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Order of the Gilded Blade Foundation Sister Poloma Castillion In 236.M41 the Order of the Argent Shroud spearheaded an Imperial reclamation campaign on the agri-world of Oldama Majoris. Whilst the holy sisters made swift progress in their assault on the capital city Iuga, stamping out heresy and inspiring hundreds to take up arms against the Emperor’s enemies, elsewhere the Imperial forces faltered. Disaster struck less than two weeks into the campaign when the 21st Harjinn Ghilmen regiment was massacred by a mob of heretics led by the reviled demagogue known as the Ash Priest. With the battle in Iuga intensifying and the Ash Priest’s force, now numbering close to twenty thousand, closing in from the rear, Canoness Commander Volenta ordered her second-in-command, Palatine Crusixis, to lead a small force of sisters into the dense Oldaman forests and continue the fight in the Emperor’s name. From the depths of the forest Palatine Crusixis launched numerous raids on heretic positions, massacring patrols and destroying supply posts. Nevertheless, as supplies dwindled and casualties mounted, the small force of sisters began to lose morale. The Ash Priest also needed to rekindle the heretical faith of his followers and began to burn the forest to the ground. The sisters retreated further and further, seeking to reach the edge of the fast-approaching wall of flames and loop back to outflank the heretics. It was then that they discovered a long-forgotten shrine to the Emperor. The walls were covered in tangled ivy, but were thick and defensible. The catacombs contained a treasure trove of swords, maces, flails and shields, archaic but usable. But the greatest treasure hung above the altar: a master-crafted power sword that shimmered with golden light. Palatine Crusixis declared that here that the sisters would make their last stand. The inferno washed over the shrine, incinerating the plant life and splintering the marble mosaics covering the outer walls. The sisters sheltered safe in the catacombs, singing hymns of praise to Him on Earth and sharpening their blades. When the flames had passed on the sisters emerged to defend the shrine from those who would despoil it. The battle was hard-fought, with the sisters relying almost entirely on the melee weapons they had uncovered and the heretics lacking heavy artillery to breach the walls of the shrine. After five hours of brutal combat the Ash Priest himself took to the field and was met by Palatine Crusixis. Although the arch-heretic was swollen with daemonic power, he was no match for the faithful sister and Crusixis decapitated him with one swipe of the golden sword. After this glorious victory the few surviving sisters swept across the land, their zeal burning brighter than ever. Those Oldamans who had remained faithful emerged from hiding to join the righteous crusade and, with their prophet slain, the heretics quickly capitulated. When Imperial reinforcements arrived two years later they found a world cleansed of heresy and eager to rejoin the Imperium of Man. Palatine Crusixis successfully petitioned the Covent Prioris to found a new commandery around the shrine they had discovered and two centuries later the Order of the Gilded Blade was formerly recognised as a Lesser Order Militant of the Adepta Sororitas. Present Day At the close of the forty-first millennia Oldama Majoris has been transformed from a backwater agri-world to the most popular shrine world in three sectors. Pilgrims touch down at the spaceport outside Iuga and travel into the city along a highway lined with adamantium statues of the primarchs and the saints. In Iuga the pilgrims visit the shrine that marks the spot where Canoness Commander Volenta fell, torn apart by a rapid mob of heretics, and leave a traditional offering of a drop of blood to commemorate the sisters of the Order of the Argent Shroud who sacrificed their lives to free Oldama Majoris. After a tour of the other holy sites and shrines in Iuga the pilgrims remove their shoes and walk barefoot through the forest to the Shrine of the Emperor Saviour, now a sprawling temple complex containing training and living facilities for the Order of the Gilded Blade. The pilgrims take mass at the altar and view the golden sword with which Palatine Crusixis slew the Ash Priest. The pilgrims are then invited to an audience with the Canoness Superior or her representative. They are questioned on their journey and any heretical or xenos activity they witnessed or heard reports of. If the pilgrim is judged to be faithful and reliable their information is acted upon, whether it be a report of an ork invasion of hive world or a rumour of a witch hidden in a cave in the most remote and unimportant world. The sisters of the Order of the Gilded Blade know that all heresy is dangerous if allow to fester, no matter how inconsequential it may appear. “The Imperium is run by men and women who dream of sectors and subsectors, fleets and armies, sieges, pitched battles and orbital strikes. I do not deny the importance of these things. But the people who live in the Imperium have smaller dreams. They dream of their families, their neighbours, their farm or manufactory. They do not comprehend the Black Crusade, the horde of xenos, the world-ending warp rift. Such things do not concern them because they are too vast, too far beyond imagination. The things they fear are smaller: the raider in the night, the mutant in the sewer, the witch in the forest. Some say such things are insignificant, too lowly to demand our attention. To this I say: where do we draw the line between the tolerable heresy and the intolerable? Did the Emperor give his life so the Imperium could be partially saved? How can the smallfolk of the Imperium stay faithful if the Emperor’s representatives abandon them in their hour of need, no matter how small that need may seem in the grand scheme of things? Left unchecked the raider will return emboldened, seeking larger bounties. The mutant will bind together with others of its kind and rise up to overthrow the lawful government and enslave those who rightfully persecuted it. The witch will attract the attentions of those beyond and cause a whole world to be put to the torch. Call our work insignificant if you will. We know that it is not.” - Canoness Tirista Gonrolo Combat Doctrine The Order of the Gilded Blade numbers around six hundred battle sisters, with over four hundred away on active duty at any given time. The Order’s remit means that its forces are often spread thin on over a dozen worlds, many deployments consisting of only one or two squads with little chance of reinforcement during the mission. This means that each sister is highly trained to operate in any combat role and with any weapon in the Order’s arsenal. The Order of the Gilded Blade is unafraid to use stealth and infiltration tactics against the enemies of the Emperor, believing it is unworthy to apply notions like ‘honourable combat’ to such scum. Indeed, with the sisters usually operating at a numerical disadvantage, such tactics are vital. In recent years, following heavy petitioning from pilgrims and planetary authorities, the Order of the Gilded Blade has established small waystations on several worlds along major pilgrimage routes. These serve as rest points for weary pilgrims and as garrisons for up to a hundred sisters. The waystations have proved a resounding success, allowing the sisters to carry out more missions on worlds far from Oldama Majoris. They are swiftly becoming pilgrimage points in their own right for those of poor means who struggle to get offworld. The War for the Soul of Hive Gharne – 892.M41 The sisters of the Order of the Gilded Blade first learned of the heresy growing in Hive Gharne from Quarant Ipsos, an elderly pilgrim who had sold everything he owned to fund his pilgrimage from Terentis VI to Oldama Majoris. He spoke of his grandson, kidnapped and forced to fight to the death in underground arenas. The local Arbites saw it as a way regulate the district’s population, but Quarant had learnt the holy words of the saints all his life and knew that blood-sport was a grave sin against the Emperor, depriving Him of men and women who owed Him their lives. The sisters recognised the need and despatched three squads to Terentis VI. It soon became clear that the arenas were merely a cover for a well-organised gang of blood cultists whose influence spread throughout the underworld of Hive Gharne. The sisters remained in the shadows at first, carrying out raids on minor drug dens, warehouses and blood-pits. Each strike was well planned and initiated with no survivors left to breathe word of their presence. The sisters also reached out to priests of the Adeptus Ministorum, requesting that they stir up their congregations to oppose the arena fights. With their operations under attack from an unknown foe and the faithful rising up against them, the blood cultists overplayed their hand. A tide of gangers, pit-fighters and death-seekers spilled on to the streets, massacring anyone in their path including each other. The Arbites were forced to respond, deploying en masse to fight the cultists. The sisters also revealed themselves, using intelligence extracted during their initial operations to locate and destroy the cult leaders. The heresy was eradicated within a week. Sister Superior Ysobil Romora first came to the Shrine of the Emperor Saviour as an orphan girl, six years old and born on pilgrimage. She told the tale of how the pilgrim ship she was travelling on was attacked by eldar corsairs and how her parents sacrificed their lives to lead the aliens away from her hiding place. Like many of the parentless girl-children who find their way to the Shrine Ysobil was inducted into the Order of the Gilded Blade as a novice. She was trained every day in faith and in battle, excelling in every field. When she finally attained the rank of battle sister on her sixteenth birthday it was widely seen as being several years late. Over the following years Sister Ysobil continued to excel. Her sharp eye and ferocious strength frequently saw her assigned as a Retributor heavy weapons specialist. It was her heavy bolter that cut down the ork mob on the steps of the Temple of the Primarchs on Laodiseah and her multi-melta that destroyed three traitor Leman Russ tanks on Drexus. In a brutal fight on Chennov Ysobil was forced to take command of the Order’s force after heavy casualties. After leading a heroic counter-attack on the rebel position that ended up winning the war, Ysobil was promoted to Sister Superior. Her final battle took place in the dark forests of Kapuchin III where she was torn limb-from-limb by a giant mutated monster. This grisly sight inspired her sisters to greater fury and they fought unceasingly over the next three years until the planet’s mutant infestation was finally cleansed. Sister Superior Ysobil Romora

He who fightes monsters should see to it that he him-self does not become a monster. And if thou gazest into the abyss for too long, the abyss gazest also into thee. – Ancient Terran proverb inscribed onto tokens found on the victims of the Ripper. It is a truism of the Holy Inquisition that any inquisitor who does not perish in the course of his duties will eventually become the very thing he once sought to destroy. These so-called ‘Radicals’ may still possess the noblest of intentions, but their methods often lead to more devastation than the foes they seek to defeat. Many an inquisitor has wasted valuable time and resources bringing a former colleague to justice. Under the reign of the Ripper, the Kenyamin Sector was spared from such infighting. The first mention of the Ripper occurs in the logs of inquisitor Gaius Yellinik, who in 912.M41 was pursuing the excommunicated inquisitor Hindi Von Scnapp. Yellinik tracked his quarry to an abandoned manufactory complex on Pasakoy Aleph, where he suspected Von Scnapp was preparing a ritual to summon and bind a daemon. However, when the inquisitorial stormtroopers assaulted the complex they discovered that Von Scnapp and her retinue were already dead. Each corpse carried a silver token, inscribed with the Inquisitorial symbol on one side and an ancient Terran proverb on the other. Word of the Ripper spread throughout the Kenyamin Inquisition as his attacks grew bolder and more frequent. The first images of him were captured on the deep-space station Astaroth in 925.M41. Inquisitor Anat Krugzeker was secretly monitoring a meeting between radical inquisitor Herschel Stylianos and rogue trader Esteban Adegoke. His security pict-footage shows an explosion tearing open the ceiling of the compartment and a cloaked, armoured man dropping through. The assailant proceeds to slaughter the survivors, seven in all, using nothing but a sword. Not one of the victims, highly trained killers all, manages to get off a shot. The speed and agility of the man suggests either extreme gene-modification or psychic powers. After killing his targets the man places a token on each corpse, collects the crate of necron technology the pair were trading, and ascends through the hole in the ceiling with the aid of an unseen accomplice. Krugzeker had been intending to track Adegoke to uncover the source of his necron artefacts. The Ripper cut off that line of inquiry, leaving Krugzeker’s investigation in tatters. The inquisitor declared vengeance on the Ripper and over the course of the next twenty years Krugzeker tracked the shadowy figure all across the Kenyamin Sector. He uncovered evidence that the Ripper operated a vast network of informants and contacts, penetrating every level of the Imperial hierarchy from the Imperial Guard to the Adeptus Ministorum. Even the Inquisition was compromised. Krugzeker realised that the resources available to the Ripper could only be gathered by one who is, or was, a member of the Holy Ordos. The Ripper’s pattern was clear. Every victim of his organisation was connected in some way to a radical inquisitor. Even as his body-count and infamy rose many puritan inquisitors turned a blind eye; spared the distraction of dealing with rogue colleagues each inquisitor could focus his attention on his duty of protecting the Imperium from its many enemies. The few radicals left in the sector went into hiding or fled for their lives. A few dissenting voices, Krugzeker's first amongst them, decried the influence the Ripper exerted, the lack of knowledge of his motives and abilities, and the threat if his organisation was corrupted by Chaos. These voices were, however, few and far between. Under the Ripper's forced unity the Kenyamin Inquisition became one of the least fractured conclaves in Segmentum Obscurus and dozens of deadly threats to the Imperium were eliminated. Over time, however, the Ripper seemed to grow more and more puritanical in his judgements. In 946.M41 he assassinated Inquisitor Agathe Feinburg, whose only crime appeared to be that she was a high level psyker. This action turned opinion against the Ripper and sparked a devastating scorched-earth campaign by vengeful inquisitors. Thousands of suspected Ripper agents were executed and his organisation ruthlessly suppressed. Over a dozen inquisitors, including Anat Krugzeker were killed in the campaign, but eventually they succeeded in driving the Ripper underground. The last confirmed sighting of the man Krugzeker recorded on Astaroth Station was in 953.M41. A corpse some identify as the Ripper was discovered later that year. The legend of the Ripper continues. In the subsequent half-century more than three hundred deaths have been linked to the case. It is believed that most were carried out by puritanical inquisitors copying the Ripper’s modus operandi. There are some inquisitors, however, who believe that the Ripper was never just one man with a large network of support. They suspect that the Ripper organisation was an Inquisitorial Cabal – an alliance of inquisitors dedicated to enforcing a hard-line puritanical doctrine. All Ripper attacks followed a similar pattern, but descriptions of the attacker by witnesses did show some variation in build and technique. This is not to be unexpected, as each witness was invariably left in an emotionally traumatised state by the incident. It is likely the true identity of the Ripper will never be revealed. One of the greatest mysteries of the Ripper is how he acquired his apparently transhuman abilities. His speed, agility and strength were beyond anything achievable by natural processes. Psychic powers have been suggested as a source, but most believe that the only explanation can be extensive gene-modding – possibly even using xenos gene-implants. It is not known how the Ripper reconciled his puritanical views with his augmentations. Of course, it is a truism of the Holy Inquisition that any inquisitor who does not perish in the course of his duties will eventually become the very thing he once sought to destroy.

I've not intended to be too tasteless, but this is a warband of Slaaneshi daemons. If you don't want to read about a Slaaneshi warband whose USP revolves around anorexia and bulimia then don't read this article. _____________________________ “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” – attributed to the Moss Kat, a figure of pre-Unification mythohistory I first heard of the Maceran Fellowship in the reports of Chaplain Turak in 990.M30. My brother, eager to explore the hidden empires of the Ruinous Powers, had been summoning as many varieties of neverborn as he could and carefully documented them for dissemination to the legion. On this occasion he summoned what we now know as a daemonette, who introduced herself as Skariethexx, Herald of Bulistiannea, Eldest of the Maceran Fellowship. The following is quoted from Turak’s reports: “She, for despite her alien, non-Euclidean, form she was undoubtedly feminine in design, was clearly of the caste of she-daemons that served the Prince of Pleasure. Her figure was unsettling emaciated: her limbs appearing to be little more than sticks, her abdomen alarmingly concave. Her visage was pulled tight, revealing sharp cheekbones that were both like and unlike that of an eldar. Despite this appearance she lacked nothing of the finesse, agility and unexpected strength belonging to all members of her kind.” I do not know if the Maceran Fellowship was summoned during Horus’ war but I find it unlikely that they were summoned intentionally for their favoured method of preying on mortals requires an extended period of patience rather than a quick strike to the jugular. The Maceran Fellowship delight in the sensations that arise from starving the mortal body of its necessary sustenance. The despair and lack of self-worth that drives a mortal to deliberate starve himself is but the first course of a long and protracted feast for the daemons of the Fellowship. The pain of the hunger pangs are like sweetmeats and the stubborn delusion required to disobey the instructions of the body and conspire to bring about one’s own end is sweeter still. Other daemons of the Fellowship pursue the twin sensations of the bulimia sufferer. The gluttony of the consumption is paired with the self-disgust of the regurgitation. A mortal that falls under the sway of the Fellowship in this way will be driven to ever higher heights and ever lower lows until every waking moment is spent eating or vomiting. Such is the desire for further sensation that many will consume their own vomit, every piece of food passing dozens of times between the stomach and the basin. I have made use of the Maceran Fellowship on four occasions and twice succeeded in summoning Bulistiannea itself. The Eldest is a greater daemon of Slaanesh: a bovine-headed Keeper of Secrets. Like its servants its appearance is emaciated, with its ever-shifting bone structure clearly discernible beneath almost transparent skin. A still-living human girl-child was visible within Bulistiannea’s stomach both times I encountered the greater daemon. The Eldest’s speech was slow and hesitant, as if it barely possessed the energy to vocalise and thus had to choose each word with great precision. Despite this I was under no illusion that Bulistiannea was any less physically deadly than any other greater daemon. My most notable usage of the Maceran Fellowship was on Leucan Secundus. Mortal agents possessed by daemons of the Fellowship infiltrated the large monastery of the Corpse-God in the mountains outside the capital city. Over several years they were able to subvert the numerous fasting rituals so they served the desires of the Pleasure God. The resulting suicide by starvation of over ten thousand faithful servants of the Corpse-God was enough to rip open a warp rift, which I then amplified using profane rituals until the entire world was drawn into the Realm of Chaos. – extracted from the records of Kanan Raam, Dark Apostle of the 46th Host

Lepers of Barbarus Origins This individual tentatively identified as Haron Kaend As the unity and enlightenment of the Great Crusade was torn down by the rebellion of Horus every member of the Legiones Astartes had to decide where his loyalty lay. The 4th Battalion, 3rd Great Company, XIV Legion, known as the Mortals’ Shield, was bitterly divided. More than half their number were betrayed on the death-ridden soil of Isstvan III. Those who followed their Primarch were viewed with suspicion and scorn by their brothers. The 4th Battalion had long been set apart. Their early actions had seen them fight long campaigns away from the rest of the legion, with only the mortal men of the Imperial Army as support. They did not develop the contempt for mortals that many of their brothers held. The commanders of the 4th specifically requested assignments out on the fringes where they were free to operate as they saw fit. During the Heresy the remainder of the 4th fought alongside traitor Army regiments on a series of backwater supply worlds along the southern galactic rim. It was only when Mortarion gathered the XIV for the voyage to Terra that the 4th rejoined their legion. They fell to the Destroyer Plague like the rest of the Death Guard. Even after that the 4th shunned and were shunned by their brothers. During the Siege of Terra they were assigned to the XVII Legion, acting as the anvil on which the Chapter of the Radiant Star sought to drive the White Scars during the battles outside Lion’s Gate spaceport. During the chaos after Horus’ death the 4th fled with the rest of the traitors. The Long War Begins As the traitor legions alternately licked their wounds and settled grudges with their former allies the astartes of the 4th chose Sarendis Kranh, an unusually charismatic figure, as their new Commander. Kranh delved into the mysteries of Chaos and discovered the true nature of the Plague God, that of a creator of life and father to all. This brought great comfort to the men of the 4th, who had never been close to their father Mortarion and regarded his abandonment of them following his ascension to daemonhood with little more than resigned acceptance. Despite having no allies amongst the traitor legions the 4th gathered a large complement of mortal soldiers; survivors of the Heresy, cultists from the Eye and more recent turncloaks from the resurgent Imperium. Kranh taught them all of the majesty of Nurgle and they in turn saw him as a great prophet, calling him Kranh the Blessed. During the first of Abaddon’s black crusades Kranh the Blessed led his forces to the fortress world of Harjinn. With the blessing of Nurgle Kranh’s magic and daemonic allies were unstoppable. The world was on the verge of collapse when the Imperial forces suddenly rallied behind a mere mortal woman, Captain Agathe of the 5th Harjinn Mamelukes. The favour of Nurgle was inexplicably withdrawn, throwing Kranh and his forces into turmoil. Kranh ignored the pleas of his senior officers to withdraw, deluding himself into thinking Nurgle’s blessing would soon return. This fantasy lasted until his dying moments, engulfed in flames by a vengeful Captain Agathe. For the surviving astartes of the 4th Battalion this was a seminal moment. Abandoned by first one father and then a second, friendless and alone. They left their mortal allies to die and fled into blackness of space. They were the 4th, the Mortals’ Shield, no longer. Now they were truly outcasts, worthless plague victims marked with despair and ill fortune. Now they were the Lepers of Barbarus. Penitence The Lepers of Barbarus believed they had failed their father Nurgle and sought to earn his forgiveness. With their prophet Kranh the Blessed dead the Lepers were leaderless. With no guidance they went wherever the warp would take them, blindly washing up on the shores of Imperial worlds every century or so, as time is measured in the realm of mortals. For the Lepers their voyages lasted anything from a day to a decade. On arrival in system the Lepers would attack lonely outposts and rural hamlets, inflicting minimal casualties but utterly destroying any buildings, infrastructure, livestock or crops. Within days of their attacks vast numbers of refugees would flee from the countryside to the cities, carrying with them plague and fear. By the time a planet’s military might could be gathered or offworld reinforcements could arrive it would already be too late. The disease-ridden cities would be plague houses, any survivors doomed to a slow death from starvation with the food supplies infected or destroyed. The Lepers would return to their ships and set sail into the unknown. Death The Lepers of Barbarus met their end on the world of Narayan in 290.M36. They had been planetside for less than a day when a strike force of the Sanctors of Terror was spat from the fickle tides of the warp, months before it had even set sail. The ships of the Lepers turned to meet the Imperial fleet but were too slow. The battle was short, vicious, and ended with the Lepers’ flagship crash landing into the planets largest mountain range, obliterating an entire nation. The Sanctors made landfall soon after. The Lepers were scattered across the surface of Narayan, attacking a score of defenceless targets. They resisted with the tenacity and fearlessness that characterises all sons of the XIV legion. Their death was prolonged and exacted a high price, but it was inevitable. And so the Lepers of Barbarus died as they had lived: despised, outcast and fatherless.