Brother Asmodius Posted December 25, 2008 Share Posted December 25, 2008 I saw some pictures of the Sisters of Silence a while back in WD. But besides them being on the Black Ships, i know and have been able to find next to nothing about them. If anyone could shed some more light on them for me it would be much apprieciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peredyne Posted December 25, 2008 Share Posted December 25, 2008 I've seen reference to them in one of the horus heresy artbooks, but nothing much describing their specific purpose. I have a theory that the sisters of silence are all untouchables, therefore they are silent to the astronomican and they can't be affected by the latent psykers on the black ships. Just a theory... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Tual Posted December 25, 2008 Share Posted December 25, 2008 THE Untouchables -Departmento Investigates - Division Astra Telepathica The role of the sisters was to - after a planet had been taken during the great crusade - to find and capture any latent and/or untrained psykers - Their 'untouchables' or souless ability enabled them to do so.... they escorted the captured psykers on their black ships back to terra and those deemed suitable under went soul binding... they are souless (untouchable)- like culexus - They are silent - each swore an oath of silence as a sign of fealty to the emperor - They had a a role in securing the imperial webway after magnus broke the defensive barrier... sister Celia held a gateway or portal close to the imperial palace solo against a bloodthirster, destroying it with her frost blade but at the cost of her own life... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tauren Posted December 25, 2008 Share Posted December 25, 2008 The sisters of silence are a devout group of untouchables that serve the black ships and during the heresy fought along side the Custodes. As to their current existence, no new fluff really... That said they served very closely to the custodes and several major actions during the heresy, wherever psyker activity became troublesome they showed up to support, some images for your pleasure: http://www.pa-sy.com/hhccg/images/whitefalcons.jpg http://www.pa-sy.com/hhccg/images/iceleopards.jpg The lexicanum's entry on them covers it all really: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Sisters_of_silence They are effectively the sister of battle equivalent to grey knights... Except where grey knights are all psykers, the sisters of silence are all blanks. Technically with modeling you could do the sisters group as grey knights and model them up since technically the sisters were melee focused. Since they havn't really showed up in the fluff in a while, I suspect that much like the knights they are simply a secret organization, in this case of the adeptus astra telepathica which technically is the order that keeps the emperor on his thrown sucking down psykers. They are also the order that acquires all psykers for the imperium and controls the black ships. Note: Only the veteran sisters are silent, the young new initiates in fact speak and serve as communicators for the silent veterans. Hind sight, this opens my mind to a knightly sisters conversion... *shifty eyes* hmmmm... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melissia Posted December 25, 2008 Share Posted December 25, 2008 Uh, no. The Sisters of Silence are completelya nd utterly unrelated to the Sisters of Battle. Indeed, the Sisters of Silence existed before the Primarchs, while the Sisters of Battle did not exist until roughly M36, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Tual Posted December 25, 2008 Share Posted December 25, 2008 Uh, no. The Sisters of Silence are completelya nd utterly unrelated to the Sisters of Battle. Indeed, the Sisters of Silence existed before the Primarchs, while the Sisters of Battle did not exist until roughly M36, No one said they are - Tauren just likened them to GK's - a female version... They are effectively the sister of battle equivalent to grey knights but meh... Where did you find out the fluff about only the newer ones talking? communicators for the silent veterans Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tauren Posted December 25, 2008 Share Posted December 25, 2008 lexicanum has the information if you followed my entire post folks... I likened them to the GK. Lastly the information on them speaking is common sense... if you have nothing but silent sisters of silence how would they be of any help to anyone if you couldn't talk to them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apothete Posted December 25, 2008 Share Posted December 25, 2008 Mod, nuke my post please. I misread what Tauren said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Asmodius Posted December 25, 2008 Author Share Posted December 25, 2008 Thank you for the information. Now on to the next two questions 1) How do you think they would best be represented rulewise? 2) Since I've never seen the Sabertooth CG much, I don't know any of the hierarchy of the Sisters of Silence beyond the Vigilator Squads, Witchseeker Squads lead by Oblivion Knights, and Excrutiatus. Does anyone know anything else about their divisions and whether there is specialty to these squads (like Devestator=Heavy Weapons, etc.)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tauren Posted December 25, 2008 Share Posted December 25, 2008 If anything I would keep them limited, they rarely go out in force and are more like a special forces unit similar to how the grey knights serve in small units. But that is just my opinion. Additionally if you can deal with nightwish, the mix up of sisters of battle and sisters of silence (the ones in gold armor), and the idiotic posting of the comments... *Cough*... lots of good images from the horus heresy art book in here... Conversions would take some real work and might require some looking through models... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jakehunter52 Posted December 25, 2008 Share Posted December 25, 2008 Sisters of Silence are an interesting bunch, I have no particular fondness of them but I do respect their devotion to the Emperor and the job they do (even thought they inspire fear and ignorance in the hearts of millions and are indirectly the cause of many rouge psykers rebelling and taking whole worlds with them...but meh, everything is like that nowadays). You can find some cool homebrew rules for them here: Warhammer 30,000 Codex. Bell of Lost Souls, IMO, is very through in their research and creates a strong ruleset (I particularly like the Adeptas Custodes in this book), however this was made back in 4th edition so you might want to give it a looking over to see if it still all works. Also, if you want a first hand account of them, read Flight of the Eisenstein because there are multiple encounters with them there, fleshes them out a bit in how they operate and their demenor (or lack thereof). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tauren Posted December 25, 2008 Share Posted December 25, 2008 As for conversions some of the females from the necronunda gangs have the top knots and such you might need to convert them, the armor would be a bit harder, shearing off the extra and symbols from sisters of battle, GSing on the lower jaw of a knightly helm. This would need to be done to the individual Veteran sisters with pistol and hand weapon. That said I am sure that there is a plastic I am not thinking about that has a slender female in plate armor... This would be far more easy to convert. You could also go a different road and do full helmed sisters and model them with a sword, spear or other close combat weapon and a stormbolter and use knights rules. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Tual Posted December 25, 2008 Share Posted December 25, 2008 Lastly the information on them speaking is common sense... if you have nothing but silent sisters of silence how would they be of any help to anyone if you couldn't talk to them? My source says that EACH sister has taken a vow of silence... whilst I agree that it may not be practical, thats what the fluff says specifically... GW does not have the strongest record of common sense prevailing... Legion of the Damn also dont speak... the sisters can still take orders... they are not deaf... just mute.. they may have some other way of giving internal commands... who knows.. but you should not really say that some of them talk when you base it on common sense when the OP asks for insight - not opinion... "Each had sworn an oath of silence as a mark of fealty to the emperor" page 144 - Collected Visions, Horus Heresy - I suppose you could say that they spoke when they made the oath of silence... ?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tauren Posted December 25, 2008 Share Posted December 25, 2008 *shrug* there is conflicts with the fluff, as full sisters of silence do not speak, instead they use sign language among themselves, and on at least one occasion used the space marine sign language. That said any initiates, (those being trained and who have not fully entered the sisterhood yet) are allowed to speak and often serve as communicators between the veteran sisters and outside forces, which makes sense. Again I base it entirely on the sources presented within the lexicanum, please read above posts. Which was fleshed out from the heresy source material and from the flight of the Eisenstein. Please don't discredit a post without first reading the entire thread, especially the source information... As for the legion of the damned, they suffer a crippling warp-based mutation that is slowly killing off their numbers, technically they should already be dead but somehow they seem to continue to exist... which doesn't make sense either. One thing to note is that pariah's (which I believe the sisters of silence are) are not distinguished between a psychic blank. The fluff doesn't seem to differentiate between them that much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Tual Posted December 25, 2008 Share Posted December 25, 2008 I read the thread - before this, when they are novices, ? Take what you want from it... it doesnt really matter - Some speak - some dont - the ones that do are not full sisters - is this like a scout to a marine>? or a trainee to a scout? type thing? how novice is a novice? intrepret it how you will... Yes, The collected visions state - "These are a strange and very rare variants of normal humans who are psychic blanks. Such individuals are bearers of the phariah gene..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tauren Posted December 25, 2008 Share Posted December 25, 2008 None the less they are an integral part of the order and just as you wouldn't call space marine scouts "not space marines...", you wouldn't call a novice sister of silence (who's only difference is the vow and the experience) "not a sister..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grand Master Tyrak Posted December 25, 2008 Share Posted December 25, 2008 you wouldn't call a novice sister of silence (who's only difference is the vow and the experience) "not a sister..." Of course not - that'd be rude. The Sister in question would describe herself as not a full Sister though, as seen in Flight of the Eisenstein. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JaqTaar Posted December 25, 2008 Share Posted December 25, 2008 The Sisters will also feature in the next Horus Heresy book, which is a collection of short stories. In the Black Library forum's advent calendar you can find an extract from their story: December 8th- The Voice, by James Swallow (From Tales of Heresy) Nortor came to her side and she saw the other Sister’s face wrinkle in faint disgust. Here, the air was thick with the coppery stink of old, spilled blood, a heavy perfume of rust that almost concealed other, earthier stenches of rotten meat and faeces. The tainted air here also carried sound differently; it was clearer, harsher on the ears. Kendel heard a scraping, a dripping, from one of the shadowed corners. She stepped over a flattened enclosure, seeing a mush of small bones, flesh and white feathers inside. Among the pieces of the dead raptor were shiny golden psiber circuits that flashed as they caught the light. One of the Sister-Vigilators aimed her bolter in the direction of the sound and thumbed a switch on the weapon’s flank; an illuminator rod fixed to the barrel snapped on, casing a cold oval of white light before it. The scraping paused, and there at the edge of the torchlight a pair of eyes glowed. More beams stabbed out to reveal a large, pale-furred mastiff as it sniffed in the direction of the women. The snout of the enhanced canine was brown and wet, and as it panted, the glassy vials of accelerant fluids implanted in its back clinked together. To one side, Nortor snapped her fingers in a command string, but the animal ignored her. After a moment, the hound looked away and bowed its head, returning to its task. Kendel took a careful step closer and the animal was fully revealed, lapping at a wide comma of blood pooled about the head and neck of a crew serf. The top of the man’s skull was open, and in one hand he held a Sisterhood-issue stake-thrower. She studied him for a moment; he appeared to have used the weapon first to nail his legs to the deck by firing a long quarrel through each ankle, then one more through his other hand. ‘He tried to crucify himself,’ said Leilani. The en-dog was looking up at them again, and slowly its lips drew back to show metal teeth, a low growl building in its throat. Kendel heard the fluid in the tubes bubble and hiss. She had seen the damage these animals could do firsthand when she herself had given orders to release them. The Knight threw a glance at Sister Thessaly and made an open-handed gesture. ~Flamer.~ There was a snap-hiss as the pilot lamp lit, and Nortor brought her weapon off the strap and around in one smooth action. Before the en-dog had the chance to rock forwards off its steel-clawed feet, the Sister squeezed the trigger bar and bathed the animal in a cloud of burning promethium. It died with a squeal and they left it where it fell, moving on towards a bank of access shafts. Kendel saw her novice dally a moment around the animal’s corpse and snapped her fingers. Leilani’s head bobbed in acknowledgement and she followed. The light from the gun torches swept left and right around them as Kendel gave the other woman a sideways look. ~That will not be the only death we see this day,~ she signed. ~Look.~ The Vigilators moved on, and in heaps here and there, piled up against the walls or amid the smashed cages, there were dead after dead. Raptors, hounds and servitors. But not a single Sister. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tauren Posted December 25, 2008 Share Posted December 25, 2008 I love the use of the sign language, including the use of snapping fingers, but notice the younger sister initiate, still speaks. Although I am a bit curious as to how closely the Sisters seem to resemble the new-age sisterhood both in choice of writing, use of things such as mastiffs, and weaponry (notice the flamer and the stake-thrower). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melissia Posted December 25, 2008 Share Posted December 25, 2008 Although, the Sisters of Battle don't use dogs, at least not in the latest codex anyway... the rest, I thought it actually WAS the SIsters of Battle until someone else said otherwise when that was first posted. At which point I lost interest, cause it's rather disappointing to see so few Sisters of Battle stories... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flintlocklaser Posted December 25, 2008 Share Posted December 25, 2008 Seems like it could be a decent story to me, even if it's SoS instead of SoB. Hopefully these short stories will live up to the promise of the setting; the novels have been distinctly hit-or-miss in my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boreas Posted December 26, 2008 Share Posted December 26, 2008 I'm suprised that they are completely unrelated to the SoB... While their fluff is completely separate, we have: warrior-women, using bolters and flamers, working with the Inquisition and managing Psykers. I do understand that SoS predate the SoB. I wonder, though, how two similar organizations, working with the ecclesiarchy, could have remained so separate. Wouldn't it be possible that the original Daughters of the Emperors are somehow related to the SoS? Phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melissia Posted December 26, 2008 Share Posted December 26, 2008 The origonal Daughters of the Emperor were an Emperor worshipping cult if martial artist women on a backwater world. I have no clue whatsoever if they are actually connected to the Sisters of Silence in any way, only that the Sisters of Battle (that is,the group that serves as the military arm of hte Ecclesiarchy) aren't... the actual background behind the origonal convent has not been elaborated on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tauren Posted December 26, 2008 Share Posted December 26, 2008 Daughters of the emperor became the personal army of Vandire during the age of apostary and was renamed the brides of the emperor. At the end of the Age and with Vandire's execution by the head of the order, the brides returned to the daughters of the emperor after a personal chat with the emperor on his throne. Lastly with the coming of the new age (I forget who heralded it) they were separated from the ecclesiarchy and called the sisters of battle, that serves the ordo hereticus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melissia Posted December 26, 2008 Share Posted December 26, 2008 Yes, we know that much, but my point was that we don't know anything about them BEFORE Vandire met with them. Geeze. Don't act like I'm some kind of noob who doesn't even know the basics of the faction, especially when I've explained it myself several times on this very forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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