Oathkeepers#

Summary#

The Oathkeepers are three orders of knights bound under one oath in Everdale. They guard the Gleaming Keep, protect the Empty Throne, police the King's Tourney, help oversee the city’s economy and settlement, and maintain order in Everdale until the Stone King’s fabled return. Source: 2026.05.05.

The Three Orders#

The Oathkeepers are composed of three distinct knightly orders, each with its own banner, that agreed to a shared code and merged their purpose after King Aldrich’s reign ended. They are the only three orders that still survive from that era. Source: 2026.05.12.

The orders patrol Everdale’s hamlet streets in pairs and wear their own emblems. Cassian recognized all three as the oldest surviving knightly orders in the current era of men. Source: 2026.05.12.

Belief#

The Oathkeepers preserve the keep and throne because they believe King Aldrich will someday return to rule again. They tell children this as a bedtime story—that the king will emerge from the stone and unite all the realms. Source: 2026.05.05, 2026.05.12.

Internal Dissent#

In an untranscribed session before 2026.08.11, the party learned that one of the Oathkeeper knights they met on the road into Everdale is privately fed up with the order’s oath-bound inability to act against a new blight called the Wither—the same phenomenon the party has been calling “the hollowing.” This is the first time the blight has been given a proper name in play. See Investigate the Pestilence. Source: 2026.08.11.

Teleportation Circles#

The Oathkeepers maintain a few teleportation circles that survive from King Aldrich’s time, including one in the Gleaming Keep and one in Westermere Manor, Havenport. Using a circle requires their permission and a tribute; Duke Tristan Blackwood paid roughly 5,000 gp. A robed acolyte traces the circle with spell draught, a liquid transmuted from Thornwood Vale mana crystals, and the traveler speaks the destination while holding a metal keystone. A lone knight, Ian, guards the Havenport circle and is relieved every two weeks. Source: 2026.09.22.

The Westermere Undercroft#

The order knows about the black veil beneath Westermere Manor. It has ordered Ian never to go down into the undercroft because of incidents of missing persons, and posted him only to man the Oath Gate. Ian said the order knows no one with the divine power to smite the veil; if it did, “we would have already done it.” Source: 2026.10.06.

The Legend of the Dark King#

Veteran Oathkeepers “believe the old stories” of the Dark King (also called the Nightmare King), a corrupting ruler from a far realm whom King Aldrich defeated alone, leaving only a statue of himself in the Vale. Ian’s grandfather fought in that war. See Investigate the Pestilence. Source: 2026.09.22.