I agree with Watchman. It has a lot to do with the Templars just ending suddenly (for the most part), at the height of their power and wealth, when other military orders just sort of faded into oblivion. Add in the mystique caused by their controversial confessions and the coincidental death of both the Pope and Philip the Fair within a year after De Molay supposedly cursed them to die as he was burning on heretic's pyre and you have the stuff of legend. Such a legend that the date of their initial arrests in France, Friday 13th, has become a traditional superstition of being an unlucky day. Their story has it all - wealth, power, fame, a strange beginning, a tragic end, warfare, mystery and excitement. An accomplished storyteller would have difficulty just inventing a better tale; and yet, most of it is true with lots of peripheral mystery and supposition that serves to further inspire the imagination.