[Sodium_noir] Saturday Evening at Dusk

[Spikey]

[Be warned this is a loooong post. Finally the secret of Dusk Industries sees the light of, erm, dusk!]

Hope Zagorski, Leon Wolf, Zoe and Christophe Basarab 
Mortal, Ghoul, Brujah siblings 
Dusk Towers 

 Hope will take a step back, once again maintaining a fair amount of distance between the two of them. "So you were saying...about the Order?" 

"Yes, the Order!" Leon says rubbing his now free wrists and then placing the cuffs on the table. "The Ordres Draconis, or the Order of the Dragon in English. Mortal history has it beggining in the 14th century in Hungary as a noble band of Knights dedicated to assuring Hungarian dominance in the region and the succesion of certain Families to the positions of Power." 

"Please, make yourself comfortable, this will be quite a lecture. Those of my line have been required to learn the history of the Order from birth because it is the History of our family. Like most histories, it is rather long but to understand the Order you must know its complete tale." He waits for Hope to give him the nod to carry on.

"Europe at this time represented much more of a single civilization connected by solid dynastic and cultural ties than it does today." he walks towards the map on the wall and traces a path from Spain to Istanbul. "Most of central Europe was part of the Germany’s – the Holy Roman Empire. There were over three hundred ‘Germany’s’, inhabited by people of various ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. The order of the Dragon at this time was a political tool of that Holy Roman Empire. It decided the rules of ascension across the Germanies, the Balkan states and the majority of eastern Europe not governed by Byzantium. It also fronted the war against the Ottoman Turks who had thier eyes et on conquering all of those lands on their way West. The Nobles of Europe were educated by its members and its power toppled thrones whilst it assured that the Popes preferred rulers held sway. Heroes like Mercia Dracul and Vlad Dracula, as well as Hunyadi of Hungary and Stephen of Bohemia were granted their rule by membership in its select halls."

His hand drops from the mao and he peers at Hope over his immaculated dressed shoulder.

"But the mortal history is a sham. The Order is far older than Nurnburg, The Holy Roman Empire or even the True Roman empire for that matter. It was Old when the Greeks first stole thier culture from Egypt, born from a tribes in the Carpathian maountains who worshipped the Earth Mother in the form of a fierce and protective Dragoness. Its legends crept into the false faiths of the Jews and thier succesors, echoed throughthe dogmas of sects from Asia to Scotland. Carried far abroad by a number of undying vampires who were born into the tribes and the faith and who sought to become the favoured of the Dragoness. Indeed, we know these first vampyr only as 'the Dragons' and they appear to have had a hand in many mortal endeavours down through the centuries."  

Leon moves along the wall to the large woodcut of the Dragon, Running his fingers over its contours with a clear reverence as a sense of awe crept into his voice.
"Warlords and Wizards both chose the Dragon as their emblem and the Dragons themselves often took a direct hand in choosing the rightful ruler of the land. Like the Dragonkind of myth, though often the agent of his destruction these vampires had a certain interest in mankind from whom they had been awakened. Those who benefited from this favour were the men and women of destiny whose lives the bards never forgot. As the eons turned, the Dragons retreated from the face of the world and nested deep within the earth or perhaps ascended to some other place. Only the youngest of the race stayed too long and were killed by St George and his ilk. 

The Warriors of Tiamat, of Sobk, of Ao Kuang, Quetzalcoatl and the Lampton Wyrm kept the ideals of the Dragons alive in their ethics. Tribes that lived close to the places touched by Dragons produced both great warriors and wise rulers, although mostly benign Tyrants in the eyes of the world. These warriors and priestesses stood between their tribes and the advancing legions of order dead set on the destruction of the old religion. They also stood against the creatures that preyed upon Humanity, upon us. For some this was simply conservasion of the food chain, or protection of property. For others it was the preservation of thier own families, of thier loved ones and descendents."

He turned back to face Hope now, absentmindedly brushing something from his finger tips and seeming lost in the task as he continued to educate her.

"The order, you see, tends to concentrate its focus on certain families and tribes, and has done since its early days. My own family, the Basarb, trace our roots back to an ancient monster who was brought over the threshold to the night, made into a vampyr. He in turn watched over his descendents and chose the best to join him in his awakened state. The Basarab line have been the backbone of the Order ever since that night, some as lords, the rest of us as elevated retainers and vassals. You should see our geneology department, the Mormons would be green with envy!"

He smiled a little and stretched his back before continuing. 

"One of that Vampires mortal descendents, Grigori Basarab, was made a Vampire in the time of the First Crusade. he fought in that terrible war and returned to his homelands in Wallachia to foster the dynasty and to become a fully fledged member of the order. As well as being a Knight, he was also an astute bussinessman and he founded a merchant house, the house of Dusk, to trade on the Silk road and with Western lands as far as France and Spain. Though he created few vampires of his own, our Lord and Lady of the night are descended from his embrace. The company that now employs me is the inheritor of the Dusk merchant empire. 

Under the guidance of the Basarab family, the Order grew to its highest place as both a knightly order and as a political machine. The mixture of Hearth wisdom and dedicated scholars brought us to the top of our game so to speak. But we were still a secret order, of limited and elite membership and following too heretical a faith to be acceptable by the current thinking in Eastern Europe. Hiding was always our way of defence and when confronted with the growing cities and organized armies of humanity, we allowed ourselves to be enveloped. Learning that adaptation is natures greatest gift and strongest ally. 

But the Church that followed the fall of Rome was a selfish thing, the men who ran it thought themselves more able to rule than God. They changed the word of thier Lord in his book to fit thier own ends and slaughtered any who thought differently to them. Just as the Dragoness had her Noble warriors, so did the Church. A Tool of these corrupt men. It was to these Christian Knights that the Order eventually succumbed and by the time of Dracula when the Order was brought into the harsh light of day, it was as much a part of the Church as the Knights Templar had been or the Hospitlers still were. The Dragons and the Templers and thier succesors had waged a secret war since the last decades of the 12th century, but numbers and the ability to act openly won in the end.

In 1223 AD the Knights Templar and its agents took control of the order of the Dragon, their greatest enemies and all of the Nobles and elders of the inner council were burnt at the stake in Nuremburg. Those Vampires unfortunate enough to be captured were slaughtered along with the mortal knights and scholars. Although the Templers did not last long and were brought low themselves, I regret to say we had nothing to do with their destruction. Or apparent destruction. The Order became a grand defender of the faith and the Empire. Control of the Order allowed the Merovingians and their Hapsburg descendants to spread thier influence further and further East, to grasp Hungary, France and many other principalities in thier grasp. Much of European History was shaped by the fall of the Order even though such an event never made it into the history books."
Now the man seemed intent on fiddling with his cuffs, Tugging at the shirt sleeves and playing with the buttons.

"For two centuries the Order was reduced to a small arm of the Christian Knightly orders, until the Time of Vlad Dracula, the Son of the Dragon!" he did at least take notice of her expression when that name was dropped. "Vlad Dracula, or Vlad Basarab to give him his family name, expelled the corrupt Church Offcials from his lands and then from the order he had joined as a boy. Returning it to its original purpose while using it as his own political tool at one and the same time. The Order fell from favour and to the outside world appeared to be disbanded soon after. In truth we simply returned to the shadows and regathered the Elder vampires who had once taught us the darker path of Chivalry and nobility."

He left the self adjustment alone and leant on the lecturn in the centre of the room. Adopting a nonchelant pose to finsih his tale. 

"Since that time we have remained in the shadows. Fighting the worse of the hidden world, from Vampires to werewolves to Demons. We continued to amass our fortunes through mortal descendents such as myself, while the true masters of the Order played a nightly game of chess with things too terrible to mention. Things like the creature you killed in the Gotham PD headquarters Hope!

In the modern age the Order of the Dragon has lost much but regained so much more. The Kingdoms of Hungary, Wallachia and Transylvania slipped from ourr grasp almost unnoticed as we followed the rush to the new World. Dusk Industries allows the Order an international reach as well as a huge treasury. Business tycoons have replaced Nobles as the wielders of power and places like Wall street and Gotham are the new Courts. We fight the Darkness, fire with fire as the saying goes, and we make money to bankroll that war and to ensure we live as nobles were meant to live. To the Victor the spoils after all!" 

His smile now is of all togetehr more worldy nature. 

"Dusk industries has interests in Shipping, Road haulage, Air haulage, Banking, Travel agencies, Architectural consultants, Property magnates, Printing, Land development, Stone masons, quarries and engineering firms. We donate millions to the third world and our research and developement companies own patents on some truly amazing inventions.

The warriors of the Order are those who find the favour of a dragon. They are adopted by one of the ancient Tyrants of the Earth. Their ferocity, honour, bravery and daring marked them as something special in the eyes of the Dragons, the first children of the Earth and every so often a new member of the Order is given the dark gift of eternal life and eternal vigilence. 

You could say that we are an anacronistic group, but then so are the Free masons or the Grand order of the water Buffalo. Hell even the Ivy leaguers and Democrats have thier rituals and their traditions after all. There are those in the Order who remember the fall of the Order and its eventual return to the shadows. Those who have battled the evils of the night since before America was cursed with the white mans feet. We are a product of our history Hope, and that history is now something that you have become part of." 

[A loooong Tag] 

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