Guardians of Eonnoe (Enn-ooh)

The Gaurdians of Eonnoe are a reclusive order of warrior monks founded centuries ago to defend the world. A seer foresaw a time when a terrible threat would arise, plunging the entirety of the Sundered Lands into darkness and despair, unless it was beaten back by a dedicated band of disciplined warriors. The first monks of the order laid the groundwork, and the order has been preparing for the arrival of that terrible day ever since.
Eonnoe is the Lawful Neutral god of civilisation, law, and learning, and any threat which may destabilise that is one that the god's followers believe must be beaten back in the sternest possible way. They are ever-vigilant for threats to civilisation.
The Guardians of Eonnoe chose a black granite spire thrusting out of the sands of the Desert of Desolation as a place suitably isolated from the often-turbulent politics of the Sundered Lands. They built their monastery atop the rock outcropping and began the slow process of tunnelling out further corridors and chambers within it. They have waited ever since, expanding their order and their defensible monastery as the years passed.
Young monks are sent out into the Sundered Lands to learn new combat skills and gather new adherents, then return to the order with both. Thus, they are constantly acquiring fresh skills from the greatest and most hardened warriors across the realm.
The Guardians are relatively well known in martial circles, as the travelling brothers and sisters of the order make no secret of their purpose or their skill. Sometimes a few monks may turn up shortly before a battle which would endanger some bastion of civilisation in an outlying area, led there by a prophetic dream from Eonnoe. When that happens, it has been known for attackers to simply leave upon seeing the grey clothes with green trim worn by members of the order. Those who have pressed the attack have invariably paid a terrible toll.
The order is reclusive, but does not refuse visitors who successfully find the monastery from learning with them. They only require that the supplicant have some martial skill which they can demonstrate to the Guardians, and that they swear a great oath to defend civilisation whenever it is under threat, standing against tyranny, injustice and chaos wherever it is encountered.
The monastery can only be entered via a steep and narrow set of stairs chiselled into the rock, winding its way up to the gate, or via a platform lowered on ropes to the desert sands far below. It is essentially self-sufficient, with huge cisterns hewn out of the rock fed by a deep aquifer, and carefully-tended gardens atop the spire supplementing the years-worth of food stored in the cool caverns. Churches of Eonnoe and law courts send regular tithes to the order in support of their work, and in return Guardian monks will periodically visit the churches and courts to train their defenders and test their readiness.

Type

Religious, Monastic Order