The Templar Knights

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"Devotion and Obidience!"

Organisation

In Ithron the Order is led by a Knight with the rank of Seneschal, who commands the Order in Ithron. Because the Order exists throughout (and beyond) the Axirian Empire, it has Chapters in each province of the Empire. These Chapters are led by Knights holding the rank of Seneschal. The Order itself is lead by a Grand Master, elected by the Knights in a meeting called "The Grand Chapter". He usually resides in the Mother-House of the Order, the great Temple of Saloman's Head near Saleem.

The current Sensechal of the Order in Ithron is Dame Tahirah Berrard and the Chaplain to the Order is Del Fallowbrook

The Order has several significant posessions in Ithron, the most important being their main Keep in Labry, which also rumour has it is the home of the infamous Templar Library.

Previous Senschals to the Ithronian order have included

• Sir Adran Breakspear
• Sir Oleron Quaine
• Sir Alladin
• Sir Morgath (997-998)
• Lady Gwendolyn Vortigen
• Sir Clara Curtis
• Sir Ninian Le Fevre

Ethos

The wealth and power of the Order is said to be beyond measure, and their advice is sought by many- The Axirian Emperor himself is said to have a number of advisors from the Templar Order, and their treasury is said to be the greatest in the world. They invented the bank system, where a person can give their monies to a Templar bank anywhere and take equal monies from a bank anywhere else. Without this the paper money used by many nations would not be supportable.

The Templar Knights follow Sidhe, Father of the Gods. They admit anyone into their ranks regardless of race or sex. The only requirement is a willingness to take on a life of service to Sidhe and remain so. Thus throughout their history they have had Kindred, Devotees and Priests serve in their ranks. Even former Sidhean excommunicants have been welcomed once they have been redeemed in the eyes of the gods.

For the Templar order, it is the spirit that matters, not the flesh it wears. They also have a history of being more supportive of excommunicants than other religious organisations.

There are also a number of mysteries surrounding the Templar Order and some of their members. Possibly the most infamous being the Knight-Librarian Sir Boris De Chinobeau who was allegedly a practicing demonologist.

History

Formation

The Order of Templar Knights, referred to by its knights as the Temple, was formally created in the year 118 during the time of the first Crusade against the Konn.

During the time of the first Crusade there were a great many nobles and families that went to Konn at their own expense to fight for what was then the Holy Land, being the last place the Pact between the Gods and the Emperor was signed.

Despite this actual founding date the order actually has its roots as far back as the year 115. One of these crusading nobles was the nobleman Hugo De Payen, a noble of Giaden. De Payen had a vision, inspired he believed by Sidhe, of two knights sharing a warhorse, travelling to the realms of his enemies to protect pilgrims in that holy but troubled land. He sold his lands and estate in 112 to pay for a large group of soldiers to go with him to the lands of the Konn. Encouraged by his example, several of his vassals also sold their lands and added further to what became a small private army.

On arrival in the Konn in 114, Hugo de Payen quickly established himself, not initially as a feared fighter, but as a man of huge faith in the Seven. He and his vassals gained a fearful reputation for absolute devotion that left them without fear of death. Between 115 and 118 De Payen and his household knights fought with great valour in the first crusade against the Konn, and despite his reputation as a feared tactician and fearless warrior he also gained a reputation as a man of decent faith, treating all men as worthy until proved otherwise. As such he came to be respected by friend and foe alike.

However, at the Oasis of Akin Nor in 117 he was witness to a bloody massacre when Konn troops slaughtered unarmed and defenceless pilgrims of Vleybor who had gone to preach, heal and bring word of their goddess to the heathen. The enemy disappeared as soon as they had appeared and De Payen, unable to identify or retaliate against the enemy, fell into a deep state of turmoil and depression which was only lifted after prayer and his second vision, again, inspired he believed by Sidhe.

Accompanied by his friend and fellow noble Grigory De Adelmhar he sought the approval of the patriarch High Father of Sidhe, Jerus, who had come with the crusade to see Sidhe’s will done in the holy land. After prayer and fasting Sidhe spoke to Jerus and the result of his vision was the creation of a new fusion of warrior and priest. De Payen and Adelhmar understood the needs and propensities of the soldier and realised that for the new order to keep the churches favour they would need to act in a manner which would be looked upon with satisfaction by the clergy and the faithful both in the holy land and beyond. As such it was necessary to remove from the new order the will to claim material possessions, to loot and to plunder, even though these had traditionally been seen as rights of the conqueror.

Therefore the order would claim and obey rules of poverty and obedience to the church of Sidhe. The first knights, led by Hugo and his followers example, gave their monies to the church and to the maintenance of hospices for pilgrims in the holy land.

Subsequently, on the basis of their charity and vows of poverty they became known as the Poor knights of Sidhe, and this name was to stand for the formative years of the order history.

The Knights Templar

In those early years the order, though small in number, was associated with several important victories in battle and the religious nature of the knights meant that they often faced foes that non religious soldiers sometimes feared and refused to battle. In 122 the Order fought successfully against cultists of the Shardan entity Salamon, a vile demon whose fall to the crusaders was only possible due to the actions of the poor knights of Sidhe.

Salamon had remained ensconced in the fort of Bekrus for many years, causing huge damage to the Crusade Army with the numbers of the Konn who flocked to its call. After a lengthly campaign the Crusaders including the fledgling Order of Poor Knights, managed to force the Konn into a siege at the mighty fort built upon an outcrop.

At the siege of Bekrus, the Axirian dominated force placed Hugo de Payen in the Reserve at the rear whilst the Axirian men led a direct assault on the fort. The Axirian attack was a disaster, but in the chaos that ensued the Konn came out of their walls to mop off the survivors thinking that the enemy was vanquished. The Poor Knights having been all but forgotten by the Axirians during their assault waited for the dust to clear and reveal their lines to the Konn. When the dust settled, Hugo De Payen gave the order to move forward and when the screaming hordes of the Konn charged down the slopes they were met by the charge of De Payen and his Order. The battle was over in less than an hour, De Payen’s men sweeping into the fort and taking it after a ferocious battle in which the vile creature Salamon was slain.

Inside the fort they found a huge unholy Temple. The story told is that the Poor Knights remained in Prayer for seven days and seven nights beseeching Sidhe to break the power of the unholy land. On the seventh night it is said that the black stone of the Temple of Salamon turned pure white as Sidhe blessed it as his own. It is also legend that Lord de Payen lit fires in the shape of the scales of Sidhe on the mountainside and thus called the faithful to this place of safety.

In the years that followed, De Payen and his Knights built the fort of Bekrus from a simple wooden walled stronghold on the outcrop that made assault difficult to a huge stronghold capable of resisting almost any assault. From this stronghold, named the Temple by those who took shelter there, De Payen and his retinue led some of the most successful campaigns against the Konn seen before or since.

It is from this deed and from the recognition of their deeds, that the order became known as the Order of the Temple of Salamon, or the Knights Templar, and it is this name that they keep today. Interestingly enough, rumour still persists that not all is as it should be at the heart of the order and that something of Salamon still lives on ,festering deep inside his old temple...

The Formation of the Rule

In 164 a high conclave took place at the orders headquarters, chaired by the then aging Hugo De Payen and the order formally committed itself to a series of statutes which have remained central to the Order, albeit in a condensed form to this very day.

These statutes saw no problem with the maintenance of Sidhe’s law and the killing of heathens in the Konn and to the order it was clear that they were both soldiers of their faith and protectors of the defenceless.

The Schism of the Order

De Payne died in 168, still in the Konn and still the Steward of the Temple but the Order continued to grow in strength in the Holy Lands and in its influence within the Church itself.

During the years 174 to 207 the church of Sidhe came under the sway of the Heresiarch, High Father Julian Shiban III, a man whose teachings told of a more aggressive and arbitrary manner of dealing with the heathen. The Order could not reconcile their faith under the rule of Julian and, although his announcements were not disavowed by the church until after his death the order was unable to work under his rule.

During his rule the order schismed and came close to leaving the good graces of the church of Sidhe. They sought spiritual guidance from the church of Vleybor, and although Julian fumed at this apparent disloyalty, seizing as many of the Orders assets outside the Holy Lands as he could, but in all this time the Temple in the Holy Land remained impervious to the demands of Julian.

Eventually Julian severed all ties with the Order, effectively cutting them off from the rest of the Church but to his fury the Vleyborians granted respite and safety to the order and tried to accommodate their warlike manner.

After the Heresiarchs death in 207 they opened the way for negotiations which would see the order fall back into the father churches good graces. The Order has never forgotten the respect shown by the church of Vleybor and it is still considered an honour to wear the celtic cross of that church as the knights heraldry. This is the third and currently only other acceptable badge worn by a knight, along with the maltese cross of De Payens and the Tau cross.

The spread of the Order

By the time of the Orders return to the Church, the Order had swelled in size to comprise over 200 knights and together with the huge force that had gathered around the Temple were responsible for pacifying and rebuilding an area the size of a small country. More importantly they had forged a series of heavily guarded routes to the coasts for the pilgrims that came to see the beautiful white stone of the Temple and its many religious artefacts.

The Temple became a hugely wealthy place, thanks to the donations of the faithful but also due to the Konnish treasures claimed from the campaigns of the Templars. Having started out giving all their money for their faith, the Templars used their wealth to help pilgrims home safely guarded by members of the Order. Thus the Order began to spread throughout the known world.

The huge sums of money sent with the Knights were to be used by them to help worthy causes in the name of the Seven. Inspired by the example of the Temple, the Knights chose to find worthy Lords and Kings who needed help to protect their people. The Templars became a sign of great hope for people everywhere. The mere arrival of the Order at a Lord’s castle caused huge excitement in the populace for devout nobles could expect help whilst corrupt nobles would not last long under the gaze of the warrior-priests of the Order.

Thus by installing a worthy master or by supporting the just ruler, the Templars gained huge influence over many lands. This influence became ever greater over the centuries as Kings granted them land and lords died, leaving their lands to the Order. So by the year 500 the Order had huge influence almost everywhere including having advisors to the Emperor of Axir himself.

Thus it was that in the year 540 the Order first arrived in Ithron.

The Order in Ithron

Despite the widespread fame of the Temple the Order had never before been allowed into Ithron. The Griffin Order were notoriously xenophobic and maintained closed borders against almost all outsiders, a situation not helped by the threat of Axirian conquest.

But in the year 540 a small group of Templar Knights arrived in Ithron to offer the Griffins help in resisting the invasion being planned by the paranoid Emperor of Axir who feared the Griffins may take his empire. Although the Griffins were reluctant to trust them, the Templars brought with them holy artefacts of Sidhe with which they vowed to defend the faith of Sidhe and thus the King granted them an audience.

The Templars, having been temporarily expelled from Axir for speaking against the Emperor, offered their support to the Griffins in the defence of Ithron. Despite objection from the Griffins, the King accepted the offer and within six months there was a significant force of Templar knights operating alongside the Griffin Order. The Templars knowledge of defensive tactics proved invaluable in the first invasion, where the Axirian forces barely managed to land before being repelled.

For their services in the defence of Ithron, the King granted the Order land. The King was still engaged in repelling the tribes of Lirron and thus granted the Templar Order huge areas of land along the northern borders of Ithron in the area that eventually became the Duchy of Berwickshire. The Order quickly established itself, building heavily defended fortress towns to offer the people protection against the depredations of the Lirronese raiders.

In the century that followed the Templars bore witness to two further invasions by the Axirians, in which they fought for those unable to defend themselves and managed to protect huge numbers of the general populace from the Axirians in their fortress towns.

At this time, the Templars particularly noticed the plight of the non-human races who, having been mistrusted by the Griffins following their "cowardice" during the invasions were now the target of the xenophobic Axirians. More than once, the Templar Order came to blows with the occupying force of the Axirian legions over their treatment of the non-human races. Within two years of the Axirian occupation, the Templar Order had already begun to offer shelter to the displaced elves, dwarves and Halflings within their lands and the restored favour the Order had with the Emperor protected them from retribution by the Axirians. The Temple gained great face with the non-humans. The selfless protection of some of the leaders of the great dwarven clans and elven families led to the Templars teaching their children in the ways of the Temple and in 685 the first non-human Brother of the Temple was invested. This caused some degree of shock and objection from both the Griffin Order and the Axirians, but as Axir was dependant on the support of the Temple for their campaigns in the Konn, they were powerless to resist.

The Order today

Since the arrival of the Temple in Ithron, the Order have ingrained themselves into the society of the country. Various Dukes have been members of the Order and thus held great influence on the country and its continued reverence of the Seven Gods.

The Order is prevalent throughout much of the known world. It is certain that they are by far the largest single religious Order, not seeing borders or race as boundaries to faith or service to the Temple grants them their strength and influence. The Temple does not seek to run countries but continue to ensure the worship of the Seven is not hindered by the rulers of the lands they are present in.

The Temple is one entity, despite the huge differences between the countries they exist in. Although to outsiders the Orders within each country appear separate, the Temple is the centre of a worldwide order. The Temple appoints a Seneschal in each country who is the voice of the Temple to their Knights and the orders of the Seneschal are to be obeyed as if they were commands from the Steward of the Temple themselves.

Recent events in Ithron with the resigning of the Pact at Hadsfield have caused great problems in the Order. Under their own history, it is now clear that the Holy Land is no longer the Konn and there is a growing movement within the Order to move the centre of the Temple to Ithron, to the Grand Keep of the Order in Labry. Over the past years many items and valuable documents have been transferred to the Grand Keep for protection and many now believe that the time has come for the Order to become centred on the new Holy Land.

The Livery of the Order

There are three major symbols used by the Order today, although there is rumour that the Order may choose to return to the original cross worn by De Payen, an eight pointed star.

The second badge is the Vleyborian cross, worn over the left breast in honour of the Vleyborians protection of the Order from Heresiarch Julian.

The final badge is the Tau cross, so named for a battle fought in 156. The order had mustered 180 knights and had smashed a Konnish force of 5,500 in battle to clear the way for the allied army to capture the town of Tau, this led to the orders first heraldric badge, the so called Tau cross, which although uncommon now is still allowed as a badge worn by those whose ancestors fought at Tau.