Knight Detectives

Ok Veeky Forums here is an idea.

What if Knights worked as detectives?

Like they still learn Chivalry and Swordplay, but also Interrogation Techniques and Blood Spatter Analysis, and while Squires they basically filled the role of Assistant Constable.

I could see a campaign focused around
> Investigating a Pagan cult
> Tracking down an Ottoman spy
> Disbanding a notorious group of Highwaymen
> Finding who killed the unpopular Lord

You could add some Chivalry-based drama when it turns out the pirate captain they were tracking down is a woman, or their new ally is *gasp* a Pagan.

I've seen this done before as a "comedy of anachronism", but never seriously.

Pic somewhat unrelated I guess.

Bump?

Dogs in the Vineyard but with knights instead of Mormon gunslingers

This has been a dream of mine too OP. It's not very far fetched historically either.

This is actually how I'm RPing a character of mine in TESO

He was inspired by Nick Valentine.

My RP partner began dubbing him as "not!Batman" because of the 'Knight Detective'.

And yeah, it's pretty much what you said.

Anybody here just thinking about that bit from Shreck II?

that's one of the examples of it being played as a "comedic anachronism" moment that the OP mentions. Yes, it did come to my own mind, but I don't think that's what the OP's looking into/.

I suppose something to consider with knights doing policework would be if they would try conducting their investigations in full armor or if at some points they'd strip down to the essentials?

I mean I know full armor isn't as bad as games like to make it out to be, but at the same time, going through the town in full armor is going to send all the criminal elements you need to catch scattering and make the people who might know something clam up.

I've wanted to run a procedural cop/paralegal/detective medieval fantasy setting for such a long time, I'm glad I'm not alone

This reminds me of Vagrant Story (PS1 game; pic related).

You play as a Knight/Special Agent-dude in fantasyland, tracking down a sorcerer-cultist guy who wears a buttcape.

Although the game is mostly a dungeoncrawler, they kinda present the main character (and his partner) as sorta investigators, and there are a few mystery elements in the story.

Pretty rad stuff, look it up.

If you are going for a medievalist setting only knights or priests are the appropriate mix of 'not dirt poor scum but also not too high class and still educated' to fill the 'detective' angle.

So I've been kicking around some ideas on how to make this make sense for knightly orders to do this sort of policing work, how's this sound

>Empire is super decentralized, like HRE
>Cultural Divisions and long history means tons of local laws
>In order to enforce the kings laws (big ones, stuff that would make for fun detective work, courtroom drama, and maybe even some swat action), need a neutral party who can travel between internal borders with the local lord's consent
>Need group to also be hard to corrupt, well equipped, and have enough time an resources to study the contradictory and diverse laws of the empire
>use holy orders of knights as arbiters

Make sense?

>Need group to also be hard to corrupt
Good noir requires corrupt institutions.

I was going to have more than one order, with conflicting with procedures and varying levels of corruption. Needless to say local and royal government corruption. Just need the player order to be fairly non corrupt. Maybe the Grandmaster just has some illegal shadow gigs going for "the good of the order"

...

makes me think of the name of the rose. they werent knights, but thats what my mind goes to imagining the scene.

You mean an inquisitor?

you know, it's funny, an old friend was coming up with some setting and I ended up helping them make up the army of their Dogmatically Religious People, and one of the things was that I had this whole thing with the Inquisition's ranks starting out as police detectives and FBI agents. By their top ranks they basically become Tom Clancy novel characters.

I think you could make a good Rush Hour expy where an investigative Knight has to work together with his Samurai equivalent.

I think fuedal Japan had a rough analogue to this in the metsuke, and in Chinese legends and folklore the travelling constable/inspector is a stock protagonist. You could borrow heavily from that genre but put a European spin on it.

In Wuxia, it's usually the LOCAL governors/agents that are corrupt. The further you get from the Emperor and the central bureaucracy, the shadier it gets.

Could have it be an alternate history where the HRE kept on going by virtue of having not shit and inbred leaders.

By early 1900s or late 1800s you got HRE covering most of Europe but it's internal structure is fragmented as all fuck. Way more nations than there should be. France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Britain never unified.

The Emperor keeps everyone together by not getting people to do what they really don't want to do too often. Basically reducing the HRE into a Free-Trade area with it's own considerable standing army.

Sure if a few of the big players like Bavaria and Lombardy wanted to cause trouble they could club together and try and take over and would be more than enough to overpower the Imperial Throne. But for the fact that the Imperial Throne can still call upon everyone else and at least half of them will answer the call.

It all holds together because of the constant threat of the Ottomans in the east constantly trying to push westwards. Makes people want to band together.

Knightly orders are now detached from national roots and theoretically from the Imperial Throne. They impose the somewhat minimal laws universal throughout the HRE. They have executed an Emperor in the past.

What about the shinsengumi, aren't they sorta like that?

They were more like a militia (a very violent one), plus their originality is that samurai and commoners served together on the same grounds. They were like a gang with decrees, not really detectives, not really knights, more like official thugs.

>pepper grinder instead of pepper spray

Kek.

Does it have to be historical? If so, maybe you could go for something like Roman prefects.

With samurai instead of knights, but there's a whole school built around this sort of thing in Legend of the Five Rings called the Kitsuki Investigator.

Wasn't there a book series about a 12th century monk who solves crimes?

So The Witcher.

Cadfael?

They also brought out a series. It was fucking awesome.

*TV series.

I need sleep.

There was a movie with Sean Connery called "In the Name of The Rose" that was about that

> a movie

I hate you and Umberto Eco's ghost shall haunt you.

Cadfael by Ellis Peters. Pretty good if not as 'literary' as Name of the Rose.

I like movies, so its a movie

This is OP and how in the name of Christ is this thread not dead?
Has it been that slow of a day?

I'd like to get more ideas churning about this, personally, so I'd like it if it stays uo

Speaking of which, how do you properly mesh the two settings/styles? What should you keep to mesh? What should contrast?

Read The Witcher series, at least The Last Wish. It's exactly that. A mutated detective that goes around slaying beasts for money

Hell man I only put up this thread 'cause I had this image in my head of some dudes with swords wearing minimal armour underneath some warm clothes examining a dead body in the snow.

I later thought it could be like what I imagine Inquisitors are like in 40K (I know almost nothing about 40K), where you get sent into small town or village to FIND THE TRUTH.

The Last Wish is an anthology of short stories with each being a different case/dilemma. The world's very well thought out, as are the Witcher caste.

Did I mention they also dabble in light sorcery?

Also, with the video games, the latest expansion pack is about catching a serial murderer monster in not-France. It's very detective-esque and has lots of intrigue.

I also have a serious hard-on for Lady Knights and Pagan Knights.

But I dunno, that's just me.

>that's just me
Oh no it's not

Got any more Pagan knights?

Are japs Pagan?

They're certainly savages, at least

Nigga if you got any more of these pics you gotta post them.

Anyone have anything to say about the original topic?

There's that scifi/history series about the spanish inquisitor who has to deal with trans-dimensional chimeras being drawn into Earth's past because somebody in the future's hunting them on their home planet.

It's pretty trippy.

He was a papist, so yes. 100% black pagan savage right there.

Who?

The kid in that image. It's the spiritual leader of the last major christian insurgency in Japan.

People didn't wear full armor (if they even had it) if they weren't expecting trouble. The idea of knights just wandering around in heavy armor all the time is hugely inaccurate.

This guy gets it.

Only thing I don't know is what a holy order would wear when not dressed for battle. Did they have pseudo-uniforms something?

Probably a tabard denoting the order they come from over normal clothing/robes. Possibly a chain mail vest or leather armour underneath just in case, but that depends on what they're doing I guess.

They probably did what everybody else did - wear a badge somewhere on their person.

...

Sounds like an CK2 game that went on too long

What about something like James II armour? You could just tuck the helmet under one arm or have your page carry it. The rest seems cool, practical and Knightly.

Pls look up a better pic. This one disent show the full trench coat thing it has going on

IF they ever brought out a DLC that pushed the end date past where it is now with all proper events and shit then holy fuck yes I would buy it, buy my friends a copy and play the shit out of it.

Ever encountered a 3 Romes situation?

Azorius?

>Three Romes
Closest I've got was three Polands

I guess you could always convert the save to Eu4 and use the fan converter to Victoria 2 once you've been through that game. That way its 700s-1935