Monasteries are religious communities, often located in secluded locations.
People go to monasteries to seek peace, tranquility, spiritual enlightenment and a way up in the hierarchy of reincarnation. Some monasteries cater to visitors, but most require the seekers of gnosis to be ordained as monks or nuns - temporarily or permanently.
Traditionally, monks and nuns have lived off the land around them. In the stricter or less affluent orders, this means that the monks or nuns work the land personally. More affluent and less demanding orders have lay brothers, freeholders or even serfs working the lands of the monastery.
Many of the monasteries make a tidy profit off lending and copying books. Some have other industries, such as the trappiste orders, which are impressive breweries or vineyards.
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Monasteries are also used as a dignified form of ostracism. Women found unmarriable (whether due to personal failings or family finances) are often prevailed on to take monastic vows. Similar induction may occur to other troublesome relatives, such as headstrong widows and the unbearably eccentric.Deposed nobles and rulers may also be given the option of withdrawing to contemplate eternal mysteries for the remainder of their natural lifetime, rather than face imminent death in the secular world. All of these may be plotting to return in force from their banishment.
Monasteries are hybrids of sacral havens, places of industry, asylums and nests of treachery.
Lesser monasteries are called priories, and are under the governance of a prior or prioress.
Abbeys are greater monasteries, ruled by an abbot or abbess.
Chapterhouses.
The Bluefriars - The Gnostics
The Pyrophlatics
The Trappistes
Sacral Institutions
Metaphysics
Spirits