Path of Honorable Accord
A Modern Path on the Road of Kings
Nickname: Knights
Basic Beliefs: From a sermon given by Azrael, Salubri antitribu palaidn:
Cultures have two ways to control their miscreant members: guilt and shame. Guilt is based on adherence to a moral code - ideas of salvation and sin, good and evil. Shame is fostered by a breach of ethics - deviation from accepted doctrine, creed or code of behavior. As predators, we have no room for morality - it is a mortal invention. Guilt falls to the Beast like a paper screen to a raging tiger.
Ethics are also an invention, but they are far more efficient in their function. One has only to look at the kine world to see the impossiblity of enforcing morality. The spiral of hypocricy and rationalization, the chaos and madness that reign when morals fail. Ethics fail, too, much of the time, but they sometimes succeed and are clearer and less subject to justification and pervarication than is morality.
When one looks at the supreme ethical codes among mortals - the samurai of japan, the knights of Europe, the tablets of hammurabi and the iron codes of draco - one sees a discipline, a purity, that is not subject ot argument or erosion. Most fail to live up to these codes, but the failure is of the individual, not the code itself.
You have chosen such a cage, but for you it shall be an armor of sturdiest steel. You have gazed into the abyss. You know what lies there. We have dipped our pens into that abyss and written a code as encompassing as the night sky and as strong as black iron.
Is our path a lie? No. Will it last until the stars wink out and the moon spins into the void? perhaps not. Will we hold this code as our truth, as a spine and axis and axon of our existence, for howsoever long as our undeath sustains us? Yes.
The Path of Honorable Accord strives not only to be different from the way of humanity, it strives to be better. Its members would argue that there is no alternative.
The entirety of the path - and the path follower - lies in a code of duties and prescriptions known as the Code of Milan. Though neither overly lengthy nor overly complex, the code dictates its followers' entire existence. The Beast claims the souls of the Damned by insidious rationalization. So, their code of behavior must be so clear that such rationalization is impossible. The Beast claims the souls of the Damned through blind emotion. so, any such emotion must be replaced by the cold logic of the code. Whether their sworn duty involves protecting an ally - or enemy - or torturing a child to death, knights carry it out to the letter. If they give their word that a task will be accomplished, it will be or they will reach Final Death trying.
The code upholds truty, courage and duty. In some ways, this path is the ultimate example of "negative reinforcement." Its precepts and followers are cold and harsh - but those who follow the Path of Honorable Accord are a thousand times as harsh on themselves as they are on the world. they take first blame for failure and if it is their duty to defend someone, they will be destroyed before allowing her to be harmed. Truth, no matter how terrible, is cultivated, for lies are the soil in which the Beast tunnels like a worm. The soil of the vampire's soul must therefore be stone.
Make no mistake: While many of this calling's tenets are "virtuous," they are by no means "good." Love is a lie. All the Damned know that. Honorable Accord rejects compassion of any sort. Error leads to flaw, flaw leads to weakness and weakness leads to ruin. Adherents of this code must be without error. Nor may they tolerate it in others. Different paths seek to guide the Beast or let it run along prescribed channels. This one would cage it, then freeze it into immobility. To do that, a vampire's heart must be as hard and cold as steel.
History: Practitioners of the path are called "knights"; the origin of this path can certainly be traced to the chivalric ideals of the High Middle Ages. While individual Cainites had acted in accordance with this path prior to this time, it was not institutionalized until about A.D. 1150.
By the time of the late Crusades and the religious orders of knighthood, the rudiments of this path had been laid. Church records point to folk tales of "darke knytes" with supernatural powers seemingly granted by the Devil himself, yet who would keep their word when overcome by faithful mortals.
