I got peer pressured into remaking this thread for the new forum since we lost the last thread for us (read: me spamming quotes nobody asked for from the novels) to dump lore snippets with the transition to the new forum.
p.s. the thread title required 15 characters
Here's a description of the ceremony to ascend to Paladinhood from Arthas: Rise of the Lich King.
Gavinrad stepped forth, holding an enormous, heavy- looking hammer, its silver head etched with runes and its sturdy haft wrapped in blue leather. He placed the hammer in front of Arthas, then stepped back to stand with his brethren. It was Uther the Lightbringer himself, Arthas’s mentor in the order, who next came forward. In his hands he carried a pair of ceremonial shoulder plates. Uther was the most controlled man Arthas had ever known, and yet his eyes were bright with unshed tears as he placed the armor on Arthas’s broad shoulders. He spoke in a voice that was both powerful and trembling with emotion.
“By the strength of the Light, may your enemies be undone.” His hand lingered a moment on Arthas’s shoulder, then he, too, retreated. Archbishop Faol smiled at the prince kindly. Arthas met the gaze evenly, no longer worried. He remembered everything now.
“Arise and be recognized,” Faol bade him. Arthas did so.
“Do you, Arthas Menethil, vow to uphold the honor and codes of the Order of the Silver Hand?”
Arthas blinked, momentarily surprised at the lack of his title. Of course, he reasoned, I’m being inducted as a man, not a prince. “I do.”
“Do you vow to walk in the grace of the Light and spread its wisdom to your fellow man?”“I do.”
“Do you vow to vanquish evil wherever it be found, and protect the innocent with your very life?”
“I d—by my blood and honor, I do.” That was close, he’d almost messed up. Faol gave him a quick wink of reassurance, then turned to address both the clerics and the paladins. “Brothers and sisters—you who have gathered here to bear witness—raise your hands and let the Light illuminate this man.”
The clerics and paladins all lifted right hands, which were now suffused by a soft, golden glow.
They pointed at Arthas, directing the radiance toward him. Arthas’s eyes were wide with wonder, and he waited for the glorious glow to envelop him.
Nothing happened.
The moment stretched on.
Sweat broke out on Arthas’s brow. What was going wrong? Why wasn’t the Light wrapping itself around him in blessing and benediction?
And then the sunlight streaming in through windows in the ceiling slowly began to move toward the prince standing alone in shining armor, and Arthas exhaled in relief. This had to be what Uther had spoken of. The feeling of unworthiness that Uther assured him all paladins felt simply seemed to drag out the moment. The words Uther had spoken came back to him: No one feels he deserves it…its grace, pure and simple…but the Light loves us anyway.
Now it shone down on him, in him, through him, and he was forced to shut his eyes against the almost blinding radiance. It warmed at first, then seared, and he winced slightly. He felt—scoured. Emptied, scrubbed clean, then filled again, and he felt the Light swell inside him and then fade away to a tolerable level.
He blinked and reached for the hammer, the symbol of the order. As his hand closed about the haft, he looked up at Archbishop Faol, whose benign smile widened.
“Arise, Arthas Menethil, paladin defender of Lordaeron. Welcome to the Order of the Silver Hand.”
Arthas couldn’t help it. He grinned as he grasped the enormous hammer, so large that for a brief moment he thought he wouldn’t be able to lift it, and swung it upward with a whoop. The Light, he realized, made the hammer seem to weigh less in his hands.
The important bits from the snippet are that a paladin is bestowed the symbolic hammer of the Silver Hand as well as ceremonial shoulderplates by their senior paladins during the ceremony.
After this, the prospective paladin is blessed by the clergy and other members of the Order and if the Light embraces them by becoming one with them, the person is thereon considered a Paladin and knighted as the paladin of the realm they hail from.
The Light makes the hammer he is bestowed lighter and almost weightless in their hands – a detail that is later explored in the novel when Arthas begins to doubt his conviction and the Light wanes, making the hammer grow heavy in his hand.
For the sake of keeping the thread clean, let us focus on actual lore sources going forward instead of derailing with inane posts about personal grievances with the story and other sub-tier memes. For a thread dedicated to compiling lore sources as a resource for the community, neither of those help anyone.