Radicalization of The Hidden Eye

In 1439, at the time of the ransacking of the shrine to the Ark of the Covenant, there was another small group of Ethiopian monks who studied and worshiped in Israel. This small, isolated cell of Ethiopians also acted as emissaries to the greater Judaic, Muslim and Christian world. A group of the protector monks traveled to Jerusalem to alert their fellow Etheopians to the tragedy that had befallen their order and of the loss of the Ark. They discovered their fellows in Israel were investigating a secret held by the Holy Roman Church – there were supposedly supernatural beings on Earth descended from what the Church called Angels.  

The Jerusalem-based Ethiopian monks were tracking a person believed to be one such supernatural being — a young sub-prince and member of a powerful Egyptian political family closely related to the ruling Mamluck dynasty. The prince was preparing to travel to Rome as an emissary to the great gathering of Roman Christians and Greek Christians.  

This important meeting between the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church, in Florence, Italy, was known as the Council of Florence. The Pope, along with the powerful Bishops and Cardinals, would attend. The Ethiopians, distraught over the disappearance of the Ark and the death of their elder, coupled with the new information about potential supernatural beings at work in the Roman Church, feared a vast conspiracy. Drunk on religious fervor and revenge, the Ethiopians decided the disappearance of the Ark was related to the presence of supernatural beings and a global conspiracy by the Roman Church to hide it. 

The Ethiopian protectors followed the young Egyptian Prince to Florence. There, through a series of events, they confirmed their belief of the existence of a supernatural race, but in so doing, some of their brethren were killed. 

The only course of action for the few remaining protectors was to flee back to Ethiopia. They told the rest of the sect what they had discovered. The protectors, already furious over the perceived theft of the Ark and the death of the elder, now had more fuel to feed the flames of their zealotry. This new paradigm, however, was counter to their doctrine and seriously disrupted their world-order.

The sect of protectors and believers splintered. The most extreme element wanted only revenge. First, for the loss of the Ark and the killing of their kind. Additionally, for what they considered the supernatural beings to be: Abominations to the natural order established by their God. 

The extreme faction formed a secret organization and called themselves the Hidden Eye. They bound themselves to an oath — to find the Ark and to eradicate the supernatural abominations and their spawn.

They would raise their children to the same singular purpose. They would train, study and prepare; lie, cheat, cajole — anything to expose the supernatural beings and eradicate them. Some in the Hidden Eye would develop other, less pure, motives. These members would come to believe that if a person kills a supernatural being, or one of their powerful half-breed children, they inherit their power. 

Each new member of the Hidden Eye swears this sacred oath:

You are timeless. We hunt for all time. You are the severed lie. 

We are beloved. You are the thief. We are the protectors. You are abomination. We are wrath.