Battle Pilgrims

The Battle Pilgrims are the ragged, fervent commoners who trail after a Grail Knight wherever he rides, having witnessed, or believed they witnessed, a miracle of the Lady in his deeds. Abandoning field and forge, they gather into shabby, adoring throngs, arming themselves with whatever comes to hand and treating their chosen knight as a living saint whose every scrap of cloth and cast-off relic is holy. In battle their faith becomes a weapon. Pilgrims fight with a wild, self-forgetting zeal, throwing themselves bodily between danger and the object of their devotion, certain that to die guarding a servant of the Lady is the surest road to her grace. They are poorly armed and worse trained, but their numbers and their fervour make them a genuine threat, and the holiest relics they carry are said to turn aside blows and hearten the faithful. To a Bretonnian lord they are an embarrassment and a blessing both: proof of his sanctity, and a mob he can never quite be rid of.