Order of the Glowing Ember

[Osteoclast]

Since I've hit a bit of a writing block on this, might as well toss out what I've got for now.
 
 

 
Home Parish
                Talzatine Sector

                Segmentum Pacificus

Background

 
Praise be the God-Emperor of Man! Praise be His might of Humanity! Praise to the one who gives himself in sacrifice to the Golden Throne! Seraphim crisscrossed the sky, colored smoke marking their trails by the wondrous artifice of the Mechanicum, as Sisters sang out, slowly marching down the steps of the lander with their burden on their shoulders. Worshippers lined the path to the grand basilica, thousands thick on every side for miles, pressing close to get merely a glimpse. The cheers of the crowd raised to a deafening level, though still somehow not able to overpower the laudhailers of the Sisters as an army of the glorious dead emerged from the ship: The Necromandun 833^rd were finally coming home.
 
True, they were thousands of light-years from their place of birth. True, the soldiers had never even been to Gublew and, had they been there, they would have not received such glorious adulation, merely the casual disrespect any Imperial world gives hive gangers pressed into the service of His Divine Imperial Majesty. Nonetheless, as their articulated skeleton the crowd was truly grateful and truly adopted them home. Human life was the Emperors currency, and to be spent in His service was the most glorious calling one could ask for. Gowned in the finest of silks, bedecked in glorious gems, and fitted with precious metals and beautiful replicas of the weapons that they had wielded in life, these were not the musty bones of hive scum who had died holding a miserable trench line against xeno attack on a world that they had never cared about; to any of the faithful who looked upon them, they were the true coin of the Emperor and shone with the afterglow of the divine hand that had laid out His coin.

 
Dating back to M38, the Order of the Glowing Ember was originally one of the countless minor orders within the Adepta Sororitas. Categorized as an Order Pronatus, they decorated and protected relics beyond number throughout their home parish of the Talzatine Sector. As part of his overall policy of strengthening the forces of the Ecclesiarchy, Ecclessiarch Umberto II raised them to the status of a minor Order Militant in M39 in order to combat increasing numbers of raids by pirates and heretic forces. Though they now seek out the witch, alien, and heretic rather than simply stand guard against them, they have not forgotten their origins. When not engaged in combat drill or liturgy, it is not unusual to find sisters engaged in decorating or preparing finery for the venerable dead as a means of focus, meditation, and worship. Though it is the laity who engage in the vast majority of relic preparation throughout the sector (indeed it is a quite large cottage industry upon the shrine world of Averild), the more notable hero-martyrs are products of the Order itself.
 
To the sisters of the Glowing Ember, the Night of a Thousand Rebellions went far beyond the usual stint of treason and blasphemy that the rest of the Imperium saw the rebellions as. Mobs of the damned ransacked churches and cathedrals, throwing holy relics into the gutters and melting down the decorations of divinity for their own personal adornments. Possibly only the destruction of Holy Terra and the Golden Throne could have surpassed the horror and rage that the Sisters felt. With the blessing of Cardinal Zenari, a War of Faith was launched, later merging into the Garobus Crusade, with the sisters of the Order of the Glowing Ember providing the heavy mailed fist of the Ecclesiarchy; first to purge with fire and blood the rebellious worlds and secondly to translate relics that they might build anew a fortress of faith.
 
 
The Basilica-Fortress of Lantzenezina on the planet of Wiarazwoli has been the spiritual and administrative home of the Order of the Glowing Ember for the past millennia, though they are not the first to make use of it. Not even fragments of the whole history of the basilica-fortress survive, having seemingly perished during the Age of Apostasy, but planetary mythology claims that the location dates to the Great Crusade and was originally a defensive bastion erected by the Imperial Fists.
 
Whatever its origins may truly be, it is now a vast ossuary, the final resting place of many saints, nobles, hero-martyrs, priests, Arbites, and the honored dead of the Order itself. It is believed that there is not a single room in the entire edifice, nor in the vast catacombs beneath it, which is not watched over by at least one of the dead.

 

You are the light that conquers darkness
You are the dream that transcends
You are the hope that speaks to my heart
My faith until the end

Battle-Hymn of the Order of the Glowing Ember

 

Historical Actions

 

Purge of Splatanie
After the eruption of the Great Rift, on the Imperial world of Splatanie II, a large cult organizes around a psyker who proclaimed himself the incarnation of the Emperor reborn and that the Great Rift was an artifact of His death on Terra and rebirth here. Imperial Navy quickly blockaded the planet before it could spread off-world and war of faith launched to recover the world, a process that took some 14 years and five hundred million lives (all causes). During this, a force of heretic Astartes and traitor Guardsmen breached the blockade and landed on the planet, intentions unknown (Sector Command tends towards believing it to be a lengthy raid for slaves and materiel).  Several notable three-way battles occurred in which all sides used Death to the False Emperor! as a battle cry.
 

 

The tl;dr

Influenced by local Ardentite cult; hold that there is a spark of the God-Emperor in all mankind and attempt to display it by means of the decorated bodies.
 
Since the Night of a Thousand Rebellions, have joined the Garobus Crusade in rage at the actions of iconoclast rebels; purge and purify the rebellious worlds and translate relics anew to secure the rebuilt faith.
 

The Yet To Write

Two prefectories, organizational in nature. First is for garrison sisters; second is for escort and crusading hosts.
 
Battle: Eldar Corsairs trying to retrieve soul stones used unknowingly to decorate the bodies.

Viper-class Missile Destroyers
One squadron on long term loan following joint Sororitas-Navy boarding actions with them.
 

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Interesting ideas.

Influenced by local Ardentite cult; hold that there is a spark of the God-Emperor in all mankind and attempt to display it by means of the decorated bodies.

By "decorated bodies," do you mean tattoos, brands, body piercings, and other body modifications? Chaos worshipers and Genestealer hybrids often do the same- not only to declare allegiance to the Emperor's enemies, but to hide mutations their patrons grant- I hope your Sisters regulate the "decorations" they use very strictly, so the Order doesn't get infiltrated, subverted, or perverted.

[Osteoclast]

Interesting ideas.

Influenced by local Ardentite cult; hold that there is a spark of the God-Emperor in all mankind and attempt to display it by means of the decorated bodies.

By "decorated bodies," do you mean tattoos, brands, body piercings, and other body modifications? Chaos worshipers and Genestealer hybrids often do the same- not only to declare allegiance to the Emperor's enemies, but to hide mutations their patrons grant- I hope your Sisters regulate the "decorations" they use very strictly, so the Order doesn't get infiltrated, subverted, or perverted.

 

 

It's definitely postmortem decorations. It's basically Baroque Catholicism's blinged out saint bodies, but in space.

[Brother Lunkhead]

Nice work thus far I'm looking forward to seeing more.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

It's definitely postmortem decorations. It's basically Baroque Catholicism's blinged out saint bodies, but in space.

Thank you for the history lesson.

[Brother Cambrius]

Vengeful warrior nuns who decorate dead bodies with jewels and other finery? I love it!

 

Do they carry some of these ornate and decorated skeletons into combat as an icon of Faith and displaying the Emperor's Light?

 

Cambrius

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Do they carry some of these ornate and decorated skeletons into combat as an icon of Faith and displaying the Emperor's Light?

They should. List the decorated skeletons among the wargear options their vehicles may take, write Special Rules stating the skeletons grant an Invulnerable Save or allows nearby Sisters to add +1 to certain Rolls...

[Osteoclast]

Vengeful warrior nuns who decorate dead bodies with jewels and other finery? I love it!

 

Do they carry some of these ornate and decorated skeletons into combat as an icon of Faith and displaying the Emperor's Light?

 

Cambrius

 

Once I figure out how best to kinda kitbash that together, yes.

 

 

Do they carry some of these ornate and decorated skeletons into combat as an icon of Faith and displaying the Emperor's Light?

They should. List the decorated skeletons among the wargear options their vehicles may take, write Special Rules stating the skeletons grant an Invulnerable Save or allows nearby Sisters to add +1 to certain Rolls...

 

 

Rather than special rules, I'd think that it would work quite well as a "Counts As" Imagifier.