Tolltaker Knighthood

Knight, Tolltaker

Changeling The Lost Sourcebook p. 317-319
Wyrd	●●
Court	Summer
Preqs	Mantle (Summer) ● Either Brawl, Firearms, or Weaponry at ●●
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The word around the freehold is that the Tolltaker Knights are the foulest mercenaries found among changelings. With blood-blemished blades tucked into their belts and snub nose revolvers strapped to their ankles, they offer up a single purpose in this world: to hurt people for payment. The rumors are that they’re particularly good at it, too, as precise or as inexact as one needs them to be. If one person pays the toll, another person ends up in the hospital ― either in a bed, or in the morgue. They’re louts, drunkards and murder-for-hire jackboots... or at least, that’s what everybody believes.

The rumors are true, mostly. They’re mercenaries, yes. They’re good at what they do, indeed. But there’s one clause to their order’s oath that most people seem to forget or ignore, and that’s the nature of proof. The Knights won’t go after a target unless they agree that the cause is justified ― and proof must be supplied toward this end. Now, justice is in the eye of the beholder; one Knight may be a tad more lenient regarding what “injustice” deserves meting out the order’s trademark brutality, while another may refuse to give into such monstrous opportunism.

What tasks tend to universally draw the order’s approval? Some obvious trademarks of inequity include broken pledges, egregious slights at Court in front of the rest of the freehold, unseemly violence toward another changeling and other broaches of freehold decorum.

Mien

Tolltaker Knights generally appear physically threatening, with spartan garb, steel-toe boots and flesh stained with grime and blood. Changes to their mien go a long way toward this effect, as well ― their flesh grows tough with erratic scars, and streaks of dried blood grow deep and red (and never to be washed away). If a Knight’s Wyrd increases to abnormally high levels, he may find that he leaves bloody wet fingerprints or boot prints wherever he goes ― prints that, just as the marks on his skin, do not scrub away easily

Bounty's Curse (Privilege)

When a Knight Banneret accepts a bounty for a target, that target is marked no matter where in the world he lurks. This curse isn’t obvious; not at first, anyhow. It becomes clear, however, if the target engages in combat with one of the Tolltaker Knights.

At that time, the victim of the bounty feels... sluggish. Imprecise. Even a little clumsy. Attacks land with greater frequency. His feet don’t propel him forward as fast as they should.

Assume that, only while in combat with another Tolltaker Knight, the victim of a current bounty finds that his Defense is halved (round down), and his Initiative modifier is one less. This can, in many instances, grant the Knight a measure of advantage against his marked foe.

This ability does have its limits. First, the target of a bounty must be identified by the Knight Banneret, and seeing as how some investment of Glamour is usually necessary for this to occur, it’s not easy for a Tolltaker to abuse this power. Also, upon entering into combat with an extant bounty, the Knight must first spend a Willpower point to gain access to this blessing (well, blessing for him, curse for the other guy).

Joining

Enlisting with the Tolltaker Knights is an often harrowing affair. Most “squires,” as they’re called before they actually gain entrance into the order, are put through rigorous tests and trials to determine their “salt.” First come the physical trials, which range from tests of martial skill to running gauntlets composed of many Knights wielding bats and batons (meant to test the “hardiness of the meat,” as some Knights say).

After that come the moral tests. One cannot stand with the Knights if he holds his own ethics in particularly high esteem. While certainly some Knights Banneret adhere to more strident moral codes, most are middling, at best. Their function in the freehold demands it ― going out and busting heads and shattering kneecaps is rarely seen as precisely “ethical.” And so, a squire is dragged through various tests and trials meant to wear down any reliance on his own code of morals.

The moral tests vary from freehold to freehold. In one, a squire might be expected to dig up some dirt on a loved one, and then act upon it with some measure of violence. In another, the Tollhouse might simply assign him a small bounty and see just how efficiently he carries out the necessary brutality.

Note that, in many cases, the moral test also looks for those who are too debased. A bounty to break the first finger of a pledgebreaker’s hand is no good if a zealous Knight enters into the fray and gleefully starts shooting. Some moral code is necessary. But so is a measure of ethical “flexibility.”