Alternative Recruitment - Lore Question

[DasNero]

Greetings Sisterhood,

 

I have been a long time lurker even while I was away from the hobby for reasons better left unmentioned because they may make me rethink not suing my family for throwing away several hundreds of euros worth in miniatures…

 

Anyway, I have slowly built up some miniatures again and did so with the army that got me into the hobby in the first place: the Adepta Sororitas (granted; back then they were the Witchhunters but details).

 

I have read the index, the FAQs, Chapter Approved and am hoping for a Codex release somewhere before the end of 2020 (Adepticon Announcement says 2019 Emperor Willing but it could be later for all we know). While my chances to play are minuscule at the best of times (no store/club within about 120km) for the foreseeable future, I want to at least build something up that would be legal to field if I had the chance.

 

Now to the point of my post: a lore question. Since I want to do my own Order, I have been tinkering with background lore and one big question came up about how the Order maintains its numbers.

 

Now, normally lore states that all potential Sororitas are taken from orphans / the Schola Progenium and then are shipped off to either the Convent Sanctorum or the Convent Prioris for further training and then ‘distribution’ into one of the actual Orders.

 

Now a little excursion into my partially written up background lore in quick points to paint a picture:

 

Set somewhere around M36 and M37, Imperial records are shoddy at the best of times as we know.

 

Inquisitor with close connection to the Imperial Creed, wanders through the systems doing inquisitorial things, finds a system relatively remote that teaches a variation of the Imperial Creed.

 

System is somewhat self-sufficient with two agri-worlds, a very minor forge world and two non-specialized worlds that raise imperial regiments. No big name threats are nearby, just the usual ork / eldar / dark eldar raiders and pirates.

 

Being too busy doing inquisitorial stuff, the Inquisitor sends a request towards Terra to have a Mission of Sisters (not yet sure from which Order, probably Argent Shroud) dispatched to do some Faith Checking and if needed Faith Adjusting.

 

The Sisters arrive and start to spread about the worlds, finding mostly feudal communities (though using standard imperial tech for resource gathering /production) that welcome the Sisters with open arms as every good imperial citizen should.

 

After a few months of ‘covert’ interrogation the local Mission Leader comes to the conclusion that, while not deviating enough from the Imperial Creed to justify a nice purge, it would be better for the Sisters to stay in system and make sure it stays that way.

 

The request is granted and the Sisters are getting sent a few reinforcements to make sure every settlement has at least a handful of Sister to keep an eye on their preachers as well as keep a base of operations  staffed, bringing them to about 150 Battle Sisters plus administrative personnel in system.

Of course, when the settlements come under attack the local Sisters there do not just sit about and pray for salvation, they go out there to bring the righteous Wrath of the Emperor to the xenos and heretic. They of course take casualties and request reinforcements from Terra / Ophelia. Problem with being in a remote system: calls for reinforcements take time, if any are available.

 

Most times reinforcements arrive just after they have had another raid repelled and need further reinforcements, starting a cycle of always being outnumbered.

 

Couple of dozen generations later and the present Mission Leader has had enough, gets herself passage on a rogue trader vessel through ‘diplomatic’ means (read: threat of a combi-melta up the rear end) back to Terra to make her plea: be named minor Order and given the right to directly recruit from ‘her’ systems’ PDF / Imperial Guard recruits if suitable young women / girls were to be found.

 

Now the question is: how likely would it be that such a request would be granted?

 

On the one hand my mind says “No” because this is the IoM we are talking about and especially an organization with close ties to the Ecclesiarchy, so giving them too long of a leash would probably be bad in the eyes of the High Lords / whoever gets the request on their work desk.

 

On the other hand my mind says “Yes” because not having to worry about supporting yet another remote, ‘who-has-ever-heard-about-that-place’ system with reinforcements would probably be seen as a good thing by some administrative pencil pusher. Let a few Navy officers have a look every now and then when they pick up the Guard Regiments raised in the system and report back. They have a minor forge world in the system so deals could be hashed out with Mechanicus to supply the Sisters locally with ammunition/weapons/armor/vehicles.

 

What is your take on this idea of recruiting locally? Possible with stipulations? Impossible because ‘insert reason here’? Do we have any official Lore where something similar was mentioned?

 

Thank you for your time and have a good day.

 

- DasNero

 

[Aqui]

I think in cases, such as this having the Order recruit from the local population in addition to the regular supply would make sense. No Order would refuse reinforcements from the Schola, as their training would be effective. However, if there was a place on the planet that would teach local orphans in the same way, it would keep the Order from running too low.

 

That said, the raising of a new Order would take time. The Canoness, if she petitioned directly to either Terra or Ophelia VII, would be away for years. The distance alone would guarantee that. Also, the Ecclesiarchy would have to deliberate on such matters. If the planet, or system of planets held some kind of significance (but not to special snowflake levels), it would be more favourable.

 

In any case, welcome to both the BnC and to the Sisters forum! :)

[Servant of Dante]

I’m rather strict with my headcanon on this count: all Sisters are trained on either Ophelia or Terra after being raised from infancy at a Schola Progenia. Any other recruitment method would make an order not actually Sisters. Both the FFG RPGs and the old fluff for Sister Anestasia mention training only on Terra and Ophelia (well, the Anestasia fluff might be a bit less than explicit iirc). If you’re just talking about the Scholas, all the way back to the Second Edition codex it has been established that all Sisters come from Schola Progenia.

 

Of course, what you do with your Order is entirely up to you. :D You’ve obviously put a lot of thought into this, personally I’d look to find a reason for the Order to be established officially as an Order Minoris, and once it is it will receive recruits from one of the major Convents as usual.

 

However, like I said this is one point I’m very inflexible on in my own fluff, there’s no piece of GW fluff you can’t just change, it’s just a matter of what you want to bend/change and by how much :P

 

Edit: Also, Welcome to the B&C! Always good to see new Sisters players. Please don’t mind my opinions too much, I’ve got a rather strict interpretation of the Sisters fluff (not that I just make stuff up, but there are certain points I just do not deviate from). Here’s your flamer and three barrels of the Emperor’s Holy Promethium :P If you have any other questions I think you’ll find the frater around here willing to help.

[Plasmablasts]

Perhaps your Sisters maintain an Auxilia of “Lay Sisters”: not officially members of the Adepta Sororitas, but functionally (at least on the tabletop) identical to the “proper” Sisters (if your local Forge World can supply the bolters and power armour)?

[Eddie Orlock]

... If you’re just talking about the Scholas, all the way back to the Second Edition codex it has been established that all Sisters come from Schola Progenia[sic]. ...

So, off on a bit of a tangent here, but in the classic Arbite fluff, they were specifically called up as being sourced from the Schola Progenium and deliberately dispatched to worlds that they had no known prior connection to as a method to ensure they had no prior conflicting loyalties.

 

It would seem reasonable to me, that as an organization with some analogous 'watch-dog' mandates, that the Sororita would have a similar doctrine. After all, if the goal is to prevent apostasy in the local clergy it would be a systemic weakness to recruit into their oversight people indoctrinated directly by the same potential apostates.

 

Now, the notion of 'lay-sisters' is actually not that unreasonable. After all, the dodge to the decree passive would still presumably allow other groups of -girls-under-arms-. So, what you might see is a hard caste divide, where the officer corp comes only from off world schola sources, but a substantial portion of the enlisted sistren are local inductees.

 

What they may be able to do, is petition to found a branch of the schola whereby local girls made good could be shipped out into the wider imperium in exchange for nuns from other places?

[Warsmith Aznable]

I could see an outlaying commandery of Sisters taking in young local orphans as aspirants, and giving them brevet ranks as they got old enough to fight. Those young enough might be sent back to Terra or Ophelia whenever possible to become official. Those older aspirants acting as Battle Sisters who are martyred in combat could become full Sisters ex post facto. Those who don't get martyred would continue to serve until retirement, when they could become generic lay sisters around the post. If the commandery came back from the frontier the brevet Battle Sisters could either be submitted for approval to become official Sisters, or they could be sent off to a Hereticus Inquisitor to become Acolytes.

[DasNero]

Thanks for all the constructive feedback and warm welcome from everyone so far.

 

The local recruitment idea is not something to 'make or break' my background.

 

I just happen to have a bunch of Imperial Guard boxes lying around that will probably see some work for a mixed gender regiment and I was looking for a way to ...intermingle the two armies (aspirants that do not make the cut for the Sisters get returned to the PDF, resulting in very close ties and a very faithful force of infantry focus). And since I am somewhat itching to start a small AdMech force with the Forgebane box, tying them all together with common background sounds tempting.

 

So it seems consensus is that officially sanctioned local recruitment is not really supported by the existing lore. Pity but workable.

 

I quiet like the idea that Plasmablasts and Warsmith Aznable brought up with lay sisters: local orphaned girls that are taken in by the Order and maybe get a single Sister as a ‘foster mother/sister’ and basically function as a squire/apprentice of sorts and later maybe become ‘honorable’ Sister until ways to ship them off to the Convents present themselves; possibly with a request to have them ‘send back home’ if they pass.

 

I always imagined the Sisters to view each other as actual sisters instead of just sisters-in-arms, their squads internally viewing each other as family. So welcoming their charges ‘back into the family in full’ would probably be a big deal and cause for celebration (If you cannot tell already, I like to ‘humanize’ the Sisters outside of combat situations).

 

As for the idea of funding a local Schola… maybe if the system was important enough but for a small system that has little strategic value I find it unlikely. It was an idea I entertained at first but then decided it would fall too far into the ‘special snowflake’ end of the spectrum, having a new Schola funded just because one Mission leader asked.

 

I will probably tinker with my background write-up for a few more days and come back if I have further questions or if I have the background finished.  

 

Thank you for your time and have a good day.

 

- DasNero

 

 

[Servant of Dante]

Each Diocese is said to have a few Schola, and the Doicese were split into smaller pieces during the Thorian Reformation. Of course there’s no information on how big a diocese is/was, but in my mind (since I adhere to the 2E numbers for how many Sisters there are) having a Sisters Order Militant based on a planet is a lot more rare than having a Schola Progenium. Remember that most kids from Scholas just end up as scribes and what not. Only the “best” become commissars or Militarum Tempestus or Sisters or Officio Assassinorum Opperatives or what not.

[Evil Eye]

I'd say wait and see what the new 'dex brings, but if you're really impatient and want to write new fluff right now (understandable, I know I do) here's the things to consider:

 

1: The Cicatrix Maledictum turned the Imperium on its head. It's entirely likely that the situation resulted in a decree of "We needs more Sisters, time to establish more recruitment worlds". Desparate times call for desparate measures and all.

2: Remember, everything is canon, not everything is true. In the Imperium there's always the possibility of the truth being embellished or obfuscated for the sake of secrecy, be it to hide the true number of Sisters ("Nope, no massive army of Space Nuns With Guns, no sirree!") or to make them seem scarier than they actually are ("We're so tough we can only recruit on two worlds! Honest! Grrr!").

3: As always, "Your dudes/dudettes" applies.