Templar (faction)

Templars is a faction of the game. Led by the High Templar, they ruled the Oriath.

The character class Templar is a former member of this faction but was exiled before the start of Act 1.

Ancient version of Templar faction can be encountered via Legion mechanic. From Act 1 to Act 10, the player character also often encountered Templars' soldiers and Blackguards in Wraeclast and the island of Oriath.

They worship Innocence.

Lore
Templars is the faction that rules the island of Oriath. In the past, Templars also presented in the Wraeclast. Symbol of Templar can be found in the Fellshrine Ruins (It was known as the church ruins in the early build of the game). Eramir mentioned the symbol as the Descry [to the native people of Wraeclast].

In the present timeline, High Templar Dominus and Piety led the Templar to find valuable loots from the ruins of the Wraeclast, where the protagonist (the player character), killed Dominus in Act 3. Dominus was responsible to exile the player character to the Wraeclast at the start of Act 1, regardless which character class (despite Scion has slightly different lore, to unlock her, the player must use their first player character to meet her at Act 3). With a side track to kill The Beast, the protagonist use a portal device to return to Oriath in The Slave Pens. After encounter several NPCs, the protagonist killed High Templar Avarius, but he turned into the god Innocence. However, the protagonist also killed Innocence, only told by Innocence's brother Sin, to resurrect him to beat another god Kitava in Act 10. Under the influence of Kitava, Templars in Oriath are turned into to mad and cultist versions. (The lore related to detour back to Wraeclast after fails to kill Kitava at the end of Act 5 are omitted as they are not closely related to Templar)

The Epilogue storyline also heavily involved with Templar. In the old storyline Atlas of Worlds, The Shaper, aka Valdo Caeserius, built a map device to travel to another dimension some time before the "present". Then the protagonist meet Zana and use the map device in The Templar Laboratory (at The Eternal Laboratory before version 3.0.0) to search The Shaper. Which turns out The Shaper is the father of Zana.

Such storyline was re-canon to add another antagonist The Elder into the storyline in the War for the Atlas expansion, as well as adding more details from the lores of Synthesis league. In War for the Atlas, The Shaper was asked by High Templar Venarius to re-build a map device, some time before the "present". The parts of such map device was found in the ruins of Wraeclast. The narrative of the involvement of Venarius in Atlas of Worlds and War for the Atlas are slightly different.

However, such storyline was again re-canon in the Conquerors of the Atlas expansion of the game. Despite all lore objects of the old storyline are not assessable in-game anymore. It is assumed that the storyline only move the search of the Shaper and the encounter of the Elder to some point before the player character (the "current" protagonist) arrived the Oriath in the Epilogue. While the old "protagonist" that killed Elder, the Elderslayers, became the new antagonist as Conquerors, in respective to the point of view of the player character. One of the new antagonist, Baran, is a former Templar.

The new Conquerors of the Atlas story arc also stated that after the killing of the High Templar, the citizen of Oriath formed their own Vanguard. One of the leader of the Vanguard is the brother of Baran, Officer Kirac. At the end of the Conquerors of the Atlas, the Oriath was destroyed by the archenemy Sirus, the former leader of the Elderslayers.

Notable members
"ancient era"
 * High Templar Voll
 * Cardinal Sanctus Vox

"modern / near modern time"
 * The Templar (the player character, exiled)
 * High Templar Avarius
 * High Templar Dominus
 * Cavas, Forgotten Spirit (High Templar Venarius)
 * The Shaper (Valdo Caeserius)
 * Piety (unique monster that appears from Act 2 to 4, hired by Dominus)
 * General Gravicius (Act 3 unique monster, stationed at The Ebony Barracks)
 * Petarus (Act 4 and 9 NPC, former member of Ebony Legion and the Blackguard)
 * Bannon (Act 5 and 10 NPC)
 * Baran (exiled)
 * Cassia (exiled)
 * Alva (former member of Dominus' navy)
 * Herules, Gomin and Landren (mentioned in Baran's Journal 1 as "brothers and sisters of the Templar faith in Exile")
 * The Blackguards
 * The Guard Captain
 * Monsters from Heist Bunker, Mansion and Records Office tilesets (Based on lore such as )
 * The Guard Captain
 * Monsters from Oriath areas in Act 5 and Act 10
 * Slave Driver and mad version Crazed Driver
 * Truth Extractor

Moreover, Piety also led Templar thaumaturgist/scientist to carry out human experiment, thus the following monsters are related to Templar, but not a Templar. In the game file, they did not have "templar" internal tag either:
 * Miscreation, e.g.
 * Piety's Miscreation
 * Tentacle Miscreation

Items
Several items are named after Templar: