The Order of Solomon

The modern Order of Solomon claims to be descended from the disbanded Knights Templar of the Crusades. In October of 1307, warned ahead of time of their impending arrest, Templars led by Gerard de Villiers and Hugues de Chalon fled France with the entire treasury and archive of the Templars, including detailed records of their business and financial holdings. Five undermanned galleys later landed on a small, wooded island off the shore of England, where the Templars regrouped with others of their Order. In 1312, when the Knights Templar were officially disbanded by the Church, the Templars on the island formed the Order of Solomon.

Initially, the Order kept a low profile. While every man in the new community was required to learn to fight, each also took up a trade, and slowly the makeshift camp of knights became a thriving community of fishermen, farmers, and craftsmen. Community leaders poured over the archive of the Knights Templar, attempting to learn as much as they could about the downfall of their Order. Several of their Grand Masters were still on speaking terms with Rome, and slowly the true story started to emerge. The French king, jealous of the Knights' wealth and power, indebted to both the Knights and to darker forces. Sinister creatures, first encountered by the Knights in the Holy Land, infesting the courts of Europe. Mages and witches, hungry for power, pulling strings against the Knights once the distraction of the Crusades were over. Demonic forces tainting hearts in the Church against the Knights even a century later. The Order of Solomon dedicated itself to maintaining its faith separate from the Church, training members of the Order in its traditions, and wiping out the supernatural wherever it could be found.

Initially, small Order cells spread across Ireland and Great Britain, following the money and the business that the Order of Solomon controlled through the assets of the Knights Templar. Then they spread to mainland Europe. In every place they settled, they sought to root out the supernatural and convert the faithful among the nobility. At one point, in the 17th century, the Order of Solomon boasted a membership of nearly 4,000 men across Europe and North America. Modern membership is closer to three hundred, spread mainly across Europe, North America, and the Middle East.

The historic headquarters of the Order are located on the island of St Mary's, the largest of the Isles of Scilly, southwest of the coast of Cornwall. Though the location is still overwhelmingly owned and operated by the Order, the modern headquarters of the Order of Solomon is located in the borough of Queens in New York City, along with the headquarters of its largest business, Sonnac Holdings. Through Sonnac Holdings, the Order's subsidiaries include a variety of corporations producing firearms, safety equipment, apparel, medical equipment, and technology, as well as separate holdings in the financial industry.

The Order of Solomon disguises itself in the modern age as an exclusive philanthropic organization with ritual superficially similar to Freemasonry. Its members are often but not always members of the upper class and most have parents and grandparents who are also members of the organization. Unlike typical Freemason groups, the Order of Solomon has allowed women to join since the late 1800s. Many women in the Order of Solomon maintain their own smaller Order, the Order of Saint Joan, that exclusively recruits women and, in addition to its philanthropic efforts, seeks to promote women in business and leadership roles. The Order of Solomon as a whole typically runs several charity events throughout the year, including food drives, toy drives, and fundraising for local childrens' hospitals. Most members with any standing in the organization take vows of poverty, and any assets they use are owned by the Order of Solomon. Almost all members of the Order are devout Catholics, though when given a choice they prefer churches overseen by members of their Order and only tangentially associated with the Catholic Church.

All of this, of course, is cover and financial backing for the Order's true purpose: the destruction of the supernatural. Members of the Order have refined their faith into a kind of ritual magic, a weapon against the undead and demons, especially, with whom they have been in constant battle for centuries. The Order of Solomon's official view is that the supernatural world as a whole is an abomination before God and a threat to mankind. While they have some longstanding truces in effect, especially with certain groups of fae and shapeshifters, the Order maintains those truces only so that it can avoid fighting on too many fronts at once.

The Order's view of various supernatural groups:

• Vampires - The Order of Solomon possesses wildly varying accounts of vampires throughout the centuries. Depending on the country, the time period, and sometimes even the author, vampires possess different abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. Some have almost god-like power, while others are little more than walking corpses. All share a hunger for hunger for human blood and power within the human world. They also usually all share a weakness for sunlight, fire, and decapitation. Some spread their taint through a bite, others through their blood. Some rumors suggest that some vampires have a hidden society, pulling the strings of the mortal world, much as they did when the Knights Templar were disbanded, but the Order of Solomon has not been able to verify that one way or another. Due to the risk of infection, vampires are usually put to death immediately and are seldom ever held for interrogation.
• Werewolves - Legend varies wildly about shapeshifters in general and werewolves in particular. Some legends paint the werewolves as demonic beasts with a hunger for human flesh, who spread their disease through their bite. Others suggest occult rituals, spells, or even heredity as reasons for the spread of lycanthropy. Werewolves are not a focus of the Order, but members of the Order generally treat sufferers of lycanthropy as damned by God. While some populations have a truce with the Order, individual members are generally mistrustful, if not downright hostile, of even the most peaceful shapeshifter.
• Mages - Ironic given their own practice of magic, the Order is highly mistrustful of magic-users in general and was one of the driving forces behind the witchhunts of Europe and North America. While their hunts of mages have grown quieter in the last 300 years or so, their mistrust of mages has not. The Order particularly hunts those mages who consort with demons and the undead. Given the Order's ability to sense undead and demonic activity, it may have more to do with ease than anything else.
• Demons - Legend varies wildly about the minions of Hell. Given that the Order of Solomon destroys demons, summoners, and demonic books or paraphernalia with the same zeal, usually as quickly as possible, demons only rate a footnote in Order archives. Despite that, the order uses the same ability they developed to hunt undead to also track down demons. There are no truces with the minions of Hell. Order members have been put to death in the past for attempting to negotiate with such creatures.
•  Undead - Various other undead threats pop up from time to time in the Order archives. Legends are mainly composed of mindless, shambling corpses from various countries and time periods, with or without a human or demonic catalyst behind the epidemic. Typically, the Order puts these unfortunate creatures out of their misery quickly, usually burning the corpses in order to minimize the risk of them returning to unlife again. Undead such as ghosts are generally put to rest when possible.
• Fae and other Supernatural Creatures - A diverse group, the Order archives vary wildly about the various other supernatural creatures of legend. Some are considered hostile and put to death when possible, others maintain a tense truce with the Order. None are trusted.

The red cross of the Knights Templar is still used among the Order of Solomon, and its members generally believe that to die in combat assures a place in Heaven. Well-trained and usually well-armed, with courage and zeal to match, members of the Order seldom retreat in the face of overwhelming odds, and then only under orders. Cowards are not tolerated. Neither are members who place themselves above God and their brothers and sisters of the Order of Solomon. Unbelievers who wish only to slay monsters are weeded out before initiation, usually.

Other hunter groups are known to the Order of Solomon, but rarely ever contacted. The Order and the Inquisition have a long-standing grudge, dating back to the end of the Knights Templar, and members of those two organizations rarely ever work together.

Profile: Conleth Murray

Name: Conleth Murray
Born: June 8, 1971
Place of Birth: Washington, DC
Current Home: New York City
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Brown (graying)
Height: 6'0"
Sex: Male
PB: Jeff Fahey

Species: Human (some magical ability)
Occupation: Grand Prior of the Order of Solomon, Northeast Branch. Board member of Sonnac Holdings.

Personality: Conleth is a fanatic hidden within a calm and pious exterior. He's utterly devoted to God and to the Order of Solomon's view of the world. The world is very black and white, in his mind, with unrepentant sinners, the supernatural, and any who have not given themselves to Christ viewed as servants of evil. He is generally the picture of calm and righteous leadership, whether its training a group of Order hunters, at a board meeting of Sonnac Holdings, or participating in the purge of a supernatural threat. He has very little tolerance for the undead or those who harbor them, which has put him in direct opposition to local and state politicians in the past. Despite his extremely conservative views, he has been persuaded to tolerance in the past, particularly religious tolerance, and the Northeast Branch of the Order of Solomon regularly donates to both Muslim and Jewish charities.

Magical Ability: Like other members of the Order of Solomon, Conleth Murray has learned to harness his faith as both a weapon against the supernatural and in order to heal others. Conleth's ability lays more in the offensive side of that ability. (Taken loosely from here.)

• Can channel his faith through a weapon or even his bare fists in order to burn enemies. Enemies generally react as if they've been exposed to small amounts of flame.
• Is able, with more effort, to call down more damaging holy fire.
• Can also bless an area around him, burning enemies caught within the area. Though the blessing does not deal a great deal of damage to the supernatural, the constant burning makes it difficult to focus on other abilities while the supernatural creature is in the area around Conleth. Probable origin of the myth that vampires cannot enter holy ground, though the blessing is temporary and limited in area.
• Can channel his faith into a blessing for himself or his allies, temporarily granting higher than normal stamina, strength, or mental ability.
• Can channel his faith to absorb or redirect a portion of the damage he or an ally sustains.
• Can sense nearby undead or demons.
• Is able, with effort, to heal injuries and purge toxins or disease, either his own or an ally's. Requires concentration, with greater injury requiring more energy and a longer period of concentration from him. Healing a life-threatening injury is possible, but it leaves both himself and his patient very drained. Because of the magic involved, the healing can sometimes do more damage than good. Is unable to heal the undead or demons. Healing those corrupted by either demons or the undead is much more likely to do harm to the patient.
• Resistant, but not immune to mind control effects. Resistance is developed over time and mastery of faith-based magic. It is not innate and brand new Knights are just as vulnerable as any normal human.

History: Conleth Murray was born to an Irish American family, the oldest son of a White House employee and his wife. Both of his parents were members of the Order of Solomon and were fairly active in fighting supernatural corruption in the US capital. Conleth and his siblings were involved from an early age in Order business, learning about their history, how to fight, and how to maintain appearances for the masses. His childhood was spent in Washington, DC. When he was just entering his teens, his parents were transferred to the Northeast Branch of the Order of Solomon in New York City, and he spent the remainder of his childhood in New York City.

Attended Columbia University and, once he graduated, immediately began training more seriously to join the Order of Solomon. He was inducted into the Order of Solomon in his early twenties. He was given a cover job in Sonnac Holdings, but his early career consisted of aiding the Order of Solomon more directly, through hunting the supernatural within the northeastern United States, courting the rich and powerful within his branch's jurisdiction, and organizing events to maintain the Order's cover.

Conleth married in June of 1985 and by November of 1986, he and his wife had newborn twin girls. His parents were killed by vampires when he was twenty-seven. He's lost a brother to a necromancer and one of his younger sisters was corrupted by vampire blood soon after. Though she's still technically alive, she serves the undead and is dead to him. Although he tried not to let it affect his personal life, his marriage crumbled under the strain. By that time, he had a young son, as well. Though he's still married, his wife and children moved to Boston, and he only saw them on holidays and on weekends occasionally. All three had college tuition paid for by the Order. Against his mother's wishes, Conleth's son, now 24, has been spending more time with his father, learning about the Order.

Conleth slowly worked his way up the leadership of both the Order of Solomon and Sonnac Holdings. Conleth is currently Grand Prior of the Northeastern Branch of the Order of Solomon and he holds a position on the board of Sonnac Holdings. Conleth is a hands-on leader who prefers to lead from in front of his men. He's still fairly active in fights against the supernatural, especially the undead.

Wife: Christine Murray, born June 14 1963. Professor of Biology at Boston University. Has long since given up on marriage counseling with Conleth and is the happily single owner of a Collie and two Maine Coon cats.
Oldest Daughter: Jennifer, born November 8 1986. Graduated from Harvard University with a degree in computer science, currently working as a software engineer. Married to Ryan Scott, a lawyer specializing in criminal law, and living in Seattle, WA
Middle Daughter: Nicole, born November 8 1986. Attended Harvard Medical School and is currently completing residency training in Chattanooga TN. Married to Matthew Lawrence, a network engineer.
Youngest Son: Patrick, born May 22 1993. Graduated from Columbia University with a business degree and is currently working with Sonnac Holdings while studying for the LSAT. Plans to attend Harvard Law School and work as a corporate lawyer.