Silent Sisters

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Instruments of Torment - In addition to their other wargear, the Excruciatus cadres carry poisons and neuro-disruption barbs of staggering potency that can be brought to play against their chosen victims to lay low the mightiest, even transhuman creatures should they able to surround and harry them. Along with the Legio Custodes, the Sisters of Silence had the right and duty to walk freely within the inner sanctum of the Imperial Vaults deep beneath the Imperial Palace, the sovereign and sole domain of the Emperor and His household at the behest and license of the Master of Mankind. Following the end of the Horus Heresy, Mankind became superstitious and fearful of the unknown, and the Silent Sisterhood was cast out by a distrustful Imperium. Primarily armed with Flamers or more rarely Assault Needlers, their secondary tactical function was to deny rogue elements escape routes, cut off avenues of ambush and prevent encirclement by often numerically superior opposition forces. They were also deployed to prevent the potential interruption of the retrieval of the psykers who comprised a portion of every world's contribution to the Imperial Tithe by the local population or planetary government, as such removals were sometimes unpopular.

According to Wallace, the girls had a longstanding agreement that if one died, the other must begin to speak and live a normal life. During their stay in the hospital, they began to believe that it was necessary for one of them to die, and after much discussion, Jennifer agreed to make the sacrifice of her life. [16] In March 1993, the twins were transferred from Broadmoor to the more open Caswell Clinic in Bridgend, Wales. On arrival, Jennifer could not be roused. She was taken to the hospital, where she died soon after of acute myocarditis, a sudden inflammation of the heart. [17] [2] There was no evidence of drugs or poison in her system. [18] Voidsheen Cloak - A Voidsheen Cloak was a protective garment worn by the Oblivion Knights. It was made from micro-vitrious mesh designed to diffract and absorb kinetic and directed energy. Such organisations as these have great autonomy, and it is not unknown for their masters to believe themselves above such scrutiny. Large-scale assaults against covens of psychic mutants or the sorcerers of the Heretic Astartes see the Sisterhood's coldly rational and tactical discipline standing in sharp contrast to many zealous and fanatical warriors who fight in the Emperor's name.

Contents

During the Era Indomitus, the Vigil Indomitus established satellite vigils throughout the Segmentum Solar, hoping they would prosper enough to be able to join later fleets of the Indomitus Crusade. Some of these vigils would not be ready by the time their appointed battle group passed by, beset by calamity or forced by circumstance into striking out on their own. Some would wait in the dark for many years, never to be reached as crusade forces were diverted and delayed, for despite Roboute Guilliman's superhuman logistical acumen, such tragedies of bureaucracy continued to haunt the Imperium in the Era Indomitus.

In many ways, the Sisterhood stand guard over Humanity's psychic evolution. Truly these women are death incarnate to those who believe that their unnatural powers make them gods amongst mortals -- the Talons of the Emperor are always ready to tear such fools down from their pedestals.

From Two To One

The Sisters of Silence are as remorseless, dedicated and as formidably skilled as any Human fighting force of the Imperium, while the cold darkness of their minds makes them a more terrible foe than any to the witch, the rogue psyker and the Warp-touched. Nemesis Praxia Ebon Naroda - Ebon Naroda served as the high guardian of the compiled lore and estates temporal of the Divisio Investigates, and ultimately was responsible for the training of its acolytes during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy eras. Equipped with tactically flexible weaponry, Eradicator cadres are capable of adapting to any foe with equal effectiveness and are relied upon to support more specialised cadres in open warfare.

Sister-Commander — One of the three most senior ranks. The general commander of the Sisters of Silence. [3] [10b] Also referred to as Knight-Commander [10a] or Vigil-Commander. [18a] We spent an afternoon walking down the busy street, chatting to residents and business owners to try and get an idea of how things have changed, the successes of this diverse community and the struggles it still faces. The Chamber of Judgement is more feared than its counterpart sub-sect among high-ranking Silent Sisters, the Chamber of Oblivion, largely because its members are responsible for determining how the tithe of psykers will be prosecuted. They decide which Human psykers will be taken into Imperial service and which will be executed as threats to Mankind. The small council did not call for the silent sisters after learning of the death of King Viserys I Targaryen, so the king's body swelled and rotted as the greens kept his death a secret. Only after a week had passed were silent sisters finally allowed to prepare the corpse for burning. [20] During the ensuing Dance of the Dragons, silent sisters and septas were raped and violated by greens after the First Battle of Tumbleton. [21] After his execution by Lord Cregan Stark during the Hour of the Wolf, the remains of Lord Larys Strong were given to the silent sisters. [22]Every vigil is granted high levels of autonomy. The number of its warriors varies depending on the area they must cover and the populations of the worlds therein, and some of the largest vigils number in the thousands, though a vigil most commonly numbers approximately 1,000 Silent Sisters. Most vigils are based within their spire-convent, usually a fortified keep at the heart of their territory, though those that accompany the Indomitus Crusade fleets nominate one of their capital ships as their mobile spire-convent. Sister-Commander Aphone - Sister-Commander Aphone, alongside her fellow commander Bellas, served as a senior commander of of the Silent Sisterhood during the Indomitus Crusade. After Lord Commander of the Imperium Roboute Guilliman declared an end to the crusade, Aphone was among those Imperial forces that lent their aid to the Realm of Ultramar during the Plague Wars. Each vigil retains the colours that its founding sisters developed through millennia of isolation, from the deep blue and bright silver of the Vigil of Hrav-Ulan to the bone white and blood red of the Outer Solar Vigil. Every vigil divides its warriors into "cadres," and each cadre is given a unique designation before taking up the vigil's historic hues that were readily identifiable by their corresponding animal totem (the Frost Lynx, Ice Leopard, Iron Lynx, Raptor, White Falcons, etc.) and squad types which were differentiated by their armour colour schemes and unique iconography. The Sanctioner Cadre is a specialised force of the Chamber of Vigilance whose principal task is to identify and eliminate troublesome agitators -- such as rebellious warlords, priests and demagogues -- or to silence dangerous Rogue Psykers whose capture would otherwise incur a high cost in lives and the expenditure of too many valuable assets. This is a task for which they are armed and equipped with a variety of specialised wargear including long-range Nemesis Bolters, sensor-auspex and stealth gear. At the inquest, June revealed that Jennifer had been acting strangely for about a day before their release; her speech had been slurring, and she had said that she was dying. On the trip to Caswell, she had slept in June's lap with her eyes open. [19] On a visit a few days later, Wallace recounted that June "was in a strange mood." She said, "I'm free at last, liberated, and at last Jennifer has given up her life for me". She also described it as a tsunami, washing her of her sins and being free of her sister. [2] Jennifer was interred in St Martin's Cemetery, Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, Wales. [20]

Harming a Silent Sister is a grave offense - even laying hands on one, much less raping one. While not exactly clear, harming a Silent Sister might carry an instant death sentence. Fools may call these women abominations, hags and freaks. Only the wise known the Sisters as the bravest of all Humanity's saviours -- they who battle Chaos itself." From that point, not a single sound will pass their lips. The Sisters do not speak, they do not declaim their foes with shouted tirades or cry out in pain. Combined with their fearful aura, this muteness in the heat of battle is incredibly unnerving.These Divisio Astra Telepathica-administered star systems were only known to other arms of the Imperium as vague and shifting code designations, but here the Silent Sisters alone held sway and what numbers, facilities and resources they possessed in these sovereign domains, none save they and the Emperor knew. Flamer with Compression Tanks - Utilised by the sisters of Excruciatus cadres, these deadly weapons are used to render down the most dangerous of the condemned to a fine dusting of ash and little more. Compression tanks can temporarily boost the power of a conventional Imperial Flamer weapon, making them burn at a vastly higher intensity, but depleting the fuel store. Under an Imperial governorship which displaced a squalid mess of rival competing petty kings and confederations that had held the planet beforehand, Pentacanaes had grown first into a frontier outpost, then into a port-of-call, with hundreds of Imperialis Auxilia regiments temporarily stationed there before mustering and redeployment to the front lines. It is this anomaly that makes the Sisters of Silence the bane of witches and Daemons alike. The Emperor once referred to this quality as a rare gift within His most esoteric servants, but in many ways it is an alienating, inescapable affliction. Yet in a galaxy where the shadows of Mankind's worst excesses are given physical form through the power of the Immaterium, it is indeed a precious resource. The sacrifice these Pariahs make is profound, but without it, Humanity may well have consumed itself long ago. Given their particular duties, their training and tactical bias focuses on close-quarters combat, short-ranged, high-intensity warfare which often sees them fighting from a position of numeric inferiority and on unfamiliar ground, and their skill in such conditions is supreme. Fear is alien to them, their conditioning and experiences exposing them to horrors against which even a veteran of the dark frontiers of the Great Crusade could not have readily endured.