Thank you for reading and for your feedback! I get how the Paladin could seem incidental, as he is encountered randomly in the garden, though his wanderings directly affect the garden. I wanted to include a table of hooks for the module but ran out of space and time.
The description of the Blanched Legion is key to understanding the Paladin's significance. What time-frozen message the Paladin is carrying, why he is being hunted, and what the implications of the message being delivered may be are up for interpretation, in-line with the Troika's implied setting and flavor.