"Order of the Hammer"

ganac on 9/7/2012 at 08:56

Hey Taffers. I got a question for all you thiefy scholars out there.
Now, some may not know that the Mechanists are never referred to as "The Order of the Gear", and the connection to the Pagans as "The Order of the Vine" is tenuous at best.

But everyone knows that the Hammerites are certainly "The Order of the Hammer".

Or are they?

Whilst trying to think of a new Featured Article for the wikia, I decided to look into some thief lore/legends/myths/taffnstuff that involved the Ordering business, much mirroring the first paragraph.

It got me thinking; is there anywhere in the canon, vanilla Thief lexicon where the Hammerites are named as such?

And if there is not, where the heck did all this ordering business come from?

EDIT: Ive found reference to it. Twice. Only twice. (Meeting with Constantine and Drepts Tale)

I'm sure there has got to be more. How else could it be so memetic?

Beleg Cúthalion on 9/7/2012 at 10:50

It's probably "memetic" because the games makes us believe that the only religious institution for the "Builder belief" is an order-like group of monks, warrior-monks and priests. There is apparently no secular clergy like in the older Catholic church (to distinguish monks from ordinary "outside" priests), rather the Hammerites draw upon the service for commoners and non-clerics in general.

Solabusca on 9/7/2012 at 10:55

Paging jtr7, paging jtr7!

Okay, I'll give it a quick shot, too - I can't be certain at this moment (just finishing up a long night at work), but if I'm not mistaken, the name "The Order of the Vine" actually springs from a fan mission for TDP, and is a derivative of The Order of the Hammer/The Hammerite Order.

I can't recall if the Order of the Vine is mentioned in Calendra's Cistern - unfortunately, my legacy gaming rig blew it's hard drive not that long ago, and I haven't had the chance to reinstall any Thief-y goodness.

Komag on 9/7/2012 at 11:46

Order of the Vine is referenced in Thief TDP, in one of either Bafford's or Ramirez's ledgers IIRC. The fan mission then ran with the reference

Renault on 9/7/2012 at 13:53

Yeah, I believe it's in one of Ramirez's intel reports from Assassins.

Komag on 9/7/2012 at 20:38

In Constantine's manor, there is a scroll:

THE CITY TRIBUNE
A woman from Shalebridge..acquitted...city court...kidnapped by members of the Order of the Hammer. ... in Cragscleft...etc etc

Solabusca on 9/7/2012 at 20:53

As has been pointed out by Komag, there IS mention of The Order of the Vine in Assassins

Quote:

Viktoria

Independent fence, previously Raputo's. Dominates include thiefs-pawnage of exotics, medicinals. No known organization; contact with second-tier nobility, Grand Library, and Order of the Vine. May have warden aspirations.

Additionally, a quick search of related materials has found SEVERAL references to the Order of the Hammer/Hammerite Order spread through around a dozen or so in-game documents.

ganac on 9/7/2012 at 21:08

Thanks for the responses. It would certainly be good to see what source materials reference it. Not that it is super important, I just wanted to make sure I didn't have to change every reference of the Order of the Hammer on the wikia.
Now I can work on that featured article.

Solabusca on 9/7/2012 at 21:56

Quote Posted by ganac

(http://thief.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Search?ns0=1&ns112=1&search=%22Order+of+the+Hammer%22+in-game+text&fulltext=Search) Well, this might help you as a first step in your research...

the first few links give you references to the Order of the Hammer. Before going off an changing anything, I'd recommend a review of the In-Game Texts - heck, you can find them here AND at the Thief Wikia.

ganac on 10/7/2012 at 19:57

Quote Posted by Solabusca

I'm an admin there :P I forgot that the search engine doesn't like how the pages for voices and text are set up. Thanks anyway; I have what I needed.