If anyone has any questions about the Templars and wants to save themselves the research, I did a fair amount of digging [and ignoring of some of their more...rigorous rules. Who cares how many horses and valets a master Templar should have for a roleplay, right?] and am willing to toss out what I know.

I'll go ahead and dish out the bit that surprised me the most given their reputation; only 1/10 of the Templar order, roughly, are actually knights, and in this time period I'd estimate there are roughly ~15-20,000 members of the Templar order [close to their peak/downfall numbers]. That means that there are maybe, idk, 1,500 actual [b]knights[/b] Templar. Their instrumental influence comes uniquely from their ties to the papacy [example: Them being completely above and beyond all laws of a given country] and the sheer amount of money their order [despite their individual vows of poverty] wields in terms of land and businesses. People would even put their entire properties in Templar control while they went on Crusades, or would sell all their goods to Templars in exchange for guaranteed funds in the holy land [Possessions transferred to Templars, Templars give pilgrim a writ with a number on it, pilgrim gets to Jerusalem and turns that writ in for equivalent cash].

Templars are basically a giant bank across Europe/The Middle East that has land holdings, with the most badass security guards one could hope for, to put it in less bulky wording.

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That being said, hoo boy this is gonna be a trip. Two people apprehensive of Hugo, so far, and all he's done is [i]be a Templar[/i]. Can't wait to see how this ride goes.

Also, I enjoy this little campfire introduction. A lot of RPs just sorta leave introductions to awkward toss-ups that make it hard to bring people together. This is nice.