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By Michele Ellington Tawnee Darkfalcon
This one is a history lesson on the award of the Lion and Warrior.
How ironic these statements are! I feel pressed to offer a little
history lesson. When we first started the club, the only order
offered for fighting was the Order of the Lion. At that time, knights
had a very definite code of conduct, which was expected of them. Not
everyone in the club wanted to be a knight. The Corsairs and a few
others recognized and freely acknowledged that this code of conduct
was not for them, and did not even solicit Orders of the Lion.
However, it quickly became clear that some of these "mavericks" were
some of our best fighters. It was clearly unfair that there was no
way to make public note of their skills. So we invented the Order of the Warrior. It was intended that a fighter who earned ten Orders of
the Warrior would become a Warlord. A Warlord was to be the
equivalent of the Knight, but not bound by the code of conduct
expected of the knights. When tournaments were conducted, the
fighters were watched for both skill and conduct, and were awarded
Warriors or Lions as was deemed appropriate by the Monarch. At this
time, there was only one form of Knighthood. Roses attributed to
titles of nobility, and Dragons were simply prestige awards. Time
passed. Some confusion evolved about the intended difference between
Warriors and Lions. An odd sort of dichotomy arose, wherein Lions
were almost impossible to earn, yet Warlord was the club's most
coveted title. In my opinion, this was the result of the fact that
most of the really skilled fighters were the "maverick" types, and
the Monarchs all but forgot the existence of Lions and what they
meant. Warlord was a separate title from Knighthood, but was no
longer regarded as its effective yin/yang opposite. Warlords won
Crown Tourneys and were also knighted. The intent of the creation of
the Warrior as an Order separate from the Lion fell away. The focus
became wholly skill based, with no real evaluation of attitude
included. Monarchs came and went.
After a couple of years, the Monarch decided that Knighthood should
be broken into four belts: Sword, Serpent, Flame, and Crown. To that
end, the Orders were all evaluated. The Order hardest hit was Lion.
The Monarch making the changes added Warriors as one of the Orders
contributive to Knighthood of the Sword. Then he broke the Order of
the Lion into Lions for combat and Griffins for chivalry. Then the
persons holding Lions were subjectively reviewed, and decisions were
made about whether they were good enough fighters to hold that number
of Lions, or if some of those awards had been given for chivalry more
than combat prowess. Some players' Lions were converted to Griffins,
and, if I recall correctly, no longer contributed towards Knighthood
of the Sword. As combat had always been the focus of the club,
deleting combat orders to make them "orders of the nice guy",
read "orders of the chump" by the much acclaimed Warlords who weren't
expected to play fair, was hardly a compliment. So now you see the
irony of your reference to Griffins as a highly sought after and
scarcely offered award.
I am sorry we lost the dichotomy between Warlords and Knights. I
think that a lot of the problems we experience today with Knights
acting in unsportsman like and un-chivalrous fashions would be
alleviated if there were another Prestige Track available to those
who aren't truly "knightly stuff". I have mixed emotions about
whether the "code of knightly conduct" should be enforceable, for
right and wrong are ever subject to interpretation. But there was a
time when those who knew themselves to prefer a less "moral" set of
expectations were able to earn prestigious titles and awards for
their skill alone. With this option available, it was certainly
easier to argue that Knights should be expected to meet certain
behavioral requirements.
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