In Gotheos, the clergy rule the city with benevolent justice from the Church of Thrinn. Here, citizens can seek the wisdom of the priests and commune with the city’s patron deities.
While the clergy at the Church of Thrinn protect the city’s spirit, the holy warriors at the Cathedral of Palad protect the city’s streets. These warriors of Palad are known as Paladins, and have a tradition that started with the War of Reclamation, which they served as soldiers in. This war to reclaim the Heavenly Portal was fought in vain, for the only Paladin to have ever laid eyes on the Portal was one Deisus Thrinnchild.
Today, the war is ended and the Paladins serve as peacekeepers, both in Gotheos and abroad.
Note: In the Noedia campaign setting, "Paladin" refers specifically to a member of the Cathedral of Palad, but holy warriors, divine knights, and paragons of other gods or creeds still use the paladin class described in the Player’s Handbook.
This tower of wizards boasts some of the wisest men in Noedia. Chief among these was Bucephalus, a great mage who founded the Tower of High Magicka to train others in the art of magic, so that they could better combat the divine miracles of their Gothean opponents.
Today, the tower is run by the masters of the eight schools of magic. One of the masters also performs duties as the Archmage of High Magicka, ruling the city of Hortan. Currently, the Master of Divination is the Archmage of High Magicka.
A century ago, there were three Houses of the Knights of Hortan, each of which pledged their allegiance to one of the three Lords of Hortan. Now, Hortan is ruled by the Archmage of High Magicka, and protected by the King and his Order of Chimera Knights.
Inheriting the duties of the three previous Houses of Knights, the Chimera Knights train in one of the three fighting styles passed down to them. With the crest of a unicorn emblazoned on their platemail, some knights are expert cavalrymen, commanding their steed as if the beast were an extension of their body. Others, with the relief of a dragon on their armor, are masters of close combat, fighting as easily with a sword as with the fist. Finally, the knights that wear the insignia of a phoenix train the intellect and acheive a clarity of mind that gives them unparalleled focus in battle.
The most infamous crime guild in Noedia, the Shadow Stalkers make their headquarters in Traton. The city is infested with them, corrupt to the core with all manner of assassins and thieves. Their leader, a mysterious figure by the name of Tony V., rules the city as self-proclaimed Mayor. Unseen by any of the populace and ruling the city through his lackeys and cronies, he punishes those who go against his will with mutilation, broken limbs, and assassination. Having ruled the city for nearly a hundred years, there is much speculation as to his identity. Some think he must be of a long-lived race, such as an elf, gnome, or dwarf, while others say he’s a fabricated persona used to protect the true leader of the Shadow Stalkers.
The Druidic Order was once an insular and fanatic group of druids, allowing only the dryads, nymphs, and elves of Sylvia to join their ranks. In recent years, they’ve begun sharing the secrets of the wild with the races of other realms, allowing any who love and protect nature to become members of the Order and learn how to commune with nature and take an animal’s form.
The Sylvan Sisterhood is a sect of dryads and nymphs that split off from the Druidic Order. They protect nature with fierce zealotry, cruelly punishing all who defile the forest of Sylvia. The Sisterhood draws their power from the fey energy of the woods and Treofar, the Goddess of Forests.
Secluded high in the peaks of the Sawtooth Mountains, disciples of the Daishu Temple drink tea, study martial arts, practice Ki meditation, and devote their minds to the philosophy of Tuaism. Tua, or the Way, is the harmony of Tzen and Tzing, two interdependent, natural forces that conserve universal balance. Tzen energy manifests itself in heat, fire, air, electricity, light, day, the sun, summer, up, and south, among other things. Tzing manifests in cold, water, earth, acid, darkness, night, the moon, winter, down, and north. These two forces are symbolized in the black and white halves of the Face of Daishu, from which the Temple takes its name.
Because of the increased awareness they obtain through Ki meditation, many fighting styles at the Temple have developed around both unarmed attacks and exotic blades. Some disciples find their spirit naturally resonates with Tzen or Tzing, and use their spiritual connection to channel the elements. Others, through the power of meditation, have acheived uncanny control over their body, enabling them to enhance their agility when smoking spotted lotus leaves, or the tea made from it.
Founded by a psychic warrior named Amschel on the edge of a sea cliff, Zek Yanrai is a temple that trains its members to hone their mind to a degree of perfection unsurpassed by the people of any other realm in Noedia. This discipline, called Psi, is such a potent force that the most powerful of its practitioners can levitate objects with a thought and enter the minds of less powerful beings.