PnP justification for Blackguards being human only?
leeowensoas
Member Posts: 81
Okay, regular paladins i get. In adnd 2nd ed they were specifically a human order. But blackguards don't seem like an "official" order, just dudes who buddied up with demons. Is there any lore-based justification for why an elf or dwarf couldn't become a blackguard, or is this an engine limitation?
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Dwarves aren't really keen on the matter as well. Given the fact that shield dwarves, gold dwarves and duergar alike daily fight with planar invaders in their subterrean kingdoms. Closests thing on top of my head would be the Durzagon half-devils/half-duergars. Apparantly they're well respected in Duergar society since most of them are followers of Laduguer, not devil worshipers.
Halflings have no ties with planars as far as I know. Same goes for gnomes.
Both half-elves and half-orcs don't possess a cultural history to speak of. And calling half-orcs decendants from Tanarruks (orcish tieflings) would be a bit of a stretch.
That only really leaves humans here. Many of the Old Empires had dealings with the outer planes (most prominet being the Empire of Narfell here).
That being said, in the end it's more of a cultural thing then a racial one.
In this world, almost every religion says there is no other religion, and the deity is a single good guy or a harmonious collection of good guys. Everyone thinks of themselves as good because there's no standing for evil and neutral is almost as bad to be seen as.
In the realms, the evil deities are just as real as the good ones, have portfolios that lead some people to have no choice but to worship an evil deity, and they all agree that they all exist. If you work with the ocean, be you a merchant, marine or fisherman, you offer prayer and tokens to Zeboim, cause Habakuk is a lazy ass and she walks all over him. Heck, there are even nations that are described as predominately evil. You can be evil because there are large groups that are, and forces to protect you.
But you're right; there is a workaround. We'd just have to make the paladin class selectable by all races, but make the Paladin, Undead Hunter, Inquisitor, and Cavalier kits unique to humans. That way, any race could choose paladin on character creation, but only humans could choose the vanilla kits.
Unfortunately I cannot answer well to the main question. As I gave away in the other post, my experience comes mainly from Dragonalnce, where there are no demons and therefore no blackguards. The closest things they had were a couple of the Knights of Neraka, which served an evil goddess and sometimes had divine abilities. There weren't really paladins either.
If I had to make a best guess I would say that other races are generally depicted as either being uniformly uninterested in their gods, or have made them a part of their daily lives to a greater extent than humans, making their worship more casual and united. Humans have so many options and are so hot tempered that it makes sense that they would devise a more militant role for their worship, primarily to enforce that religion against other humans.
I'm curious, have Forgotten Realms ever had a holy war type thing occur within a single race other than humans?
Here is the issue with "holy wars" in FR though, Gods actively participate in them and usually their followers are either just fodder, or don't necessarily participate in their name.
Where RL "holy wars" it is more differentiating ideologies that are the driving the conflict instead of what some higher being said or envisioned.
~
back on topic. Maybe only humans can be Blackguards because demons don't want to wait centuries to claim their elven soul. IIRC Humans are the shortest living playable race, so maybe that factors into the decision.
The demonwebs novels is a war between Lloth and Eilastree, and thus literally a drow holy war amongst themselves.
In that case (if that is true) it could be argued that it's the demon's prejudice that make them choose predominately humans over other races, possibly due to what @deltago said. But then we have the issue of lifespans, as @kamigoroshi said, HO's have even shorter lifespans and would therefore be a better option, as well as, being overall stronger making them more suitable for killing and creating havoc.
@Kamigoroshi - There is a demon/halfling breed called Wisplings, if i recall correctly.
Dorn being the exception to this: he's an outsider for both orcs and humans, and he's especially easy to tempt because of his thirst for vengeance.