The driving philosophical forces behind the 7th Order are still a mystery even to the Celebrants of Mankind, but it has been surmised that the insistence upon the number 7 may be related to an passage in the third book of the mystic Joachim Elder, that states,
“And the skies shall darken as warning to the ignorant. The grass shall recede into the Earth, all manner of new life will become known to the Race of Men; behold the 7th Age of Order, behold the next step of Humankind!”
Some scholars have suggested that the 7th Order may have been Paridon’s first true millenarian association; concerned foremost with preparations relating to some form of cataclysmic seminal event or “turning of the great wheel”. As such its members would have been primarily preoccupied with readying themselves by whatever means at their disposal, to bring about some kind of a dramatic change in the world. It is no wonder their brief existence under the leadership of Joseph Cable gained them so much notoriety.
The second, and perhaps most reviled aspect of the 7th Order was their adherence to secrecy and research of the occult. Cable himself had become known to the authorities prior to founding the Order when he was accused of “indulging in foul practices of a foreign nature”. Joseph had been attempting to open a “dimensional portal to the netherworld” using dying animals and a host of volunteer blood-donors. This fascination with esoteric arts would become the one of the fundamental precepts of the Chaplains of the 7th Order until their apparent dissolution.
Today the 7th Order no longer exists except in popular fantasy and gossip. Occasionally whispers are heard of a the Order having reformed in secret under the leadership of a mysterious woman named Agnes Aberlain, a former lover of Joseph Cable who would have supposedly set out to continue his work. While these speculations have created much excitement at dinner tables and card games, they are mostly believed to hold no substance of any kind.
The only material remnant of the 7th Order that can be found in Paridon today, is a bronze plaque displayed over the mantle of the Haggarty Inn. The owner claims to have won it in a game of chance but won’t say from whom he acquired it. The plaque is considered as a memorial to the Order and is occasionally visited by learned men as a curiosity.
The plaque depicts a human hand emerging from a golden egg and reads as follows:
A Fronte Praecipitium A Tergo Lupi Ad Astra Per Aspera
“A precipice in front, wolves in the back, to the stars through struggle”