Order of the Long Death

The order of the Long Death is a monastic order devoted to death.

History
Formed after the people of Calimshan freed themselves from the Djen, the order's original purpose was to teach people how they could attack and kill their former masters. Over time however, the order's members developed an obsession with death. They focused their energies on studying killing and death to the extent that they were eventually run out of Calimshan. Similarly expelled from every other place they attempted to settle in (except for Thay), the monks of the order became a semi-secret society, establishing hidden monasteries all over Faerûn where they could continue their studies in relative peace.

Activities
The monks of the Long Death intensely studied the effect of the process of death on living tissue. The ultimate objective was to discover the 'perfect death' - an objective that no member of the group really understood, let alone achieved. In one of their monastaries, they would spend the majority of their time sparring with one another and the rest in quiet contemplation. Outside of the monastaries, they wandered relatively aimlessly, often disguised as beggars, attacking humanoids that they came across in an effort to inflict as painful a death as they could using only their bare hands.

Membership
Becoming a member of the order required first finding a monastary. There were at least three - one in Thay, one in the Firesteap Mountains on the eastern edge of the Lake of Steam and one in the Turnstone Hills between Sundabar and Hellgate Keep in the Silver Marches. Very few applicants were actually accepted - perhaps a dozen a year - and each one had to pass several tests of strength, agility and endurance before being inducted into the order fully.

Leadership
Each monastery was independant of the others and led by a single individual. This individual had to prove themselves the best warrior of the monks in the monastery through trials by combat every year on the Feast of the Moon.