Ordeal Keepers
All Guardians of the Veil value and reward achievement and individual merit, but none more than the Ordeal Keepers, who pride themselves on their constant pursuit of perfection. They don’t just test themselves, however, but those Sleepers who would earn the right to study the Mysteries and the Ordeal Keepers’ fellow mages as well.
Just as all Guardians of the Veil, Ordeal Keepers defile their own karma in their subtle crusade to prevent Sleepers from seeing the Mysteries at work in the world around them, but, unlike the order’s other factions, the Ordeal Keepers seek to make up for that spiritual defi lement by honing their minds and bodies to a particularly keen edge by way of compensating for their spiritual defi cits — and keeping them sharp through constant quests and testing.
Ordeal Keepers are firm believers in the Greek ideal of maintaining a strong mind and a strong body so that the two can reinforce each other. The world throws all manner of tests at the Awakened, and those having only a single strength or skill set are less likely to master themselves and the world around them than those who strive to have a myriad of talents and abilities honed to an edge at any given time. Due to certain philosophical similarities, Ordeal Keepers are by far the most popular Guardians faction among Thyrsus mages, who also tend toward a certain “survival of the fi ttest” mentality.
Of all the Guardians of the Veil factions, Ordeal Keepers are the most willing to enter into direct physical combat. While they aren’t usually masters of direct physical conflict like the mages of the Adamantine Arrow, the high degree of mental and physical training among the Ordeal Keepers makes them fierce opponents. Any of the Physical Merits listed on pp. 110–114 of the World of Darkness Rulebook can commonly be found in these highly trained mages, and some of them have trained themselves to the very edge of human physical potential through their rigorous physical regimens.
More even than other Guardians factions, the Ordeal Keepers are advocates of a strict meritocracy, or rule by the most competent and skilled. Consequently, they are ardent foes of cronyism or any system of assigning authority in which competence is not the sole criterion for assessing worth and fitness to lead. Even after an Ordeal Keeper’s competence (in whatever arena) has been established, it is expected that such skills will be constantly tested and reinforced to ensure that the mage is not “resting on her laurels.” The zeal shown by Ordeal Keepers for strict meritocracy has occasionally brought the faction into confl ict with the local Consilium and even their own order when key fi gures in the local power structure, especially positions such as Epopt, Sentinel or Hierarch, rise to prominence for any reason other than sheer capability and talent. Ordeal Keepers have been known to lead the rest of the Guardians of the Veil into full-on rebellions when key Councilors are put into position without due attention being paid to their actual merit.
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