The Monastery of the Way of Sculpted Stone

A secluded monastic order that comes from the high peaks of the Tall Horn mountains, this order is relatively small. 
The order is built around the idea of ideas. The erosion of thought and the evolution of concepts through the ages are the primary points that masters of this esoteric tradition study. 
They live in very remote, often very dangerous areas and as such they have a very refined fighting style that focuses on wearing an opponent down rather than through brute force. Members of this order are often found throughout the continent, searching for new ideas and philosophies to bring back to their monasteries to be compared and recorded in the "Echoing Vaults", huge underground caverns where their masters have carved the ideas they have come across over the centuries and where they also compare those ideas against new ones view a complex genealogical tree of ideas, where they track the growth of concepts and their evolution over the millennia. 
A strange group, their traveling scholars are well versed and able to defend themselves while also being well versed in the practices of all the cultures on the continent as they are likely to be gone from their monastery homes for decades at a time. 
The Way of Sculpted Stone is often sought out by travelers looking for incredibly ancient ideas or knowledge, though often what they find is not what they expect as the monks record ideas...not dates or times or often even the progenitors of those ideas. Thankfully the monasteries often have extensive libraries for their more immediate needs that can be expansive enough to aid these travelers. Travelers who very often become initiates of the order themselves.

Type

Religious, Monastic Order