Templars (Secret World)

"You came to us in search of a purpose.

And mark this, there is no purpose greater than ours. The world will founder without structure and discipline. It needs leadership to guide it to a new age of stability. It needs those with the will to stamp out the darkness that breeds in the cracks. We do this because we are compelled, by tradition, by loyalty, by laws. Without these, we are just animals. Evil reigns over animals, corrupting and compromising, toppling empires. So our empire must be incorruptible, must be uncompromising. Our conflict must be a righteous one. Your conviction will be tested. But among us, your faith will be unshaken.

Among the Templars"

- The Templars The Secret World

The Templars are one of the three main factions in the M.M.O. The Secret World. Though the player may choose to work for one of three secret societies, The Templars are the only ones who will actually concern them selves with doing good and protecting the common-man from the creatures that go bump in the night.

Background
The Templars' society goes all the way back to Babylon. It is said that the Templars and one of their rival factions, the Phoenicians, were each the offspring of two feuding brothers who ruled the Tower of Babel. For many years the Templars evolved in the form they took- supporting governments, Jihad caravans, Royal bodyguards, Church sponsors, but they seemed to find their stability in religion, whether charged as a pharaoh's sacred bodyguards or Inquisitors during witch-trials, the Templars found their niche during the Dark Ages as the powers behind the Church. Since then, the Templars have patrolled across most of Europe and benefited from their association not only with the Church but the British throne. Of all the secret societies, the Templars are by far the least "secret". Though they certainly don't go around telling people what they actually do, they proudly wear their colors, display their banners and assert their authority before the common-man.

The Templars once were the greatest and most splendid of the societies, with The Dragon, quietly keeping to the corners of the world and the Illuminati, lurking in darkened rooms from behind the scenes and their rival Phoenicians, functioning as little more than mercenaries. The Templars truest purpose has always been to hunt monsters, whether, beast, demon, undead or eldritch, the Templars considered it their order's highest priority to slay supernatural evil; However, over time the Templars became lost in the authority that work afforded them. Being an order dedicated to killing evil things had made the Templars the right hand of nobles, this lead the Templars to begin getting lost to petty politics from within. Templars began to make accusations so wild they were creating civil unrest hunting evil, sometimes against those whose "evil" was little more than political or religious differences. By the 14th century the Illuminati, who up until then had been working with the Templars as their go-betweens and operation organizers, washed their hands of the Templars, whose in-fighting had gotten so prominent it had begun to result in Templars killing Templars in the name of lineage or religion. The Illuminati were shamelessly shady, amoral and hedonistic, so when even they considered the Templars too corrupt/petty to work with anymore it made the heads of the Templars realize just how much of a critical state their order was in. For their disloyalty the Templars branded the Illuminati as their enemies and beat them soundly over the years, though the Templars killed off many of them the Illuminati survived by fleeing Great Britain and bidding their time until they could put the Templars in their place. By the 18th century the Templars were beginning to reform, the Illuminati put together the American Revolution with most the US's founding fathers being Illuminati members and Britain publicly the home of the Templars, the Revolution was a final humiliation for the Templars and showed just how incompetent they were without others around to coordinate them.

The departure of the Illuminati and grand proclamation of the American Revolution were a wake-up call for the Templars and their ranks went through some massive cleansing. While the Templars were busy removing their more corrupt members and refocusing their directive from political back to purely peace-keeping; The Illuminati took advantage of the situation by stealing most of their political connections for themselves; Meanwhile The Dragon used the time to their advantage to forge connections to the criminal-underworld assured that the Templars would be too busy cleaning out their own organization to look too closely at the smaller seemingly separate criminals ones that populated the world. By the end of the age the Templars had returned to their previous purpose, slaying evil but by then they were a shadow of their former power. The Illuminati had gained control of most official world governments and The Dragon had establish connections to nearly all who used, non-official channels. The Templars still had their ties within Britain and a few influential friends in high places around the world but by-in-large the era of the Templars had ended, destroyed by their own hubris and complacence.

Modern Day
The Templars currently operate out of London. To the public they are some ye old order from ages passed, just one that has managed to keep it's-self together. Templar members wear their colors and roam the streets of London with impunity, supposedly just part of an old oligarchy. But the Templars do more than just sit around in brightly lit halls and libraries talking about politics and legacy, they are still on the hunt, the hunt for monsters. The Templar infrastructure may be a shell of it's former glory but they try to counter it by constantly bringing in new members. Whatever old corruptions may haunt the Templars' legacy, the newest members are trained in the mind-set of the early Templars, namely slaying evil. Where the Illuminati are motivated by power and The Dragon are motivated by philosophy, The Templars now focus on keeping the world safe from evils that might harm it. It is the Templars supreme purpose to protect the world from vicious supernatural forces that normal people are ill-equipped to combat.

The Templars built up years of forbidden texts, ancient rites and priceless spells, only to find that anything their vast archives can give them, the common-man can get from a smart-phone and Wikipedia. The emphasis on tradition over modernization has left the Templars' order struggling to adapt to a world that seems to be outgrowing them. What the Templars have built-up, is a some-what contradictory position, esteemed in the public-eye yet stuck in the past in the eyes of their rival societies. Short comings of the Templars aside though, it is said that the Templars possess the man-power to take over and maintain control of a small country using just their own men and resources.

Outlook
The Templars proudly proclaim themselves lions, and when they roar the world listens, this is true to an extent however they are still the least influential of the three main societies.The Templars' training makes them not only consider themselves to be holy soldiers but gives them the marital skill and discipline to be a terrifying military force. Their strong military force and official ties to the British government may be a source of pride to them but in-truth the Illuminati and The Dragon, view this as small praise. The Illuminati buy and sell resources right out from under the Templars so often that the infrastructure of the society is seen as a big joke. The Dragon see the Templars as far too rigid in practice to effectively counter the intricacies of the modern era and actually try playing them against the Illuminati so as to give themselves some breathing room. The Templars' fervor and conviction in their fight against evil is more than enough for them to ignore the resentment of their detractors. To the modern Templars there are no ugly secrets, no shames of the past, no out-dated practices, there is only them, their blades and the monsters which shall soon occupy the ends of those blades.