Line #39 Literature/TheSaintOfSteel


1	Paladins of the Saint of Steel are blessed with a divine rage, giving them the strength to strike down the wicked while sparing the innocent. Until one day, when their god died. And they had no choice but to seek a more... mortal source of purpose.
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3	A series of "fluffy paladin romances" by [[Creator/UrsulaVernon T. Kingfisher]]:
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5	* ''Paladin's Grace'' (2020) (Stephen and Grace)
6	* ''Paladin's Strength'' (2021) (Istvhan and Clara)
7	* ''Paladin's Hope'' (2021) (Galen and Piper)
8	* ''Paladin's Faith'' (2023) (Shane and Marguerite)
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10	Part of TheVerse with the ''Clocktaur War'' duology and ''Swordheart'', loosely referred to as the World of the White Rat.
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12	----
13	!!Contains examples of:
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15	* AnnoyingArrows: Averted, for the most part. If a character gets shot and doesn't have some serious protection, it is an ''issue''. [[spoiler: Earstripe]] nearly dies of a crossbow bolt to the leg.
16	* BeautyEqualsGoodness: All paladins for the Dreaming God are unfairly good looking people. They claim it's so demons can't tempt them by offering to make them beautiful, but since most demons are gibbering terrors that prefer to possess animals, Galen suspects the Dreaming God is just a little vain.
17	* TheBerserker: When the Saint was living, his Paladins battle rage was tempered by his divine judgement. Without him, the only thing that prevents them from killing the innocent is the brute force of other paladins. [[spoiler: It turns out that at least ''some'' of this is just from how upsetting the loss was, not inherent to entering the state without him. Stephen is able to enter a milder form where he can remember that Grace is friendly and even follow her instructions. But he still tries to fight random objects when he bumps into them.]] In ''Paladin's Hope'', [[spoiler: It's more of a problem for Galen, who if he's awakened from a nightmare ''may'' simply throw a punch at whoever's touching him, but may also actively get up, draw his sword, and try to hurt people who aren't a visible threat, his own LoveInterest included.]]
18	* BlessedWithSuck: Piper can see a person's last moments by touching their corpse. Since he does autopsies for a living, this is a pretty useful talent to have--but since he does autopsies for a living, it's also incredibly traumatic. Plus, it isn't limited to humans, so he can't eat meat without getting nasty images like having a fishhook through his mouth.
19	* BigDamnHeroes: Just when it looks like it's about to come to a showdown between the Saint of Steel's paladins and the priests of the Hanged Mother in ''Paladin's Grace'', [[spoiler: the Prince shows up, perfectly alive, to inform them that Grace did ''not'' kill him (thanks to Marguerite, who broke into his quarters to give him a browbeating about putting Grace in danger). It was his supposed loyal servant.]]
20	* ButForMeItWasTuesday: This is the main reason Marguerite can't get the Red Sail off her back. While she's technically a loose end, she's not an important loose end, which actually makes her less safe than the other option. Because she's not a priority but a mere target of opportunity, she can never plan for the next attack on her life--''any'' operative doing ''any'' mission in her general vicinity might decide to "take care" of her for extra brownie points, or they might decide it's not their problem, and she has no way of knowing which until someone's trying to plant a knife in her back. And since the Red Sail doesn't care enough to plot her death specifically, they also don't care enough to make sure the many, ''many'' amnesties she's negotiated actually stick across all the different parts of the organization.
21	* BreakHisHeartToSaveHim: [[spoiler: Galen]] dumps [[spoiler: Piper]] because he fears his issues make him too dangerous to have as a lover. Basically everyone calls him an idiot for trying to do this, and it ends up causing a lot more problems than it solves.
22	* ContinuityNod: Ashes mentions the events of the Clocktaur War.
23	* CranialProcessingUnit: Zig-zagged with the Smooth Men. [[spoiler: On the one hand, they literally ''are'' their heads. On the other, they don't ''have'' to steal a body by replacing the head; they can stick themselves anywhere as long as the original owner is dead. Istvhan gets a nasty surprise when he realizes the "zombies" he's fighting are Smooth Men set into the bodies' ''chests''--a place most swordfighters instinctively avoid aiming for, because they don't want to get their blades stuck in a rib.]]
24	* CyanidePill: The young would-be assassin early on in ''Paladin's Grace'' takes poison when Grace, Stephen, and Marguerite find him. However, in a subversion, he had ''already'' been poisoned by his superiors, presumably because they weren't sure he was brave enough to actually go through with it on his own.
25	* DarkAndTroubledPast: The paladins in general, obviously, due to the death of the Saint, but in particular Judith, who seems familiar with torture implements and has never mentioned her past in the then ten years Galen had known her. Also Grace, who escaped an abusive marriage in Anuket City with nothing but the clothes on her back, her perfume notes, and a civette named Tab.
26	* FakingTheDead: [[spoiler: The Prince is not actually dead. He caught the poisoning attempt and went into hiding to trip the murderer up.]]
27	* FantasticRacism: Gnoles are treated as second-class citizens. This causes a lot of trouble in ''Paladin's Hope'', when Earstripe catches on to the pattern of the bodies in the river before anybody else, but Captain Mallory won't listen to him because he's a gnole, leading to a lot of mortal peril that could have been avoided. Worse, [[spoiler: after Earstrip leads the effort to catch the killer on his own, they trump up charges of vigilantism and throw him in jail, right after he's had major surgery.]]
28	* {{Foreshadowing}}:
29	** The serial killer in ''Paladin's Grace'' leaves a lot of severed heads, but no bodies, and the characters spend some time speculating about exactly where they went. [[spoiler: Because the killer is actually a special type of golem that's just a head piloting a headless human body, and it's getting bodies for all its friends.]]
30	** In ''Paladin's Strength'', Istvhan and Clara hear several tales of scuttling, spider-like things with faces on their backs surrounding the case of the decapitating serial killer. [[spoiler: This is an early sign the Smooth Men don't ''have'' to replace a body's head to control it.]]
31	** Piper idly wonders if he could figure out what happened to the Saint of Steel with his powers. [[spoiler: He ends up accidentally doing just that.]]
32	* FromNobodyToNightmare: The Hanged Motherhood were an obscure little priesthood with not much history (compared to the Temple of the Rat, which is over eight hundred years old) or power until the most recent Archon was appointed, at which point he made showered them with riches and made them the unofficial state religion. The 'nightmare' part is because the Motherhood is very passionate about burning what it sees as corrupting influences, which occasionally take the form of people. The other temples do their best to keep it in check.
33	* GetAholdOfYourselfMan: Beartongue gives Stephen a tonguelashing when he's beating himself up for losing his temper during Grace's trial. She points out that it is a completely normal human reaction to be angry when someone he loves is being harangued and slandered by [[spoiler: her abusive ex]], not a sign he's about to fly off the handle and murder everyone, and he needs to quit freaking out about ''every'' emotion he feels.
34	* GladiatorGames: This is why Clara's sisters were kidnapped. [[spoiler: A powerful pirate lord wants werebears to show up his opponent's zombies in the ring.]]
35	* GodIsDead:
36	** The Saint of Steel died three years ago (at the time when the series opens). This was traumatic for his paladins, and disturbing for everyone else--gods being ''mythically'' dead is normal (the Hanged Mother is literally hanged, for one), but gods being actually, no-fooling, straight-up ''gone'' is unheard of.
37	** Discussed by Lady Silver, a member of the dog-headed People. Most of their gods are year-gods, which is exactly what it sounds like--born at the beginning of the year, and dying at the end of it (People years seem to be much longer than human years). The People find it strange that humans keep their gods around on a permanent basis. [[spoiler: She's also surprised that the paladins of the Saint didn't immediately realize his death must have been foul play from the sheer violence of how He was torn out of their souls--the chosen of gods who die naturally are totally unharmed when the connection breaks, like Silver herself, whereas the Saint's paladins are chock-full of scar tissue.]]
38	* HappilyEverAfter: As befits a romance novel.
39	* HiveMind: The Warrenmind in ''Paladin's Strength'', a Hive Mind of rabbits. It's a benevolent example capable of peaceable communication and trade, which doesn't make it any less unsettling.
40	* JerkassHasAPoint: In ''Paladin's Grace'' [[spoiler:the Motherhood priests do their best to prosecute Grace as a poisoner and unrepentant murderer. The case against her was dubious, but painting her as a lone madwoman and organizing her swift execution was the surest way to avoid war with a powerful neighboring kingdom whose crown prince had (supposedly) just been poisoned to death. The Bishop of the White Rat begrudgingly admits they were trying to do something approximating the right thing given the circumstances (a single unjust execution is a small price compared to the horrors of war), but still thinks they were being assholes about it and should have been more concerned with finding the actual guilty party. To their credit, the priest who was leading the prosecution got demoted for overstepping his authority when things went off the rails during the trial.]]
41	* MeaningfulName: The order of St. Ursa, whose members are [[spoiler:[[OurWerebeastsAreDifferent were-bears]]]].
42	* MeatgrinderSurgery: PlayedForDrama; Piper ends up having to do emergency surgery on [[spoiler: Earstripe]] in a wine cellar, complicated by the fact that [[spoiler: he's exhausted from spending several days trapped in a deadly obstacle course, and he has no idea how gnole anatomy works.]] Luckily, he's able to stabilize his patient long enough to reach a more experienced surgeon, but it's very much touch and go.
43	* MomentKiller: A very charged moment between our lead couple in ''Paladin's Strength'' gets bluntly interrupted by their host bursting into the room yelling "[[ItMakesSenseInContext We have to save the newts!]]"
44	* NoOntologicalInertia: It takes an extremely strong wonder-worker to create anything that will survive past their death. [[spoiler: This is why the Smooth Men keep such a close eye on their creator--and ultimately what does them in when he chooses to make a HeroicSacrifice.]]
45	* ObliviouslyEvil: Clara and Istvhan are somewhat surprised that the people who work at the GladiatorGames don't seem to consider that the fighters might not like being there, and seem to think they're all friends. (They eventually learn that the economic conditions in that area are so bad that being forced to fight for the amusement of pirate lords is actually a step ''up'' because at least there's guaranteed food and lodging, plus if you actually manage to win, the rewards are really good.)
46	* OrgyOfEvidence: Marguerite is extremely skeptical of the poison and letter that point so obviously to Anuket City on the dead assassin, noting that no competent operative would have been so ham-handed. She says it's so over the top she wonders if it actually ''was'' Anuket City, and they deliberately set things up to make it look like they're being framed.
47	* OmnidisciplinaryLawyer: Averted in ''Paladin's Grace''. Zale is very clear that they are a ''property'' lawyer, not a criminal lawyer, and they only end up representing Grace [[spoiler: at her murder trial]] because it's an emergency. They do a pretty good job anyway, but their main tactics are to delay and try to get a mistrial declared.
48	* RefugeInAudacity: Grace's friend Marguerite cheerfully admits to everyone that she's a spy for Anuket City. This works amazingly well at keeping her out of trouble. [[spoiler: Turns out that she ''is'' a spy, but she doesn't work for Anuket City and her name's not Marguerite.]]
49	* SaintlyChurch: The White Rat are all-around good guys, providing everything from free legal representation to disaster relief.
50	* [[SoleSurvivor Sole Survivors]]: Only seven of the Saint of Steel's paladins survived His death: Stephen, Istvhan, Galen, Shane, Marcus, Judith, and Wren. It's never mentioned outright how many paladins the Saint had in the first place, but twelve of them were spared to meet with the locals near the town of Hallowbind, so it's implied that there were quite a few.
51	* SuperPersistentPredator: Averted. If a werebear's animal side takes over, they run away from fights if at all possible -- the bear side only wants to take the risk if it's about something like immediate survival or cubs, and especially does not want to tangle with things it feels are unnatural. [[spoiler:Like the Smooth Men. Luckily for Istvhan, when this happens to Clara he doesn't actually need her help, so it's merely inconvenient. It's much more dangerous when this happens in the gladiatorial arena while they're ''surrounded'' by Smooth Men.]]
52	* ThirdWheel: Piper and Galen end up having a very important conversation about their relationship while Stephen is right next to them. He takes to loudly commenting on some nearby friezes to remind them he's there.
53	* TheVerse: With The Clocktaur War and Swordheart.
54	* WhamEpisode: "Paladin's Faith" reveals that [[spoiler: the Saint of Steel didn't just die - they were murdered]]; Judith, the most mysterious of the Paladins, is revealed to have a secret agenda of her own; and almost incidentally, there is a new technology which will massively destabilise the entire world's economy.
55	* WhamLine:
56	** The last line of ''Paladin's Hope''. [[spoiler: Piper touches the altar of the Saint of Steel. With his bare hands. "And suddenly Piper knew what it felt like when a god died."]]

Context Literature / TheSaintOfSteel