The Orders of the Adepta Sororitas in the Prosperitas Sector

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 Order Militant of the Adepta that serve in the Prosperitas Sector, the power-armoured ‘Battle Sisters’ who represent the most renowned members of the Order of His Sanguine Tears.

Five Facts about the Orders Militant

• 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.

• 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 are Guardians and Enforcers. Sorors of the Militant Orders are Guardians of the sacred places of the Imperial Cult, and the mailed fist of the faith bringing His light to those who would resist and refuse to be converted. But they are also to be feared by Priests who stray from the Faith for as warriors removed from the direct chain of command of the Priesthood they are also expected to work alongside the Ordo Hereticus to ensure that no Priest trespasses into the tyranny that gave birth to their Order.

• 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 Order of His Sanguine Tears

• Their greatest sin is Pride. If there is one sin that defines the Sorors of the Order it is Pride, though it can be said they are fearlessly confident, it can also true that their obstinate and headstrong attitude is often considered obnoxious by their allies. It was this attitude that led them into making poor choices supporting the Heresiarch Grulge and slow to turn against him as signs began to emerge as to his unsuitability as the Master of the Sector Ecclesiarchy.

• They 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.

• They are native to the Prosperitas Sector. The original force from the Order of Our Martyred Lady that served as the foundation for the Sanguine Tears came with the original forces of the Prosperitas Crusade to persecute the heretics of the sector. When they were founded as an Order Minoris, the Sanguine Tears became established in the sector and has recruited Sorors from its Scholae ever since.

• They have lost control of their greatest relics. Many of the sacred relics of the Order were lost when they were driven from their convent by the Archenemy invasion of Nivalis shortly before its destruction by orbital bombardment. Those that survive found themselves in the hands of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor, and some have yet to be found and returned to the Order following the confusion of the Temple's defeat in 597.M41.

The Order of His Sanguine Tears

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.