Templars of the Abbey
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
The Templars of the Abbey are a supergroup devoted to metahuman rights and the pursuit of justice, even when that may conflict with mundane law. The Templars operate out of a club, The Abbey, located in Kings Row.
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Membership
Membership in the Templars is open to metahumans only. Kara Reynolds-Dengo handles most matters of recruitment. She and Lucianna te Addo are the registered leaders of the supergroup.
The current membership list, as represented on this Wiki, is located here.
History
The Templars rose from the ashes of the New Porter Institute for Psychical Research, a school for mutants that fought, publicly and privately, for "mutant rights."
Philosophy
Many of the Templars believe that, as metahumans, they are in some way superior to the mundane populace that they protect. They believe that mundane laws, written for and by the mundanes, are limited in their application to heroes. As such, they believe that they have the right and responsibility to step around the law when it interferes with protecting the mundanes. The extent to which each Templar holds this belief varies. Some, such as Galen Mentalis, are quite extreme and see any attempt to regulate the actions of heroes as a slight, and hold the law in little regard. Others take a far more moderate approach.
Relations with Other Supergroups
The Templars of the Abbey are in a coalition with the Campus Alliance of Preternatural and Exemplary Students, the Galacto Guard, Next Wave, and the League of Justice. Cerulean Light currently handles new coalition requests.
Perhaps due to their history, and through a bewildering set of loopholes, payoffs, and permits, members of the Nemesis Council, currently based in the Rogue Isles, have access to the Abbey, which is considered strictly neutral ground. Currently, a handful of Councilors are banned from the Abbey due to bad behavior, but most hold to the terms of the truce.
The Abbey
The Abbey is the bar that the Templars use as a place for rest and recuperation. It also acts as their registered supergroup base. The Abbey pays no electric bills, as its own technomagical power source provides all of its needed energy. In addition to its entrance room and the bar/stage area, the Abbey has several back rooms for the use of its members.
Entrance to the Abbey is limited to metahumans only. Mundanes, no matter what their purpose, are only allowed as far in as the entrance. All of the Abbey staff, from the wait staff, to the chef, to the bartenders, are metahumans -- retired heroes, off-duty heroes, or even metahumans with powers too weak to be useful in fighting crime.
The Abbey is owned by a corporation, Abbey Enterprises Inc. This is actually a shell corporation under the control of Galen Mentalis that delegates its operations decisions to Jada Austen, the general manager of the club. Technically, Mazin Wystan and Ariel are also involved in this delegation arrangement, though neither of them are currently aware of it. Through a complex legal arrangement involving other corporations owned by Abbey Enterprises Inc., if all three of them can keep the Abbey in operation for the next ten years, its ownership will be transferred to Jada entirely. Mazin Wystan will receive a massive fund earmarked for building educational facilities for metahumans, and Ariel will be given an undisclosed "Prize" that's currently being stored in a warehouse facility in Boston, MA.
Gateway
The Gateway, located in the back of the Abbey, is a technomagical portal transit device. The original magical machinery was salvaged by Galen Mentalis during his time traveling the multiverse while presumed dead. The eldritch device, taken from a dimension in ruins after its Circle of Thorns leadership self-destructed, originally required an archmage to power and control. However, the dogged work of Galen and Cerulean Light eventually allowed them to bend it to their will through a bewilderingly complex computer system connected to several powerful generators and psychotronic devices.
In addition to its use as a short-range teleporter within Paragon City, the Gateway can open long distance and even transdimensional portals for short periods. As the Templars don't have access to the stabilization systems Portal uses, the Gateway's portals have to be irised to mere pinpricks in space-time when not being actively traveled, and only one human-sized portal can be opened at once. Unless connected to a more powerful portal device on the other end, a Gateway portal can only be maintained at full power for five minutes every twenty-four hours. An irised portal can be maintained continuously for up to a week before losing coherence, but the Gateway can in any event only support one portal at a time. The time the Gateway requires to open or iris a portal is directly related to how far away, dimensionally speaking, the target dimension is. A remote control device is used to manipulate the Gateway's control computer from the far side of the portal, and can even be used to remotely close the portal completely in an emergency, or if one-way travel is desired.
Keeping a portal fully open is usually only done for as short a time as possible, because all of the Abbey's considerable power is used by the Gateway while maintaining an opened portal. An irised portal still requires constant power to maintain, but only enough to dim the lights noticeably. Short-range teleportation requires much less power.
The transdimensional portal functionalities of the Gateway have only been used twice, both to travel to Mu Theta 3-22, the home dimension of Cerulean Light. In both cases, the Gateway didn't originally function properly, requiring quick adjustments to the control hardware. This suggests that the transdimensional transit capability isn't quite as reliable as Caitlyn would have people believe.
In addition to the Gateway, the Abbey sports several other more mundane teleporters, including a set of MediCom-linked medical transporters.
OOC Notes
@Lucianna and @Diamond. are the supergroup leaders of the Templars of the Abbey, and represents its council of officers. The current officers are @Diamond., @Lucianna, and @C. Nightshade. The OOC leadership in the supergroup interprets the charter and manages OOC affairs. The OOC leadership of Templars is not always the same as the IC leadership.
External Links
realitywerks forums, the official Templars of the Abbey site
Rules for those role-playing in the Abbey
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