"You will never stand alone" The backstory of the Ordo Obscurus

Antida in Games, The Secret World 0 comments 26 APR 2015

I am Cicileus and #IAMTSW

Rather than my character’s backstory, I present to you the backstory of the Ordo Obscurus, a Templar cabal. You can’t understand the man without understanding the unit he serves with.

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“Look, I know, you’ve heard terrible things about us. Everything is true.”

Gabriel sat in the far back corner of the Crusades bar. It was the place they called ‘Croise’s office’ and it was about the last place in London that the Ordo Obscurus could go without being sneered at – or at least without being sneered at more than anyone else in the dingy bar. His tone was quiet, earnest. It was hard to hear him over the cacophony of speed metal thrash that filled the place. He was small, barely five and a half feet tall, but well built, and with presence that belied his diminutive size.

“But that’s our purpose. For what.. maybe seven thousand years Templars have been the thin red line that keeps humanity safe from the things that go bump in the night. And you can’t do that without taking some casualties. I’m not talking about just physical casualties, but psychological ones. PTSD might be something people know about now, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen prior to this century. Or turning traitor. Or just plain inability to get with the program. That’s who ends up in the Ordo Obscurus. The broken Templars. The malcontents. The misfits. The turncoats.”

“And metaphysical injuries, too. You can’t stare too long into the abyss without it staring back into you, right? The Templars have been staring into that abyss for a real long time.” Gabriel sipped his Bingo! and he appeared to be the only person in the crowded room that wasn’t drinking. “They use dark magic? So we use dark magic – and take that to it’s logical conclusion down the slippery slope paved with good intentions and you have someone who’s not fit to serve with regular Templars. Real Templars. Someone who might be a danger to the people they serve with, or a danger to the people they’re trying to protect.”

“But it doesn’t change the fundamental truth of the situation. You’re still a Templar. You still swore the oaths. You will never stand alone. And that’s why these people end up with us. We still want to serve, even if the Hall doesn’t exactly trust us because of who and what we are. And serve we have,” Gabriel said, with obvious pride in his voice. He was a true believer.

“We’re too useful to execute outright, and we’re too damned to be allowed into polite society. So that’s us. The Ordo Obscurus. Damned useful. Damned and also useful. We do the work that’s too boring, too lethal, or too tedious for regular Templars. The dirty work. You’ve seen our unit colors, right?” Gabriel moved to show the worn patch sewn onto the shoulder of his beloved maroon leather Templar jacket.


http://i.imgur.com/NNUVi4e.png

“Thirteen oh seven. If you look it up on Wikipedia you’ll see it’s the year the rest of the world is convinced that King Philip put the Knights Templar to death. Of course, not so.” Gabriel gestured in the general direction of Temple Hall. You could see it from space. The world’s least-secret secret society indeed. “But the Templars needed King Philip to get off of their asses. So who’d they pick? Us.” Again, his voice held pride. “Our job was to put up a convincing fight so that King Philip knew that the Templars were everything he hated and feared. Monsters. Witches. Demons. Which was pretty easy for the OO at the time as far as I can tell. The unit knew they would be overwhelmed. And yet they did it.”

“We did it not because we were ordered to, not because we were threatened if we did not. We did it because despite everything, we’re Templars. It had to be done, and we were the people who had to act to save the greater whole.” The barkeep put another Bingo! down in front of Gabriel, and Gabriel took the can automatically.

“So sneer at us if you will. Call us degenerates. Call us rakshasa, like the usefully chained demons in the Crucible.” Gabriel leaned in, allowing his listener to get a good look at his inhuman eyes. “But do it with some respect, kid, because we’ve been here a long time, and we’re going to keep doing it. It doesn’t matter that the people we protect don’t know about us, would never thank us, and might recoil in fear if they ever saw us.”

“Because we’re Templars, and you will never stand alone.”


Source: The Secret World “You will never stand alone” The backstory of the Ordo Obscurus

Antida
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