"Now even the unerring servants of justice despair, for they must submit to to their world in order to save it."
—Chronicle of the Black Sword, Chapter One
The Guardians who have taken charge of the Goddess Tower for millenia are mankind's ever-vigilant bulwark against the encroaching darkness. They rule Ascelia with an iron fist and maintain some level of influence even in Arx and Maelthrazra. Yet, little about their order is known outside of it. That is because their power demands sacrifice that ordinary people could not possibly understand.
That all Guardians are male is not a matter of tradition, but an unchangeable imperative. The power of the Goddess lies in the blood, and is sexually transmitted from exalted prostitutes to the Guardians as it has been for centuries beyond counting. In Asherah, divine magic is a disease. What's more, the connection between the Guardians and the equally secretive women who control the thousand temples is forever: the Goddess' power withers if it is not renewed by fresh infusions. A Guardian who waits too long to have intercourse with one of the Hands of the Goddess will be consumed from the inside by the very symbiote that gives him his holy strength. It is the most agonizing death imaginable.
Knowing that their ways must be kept mysterious to avoid horrifying the multitude, the Guardians are left in a curious position: all-powerful, with a great drive to bring justice to their broken world, yet forced to kill if necessary to keep their order's secrets. Thus have the Goddess' holy knights come to personify both hope-bringing righteousness and morbid paranoia.
See the “Touch of the Goddess” houserule for the mechanical representation of the Guardians' secret.
