“Does your stout armor give you peace of mind? Does your holy sword help you sleep at night? Mine do not.”

—Ambros Brasmere, gray guard

The typical image of a paladin is a proud knight of noble bearing, resplendent in armor bright as sunlight and bearing a sword shining with the purity of his cause. This archetype, upheld by both idealistic knights and their enemies, has killed countless honorable warriors. Taking a cue from the enemies of their faith, many good-aligned religions have established secretive orders of the most dedicated and hardened soldiers. These gray guards are less restrained by their knightly vows, doing what must be done, no matter how unpleasant.

BECOMING A GRAY GUARD

Only the most realistic and battleworn paladins become gray guards. They know the cruelties of the world cannot be expunged merely by good example and kind words. Though no less virtuous than other paladins, they join the order’s bloodstained ranks out of a sense of necessity. Those who seek membership merely because they resent the yoke of their code of conduct are unfit to be gray guards or paladins; such weak-willed individuals are swiftly excommunicated from both orders.

Gray guards most commonly follow deities concerned with justice, such as Heironeous, Tyr, or St. Cuthbert.

PLAYING A GRAY GUARD

You have seen the horrible reality of the world: Children dying in the gutter as the rich feast a hedge-wall away; law used to imprison and terrify those it was created to protect; the supposedly devout ignoring and abusing those they deem beneath their interest or contrary to their faith. The most insidious evil wears a cloak of righteousness and seduces with honeyed words. Your faith’s leadership realizes that many paladins’ inflexible interpretation of their code of conduct not only allows such foulness to remain hidden but even aids its spread. As a gray guard, you have earned the freedom to seek out and destroy corruption through any means necessary.

Although you work toward the same goals as other members of your faith, many within it do not trust you. They believe that you and your fellows at best flirt with corruption and at worst embrace it. Paladins see freedom from their code of conduct as weakness, an inability to mete out justice through honorable means, and do not consider you to be their equal.

You are not proud of your role, but you accept that one must sometimes embrace a lesser evil to combat greater injustice. Your freedom is not a boon but a loss of innocence, a permanent tarnish on a once-pristine soul. Solidifying your resolve, you face the world of cruel reality, ready to do battle just as valiantly as any paladin but also just as brutally as the monstrosities you oppose.

Combat

In battle you are not just a warrior, but also a judge. If you can, you engage your opponent in honorable combat to prove the valor of your cause. However, you are no fool. If the only sure way to finish the high priest of a cult of Vecna is to stab him as he sleeps or lie in wait and attack from the shadows, you make such sacrifices of character to put a permanent end to the threat. Thus, your tactics must change to suit the enemy and the conditions of battle.

Your mercy also must conform to the necessities of the moment. Ideally you would bring defeated enemies before the proper authorities for righteous judgment, but the reality of your situation might prevent you from taking prisoners, especially if they are likely to escape or impede your greater aims. Some powerful threats simply cannot be permitted to live and potentially rise again. A momentary prayer and a coup de grace end the lives of many of your foes.

Advancement

As a paladin, you were frustrated by members of that noble order who seemed oblivious to the greater good, righting specific wrongs while ignoring others. You repeatedly came into conflict with your peers, even violating your code of conduct to satisfy your sense of justice. You were finally approached by leaders of your church or a stern knight in tarnished armor, who asked how much you would sacrifice for your faith and a clean conscience.

As a gray guard, you understand that your enemies’ tactics might aid you as well. Skills that you might have disdained before, such as Bluff, Disguise, Intimidate, or even Move Silently, Hide, and Open Lock can be invaluable in your work. Feats such as Mobility, Spring Attack, and Stealthy help you get at the greatest threat and bring it down. In addition, you are ever on the hunt for items that cloak your aura of good and any other ties to your faith that your enemies’ magic might reveal.

Resources

Although your order sometimes points you toward suspected evils, you are primarily a knight-errant, doing what you can wherever you are needed. The grim few who make up your order aid you as much as they can, but their ranks are small. Primarily you can depend only on your rare allies.

As a member of an organized religion, you might be able to draw upon the resources of your church. However, you often face prejudice from those within your own order: Instead of being helpful, they treat you indifferently or worse. Those who understand and recognize your service provide spellcasting and equipment for half the normal cost, but those who distrust you might not offer aid even at standard prices.

GRAY GUARDS IN THE WORLD

“How’re we supposed to see the pally comin’ when ’e wears armor blacker than ours?”

—Griv “Goblin Father” Chos, unfortunate cultist guard

In any campaign featuring less than black-and-white morality, gray guards might rise from the ranks of the most devout warriors to challenge hidden evils and work toward sweeping change. Such orders give paladins the opportunity to wage war against injustice without undue worry about getting their hands dirty.

Organization

Orders of gray guards might be created as part of any lawful- or good-aligned religion that sponsors paladins. The organization of such an order might vary dramatically from faith to faith, as well as how others within their church perceive them. Some gray guards might form covert cells that parallel their church’s “legitimate” paladin orders.

A typical order of gray guards works separately from a church’s hierarchy of paladins. Though rarely hidden, the order is not discussed openly by officials of the faith. Much like inquisitors or witch hunters, gray guards are a feared aspect of the church that few care to acknowledge.

Only a few among the faith’s paladins have what it takes to become gray guards. Once chosen, they are free of the paladin’s rigid code but are still carefully watched. Churches monitor their work, knowing that such proximity to the wicked can endanger their faith. Gray guards often seek out a place of worship to confess the burdens on their souls, which they see as a sacred duty.

Gray guards have no holdings, no halls of triumph, and only the most limited rosters of duty. Among them only two ranks exist: gray guard and captain (usually a veteran of the order’s cause). The order has an unofficial hierarchy based on experience and seniority, but only a captain has direct authority over members. In such a small organization, the captain knows every knight and assigns direction as suits the personality and abilities of each. Other interests within the church (such as concerned priests and rival paladins) frequently try to influence or hinder the work of the gray guards. In order to shield them from such internal politics, gray guards are often sent far afield, with instructions to report for orders only infrequently.

NPC Reactions

Most folk assume gray guards are typical warriors or mercenaries and treat them as such. The members of a gray guard’s own faith treat him with widely differing attitudes. Many within the church see the very existence of the order as conceding to evil, the first step to becoming no better than those the faith would oppose. Those whom you would protect abhor your very existence and might even hinder you. Others understand the need for distasteful action to root out evil and can be helpful toward the order. Paladins disdain gray guards, rarely having attitudes warmer than indifferent toward them.

GRAY GUARD LORE

Characters with ranks in Knowledge (religion) can research gray guards to learn more about them. When a character succeeds on a skill check, the following lore is revealed, including the information from lower DCs.

DC 10: Gray guards are paladins who aren’t bound by a code of conduct.

DC 15: Gray guards seek out injustice in all its forms, often using the tools and methods of their enemies against them.

DC 20: Paladins often distrust them, but gray guards take their code of conduct just as seriously as other holy warriors do and violate its tenets only in the best interest of their faith.

DC 30: Characters who achieve this level of success can learn important details about gray guards in your campaign, including faiths that sponsor such orders, notable members, the areas where they currently operate, and the kinds of activities they undertake.

Servants of religions that support orders of gray guards should have little problem contacting members through church officials. Characters without such connections might be able to leave messages for gray guards in care of members of the same faith.

GRAY GUARDS IN THE GAME

Gray guards are relatively easy to integrate into any campaign featuring powerful religions. The notion that such devout organizations have semisecret agents working toward their diverse causes probably doesn’t stretch the imagination. Nor does the concept that such powerful groups—no matter how pure they might appear—might resort to less than ethical means of dealing with their hated opponents.

The easiest way to introduce gray guards into your campaign is to have the PCs encounter one working toward a parallel goal. Presenting a gray guard as a potential ally gives the PCs a chance to ask questions and learn more about the order. After such an encounter, a devoted but frustrated paladin within the party might pursue membership. Alternatively, an NPC gray guard might be a rival to a PC paladin, producing interesting tension.

Adaptation

If gray guards don’t appeal to you as presented, you can readily convert their order to fill other niches. With their freedom to exact justice on those of any alignment, gray guards make excellent inquisitors. Such church investigators might openly enforce their faith’s beliefs, hunting down heretics, witches, or any others viewed as violating holy law. Alternatively, they might serve as church police, with the authority to seek out injustices among the devout or monitor paladins’ adherence to their code of conduct. Instead of making the gray guard a prestige class, you can adjust the paladin class to grant its features at advanced levels, representing a higher order free to right wrongs as it sees fit.