Chivalry was born where the road runs thin,
Where the weight of an oath cuts deeper than skin.
Not in feasting halls nor crowns held high,
But where men must choose what lives, what must die.

Duty came first, with a voice like stone,
Teaching the knight he stands not alone.
Honor followed, severe and spare,
Asking what truth a soul can bear.
And Pride learned last, through loss and flame,
That strength must answer to more than name.

Thus rose the Chapters, stern and apart,
Each guarding a shard of the same torn heart.


In halls where moonlight is counted and weighed,
Where dreams are guarded, not bartered nor paid,
Stand watchful sentinels sworn threefold,
To shadow and sleep and truths untold.

They keep a Well no hand has drained,
A power vast, unmeasured, unnamed.
Progress, to them, is a careful stride,
Not a reckless leap, nor a swelling tide.
They speak of tomorrows yet unmet,
But bleed to ensure they are not lost to regret.

They do not conquer, nor hunger for rule.
They stand so power remains a tool,
Not a wound driven deep in mortal hands,
Not a fire unbound across fragile lands.


Beyond the walls where stone gives way,
Where roots remember what men betray,
Walk knights whose vows were sworn to loam,
To claw and branch and antlered throne.

Their Queen wears no circlet bright,
But bark and storm and endless night.
They trace their oaths through age on age,
Older than crown, than book, than page.
To them the city is borrowed ground,
A scar where balance waits to be found.

Their Honor is old as the seed and the bone,
Their Duty to return what was taken alone.
They do not hate the works of man,
They simply mean to undo the plan.


Then there are those who march to the end,
Not seeking mercy, nor asking to mend.
They have seen what heroes become in time,
How legend decays into hollow rhyme.

They speak of endings without regret,
For all things fall, and must be met.
Their blades are verdict, their silence law,
They do not flinch from what they saw.

They remember a knight of glimmering flame,
Who chose a city and paid in pain.
From that pyre they learned their creed,
That ruin, faced, is honesty.


Against them rise the keepers of Light,
Who believe the world can yet be set right.
They serve through vigil, prayer, and deed,
Holding Creation as sacred trust, indeed.

To them, each act of service bends
The long dark road toward blessed ends.
They heal, they guard, they stand between
The fragile now and what might have been.
Their Honor shines, their Duty sings,
Of Paradise earned through humble things.

They clash with those who praise the fall,
For they believe the world worth all.


Elsewhere, Pride is forged into iron law,
Through faith that does not bend nor flaw.
There are knights who kneel but once in life,
And rise remade through service and strife.

Strength is proven, not freely given,
By will made sharp and spirit driven.
Their Honor is absolute, cold and clean,
Their Duty bound to a single will unseen.
They do not ask if a command is kind,
Only if faith and order align.

They stand opposed to mercy unbound,
And chaos that will not hold its ground.


Between all paths walk those who teach,
That memory is a sacred reach.
They bind the past with careful thread,
So custom lives when blood is shed.

They say a knight who forgets his root
Will fail when tested, oath made mute.
History, spoken, must still endure,
For Chivalry without it is unsure.

They do not rule, nor reclaim lost years,
They ensure the truth outlasts our fears.


And at the world's frayed edge, where the sea
Breathes salt into stone and memory,
Stand guardians sworn not to ideals grand,
But to a people and a battered land.

They serve a line time would not break,
Two thousand years of vow and wake.
They labor not for promised skies,
But for the living before their eyes.

Each dawn they leave the battered gate,
Knowing the beasts that stalk their fate.
Fell things born of depths profane,
Who know no Honor, no restraint, no chain.
Yet still they swear, when blades are drawn,
To keep their virtues, not let them be gone.

At dusk they rest, helms cast aside,
And breathe the salt on the Aster tide.
They know their home was judged to fall,
Condemned by gods for another's call.
Yet stone still stands where blood was spilled,
By sweat and will, by hands unstilled.

Their Pride is quiet, their Duty plain.
To endure is triumph enough to claim.


For Chivalry is never done,
Duty does not end with one.
Honor remains when banners fray,
And Pride survives the judgment day.

So stand they all, opposed, allied,
By oath, by creed, by wound and pride.
Different answers, the same demand,
To stand unbowed when the world says stand.

Penned by my hand on the 8th of Ero, in the year 993 AF.