Order of the Crimson Tower:
It is a common assumption that the Order of the Crimson Tower are nothing more than warmongering brutes, a perception that is not aided by a number of behaviours unique and quite prevalent among the order.
The first of them is that members of the Order refuse to exalt or aggrandize the pursuit of War in any form. They not only do not promote their accomplishments but actively dissuade others from doing so. (A number of minstrels have lost patronage (and teeth) for failing to heed this advice.) They refuse to decorate or embellish their arms and armor, effect only those repairs that serve a function and do not care for their appearance in the least.
These behaviours, coupled with their tendency to recruit members from the lowest rungs of society (more on this later) have not aided their perception or image, particularly among the refined nobility (who are, not coincidentally, the likeliest individuals to engage in senseless warfare, making them natural enemies already).
Yet even this brutish appearance and behaviour lends itself to their overriding pursuit: the taming of War. This is no high minded ideal or pacifistic notion, either. They are intimately aware of the violent nature of man and his neighbors. They do not seek to end war, but to contain it. Every act the Order engages in is designed to reduce the impact of war upon the populace at large as well as to reduce its worst excesses. They understand and accept it as a fundamental societal evil, they have just dedicated themselves to policing it.
Recruitment:
The zeal and focus with which they pursue this aim is closely tied to their recruitment methods. Walk a few dozen paces in any market in the Hundred Kingdoms and you will come across the maimed and wounded left behind by war. Betrayed by society and abandoned to their fate, they are the fertile recruiting grounds from which the Order of the Crimson Tower bolsters its ranks.
These forgotten men are taken in where they can be found. Clothed, fed and treated by the lay brothers of the Order, who have become inordinately skilled at aiding these men to recuperate from their afflictions (aided in no small part by the study of the miraculous effects that the Initiation has upon their Brothers Militant). All are welcome to the Order, and for many the notion of a warm bed and steady meals are more than enough to see them join the order as laborers and servants. For those who find their purpose among the Order the path of the lay brother lies open, learning the healing skills that aided them and helping the Order manage the hospices and compounds they operate throughout the realms.
For those upon whose soul War has left too deep a mark, the path of the Brother Militant is open. The training is gruelling, more so due to the disability that many of its brothers face. That, more so than any chivalric reason, is why so many of the Order fight from horseback: it allows them to compensate for their injuries. Trainees are expectede to master in a few years what the nobility spends a dozen or more instilling into their young knights. But learn they do, for these are hard, bitter men who have known the taste of defeat, and their zeal and drive is second to none. Amongst their number, only the most dedicated and zealous are Initiated into the true mysteries of the Order and implanted with the shard. Their sheer presence and absolute mastery over their injured bodies doing more to motivate those who yet suffer from War’s cruel ministrations.
Influence:
The nature of their quest and the rough character of many among their number naturally limit the influence that the Order of the Crimson tower might wield at court. However, all brothers of the Crimson Tower know that politics bow to power, and power flows from the edge of the sword. In matters militant, there is none who can surpass their mastery: the Swordbrethren might be more skilled with the blade and the Sealed Temple be more deft, but none know the craft of War like the Crimson Tower.
Steadfast supporters of the Militia Act, it is a lucky village indeed that has been blessed by a trainer from the Crimson Tower. Skilled veterans of the highest caliber, these men do more to contain the abuses of war by training the defenceless population than a dozen Brothers Militant. However this is but the tip of the Order’s reach into this realm.
The sheer personal prowess of the Order’s Initiates gives them tremendous power and influence they can bring to bear directly on those matters closest to their heart and ideals: the pursuit of war and the restoration of the balance of power. Their skills are ill suited for the more subtle, but no less grand, schemes of the other Orders. The Order of the Crimson Tower seeks to exert their influence in the field of battle, shaping history with the application of raw force and power.
In matters of siegecraft and logistics their laybrothers are unsurpassed, with any who show the correct proclivities trained at the prestigious War Collegia in Argem. The Crimson Towers of the Order are marvels of engineering and military forethought. Care is taken to ensure these fortresses are not built in strategically or economically significant locations, but they are unassailable bastions combining the lay of the land and monumental engineering into one unmovable masterpiece. Their goal is not to control or enforce, but to provide the Order with unassailable positions from which it might march forth to change the course of history.
It was the foundation of these Fortresses that laid the foundation for the Order’s close cooperation and friendship with the ancient brotherhood of the Tectons. It is in fact through the skill and craft of the Tectons that the Orders have undertaken their most ambitious goal.
Throughout the Hundred Kingdoms porphyry towers have started rising in innocuous locations that the Gifted would recognize as teeming with power. Beautiful, delicate and utterly unbreakable, these Crimson Spires are built to function as armories, treasuries and garrisons for the Order. Here the ill gotten plunder of their victims is stored, within sight, but forever out of reach of those who would seek to claim it. But in addition to serving as unassailable symbols of the Order of the Crimson Towers otherworldly might and influence their true purpose goes much deeper than that: they seek to form a geomantic web, a rune of epic proportions to contain the power of War within the domains of man, lessening its influence on a metaphysical level while the Order itself seeks to temper its more physical manifestation.