Conflict

War, conquest and destruction; all of these are common on knight worlds, though rarely does it become so bloody as to engulf more than a handful of houses. Conflict can be categorised into three types of which only the most fringe cases cannot be labelled:

Personal conflict
The most common kind of internecine warfare is that which exists purely to absolve the egos of individual knights. Old grudges, fresh insults, even a poor choice of strategy may lead to challenges being thrown and, often, accepted.

Duels, managed by a complex and archaic set of rules, are always fought in full armour. With ion shields at maximum and weapons set to their lowest power, these quick, violent clashes are rarely catastrophic and usually fought to the first 'touch'; that is, to the first clash of melee weapon against carapace. Scars from these duels are often worn with pride as a mark of a knight with honour at the forefront of their mind.

This is not to say that there are not casualties. Whether through accident or malicious design, weapons can clip, armour can buckle and fuel lines can ignite. Rules protect a knights killer from counter-duels to save Houses from blood feuds, but that does not mean they do not occur. A death by duel is both a much mourned and somewhat celebrated event, for the knight has died with great honour.

Duels are rarely issued by non-knights, even those of noble birth and standing, but they do happen. Usually they are fought with sword or other blade and only rarely with firearms but they are also much more deadly than the duel of knights even so.

Territorial conquest
While duels are the most common form of conflict between Houses (or even within), territorial conquest is where knight worlds see the primary deployments of a House's full military strength. A House that decides that a town or a farm or some other holding would be better suited in their domain than their neighbours will march Knights, Armigers and infantry into that land as a challenge.

A House occupied in such a way has a handful of choices. They can accede to the claim, the territory exchanging hands with barely a murmur of complaint. They can petition their opponents liege lord for assistance in negotiating. Or they can march their own forces to war and retain - or lose - their territory by force.

Very rarely, a war of conquest can spill over into a more violent conflict, dragging banner houses and liege's into what was presumably imagine as a brief border spat. These are the most dangerous times as thousands of people and entire houses can be lost to the fighting.

Open Warfare
Sometimes it is decided, whether by a single House or a coalition, that they cannot stand the existence of a fellow any longer. In these rare and momentous circumstances, forces will be mobilised for the destruction of an entire family - or at least the structures of their power. Knights will be broken, castles torn down and land ruined by the war that is sure to follow and it can last months, years or even decades as the war rages back and forth.

This is the ungoverned conflict, the war without negotiation and can be the ruin of many ancient names. Open warfare will forever change the face of a Knight world as death is almost ensured if any Houses objectives are met. It is also the most likely form of conflict to bring about outside intervention.

Intervention
Knight worlds do not exist independently of the Imperium or the Mechanicum. Paying tithes to one or the other, relying on one or the other for resources, these worlds are tied ever so closely to their galactic lieges, lieges who cannot risk such strategically valuable resources as knights falling too heavily into disarray.

Should conflict between Houses go on too long, be too damaging or spill over into something that either the Imperium or the Mechanicum may consider strategically damaging to the world's utility as a resource, then intervention may well occur. This may be diplomatic (with envoys sent to each of the warring parties), economic (with threats of sanctions or the removal of mechanicum support) or even military (the deployment of guard or skitarii regiments to keep the peace). Intervention does not usually escalate to engagements between Imperium or Mechanicum and Knight forces, but it has occured and it does not usually end well for either side.

hey can petition the HT