Black Knights

"*Long have we stood as the vanguard against the Shadows, slave to the antiquated dogma of our 'pious' masters; but no more. Now we shall make our own destiny, as the Heavens have always willed, and if we must embrace the Darkness to save the Light, then so be it. We who were once Templars will restore the balance where they have failed.*"
— Marcion

Various warriors have claimed the title of *Black Knight* throughout Aquilan history, but the name's true heritage can be traced back to Ser Marcion and his cult, who were active in the Hundred Year Darkness. As servants of the Empire, the Templars swore themselves to Makrozoia and acted as his personal bodyguards and inquisitors for centuries. Ser Marcion, Grand Marshal of the Temple Knights in Kilran and high priest of the Host, was among the Mad King's most loyal minions, personally hunting down scores of the imperial cult's most dangerous political enemies in the name of rooting out heresy in the Church of the Heavenly Mother.

Though well-respected and politically influential, Marcion came to resent both the Church and the emperor, believing that they had robbed the Temple Knights of their autonomy and turned them into blunt weapons rather than pious defenders of the Light. He believed that the Empire, once a beacon of hope for the divided peoples of Aquila, had become decadent and corrupt, its leaders twisted into servants of the Shadows by the insidious machinations of Moros. Thus did he defect from the Templars with one dozen of his most trusted knights, vowing that he would one day return to Kilran to root out the evil which had infested the Empire and in turn the neutered Church.

Marcion desired to reinvent the Templars, believing that he could transcend the limitations which had bound his former brothers and prevented them from serving Rhea with all their conviction. He made the controversial decision to cut all ties with the Church and turned instead to the Old Ways, believing that the occult arts which they had once scorned could be made to serve the Light if wielded by a warrior of sufficient resolve. To that end, Marcion and his fellow defectors embarked upon a grand pilgrimage to the lands far south of Kilran and even Aphelion - the Rift, the dark continent whose shores no sailor nor adventurer had ever dared attempt to map for fear of being consumed by the primordial evil said to roost within the bowels of the forsaken land. In truth, the Templars had made successful expeditions to the Rift on several occasions throughout their history, and even established remote temples in some of its dark recesses where they ran minimal risk of incurring the wrath of the hostile natives - the mysterious Riftsmen about whom next to nothing is known to this day - or its even more dangerous unidentified fauna.

The only friends, or at least somewhat amiable denizens, which the Templars had found in the Rift were the enigmatic figures known as the Void Priests, a reclusive cult of followers of the Old Ways who were wary of outsiders yet willing to render them aid should they respect their sacrosanct customs. The initial Templar explorers who made contact with the Priests judged them unusual yet surprisingly hospitable hosts, allowing them to stay within their obsidian walls so long as they did not proselytize the dogma of the Church. Out of uncharacteristic deference to the local customs, the Templar commander, Lord Valerian, learned as much as he could of the ways of the Void Priests, finding much wisdom in their unorthodox dualistic belief that Light and Dark were not opposite poles on the spectrum of morality, rather two opposite yet equal aspects of Emanation. The Priests had come to worship the boundless Void for fear that Aquila had been corrupted by the tendrils of evil - unseen menaces who veiled themselves behind a cloak of Light and thus threatened to tip the scales of the world out of equilibrium and into primordial Chaos. Thus did they revere the dark yet just god Hades, a being who, according to their doctrine, had entered into covenant with Mother Rhea and kept the vengeful spirit of the Ancient Fear interred within his realm Avernus in exchange for all the material wealth which lay in the deepest recesses of the earth.

The tale of Ser Valerian's treating with the Void Priests had been scrubbed from history, with him and his knights returning to the Temple only to be declared heretics. Then-Grandmaster of the order, Nero, excommunicated them from the Church of the Heavenly Mother and forced them into exile under threat of torturous death. Their fate afterwards is unknown, the remainder of their lives consigned to myth and whispered legend. Certain lords such as Marcion, however, remained aware of their deeds, and in his search for a new path did the errant Ser lead his devotees on a journey to retrace their footsteps, eventually leading them to the home of the Void Priests. Though only a shadow of their former selves, the Void Priests yet dwelled within their ancestral home of the Rift, greeting the exiled Templars with open arms as they did centuries past with Valerian. Marcion and his knights learned all they could from the Priests, who instructed them in the art of utilizing their "Shadow" to wield the endless powers of the Void. By entrusting their hearts to the Darkness, individuals with the requisite will could learn to conjure their own dark counterparts which represented the chaotic mirror of their immortal soul. Through conquering or coming to terms with their Shadow, the knights were transformed into warriors of darkness, armed with the power which they once scorned in a renewed crusade for the Light. However, not seeking to replicate the folly of Valerian, he viewed the Priests as tools rather than allies, and after achieving some measure of mastery over his Dark Side ordered his men to slay the hermits. Their leader and sole survivor of the massacre, Parax, cursed Marcion for his treachery, and then disappeared into the barren wilds.

Ser Marcion and his cult-like followers returned to Aquila proper and quickly developed a reputation as fierce crusaders, roving the land in search of heretics whilst they themselves had bathed in a chthonic power so ancient and dangerous, it threatened to consume them and transform their mortal shells into that which they despised and hunted with unparalleled vigor. Indeed, the pox which Parax had bestowed upon Marcion seemed to slowly come to pass, as the fallen Templar was gradually consumed by rage and, in his desperation for the power to rid the world of evil, allowed his Shadow to take over his very being. His underlings soon followed, and the now-irreversibly transformed warriors came to be known as the Black Knights. So fierce and uncontrollable was their power that even Nero came to fear him, and beseeched the Emperor himself to intercede and use his magicks to seal them within his island prison of Kalga Bland.

Like Valerian before him, the tragic tale of Lord Marcion and his Black Knights faded into obscurity with the passing of centuries, even unto the collapse of the Mad King's reign and the ensuing war of succession between the armies of his twin sons. However, guided by an entity which claimed to be an emissary of the Light, the crusader known as Triton came to the dungeons of Kalga Bland some time after the conclusion of the Kilran War which left Aquila in tatters. He was promised the power to vanquish the encroaching hordes of the Shadows, using their own foul magicks against them to achieve ultimate victory. Grieving for the death of his beloved Thash - whom he believed to be Mother Rhea in physical form - and horrified at the utter destruction wrought upon Aquila by the hands of the gods, Triton embarked upon a journey to cleanse Emanation of all its deities, believing them to be servants of Moros sent to rule the worlds of man as tyrants until he was powerful enough to return from the Void. Unbeknownst to him, the power contained within the weapon Triton claimed from the corpse of Marcion - the aptly named World Eater Blade - slowly allowed the spirit of the Ancient Fear to corrupt him, twisting him into his obedient servant with the power to rid the world of his rebellious children and pave the way for the return of the One True God.