dnd paladin character concept: a knight raised alongside a magic user, who loves his friend, considers them family — but the magic user through a twist of fate ascends to godhood, vanishing from normal human life. so the knight swears fealty to the fledgling god so he can have some connection to them even still & the god who loves him dearly in return blesses him with gifts and divine powers as a way to reach back toward him, back toward earth. this paladin’s vows are easy to keep, like second nature… and prayer is both automatic and personal
can you imagine being a new god’s firstborn devotee? their most beloved, their milk tooth? he knew his god when they were a lanky teenager and helped lie for them when they used to sneak out of their studies. the two of them would crack each other up late at night until they thought they might hurl. no other paladin knows his god as intimately and well — he saw them pimply and awkward and human and real, and worships them even still. that kind of devotion is impossible to manufacture
the paladin chooses a quest to follow, with the caveat “should my god allow it.” he goes to pray by the river — they used to seek the river together every time they made large decisions, and it was by a river he swore his sacred oaths — and murmurs “will you allow it, old friend?” to the water. a flower blooms at his bent knee. (his god trusts his judgement; they will never forbid him any path he requests to follow.)
It has been a long pile of log years but I want to say “Forgotten Realm’s… Finder… Joel” fit this via bard not knight.