Gnosis

=Gnosis: Background and history= The Enlightened Fraternity of Gnostic Knights, known simply as Gnosis among Templar circles, is one of the oldest and most storied cabals in the Order. Formed in the early 12th century among monks of the Cistercian order, Gnosis was initially a small, underground movement to preserve the ancient works of pre-Christian intellectuals and mystics from being censored or destroyed by the Vatican. After attracting the attention the newly formed Knights Templar by the quality of their scholarship, as well as their persistently inconvenient intellectual curiosity, the cabal was brought into the Templar fold and set to work translating, analyzing and preserving arcane and esoteric tomes brought back from the Holy Land during the Crusades. As it became quickly apparent that mostly illiterate knights and soldiers were more suited to the battlefield than exploring an ancient Zoroastrian temple or rescuing priceless, irreplacable scrolls from a cursed labyrinth, agents of Gnosis were often integrated into field expeditions by the Templars to study and catalogue the finds and spoils of their explorations.

The Current Situation
Although Gnosis was never a particularly large cabal in terms of numbers, during the latter half of the twentieth century it had dwindled away to just Veredelte and Enoch, occassionally assisted by their friend, the rather paranoid Jimmy "TheConnection" Verona. The focus of the Templars had shifted to the political machinations and manipulations of the Secret War and there was little use for an eclectic bunch of fussy old arcane scholars mixed in with the occasional adventurer.

=Scholars and Agents Provacateurs= Over the centuries, Gnosis has been home to many interesting and unusual denizens, but there have always been two constants that have guided the cabal: Enoch the Red and Veredelte. The source of their unusual longevity, and Veredelte's glowing, silver tattoos has long been a matter of speculation among the Templar. Enoch typically demures in response by saying "the blessings of Gaia are different for each of us." Veredelte, when she is in one of her better moods, typically responds with a glare that has been known to cause people to run away in fear. Regardless of the source of their abilities and long lives, Veredelte and Enoch (sometimes known as Hierophant or Enoch Rudd) have guided Gnosis through several periods of history while maintaining its focus on exploration, scholarship and preserving ancient lore.

=Rituals and Regalia=

The Gnostic Pin
=The British Academy for Noetic Science=

Throughout the centuries, the cabal has operated under a variety of different cover names to properly hide it's assets and provide the cover of plausible deniability for its actions. Some noteable aliases over the years have been New Bombay Shipping Company, Esoterica Investment Partners, Gnostic Systems, LLC, and British Special Intelligence Detachment 49.

Currently the cabal operates under the cover "The British Academy for Noetic Science," at the behest of a mysterious benefactor who recently intervened in Templar politics to bring Gnosis back to prominence.

=The Black Library=

=Current plots and storylines= =OOC details=

RP style
Gnosis is an immersive-RP cabal. While all of us love to PvE and some of us indulge in PvP to varying extents, the focus of the group is on the development of characters, interactions with other characters and group storytelling.

Veredelte (aka Kai) described immersive-RP best:

"What is immersive-RP? To us, it means that your character is an integral part of the experience of the game. Their plots, their relationships, their issues will always have a time to be the focus. We aim to keep Gnosis relatively small, where we all know each other's names, and everyone gets to tell their story, and contribute meaningfully to the stories of others. We want to cultivate a feeling and place where everyone wants to invent stories, progress their characters and hang out and just enjoy the setting, as opposed to requiring it."

Membership process
The membership process to join Gnosis is somewhat selective, but relatively simple. Basically, one must go to our website at www.gnosistsw.com and register for a free Enjin account, if you do not already have one. Spend a little time reading the various posts in the FAQs and Transfigurations forum to learn about our guidelines. From there, you click on the recruitment link on the top menu bar of the page. Fill out our brief application and have some fun with it! We love creative answers to the questions. Finally once you've done that, head over to our forums section and make an introduction post. This is the most important step, as you have to have two members of the group vouch for you and your character before you become an official member. IC interactions are the most important part of how we judge potential members.

Here's some handy links, in the order in which they should be used:

FAQs and Transfigurations forum - Read these guidelines first! Gnosis Recruitment Application The Foyer forum on our boards - Introduce yourself here!