Ok, well you’ve pushed me into it…
- The Vale: The Brotherhood of Winged Knights, natch. Seven knights to honor the Seven. Chosen by a tourney of no less than 77 applicants to guard the King of the Mountain and Vale for seven years. To honor the memory of Artys Arryn’s victory, the Brotherhood have a custom of insisting that any Arryn who takes the field of battle must don an eighth set of the armor and livery of the Brotherhood, to ensure that his enemies cannot spy him out. And hey, let’s go nuts and say that the Winged Knights are especially feared for their horse-frightening harnesses.
- The Riverlands: The Order of the Trident. One of the more recent chivalric orders in Westeros, the Order of the Trident was founded by House Teague in order to bolster their hold on their newly-won kingdom. By their original charter, the knights of the Trident were charged with maintaining the peace on the “roads and rivers of our kingdom,” which led to the construction of many chapter houses at fords and other intersections where travelers could sleep protected – in more recent centuries following the fall of House Teague, many of these chapter houses were abandoned and later converted into inns. This charter also requires each member to maintain a shallow-drafted warship of no less than 10 oars a side, which may explain their ceremonial weapons. Notably, rather than implicitly stating it, only members of the Faith of the Seven are allowed to join, which is why no Blackwood has ever participated and why every single generation of Brackens have held membership (with no less than a dozen grand-masters among them). According to rumor, the Order may have been instrumental behind-the-scenes in many of the rebellions against those rulers who succeeded the Teagues to the crown of the Riverlands – which is probably false…
- The Westerlands: The Grand and Most Puissant Order of the Golden Mane. Unlike most orders of chivalry in Westeros, the Order of the Golden Mane was primarily not a martial order – rather, the Order was established during the reign of King Norwin Lannister as a means of raising revenue, with membership dues being originally listed at 100 grains of pure gold annually. In exchange for their dues, members were granted knighthoods if they did not already have them, but also a number of privileges including the right to be tried only by the Order, the right to arbitration by the Order in all disputes between fellow members, and even the right to advise the king on “weighty matters.” During the rule of Tytos Lannister, these privileges were badly abused by dozens of social climbers, leading to the diminishment of the order’s prestige and an increase in public disorder, as many used the order’s immunity from normal criminal procedure as a shield against Casterly Rock itself. Shortly before the Reynes of Castamere, Tywin Lannister raised the membership fee to five times the member’s body-weight in gold, and then took advantage of a number of sudden vacancies to have the order declared extinct due to lack of quorum.
- The Reach: since the Order of the Green Hand is taken, let’s talk about the Lady Companions of the Blessed Maris. Given the Reach’s love affair with tourneys, pageants, dances, and other social occasions, someone has to do the organizing of the social calendar, otherwise the whole thing goes haywire and vendettas set up. Guided by an inner circle of noblewomen who can trace their descent to Maris the Maid, Rowan Goldenhair, or Ellyn Ever-Sweet (all women of acceptable moral purity, although of course the Gardener Queen was always given a position out of respect for Highgarden), the Lady Companions make sure that each seat of note is appropriately honored with fetes, that there are always enough tourneys to keep the knights occupied while ensuring decent attendance at each, and that enough mixed-gender events are held to ensure that the right young ladies meet the right young men. While the Green Hand may have perished on the field of battle, the work of the Lady Companions continue to this day, although there was much grumbling when a certain Tyrell claimed the Gardener Seat for her house on the grounds that Aegon had deeded Highgarden to them.
- The Stormlands: The Ancient and Most Honorable Guild of Castlewrights. While the origins of the Guild are lost to legend and myth (some tales claim that the founders of the guild were the assistants of the mysterious Brandon who built the final castle of Storm’s End), the Stormlands takes the construction of castles more seriously than any other realm. To that end, the Durrandon kings gave (in addition to the honor of knighthood) this order the “responsibility for inspecting and maintaining the castles of my kingdom,” along with some fairly wide-ranging powers to commandeer labor and materials to make repairs when necessary for the defense of the realm. Over the centuries, the Guild turned into an order of knights who were experts both in the construction of castles and siegecraft. Many a seemingly desperate siege was won or lost due to the presence of a single Guildman using their authority to take over direction of assault or defense of the castle, especially in the Marches. Famously, the Guildmen take an oath never to allow themselves to be captured alive, lest they be tortured into revealing their occult wisdom.
- Dorne: The Knights of the Wells. If there is anything that unites the often fractious peoples of Dorne, it is their common love of horse-riding. Thus, to keep their people happy and distracted, the Martells have organized both hippodrome races and cross-country races for the better part of a thousand years. Recruited from among the ranks of the winners, the Knights of the Wells were trained in the arts of cartography by maesters from Sunspear, given the best sand steeds that the Martells can buy and, formally, charged with little more than accurately mapping the oft-foreboding terrain of Dorne. Informally, the Knights of the Wells were the Martells’ best spies and scouts, who use their superior knowledge of the land to guide the armies of Dorne and track the armies of her enemies, and many wars have been won (or lost) because of the bravery and cunning of these swordless knights. Membership in the Wells is a dangerous proposition, however – both in Aegon’s War and Daeron’s, the order saw casualties of more than nine in ten of their members, with the Targaryens frequently posting lavish bounties for their deaths. Indeed, it was a significant provision of Daeron II’s treaty that the Martells were forbidden from re-establishing the Knights of the Wells, although some claim the order continues in secret…
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