The Time Knights
Time is a never ending cycle in which humans inhabit it for the equivalent of a blink of an eye compared to the infinity that is time. In this recurring age of humans the mysterious Time Knights keep the eternal order which rough chaotic men unwittingly disturb.
To understand the Time Knights you must first understand the nature of time. Time is a like a huge circle it has no beginning and no end and it repeats itself. Because it is recurring there is no difference between one cycle of time and the next. All things are constant and if you know how to read time then you can see that every event that is to come to pass has already happened.
This continual order of time is predictable and natural. But there are certain renegade elements that for some reason are chaotic and disturb the relentless river of time. These renegade elements are people that are unpredictable and untamed. By looking into the future one cannot find out what will happen next with that person because they have an enviable control over their own destines.
This is why the Time Knights exist. They eliminate these defiant people seeing them as heretics who rebel against time itself. The Time Knights hate Renegades because they are unpredictible and they can in a way forge their own destiny. This could alter the history of the world. They do not care that the Renegades might do some good as well. The Renegades usually turn out to be great men before the Knights kill them. The Time Rebels (as the Knight sometimes call them) could potentially doom or save millions of people.
No one knows where they came from or when but they are commanded by ‘The High Duke'.
They are extremely powerful and possess many time-based abilities. These include being able to teleport anywhere by moving through time, being able to heal any wounds as long as they don't die before they can turn back time. They can win battles by predicting where their enemy will go with their all-knowing powers. They can stop time in certain place and freeze people in time as well.
The Time Knights usually kill renegades. Sometimes heated battles take place between the knights and the renegades. But the knights have never lost such a battle and according to their predictions they never will.
Role-playing hooks:
A Time Knight turns on the Order and begins spreading destruction and trying to take over the world for all eternity.
The heroes have at least one time renegade in their party and find themselves faced up against the Time Knights.
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? Responses (12)
Good, but not wonderful.
I disagree.
Who are the renegade elements and why are they dangerous? Just because they can't be predicted? Where did the Time Knights come from? Who is the 'High Duke' (I know it's a big secret, but some explanation would be nice)?
They are waaaaay waaaay powerful. Essentially, you say that these Time Knights know everything that can happen, can heal any wound that occurs to them, and can teleport to anywhere. Way too powerful.
I'm gonna' put this right out there for everybody to know- I don't like submissions involving time travel, time control, time manipulation, and the like.
It's not a bad idea, but it really needs a proper setting to come to life:
A world that continues to move in cycles where everybody seems to know that this is more or less inevitable would be interesting to see. Empires rising knowing full well where they are on the scale of time in this cycle and destined to fall like the ones before them.
Having a force (for good or evil or maybe neither) working to break this continuity would give the time knights more of a sense of purpose as well.
As they are, the Time Knights are entirely too powerful. I have to echo CP's sentiment about strongly disliking time travel and its associated elements. However, I would point out that several series that dealt with time travel (Time Trax, Quantem Leap, Back to the Future) had pretty much normal people who had to come to grips with altering time and such. A variation of the Time Knights could be the PCs being approached by the High Duke and inducted into the order as agents within their timeframe, doing small odd jobs for the duke that eventually have massive outcomes that are unforseen.
Unlike some, time travel does not give me a bad feeling... you just need to be careful.
Time is a like a huge circle it has no beginning and no end and it repeats itself. This is called a Spiral. This is the case especially if you are borrowing from Celtic Myth.
Because it is recurring there is no difference between one cycle of time and the next.
So events exactly repeat themselves... the world is nothing but a looped tape?
All things are constant So there are no changes?
This continual order of time is predictable and natural. But there are certain renegade elements that for some reason are chaotic and disturb the relentless river of time. These renegade elements are people that are unpredictable and untamed.
Where did they come from? How did they get this way? How can they do time or interface with it? And since history is a constant do the same bad guys pop up time and time again'?
This is why the Time Knights exist. They eliminate these defiant people seeing them as heretics who rebel against time itself.
Who see them as heretics? IS time a religion? Defiant to natural order is bad.... so building cities and is making damms bad?
No one knows where they came from or when but they are commanded by The High Duke'.
Cop out. Just because nobody publically knows... everyone has a history, even if that history is hypertemporal. This is the group equivalent of 'He has amnesia about his past'.
They are extremely powerful and possess many time-based abilities. These include being able to teleport anywhere by moving through time, being able to heal any wounds as long as they don't die before they can turn back time. They can win battles by predicting where their enemy will go with their all-knowing powers. They can stop time in certain place and freeze people in time as well.
Time Powers without limits are destructive. Are these powers innate? Are these powers spells (thus dispell will through a kink in them?). Are the powers psionic? Are they technical? Are they genebonded into the person? HOW DO TIME KNIGHTS GET THEIR POWERS? HOW DO THEY USE THEM?
People with time powers vs people without time powers, the time powers give them a serious edge. So these are an NPC group? Are they things for players... These things need to be included in their write up.
The Time Knights usually kill renegades before they get the chance to use their powers but sometimes-heated battles take place but the knights have never lost and according to their predictions they never will.
This makes little sense gramtatically.
Yes I know the cycle of time is like the Wheel of Time
NO!. The Wheel of Time is not about cycles, but really about the continuing motion of history.
In short... This fails. Too Incomplete. Too factured in the write up. It needs to be expanded greatly and dealt with.
moon: thanks you gave me some really good tips but I have to refute you on certain points.
I said the it was like the wheel of time just to be sure that no saw a similarity. Also I only know that the post is a bit vague but it is supposed to be so that the time knights can be incorperating into any setting.
For the renegade elements part I am truely sorry I should of gone over that part. Basically the Renegades are people that have a kind of freedom from the continuality of time. These renegades are able to fight the Time Knights because of this freedom from the constraints of time.
Not explaining about the High Duke and the history of the Time Knights is not a cop out. The Time Knights are meant to be mysterious.
My world is like a looped tape but I wouldn't put it like that. Its no different to other worlds with a destiny theme. Besides only the time knights and maybe a few wizards know about this continual world so it makes no practical difference.
Updated: just doing what some people suggested
Okay, sorry it took so long for me to get back to this
You should really take the Wheel of Time comment out. It is just going to draw more flak and more mistrewed ideas to the post.
If this is for your game world, to keep it on track (and from the writing, time repeats itself... so there are no changes in it), then you need to detail that in the write up.
About the Mysterious. It is not mysterious, it is a problem. You are writing for Game Masters. Even if the characters do not know a given fact, the GM must know the given facts so they can insert it. 'Poof they are there' just does not cut it. It will make it so nobody will insert them into their game. Nobody said you had to go through huge details, but some background is required. Really.
Are they from outside the world? Are they Piper's Time Patrol or the Paratime patrol? Do they come from the Gods? What is up with these things?
The Time Knights sound more and more like the antagonists, rather than the protagonists. They stifle change. They make sure that the world 'ends' on schedule, only to be reborn. Since PCs most often 'rock the boat', these people are going to be coming down on them. And given their spectacular time powers, the fight will be over OR they just go away.
1) How does a person get to be a renegade? Do they just stop following the script of time? Do they gain magical time powers because they are free from the constraints of time?
2) If the Time Knights have time powers, why is there even a fight? Poof, renegade is strangled in the crib. They disappear from the time stream. No fight at all.
You really need to detail what these people can do. Without it, they just become uber powerful time travellers that nobody in time stream can stop.
My world is like a looped tape but I wouldn't put it like that. Its no different to other worlds with a destiny theme. Besides only the time knights and maybe a few wizards know about this continual world so it makes no practical difference.
So these are world dependent. If they are, make them that way. People will just adapt the idea, but not the write up.
And if it makes no practical different, why have it?
Now a couple of points not addressed that need to be:
These renegade elements are people that are unpredictable and untamed.
Where did they come from? How did they get this way? How can they do time or interface with it? And since history is a constant do the same bad guys pop up time and time again'?
This is why the Time Knights exist. They eliminate these defiant people seeing them as heretics who rebel against time itself.
Who see them as heretics? IS time a religion? Defiant to natural order is bad.... so building cities and is making damms bad?
These people have no motivation. The write up makes them mechanical drones, much like the Agents in the Matrix. It is only when one 'breaks' (Mr. Smith) that we get an interesting opponent rather than a bunch of combat stats.
They are extremely powerful and possess many time-based abilities. These include being able to teleport anywhere by moving through time, being able to heal any wounds as long as they don't die before they can turn back time. They can win battles by predicting where their enemy will go with their all-knowing powers. They can stop time in certain place and freeze people in time as well.
Time Powers without limits are destructive. Are these powers innate? Are these powers spells (thus dispell will through a kink in them?). Are the powers psionic? Are they technical? Are they genebonded into the person? HOW DO TIME KNIGHTS GET THEIR POWERS? HOW DO THEY USE THEM? If these people can travel back time or use the causal loop trick, then everyone just dies (or they take them out earlier).
One last thing: What do these guys look like? Do they look and act like knights (in plate and longsword), do they carry around Uzi's just in case?,
Also do they have places of public contact, or do they just appear from the Resevervation?
Powerful blokes that kill people to keep time cylinderical. (Zuh? Basic high end math says this is bullshit. Better be a full fantasy setting.)
This is rather bland. It is too powerful. Too 'random'. Too 'unstoppable'. I stopped reading when I heard 'The High Duke'. Eww.
1.5/5
Dead god, it gets worse than I thought. (Comments say so.)
1/5 because there is no .5. (Strolen! *shakes fist*)
This essentially is a take on the time-cop trope, though instead of removing external disturbances to timelines, it removes internal changes which is another kettle of fish entirely.
- the time-cop, though their purpose seems to be to enforce mediocrity. Not something I would want in a game. They feel almost like misguided civil servants.