'Malformed golden armor. Adorned with various dragon imagery and worn by the misshapen Tree Sentinels. After the great ancient dragon Gransax attacked, the sentinels had an epiphany. The only way to truly protect the Erdtree was to become dragons themselves.' The Malformed Tree Sentinels are the Order's most theologically embarrassing knights. The original Tree Sentinels, heavy gold cavalry, the living rampart of the Erdtree, the standard to which all defenders aspired, were the order's pure form. Then the ancient dragon Gransax descended on Leyndell and broke the rampart open. The survivors drew their conclusion : their faith in gold-and-grace had failed against scales-and-storm, and the only honest reform was to consume what had defeated them.

'Weapon said to have been whittled from the claw of a great, ancient dragon, wielded by grotesque Tree Sentinels who yet serve the Erdtree. The claw is enwreathed with lightning, and tears through the dragons' feeble descendants with ease.' Their weapons after the reform are made from dragons. The Dragon Greatclaw is whittled from the claw of an ancient dragon ; the Dragonclaw Shield from a second. They drink dragon blood at the Cathedral of Dragon Communion as part of their reformed liturgy. The cost is anatomical : their bodies become misshapen, bloated, malformed, growing extra limbs and clawed feet. They protect the Erdtree by becoming, slowly, the kind of being the Erdtree was originally raised to defy. The canonical irony is that the Order tolerates them : the Erdtree's sentinels-by-grace cannot defend the tree against modern enemies, so the dragon-sentinels are kept on, as malformed as the Misbegotten the Order also condemns.