Category:Ascetic Order of the Grey Children

This section contains Homebrew non-canon info, created by fans

The Ascetic Order of the Grey Children is a monastic order currently in hiding in scattered locations around the Core.

Ethos

The Order practices strict asceticism and disdains personal belongings beyond what is needed and necessary. There are no written records of the Order because its teachings are passed down orally, and must be secured in living memory. Its monks are taught to eat only what they have themselves farmed or hunted, wear only clothes they have woven themselves, and follow a rigorous program of physical exercize and meditation to cleanse themselves of all weakness. While they do not take an oath of silence, Grey Children speak only when it is necessary to do so. Their purpose in this is to achieve independence from all need and true freedom of all suffering.

To be a Grey Child is to reject all unnecessary complication and attachment. All things that bring or depend upon complexity are distractions from truth, and truth is unity with the universe in body, heart, spirit and soul. Attachments are but millstones that delay one's path to the truth, as they bring complication to one's life.

History

At one time, the Order was located in Darkon, and was presumably founded during its False History. Regardless, it held monasteries that were located on the least hospitable peaks and crags of the Mountains of Misery, from where its monks left only to seek new novices.

Unfortunately the monks' dour message that in the monasteries waited 'the only treasure that matters, exalted above gold' was misinterpreted by greedy and outright evil nobles, bandits and monsters. The Order's monasteries came under constant assault by people who were determined to get at the treasure vaults they were convinced were there for the sacking, and even the martial arts the monks practised could not stand up to the endless waves of thieves and murderers.

In the eyes of Darkon, the Ascetic Order of the Grey Children ceased to be, its monks suddenly disappeared into the night. When the treasure-seekers broke into their monasteries, they found them inexplicably empty, and there were no vaults full of treasure. No matter how long and hard the vengeful thieves looked for monks, who they believed had unfairly taken what was 'meant' to be their loot, they found nothing.

Current Sketch

Rather than having ceased to be, the Order has gone underground. The surviving monks have scattered to the four winds and went in hiding all around the Core. Some persevered by training novices on a strict one-on-one basis, preserving their ethos and style of martial arts in isolation. A small group founded the thorp of Morguhald in dreary Sithicus, as far away from Darkon and their origins as they could go without passing into the Mists.