When I was a younger man, before I got my calling to join the monastery, Heideran the Good (Heideran VII) was Emperor. He'd been emperor since I was born and long before that. In those days, the Order of St. Tetrimon was considered a fringe grouping outside the Empire, crackpots at best, heretics at worst.
It had been so ever since they chose the wrong side during the Moral Reforms, one and a half millennium ago. Somehow, the order managed to survive, even though it was disgraced and banished.
During Heideran's reign, the Khanid Kingdom was not part of the Empire. The reason that they had broken away was the refusal of Garkeh Khanid to commit the ritual suicide Shathol'Syn after the trials that saw Heideran VII ascend the Imperial throne. This breakaway kingdom had offered sanctuary to the Order of St. Tetrimon, perhaps to spite the Empire. The Order was allowed to operate rather freely in the Kingdom, and built its headquarters in the Ibani system in the Budar constellation, a low security backwater pocket of the Kingdom.
So, at least until I left the monastery a year and half ago, in my imagination they were just a bunch of Khanid zealots, who try to give themselves importance using the fading memory of a once illustrious past.
You can imagine my surprise when I got back into worldly politics and learned of their swift ascension and the central security role they now play in the Empire...
