Olden Era Fan Codex / Factions
By the light that does not flinch.
The Temple is the human order of Jadame in the era before the western kingdoms of Antagarich rose to prominence. Where later chronicles record Castle and Haven as inheritors of a long crusading tradition, the Temple of Olden Era is closer to that tradition's beginning: a coalition of cavalry houses, walled chapter-towns, and clerical scholars who believe order is something built by hand, brick by brick, against a world that does not particularly want it.
Its soldiers are drilled professionals rather than peasant levies. Its priests do not so much call down miracles as negotiate with a strict cosmology of debts and obligations, and they expect their congregants to keep ledgers of the same. The faction's holy magic skews toward warding, healing, and the deliberate cleansing of corruption, including necromantic corruption, which the Temple treats as a civic sanitation problem more than a metaphysical one.
Politically the Temple is fragmented. Bishoprics quarrel with lord-marshals, and the great riding orders answer to charters that predate any central authority. What holds the faction together is shared liturgy and shared enemies: the rising Necropolis in the marshlands, the Hive intrusions from the deep south, and the dark-elven raiders descending from the spurs above Jadame's interior plateau.
For players, Temple is the faction that rewards patience and combined arms. Its line infantry is unspectacular but durable, its cavalry hits hard once a flank opens, and its top-tier units carry the kind of holy magic that turns a bad fight back into an even one.
A walled chapter-town built around a central basilica, with stone curtain walls thick enough to mount cavalry stables along the inner face. Streets are laid in disciplined grids; barracks, smithies, and a riding-school cluster near the main gate. The basilica itself is austere rather than gilded, with high clerestory windows and a single great bronze sun-disc behind the altar. Outbuildings include a scriptorium, an infirmary that doubles as the resurrection chapel, and a censer-yard where priests prepare the warding incenses used to consecrate ground before battle. The skyline reads as fortress-first, faith-second.
| Tier | Name | HP | Att | Def | Damage | Speed | Growth | Special | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pikeman(Halbardier) | 6 | 4 | 5 | 1–3 | 4 | 18 | First Strike against cavalry; braced spear deters chargers. | Tradition |
| 2 | Bowman(Marksman) | 10 | 6 | 3 | 2–3 | 4 | 13 | Ranged; trained volley fire with limited ammunition. | Tradition |
| 3 | Footman(Swordsman) | 35 | 10 | 12 | 6–9 | 5 | 8 | Shield Wall reduces incoming damage when adjacent to another footman. | Speculated |
| 4 | Monk(Zealot) | 30 | 12 | 7 | 10–12 | 5 | 6 | Ranged; no melee penalty when struck by undead. | Tradition |
| 5 | Cavalier(Champion) | 100 | 15 | 15 | 15–25 | 7 | 3 | Jousting; damage grows with hexes crossed before impact. | Tradition |
| 6 | Knight(Paladin) | 180 | 19 | 19 | 20–30 | 7 | 2 | Double-strike on the second swing; oath-blessed weapon. | Speculated |
| 7 | Seraph(Archseraph) | 250 | 27 | 27 | 40–50 | 12 | 1 | Flying; Resurrection once per battle; Hate Demons. | Speculated |
Knight
Second son of a minor border house, Aldric earned his spurs holding a collapsed gate against a winter raid that should have killed him twice over. He took the surname of the hedge that hid his survivors, and has worn it like a wound ever since. The chapter-knights call him cautious; his soldiers call him alive.
Cleric
Maron took her vows in a plague year, learning the litany of the dying before the litany of the hours. She is patient with the wounded and cold with the proud, and her chaplains have learned not to ask which corpses she still prays over. The Light, she insists, is a craft rather than a comfort.
Paladin
Callan rode out of the Eastmarch the year the barrows opened, and the iron in his beard is the same iron he pried from the wight that took his brother. He keeps a tally cut into the inside of his vambrace and refuses to say what number it is on. The order tolerates him because he wins; his squires love him because he does not lie about what they are fighting.
Crusader
Once a tax-priest in the lowland sees, Osmund found his calling the day a heretic preacher set his cloister alight and his choristers with it. He marches now with the same ledger-book strapped to his belt, only the entries are different. He prefers a quick fight to a clean one and is plain about it.
Temple wants long games. Early growth is modest and the tier-one and tier-two units are workhorses rather than alpha strikers, so the first month is about holding ground and stacking infrastructure. Cavalry becomes the swing piece from week three onward, especially when paired with the Bless and Haste school the priesthood favors. The faction's holy magic also doubles as anti-Necropolis tech: dispel, resurrect, and the high-tier light spells punish raise-dead chains hard. Weakness is mobility on rough terrain and a relatively shallow ranged game, which Sylvan and Dungeon can both exploit if Temple is forced to fight on the opponent's chosen ground.
Sylvan. Wary allies — the Temple respects Sylvan's discipline but distrusts the druidic willingness to negotiate with old, unbaptized powers.
Necropolis. Open enmity — Necropolis is the civilizational threat the Temple was built to answer.
Hive. Treated as plague rather than nation; cleansing actions are sanctioned without parley.
Rampart. Quiet trade partners — Rampart's smiths arm Temple chapters, and neither side wants the other's politics.
Dungeon. Cold contempt — the Temple sees Dungeon as a heresy that learned to fortify, and raids the spur-passes when it can.