The Order first appears in Small Gods where they are described as having the responsibility of observing significant events so that they become 'history', instead of just things that happen. However, there is a slight reference to the Order in "Guards! Guards!", where at the end of the novel there are many bright orange robed men loading barrels and one specifically mentions the name Lobsang. They also have responsibility to see history follows the right track, as set out in the huge lead-bound History Books – 20,000 of them, ten feet high, with printing small enough to need a magnifying glass to read. "When people say it is written – it is written here." According to Small Gods, three people go at a time to access the books because once in the past one person used to go in alone, learn about the future, and won a large sum in bets before he was found out.
In Thief of Time we find that this is a simplification, and the main role of the monastery is to ensure anything happens at all. To do this, they have a number of methods for moving and storing time, for example by means of spinning cylinders called procrastinators (possibly an analogy with capacitors, a reservoir of electric charge). Procrastinators look like Tibetan prayer wheels, and are evocative of the Tipler Cylinder theory. (It having been established as early as  Mort,
Sourcery,
Guards! Guards!,
Moving Pictures,
Reaper Man,
Men At Arms,
Soul Music,
Interesting Times,
Maskerade,
Feet of Clay,
Jingo,
The Fifth Elephant,
The Truth,
The Last Hero,
Night Watch,
Going Postal,
Thud!,
Sourcery,
Guards! Guards!,
Moving Pictures,
Reaper Man,
Men At Arms,
Soul Music,
Interesting Times,
Maskerade,
Feet of Clay,
Jingo,
The Fifth Elephant,
The Truth,
The Last Hero,
Night Watch,
Going Postal,
Thud!,s that people's perception of time affects its flow on the Disc, the Monks must ensure this does not become a problem, by, as an example, taking some time from the middle of the ocean ('how much time does a codfish need?') and putting it in a busy Ankh-Morpork workshop with a deadline to meet.)
They also frequently need to enter the world, to take a more direct hand in events. It is for this reason that a number of monks have been trained as ninjas. Many of them have since been retrained by Lu-Tze, who believes most problems can be sorted out without resorting to martial arts.
Because of the Order's control of Time, the valley is permanently reliving a perfect day, with the cherry blossom beginning to fall (which is too bad if you actually want cherries.) Fortunately for Lu-Tze, at the end of Thief of Time, Lobsang Ludd, the new personification of Time, makes a slight adjustment to some of the valley's trees so as to give his tutor his own "perfect moment".

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