Order of Saint Cicerón

The reign of Emperor Serion was a tyrannical one that naturally made him many enemies within his own court and the empire as a whole. In the later years of his rule, he began to see assassins behind every curtain and lies upon every tongue. His growing paranoia came to a head when he caught the captain of his guard in deep conversation with an imperial counselor known to be a member of the aristocratic faction. No longer trusting his guards to be loyal to him, he executed the offending captain, disbanded the Tilveril Guard, and sent all but a few of its former members to the far corners of the empire. In 728 CR he formed the Knightly Order of Saint Cicerón out of those who remained and they became his most trusted servants. He tasked them with everything from guarding his person to silencing political opponents.   Ultimately, the knights would prove to be Serion's undoing. In 737 CR, with the emperor's paranoia growing ever stronger Prince Caelon, Serion's grandson and commander of the knights, made a deal with the Imperial Council to remove his grandfather from power in return for the crown. And so on the 19th of Bannerfall, in the year 737 CR, Emperor Serion of the Empire of Néresia was dragged out bed and executed in the streets of Sielle. He is the only emperor in Néresia's history that has been left to bleed out in the gutters.   Emperor Caelon would be hesitant to entrust his safety wholly to the Order of Saint Cicerón, and understandably so. He reformed the Tilveril Guard and placed restraints upon both the Guard and the Knights in order to keep them too busy competing with each other to plot effectively against him. In this manner the Order continued. Future emperors would place more faith in the Tilveril Guard for their protection and, during the reign of Emperor Calemir I, the Knightly Order of Saint Cicerón would no longer act as bodyguards to the imperial family as the Guard took on that role fully for the first time since they it was disbanded.   Despite their loss of purpose, membership in the order remained the greatest honor the emperor could bestow upon a person and his advisors would often be found among their ranks. Over the course of its existence, induction into the order has been a powerful tool for emperors to both gain allies and remove potential opponents within the Imperial Council, something which has not changed in the slightest.