The Orders of the Adepta Sororitas in the Prosperitas Sector

The Icon of the Order of His Sanguine Tears

The details of the foundation and nature of the Adepta Sororitas as a whole can be found here. This focuses upon the Adepta Sororitas Orders found in the Prosperitas Sector.

Four Facts about the Adepta Sororitas

They are the Faithful Elite. The Sorors of the Orders Militant are some of the most elite troops available to the Imperium. Their training makes them superior to almost all mortal soldiers of the Imperium, on a par with their Schola-raised brethren in the Stormtrooper Regiments. But combined with their unique status as the only mortal forces of the Imperium fully equipped with power armour and the deadly bolt guns, they are the only mortal force reliably able to match the God-Emperor’s transhuman Angels of Death, the Adeptus Astartes without staggering casualties. The Non-Militant Orders are no slouch either, often receiving access to similar equipment and training, while not as focused on war as the Militant Orders, at the same equivalent level.

They are part of the Ecclesiarchy but do not answer to the Priesthood. The Sisterhood was founded in the wake of the 'Reign of Blood' which marked the implementation of heavy curbs on the power of the Priesthood. For this reason the Sorors do not answer directly to the Priesthood despite respecting the guidance of the Ecclesiarch on Terra and senior Priests, they have their independence and can and will act against the judgement of Priests if they view it as unfit.

They hold themselves to high standards and take repentance seriously. When a Soror fails at her duties she will normally subject herself to painful physical acts of repentance. Where failures are so egregious that they cannot be ritually atoned for a Soror places herself in 'Repentia' stripping herself of her blessed armour to go into battle without its protection to face the foe to atone for her failings.

They are children of the Schola. Sorors are selected from those orphans raised in the Schola Progenia who demonstrated a particularly devout faith in the God Emperor, like Commissars and Stormtrooper Scions they are raised immersed in the faith of the Ecclesiarchy and indoctrinated from an early age.

Four Facts about the Orders of the Prosperitas Sector

Some consider them disruptive - though individual sisters may differ, the Sororitas have a reputation for being hardline puritants refusing to treat with any psyker or mutant and ensuring their own ranks are pure of any deviation from the human norm in the frontiers of the Galaxy, like the Prosperitas Sector this can mean they lack the philosophical 'flexibility' that is often demonstrated by other Imperial groups operating in such regions. Their hardline dedication to their role as caretakers of the 'purity' of the Imperial Faith can often lead to them challenging the Imperial social order - something more accepted in stable regions of the Imperium and less welcomed by the eclectic citizenry of the Prosperitas Sector - no more so is this embodied then the Order of His Sanguine Tears open support for the Fidelis Militia in defiance of their own duties to uphold Saint Thor's decree passive, out of a belief that an army of the Faith was 'necessary' to purify some of the deviant practices accepted in the Prosperitas Sector before their discovery they were being played by the Temple of the Saviour Emperor.

Many look to them as religious authorities - Though the social hierarchy of the Prosperitas Sector might consider Sisters a problematic force at times, it cannot be said of most faithful citizens who have found the small clusters of Sororitas activity in the Prosperitas Sector to be beacons of hope and protection against the dark. Of all the factions of the Imperial Faith present in the sector, the Sororitas are the least fragmented, and while they may not universally agree with each other they have mostly accepted, despite her flaws, the coordinating authority of Canoness Asenath Dinah of the Order of His Sanguine Tears.

The Sanguine Tears are specialists in Counter Insurgency Warfare, or COIN as it is dubbed by the Imperial Guard. The Sanguine Tears are experienced in fighting against insurgents, having spent years suppressing the insurrection on Nivalis. Now that their battle with the Temple is over, it is largely expected they will be a great aid to the Ordo Hereticus Inquisitors of the Ordos Prosperitas in rooting out insurgent threats like Warp Cults and the Rising Flame. For this reason as well, the Annwfyn and Ruwwad natives of the Prosperitas Sector do not have the best opinions of the Sorors having faced their persecution at points in history.

They can be found in many places but have no one home - Prior to the Temple Uprising some would have said that the Fortress-Convent of the Order of His Sanguine Tears on Nivalis was the spiritual headquarters of the Adepta Sororitas, but its destruction by Archenemy forces that invaded Nivalis during the uprising has left most Sisters moving as scattered groups and missions across the Sector. Though individual missions may have established roots on worlds they have deployed to there is no one central base they can rely on, the Order of His Sanguine Tears have made use of the Adepta's sole Endeavour-class Light Cruiser Saint Nafisa's Axe since the loss of their fortress monastery and make its forges and devoted tech-wrights available to maintain the wargear of any Sister from any Order. However this nomadic arrangement has led to a number of arrangements with individual Inquisitors and individuals of similar influence to maintain and support Soror missions.

The Order of His Sanguine Tears - Order Militant

An Order Minoris of the Order of our Martyred Lady, the Order of His Sanguine Tears still wears the black armour and red vestments and trim of its parent Order. Though it was not officially founded until recent years, the Priory that formed the Order first came to the Prosperitas Sector during the leadership of Warmaster Fassir, and was vital in the consolidation of Imperial control over the Cadian Corridor and Subsector Tertius.

The Order’s Greatest Champion, Saint Nafisa, was a Prosperitas-born Soror. Through her ascension upon her martyrdom against the Archenemy in battle in the Cadian Sector was born a desire amongst the Sorors who followed her to return to the Prosperitas Sector. It received blessings to do so via the support of the then Cardinal-Emissarius Grulge, who led the reinforcement of the Ecclesiarchy presence in the Sector.

Deployed to suppress riots on the Shrine World of Nivalis after religious celebrations there were interrupted by heretics in 584.M41, the Sorors witnessed a dire omen, as every statue of the Emperor seemed to weep tears of blood. With the permission of the Convent Primary on Ophelia IV and the Cardinal-Emissarius, the Soror commander, Canoness Asenath Dinah was granted the right to found a permanent Convent-Garrison on Nivalis, and found a new Order Minoris to staff it.

As young as the Order is, the Battle Sisters have made themselves a formidable presence on Nivalis. The failure of the planetary government and the Priesthood to bring about order led to both Canoness Dinah and Cardinal-Emissarius Grulge forcing the Planetary Governor to abdicate their position in favour of the Cardinal-Emissarius taking over as the Governor of Nivalis in the late 580s, with the Order engaging in several years of ongoing counter-insurgent operations on the planetary surface. These continued until the arrival of an Archenemy hulk above the planet in 592.M41.

Role in the Ecclesiarchy Civil War and the Crusade

Canoness Dinah was amongst the first members of the Ecclesiarchy to break her convents with the Heresiarch Grulge following his increasingly power-hungry attempts to silence all opponents within the Ecclesiarchy using secretive internal investigations cabals such as the ONI. Following the declaration of the Cardinal as an Apostate following the revelation of his membership of the proscribed Temple of the Saviour Emperor sect and the eruption of outright conflict between Ecclesiarchy factions, the Order was stretched thin protecting Ecclesiarchy Loyalists from the renegade Templar forces who sought to stamp out all attempts to unseat the apostate.

The Order has its own guilt to bear; the well-drilled fanatics of the Fidelis Templar, formerly the Fidelis Militia, were a product of its own hubris. Canoness Dinah willingly supported Grulge's ambitions of an 'Army of the Faith' (as did many other Priests), willfully flaunting the terms of the Decree Passive that the Sorors themselves were supposed to enforce. This guilt has led to the Order as a whole taking on oaths of penitence for their role in raising this forbidden army which caused so much destruction across the Sector. This manifested in their violent persecution of the internal conflict with the Temple, with Soror forces mounting brutal purges of Templar-held places of worship and those with sympathies towards them.

Freed from their obligations by the Fall of the Heresiarch in 597.M41, it is widely hoped that Sorors of the Order will soon return to the Crusade front-lines to help the embattled Guard and Navy forces who have been so long without their power-armoured assistance.

The Order of the Illuminate Quill - Order Sabine

Though the Order of His Sanguine Tears might make a lot of noise about its heritage in the early years of the Prosperitas Crusade, no Order has been involved in the Prosperitas Sector longer that the Order of the Illuminate Quill. Though the fact that they have made little attempt to correct their brash Sisters in the Order Militant, or indeed draw attention to themselves at all, is thanks to them being one of the Orders Sabine. The Orders Sabine are most widely recognised by Imperial scholars as the Soror companions of the Missionarius Galactica though this undersells the vast talents of the Orders Sabine who are consummate infiltrators and spies on par with the covert agents of other Imperial Agencies and, while the Sisters of the Illuminate Quill would deny it, have more often that not been employed by senior figures within the Adepta to infiltrate, or run spy networks, within Imperial space to ensure that the Adepta has full awareness of what is going on. It is as much the warnings of a Sister of the Order Sabine as of an Ordo Hereticus agent that have brought the wrath of the Sorors down on a heretic or corrupt Priest.

It is not currently known how many of the Illuminate Quill are present within the Prosperitas Sector but it is significant enough that they are able to appear out of the shadows to deploy sisters to accompany any expeditions of interest of the Imperial faith - and that only covers the ones openly identifying themselves as Sisters of the Order and not those who have already joined those expeditions in secret. That not even the Ordo Prosperitas has a good read on their number is a mark of pride amongst the Sisters of the Order - who, of all the Sorors in the Sector, have managed to remain the most aloof and intact during recent crisis's of the Imperial Faith.

The Order of the Eternal Gate - Order Pronatus

Originating from out of sector several missions of Sisters from the Order of the Eternal Gate are found in the Prosperitas Sector, one of the Orders Pronatus, whose sworn mission is to safeguard the Relics of the Imperial Faith the Eternal Gate are specialised in the retrieval of ancient and dangerous artefacts and these Soror-Archaeologists have focused heavily on pre-Regency artefacts, such as those found on Shadowglow, that represent the longstanding influence of the Imperial Cult prior to the millennia under Archenemy rule the sector endured prior to M41. The Ordo Hereticus and Ordo Malleus of the Ordos Prosperitas have an especially good relationship with the Eternal Gate missions and often sponsor them as the curation and archaeological skills they demonstrate, paired with the will and faith and loyalty of Sisters makes them less likely to take artefacts for themselves compared to the myriad tomb robbers and treasure hunters of the sector.

The Order was asked to send Sisters to the Sector in 588.m41 by Cardinal Grulge, and spent years searching for a sequence of Relics at his behest. Following his excommunication they have since been engaged in recovering relics he misappropriated, neglected or discarded, auditing the local Ministorum’s vaults and supporting the Crusade.

Like all Sisters, Sisters Pronatus were raised within the forbidding walls of the Schola Progenium, conditioned for utter devotion to your faith. Though not Sisters Militant, they are taught all of the militant skills necessary to physically guard the most sacred foci of the Creed: relics of Saints and banners of Imperial heroes, and items stranger still. And have also been taught what is needful to seek out lost relics, and distinguish true artefacts from blasphemous falsehood; to maintain and repair the items under their care, and the rites to sanctify and wield them - or ward them away.

The Order has a reputation for an adventurous spirit, often diving into active warzones or accompanying expeditions outside the borders of the Imperium to rescue Relics otherwise lost to the Faithful.

The Order of the His Divine Hand - Order Hospitalier

During the mid-39th Millennium, Ecclesiarch Deacis VI giving the orders to raise up numerous major Orders Militant, as well as a host of minor orders, both Militant and Non-Militant, and it was here that the Order of Her Divine Hand was first created. Saint Kathrine Elysius is known to many as a near peerless warrior, the shield-bearer of Alicia Dominica herself and the Patron Saint and Canoness of the Order of Our Martyred Lady, and yet the Order of the Divine Hand take inspiration from another facet of the Saints life.

Upon the now sanctified world of Accilros's Hope, distant from the Prosperitas Sector, Saint Kathrine performed a miracle that would go unremarked by many, taking place far from the battlefield as it did. In the wake of a brutal war, thousands lay wounded and dying upon the field, even the mightiest Lord Generals and Masters of the Astra Militarum crying out for aid. Into this hellscape did the Saint stride, and yet it was not to such lofty pleas that she was drawn, instead kneeling beside a mortally wounded penal trooper. His wounds were immense, his life force draining from him so swiftly that it was a miracle that he still drew breath at all, and yet it was Saint Katherine’s touch that was the true miracle. With but a single hand, the Emperor of Mankind Himself reached through Katherine, flesh that was sundered made whole again as faith proved stronger than mortal standing.

Arriving alongside the Sisters Militant who would go on to found the Order of His Sanguine Tears, the Order of Her Divine Hand spread across the sector in the wake of the Crusade, ministering to the wounded of the undertakings many warfronts or healing the sick and blighted of those who were brought into the Imperium’s light. By the fourth century of the Crusade, the Order had touched almost every world in the sector - but it would focus the majority of its mission on Letifer Secundus, where the Order would base the greater number of its order treating to the poor and dispossessed of the poisonous world that live crammed amongst the hives. Perhaps drawn to the suffering of all those who live upon the blighted world, the Order of the Divine Hand maintain numerous Convent-Hospitals within the Digitalis Underhive, tending to those who have fallen victim to the nigh omnipresent drug-trade that fuels Letifer. Just as Saint Katherine healed a lowly Penal Trooper with her touch where Lord Generals perished from their injuries, so to do the Order of the Divine Hand seek to elevate those lowliest in material wealth amongst the Imperium, working with the downtrodden and dispossessed over and above those who seek to pay for their services with worldly riches.

This attitude has created resentment of the Order amongst the Letiferan Nobility and their masters in House Ruttyer, the Order of Her Divine Hand refuses to send its sisters into the Upper Hive to treat the nobles that reside there, turning down offers of great donations in exchange for their services, instead insisting that those who wished for healing would have to come to them, shedding their material trappings to surrender in full to their faith. Those few nobles that do are treated with all the skill the Order is known for, and yet this flagrant disregard for their greater standing within the Imperium has incensed Ruttyer no end, though little action has been taken as the respect the sisters have from the underhivers would likely spark civil unrest.

During the conflict with the Temple the Order was removed from the front lines of conflict having largely disavowed a close relationship with the Ecclesiarchy for many of the same reasons their focus on Letifer ignores the nobility - but they did not successfully avoid it entirely. Like other Hospitalier missions in the Prosperitas Sector, the Temple stripped many of the Convent-Hospitals of supplies and resources to send to the Fidelis Templar, and in the aftermath the Order has struggled, like many others, to reclaim its supplies, and without centralised Ecclesiarchy support and having alienated the Nobility now struggles to maintain its duties as a result.

The Order of Hallowed Ossuary - Order Vespila

The Dark Sisters of the Hallowed Ossuary are recent arrivals within the Prosperitas Sector, the Order is young and has arrived mostly at the behest of the Ordos Prosperitas via Inquisitor Zahid's strong relations with Canoness Dinah. The Orders Vespila are one the more recent callings of the Adepta, specialised Sisters who straddle the line between the Orders Hospitalier and Pronatus founded to preserve and recover the sacred dead they are a mortuary sect of the Adepta and are grim-faced individuals who spend their times amongst the dead, usually ensuring their preservation and proper funerary rites are met, but equally trained to perform forensic examination on corpses where the need arises to determine a cause of death.

That, undersells the reason for why the Hallowed Ossuary have come to the Prosperitas Sector, the Ordos Prosperitas are very aware that in recent years the dead have not lain still unless properly lain to rest, and that necessitates the presence of the Dark Sisters in the mortuaries of the Prosperitas Sector to ensure proper rites are performed, and where signs of animation are detected, rapid on-site cremation can be deployed.

The Order has not simply dedicated itself to the grim work of ensuring the dead do not rise again though, it has deployed missions of Sisters across the Prosperitas Sector to reclaim many of the hallowed dead. Following the power-sharing agreement on Nivalis for example, the Order has taken upon itself to oversee the movement of bones from various sacred shrines to new burial sites - and wider it has dedicated itsself to the reclamation of the bones and wargear of Sisters who have fallen in battle, including Sisters Repentia (see later) who have earned redemption in martyrdom.

Sisters Repentia in the Prosperitas Sector

When a Soror is judged to have broken her Oaths to her Order she might be punished in several ways, but the most serious of these, short of execution (which is rare for Sisters to deserve), is to be be placed "In Repentia" by the religious judgement of their peers. This means that the Sisters Oathbreaking is so severe she is cast out from her Order, stripped of the weapons of the holy trinity (Bolter, Flamer, Melta), and her power armour - and told to find redemption for her sins in the fires of battle, or die trying.

Sister Repentia are a myriad force in the Galaxy, the term most often invokes images of massed units of Sisters who have shed their power armour to go into battle wielding deadly melee weapons fighting in massed units to atone. But this is not always a practical form of atonement, there are not always battles where Repentia can find a place to earn forgiveness, there are not always Soror commanders willing to accomodate them in their battleline, and not all who are placed In Repentia are from Militant Orders - and the ache of sin weighs heavy on them. Not all such Sisters forgo armour entirely either, each expression of repentance is different and while all shun the sacred Power Armour some will still wear tough leathers and even flak and carapace as they wish to survive long enough to reach the enemy rather than being gunned down before they can close to glorious personal combat - others will also use lesser ranged weapons, such as lasweapons and autoguns - but will avoid the Holy Trinity out of nature and shun melee weapons more complex then chain weapons usually.

For those Repentia who cannot find a unit to join in battle, Repentance is a quest, frontier sectors are popular destinations for Sisters seeking to perform their repentance, singular warriors from all Orders drift regularly into the Prosperitas Sector, often paying for passage aboard vessels as protectors of the Faithful or using other skills, such as the Medicae talents of the Hospitalier Orders, for they will get no help from their Sisters while they bear the shame of their broken Oaths. These individuals can be found joining expeditions seeking to conquer worlds beyond the borders of the Sector, or joining battles as singular lonely warriors seeking to wash their shame away by earning a martyrs death, a rare few do earn repentance without dying though, granted it by senior Sorors within the Sector upon witnessing acts worthy of cleansing their sins, or sometimes by the Throne authority of Inquisitors - though some Sorors would contest the authority to do so. These lone warriors, both before and after they are forgiven inevitably draw the attention of Inquisitors who often find a place for such fanatics in their ranks.

For those that fall, the Order of the Hallowed Ossuary awaits to recover their bodies for interment and return to their Orders - though many will never return home, their bodies ritually cremated by the order - though the most honoured amongst them might have their skulls or bones preserved by the Order for internment or dedication as a Servo Skull.

Other Sororitas Deployments

The Orders above represent the most significant deployments of Sororitas in the Prosperitas Sector but other Orders are represented in smaller numbers and missions in the Prosperitas Sector, Hospitaliers from the Order of the Cleansing Water and the Weeping Brow can be found tending to several Hospital-covents or supporting the Officio Medicae. Often those Sorors found operating independently within the Sector operate within the retinues of Rogue Traders, or accompanying Ordos Prosperitas Inquisitors from outside of the Sector - whatever their roles, these Sorors are invaluable.

Notable Sororitas of the Prosperitas Sector

Canoness Asenath Dinah of the Order of His Sanguine Tears is the single most powerful Soror in the Prosperitas Sector, commanding her own Order as well as well as acting as a singular figurehead of the Adepta in the Sector. Faith in her leadership has been sustained despite the fact that some feel she should have been placed In Repentia for her part in being manipulated by the Temple and Heresiarch Grulge, and her actions in supporting his defiance of the Decree Passive the most sacred ruling of Saint Thor that the Adepta was founded to uphold. A Grim Warrior, if a Prideful One, the Canoness has won over her critics by promising that if she has not earned repentance by the time the Faith is stabilised in the Sector she will ritually strip herself of her wargear and take the long walk into the frontier as a Sister Repentia.