Our first meeting was an affair that managed to be both entirely too long and absolutely necessary. My decisiveness was helpful for getting a general structure of our top forces figured out, but it was not nearly enough to run, finance, or organize our military force. To that end we managed to hammer out a better structure and account for the general officers duties. At the very top was me, to my consternation. We went with a voting system and I was outvoted, so I ended up with the title of Grand Templar and a voting power of four votes. Each of my general officers ended up with the title of High Templar and a vote of one each, requiring a majority of them to vote against me on any issue to go in a different direction from me.

I looked down at the notes I had been scribbling onto my paper and reviewed the general staff duties:

Grand Templar Zerial

Templar Commander Roderick - Strategic duties to include direction of forces no smaller than 5,000 soldiers and mages.

Prime War Magus Dorman - Strategic decision making on where to employ mage circles for grand workings and training of war magus ranks

Knight commander Gaspard - Tactical level war leadership of forces in engagements and training of mundane forces

Prime Battle Magus Oik - Tactical level decision making on battle magics outside of the scope of the circle of magi, training of battle mages

Prime Scholar Jillian - Training of non-combat oriented magi and acquisition of arcane supplies

High Inquisitor Jack - Primarily responsible for the leadership of warden forces, joint espionage, and investigations

Chief Diplomat Nicholas - Diplomacy with foreign entities and joint espionage

Chief Quartermaster George - Mundane supply and logistical support for all forces

High Steward Charlie - Finance and fortifications

To go along with this structure we had ordered it's various general staff into different orders. Some members of the general staff were members of multiple orders, as their spheres overlapped. To my immense annoyance, I was made titular head of all three orders. The day-to-day running would be left to the actual general staff, but I was to be the figure head in all aspects of the Templars or I would lose the support of my general staff, which would kill the crusade before it was a month old.

The Order of the Sword - War oriented face of the Templars, containing active combat personnel, headed by the Templar Commander

The Order of the Wand - Magic oriented face of the Templars, containing all mages, headed jointly by the Prime War Magus, Prime Battle Magus, and Master Scholar

The Order of the Pen - Diplomatic and Organizational face of the Templars, contains all auxiliary personnel, headed by the Chief Diplomat, Chief Quartermaster, and High Inquisitor

Membership:

The Order of the Sword: Zerial, Roderick, Dorman, Oik, Gaspard, Jack

The Order of the Wand: Zerial, Dorman, Oik, Jillian

The Order of the Pen: Zerial, Jack, Nicholas, George, Jillian

In addition to all of that, we figured out who would go where and what our personnel would be called. Generally everyone would be a Pervalian Templar, and expected to provide duties to the organization. Inside of the order we would utilize titles to distinctly separate the orders into their respective memberships.

Members of the Order of the Sword: Templar, Combat Magus, Warden, Ranger, War Magus

Members of the Order of the Wand: Medical Magus, Combat Magus, Scholar, Doctors/Nurses

Members of the Order of the Pen: Diplomats, Quartermasters, Scholars, Inquisitors, Clerics

Naturally our organizational efforts also included such things as heraldry, seals, and uniforms. It was decided by popular vote (I was outvoted) that all Templar's would be required to paint their faces when wearing their uniforms, so that every member of our crusade would wear Pervalia's tears as they were being called. On top of that all members would have similar garb to make it hard to distinguish our various forces in combat. Everyone would wear ashy black colors with crimson lining the cuffs, collars, and hems of each item. On the breast each member would have our heraldry - a white background with three red vertical stripes - sewn in.

Every member would have the holy symbol of Pervalia - A Spear and Wand crossed with a Crown in the center - in the left most panel. Members of the Order of the Sword would have a sword (duh) sewn in next to Pervalia's mark, the Magi among us would have a wand sewn in next to the sword, and the Order of the Pen would have pen-and-parchment sewn in. All sewing was in varying shades of red-and-grey on that white background.

I would have all four symbols sewn on my heraldry to signify my command of the Orders and the Templar's as a whole, as well as a circle of golden laurels - they were to be enchanted so that they would glow on command to impress people - stitched in around my entire heraldry. The High Templar's would have them sewn in silver with a similar enchantment.

Each Order also had their own rank structure within member ranks, and we hammered out how new leaders would be elected by popular vote of primary members and approved by the Templar Council. We decided that only prime members would be allowed to vote, as that would cut down on political backstabbing a little. If I should be killed, ousted, or step down the Grand Templar would be selected from among the High Templars and voted on by the entire organization. The military and magical orders immediately adopted their respective ranks from preexisting structures to make everything easier, but we had to create the Order of the Pen from the ground up, and we modeled it after civilian leadership.

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That made it so that the Templar Commander was the head with the War Magus, Battle Magus, and Knight Commander as his immediate subordinates. We added titles that Roderick could assign for specific occasions such as Siege Commander and Raid Commander. Beneath them everything got more traditional with Commanders, Majors, Captains, Lieutenants, Sergeants, Corporals, and then rank-and-file templars. The Mages went with a small variation of the regular rank structure of the Royal Institute of Magery - Archmage, Magus, Scholar, Journeyman, Novice, Acolyte.

The mages decided to go with that structure because it accounted only for skill in their magical disciplines. Any leadership positions would be filled by adding the simple prefix of Prime to their name, with only the Prime War, Battle, and Scholars called out as titular heads. Any other Prime designations would simply have specific leadership over their magical specialty, and be responsible for upkeep, management, disposition, and training of those specialties within the purview of what the Triumvirate of Magi (we jokingly called Oik, Dorman, and Jillian that - Unfortunately it stuck.) required from them. So the Prime Alchemist would simply be one step removed from the Triumvirate, but placed over the Master Alchemists. Since magery was always in high demand within Pervalia, it was identified early on that the Magi could be utilized as a source of revenue for the Templars.

That would be one of our biggest issues, we knew. Currently we were subsidized by the invasion of Aurelia, but that source would dry up instantly once the invasion was over. We had several lines that we could take for income and we were going after all of them, even if we knew most wouldn't pan out. One such potential source was the hiring of our war and battle mages out after the invasion of Aurelia ended. The mages to be hired out would be keen on this, as it would bring in large amounts of coin for them personally and we would tax them based on that income. The same was true for all of our other magi oriented professions, and we could tax them similarly. Most of that income however would go towards supporting the Order of the Wand, and we would only see a margin of finance from that sector.

That wasn't necessarily bad, as that mean the Order of the Wand was largely self-sufficient, and even contributing to the whole. The order of the sword would be our biggest drain. To offset that, we could ask for tithes or membership dues and provide benefits like coming to defend the holdings of any landed noble from aggressive peers, something that would be worth a yearly tithe from them and was largely worth it for us since we would also recruit from those holdings and would likely only have to exercise that prerogative occasionally. I would also be angling to acquire lands in Aurelia for use by the Templars directly, and we could utilize the entire revenue stream from those holdings to support the organization.

Other sources were harder for us to come by, as it would require concessions by the Templars. The churches of Pervalia could potentially be won over to our side on a case-by-case basis, offering protection and magic in exchange for a cut of their monthly tithes. The grander churches would find benefits from this while the smaller religious orders would probably not. And the militant religious orders would see us as direct competitors. The Religion of Pervalia, and her Arch Priests, might become some of our biggest detractors if they perceived us as usurping their authority. Or they might try and strong-arm us and fold us into their structure entirely, as I am sure they would dearly love to have a strong militant arm of their own.

Other potential sources were more political in nature, and involved the counts, dukes, and the King himself. We would already be subordinate to the King, and thus it would cost us little to ask for small funding, and in turn he would acquire a constant professional military force he could call upon - something that would appeal mightily to Eddard. I thought that I could count on my Father to help supply us at the very least, and maybe some coin from ducal coffers to help pay. Especially since the majority of the Templars at the moment were Hexenguardian.

Similarly I could see use for the Templars as a caravan-guarantor, and I expected fully to find a Master of the Waves to create a navy for our order. If we could get into the merchant business, we would be less reliant on political donations, and more free to pursue our ultimate goal.

We had yet to agree on that goal beyond the destruction of Aurelia as an independent entity, and the censure of their mage population.

We agreed in principal that we would find and execute the perpetrators of the Darkhallow massacre. We also agreed that we would track down and investigate all other magical nobility within the land, if any survived the war. Following that, we would seek to recruit from Aurelia's mundane and magical populations on top of acquiring lands for the various Orders and to act as the Headquarters of the Templar's. But our mission beyond executing those bastards and surviving beyond the invasion was still murky.

I began to dream of a continental force dedicated to the eradication of black magics. We could eventually try to expand over-seas and ensure that cataclysmic level magic's were not utilized by anyone, thus safeguarding Pervalia and the world from extinction level events. Members from within the current Templar's thought we should become a mage-policing force in it's totality, but I disliked the notion. There were good and virtuous mages, and they were the norm in Pervalia. I did not feel that hanging a sword over their necks would be conducive. If anything, I figured that the magi within the Templars should be the one's chiefly responsible for investigating and policing their own, with the militant arm of the Templar's ready to enforce their edicts and conduct military affairs on their behalf.

Magic was at the crux of our Crusade, but it was integral to our existence as an organization in my mind. We could not afford to alienate mage kind, and so I knew I would have to battle bitterly to ensure we did not become an extremist organization. I think at the crux of these ideals of mine was my genuine and warm affection for Jordan and Tika. Oik and Dorman were also both valiant examples of what I wanted mages to be. I would not seek to clip their wings and where possible I would endeavor to expand their horizons.

As I sat in my office alone, staring at the Ashfields I contemplated all of this. Mages as they were in Pervalia were prescribed by the Church of Pervalia from owning land as nobles. Shops and homes were perfectly fine, but religious law required a mundane lord over them. It also banned specific types of enchantments and avenues of research, and hampered mages in other ways. Some of this was for very good reasons, like the general ban on necromantic practices. Other's were detrimental to the health of our kingdom and our citizens, like restricting medical research and outlawing specific enchantments that allowed the common man to utilize magical equipment.

I couldn't imagine for a minute that the Goddess of Victory, our patron Goddess, gave two damns about the policing of mage kind beyond outlawing magery that could kill large swaths of her worshipers. I ruminated on what such a divine being would want, and if the way of the Church of Pervalia was correct.

"Awfully bold, I think, for a young mortal to try and interpret divine will no matter how high his station or fervent his devotion," spoke a soft voice from behind me, and I jumped out of my chair, my sword leaping into my hand as if it was eager to be there. Facing me from the opposite end of the room was a tall-but-slight woman with long black hair and a squared jaw. She leaned casually against the wall with a long spear crossed over her body and nestled in the crook of her elbow. One leg was wrapped lazily around the lower haft. She wore plate armor dented and scratched all over, and she had a long gash running from her right temple and across her nose before sharply turning and slicing across both lips and ending at her lower right jaw.

All of that was extremely unique, as female knights were very rare in Pervalia, but what caught my attention was the paint on her face, two grey lines with a crimson line over them and the literal fire glowing in her crimson irises.

"I think I like where you're going with this. I've always wanted to be a Goddess that spans the continents, young Zerial," I felt my knee's go weak and a flash of intense fear struck my body, but I firmed my resolve and brought my sword in with the tip pointing down and clasped the hilt with both hands, before bowing low over it until the tip of my blade rested gently against the ground. "Hm, typically mortals bow to me," she said with an unidentifiable tone in her voice. I felt a cold sweat break out all over my body but just as I was about to fall to my knees she spoke again, "But I think I like the pure temerity it takes not to do so. I think I like it better when my champions stand in my presence. Lets have a little talk about these... Templars and the crusade you've launched in my name, shall we?"