Cressida itself started with a small group of disenfranchised Qadir travelling from the deserts of Farah'deen and sailing across turbulent seas with naught but Moonlight to guide them, eventually setting up as a small settlement in a crescent coat on the shores of Teled Methen.
It wasn't long before Cressida grew, the initial settlement becoming the coastal Qadiric city of Thalassa. Seven other varied cities following suit and either joining or sprouting up around the world, Thalassa standing as their capital.
The Himalia Fortress, known in full as the Himalia: Qalāti Hilāl al Dīn (Fortress of the Crescent Moon of the Faith) is a Monastery that is home to a group of lunar missionaries from that capital city of Thalassa.
Azhar al-Farid sent a number of priests, exemplary pupils of Grand Pontiff Alaion, on a spiritual journey as a way to spread the faith and collect knowledge from around the world.
One of the groups, beset by inclement weather in an inhospitable desert of Ithania decided to set up camp, staying to wait for safer times to begin moving once again.
It was as they waited that they realised their time could be better spent building up, creating a bastion of safety for travellers such as themselves, a safe haven and religious retreat for pilgrims who may yet get lost in the endless sands.
It was not long before the Himalia fortress monastery had begun construction by a young Rasim al-Mahdi. Now, a number of years on it still stands, chaotic and worn from the harsh weather and intermittent battle around its walls but the people inside stay as resolute as ever.
The people that inhabit the Himalia Fortress became a tightly knit monastic order, surviving and spreading the word of the Cressidan goddess, Cresseid.
The order itself, becoming known simply as the Himalia order, runs on a fairly flat social hierarchy. It began with Rasim as the spiritual and military leader but as the years went on they took on more people; refugees, believers and those with nowhere else to go and gradually the order and the beliefs it held changed and Rasim took more of a back seat.
The social hierarchy in the current day has almost entirely flattened, all adherents of the faith are seen as equal within the monastery walls with the older hierarchies only kicking in during times of strife, be it internal or external conflict, the religion similarly transformed, with countless variations of Lunar worship taking form, yet all praising the Moon in one way or another.