Smoke Knights

According to Violetta and Tarvek the Smoke Knights are an order loyal to House Valois or House Sturmvoraus and at least in part drawn from a family related to Tarvek’s, who serve as the hereditary personal security force for his family. They also do foreign information gathering and may have additional duties typical of intelligence agencies and secret service organizations.

Ordnance & Equipment

Violetta possesses a grapnel gun, several throwing knives, and a larger dagger. Tarvek asking if Violetta has been "licking her knives" when he thinks she is talking wildly implies the throwing knives are drugged or poisoned.

They are known to carry smoke grenades.

Violetta wear a headband-mounted red electric light she calls a Hunting Light.

Smoke Knights also carry some types of chemicals. So far, all that has been mentioned is the "Moveit" super-stimulant potion, which comes numbered by potency. So far this has figured into the story twice: First when Violetta recounted dosing ✣ Tarvek with Moveit #6 during her liberation of him from a guarded hospital, and later when Pinky downed a Movit [sic] #11 potion ✣ that she had somehow managed to swipe from Violetta. The latter formulation, Violetta claims, is strong enough to kill most people.

Darts, which can be tipped with poisons or drugs, are carried. A small blowpipe is carried to launch them.

"Stealth cloak"s are sometimes used for concealment, but may not be unique to the Smoke Knights.

Violetta also carries a kit for testing for poison and her dialogue ✣ with Tarvek suggests that he would normally be expected to have one too. She uses this kit to determine that Agatha has been poisoned with "Auntie Mehitabel's Natural Causes".

Tarvek has revealed the existence of a "large-scale Smoke Knight concealment field" ✣ , which renders the subject (almost) invisible. This implies that smaller-scale versions of this technology exist and are in use by Smoke Knights.

Known Skills/Training

• Unarmed combat.
• Use of bladed weapons, including throwing knives
• Use of blowpipes.
• Advanced First Aid/Field Medicine
• Poisons & Antidotes
• Undercover operations.
• Climbing
• Misdirection & Sleight-Of-Hand
• Escape and Evasion
• Disguise
• Intrusion & Breaking & Entering Training
• There is a collection of Smoke Knight doctrine known as the Yellow Codex.

Possible Members

At first, Violetta is the only explicitly named full member, and a rather incompetent one by her own admission. In all likelihood, a competent member would not have revealed her position to the Heterodyne.

Violetta also revealed that another member was under cover as employee of the hospital, but got herself killed trying to assassinate the Baron. Possibly this was the nurse seen attempting to administer “a vitamin” to Baron Wulfenbach, and the first victim of Gil’s lightning staff, who Dr. Sun Jen-djieh stated was not “one of theirs." However, as both Gil and Dr. Sun Jen-djieh consider that attack unprofessional, the smoke knight was more likely a later attack.

Veilchen is another possible member, based on the similarity of his dress, his working directly with the Sturmvoraus children, that he possessed an identical grapnel gun, and even his name, which means violet in German. It remains somewhat uncertain because it has not yet been explicitly stated. Naturally, being one of their best, he doesn’t go around revealing to foreign military operatives state secrets such as the name of his organization. (Although, if they are in need of funds, they now know of a clientele who might be interested in at least one item of their equipment.)

Grandmother officially commands at least some of the Smoke Knights, but does not appear to be one herself. She sends an undercover team of them to forcibly extract Tarvek from the hands of the Immortal Library. Mr. Obsidian is among the members of this contingent, but again it is never made clear if he is an official Knight. The mission is technically a success, but the entire team except for Obsidian end up dying in the process. When Tarvek subsequently gets shipped off to England by Seffie, Grandmother dispatches another batch of Knights to retrieve him, and again they suffer heavy losses- only two manage to survive and (intentionally) slip away with Tweedle-minion Jaron instead of Tarvek.

Moloch von Zinzer is not a member, but his skills in escaping made Violetta incorrectly assume he had trained as a member of the organization.

On the other hand, Tarvek, Zola, Tweedle, and presumably Seffie, while not Smoke Knights per se, have received the training.

There are many Knights stationed in the Refuge of Storms, but many of those meet their death in the confusion following Tweedle’s “return”. In particular, we have one referred to as The Blonde Question.

In Act 2 we meet Varpa, a Knight in Seffie's service, and Malek, whom Tweedle sent to follow Agatha (and whom Varpa was sent to distract).

There is Madwa Korel, a renegade in the service of The Other. She had a Bartleby with her who by the time we meet him is already severely living impaired.

Sparafucile is another Knight serving Seffie.

See Also

• Knights of Jove — another knightly order serving Tarvek’s family
• Knights of the Hunt — soldiers serving Tweedle who can shift between human and lupine forms, resembling Sparkhounds
• Seneschal — another hereditary office
• Jenka — a Jägermonster who dresses and operates somewhat like a Smoke Knight