| Black Knights of Gilneas | |
|---|---|
 | |
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Purpose: |
Defense of Gilneas and its people. |
|
Organizational Type: |
Brotherhood |
|
Current Head: |
Dame Reina Barracas (de facto) |
|
Allegiance: |
|
|
Status: |
Crippled. |
The Black Knights of Gilneas were a long standing order of knights that had been feared by Gilneas' enemies due to their strong tactics and unrelenting cavalry forces. Based in the Northern Headlands in Marrow Keep, an old castle nestled against the cliffs that over looked the shores, the Black knights were renowned during the Second War where their imposing black armored members rode on burly Gilnean mountain horses to run down the oncoming Horde threat.
The order was known to take all members of Gilneas indiscriminately, asking only that they put the order before all else and that they were willing to dedicate at least thirty years of their life to the order. Initiates that passed the trials of the order were then squired under an existing knight. When their training was complete, a special ceremony known as the Naming Ceremony would be conducted. This ceremony consisted of prospect knights choosing the metals they'd like their blade to be forged from and choosing the name of their weapon. They would then take up the weapon for as long as they remained in the order.
Retired or deceased members of the order who had gone beyond the call of duty would have an ornate portrait painted of them that would be hung in a long corridor known as the Bladed Hall. Within the bladed hall, a plaque that held their named weapon would hang below their portrait with their name, forever memorializing them within the Black Knights.
The order was almost completely obliterated when the Forsaken destroyed the Greymane Wall. The last known surviving member, Dame Reina Barracas, still carries the title of Black Knight, although she has opted not to rebuild the order for now.
Their coat of arms was merely an unmarked black flag.