Lion (Knight of Leon)

When most people speak of knights they mean, of course, Lions, the fearsome knights of Leon.

Name
The name Lion is considered to be a degredation of the name Leonesa, the name given by Briskos to his early knights.

Becoming a Lion
In Leon their are two routes into knighthood, Noble Knights and Vilage Knights.

Noble Knights
As soon as a son of a knight is considered of age by their farther (normally sometime in the late teens) they are made a Lion Erander, the lowest rung of knight hood where they will remain until they have conducted some feat which a greater noble who will then make them a Lion du Royaume (a land owning lion) or a Lion de la Famille (a knight who has invested but not granted land and must serve in the household of his investor until he is made a Lion du Royaume or another higher ranking knight). Such a summons may be refused (and in fact should be), unless it comes from the king of Leon himself, if the knight believes that he has not yet had enough experience.

During their time as a Lion Erander the knight is expected to travel widely seeking experience, known as an Erantery Tour which the knight should do alone, covering his shield to show that he does not go forth to fight for glory but experience and he should travel alone refusing all summons until they think themselves worthy. However this is often not the case. Many Lion Eranders fight for their future glory and travel with other Lions to ensure their safety on Leon's dangerous roads and fathers could not see their son come to harm so they summon them back within weeks of them setting off on their Erantery Tour.

A Lion Erander may also serve in an army, normally their farther's, to gain experience of combat hoping to conduct a feat of arms on the battle field that makes their commander feel that it is time to invest the Lion Erander.

An uncommon, but not unheard of, way of becoming invested is by completing a task set by a noble. Typical of such quests is one where the noble belives the knight to be worthy of investment as a Lion du Royaume but lacks any land to grant to him. This problem is solved by setting the knight on a quest to reclaim a lost dominion and granting it to him on his success.

The fourth and final way of becoming a knight is when in times of great need the King of Leon declares an erantery war and upon the wars completion grants all the Lions Erander the chance to become a Lion de la Famille.

Village Knights
If a village should, for whatever reason, find it's self without a knight a patron, by tradition the fairest damsel in the village who will become the knights wife, can declare a quest which any volunteer may chose to attempt to complete (go kill a monster being typical of such a quest).

Any volenteer becomes a Lion Erander and will go and attempt to complete the quest with the first to complete the quest becoming the Lion du Royaume of the village. Such a Lion will be ill equiped and ill prepared and so the damsel must think hard about a quest that is both galant and achiverble.

Should a knight fail the chalenge but still be alive they can apply to a noble for the noble to make them a Lion Erander as if the knight were the nobles son.

Should all the knights of the village fail in their task then any other Lion Eranders can atempt the task.

Noble Lion
When a noble Lion Erander accepts a summons (which is always to a church on a Sunday afternoon) he will greet the noble their (the priest having got out of the way) bow down before him and swear to vow of knight hood and the vow of chivalry. He will then vow to serve the lord until he is granted service to another noble, takes a questing vow or the lord or the knight die.

He then becomes a Lion de la Famille of the noble.

Lion de la Famille
A Lion de la Famille serves under another knights banner