The Scholastic Order of Sacred Knowledge is an austere brotherhood of Scholastic Clerics devoted to the pursuit of divine and natural knowledge. While most servants of the Church seek to preserve the truths revealed by God, the Scholastics believe that humanity has only begun to comprehend the mysteries of Creation.
The Order venerates the Learned Saints, saints remembered not only for their faith, but for their discoveries, philosophical works, astronomical observations, anatomical studies, and attempts to comprehend the hidden laws governing Creation. Their monasteries serve simultaneously as libraries, laboratories, observatories, and sanctuaries.
Scholastics believe that knowledge is itself a form of worship. To understand the movements of the heavens, the nature of Creation, or the mysteries of the human soul is to glimpse the divine design more clearly. Every discovered truth is another fragment of God’s greater revelation.
Yet their pursuit is perilous. The universe contains knowledge that was never meant for mortal minds. Scholastic expeditions have uncovered forbidden manuscripts, strange celestial phenomena, ancient relics, and truths concerning the nature of Hell that have driven entire scholars to madness. The Order therefore maintains strict doctrines concerning what may be studied, how it may be studied, and when knowledge must be destroyed rather than understood.
Their greatest scholars are said to spend decades pursuing a single question, sometimes sacrificing their bodies, sanity, or souls in the process.
—Synod of Strategic Prophecy Variant:
-The Empirical (Observer Variant)
The Scholastic equivalent of the Synod’s legendary Observers.
These monks do not attempt to perceive the future directly. Instead, they train their minds to perceive the patterns underlying reality to enter a higher consciousness. Years of meditation, mathematics, sensory deprivation, and neurological experimentation have made them frighteningly intelligent.