Here begins the Prologue to the Rule of Saint Gregorios the Great.
The following passage is a mytho-historical account of Saint Gregorios the Great and how the Order and Fellowship of the Knights of First Landing was first established.
In the name of the Divine Order [Ib. pantes theoi (Πάντες θεοί)], we hereby inform all who now are or who are to come by whom, when and how the Royal Order of Saint Gregorios the Great Martyr was established. In the ancient times [Ib. aiônes (αἰῶνες)] of the Age of Destiny, not long after the time when the world had been broken and the peoples of Iblydos had begun to gather anew, there arose a human named Gregorios [Ib. Grigόrios (Γρηγόριος)], born neither to a throne nor to a great inheritance, but who possessed a strength of body and character uncommon even among the heroes [Ib. ἥρωες] of the age. In his youth, he wandered among the cities [Ib. póleis (πόλεις)] and peoples [Ib. lāoí (λᾱοί)] of the isles and saw them being divided against one another, preyed upon by tyrants [Ib. tŭ́rănnoi (τῠ́ρᾰννοι)] and raiders [Ib. lēistaí (λῃσταί)], and threatened by the remnants of the Old Koloran cyclopean empire. Taking pity upon them, he gathered about himself those who would follow him, not as mercenaries [Ib. misthophóroi (μισθοφόροι)] seeking plunder, but as companions [Ib. hetaîroi (ἑταῖροι)] bound by oath to one another and to the defense of their people.
With these companions, Gregorios crossed the islands and brought order where there had been lawlessness, defeated tyrants who had made themselves masters by strength of arms, and broke the bands of raiders that preyed upon the weak. When the armies of the cyclopean dominions turned against the Iblydan peoples, he stood against them and drove them from the lands they had claimed, winning victories against forces many times his own and freeing city after city from their rule. Yet, he did not make himself king over those whom he had liberated. Instead, he established laws by which the strong were made guardians of the weak, the wealthy were commanded to provide for the needy, warriors were bound to discipline, rulers to justice, and every citizen to the service of the community.
It is often said that St. Gregorios taught that no man was ever truly born noble, but rather, that nobility was something to be proved by what a man was willing to sacrifice for others.
In time, his fame spread throughout the region, and kings sought his counsel, warriors sought his companionship, and poets began to call him Gregorios the Great. Yet for all the victories attributed to him, those who knew him best remembered not the cities he conquered, but the mercies he showed to those he had defeated. He spared enemies who surrendered, gave his own provisions to the hungry, ransomed captives when his companions would have left them behind, and refused crowns and treasures offered to him for his victories.
In the heat of battle, St. Gregorios was described to have been a paragon of the time; in judgment, he was just; in prosperity, generous; in suffering, steadfast; and in the face of death, fearless.
At last, when a final host gathered against the peoples he had sworn to defend, Gregorios remained with the few who would not abandon their homes. Knowing that he could not survive the battle, he ordered those who followed him to withdraw and live, while he and a chosen few held the enemy at the pass. There he fell, having spent the last of his strength that others might escape. Thus did Gregorios die as he had lived: in courage, in mercy, in justice, in generosity, in nobility, in hope, and in faith. And because he had given his life wholly for those entrusted to his protection, the people did not remember him as a king who had conquered them, but as a martyr who had died for them.
After his death, the ancient rites of the Iblydans declared that Gregorios had fulfilled the destiny of a true hero. The cyclopean seers proclaimed that his deeds had carried him beyond the measure of ordinary men, and he was received among the Hero-Gods as a saintly champion of the virtues he had embodied. His name thereafter became a standard by which the lives of rulers and warriors alike were judged. The laws he had established became known as the Rule of Gregorios, and those who wished to follow his example began to call themselves his knights. From these traditions, preserved through generations, would eventually arise the royal knighthood whose members swear not merely to remember Gregorios the Great, but to live as he did: that strength might serve mercy, courage serve justice, nobility serve generosity, faith sustain hope, and the life of every knight be held in service to others.