@CollectorOfMyst@Monochromatic RainbowRainbow is right but the reason I don't limit the Paladin rank is because that is exactly what it is used for. The top of the line specialists. If you take a peak at the active character section you can see that Crow has a rank of Paladin of Shadow (It needs to be changed to Paladin of Words but thats my bad) Since the Paladin rank is essentially equivalent to a Knight Captain they are usually associated with one of the Master/Mistress positions Ie: Paladin of Word, Sight, Shadow, etc. Knight Captains don't have the associated
of but Knight Commanders do since there is no equivalent special operative rank. The rank structure actually looks like this:
Normal Ranks: Knight, Knight Captain, Knight Commander, Master/Mistress
Operator Ranks: Knight, Paladin, Master/Mistress
Unique/Misc Ranks: Artisan, Knight Exemplar, Paladin Exemplar
You will notice there is no such thing as a Knight Commander in the operator ranks. They are called Hands and it is not an official rank, its a designation that a Master or Mistress gives out. So you end up with things like: Paladin (Name here), Hand of Sight.
While the regular equivalent is something like this: Knight Commander (Name here). Then you just know them as Knight Commander of Blades, etc..
though you can mix and match the ranks in teams, so if you have a group it might looks something like this: Three Knights, a Knight Exemplar, a Paladin and a Knight Captain. In this case the Ranking individual is the Knight Captain since the rank is specifically for commanding teams but if the group looked like this:
Three Knights, a Knight Exemplar, an Artisan and a Paladin. The ranking individual is the Paladin.
And of course you should always keep in mind that the ranks: Knight Exemplar and Artisan are not time based but skill based and vary wildly in their capabilities. A Knight Exemplar is a sort of honorific for Knights that have never bothered to politic at all and as a result the Master of Stars bestows the rank to single them out as particularly good. so don't let the rank of Knight Exemplar fool you. Its purposefully not in the normal rank structure. It denotes the rising stars and the grizzled vets who don't play any political games.
I don't think we've seen a Hacker since Ludelle and she never really got on the hacking boat since after we broke her out of prison she never went back to the front lines and then everything went pear shaped so yeah I'm down with seeing someone try for a hacker style character.
And also one day I will get a complete list of the Master and Mistress titles along with what they actually do. I've been dragging my feet about that