The Genesis by James Seidel (12 Nov 94) Contents The Church Knights The Vampiric Histories The Cleansing Crusade Knight Politics Contemporary Hunters The Church Knights "If you believe in the light, it's because of obscurity, if you believe in joy, it's because of sin, if you believe in God, then you have to believe in the Devil." - Father X, Exorcist, Church of Notre Dame. WELCOME Humble initiates, we welcome you among the warriors of Christ. We who compiled this work hope and pray that you will honor and serve the Word within, dedicate yourself to restoring purity to this sick and corrupt world, strive to nurture the sick, toil to shield the defenceless, and educate the unlearned in the Will and Mercy of our Lord and God. To have come so far to be able to hold this tome in your hands you must already have received the blessing of pure faith through the Holy Trinity. By now, you have taken Holy vows dedicating your life and your strength to the fight against evil. We, the Militant Orders, exist as God's sword arm. As the Church is known as the Cloth, being as they are, like a secure blanket against the cold breath of Sin, so are the Knights of Christ called the Sword - the tool used by the hand of God to administer his Righteous wrath. My Brother, it is a great burden that we bear - a Holy responsibility. But the foundation of this great purpose is a complex one. Buried deep in the history of our respective Orders are the seeds of our divine purpose. Do not search for enlightenment within these pages - that is in the domain of your own heart and the grace of the Holy Spirit. But the doctrine and histories contained herein will serve you well in your fight against the Kindred. WARRIOR MONKS: Our brotherhood evolved out of the knights and churchmen who fought in the Holy Land during the First Crusade. Then, as now, their lives were dedicated to poverty, chastity and obedience. This devotion in the Lord separated them from the money and land hungry secular knights of the 12th century. While the Militant Orders were quickly endowed with the riches of the land, as individuals they were forbidden the more frivolous and unclean aspects of life. While this removed our brothers from the mainstream of medieval knighthood, it developed their military skills to a degree higher than any other army of that time. God's Sword was blessed in the standards of their training and discipline, the construction and defence of castles, and the tactics of warfare. Our Lord saw fit to see that the idea of a military monk was embraced with great enthusiasm throughout Christendom. Gifts poured in - especially of land and money - enabling His Orders to expand in the Holy Land. By the middle of the 12th century, there was a Templar or Hospitaller preceptory in every province and in most major towns and cities. Christ's knights were blessed with a high degree of independence from the Church. After Pope Innocent II issued the bull Omne datum optimum (every great gift) about 1130AD, the Templars were exempted from all earthly authority - except that of Christ's Vicar, the Pope. To our shame, the relationship between the different Orders (especially the Templars and Hospitallers) was rarely warm. By the 1240s, knights from each Order were fighting openly in the streets of Acre - most likely due to professional jealousy and rivalry. This sin of pride permeated the Orders until well into the 13th century. Only the revelation of Satan's control over God's people was strong enough to bring his knights together. The Militant Orders were left to themselves to defend the Holy Land - the desire to reap the rewards of pillage proving too much for most Crusaders. Our brother's invested huge sums in the construction a chain of castles, some of which never fell to the enemy. Their fighting reputation was such that, in 1187AD, after the Battle of Hattin, when the Infidel commander Saladin captured about 200 Templars and Hospitallers, all Church knights were summarily executed on the grounds that they were "the firebrands of the Franks". Because both the Hospitallers and Templars had to live in the Holy Land and their monastic vows deplored unnecessary violence, they entered into almost continuous negotiations with local Muslim leaders. This often resulted in differing perspectives from that of the Cloth and other crusaders, sometimes resulting in open dispute. In order to finance our massive commitment of resources to the Holy Land, the Hospitallers and Templars both became heavily involved in banking and diplomacy. By the mid 13th century, the Militant Orders were lending large sums of money to kings and provinces. Eventually, the Templars were destroyed by the corrupted King Philip IV of France. While influenced by the blood of Cain, he also owed large sums to the Order and had been refused initiation. The Hospitallers evaded Philip's might through the purity of their reputation and lived on, defending Rhodes first, then Malta, against incursions fro...