Order of the Blooming Tree

Of the monastic orders present in New Cadrith, none are quite so unusual as the Order of the Blooming Tree. From their isolated temple-laboratory on a mountaintop atop the Sleeping Dragon Peaks, the stillness of the thin mountain air rings out with regular cracks of thunder, despite the clear skies. Many have attributed this noise to magic, demons, or other arcana - but the truth is far more strange to the unfamiliar. Within the walls of Pallas Mons, their monastery, the Order of the Blooming Tree guard a technology they deem too destructive and dangerous for the non-initiated - the power of gunpowder and firearms. Ranks of monks engage in ceaseless drills and maintenance rituals as they familiarise themselves with the tools of their order: pepperboxes, hand cannons, and muskets. Disciplined firing lines loose volleys of white-hot lead at pock-marked target boards, scored with years of use. At the rising and falling of the sun over the monastery, sharp cracks of gunfire salute another day gone past. Beyond the walls of the monastery, past the barrels of the monks standing watch on the ramparts, deep within the bowels of the mountain itself, lie great forges and mines. As part of their meditations and service to the Order, the monks extract great amounts of metal, saltpeter and sulphur from beneath the earth, and create gunpowder and the firearms which use it, guided by the alchemists and artificers of the Order. The charcoal and wooden frames of their signature weapons are procured from the hardy willow trees cultivated in Pallas Mons' groves, from which the Order take their name from. The monks of the Blooming Tree are trained not only in the use and maintenance of their firearms, but most importantly in their un-use. They are educated, from their earliest lessons, of the risks that firearms present, and to safeguard the knowledge of their use and production to those entrusted by the Order. In many cases, the Order only moves as an organisation to disarm those who would threaten their monopoly on firearms, leaving the stench of sulphur and black powder in their wake. Those who might attempt to leave the monastery with the intention of selling the close-guarded secrets of gunpowder find themselves struck down by the same crack of thunder halfway down the mountainside, their bodies unrecognisably mangled when they roll to the bottom of the Sleeping Dragon Peaks.

Location

Pallas Mons

Controlled Territories