(Bub @ Mar. 13 2008,21:13)
QUOTE
Hello, first post. I ve been scratchbuilding a knight world army. So far I ve got 6 paladins, 6 errants, 3 lancers and a baron. I ll try and post some pictures but they bascially consist of:
2 space marine backpacks stuck back to back for a torso. Space marine arms chopped up a lot for knight arms.
Legs, heads and feet made from variously shaped plasticard rods.
Personally I really like the idea of knight worlds being populated by massive dinosaur like creatures. While I agree knights herding dinosaurs isnt knightly, I d see the herds being looked after by sentinel drovers and rough riders. However the Knights could engage in hunting and fighting massive fearsome monsters that attack the herds. Even developing ritualised combat with particularly dangerous beasts.
I d quite like Knight worlds to be productive agri worlds but to really dangerous places, almost death worlds a bit like Skull Island in King Kong, full of giant monsters. They could be frontier worlds with a bit of a wild west feel. The people would be more hardy frontier ranchers fighting for survival against monsters that regularly devastate their lives. This makes the knights ability to fight the monsters more amazing to the locals, elevating them further above the populace and making them all the more revered.
The old Rogue Trader background had the knight pilots as being linked to their command throne in the actual machine. One way to emphasise the Knight houses and families could be to extended the machine spirit idea like in the Titan comic. The knight pilots that die imprint on the knights machine spirit, to the point that only pilots from the same family can be accepted by the machine spirit. This provides more of a division between the Knight household families and the general populace.
It the risk of repeating myself. I don't go for the idea that Knights have to come from some kind of backwards planets which are differentiated from other planets by being feaudal, agricultural, ?and politcially, socially and technologically backwards.
This idea comes about because we think of knights as coming from the past - so their worlds must be backwards.
Not so. The Entire imperium is like this (just ask any Tau!)
Knights and their funny attitudes are not local to a few strange backwards worlds, but are a galaxy wide phenonom and entirely in keeping with the medieval nature of the imperium.
As already mentioned. The imperium already has knights - space marines - though these are are rather of the religious, ?holy and monastic type.
As to hunting dinosaur type creatures. Some might. But as far as I can tell, Knights could come from almost any world and be involved in almost any kind of sport and industry.
Anyway my mine point is that knights aren't restricted to "worlds-that-time-forgot". They are entirely modern and current - from an imperial perspective.
Or to put it another way. Medievalism is modernity in the Imperium of Man!