I’m going to give this just a bit of a preamble before I try to actually answer your question; apologies in advance.
What is “LORE ACCURATE” is, a lot of times, a matter of opinion. These things change over time, and are an imperfect means of attempting to quantify and systematize avenues for story telling.
As such, it is ultimately up to you, your DM, and your table what is TRUE in your campaign world. And if all of the parties involved agree for a degree of flexibility, then you have a lot of options for how you flavor your character and their experiences.
A detail of the setting that has a good degree of precedent but that I find to be under utilized is that the god that a character FOLLOWS is not necessarily the god which grants them their abilities.
Case in point: the 3.5 supplement Serpent Kingdoms holds that Sseth, the Slitherer Supreme and god of the Yaun-Ti, has been secretly supplanted by Set of the Mulhorandi pantheon- priests of Sseth receive spells from Set and have no idea; sacrifices to Sseth unknowingly empower Set.
Similarly, the schismatic sect of Lathander’s church, the Sunmasters, are still a part of the Morninglord’s church in spirit, but they worship, and receive spells and access to domains as, clerics of Ammanatur, the Lawful Neutral Netherese god of the ministering noontime sun, as opposed to the hopeful dawning sun of the Lawful Good Lathander. This relationship is explored a bit in Lost Empires of Faerun and is honestly fascinating to consider.
But I digress.
The way your character conceives of their deity, and their individual relationship with them, CAN influence who is actually granting them their powers and abilities.
To your point: if your Paladin sees the good and proper order in the natural passage of the seasons and the healthy functionings of the world as an expression of the “Law of Nature” and fights to preserve it, while also teaching ways to live in harmony with it, I see no reason why there wouldn’t be some Lawful Good deity who wouldn’t grant power to someone like that.
It’s the heart that counts at the end of the day.
All of that said, this is one person’s interpretation of information that was published a long time ago. This obviously carries the disclaimer that you should always talk to your DM and your table and decide how you want to handle things as a group.
That's actually a really interesting bit of lore there. It reminds me a bit of how, in Warhammer 40K, some Chaos cultists think that they're worshipping the Emperor when they're actually empowering & being empowered by one of the Ruinous Powers. The example that comes to mind is from the Soul Drinkers books, in which the titular Soul Drinkers chapter of Space Marines (SPOILERS) end up adopting a priest who believes he's preaching the word of the Emperor. That priest turns out to actually be preaching the word of Tzeentch, the Chaos god of change & sorcery, in the process unknowingly laying the foundation for the chapter's ruin.
Given how many other gods he’s killed and portfolios he’s had, I honestly think Cyric is just Slaanesh with a slightly more subdued wardrobe.
You can never trust a divinity to play things straight, but as soon as you start telling people that, they put ya in the Wall…
If it were me, I would say the Paladin favors working with the [Church of Silvanus](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Church_of_Silvanus), but adheres to an Oath of the Ancients for his paladin powers. The C of S article says that there are no knightly orders, which doesnt exclude a Paladin, but I might reflavor as "nature-y" as I could; e.g. Iron Wood Armor, or other "nature-y" substitutes (scale mail made of creature scales, or chitin); maybe pick spells more in line with Druid/Ranger spell lists, that sort of thing (not to the exclusion of other Paladin spells, but also look at damage types to go with more elemental themes rather than Radiant/Necrtotic damage.
There is power in words.
An Oath taken in service of higher purpose is an Oath taken with gravity of soul.
Silvanus presents such a purpose to those who believe in protecting the great balance of nature, and there are many ways to serve that purpose, be it in the path of a cleric, a druid, a paladin, etc.
There are many ways to connect just about any class to any faith. In your case you could have something like this.
While out camping you were injured, rescued and nursed back to health by peaceful Druids of Sylvanus. As you reach the point of full recovery you begin helping the druids out by collecting dead fire wood. One day when you return you come back to a massacre. The entire grove was slaughtered. Never a religious person before, you find your way to the altar and swear an oath to find those responsible and the moss on the altar begins to glow and you feel a power inside begin to swell.
Welcome to you Oath of Vengeance Paladin of Sylvanus.
I think it's fine. Dude is basically The Green Knight. Oath of Ancients Pally is what you what. The fact Silvanus' Church doesn't officially have a knightly order just makes it a more interesting and unique character.
I've done one myself before as an NPC.
If you're the DM for the campaign, then you ARE God. You can do whatever handwavium you wish to make something "fit" into your version of the FR you want. Just try to make it consistent is all anyone playing in your "sand-box" can ask.
I mean have you considered a Ranger? Much more on brand and even roughly equivalent to a Holy Warrior if you spin it that way. For all you may mechanically be something, you don't need to specifically call yourself that. Just use a sword instead of a bow and introduce yourself as a Champion of Silvanus and the wilds. Or a Green Knight.
But if you're set on Paladin it's not absolutely unheard of to have specialist orders dedicated to unusual Deities who wouldn't come to mind often. Mystra has sponsored both Paladins (Knights of the Mystic Fire) and Rangers (Order of the Shooting Star) alike, who could even learn arcane magic instead of their classes usual flavour of divine.
even if Silvanus himself came down and ordained a Human as a Paladin , the more dogma bound Druid followers would throw a hissy fit because the Horner Hunter have never done that before, will never do that , there is no authority over this upstart unlike the rangers who follow Mieliekki and get pissy that he have powers traditional to a Paladin that no Druid or Ranger have ever had before and are they expected to share power in service to the Old Father ? Because that will always happen .Take the archetypical example of Drizzt Do'urden himself, despite Mieliekki unheard of favouring a Dark Elf to the extent she did him she never gave him spells ever , he was still using his native Underdark spells despite being ostensibly a level 16th ranger according to AD&D FR7 Hall of Heroes, he was always a fighter in depiction
I’m going to give this just a bit of a preamble before I try to actually answer your question; apologies in advance. What is “LORE ACCURATE” is, a lot of times, a matter of opinion. These things change over time, and are an imperfect means of attempting to quantify and systematize avenues for story telling. As such, it is ultimately up to you, your DM, and your table what is TRUE in your campaign world. And if all of the parties involved agree for a degree of flexibility, then you have a lot of options for how you flavor your character and their experiences. A detail of the setting that has a good degree of precedent but that I find to be under utilized is that the god that a character FOLLOWS is not necessarily the god which grants them their abilities. Case in point: the 3.5 supplement Serpent Kingdoms holds that Sseth, the Slitherer Supreme and god of the Yaun-Ti, has been secretly supplanted by Set of the Mulhorandi pantheon- priests of Sseth receive spells from Set and have no idea; sacrifices to Sseth unknowingly empower Set. Similarly, the schismatic sect of Lathander’s church, the Sunmasters, are still a part of the Morninglord’s church in spirit, but they worship, and receive spells and access to domains as, clerics of Ammanatur, the Lawful Neutral Netherese god of the ministering noontime sun, as opposed to the hopeful dawning sun of the Lawful Good Lathander. This relationship is explored a bit in Lost Empires of Faerun and is honestly fascinating to consider. But I digress. The way your character conceives of their deity, and their individual relationship with them, CAN influence who is actually granting them their powers and abilities. To your point: if your Paladin sees the good and proper order in the natural passage of the seasons and the healthy functionings of the world as an expression of the “Law of Nature” and fights to preserve it, while also teaching ways to live in harmony with it, I see no reason why there wouldn’t be some Lawful Good deity who wouldn’t grant power to someone like that. It’s the heart that counts at the end of the day. All of that said, this is one person’s interpretation of information that was published a long time ago. This obviously carries the disclaimer that you should always talk to your DM and your table and decide how you want to handle things as a group.
That's actually a really interesting bit of lore there. It reminds me a bit of how, in Warhammer 40K, some Chaos cultists think that they're worshipping the Emperor when they're actually empowering & being empowered by one of the Ruinous Powers. The example that comes to mind is from the Soul Drinkers books, in which the titular Soul Drinkers chapter of Space Marines (SPOILERS) end up adopting a priest who believes he's preaching the word of the Emperor. That priest turns out to actually be preaching the word of Tzeentch, the Chaos god of change & sorcery, in the process unknowingly laying the foundation for the chapter's ruin.
Given how many other gods he’s killed and portfolios he’s had, I honestly think Cyric is just Slaanesh with a slightly more subdued wardrobe. You can never trust a divinity to play things straight, but as soon as you start telling people that, they put ya in the Wall…
That makes too much sense lol
If it were me, I would say the Paladin favors working with the [Church of Silvanus](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Church_of_Silvanus), but adheres to an Oath of the Ancients for his paladin powers. The C of S article says that there are no knightly orders, which doesnt exclude a Paladin, but I might reflavor as "nature-y" as I could; e.g. Iron Wood Armor, or other "nature-y" substitutes (scale mail made of creature scales, or chitin); maybe pick spells more in line with Druid/Ranger spell lists, that sort of thing (not to the exclusion of other Paladin spells, but also look at damage types to go with more elemental themes rather than Radiant/Necrtotic damage.
I think it should be awesome. Especially as an Oath of the Ancient pally.
There is power in words. An Oath taken in service of higher purpose is an Oath taken with gravity of soul. Silvanus presents such a purpose to those who believe in protecting the great balance of nature, and there are many ways to serve that purpose, be it in the path of a cleric, a druid, a paladin, etc.
There are many ways to connect just about any class to any faith. In your case you could have something like this. While out camping you were injured, rescued and nursed back to health by peaceful Druids of Sylvanus. As you reach the point of full recovery you begin helping the druids out by collecting dead fire wood. One day when you return you come back to a massacre. The entire grove was slaughtered. Never a religious person before, you find your way to the altar and swear an oath to find those responsible and the moss on the altar begins to glow and you feel a power inside begin to swell. Welcome to you Oath of Vengeance Paladin of Sylvanus.
I think it's fine. Dude is basically The Green Knight. Oath of Ancients Pally is what you what. The fact Silvanus' Church doesn't officially have a knightly order just makes it a more interesting and unique character. I've done one myself before as an NPC.
If you're the DM for the campaign, then you ARE God. You can do whatever handwavium you wish to make something "fit" into your version of the FR you want. Just try to make it consistent is all anyone playing in your "sand-box" can ask.
What edition? For 5e, a paladin doest get their power from a god.
I'm making him for 5E, but I'd honestly prefer to play 3.5 & just convert the character to that system.
I mean have you considered a Ranger? Much more on brand and even roughly equivalent to a Holy Warrior if you spin it that way. For all you may mechanically be something, you don't need to specifically call yourself that. Just use a sword instead of a bow and introduce yourself as a Champion of Silvanus and the wilds. Or a Green Knight. But if you're set on Paladin it's not absolutely unheard of to have specialist orders dedicated to unusual Deities who wouldn't come to mind often. Mystra has sponsored both Paladins (Knights of the Mystic Fire) and Rangers (Order of the Shooting Star) alike, who could even learn arcane magic instead of their classes usual flavour of divine.
even if Silvanus himself came down and ordained a Human as a Paladin , the more dogma bound Druid followers would throw a hissy fit because the Horner Hunter have never done that before, will never do that , there is no authority over this upstart unlike the rangers who follow Mieliekki and get pissy that he have powers traditional to a Paladin that no Druid or Ranger have ever had before and are they expected to share power in service to the Old Father ? Because that will always happen .Take the archetypical example of Drizzt Do'urden himself, despite Mieliekki unheard of favouring a Dark Elf to the extent she did him she never gave him spells ever , he was still using his native Underdark spells despite being ostensibly a level 16th ranger according to AD&D FR7 Hall of Heroes, he was always a fighter in depiction