Lore question: What’s with the hair?

[Kaede45]

I know this is a dumb question that probably doesn’t deserve its own thread, but it is a question that won’t leave me alone?

 

Why do Sisters of Battle all have white hair?

 

I can understand them all having the same hairstyle as uniform haircuts are not unusual in military organizations, but them all having the same hair color, despite being different ages & ethnicities makes me think that there must be some sort of symbolism or tradition or anything to give an explanation for it. I’ve tried to look into it, but to no avail. So I’m just going straight to asking the forums: Is there a lore reason for why all Sisters of Battle have white hair?

 

As always, thank you for your time & God bless.

[Sume]

If I recall correctly.  It all depends on the order.  They dye their hair to represent the founder of the order.  I dont recall what book I read that from.  As I have all of the codexes and I recall the white hair thing being a thing that started in the 2nd ed codex and sort of carried over into Witchhunters.

[Kaede45]

3 hours ago, Sume said:

If I recall correctly.  It all depends on the order.  They dye their hair to represent the founder of the order.  I dont recall what book I read that from.  As I have all of the codexes and I recall the white hair thing being a thing that started in the 2nd ed codex and sort of carried over into Witchhunters.

That makes sense, though it does seem weird that all their founders had the same hair color. Maybe they were sisters?

 

I do recall hearing that in order to end the reign of the crazed ecclesiarch (whose name escapes me), the Custodes took the founders to meet the real emperor. I wondered if witnessing the Emperor actually (somehow) turned their hair white (like the cartoony “seeing a ghost” trope), but no one ever mentions anything dealing with their hair so I couldn’t confirm.

 

Leave it to me to hyper focus on such minute details as uniform hair color…

[W.A.Rorie]

The white hair (Specifically for the Order of Our Martyred Lady) is to honor the fallen Adepta Sororitas from the 3rd War of Armageddon.

[Sume]

I did find some more for this.  It's really the Order of the Martyr'd lady that does this mostly.

The reason they do this dates back the founding of the Sisters at the end of the The Age of Apostasy where Alicia Domica and her 5 bodyguards (also founding members of the other 5 major orders) went to meet the Emperor of Man under the Custodes guard.  Afterwards she killed Gorge Vandire, ending the Age of Apostasy.  When Domica meet the God Emperor her hair turned white and the Order of the Our Maryrt'd lady have dyed their hair white ever since Kathrine was martyred.  This was when Kathirne their founder of the Firey Heart was murdered by heretics that the order was renamed and thats when the traditional hair dyeing started.