared, I think).

Here are the class names and alignments, as well as some highlight features of the classes:

The Myrrikhan (NG): Pretty dull entry when compared to some of the others, the Myrrikhan has decent advantage in a favoured weapon and enmity for giants (large sized humanoids). This one feels a bit like a paladin/ranger hybrid.

The Garath (CG): As the weapons master paladin, the Garath is a bristling armadon and church defender. Otherwise, booooooring. They seem too preoccupied with staying in one place to be effectively chaotic good.

The Lyan (LN): A juggernaut with a d12 Hit Die. The Lyan is the hand of the Arbiter, a god of justice. He is unconcerned with good and evil, only the letter of the law.

The Paramander/Paramandyr (N): What a concept! Protector of the balance between good and evil or Destroyer of the imbalanced. While the Paramander is a paragon of peaceful balance, it would likely be difficult to play such a diametrically unopposed character and the Paramandyr is completely inappropriate for any party unwilling to lose PCs to infighting.

The Fantra (CN): The most shamanistic paladin (and possibly most interesting) is a defender of his people and servitor of his wild gods. Basically, this is the holy barbarian class as it is written and I am totally okay with that.

The Illrigger (LE): Conniver, deceiver, plotter. The access to devils, assassination tables and thief skills is kind of boss as you sow ruin among your enemies.

The Arrikhan (NE): 25% chance of a Nightmare mount at level 5. 'Nuff said. Actually, there's quite a bit more: thief skills, poisons, bonuses against good-aligned magic and enemies.