Originally a heretical collection of occultist religions, the Eskatonic Order was admitted into the arms of the Celestial Church after proving their use against the Symbiot invasion with strange theurgies.
Married as they are to the ideal of Sacred Wisdom the Eskatonic order seeks out strange and new mysteries of the Pancreator and are often labelled as doomsayers for their vision of the Eskaton, the end of the Universe. Eskatonics are known for being wizards, soothsayers, mystics, madmen and doomsayers.
The Order's mission is to seek out occult information so that it may be used for the church. This sacred trust is given to the Eskatonics that men of lesser minds may be protected from the terrors that lie hidden in their arcane secrets. In seeking the Pancreator in the mystical writings of the heavens and the inner mind their journey into the occult is often fraught with supernatural dangers and temptations of forbidden lore. As such they receive regular scourings by both their internal security apparatus (the Sanhedrin) and the Inquisition.
The Eskatonic Order is only a hundred years old officially, as they were granted recognition after their theurgy proved useful against the Symbiot invasion. At times theological debates will flare up between the Order and the Orthodoxy and the Inquisition longs for the day when they are given a freehand to deal with them as they wish.
The Eskatonic Order became an official Universal Church sect in 4955 in the Pentateuch Concordat, decades after Eskatonic theurgy proved itself in fending off Symbiots on the planet Stigmata. Prior to that, the eskatonics were persecuted by the Church.
These mystics often congregate in their own monasteries. An eskatonic canon is called a provost, an eskatonic deacon an illuminatus, and a priest a philosophus. The Eskatonics have two subranks of bishop: magister and presbuteos. The magisters represent the lower rank, while the presbuteos represent the governing council of the Eskatonic Order. One Presbuteos, called the Magus, serves as head of the eskatonic Order and as Church archbishop of Pentateuch. Other eskatonic bishops-usually presbuteros-also serve as archbishops of certain planets.
The Eskatonics, like other Church sects, accept the Omega Gospels as the supreme truth of the Pancreator and the Prophet. But after the Prophet’s death, his miscellaneous teachings were gathered into the Omega Gospels. Many variant texts were ommitted — testaments of missing periods in the Prophet’s life, alleged private teachings to his apostles, hymns and mystery visions and the stories of those around him. Among these omitted texts are the teachings of St. Horace, disciple of the Prophet, gathered in the Digamma Aprogrypha as holy scriptures. They also consider the terraforming works of Doramos.
Organization[]
Sanhedrin i.e. the Eskatonic pre-inquisition/self-police
Adamantine Order i.e. the Eskatonic Knightly Order
Worldshaper Heresy (H&O 22)