Daggerfall:Knightly Orders

Knightly Orders are joinable factions that exist in various regions of the Iliac Bay. They are the legions of knights who do the bidding of the regional ruler. You may only join one knightly order as of patch v1.04.191. 

The reward for performing quests for an order is increased reputation with the region's commoners and nobles rather than any monetary payment. In addition, you can improve your reputation with your own order if you do quests for other knightly orders. Quests for your own order might also set off a quest-chain to retrieve an artifact of great power. 

With each promotion within an order, the Knights will give a new, random piece of armor, starting at iron and getting better with each increase in rank. Knightly orders do not offer training.
 

Joinable Knightly Orders
The Host of the Horn of Lainlyn
The Knights of the Dragon of Daggerfall
The Knights of the Flame of Anticlere
The Knights of the Hawk of Santaki
The Knights of the Owl of Glenpoint
The Knights of the Rose of Wayrest*
The Knights of the Wheel of Abibon-Gora
The Order of the Candle of Sentinel
The Order of the Raven of Dwynnen
The Order of the Scarab of Totambu

  The Daggerfall Chronicles (Pg. 99) gives the Knights of the Rose the alternate name of Knights of the White Rose. 

Knightly Orders Overview
Political Affiliations
All knightly orders of the Iliac Bay are bound by honor to an imaginary faction called "Generic Knightly Order" (probably for game-internal issues). This order is structured as seen below.



Ranks
Your rank within a knightly order is determined by a combination of your reputation with that particular order and your two highest skills associated with Knightly Orders:

   "Fake" Iron is an armor type which can look like leather or chain and has the same stats, but its material flag is set to iron. This means characters with the "Forbidden armor type: Plate" restriction will be unable to wear it. This special type of armor cannot be found in the game outside of Knightly Orders.

† The fourth promotion, Keeper, strangely awards an armor piece made of a random material. The selection pool appears to conform to the rules for random, leveled loot. It is possible to obtain Silver, Orcish, and Daedric armor pieces at this rank, and this rank only, as long as your character level is high enough to see these materials appear. As you might expect, the most likely rewards at this level are Iron and Steel. 

Guild Skills
The following skills are used to determine your rank in a knightly order:
Archery
Critical Strike
Dragonish
Etiquette
Giantish
Long Blade
Medical

Benefits
Advancing in rank within a knightly order affords the following advantages:

 

Members
Questers
 
 
 

Seneschal
 
 
 

Smiths
 
 
 

Quests
The following quests are offered by the Questers of knightly orders:


  Quest is only available with CompUSA Special Edition.

Note: quests are offered based on rank or character level, whichever is higher.

Free House
When you are promoted to the rank of Paladin within a Knightly Order, the Seneschal will offer you a house within the current city. Talk to the Seneschal, but save the game before clicking "Receive House". When the location of your new home is marked on your map, step out of the room and into the short passage. (Do not enter the passage leading back towards the Armorer.) Turn left and go through the closed door. It will lead you into a tiny courtyard where you can check your town map and see the location of your new house. If you want to go to your house, use a Levitate spell and fly to it, or climb up the walls. If you don't like the house, reload the saved game and try again.

Sometimes, the house will not be marked on your map at all. In a large city, this makes locating it quite difficult. If this becomes an issue, exiting the game, restarting, then loading a save from before speaking to the Seneschal may make the location appear on the map.

Note: Houses obtained this way can be sold at banks.

Notes
Most quests for Knightly Order factions do not give a reward. Only the high rank quests Invasion from Oblivion, The Artifact, The Lost Artifact, and, indirectly, The Dragonslayer give any reward beyond loot and experience. This is compensated for with the much higher than typical rewards for faction membership and ranking up, and the massive reward given by the few quests that do give a reward (either an artifact, or a soul capable of producing a magic item of equal power).
Since only high level quests give rewards anyways and all other quests for Knightly Orders require navigating one of Daggerfalls massive dungeons, consider doing the non-member quest The Infested House repeatedly before joining to quickly and easily gain reputation with your desired order.