Knights of the Black Cross

The Knights of the Black Cross was a secret Cainite order within the ranks of the Teutonic Knights, named for the Black Cross of the Deutschorden. It was under the sway of the Ventrue Jürgen von Verden, lieutenant and childe of Hardestadt.

The Order of the Black Cross formed on Jürgens behest after the Teutonic Knight were changed from a hospice brotherhood into a more militant order dedicated on fighting infidels in 1198, after the Teutonics were expelled from Palestine after the loss of Jerusalem in 1187. When the order relocated his headquarters from Acre (which was inaccessible for Cainites due to the fragment of the True Cross that rested there) to Montfort, which lay further north in the Levante, Jürgen's vasalls first integrated themselves into the structures of the Teutonics, enticing prospectful recruits into their ranks. When the Order gained land in Hungary in 1211, the Ventrue became interested in using the order to launch assaults against the pagans in Prussia, Livonia and Lithuania and the native Cainite population.

Despite Jürgens best efforts, the Knights of the Black Cross remained a minuscule part of the Teutonic Knights, but one who managed to prove themselves useful during the invasion of the Land Beyond the Forest and the territories of the Tzimisce following the Fifth Crusade. Jürgen remained to control the Order until his presumed execution in 1271 and after the Anarch Revolt, during the Thirteen Years War in 1454, in which Prussia expelled the Teutonics from their lands, the remnants of the Knights of the Black Cross were disbanded.

Organization
Given that most knight are fairly set in their ways and would oppose infiltration from nocturnal blood-suckers, Jürgens vampires were especially careful whom they would introduce into the knighthood. Members were made to believe that the Knights of the Black Cross was the true heart of the Teutonic Knights, even more elite than the order itself. Most members had been ghouled and indoctrinated into service to the hidden masters of the Black Cross, that by the time they are granted the Embrace, few traits remain that would led them to oppose their vampiric superiors.

The Knights of the Black Cross was nominally ruled by Lord Jürgen, who acted as the Hochmeister of the Order, with his agents Lucretia von Hardtz as Groß-Komtur and Heinrich von Achern as Ordensmarschall. Any mortal member retains his original profession, but also gains a rank: Eingeweihter (Initiate), who had just finished a long period of monitoring from either Lucretia or Heinrich, Bruder vom Kreuze (brother of the Cross), who partook in several sacraments of vitae disguised as wine, and last Komtur von Kreuze (Commander of the Cross), by which the knights swore an oath to shun the light of the sun, followed by the Embrace.