[UA] The Order of Saint Cecil (very long)

[Chris Cooper]

Hey all.

This is my rough draft of the Order of Saint Cecil. It
is fairly long and more than likely a bit blurry in
parts. Take a read through and see if there's anything
else that needs to be clarified (field agent
structure) or anything else.

I put some notes in parantheses of places that need
tightening and cleaning. As of yet I have yet to print
it out and print. But it is still fresh and viable for
input.

Of the few pointers that I put down before I wrote
this are design laws.

OfST are not the Sleepers or TNI, they are different.
OfST are not the Inquisition, just appear like it.
OfST are not Delta Green with collars and rosaries.
OfST needs to have a uniqueness that distances them
from other cabals in UA.
OfST are not an official organisation in the Church.

Here goes...

Order of Saint Cecil

The Unexplained

What you hear:

Pope Clement V and Philip V the Fair brought down the
Knights Templar on Friday, 13th, 1307 under charges of
heresy and witchcraft. The Head of the Order as well
as numerous knights where tortured and their
monasteries looted.

Tales often confessed under torture revealed
homosexuality, denying Christianity, and the
idolatrous worship of a head. Sometimes the
disembodied head was named Baphomet, and it was
immediately declared a demon of some sorts, which
granted the Knights Templar supernatural powers.

After the attack, the Knights Templar went underground
and formed the Freemasons; the Illuminati; the Secret
Royal Family of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene; the
Rosicrucians; the real True Order of Saint Germaine;
the Elders of Zion; Communism; the Order of the Silver
Star; the IMF and Chase Manhattan Bank; the Nazi
Party; the Rockefellers Foundation; or whatever other
occult conspiracy you can buy into. 

What you do not hear:

The Knights Templar or the Poor Knights of the Temple
of Solomon in Jerusalem where originally started by
Hughes de Paynes in 1119AD, under the homily that nine
knights would guard pilgrims to the Holy Land, the
order suddenly and rapidly accumulated vast wealth and
patronage of royalty.

The Knights Templar were all well trained in combat
and tactics, as where all knights, and they where all
literate as was typical of all clergy. 

Although started as a militant-monastery, the Knights
Templar rapidly entrenched themselves as the world’s
largest merchant marine fleet and subsequently the
first international banking cartel that covered
Western Europe to the Middle East.

Of course, such an enterprise requires a massive
staff. Recruits where accepted from anywhere with the
only prerequisite: donation of all worldly possessions
to the Knights Templar. Landless nobles where trained
to read and write, peasants where also trained in
melee skills. Anyone that matched the qualifications
could enter. It’s not that implausible that sorcerers
would be found among their ranks.

They where so successful that started loaning money to
keep kingdoms in the black and they started trade.

Although intended to cause mischief against the Muslim
Saracens, they rather made peace and established trade
with them.

So when Philip V the Fair exhorted Pope Clement V to
give his blessing in taking down the Knights Templar,
a tactically brilliant plan was enacted in which all
the French Knights Templar monasteries would be
attacked on the same day at roughly the same time.

The plan worked. In one day, all the French Knights
where arrested, although as the legend goes, plenty
got away, knights and their wealth. According to
common conspiratorial folklore, Philip was envious of
their wealth and wanted it.

This is only half-right; the loot was just gravy.

The truth behind the assault on the Knights Templar
monasteries was that the central organization had
secretly turned Muslim over the years. Despite there
being many Christians in the order, the professed
Christianity had merely become a recognized and
trusted corporate logo. Slowly but surely all
employees who wanted to advance their station in the
order had to convert to Islam.

Philip V and Clement V obviously could not have all of
Christendom’s wealth controlled by the enemy, the
insidious and heretical Mohammedans, so they planned
this attack to take them down and they did.

Of course, the Templar wealth was a grand paper trail
of equities and usury, there was very little money in
one place at any time. The wealth did not disappear
because it was not there to begin with.

In order to gain public support for the siege, Philip
concocted sensationalist propaganda fiction about
initiations, homosexual rape, initiation by sodomy,
the ritual of denying Christ and the cross, and the
infamous Baphomet where all waved about. What the
interrogators did not realize or what they wanted the
ignorant masses to hear, was that all the stories are
actually based on fact.

Muslims deny that Christ was the son of God but the
last great Prophet before Mohammed; they also believe
that Christ never died on the cross and may still
wander the earth, which is why they stamped or spat on
images of the crucifix. The kissing was actually the
greeting common in Arab countries; the insinuations of
brutal, homosexual practices was probably
circumcision. If there was homosexuality among an all
male fraternity, it was problematic sexual harassment
in the workplace. It happens in prisons everyday, you
know.

Baphomet was probably derived from Baphemetios or
Baptism of Wisdom. This might have symbolized both the
Submission to the Five Pillars of Islam and a code
name for Mahomet, a variant of Mohammed.

Since only the Knights Templar of France got squashed
the rest of the European Knights Templar literally
went underground very quickly knowing full well that
their debtors would be very happy if they went away
permanently. Soon the rest of the order dissolved, but
the Knights Templar business never did. They just went
bankrupt here, and opened up shop there and life went
on. When Christopher Columbus set sail for India, his
ships had the Templar cross on their sails.

The Inquisition
The church never had a formal Inquisition it merely
launched Crusades against heretical threats against
the church. The most infamous being Simon de
Montfort’s Crusade against the Albigensian Gnostics.
Montfort sent his soldiers into the valley to kill
all, Christian and Cathar alike. His reason for his
method is often paraphrased as: Kill them all, let God
sort them out.

By 1252, a growing dissent was fermenting against the
extensive corruption of the church. This was widely
deeply insinuated that even kings and pious clergy
members where making acid criticisms. People from all
levels of society where beginning to find alternatives
at grassroots level. The church was finding out that
influence was waning and the income was thinning.

To counteract the growing heresy, Pope Innocent IV
declared a permanent structure for rooting out and
crushing these heresies, The Holy Office of the
Inquisition. Dominican order of Mendicants and the
Franciscan Order was handed responsibility for
directing the Holy Office. 

Incorporating personnel from other monastic orders and
secular lay members, the Inquisition set about their
task in rooting out any and all heresy wherever they
could find it.

With the ability to force confessions during
interrogation and confiscate all property from
heretics, the Holy Office became the richest order
within Christendom in just two years.

Without any restraint, the Inquisition became a tool
of terror in Europe. No one was safe from its
inquiries, not peasants, not royalty, and not even
fellow clergy. 

The Black Plague
In the mid-Thirteenth century the Black Plague had
began explosively decimating Europe’s population.

The Babylonian Captivity
Philip V the Fair, king of France insisted that Pope
Clement rule the Holy See from France and in 1309
Clement V settled to rule in Avignon. In the same year
Philip V with Clement V’s official dissolution of the
order and blessing, stormed the Knight’s Templar
strongholds across France. 

Pope Urban V was pontiff from 1362 to 1370 during the
Avignon Papacy, commonly referred to as the Babylonian
Captivity.

King Philip IV the Fair forced Clement V to relocate
to Avignon rather than migrate between France and
Italy.

By 1362 and amid disarray in the Vatican the conclave
elected a mild and reformist French Cardinal, as Pope
Urban V. Urban V was a lifelong devotee of the
Benedictine order and kept Avignon as the Papal seat
of Europe.

Urban set about reforming the Church in France. To
hasten the process he enlisted a group of Benedictine
monks to investigate church corruption and unwarranted
affluence. It was a success. With the Benedictine
spies, who like the Dominican Inquisitors wore black
robes, found they could pass as inquisitors. Instead
of investigating and interrogating heresies, they
started a program of rooting out corruption amidst the
clergy.

They soon reported with horror stories of excess
cruelty and wanton destruction. The Holy Office of the
Inquisition, armed with untouchable authority was
extorting villages and with flimsy evidence committing
profitable murder. It appeared that if the suspects
where not profitable, they where generally left alone,
Christian or heretic.

It appeared even some Inquisitors where not even
official sanctioned by the church just rogue priests
and monks armed with bandits and mercenaries.
 
While seeing the necessity for the Inquisition and
being very aware of their lauded status within the
church, Urban decided the Inquisition needed pruning.
He instructed his monks to attach to themselves a
secular militia.

He knew of an obscure Iberian saint named Cecillius of
Granada. He called his little unofficial order, the
Order of Saint Cecil. Spain’s political and religious
turmoil under Moorish conquest and the Reconquista had
produced an attitude of despair. Refugees had long
been roaming around Europe. It was widely spoken that
these Spaniards had suffered under Moorish rule and he
adopted a plethora of folklore attributed to Saint
Cecil and his mythical fight against godless heretics.
Urban saw the clergy’s corruption and indifference to
suffering as heretical, against God. He adopted
Spain’s troubles as a symbol for the crumbling values
of the Holy See. The Order of Saint Cecil would be
Urban V’s metaphorical Reconquista against the fallen
clergy, his secret police against church corruption.

[NOTE: HUNT DOWN STUFF ON PRISCILLIANISM. SPANISH
BISHOP PRISCILLIAN OF AVILA WAS A HERETIC AND SORCERER
IN THE 4TH AND 5TH CENTURIES. PUT TO DEATH].

With the Cecilites in place in his administration,
Urban V set about moving the Papacy back to Rome. In
1367, he left for Italy. 

Urban V was displeased by Rome’s state of disarray and
insurrection. He stayed in the Vatican for three more
years. He did meet the Byzantine Roman Emperor John V
Palaeologus in the hopes of reconciliation and reunion
but it never occurred.

Against prophetic warnings, Urban V moved back to
France in 1370, and died just two months later in
December. Before he died, Urban V did warn the
Cecilites his private journal had been stolen while he
was in Rome. 

After deciding foul play was afoot, the secretive
Benedictines, slipped away, they went underground.
Indeed, this was true. A mere two days after Urban V’s
death, Pope Gregory XI was crowned Pontiff and was
immediately moved to Avignon. During his reign, he
ordered changes and promotions within the Inquisition.
>From 1370 to 1377 the Inquisition attempted sweeps of
this “heretical” sect within France. Popular rumours
began to circulate that the disposed Knights Templar
that had infiltrated the church and sought revenge.

Gregory XI moved the Papacy back to Rome in 1377. He
died in 1378. 

Realising that Urban V had left too many unanswered
questions, The Conclave of Cardinals voted in an
unstable firebrand Pontiff. They decided it was better
to have an Italian Pope who would keep the Papacy in
Rome.

Urban VI’s growing iron-fisted megalomania forced the
College of Cardinals to Anagni. With blessings from
Naples and France, the disposed Cardinals voted in a
new Pontiff, Clement VII. This started the Great
Schism and the reign of the French Antipopes.

With the Holy See divided, the Order of Saint Cecil
had much more freedom to move. With Pope Clement VII,
who imposed heavy taxes on even monastic orders, the
Cecilites discovered their budget cut.

With poor resources, the Cecilites where limited to
acts of espionage. Despite the threat of the Black
Plague and taxed and opportunistic French Inquisitors
hunting for wealthy secret societies, the Cecilites
continued their mission given to them directly by God
through Urban V.

The Cecilites decided on an overall streamlined
strategy. They would hunt for false or over zealous
Inquisitors. They would try villages but unless
something serious was found they would scold the
errant people, give them stern slaps on the wrist.

They would try as few people as possible, destroy any
evidence, and put down any heretical arguments. This
way, the Cecilites could execute a few guilty people,
while sparing the rest from dogmatic or greedy
Inquisitors. 

This course of action and having successfully
infiltrated the Inquisition, they could give whole
villages a clean bill of spiritual health.

Tracking down wayward Inquisitors was difficult. They
where often well protected from such eventualities.
Their tactics went to ambush and surprise. Poisonings
become popular, as did rockslides and terminal
injuries. Eventually, scare tactics worked the best. A
letter here and a message there did what no amount of
bloodshed could. By marking up a village as a
Plague-ridden area, the Inquisitors would leave it
alone.

They also discovered an ad hoc recruitment policy.
They would find clergy and lay-people that had
witnessed horrors and then present them with the “true
Inquisition”. There most common argument was that the
actual Inquisition was dripping with evil and the
Plague was God’s curse on his wayward church.
Especially bloodcurdling where rumours that Popes John
XX1 and Benedict XII where actual sorcerers.
Considering the times they where in, it worked like a
charm.

All applicants where initiated into the Order of Saint
Cecil and taught a modicum of literacy and Latin and
some combat training.

This is how the Order continued to function, for a
little better or much worse.

[BELOW: AS MUCH AS THIS FITS, I DO NOT LIKE IT. IT
FEELS A BIT TOO JOHNNY-COME-LATELY TO MOTIVATE THE
CECILITES].

Blue bloods and blue beards
The Order of Saint Cecil wandered about and did their
secret work but lost momentum. Many of the Order had
given up or had become what they hunted. 

Many were roused by the growing legends around Joan of
Arc especially her reclaiming of Orleans and her
subsequent capture, farcical trial, and dismal
execution as a heretic by the English in 1431. Many
Cecilites had become politically motivated by her
daring-do.

Until stories of missing childrens’ hideously murdered
bodies were found near the castle of Champtoce.

Monsigneur Simeon d’ Etienne wandered into Champtoce
to investigate the veracity of these murders and had
soon discovered direct evidence.

After investigating d’ Etienne, a converted poacher,
discovered the bodies where being dumped by carts
leaving the Castle Champtoce, the keep of Gilles de
Laval de Rais.

Everyone admired Gilles, the Marshal of France, his
serving under Joan of Arc in the battle of Orleans,
his wealth, and his extreme piety. Gilles kept a
flotilla of clergy with him at all times and spoke
with them as equals in knowledge.

D’ Etienne believed some fell conspiracy was occurring
here, some dire English plot to discredit a noble war
hero.

But wherever he looked, he found nothing under turned
stones; just vague rumours and fearful peasants. At a
loss, d’ Etienne wrote letters to his secret brethren
asking for assistance.

In six months, a picture was painted and it did not
include any English at all. It seems Marshal Gilles
had enjoyed his extravagant lifestyle a bit too much
and had to sell seven of his fifteen baronies. This
lack of income had curtailed his excesses so much that
he began to hunger after money. So desperate was he
that he sent for all sorts of men learned in the Arts
to sort out his problem.

After abandoning the magicians, Gilles found a cozy
partnership with an alchemist named Frances Prelati,
and an unnamed apostate priest. 

Other strange stories where also orbiting such as the
one where Gilles locked up his wife in a tower,
refusing to allow anyone to see to her during her
pregnancy. Even stranger, Gilles publically declared
he was departing for the holy land and then simply
barricaded himself within his keep. Witness swore that
something was going on there with the Baron Gilles and
that strange lights where seen in his personal tower
in the castle during all hours. He had also expressly
forbidden anyone to enter this walled-up tower.

Unable to make any further headway into the
investigation, they tried one more step. They forged a
letter to Gilles wife’s sister, Anne. In this letter,
they wrote of all the evidence that they, the
Cecilites had uncovered, and asked for armed escorts.

Soon, Lady Anne arrived to visit her sister, which
Gilles permitted.

Lady Anne dragged her neurotic sister to the tower and
discovered a little corner of hell inside. Tubs of
blood, idols, sacraments to the Black Mass, alchemy
and astrological devices, human organs preserved in
fluids.

Unfortunately Gilles noticed and rapidly entered the
tower discovering his wife trying to clean one of the
copper tubs she bumped over. The Lady Anne, however
fled to the very roof of the tower, and signaled her
two brothers and their armed posse.

They entered the castle noisily halting Gilles
sacrifice of his wife and unborn child to the Devil.

In the hall, Anne summoned her brothers to arms and
they took Gilles wife and Anne back to Machecoul.

Along with testimony from the Gilles wife and Anne,
the Cecilites petitioned the Bishop of Nantes, the
Vicor of the Inquisition, to put Gilles on trial.

Eventually, with more children murdered, the Bishop
sent for Gilles to be arrested and tried.

Gilles and Prelati were found guilty and executed in
1440.

This galvanized the Order of Saint Cecil. Copies of
the testimonials were handed about to all Cecilites in
Europe. They now knew how perfectly insidious evil was
and that as priests they would actually have to bear
arms against diabolical evil. Alchemy, astrology,
idolatry, sorcery, human sacrifice, child rape,
amulets, sodomy, and incantations were the Devil’s
work. The Order would hunt down evil and destroy all
its forms.

With a renewed vigour, the Order of Saint Cecil
embarked on a campaign of violence against all
sorcery. They would punish those with their own hands
and not wait for the sluggish commitment of the
Inquisition. This was when the Cecilites removed
themselves from the Holy Office of the Inquisition and
went independent.

However it would be over a hundred years before the
rootless Order of Saint Cecil would find a permanent
home. During this time, they spread and expanded their
reach across all Europe. They had an informal base in
Rome but at times, contact was non-existent and
haphazard at best.

An indulgence of protest
1517 saw the primacy of the Holy See fracture with a
nail when Martin Luther a priest hammered his theses
to a church door. Father Luther refuted indulgences, a
form of confession that could be bought and
administered before the sin happened. By 1519, the
controversy surrounding Luther and the Pope had
reached Italy, France, and England thanks to the
printing press. By 1522, excommunicated and
sequestered, he had translated the New Testament in
German. By 1524, The Peasants War flared up with serfs
rising up to battle the rigid class structure, which
held them as property for centuries.

It did not stop fervid persecution of Jews, heretics,
and nebulously identified witchcraft, which Luther
encouraged.

Saint Ignatius
In 1534, an independent-minded Spaniard, Ignatius of
Loyala, founded the Society of Jesus with six other
students. In 1537, they successfully petitioned Pope
Paul III and he granted them a commendation and had
them ordained as priests.

The Society of Jesus suffered a bit of bureaucratic
drag but by 1540 they had a constitution and mission.
They spread themselves out into Europe with the
directive to start schools and education, minister to
Christians, and convert and halt the Protestantism. 

Designed on a monarchical hierarchy and armed a full
constitution in 1554, they spread throughout Europe,
welcomed by the underclass everywhere. Trained in the
classics, their schooling flourished literacy in
Europe.

The Jesuit Order was not without woes when the Papacy
begin interfering, criticizing its independence,
popularity amid the peasants, and semi-heretical
doctrine. Their sole obedience to the Pope earned them
troubles with the Roman Curia. Their vows to poverty
ensured that they had to rely on support for
assistance. In the following 450 years, they where
suppressed in various ways.

The Cecilites welcomed the Jesuit Order and joined in.
What made it better though, was that the Jesuits
ordained soldiers as priests. With this ground swell
of immanently practical-minded recruits, complete
flexibility, and mobility, the Order of Saint Cecil
secretly nestled itself within the Society of Jesus as
its home.

Ignatius died in 1556. During this time, the Jesuits
had a network of seventy-four colleges on three
continents.

Despite being suppressed, and finally restored in
1840, the Order of Saint Cecil has its eyes everywhere
from distant rural villages to inner city slums on
every continent. While never numerous, the small order
has the ability to reach wherever it needs.

The Order has since the late 19th century been doing
its subversive direct-action, no-tolerance policy
against the machinations of the Devil. 

THE CHURCH TODAY
Essentially the entire organization of the Holy See is
set in the independent City State of the Vatican, in
Rome, Italy.

The Vatican headquarters is a vast Byzantine social
structure that collects all the news of the
international goings-on of the Catholic Church.

Since the Order of Saint Cecil secretly haunts the
church but through the independent arms of the
free-range Jesuits, here is a brief and abbreviated
breakdown of the Holy See.

Think of the Holy See as a page with a line down the
middle, on the left in the internal affairs of Vatican
and on the right half, the external, international
Catholic Church.

The Pope
He is the central figure, but most of the happenings
happen without him or his knowledge but, just for
brevity, he is, in theory, aware of most things.

The supposed unquestioned and infallible master of the
Holy See and co-ordinator of God’s Will on Earth is
the Pope. The Hub of all that is the Papacy.

Connecting from the Pope and then outwards like spokes
from a wheel.

College of Cardinals
The cardinals are the board of directors of the Holy
See. They debate all the important matters of church
and state here.

Monitor Ecclesiasticus (M.E.)
M.E. is a super-secret body that answers directly to
the Pope. M.E. is a foundation that publishes and
distributes a canon law review to Cardinals and
Bishops worldwide. Anything handled by M.E., including
the Vatican Bank/I.O.R. transactions falls under the
protection of very strict confidentiality and secrecy
laws that apply to any entity linked to the Vatican
and the Vatican Bank, I.O.R. 

Only the Pope can personally disclose details of any
activities made under these super secret bylaws. Think
of M.E. as the Vatican’s own intelligence agency and
public relations service.

Archbishoprics
Those appointed to monitor and police the diocese in
countries around the world are the Archbishops. Every
country has one.

Bishops
Every state or province in the world technically
should have a bishop.

The Vatican Bank/I.O.R.
The Vatican Bank/I.O.R. links directly to the Pope and
M.E. The Vatican Bank handles all the Holy See’s
financial matters at home and abroad. The most
embarrassing and damaging event to occur to the
Vatican was the P2 banking scandal in which the
Vatican Bank was found to be sleeping with the Italian
Mafia and was part of a massive international fraud,
drug-running, and money-laundering scheme. Although
cleaned of criminal dealings, the Vatican has never
adequately explained or investigated its own
involvement in P2 and the scandal severely damaged the
Vatican Banks reputation.

Opus Dei
Ever since the church wagged its disapproving finger
at Freemasonry, the church decided to start its own
exclusive club for Catholics only. Styled on Masonic
lodges the Opus Dei is mostly laity and has offices
around the world.

Despite the ominous accusations, Opus Dei is primarily
the evangelical arm of the Catholic Church. Of secrecy
and the stink of another Catholic lodge, P2, has led
to finger waving at Opus Dei. Opus Dei is about as
morally bankrupt as any secret society.

P2
The infamous Propaganda Due, supposedly bankrolled by
the CIA as a countermeasure to the growing support of
socialist and communist politics in the Italian
parliament, in the early nineteen eighties were
riddled with organised crime. P2 no longer exists in
any form of official capacity. Investigators never
fully explored the depth and extensiveness of the
banking scandal.

Swiss Guard
The Swiss Guard were a band of elite Swiss mercenaries
hired to protect the Pope. Currently all members of
the Swiss Guard are all Catholic, single and Swiss.
They are tested and trained as elite soldiers and not
just props for the fancy dress uniforms they were for
the public.

MAKING A MAN OUT OF YOU FOR CELIBACY

Creating a Catholic priest character for your game is
simple with these few changes. Only Jesuits need to be
able to speak English and Spanish.

Easy Cookie-cutter Identities
Cecilites are different in a simple but functional
purpose. Their Obsession or one of their Passions must
relate to the Unnatural or Demonic. How severe or what
Passion it triggers their attitude to how they fight
it.

For analyses, the Order divides into Crusader,
Liberal, Orthodox, and Secular attitudes. 

Crusader
This Cecilite is obsessed about the Devil in the
world. He knows the world is his, but he strives to
divide everything into threatening and non-threatening
evil. Anything that will trigger an Unnatural check is
the pinnacle of the Devil’s work. He will root it out
and fight it no matter where it is in the world.

Liberal
The Liberal wants to protect the world, from the
children to the elderly. His root is his Noble
Passion. By going into the heart of darkness, he
wishes to pluck the sinner from the jaw of defeat. He
wants to everyone.

Orthodox
This priest hates the Unnatural. To him the many
justify a loss of the few. The Devil is so crafty, his
minions are everywhere whispering false promises and
lies. The Orthodox is driven by his Rage passion. He
is the most judgemental of all the Order.

Secular
The secular priest knows that the world is the world.
People have been lying to, torturing, and murdering
each other even before we left the Garden of Eden. The
world hasn’t changed, but here and there is the Devil.
His presence is a victory, a yardstick measuring his
successes in the world. The Unnatural is the
overflowing sewage of hell. Beating back the Devil
only makes him pop up elsewhere. All sin is equal the
supernatural is merely arrogant boasting from the
Adversary’s success.

We must heal the hurts of the world before we all see
too late, that this is the Devil’s world and then it
is too late.

The Secular priest tries to teach people about evil,
how to avoid it. He is an investigator and counselor
because he understands humans are sinful too. He fears
the world is slowly flushing down to hell; by beating
back the Unnatural back, he hopes to provide some
spiritual beacon for the blind masses.

Free Start-up Skills

Body Skills 
Struggle 10%
Priests are typically aggressive fight-starters but
they can have a prior history of delinquency if you so
wish.

Mind Skills 
Seminary Education 20%
It takes seven years of study and apprenticeship to be
ordained as a Catholic priest. Seminary Education also
allows a priest to read and speak Latin and maybe
write it a little too.  It also allows ordained
priests to say Mass and officiate of various rites and
ceremonies, and hear confessions.

Speak English and Speak Spanish 15% [Jesuits only]
English- or Spanish-speaking Jesuits have to speak
Spanish and English as a second language. If not, you
have to learn to speak Spanish or English as your
second language. The minimum is 15% 

Paradigm: Christian 10%
As in Unknown Armies page 43. 
 
THE ORDER OF SAINT CECIL

Primarily embedded within the Society of Jesus, the
secret Cecilites are self-motivated soldiers fighting
the War on the Adversary and all his minions.

The Order of Saint Cecil is an organization moving
without any sanction or knowledge for any Pope since
1378. Urban V’s stolen journal is still in the fabled
Vatican library under drifts of dusty memorabilia.
Knowledge of the journal is not so much secret as it
is occult, it is so obscure and Urban V’s references
too veiled other than infer secret histories like Dan
Brown.

They have neither headquarters nor governing
committee. There is no census or single direct email
list. Some Cecilites have political influence, and
thus avoid direct Cecilite missions but supply
information and re-arrange members to avoid suspicion.
They do not launch missions from the Vatican and
return for debriefing. The Order is decentralized and
global. They do not rush in, shoot, and let God sort
them out. They investigate and analyze. They ask
questions and send out the inconspicuous, but
experienced laity first to test the waters. These are
not blind operations, they do have good equipment and
all field operatives have some technical training from
the members learned in the occult of science. They do
this to avoid the innocent getting hurt and themselves
being caught. They use psychological warfare to
disturb targets. They mine for data. And when
everything is cleared up and squared away, they move
in armed with weapons if they need it but mostly some
spiritual guidance and a horrific slide show of the
Occult Menace. Remember these are priests not members
of TNI.

They have members wandering in all departments but
most purposely do not know who the others are. 

Unlike before when they had to make to with rosaries,
baseball bats, and Saturday Night Specials, they saw a
break and took it.

They have some dummy accounts and paper companies they
subverted from the P2 banking scandal. Through the
money and Mafioso contacts their ability to procure
weapons. There singular ant-like determination has
made them use confessions as protective blackmail and
looted funds to pay for secret identities and in some
cases paper trails to fake-ordain members of the
Order. It would not do to see so many Catholic priests
flying around the world with so many people starving.
They all go incognito although some go in full regalia
at the location. They also create false histories for
laity and have them ordained as full priests if only
on paper alone. Some members are just too precious to
let wander around the world.

This unorthodox ordination is also a regular means of
retiring agents from the field and letting them live a
life of humble obscurity amidst priests.  

Although most would blanch at the abuse of their
spiritual privileges, it is generally veteran
Cecilites that deal with the worst of the criminal
operations.

Cecilites prentice fresh recruits based on
psychological profiles (yes, priests are evaluated
too) and previous experiences. Since some priests have
had pasts, which are perfect for more physical
operations. The recruits are tested, often drawn in
with secret dossiers anonymously posted and
clandestine meetings.

The Order incorporates the monastics and laity too.
The laity are Catholics, sometimes not even, who have
experienced the Unnatural in a bad way and are glad to
have some assistance, support, and help from authority
figures steeped in mystery.

A large portion of the Order is composed of members of
the Swiss Guard. These recruits are perfect. The Swiss
Guard are trained, are dedicated, are willing to go
that extra mile, and are relatively innocuous outside
of Italy. However, the Swiss Guard forms their own
bands to go demon hunting. It is unusual to see the
Swiss Guard with priests and other laity, but there is
always one priest with the Swiss Guard contingent.

Approximately 30% of the Order are full time
stringers. They hunt for activity that fits the
profile of heretics and diabolists and unfortunate
lost lambs. Unfortunately, they have no distinction
between mere phenomena and actual sorcery, so they
tread carefully. They cannot afford to chase down
whiffs of weirdness. The rest of the information comes
from anonymous contacts. The order also has a couple
of hidden mailing accounts and every so often, a
parish priest or prominent member of the community
gets a card with an address with the line: If there is
undeniable supernatural Satanic activity, send a
message with your contact details. The order does not
just rush in; they send the closest private
investigator to verify. Since the order is slow, they
have missed a couple of bad apples the world is better
off without... Even so, they have stumbled upon heavy
metal teenagers worshipping Satan in storm drains.
They arrive, check, give some advice and if there’s
some sort of abuse contact the relevant authorities,
and try smooth things over. They are still priests,
after all, they are here to minister to people as well
as shoot pure evil. 

Your average demon-busting gang of priests and laity
form stable groups. This helps form a bond of trust
and dependence among the Clergy. Everyone is to know
either first aid or a firearm skill, preferably both. 

Since the priests on the field are Jesuits, the
created Cecilite characters are Jesuits although even
nuns, monks, lay members and valuable non-Catholics
are permitted. Valuable members will also get a free
identity makeover complete as an ordained priest (nun
for women if they choose), and a simple retirement in
the Vatican. It is not much, but hey, this is not the
Sleepers, you know.

As mentioned, sometimes hard-core adepts and avatars
find themselves fighting with the Order in truces with
the proviso of one free get out of purgatory card.
This is not a happy Sunday picnic. Both parties leave
each other with a curt nod of thanks and the “I’ll be
watching” squint of the eye. Some of these
relationships may become something further but most
often, the occultist goes his own way.  
The Arsenal
The Catholic Church has had a history stretching back
fifteen-hundred years and they accumulated a lot of
strange books and artifacts. Secret histories and the
truth behind conspiracy theories, and occult
observations abound.

For years, the Order of Cecil struggled without decent
weaponry, but this handicap cleared up by 1985. With
guns and arcane wisdom, the Cecilites are probably the
most clandestine and old cabal in the world. Their
legacy pales the Sleepers highbrow attitudes and a
clandestine network that shames the Cryptomancers.

The famous Vatican Libraries of looted tomes and
artifacts are never far from the mind of occultists.
All of them can dream of going inside and just seeing
the reams of bound sorcery and vaults of artifacts
dating back millennia.

There is nothing more frightening than the Order
preparing their big guns and going to take down a
demon unlawfully making a mockery of God’s earth.

It is, of course, crap. The Order has next to squat.
The only thing of remote interest is Urban V’s journal
and even then, most Cecilites retell the story by
heart to recruits. The story changes and is
embellished by it stays the same. It is not
complicated.

There are occasional alliances between liberal
Cecilites and the Occult Underground: avatars,
ritualists, and even on occasion, adepts. But these
are temporary and definitely not the true order of
things but contacts can be useful, especially direct
information. Most often, these contacts are stoolies
scared shitless about the Inquisition (which the
Cecilites never deny, but never validate either).
After slapping around or paying a stoolie, the
Cecilites get some information for their case and
disappear into the shadows.  

In all the years they have been around, the Cecilites
may have formed lasting, trusting alliances with
underground occultists maybe five times, maybe. Since
they do not keep proper records, it is hearsay, but
not outside of possibility. People suspect that these
alliances must be secret for valid fears of reprisals.

Because of ignorance, 99% of Cecilites see no
difference between any types of magick and see it all
as the Devil’s Work. The few that do know might even
be ex occult underground members recruited to fight
the good fight, as much as any potential recruit is.

There double-dealing in a pea-in-three-cups money
schemes and mob contacts allows them to have access to
any low-caliber weapon. They might have the big guns
but these are exclusively reserved for the Swiss Guard
members. 

The order has no rituals, artefacts, spells, pet
guardian angels, or anything of the sort. God’s
miracles happen at His will not ours: anything
supernatural controlled by a human mind is not God’s
Will and is corrupt pure and simple.

WEAPONS OF THE ORDER

The Bureaucracy of Cecil (Mind)
This allows a Cecilite to try to requisition money,
get medical assistance, and weapons from the Order. Of
course, planning and paying for flights and
accommodation is a job for the order itself. It is for
graft cash, weapons and contacts. For a couple of
hundred but under a thousand dollars roll the dice and
multiply by ten. 

For a weapon, roll but over your chosen weapon’s
caliber.

Faith (Soul)
Faith allows a Cecilite to re-roll a Failed Soul check
and succeed if it rolls under the Faith skill. Of more
importance, a successful Soul roll allows the
possessed to roll their Soul to cast out a possessing
demon.

Litmus Omen (Soul)
This para-quasi-magickal skill is the Order of Saint
Cecil equivalent of a Causal Weirdness Dip Stick. It
has a variety of personalised names and appearances
but the basic mechanic is the same most of the time.

The player must choose a specific minor Unnatural
phenomenon from Bad Smell, Sizzling Holy Water,
Demonic Breathing, Shivers, Smouldering Crucifix,
Dripping Wall Mucous, Poltergeist Rheostat, Mysterious
Exhalations of Cigar Smoke, Flat Insect Buzzing, Ghost
Voices, or whatever.

What happens is that if the player wishes to ping
magick, he rolls his Litmus Omen skill and if someone
with a magick skill, an Unnatural entity, or charge
gathering occurred recently, the minor phenomenon
manifests. If there is direct magick or charge
gathering occurring. If someone is targeting the
character, the phenomena manifests automatically.

If a good match is rolled, the phenomenon indicates
the direction or power of the magick or charge
gathering.

Avatar: Archetype (Soul)
A few Cecilites unknowningly channel an archetype
(especially the Warrior) but a small percentage are
clued up and channel, trying to fight fire with fire.
These Cecilites are closet occultists and keep their
secret very close to their chest. 

With these skills, the Cecilite is ready to go out and
do some justice!





__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com