Order of the Nite

The Ordo Noctis is organized much like an underground resistance movement. Tiny cells coordinate through coded messages or a single person with other tiny cells, to minimize who can reveal what, should anyone get caught. These cells are referred to as "covens" in the records of the Order. They are international in scope, and have been operating behind-the-scenes for centuries.   However, they do have a strict hierarchy, and that hierarchy is organized much like the Knights Templar. There are three main ranks: the Knights, the Sergeants, and the Chaplains.   Knights used to be actual knights, but these days, that rank refers to the people who are close to non-literomancer seats of power, whispering doubts in the ears of the wealthy and the politically significant, as they once did with the noble classes. In very recent times, Knights have been expanded to include hackers and cyber-warriors, as well as those who have some sway with the media.   Sergeants, who were once non-noble men-at-arms, refers these days to the people who do the "dirty work." These tend to be military contractors, criminal leg-breakers, pirates, and the like. They take on the more aggressive, potentially combat-oriented missions of the Order.   Chaplains are the spiritual leaders of the Order, ordained in the mysterious, secret rituals that serve as the Order's dark heart. They also acquire and interpret esoteric knowledge, and keep the Order's records — although there is no one location in which all of those records are kept. That is, unless one believes the rumour that these records are secreted away within the heart of the Vatican.   The Order is ultimately overseen by a Grand Master, who keeps their identity strictly concealed, even from the rest of the Order.   The relationship of the Order of the Nite to literomancers is complex. From time to time, literomancers are inducted into the Chaplains of the Order, so that their magical powers and literomantic knowledge can be utilized. However, they are very careful about which literomancers they approach in this way. Such a candidate must be completely devoted to their purpose, must have few living relatives, and must have almost no contact with other literomancers. In other words, they tend to pick up and radicalize the ones who have fallen through the cracks. For the most part, however, they prefer to manipulate and suborn the literomancers they use without truly bringing them in to the Order, since they cannot fully be trusted for obvious reasons.   At one time, the membership of the Order was strictly male, but over the centuries that practice has been abandoned, and now, anyone of any gender may potentially be recruited.

The Order of the Nite views itself as the heralds of the inevitable. Since there is no way to avoid darkness, it is best simply to embrace it, and to look to one's own future within the coming new world order. They see themselves as the shadows that are inevitable consequences of light, and prefer to remain in the shadows. Indeed, operating in the open is highly frowned upon. Keeping the Order's secrets is essential for survival, and exercising covert power is highly respected.

The Order of the Nite has no public agenda. They wish to remain as unknown to the public as possible.

The Order has a number of chapterhouses throughout the world. A possible weakness in their careful planning is that they can often not resist setting up shop in anything that might have been associated with the Templars, although those "shops" will always be masquerading as something else (for instance, there is a coven of lawyers who operate out of Temple Church in London, although as far as anyone knows, they are simply members of the Inner Temple of the Inns of Court.) They never officially own anything in the Order's name, however.   When taken collectively, the Order has amassed a vast collection of esoteric knowledge and writings, although none of it is supposed to be stockpiled in one place. However, there is a faint rumour among those who have heard of the Order (which is precious few) that they keep many of these books and documents in a secret chamber in the Vatican. No one knows the truth of this.   Chapterhouses always conceal a small armoury for the Order's use. The contents of these armouries range from enchanted swords to modern firearms and explosives, and from poison to even a few chemical or biological weapons acquired from The Company.   Recently, the Order has also established a private server for their clandestine internet activities. The location of the server remains unknown.

There are as many conspiracy theories associated with the Knights Templar as there are stars in the sky. The best known is probably the idea that they secretly worshiped Baphomet, and were, in fact, some kind of Satanic order, or had become one over time; followed closely by the idea that the Templars were, in fact, an order of secret Literomancers in a time when literomancers were regarded as heretics and witches.   It is currently the official position of the Catholic Church that the persecution of the Templars was unjust, and had been initiated by a propaganda campaign and the threat of military action sparked by King Phillip of France, who owed the Templars a considerable debt through their groundbreaking banking system.   For the most part, this is true. However, another accusation that was leveled against the Templars was that they worshiped a mummified, severed head that was recovered at their stronghold on the Temple Mount. While most of the Templars had nothing whatsoever to do with this, and had no idea it was going on, there was a small, secretive cult within the Templars who were, indeed, keeping a severed head; the head of a Night Monarch. What they were doing with it was anybody's guess.   Uncovering the activities of the cult in this way was purely accidental; King Phillip's persecution was politically and financially motivated, and almost certainly, any of the Templars tortured or burned at the stake were innocent of any wrongdoing. However, the discovery of this severed head added fuel to the political fire, and no doubt contributed to things ending as violently as they did.   The Order, which was at that time just a cult, would have preferred to keep their safe haven hidden and intact, but the end of the Templars forced them to figure out another way to hide in plain sight. On Samhain of 1312, the year the Templars were dissolved, the Order of the Nite (or Ordo Noctis in the original Latin) was initiated in a dark ritual, the details of which have been lost to history.   Why this cult formed within the Knights Templar remains a mystery. It is possible that its mysterious founders simply stumbled on something they should not have in their broad travels and extensive scholarship.   Since then, the Ordo Noctis has been working behind the scenes to undermine Literomancers however they can, to break resistance against the Undead. It was they who began turning the political tide against the literomancers that brought an end to the Golden Age of Literomancy, by whispering poison into the ears of the nobility. It was they who helped to bring about the Inquisition. It was they who helped to break down the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which was a stronghold of the House Lapin, and it was they who encouraged both the Communists and the Fascists to imprison scholars and burn books. It was also they who leaked key pieces of information to The Company that allowed them to root out certain literomancers, and to find The Iron Tome.   They changed the English spelling of the Order's name when Erin Righ emerged as The Nite Qing in The First Word War.  

SPOILER: What the Order of the Nite is currently up to

 

SPOILER: What others know