Devoted knight, divine agent, instrument of vengeance, peerless fighting machine - the crusader is a warrior dedicated to good, evil, law, chaos, or some other cause. She seeks out and destroys the enemies of her chosen faith. Strengthened by prayer or absolute devotion to a principle, armored by unshakable faith, and driven by her convictions, a good crusader is a mighty weapon against injustice and malice. An evil crusader, on the other hand, is a cruel and fearsome warrior of darkness.

A crusader who embraces a religion or holy faith is similar to a paladin in that she commands a number of holy (or unholy) powers. However, a crusader has no skill with divine spellcasting; she is a martial adept whose maneuvers are unpredictable gifts of divine power. Trusting in the power of her chosen deity, she allows faith and intuition to guide her through battle. Many crusaders receive the call to their cause early in life, but never study formally at a temple or monastery. These warriors are gifted with a natural ability to channel the divine energies of their cause, but in a raw, untamed manner. A crusader has absolute faith in her ability to draw on the source of her power, but she never quite knows how that power will manifest.

First and foremost, a crusader is a competent combatant. She fights as skillfully as a fighter, paladin, or ranger does, relying on heavy armor and a good selection of weapons to gain the edge over her opponents. To this basic fighting prowess, she adds several abilities derived from her absolute faith and devotion to her chosen ideal. When fighting for her cause, a crusader becomes an unstoppable force on the battlefield. Terrible injuries might send less dedicated warriors running from the fight, but a crusader transforms such setbacks into martial fury that enables her to fight on long after other warriors would have been overwhelmed.

A crusader masters a small number of martial maneuvers as she gains levels. Derived from her extraordinary self-discipline, these maneuvers include catechisms of faith, spiritual devotions, and the ability to strike spectacular blows in the service of her patron or cause. Armed with the power of her faith, she can shatter boulders, shrug off enemy attacks, or rally an army with a single act of bravery.

MAKING A CRUSADER

A crusader is primarily a front-line melee battler, much like the fighter or paladin. Her martial maneuvers give her more tactical flexibility than the fighter and make her a dynamic and well-rounded combatant. Most crusaders also make good leaders, since they are both charismatic and dedicated.

Strength and Constitution are vital to a crusader, since she is often in harm's way. Intelligence is useful for gaining plenty of skill points, which a crusader needs to purchase the ranks in Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Balance, the key skills for her martial disciplines. Dexterity is useful for any character in combat, but a crusader's ability to wear heavy armor means that she is not as dependent on a high Dexterity score as other characters.

Most crusaders are humans, half-elves, or dwarves, because the ideals of dedication, service, zeal, and courage are important in both dwarf and human cultures. Elves, gnomes, and halflings generally lack the seriousness, single-minded devotion, and moderate fanaticism required to succeed as crusaders. Half-orcs rarely become crusaders, but those who do follow this path often excel at it. Many half-orcs spend their lives searching for an ideal to believe in or a community to which they can belong, and the way of the crusader appeals to such souls.

A crusader can choose any alignment except neutral - she must stand for some ideal, whether chaos, good, evil, law, or a combination of principles. To be a crusader is to devote oneself wholeheartedly to a cause or deity, and this way of life leaves no room for indecision or unwillingness to commit. A crusader's alignment reflects her chosen cause, and in some cases molds the maneuvers she can use.

Good and lawful crusaders are more common than chaotic or evil ones, since obedience and service come more easily to characters of the former alignments. However, the rare evil crusader is a force to be reckoned with. She is a cruel and fearsome reaver - a scourge who preys on the weak and defenseless to honor her dark patrons.

PLAYING A CRUSADER

When fog chills the battlefield, and your frost-rimed mail weighs on your stiffening muscles, your faith warms you. It is the fire that burns inside, illuminating your life with the ideals of your patron or cause. Alms or arms for the impoverished, a hand or a lash for the downtrodden, mercy or cruelty - you decide according to your faith. As a living instrument of your cause, you have worked for years to become a weapon worthy of your ideal. Where others hesitate, you press on with certainty, unshakable in your beliefs.

As a crusader, you undertake adventures according to the dictates of your cause, your temple, or your conscience. You might find yourself in a swampy mausoleum slaying infidel trolls with a sword in one hand and a flask of acid in the other, or bouncing across sahuagin-infested waves on a halfling sloop because you owe a friend safe passage across the straits. You might even find yourself on the cold, muddy field of battle, charging shoulder to shoulder with peasants and soldiers, raising pitchforks and shields against the pelting ice storms of the enemy. The only constant is the depth of your devotion to your cause - the night winds will snuff out the stars before your fidelity ever wavers.

Your choice of deity is paramount, since religion is an obvious target for the devotion and zeal embodied by this class. If you are good, you might serve Pelor or St. Cuthbert, or perhaps join the beleaguered crusaders of Heironeous, who are famous for their tenacious defense of many a lost cause. Alternatively, if you are a dwarf, Moradin is a natural choice for patron. You might join the Ruby Knights of Wee Jas, who are reputed to be tainted by the necromancy of their Witch Goddess. Chaotic crusaders are rare, but those who worship Kord are often paragons of the Stone Dragon discipline, and Ehlonna's ambushing crusaders tend to be adept at taking and holding forestland. If you are evil, you might take up the cause of Nerull or Erythnul the Many, whose crusaders are plagues upon the land.

Your power stems from your devotion to your cause, and you value martial prowess, dedication, and self-discipline. You generally get along well with paladins, clerics, fighters, and warblades, as long as their alignments are compatible with yours. You might scorn those of antithetical alignments as heathens or target them with your proselytizing, depending on the evangelism inherent in your own religion. Monks and swordsages are also worthy companions for you, although their reliance on ki and skill, rather than faith and armor, is suspect. The subterfuge of rogues, the superficiality of bards, and the susceptibility of most arcane casters to a single greataxe blow force members of those classes to prove themselves before earning your esteem.

Your specific tactics in battle depend on the discipline you chose and the maneuvers you have learned. However, certain tactics are common to all crusaders.

As a zealous proponent of your cause, you are generally at the forefront of any battle. Fighting on the front line allows you to maximize the benefits you gain from your class abilities, and also to protect a weaker ally by absorbing an enemy's blows yourself. Doing so benefits both you and your party in various ways. First, your steely resolve ability makes any attacks you deliver after taking damage both more accurate and more powerful than they were before you were injured. Furthermore, if opponents focus on you, they cannot injure your allies. Thus, taking damage each round should be your goal. The sooner you can engage the toughest opponent in melee, the faster you can bolster your attacks. As a crusader, you're at your best when you can take on the monster or opponent that deals the most damage.

Other tactics vary according to your chosen discipline. Stone Dragon crusaders favor head-on charges, boulderrolling into opponents and mountain-hammering anyone left standing. If you have a high Strength score, you should consider feats that take advantage of that ability if you choose this path (such as Power Attack, Cleave, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Overrun, and Improved Sunder). As a Devoted Spirit crusader, some of your maneuvers function only against creatures with opposed alignments. Devoted Spirit crusaders are often hunters on the battlefield, dedicated to chasing down the most dangerous foes. If you are a White Raven crusader, you are more group-oriented than other crusaders. Fighting shoulder to shoulder with allies, directing flanks, coordinating charges, and covering a cleric while he heals the wounded are among the specialties of a White Raven crusader.

At high levels, your mettle ability affords you an extra measure of confidence when you confront enemies that use spells or spell-like abilities. Many demons, devils, and other outsiders have spell-like abilities, and these are precisely the foes that you are trained to vanquish (particularly if you're a Devoted Spirit crusader). Combined with the indomitable soul ability, mettle can prove to be surpassingly powerful.

Ever since the Spirit Seeker was torn apart by demons during the catastrophic battle that ended in the destruction and dispersal of the Shadow Tiger horde, master crusaders have sought to attain his perfect harmony of spirit, body, and weapon mastery. In three warring stone citadels, the combat masters of the Vix Tholm, the Ruby Knights of Wee Jas, and the reth dekala each teach pilgrims the three precepts of combat: skill, self-discipline, and knowledge.

To take training at a citadel, you must maintain maximum ranks in your most important skills. Rare is a crusader who does not have maximum ranks in the skill most appropriate to her path (Balance for Stone Dragon, Intimidate for Devoted Spirit, and Diplomacy for White Raven). In addition, you live and die by your discipline. If you hope to achieve true mastery, you must choose your discipline wisely and devote yourself to it completely. If you're physically weak, you would be ill-advised to pursue the path of the Stone Dragon, but your strength of will might serve you well on the path of the Devoted Spirit.

If you're advancing as a Stone Dragon adept, you seek to acquire items, learn feats, and develop maneuver combinations that emphasize strength and direct confrontation. If yours is the path of the White Raven, you focus on your leadership abilities and the tactical details of combat. If you embrace the Devoted Spirit discipline, you turn inward, cultivating wisdom and devout faith.

CRUSADERS IN THE WORLD

Crusaders bring clashing steel, stirring speeches, and intense fervor to the campaign. The first sign of a crusader's presence might be a knight-herald riding alone down the Processional to the King's Fane, where he tacks a scroll to the door and promptly gallops off, his helmeted visage revealing nothing.

Crusaders can launch grand crusades, each of which can serve as the foundation for a thousand adventures. Crusaders who support less than popular causes might hold clandestine meetings in the night, filled with whispered negotiations. Alternatively, if war has already broken out, the campaign might feature battles along ramparts studded with ballistae and bombarded with flaming pitch. A crusade might be a one-time occurrence when a passing army moves through the kingdom's hinterlands, or it might serve as the entire focus of the campaign, with the PCs moving up through the ranks of a holy army to lead the charge on the infidels' stronghold.

Crusaders can also move through a campaign world individually. Perhaps a PC crusader is the last adherent of her cause, destined to make a glorious final stand against an evil that has consumed her heritage. She might join with other adventurers, seeking strength in their company. A PC crusader could also be an evangelist from a far land who has come to the campaign area to spread the word of her cause - and perhaps even to recruit adventurers whom she can take back to her homeland to fight alongside her. Perhaps a PC crusader is falsely accused of heresy and forced to travel alone, dodging bounty hunters and assassins, all while upholding her ideals without the support or respect of her erstwhile colleagues.

A crusader views the world through the twin lenses of faith and battle. A farmer seeding the furrows, a merchant hawking oranges and pottery, an apprentice toasting his fingers with an ironically misfired burning hands - to the crusader, these everyday sights are not random occurrences, but building blocks in the battle between good and evil, law and chaos. For whom does the farmer toil, and to whom does he pay taxes - a good baron, an evil count? Is the merchant trading with priests of Nerull or changing monies with dark emissaries from the reth dekala? If the apprentice learns his spells, to what end will he use them? In every facet of life, the crusader sees some embodiment of her principles.

Over the centuries since the great battle that resulted in the destruction of the Shadow Tiger horde, many crusaders have sought to emulate the Spirit Seeker. This enigmatic crusader slew the Shadow Master and was subsequently torn apart by demons, but few facts about his life are known. Many, in fact, argue that the Spirit Seeker was a female, and many more argue over the exact faith that this mysterious figure embraced. The Vix Tholm believe that the Seeker was a devotee of Heironeous, but the Chapeaux and Stars of St. Cuthbert claim him as their own. The Ruby Knights of Wee Jas claim that he sought the spirits of the dead and was thus firmly in the Jasite camp.

After the Temple of Nine Swords collapsed, many crusaders founded martial orders allied with their religions. These new organizations placed the deity before the sword - a reversal of the temple's priorities. The most powerful and secretive of these orders survive today. Many, however, perished as a result of ecclesiastical infighting. The established church hierarchies did not trust these new "sword orders," many of which had recovered enough treasure from the fallen Temple of Nine Swords to make their members very wealthy. Purges and pogroms were common as the churches asserted control over the orders and seized their wealth. The church of St. Cuthbert subsumed its crusader order, but many other churches exterminated their crusaders in the night. The church of Heironeous rose above such petty tyrannies, and it still maintains a cordial relationship with its crusader order, the Vix Tholm, though the relationship is sometimes strained by rivalry. From the start, the Ruby Knights of Wee Jas swore a binding covenant - a dark pact, according to some - to serve the high priests and priestesses as the military arm of the Witch Goddess's temples, and they continue to do so. Crusader orders dedicated to Pelor, Hextor, Ehlonna, and Nerull also exist, and rumors abound of hidden temples that house crusaders who narrowly escaped the purges.

In a large and openly acknowledged crusader order, promotion is based on battlefield performance. The battlefield, however, is generously defined. It could be a political battlefi eld on which victory consists of the grant of the western valley's taxation rights from the Exchequer. It might also be a specific battlefield, such as the hedge prison of a demon prince in an ancient dungeon, where victory can be attained by thwarting the captive's attempts at escape. The battlefield could even be a spiritual one, where victory is the delivery of pilgrims to a holy site that will inspire them to new heights of religious fervor.

In a persecuted crusader order, promotion is often based simply on survival. New blood is vital and special, so a crusader who successfully recruits a reliable new member is accorded great honor. Many persecuted orders develop pyramidal hierarchies in which a member's recruits all rank below her in seniority.

Many lay people cannot tell a crusader from a paladin until the latter calls his horse from the sky or lays hands on the maimed. Like paladins, crusaders of good alignment often become heroes to peasants, laborers, and others to whom gold is a dream and silver an always fleeting reality. Most nobles distrust crusaders because their beliefs take a higher priority in their lives than wealth and status. Paradoxically, most established clerics also distrust crusaders - not only because of faith-based rivalries but also because of the implicit acknowledgment that a crusader order could weaken the influence of nonaffiliated churches in a region's political landscape.

CRUSADER LORE

Characters with ranks in Knowledge (religion) can research crusaders to learn more about them. When a character makes a skill check, read or paraphrase the following, including the information from lower DCs.

DC 10: Crusaders are hot-blooded zealots whose fervor is unrelieved by wisdom.

DC 15: Crusaders follow the Sublime Way, seeking to perfect their combat skill to better serve their deity. They're not like clerics, and they don't heal the sick or exorcise undead. Crusaders possess very little overt magic, unless you consider what they can do with their swords as magical.

DC 20: Crusaders can stand up to punishment that no other individual can endure, shrugging off even the most powerful of attacks.

CRUSADERS IN THE GAME

Depending on their alignment and disposition, crusaders can appear as allies or enemies, patrons or tyrants. You can use large crusader organizations to offer the PCs work guarding pilgrim caravans, retrieving items from a rival religion's vaults, or representing the organization at court. An evil crusader order might target the PCs' homeland for invasion or persecute all members of their race. The leader of an evil crusader order can make an excellent recurring villain for your campaign - especially if he uses his political clout to pass laws that make life difficult for the PCs. For example, he might institute 2-hour delays at the city gates, forbid foreigners to possess mithral and adamantine, require that all spellbooks be registered and copies stored at the owner's expense, or the like.

A crusader character expects that his combat prowess will aid the party in its fights and that his religious affiliation will have meaningful consequences in the game world. Accordingly, you should populate your encounters with monsters that oppose your crusader's ideals. Sketching out in advance how a campaign's important NPCs will react to zealot warriors is time well spent.

One way to adapt crusaders is to remove the religious flavor from the class and replace it with regional or racial elements. In such an arrangement, a crusader would oppose creatures from enemy territory or of a different race. In like manner, her martial maneuvers would represent not catechisms of faith and divine magic, but a battle tradition of slayers handed down over the centuries.

Crusaders pursue their causes, whatever they might be, with an unmatched zeal. Any time the PCs become involved in an emotionally or politically charged adventure, a crusader might appear. A crusader is especially easy to introduce within the context of a church, as a holy (or unholy) knight dedicated to one distinct and specific aspect of his deity.

EL 8: Miros Xavt(NE male human crusader 4) is a crusader of Erythnul, although he poses as a crusader of Heironeous shepherding a small flock of five human and seven dwarf pilgrims on a journey to the sacred site of Koshtra Amnorn, the highest peak in the Sunspire Mountains, and the inspiration for Reshar's lost epic poem explaining his motivations in unifying the Nine Paths. Miros is in fact leading a group of twelve disguised kenku marauders. They beg the PCs to join them and help escort them to the holy mount. Once out of sight of civilization, they throw off their cloaks and attack while screeching the praises of the God of Slaughter.