Monk

*"Silence, please. I’m trying to meditate over here."*

## Basic

(ToS) Monks are members of the mendicant orders who seek seclusion to better devote themselves to their faith. Some monks live completely alone as hermits, whereas others congregate with other monks and live in monasteries, which are usually located in remote areas of the Old World. Most religions have their own mendicant orders, although the strictures of Verena and Shallya tend to lend themselves more towards monasticism more than most. Monks spend their lives in study and prayer, debating the finer points of theology and illuminating religious scriptures.

### Secondary Profile

**Skills:** Academic Knowledge (any two), Academic Knowledge (Theology), Animal Care, Arcane Language (Magick), Common Knowledge (any two), Heal, Perception, Read/Write, Speak Language (any two), and Speak Language (Classical).

**Talents:** Linguistics

**Trappings:** Prayer Book, Religious Symbol, Robes, Writing Kit

### **Career Entries**

Friar, Initiate, Physician, Scholar, Scribe, Student

### **Career Exits**

Abbot, Demagogue, Friar, Physician, Priest, Scholar, Steward, Zealot

## A Day In The Life

The monk rises early for morning prayers, then begins his toil. The senior or most intelligent will work in the library and scriptorium preserving and categorizing texts, but most monks will be sent to the abbey’s fields. The fields provide the abby with food (often simple beans and barley) and sometimes grapes for wine, which has both religious significance and can be sold to fund the monastery.

At regular times during the day, the bells will call the monks to prayer, and work stops, briefly, for these rituals. Mealtimes are dull affairs where meat or spices are rarely seen, and the food is usually the same day after day – thin soup, porridge, boiled peas, with no salt or seasonings.

Evenings are spent in prayer, study, and sometimes debate, though it is often the case that the young sit and the old pontificate. Then comes sleep, six hours at most, before another day, effectively identical, begins. It is not long before monks lose track of the months or years they have spent in service.

## Little Known Facts

The perception of the Old World is that life in a monastery varies from “very dull” to “extremely dull,” and while this is often true, there are exceptions. A fair number of monasteries have become hotbeds of corrupt decadence, with an outer veneer of dull serenity covering the drunken revelry that constantly strives for new levels of sybaritic excess.

The role of monks in preserving knowledge and lore can often be perverted by Chaos. A few minor “errors” in translation, introduced slowly over time, can create entire new branches of heretical thought. An abbot who is secretly sworn to Chaos can slowly corrupt an entire monastery, directing and shaping religious debate until the monks have been completely subverted.

The younger sons of nobles are often sent to monasteries if there are no lands for them to inherit and they have no gift or stomach for war. Such individuals will sometimes try to convert the monastery into a source for worldly pleasures, but, if they cannot, will eagerly accept any chance to leave.