So I've been binging on shows like The Tudors and The Borgias, as well as Bloodborned lore videos. Apologies if this borders on writefaggotry.
Picture it, the Renaissance. The age of pike and shot, basket-hilted broadsword and rapier. Henry Tudor, Queen Elizabeth, Ferdinand and Isabella. An age of religious and political upheaval.
But for the purposes of this sort of story, these things are merely a backdrop.
Perhaps you were a simple tradesmen in a small hinterland village in Italy, home of the holy mother church, or the priest of a small parish in France. Perhaps you were a gentleman soldier in a mercenary company, or a courtier in England.
But something happened. Something with fur, and claws and fangs, unlike any beast you've seen before. Or maybe it was a man buried weeks ago, feasting on the flesh of your wife. Or it was something stranger, and more unspeakable. Whatever it was, you saw it, and you know it was real.
And then, they came. Men in common garb, wielding silvered weapons, or fire, or guns. They destroyed the monstrosity, and told you to find your way to a parish in Rome, where all would be made clear. And so you went.
When you arrived in Rome, they fed you, clothed you, and they explained to you what it was you saw. And they related to you the story of their order, a lesser branch of the Holy Inquisition, that traced its lineage back to the day that Rome cast off the last of its pagan rituals, and the spirits of thousands of dead pagan Romans, lemures, rose up in anger, their rites of appeasement abandoned. Humble men of the urban cohorts and lesser priests fought them back, though the church at large kept these events quiet, lest their legitimacy be brought into question. And so the tradition continued from that day forward, with men handpicked by the church to fight back the supernatural and make the world safer for the church and the laymen both.