Tuesday, January 2, 2007

Modern Templars

In late 2006, I became fascinated with the Knights Templar, as such I began coming up with ideas as to how the Templars would exist in modern times, additional militant religious organizations, supernatural monsters, and about other ideas surrounding the Templars. These historical ideas I built were to be used as the foundation for the story of one specific Templar I was creating. To follow is a minor history of the current organizations --
Templar Knights – The Templar Knights are the remaining body of the former Knights Templar. Founded in the 1100s, the Templars exist to protect Christendom. In 1314, the organization was destroyed by the Pope leading to a separation of the Templar Knights from Rome. Since then, the Templars went underground, protecting Christians across the globe as renegades. The Grand Master sits in charge in Jerusalem and coordinates most efforts from there. They exist to protect Christendom from any of the forces which threaten it – from the mundane to the supernatural.

Knights of Peter of Rome – The KPR are a Catholic monastic order which defends the Roman Catholic Church and Roman Catholics internationally. Lacking a militant monastic order, the KPR were founded in 1506 by Pope Julius II. Since then, the KPR have protected Catholics internationally from non-Christian attacks and the supernatural.

The Brotherhood – A coalition of vampires, primarily the spawns of Dracula himself. The following is a list of the High Council of the Brotherhood –
  • Alucard (1322) (Transylvania, Romania)
  • Carnot (1321) (Johannesburg, South Africa)
  • Yoshimi (1521) (Osaka, Japan)
  • Jonathan Herring (1492) (New York, USA)
  • José Gomes Maciel (1506) (São Paulo, Brazil)
Dracula has been considered dead since 1720 when combined KPR and Templar forces destroyed his fortress in Transylvania. The Brotherhood has a longstanding feud with both organizations for that very reason.

Oracles – The Oracles are an organization of those who watch. They are a secret organization which observes all that occurs on the Earth and keeps an intricate history of every single event which ever occurred in world history.

The Young Brigade – Founded by Brigham Young as a protectorate of the Mormon people in 1850, around the time of the great Exodus of the Mormon people to the Utah territory. The Young Brigade, or the “Youngsters” as they are occasionally referred to by outside groups, continues to defend the Mormon people. The traditional head of the LDS Church is the Supreme Commander of the Young Brigade. Currently, the Young Brigade is composed of 5,000 people primarily located on North America with many bases in Utah and portions of Mexico.

The Hebrews – The Hebrews are a coalition of like-minded Jews from across the world who are prepared to defend Israel to the death. They pushed the Zionist movement from day one, and have currently infiltrated all of the major parties in Israel. Their stance is that Israel is and always has been the Holy Land for the Hebrew people – it should return to such today. The organization was founded in 1900 in Jerusalem and has since spread throughout the world. The most secretive of the organizations, the Hebrews are hard to number as their official numbers are never kept in any centralized location.

The Swords of the Prophet – The Swords of the Prophet were established in 1178 by Saladin, as a secret, but militant arm of the Islamic people. This group sought to take down the Christian Crusaders through guerrilla forces. Their tactics invoked terror into the hearts of the Crusaders and led to many victories on the side of Saladin. In 1190, Saladin claimed to have no connection to the organization and condemned their attacks – a few years later a truce was signed ending one of the many Crusades. The organization continued to this day, secretly controlling most of the Islamic terror organizations in our modern world.
Here is the biography of the new character who would be the main focus of any Templar based stories I would develop, Sir Caleb of Albany --
Born – June 11, 1970; Albany, NY, USA
Parents – Jonathan and Jessica Smythe
Languages – Fluent in English (American), Latin, Hebrew, Greek, Russian, French, Spanish, German, Arabic
Bio – Caleb Smythe was born in Albany, NY in 1970 of Jessica and Matthew Smythe. The Smythe family were Christian fundamentalists who in 1975 traveled to Jerusalem to worship with services of the three major Christian Patriarchs of Jerusalem. Jessica and Matthew left Caleb in the hands of a friend of theirs in Jerusalem named Bethsheba and visited the Church were Catholic Patriarch Beltritti, was supposed to be visiting that day. Beltritti never arrived, but Palestinian terrorists did, bombing the building and instantly killing nearly all people within.

At 5, Caleb was alone in the world. For the next five years, Bethsheba raised him as his own, teaching him Latin, Greek, and Hebrew in addition to keeping him physically fit. In 1980, Bethsheba brought Caleb to a place she referred to as the Temple of Jerusalem and introduced her to her master – Sir Galahad VII of Jerusalem – the current Grand Master of the Knights Templar. Galahad took in Caleb and over the next ten years trained him in combat, world history, Christian theology, and language.

In 1988, Caleb was dubbed Sir Caleb of Albany, becoming the tenth American to be a member of the ranks.

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