Index Sororitas: Order of the Unbroken Crown
Origins: Created in the latter days of M.37, the Order of the Unbroken Crown was the result of a prophetic vision dreamed by the infamous Cardinal Sedemio of the Kharidys Sector. The Cardinal declared that he had seen a great danger to the Emperor's realm one day emerging from the nearby Solios Nebula, but also saw a circlet of light that banded the edge of the nebula and protected the Imperium. This crown had a single point that fell on the otherwise unimportant world Viorda Secundus.
Sedemio petitioned the Ecclesiarch - who was, incidentally, his half-brother - that the Adeptus Ministorium must take a stand to save the worlds around the Solios Nebula by decreeing the foundation of a new Lesser Order of their militant arm, the Adepta Sororitas. A Mission of more than eight hundred Sisters of Battle hailing from the Order of the Argent Shroud and led by the decorated Canoness Preceptor Felicia Agara was dispatched to Viorda Secundus. A great Convent House was built in the mountain wastelands beyond Viorda's single Hive. The people of the Hive welcomed the Sisterhood with open arms and the noble families of the world eagerly agreed that they would care for the Order's few material needs.
Over the next two millennia, as the Order's purpose was gradually marginalised and forgotten, the people of Viorda Secundus began to view the Sisterhood with less and less favour. Their watchfulness and dedication came to be seen as indolence and cowardice. Their requests for supplies, though met in full, were eventually accompanied by thinly veiled insults to the honour of the Order. At the same time, as other battlefronts and worlds required the might of the Adepta Sororitas, the strength of the Order was eaten away as units and Missions were reassigned. Though the millennia-old decree of Cardinal Sedemio could never be entirely undone, the most fervent of the Unbroken Crown became more and more eager for orders that sent them away from the Solios Nebula. Those that remained were inevitably those content in their bitter solitude and needless watchfulness.
In the time of the present Imperium, the Order of the Unbroken Crown is poorly named. A shadow of their former glory, the Sisters have no power to fulfil the purpose for which they were created, their numbers eroded to barely more than a half dozen squads. Even though in recent decades the Solios Nebula has once again become the haunt of pirates and renegades, the Order is rumoured to have neither the ability or the inclination to act against them.
Combat Doctrine: There is typically little that will rouse the Sisters of the Order to leave the quietude of their Convent House and go to war. However, if forced to act in order to protect their own interests, they are fierce and canny fighters. The Order usually operates as blocks of infantry, some of their number mounted in Rhinos or Immolators. These units are commonly armed, as one would expect, with the Sisterhood's trinity of bolter, melta and flamer. While the Order is famed for its bright, fiery colours, it is not uncommon for squads to hide these beneath obscuring mud, soot or cameoline.
The Unbroken Crown uses few of the more complex war machines available to the Adepta Sororitas, such as Exorcists, though this is more likely due to a simple lack of maintenance rather than any idealogical issues. Sisters Repentia - and thereby Penitent Engines - are also very unusual, as the Order's tolerance for impious behaviour appears to be far higher than that found in an average Convent. When Battle Sisters are punished in this way, it is often less a matter of their having failed the God Emperor and more a question of having crossed their immediate superiors.
Homeworld: Viorda Secundus is a minor world in the Kharidys Sector. A poor planet when compared with its important sister world, Viorda Prime, it is a barren waste with an atmosphere barely thick enough to support human life. Its people live in countless scattered townships and mining settlements, ruled from the only major conurbation, the Hive where the Planetary Governor holds court. Most have little in a material sense and it is therefore understandable that they have come to resent the tithe required by the Unbroken Crown.
Once, three hundred years prior to the present day, the rulers of the noble Houses of Viorda refused the Sisters their 'rightful' tribute. The Order's response was as swift as it was brutal, first quietly bringing the majority of their squads within the Hive's walls and then assaulting the private residence of one of the Noble Houses. The palace and all its occupants, whether highborn or commoner, were torched to death in the fires caused by Flamers and Meltas. In a matter of hours, transports carrying foodstuffs, fuel and other supplies were rolling across the empty plains to the Sororitas Convent House.
Battle Cry: The Adepta Sororitas are famous for going into battle singing loud praises and waving great banners proclaiming the glories of Mankind. The Order of the Unbroken Crown is far more pragmatic, slipping quietly into position until they are ready to unleash the thunder of their boltguns.
Edited by Lysimachus, 09 September 2021 - 01:50 PM.