"A Jaded View of Orders"

by Drongol

 

The Elanthian Orders are several organizations which, for some reason, have found it worthwhile to gather in large numbers and make their purpose known to all within the Realms. While there are already several Orders within the Dragon's Realms, the number is always expanding. Even you could create an Order and become successful should you follow a few easy steps.

STEP ONE: THE NAME

When you are thinking about what to call your merry band of followers, you need to have a few things in mind. First, the name has to be appropriate. If you decide to create an Order designed around the preservation of the rare blue-plumed boobrie, do not call it "The Happy Helpers Club." Something at least moderately hinting at the purpose of the order is most likely your best idea. For example, in the case of the aforementioned group, something along the line of "The Order of the Blue-Plumed Boobrie" might make sense.

However, this is not nearly "catchy" enough to suit most people, and, besides, who wants to be a part of such an order? Most often, the war between the practical and the aesthetic can be settled with a compromise: choosing a name that hints at the purpose of the Order while still appealing to people. In this you must use your imagination in order to come up with something descriptive yet attractive, so good luck.

STEP TWO: THE PURPOSE

In step one I assumed that you already had some sort of purpose in mind while creating a title. In this step you will further refine and restrict that which your Order shall focus upon. By doing this you create a group with a purpose, rather than a rag-tag bunch of adventurers with nothing to
guide them.

Say, for example, that you wish to create an Order to protect Elanthia in times of war. That is all well and good, but in what way does this differ from the average group of adventurers? When the ugly cloud of war hovers over a particular part of Elanthia, the vast majority of the adventurers congregate to that area to defend it. In this your Order is not in any way unique, and, quite honestly, has no reason to exist.

Now, to refine this further, one could simply advance down a particular path or concentrate on defending a particular city. For example, an Order could exist to provide highly trained archers to defend Elanthia, in which case members would need to train with the weapon in question and be available to deploy at a moment's notice. This is a minor spin on the "group of adventurers" theme that adds distinction and at the same time gives meaning to your Order.

On the other hand one can simply devote an Order to defending a particular city. While there would be more than archers within such an Order, the people would be situated around a particular city and would, from training, know which areas of the city were best-suited to particular types of spellcasting and combat tactics. Again, the minor change of focus has validated the Order's existence.

Now, do not take this to mean that only combative Orders should have a focus, but combative Orders are most often the ones that have the least focus. After all it is far too easy to settle upon too narrow a focus (for example, the betterment of olive-skinned Gor'Togs within the province of Illithi) and wind up losing out on the next step, which is:

STEP THREE: RECRUITMENT

So, you have chosen a purpose which is neither too narrow nor too broad, and all you need now is to find like-minded individuals to follow your leadership. This can be the most difficult part of creating an Order, since you are most likely going to promote yourself as a leader. In Elanthia I
have noticed that far too few people are willing to follow, but nearly everyone is willing to lead.

So the first step for the power-hungry founder is to endorse the Order as something not only useful but necessary for people to join and accept. This becomes increasingly more difficult when one's focus is to promote almighty Evil for Evil's own sake, but sufficient force of personality makes this possible.

One thing worth mentioning is to avoid overly rewarding members for joining your newfound Order. If people are simply joining up to gain the benefits of doing so, why will they be loyal to the Order (and indirectly, to you)? Instead, offer something resembling sound ideology, intelligent goals, and a lot of fun, and people will most likely be more than willing to join.

Hopefully, all this will help out if you are looking to get a gaggle of like-minded adventurers together under your wing and will let the lot of you create focused, worthwhile Orders to better Elanthia.