New Livonian Order (1983: Doomsday)

The New Livonian Order are an independant militia styling themselves after the medieval Livonian Order. Primarily active in what were the Zemgale and Vidzeme regions of Latvia, they have taken it upon themselves to maintain order, defend the area's civilian population, and deal with bandits, gangs and assorted other trouble makers.

Although taking their name from and styling themselves after the medieval Livonian Order, the organization lacks a fount of honour and is therefore not a true chivalric order, merely a self-styled one.

History
Due to a combination of a lack of written records and the 'Chinese whispers' effect, the Order's exact origins are unclear. The only details that can be believed with a decent amount of certainty are that it was founded by a man named Valdis Apinis at some point during the mid-eighties in a village/refugee camp south-east of Riga. Apinis' reasons for doing so vary from one account to another, with the more devout members claiming that he was told by god himself to defend the innocent from the evil-doers of the world. A less religously-orientated and more likely explaination is that he was merely someone with an interest in medieval history who turned to a somewhat idealised idea of the age of chivalry as a means of coping with the post-Doomsday chaos. Whatever his motivation, he had enough charisma to attract followers, with the first major act of the fledgling order being to overthrow a group of former Soviet soldiers who had been treating the refugees as their slaves.