Establishment of the Monasteries

The original thirteen monastic orders were founded in the wake of the War Against the Gods. For a long time following the banishment of the gods, temples and religious sites became constant targets of looting and vandalism motivated by antitheistic sentiment and opportunism. Without the presence of the gods themselves, most holy sites were left without protection. Although some religions had inspired orders of knights or fanatic-warriors before and during the war, most clergy themselves were mediocre fighters at best.
During Shoulun’s Age of Kings and Chiefs, when the region was divided between tribal bands of various sort and small city-states, 13 strangers came to the temples of 13 cities and offered to train select clergy in deadly fighting arts if the temples would dedicate themselves to returning the gods to their position at the center of civic life. The clerics agreed and their fastest, strongest faithful were taken to a secret realm to learn the style that would be called “13 Elements Hand” or “Monkpalm.” When the newly-trained warrior-monks returned, they found that while years of training had passed in the realm they’d been taken to, only one year had passed at home. The temples of each city sent their elite warriors to the local monarchs to show them their new skills and offer to put an end to barbarian raiding if future kings and queens would be subject to the blessing of a high priest before they could take the throne, and if a new, grand temple and monastery training complex were built within the domain. Most rulers agreed to the terms. Those who didn’t were killed by the monks, who then imposed direct rule-by-clergy. Within a decade of theocratizing the city-states of Shoulun, most enemy tribes had been either run out of the region, killed, or had negotiated peace with the urbanites. This paved the way for the Serene Kingdom Period.
During the Serene Kingdom Period, the city-states grew to full kingdoms under the rule of kings who were subservient to the clergy or of actual priest-kings. This started as a peaceful era, but rivalries developed between kingdoms, resulting in periodic wars until the central kingdoms were finally unified under The Dragon Empire, which has maintained peace through domination. It was during this period between the establishment of the Serene Kingdoms and their fall that the original 13 Elements Style evolved into 13 specialised forms of Monkpalm, 11 of which continue to be practiced.
Although the training of warrior-monks began in Shoulun, the burning of monasteries under the First Dragon Emperor scattered monks across the continent and overseas, where they would find work as trainers to both secular powers and religious orders. Although the concentration of monasteries is highest in the former Serene Kingdoms region (Ratlands, Kingdom of the Snake, Serene Kingdom of the Elephant, Dragon Empire, and the south-eastern portion of the Kingdom of the Horse), they have become common in Baghadeesh and there are a few on every other continent. Most monasteries are connected to a temple complex, but some stand alone. Each monastery has an elemental alignment (any of the Martial Elements except Mist or Smoke) in addition to an ethical alignment (Good, Neutral, Evil). All are dedicated to a god or pantheon of gods and all teach their adepts at least one martial arts style beyond their elemental form of Monkpalm. Whether martial arts training is provided to non-monks varies from temple to temple. Many Evil monasteries will provide training for an affiliated guild of assassins. Good monasteries will sometimes ask a junior monk who seems too exuberant for the monastic life to leave off their religious training and consider the path of the youxia, allowed to learn fighting skills within the monastery, but expected to live in the country and defend the common folk. When Neutral monasteries train laypeople, it is usually for the sake of raising funds to support the temple, both through the lessons themselves, and through prize money won by temple-managed fighters (it is not unusual for a monastery to maintain a stable of prize fighters, usually of the Fighter, Bushi, or Kensai class).