The Knights of the Scar of the Sun are a knightly order of the world of Arden Vul, founded in 1123 AEP by the vampire Melok-Ri and based in its Bastion and Citadel, deep in the mega-dungeon. After the vampire chain that led it was destroyed, the companions took command of the order.
| Type | Faction (knightly order) |
| Founded | 1123 AEP |
| Founder | Melok-Ri (Master Malakita) |
| Seat | the Bastion and the Citadel |
| Insignia | Solar Rings |
| Spanish entry | Caballeros de la Cicatriz del Sol |
Foundation
The order was founded in 1123 AEP (after the Elías) by Melok-Ri: a rudishva alien who arrived with the crash of the Beacon millennia ago, a vampire, a floating skull with embedded AI. According to the old scrolls he founded three successive paramilitary organizations; this was the last and most lasting.
Solar Rings
The insignia are the Solar Rings, copper with bars of scarlet silver. They can invoke sunlight (an arcane simulation that acts as sunlight), slow a fall, aid a jump and grant water breathing. The invoked sunlight is an anti-vampire weapon. The rings can be handed on: the group recovered several after Malakita’s beheading and shared them out.
Known knights
- Sir Sixto, namesake of the companion Sixto. An arcane message sought him: “they lost him on the level below. Find him.” During the fifteen-year hiatus he became Pope Alexander Sixtus, supreme church authority of the Palace of the Prism under the Ravenloft domain. The Order now operates alongside or under the Pope.
- Sir Circalculo: tall (1.90 m+), yellow-honey eyes, the looks of an Adonis. He appears at the Forum of Set during the auction of the necklace of Lord Tarmis and seems duplicated during the bidding: “something went wrong, and another version of him appears out of the mist and takes the necklace for 30,000 gold”.
- Sir Simonet: a solitary Sun-Scarred knight who lived in a cell of the Halls of Thoth before the order’s fall. His post-hiatus state is uncertain.
- Valerius Utrecht: squire trained within the order, who deserted to join the companions and was the moral axis of the final confrontation with the corrupted order. He returns to the order at the end, on its clean side.
The vampire chain
The leadership was a vampire hierarchy across generations:
- Masracht, father of Caladan / Arian, captured by six Maruts in the Palace of the Prism. Top link.
- Master Malakita / Melok-Ri, founder of the order, who turned Caladan. Middle link.
- Caladan, turned, a companion. Final link, controlled by the group.
Taking of the order
- Alúmine beheads Malakita in a sci-fi hyperbaric chamber.
- The residual floating arcane head is defeated.
- The group faces and eliminates Masracht in the Castle of the Prism.
- The companions lead the order, with Valerius as moral axis: individual redemption for the deceived knights, selective removal of the corrupt leadership.
The knights pass from vampire tool to military arm of the seekers.
Open questions
- Whether Sir Circalculo is a figure, a covert companion or a dual manifestation.
- After the Hiatus, Pope Alexander’s librarian calls Valerius “Inquisitor, First Knight”; whether this makes him a parallel leader to the Pope or a subordinate is unclear.