The 🛡Order of the 🗡️Paladins of the Open Eye

On the Nature and Origin of the 🛡Order

The 🛡Order of the 🗡️Paladins was founded in an age of ash and iron, when monsters still walked openly among mortals and the earth remembered the sound of screaming cities.

This was not the first calamity, nor was it believed to be the last. Again and again the world learned the same lesson: cruelty organizes itself, records are kept, walls fall, empires burn, names are forgotten. Monsters wore many forms - some with claws and tusks, others with banners and uniforms. All fed upon fear, obedience, and despair. Humanity lifted its voice to the Heavens, begging the gods to intervene. The prayers went unanswered.

And yet, after ruin beyond measure, people continued to labor, to love, to bury their dead, and to rise beneath an indifferent sky. Gardens were rebuilt. Wine was drunk. Poetry was written and paintings admired. The gods neither withdrew nor explained themselves. Fate spun without apology. Death arrived without instruction. History repeated itself with pitiless regularity - and still, people entered the loop once more.

The infinite return of hardship. The willful repetition of life.

It was from this recognition that people began to gather. Not in hope of salvation, but because standing alone had proven insufficient. In time, those who refused both despair and illusion began to recognize one another.

At first, it was necessity: a shield raised against the Age of Monsters - against chimeras, gorgons, harpies, and the things that crawled from broken lands and broken minds. The early 🗡️Paladins were defenders before they were seekers. They fought not to win history, but to allow tomorrow to exist at all. Even then, whispers of the Holy Grail reached them - the thing that might render struggle meaningful. The Quest began, and did not cease. It deepened.

The 🛡Order was never of one mind. 🗡️Paladins argued beside campfires and in ruined halls, disputing not whether the world was cruel, but how one ought to stand within it. Rank conferred no final authority; reasons were offered, challenged, and refined among equals. From this friction arose not dogma, but shared resolve.

They learned early that not all victories were worth claiming. They would not trade one form of survival for another bought with degradation, nor reduce lives to instruments of strategy. To preserve dignity - especially when it was costly - became their quiet measure of justice. They tended the wounded, rebuilt what could be rebuilt, and kept watch while others slept. In choosing one another, without promise of rescue, they found a courage that did not conquer, but endured.

Not all agreed where dignity ended and compromise began. Some withdrew from battles others believed must be fought. Some remained where retreat would have saved more lives. Many decisions were grave, costly mistakes. Principled action became drenched in blood - differently, but no less often, than cold strategic calculus. These disagreements did not break the 🛡Order, but neither were they resolved. They were carried, like wounds that never fully close. Memories of each choice traveled with them, guiding each new step.

In battle and its aftermath, the 🗡️Paladins felt great temptations. Fear made cruelty feel efficient. Victory made excess feel earned. Plunder masqueraded as justice; indifference as survival; obedience as relief from choice. Desire begged to be silenced - not with a glass of wine, but the whole bottle. These impulses were not alien intrusions, but human ones, born of hunger, exhaustion, and a commonwealth under threat. The 🛡Order did not deny them, nor did it allow itself to become an excuse. Virtue, they learned, did not arise from purity of instinct, but from the refusal to let instinct decide.

When the Age of Monsters waned, the 🛡Order did not dissolve, for the Grail remained unfound. The path was no less perilous without open war. The land was scarred. Old horrors lingered - some with teeth and talons, others with ledgers, smokestacks, and forests felled for industry and greed, their ghosts haunting the scarred land across generations.

In their ongoing Quest, the 🗡️Paladins seek to live well and flourish: to act calmly, with restraint, and without guarantees, to shoulder responsibility without illusion, and to continue seeking though the nature of the Grail remains unresolved, even among the wisest of loremasters.

Thus the 🛡Order endures - not because the world is ending, but because it is not. Because there is work to be done after calamity, and because the Quest matters most precisely when no final victory is promised.

The Citadel and the Palatine Hill

The 🗡️Paladins gather at the Citadel, a fortress atop the Palatine Hill, long held to be the center of the world, within and upon the ruins of an old imperial palace. Marble columns remain, cracked but dignified. New stone has been laid beside ancient brick, not to restore the palace to its former glory, but to make it serviceable. Even within the Citadel, however, choices carry shadow; every assignment may test virtue as much as skill, and the cost of adherence is often unseen.

It is a place of:

  • law,
  • oath,
  • argument,
  • judgment,
  • record.

At its heart lies the Round Table, hewn from old oak and scarred by centuries of elbows, blades, ink, and wine. No seat is elevated. No name is carved permanently. The Round Table is a reminder that authority circulates, and that no one escapes the Lot.

Within the Citadel are:

  • the Hall of Assembly,
  • the Archives of Quests,
  • the Shrine Chambers,
  • the Dormitories of the Unassigned,
  • and the Courtyard of Return, where 🗡️Paladins dismount after long absence.

The Citadel is where 🗡️Paladins begin, return, and - sometimes - are buried.

Governance of the 🛡Order

The 🛡Order is governed by a principle known simply as the Veil.

Twice each year, the Biannual Assembly is convened. During this time:

  • laws are proposed,
  • rituals are debated,
  • practices are revised or abandoned,
  • failures are discussed openly.

After the Assembly concludes, all offices, duties, and titles are assigned by lot.

Every 🗡️Paladin is eligible for every role. No 🗡️Paladin may refuse their assignment. No role is permanent.

Thus:

  • the eloquent may be assigned logistics,
  • the bold may be assigned record-keeping,
  • the contemplative may be sent abroad.

This prevents pride from rooting and reminds all that circumstance governs more than merit.

Initiation and the Three Duties

Initiation into the 🛡Order requires the public recital of an oath before the Round Table. The oath binds no god and promises no reward.

Upon initiation, every 🗡️Paladin accepts Three Duties, which are non-negotiable:

  1. Accept reality

    One’s circumstances, limits, past actions, bodily needs, and the Lot assigned.

  2. Be truthful to oneself

    Fear, avoidance, doubt, resentment, and cruelty must be admitted inwardly. Perfection is not required; honesty is.

  3. Embrace authorship

    Under all conditions, the 🗡️Paladin remembers that they are the author of their own actions, even when outcomes are not theirs to choose.

No 🗡️Paladin is expelled for failure. They are undone only by self-deception.

A 🗡️Paladin who persistently neglects the Three Duties is declared Veiled amidst the Assembly. A Veiled 🗡️Paladin:

  • loses their vote in Assembly,
  • may not bear the symbols of the 🛡Order,
  • but continues to eat, sleep, and train among the others.

When they again fulfill the Duties - and are truthful to themselves about their failure - they are Unveiled, without ceremony or shame.

Daily Life of a 🗡️Paladin

🗡️Paladins live ordinary lives.

They work as scribes, laborers, soldiers, merchants, healers, caretakers, and teachers. Some reside in the Citadel; many do not. All are bound to fulfill their assigned Lot and to sustain themselves without pretense.

Outside these obligations, 🗡️Paladins are free.

They may:

  • accept or decline Quests,
  • practice rituals or set them aside,
  • feast, travel, love, and rest.

Yet the archives record a warning often repeated to novices:

No quest accepted is no act taken.
And if none act, the Grail will never be found.

Quests and Monsters

🗡️Paladins are sent forth on Quests, alone or together. Some are mundane:

  • repairing broken roads,
  • escorting the sick,
  • settling disputes,
  • rebuilding after fire or flood.

Others are perilous.

The world still holds monsters:

  • wolves said to be favored by 🍀Kekius Maximus,
  • spirits of resentment haunting old battlefields,
  • echoes of Minotaur and Hydra in the ruins of the mind and city alike.

🗡️Paladins fight when they must - but more often they endure, negotiate, or witness.

They generally return bearing:

  • no trophies,
  • no proof,
  • only stories, insights, and scars.

These are recorded without judgment.

Rituals, Shrines, and Practices

The 🛡Order maintains a body of rituals and practices, revised by Assembly. None are compulsory. All are tools.

Prayers

Morning Invocation of the 🗡️Paladin

Each day, many 🗡️Paladins begin thus:

By the silence of the indifferent stars,
By the flame of the human spirit,
I rise again.

The world may not care - yet I will.
Fortuna may oppose - yet I shall act.
Thanatos may erase - yet I shall create.

I swear to uphold virtue without witness,
To labor without reward,
To love without possession.

For this alone is freedom,
To serve with open eyes.

So may the gods look on and smile.

And then they go about their day.

Prayer to 🎲Fortuna

Spoken in times of upheaval and planning.

O Fortuna, spinning mother of chaos,
Grant me the calm to embrace what I must,
The fire to revolt when I can,
And the wit to know the tragic difference.

Invocation of 🥀Thanatos

Whispered before sleep or at dawn.

O Thanatos, silent usher,
Remind me I am dying,
And thus must live.

Mantra of the Rebel

Uttered when meaning thins.

I defy meaninglessness,
By becoming meaning.

Invocation of 🔗Ananke

Quietly voiced, exactly once, to oneself when confronted with anxiety or fear for something or someone.

Hail, friend.
There you are.
By Ananke, our paths cross again.
Now, let us both continue with our day.

The Four Altars

🗡️Paladins keep simple shrines wherever they live.

Shrine of 🥀Thanatos
  • An hourglass or skull.
  • Used at dawn with the words memento mori.
  • Purpose: Value alignment and fear inoculation.
Shrine of 🪨Sisyphus
  • A stone, pebble, or weight.
  • Moved twice daily. Once to progress along an axis, once to reset to its original position.
  • Purpose: acceptance and behavioral momentum.
Shrine of the Sage
  • Scrolls, coins, or a bust of an old philosopher-emperor.
  • One virtue spoken aloud each morning.
  • Purpose: character construction and reinforcement.
Shrine of 🫗Lethe
  • Flowing water or a fogged mirror.
  • A rigid belief is written and burned.
  • Purpose: loosening false necessity though distancing and defusion.
  • A recital:

I am not this thought; I am simply having it.

Daily and Periodic Rites

Morning Rite of Constraint and Action
  • A fear whispered aloud and imagined vividly.
  • A breathing exercise: Inhale 3, hold 4, exhale 5.
  • A recital:

As Ananke binds me, I accept. As Reason frees me, I act.

Evening Socratic Triad

Written reflection:

  • What virtue was neglected?
  • What meaning was made?
  • Where did I lie to myself?
Ritual of Sacred Vitality (Daily)
  • An uncomfortable bodily act is performed. Cold water, exertion, or walking. A reminder that life is embodied.
Ritual of Imaginal Reclamation
  • A shaming memory is recalled.
  • A third-party protector (e.g., ⚒️Vulcan) is imagined to intervene.
  • The outcome is rescripted.
  • A symbol of an old belief is burned in the Shrine of Lethe.
Liturgy of Self-Compassion

Spoken gently in moments of failure.

I speak now not to scold, but to soothe. I suffer, as do all mortals. May I greet this pain as I would a friend: gently, patiently, with truth. I may have failed, but I am not a failure.

Ritual of Connection
  • A suffering is shared. The meaning of it is discussed. Often accompanied by wine.
  • A toast is performed:

To the absurd journey we share.

Ritual of the Breathing Mind
  • Sit. Breathe. Notice the sensation of air at nose or chest. When the mind wanders, it will gently return.
  • Slowly move attention from feet to head, noticing sensations without changing them.
Ritual of Gratefulness and Loss
  • Write down three things for which one is grateful.
  • Then, imagine losing them: they are indifferents.

Sacred Festivals

Festival of Sisyphus (Summer Solstice)

  • Stones moved, grapes eaten, labor praised.

Dies Contra Fortunam (January 17)

  • Fate and misfortune are mocked, stories are shared and told with laughter.
  • A toast is performed:

To our glorious misfortunes - may they teach better than Fate.

Saturnalia (December 17–23)

  • Roles inverted, excess permitted, order joyfully suspended.