Old World Order: Knights of the Cross
Spoilers ahead!
If you haven’t read up on the series, you’ll hear a few surprises below. If you have, it’s all old hat.
Knights of the Cross
The Knights of the Cross were founded to counter the Fallen angels who make up the Order of the Blackened Denarius. They protect the freedom of the mortal soul. To that end, they aid any mortals under the oppression of dark forces and try to help that person to win freedom from the darkness.
When a Knight meets a Denarian, he is supposed to offer the Denarian a chance to surrender his coin and repent. If the Denarian hands over his coin and asks for mercy, the Knight has to accept this and let him go, giving him a chance at repentance. (To be fair, there have been cases where this has worked and the ex-Denarian has genuinely repented, in one case actually becoming a Knight of the Cross himself; see Sanya.) If the Denarian says no, it’s time for a bit of the old choppy-choppy, slashy-slashy.
While primarily founded to thwart the Denarians, the Knights are usually willing to tackle other evils, should it be God’s will (“winning free of the oppression of dark forces” covers a lot of ground). Knights of the Cross are often Christians of some stripe, but a virtuous and faithful heart is more important than conscious belief in a theistic faith. After all, God believes in them, whether or not they believe in him in any particular way.
There are three Knights of the Cross at most, and sometimes there are fewer. Their tokens and their burdens are their three Swords: Amoracchius (a broadsword), Fidelacchius (a katana), and Esperacchius (a saber), each incorporating one of the three nails that pierced Christ’s hands and feet on the cross.
At the moment, there is only one Knight; Sanya, wielder of Esperacchius. The most recent wielder of Fidelacchius, Shiro Yoshimo, died at the hands of Nicodemus, the leader of the Denarii, during Nicodemus’ plan to use the Shroud of Turin to unleash the Black Death in a worldwide plague. More recently, Michael Carpenter, wielder of Amoracchius, was critically injured in a (successful) attempt to recover the Archive and John Marcone from the clutches of the Denarians.
Both of their Swords are at present in the custody of the wizard Harry Dresden; neither has yet been passed to a new wielder.
The Knights are quite simply and purely Good Guys. They do the right thing, and they risk their lives to do it. Armed only with a holy sword, (divine?) serendipity, some mild support from the Catholic Church (and, arguably, the angelic hosts of Heaven), and God’s blessing, they face down the forces of Hell, dragons, ghosts, the Vampire Courts, and anyone else who requires it.
The Knights—especially Michael Carpenter—were drawn into the Vampire War due to the personal and professional ties they developed in recent years with the wizard Harry Dresden. (Some feel that this involvement may be related to the Knights’ overall mission as well.)
In two weeks, Vampires.
At current the swords are of the variety described up above, but are they necessarily those types of swords? It would seem that these holy, magic swords would likely change shape based on the knight. If a Scotsman were to receive Fidelacchius, then it would almost certainly change into a claymore (assuming that he were trained in the use of one). This is all conjecture as I don’t believe that Jim has ever said as much, but it seems reasonable to me.
@Jade Prophet, I think it’s been at least obliquely implied that the swords do change shape. But we don’t have direct confirmation yet.
I seem to remember Michael saying specifically that they’d all been “reworked”, except for Amoracchius. I don’t have my books at hand to look that up.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned Sanya’s resemblance to a certain Leader of the Free World. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen the two of them together…
@John, Funny! But this picture was done several years back, actually, before the election.
@Matt
I think you are correct good sir. The comment Michael makes leads me to believe that the swords can be reforged when necessary. I am skeptical to think that they just change shape at will, but instead they allow themselves to be remade.
Michael Carpenter is the one Good, _Nice_ Guy I cheer for in fiction, and he pulls that off without even being a dork. Usually, anti-heroes and whiner-winners (like Harry) get all the fan mail. A hard concept for most players out there, to be Good without being a Pain. Awesome.
Jean-Luc Picard, Bob Vila, and Stephen Segal star as…
I kid, I kid!
And there it is, mentioned again, ever so briefly: Dragons.
When do we here more about Dragons. Butcher himself only breifly featured one, and he was in human form, and he mentions the one Michael killed when he met Charity, but other than that, they barely exist. I want more.
Will dragons at least be in the game? Probably too powerful for playing, but maybe good for slaying.
@Zefphf_TyM, we’re constrained by what we can know from the published material, but we do discuss the topic and talk about how you might work with the presence of one in your game.
I agree with the dragons being in the game. Maybe only as NPC’s but at least available for information/battle/assistance etc. I realize that by following the books you are restrained but since they are in there (however so briefly) I would still like to see them.
@Ira, We’ve got entries on the topic, don’t worry.
@Matt
If I remember correctly, Michael told Harry about the swords in Proven Guilty when Harry was taking him home after Molly’s trial. That was when he implied to Harry that Amoracchius was Excalibur (implied by saying that the sword had been in the care of THE Merlin).
From the way they are described in the books and the style of magic most likely employed by “The Church” I doubt the swords would transform. The powers that the swords represent do not seem to go in for such flash. It is more likely that the sword is just a vehicle for the power contained in or channeled by the nails be it divine power or the faith of the wielder.
I did a face-palm about eight hours after making that post as it has been said that the swords have been broken and reforged, except for Amoracchius.
On a side note; anybody else think that Murphy will change her mind and take up Fidelacchius?
So, I couldn’t help but chuckle when I saw how similar Amoracchius’s design is to the design of Narsil from the recent LotR movies.
Yes it is obvious that Murph will take up the sword but it will probably be in two books from now or later after things get even worse for Harry and her probably right when they are about to hook up and then she leaves with the sword strapped to her back and a tear in her eye off into the sunset.
The swords can be re-forged as necessary. They are just swords. The NAILS are sacred and are included in the making. I am guessing that the objects themselves are just spikes, maybe a foot long, and not vulnerable to any damage under normal circumstances.
I thought he had given one of the swords to Murphy?
@Louis — Nope. She touched Fidelacchius in Small Favor, driving off Deirdre’s ambush, but insisted that she wasn’t interested in taking it up, what with already having another job.
@fred
I’m sure she will end up taking it eventually when she gets fired from CPD. It’s looking like it’s getting closer. She’s already lost her rank, and I’m sure that Internal Investigations will try to get her again.
@Jade Prophet the swords were reworked (except for Amoracchius which we are led to believe is in it’s original form and may be excalaber) which could mean that the others (1 may have been unmade at some point and while i could agree that they could be any blade i’m inclined to say that they’re all swords the symbol of a knight(regardless of what a knight any knight prefers to fight with)we know that Sanya was given his sword directly from the higher powers we don’t know how mike or Shiro got their swords
The swords had to have been reforged one way or another at some point in time. How do we know this? Well, one of them is a katana. Why is this significant?
The katana didn’t exist until the 14th century.
Though, if Amoracchius is indeed Excalibur, that needn’t exclude it having been reforged any number of times between AD 33-37 and AD 600 or so.
Micheal in the illustration there looks like Billy Mays to me. >>
@Ellen K.
*Michael. Bloody auto-correct.
In the novels it says that 2 of the swords have been reworked from time to time ..except the one carried by Michael which was implied to have been Excalibur