Ordo Templi Orientis

Also known as the 'Order of the Temple of the East' or 'Order of Oriental Templars', the O.T.O is a global occult initiatory organization founded at the beginning of the 20th century that today harbours both normal human and magi who believe in many wild and varied concepts and religions through Thelema.

Many O.T.O. members are highly open and controversially experimental, some believe that tuning potential exists in everyone, and much of their time is spent experimenting with ways to make normal humans receptive to magic as magi are. English author and occultist Aleister Crowley is the best-known and most influential member of the order.

Despite it's controversial history among the more "refined" members of Vox Magei, the O.T.O. became somewhat of an antithesis to the growing, overly martial authority of the House of Seasons , calling the House a 'totalitarian' regime within the magic community and far-deviated from it's original intent. The House, however see the O.T.O. as perverting magic in a literal sense and see them as dangerous cultists.

### **History**

The origins of the O.T.O. can be traced back to the German-speaking occultists Carl Kellner, Heinrich Klein, Franz Hartmann, who were all completely normal humans who wanted to understand the very real ability of so-called 'magi' to manipulate 'mana' to harness matter and energy; it was likely that one or all of the founding members had family who were part of the House of Seasons.

One member, Theodor Reuss who claimed himself as a 'Christian Mystic', did have tuning potential, particularly in the use of summoning, light, healing, mind-reading, probability and luck charms, and summoning what he referred to as 'angels' (actually spells consisting of intention-imprinted belief-based photomantic constructs) to prove to his followers that magic was indeed real.

Crowley, it's most infamous member, was also, in fact, utterly normal, possessing no inherent ability to tune, but what Crowley did bring to the early O.T.O. was a vast amount of research and historical, arcane knowledge that he spent his life studying, writing about and engaging in strange and sexualised rituals in experimentation considered highly abnormal at the time even among Vox Magei; through study of these occult books and the history of magic forgotten relics and sacred texts, the O.T.O became one of the first organisations outside of the House of Seasons to harbour vast amounts of magical knowledge, and magical information considered forbidden by the House.

By the time Crowley died the O.T.O had attracted several more real magi, many of which wished to remain anonymous and went by pseudonyms such as Sabazius X° who is considered one of the oldest, active, although highly secretive magi still alive today.

### **Structure and Purpose**

The O.T.O has a complex, and highly secretive structure akin to a Masonic Order separated by 'Chapters, Lodges and Guilds' across the world, and while they do have links with such cults, do not consider themselves anything like them; with actual tune-capable Magi in the order rare, and even then often insular about sharing information and knowledge; while the structure of this organisation has been documented on the surface, many members consider the information available to the general public about the Order as essentially all but fabricated to protect the Order's truths.

The true structure and operation of the Order has changed dramatically since Crowley's days and focused less on sexual occultism, but more so on their original goals of study and pushback against the House of Seasons. But, as such the organisation's real operations remains little more than unknown other than they do use titles such as Grand Master, Master, Magician and Initiate which applies to everyone regardless of weather they can actually tune or not.

One of the main purposes of the modern Order's existence is to study the possibility that every single human somehow has the ability to 'tune'; that is sense and manipulate magical energy or 'mana', and many members considered neohumans simply a higher evolutionary branch of magi; though genetically speaking this wasn't entirely true, and as such the Order, even those real magi in it's inner circle likely didn't know the full truth about the origins of neos, magic and the Dragons of Aeos, but due to their years of intensive studies, piecing together fragments or the truth from different concepts of magic, mezzite, and superhumans from across the globe, may be very close to the truth in recent years, especially considering that some darker members were in contact with non-human 'beings'.

Only the House of Seasons likely know the real origins of the spirits within mezzite, but even they keep this under lock-and-key, and are especially wary of the O.T.O's quests; as such the Order exists as a purposeful opposition to the House, allowing members freedom of expression and a lack of moralistic restraint; early Order members may have been responsible for the construction of the controversial Visceran Veilometers prior to their refinement, and sold or traded these to the House in exchange for arcane knowledge or deals to turn a blind eye to certain Order deeds that the House disagreed with.

The O.T.O regularly fight against what the Order referred to as an 'oppression' of magic by the growing aggression of the House of Seasons, with most in the order believing that freedom and belief were more important than stringent laws, codes and regiment; although statistically those magi who practiced 'House Rules' were far more powerful, developed and controlled than magi who followed 'order Rules'. This little-known fact proved to the House that clearly their way of magic was correct and that the House had absolute authority over them.

Some members had regular contact with the Dawnshadow Coven but were considered abhorrent by the small but strict Pura Arcana.

The Order defended themselves in the light of knowledge as a universal concept and a bitter rivalry between the two organisations began and, to this day, still rages on in secret.