Quote:
Originally Posted by Brandy
I'm sorry I don't have any serious suggestions for you but the first thing that popped into my head when you asked this was "Pontifficators".
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Well, few, if any, of the men who defend the Catholic Church and humanity from supernatural evil will speak English much, if at all.
Formally, the official language of the Vatican is Latin. Senior Church figures may speak quite good Latin, as, of course might scholarly priests and members of religious orders. However, Italians are practically speaking very numerous among clergy and laity in the Vatican, with demographics among servants of the Church worldwide having a lot of correlation with the most populous Catholic countries.
Most of the men who carry arms against the supernatural in service of the Catholic Church will probably be German-speaking former Swiss Guards. Others will be French, Italian or Romansch speakers from Swiss, as well as the occasional Catholic who served in a military or elite police tactical unit before somehow coming to work for the church. Oh, and there will be some former
Gendarmerie from the Vatican, probably all Italian-speakers.
I don't imagine that the Vatican has more than a few dozen covert operatives in its service, as direct action against threats is very controversial among the faction within the Church aware of the supernatural. Only the direst threats, determined by Oracles and divination magic, call for a response from the Vatican, as opposed to quiet and informal support of some local groups capable of dealing with a local problem.
So, maybe about 40% German as a first language, 40% Italian and the rest French, Spanish or other. They would certainly call themselves something in their own languages or in Latin.
It's been established in play that when there is great need for haste, the
Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta (SMOM), i.e. the Knights of Malta, will use its diplomatic status to facilitate the movement of former Swiss Guards, priest-occultists and team leaders who were knights of the Order of Malta to a target area. It seems plausible that the SMOM is used to some degree to cover the activities of occult-aware Vatican operatives.
I'm toying with the elite Monster Hunters of the Vatican belonging to a secret chivalric military order, founded in the late 1990s or early 2000s, named for an appropriate saint.