The Knights of the Holy Shielding
When the Shield Lands established their independence from the Great Kingdom and Furyondy the nobles of the land were unwilling to give up their individual independence. Nevertheless, fear of the Bandit Kingdoms, Iuz, and eventually the Horned Society convinced them all that, in military matters, they all must unite. Unwilling to hand a conventional standing army over to their new supreme commander, the Earl of Walworth, lest he use it to become a king, they came up with the idea of creating a religious military order who would serve as the standing army, who might put duty before ambition.
The high priest of Hieroneus, Renross Ironsoul, a former soldier become a famous scholar, was approached for creating the rule for the order and established its form and structure. The chaplains of the order are still all members of the priesthood of Hiernoneus, although many of the brothers also worship St. Cuthbert or Pelor as well.
When a candidate wishes to serve the order, he must come to the Order Commandery at Admundfort in person, with arms and a horse. The candidate is examined by a Knight-Brother and then received or rejected by the Knight Commander or the Lord Marshal of the Order. If accepted, the candidate swears a powerful oath of obedience to his superiors, commitment to defence of the civilized world against evil and chaos, and personal poverty for 5 years. He is then called a Brother-Initiate and is assigned to a Knight-Captain to serve as a soldier.
While serving as a Brother-Initiate, a man has no personal property, the arms and horse he brought become property of the order, any loot or rewards he comes across during his service immediately become property of the order. At the end of the 5 years of service, most brothers depart from the order, and if they have served honorably, most are allowed to keep whatever arms the bear and are given a riding horse and some transit money to get them home. A small number, however, swear a lifetime oath of allegiance at this point and become permanent members of the order. If of gentle birth, these lifetime members are called Knight-Brothers, if of common birth, Sergeant-Brothers. The Knight-Brothers can hope to advance to Knight-Captains, who command the various companies and the border fortresses of the order. The Lord Marshal, who commands the day-to-day operations of the order for the Knight-Commander (the Earl of Wentworth), is chosen by the Knight-Commander from the Knight-Captains. While not exactly frequent, a proportion of Sergeant-Brothers are knighted and become Knight-Brothers.
The Order itself has no farmland or other business interests. Instead, each of the nobles of the Shield Lands pays a tithe to the order to support its soldiers and fortresses. While these nobles have no right to command members of the order, each knight is absolutely required to defend the lands of any Shield Land noble to the best of his ability, in preference to any other task. The noble support is greatly supplemented by subsidies from the Kingdom of Furyondy, Duchy and County of Urnst, and Veluna, as well as the temples of Heironeus from all around the Nyr Dyv region. All decent folk know that if the Shield Lands should fall, then the entire region would suffer greatly from Iuz, Horned Society and Bandit deprivations.
There are usually about 600 members of the order, of whom there is 1 Lord marshal, 6 knight-captains, 100 knight-brothers, 200 sergeant-brothers and about 300 brother-initiates. The members are divided into 6 companies, 1 at the commandery in Admundsfort, and the other 5 each in its own castle on the borders of the realm.