Tech-Priests

“In those frosty days before the Order of the Electron was established by His divine grace Leo, chaos reigned over the land – the same chaos we are destined to fight with our lives. In our days, His holiness, archdiacon Michael, rules His allotted land with His loving hand, and under His inspired guidance we will continue to stem the advance of our dread enemies. Since that blessed day when our divine Leo established our noble order and threw back the invasors from the East, fourscore and ten years have passed, and only our oldest remember times when we lived in open cities and the Holy Electricity served our needs. Today we stand upon our mighty fortresses of stone and gaze upon the lands below, and we see our proud banner wave in every village as far as the eye can see. Our castle Stromfels stands strong upon the rocks, and it shall remain the inner sanctum of the Order of the Electron, as our founder, His divine grace Leo, has decreed, now and ever on, and never shall it fall to our enemies.”
-from the “History of St. Michael”

When the floodwaters had receded from the plains of Germany, the whole extent of the damage could be seen: the forests, the fertile countryside, the beautiful old cities were gone, replaced by endless swamps – the only survivors were those who had fled to the mountains before the waters rose. They gathered in the only buildings that had weathered the disaster – Germany’s medieval castles, perched high atop the mountains throughout the land. Yet those who had managed to survive had to face another danger: rebellions throughout Russia and Eastern Europe had led to the formation of marauding armies which ravaged the German countryside, looking for food, weapons and everything else they could carry away. The defenders in their castles fought a desperate battle – many of them died, not only in the battles, but also of hunger and of diseases that spread like wildfire in the swamps.
The tide finally turned when a priest who is only known as Leo organized the resistance on a larger scale and showed the survivors how to harness the powers of electricity to build mighty weapons with which to repel the invaders.
Leo instated a religious order to keep control over the scattered castles and established a feudal system through which he granted the more able of the survivors the power to rule a castle and the surrounding land, but also made them responsible for rebuilding the countryside and defending his castle. Over time, the order transformed from its Christian origins to one idolizing electricity in its many applications – no doubt in memory of the devastating effect Leo’s electrical inventions had had on the invaders from the East.

“Hereby the Duke of Speyr lends his faithfull and valiant servant, the venerable Hubert von Gibern, the landes and the castles on the Rhine for his safekeeping and protection. He may so collect his due part of all that is produced by the cities, the villages and hamlets which are so located along the mighty river (with the exception of Speyr itself, which the Duke herewith reserves for his own needes), and he may procede with the landes and the peasants as he sees best fit his needes, as shall his sons and their sons, for all tyme on from now.”
-from the Treaty of the Rhine

The Order of the Electron today holds a firm grip on Central Europe – their sphere of influence ranges from former France to the plains of Hungary and Poland, but the center of their power remains in Germany. Through ingenious applications of electricity, they have managed to create a culture that is at the same time medieval and technologically advanced. Their arsenal of high-powered weaponry makes them certain victors in any conflict with neighbouring tribes – the only opponent they fear are the mysterious Visors, for whose technological superiority they show a certain, almost religious reverence.