Order of the Ashen Wing

[Mekhitar]

THE ORDER OF THE ASHEN WING
also called the Mekhitarian Order

 

Founded: 135.M40

Home Planet: Aventum III, Segmentum Ultima

Parent Order: Order of the Bloody Rose

 

Battle Cry: Imperator vult!

 

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d97/Atheshar/mekhitarian_zpsi2knsoos.jpg

 

Sisters of Note:
Seraphim Superior Illyria, Flamewing Seraphim, formerly of the Order of the Bloody Rose, Foundress.

Mistress Adelaide, prioress of the convent on Salvation, Canoness.
Sister Caroline, declared a Living Saint in M40 after the events on Salvation, hailed as such by her sisters far beforehand.
 

While not a Sister, it is impossible to speak of the Ashen Wing without making some note of the man who inspired their founding – a humble preacher of the Missionarus Galaxia assigned to Aventum III, whose intervention during the grief of Illyria laid the foundation for the order. Thenceforth the Sisters referred to him as Mekhitar the Consoler, and any force they field will bring into battle a single confessor-priest to whom they give the rank-name Mekhitar.

 

 

Notes on Rank:
While the seraphim represent elite warriors, uniquely blessed, among most of the Sororitas, it is not universally so with the Ashen Wing. A novice newly promoted will complete her rites of initiation among the Ashen Wing seraphim, before she takes her rightful place among the rank and file battle sisters. Her first foray into combat is thus a trial by fire, experienced far out ahead of the Sororitas lines, a sheer test of faith that mimics the Order's tumultuous beginnings.

 

After the death of Illyria, foundress, all successive Prioresses and Canonesses of the Ashen Wing have been drawn from the ranks of the Seraphim Superiors of the Order. Should the presiding officer fall on the field of battle, it is to the ranking Seraphim Superior that immediate command passes.
 

Heraldry:
The Ashen Wing retain the crimson power armor of their parent order, the Order of the Bloody Rose. They wear cloth of a warm purple dye, in imitation of the robes draped over Sister Illyria by Mekhitar on the eve of her consolation. Their accents and accoutrements are in gold, in acknowledgment of the Nameless Saint who led the Ashen Wing briefly on Aventum III., prefiguring the later ascendency of Sister Caroline.
 

 

Significant Battles Joined:

Battle of Aventum III – Following the wholesale corruption of the planetary nobility by the Fallen Angel Olufemi the Obscene, the earliest Sisters of the Ashen Wing joined with the Night Angels successor chapter of the Adeptus Astartes to defeat the rebel PDF and return the planet to the governance of the Imperium.

 

Salvation Crusade – An attempted takeover by the Tau of Salvation, an Eastern Fringe planet and site of an Ashen Wing monastery, in great part designed and orchestrated by the Fallen Zophiel. At the adamant behest of Cardinal Cheurieli, and under the capable command of Mistress Adelaide, the Sororitas not only managed to maintain a planetary foothold against the combined forces of the xenos, chaos, and traitor guardsmen, but also undertook the rescue of several relics contained within the planetary shrine-vaults. The Ashen Wing were joined by a company of loyal guardsmen and the Night Angels chapter of the Adeptus Astartes in this Crusade.

 

It was during the first conflicts of this time that Sister Caroline, barely more than a novice among the Ashen Wing seraphim, picked up the sword of her fallen Seraphim Superior, which proved to be the White Blade of Illyria herself. Witnesses claim that the Light of the Emperor descended upon her, transforming her arms and armor to sheer gold. Mekhitar himself speculated that the appearance of the seraphim in gold on Aventum III was a pre-incarnation of the fledgling Saint; whatever the case, Sister Caroline remained active and present in the subsequent events of the Salvation Crusade, and is hailed as a Living Saint by her peers and Cardinal Cheurieli alike, though the Insquisition is much slower to move on such matters – particularly on rumors based in such a far-off locale as Salvation.

 

More on the Events that led to the founding of the Ashen Wing:

 

Aventum III: an insignificant Class M world in the Segmentum Ultima located not far from the Eastern Fringe, with a rugged landscape, temperate clime, and hospitable populace that had embraced the light of the Emperor centuries before.

This backwater planet and its entrenched oligarchical society became home to a small convent-fortress of the Order of the Bloody Rose, established in this sector in the early days of the Imperium's advance (circa 997.M39). The convent maintained a fighting force of less than a hundred battle sisters, and several dozen novices.

Of significance to this record was the presence of Seraphim Superior Illyria, retired from active service due to her advanced age. Still possessing the fiery spirit and indominitability for which the Bloody Rose are so infamous - and coupled with the skills of a lifetime in military service as one of the elite Flamewing Seraphim of the same - Illyria served as tactical instructor to the convent novitiate.

In the first century of the 41st millenium, the nobility of Aventum III rose up in opposition to the Imperium, overthrowing the loyalist faction and seizing control of the PDF. This sudden uprising was unpredictable, unexpected, and inescapable, the fruit of the dark council of one of the Fallen. As the sole living symbol of the Imperium of Man, the fortress-convent was struck without warning or mercy. Though tenacious in spirit the Adeptas Sororitas were few in number, and their bloody defenses were quickly overwhelmed.

At the time of the attack, Illyria was training the novices in their first experience with Seraphim jump packs. For this reason alone she and a dozen initiates were able to escape the wholesale destruction of the convent, through a harrowing storm of enemy fire.

A twist of fate brought relief to those loyal to the Imperium in the form of the Night Angels of the Adeptus Astartes, a fourth-founding successor chapter to the Dark Angels, whose hunt for the Fallen Angel Olufemi the Obscene had carried them into Aventum's sector of space. After the Night Angel's first stunning counterstrike had the PDF reeling, Illyria made contact with Galizur, master of the Night Angels Ravenwing, and offered the assistance of the tiny remaining force of the Adepta Sororitas seraphim in rebuffing the enemy.

The Seraphim Superior neglected to inform the Night Angels commander that the 'seraphim' in question were not even full battle sisters, nevermind the elite warriors of Flamewing. But Illyria's pride - and her hatred - were such that she could not keep herself from the fight to reclaim Aventum III, nor her sense of justice prevent these novices from doing the same. They called themselves the Ashen Wing, the grim successors to the Flamewing Seraphim. By all rights they should have been torn to shreds in their first engagement. But others who fought that day say that through the fire and smoke of battle, they caught glimpses of a tall figure armored all in gold who led them with a sun-bright sword, and from her shoulders spread the wings of a Living Saint. Legend spins many far-fetched tales, but surely the Emperor looked after his daughters that day, for when the rage of combat subsided not a one of the Ashen Wing had fallen.

Of the Saint in gold there was no sign; but from that day forward, every Seraphim Superior of the Ashen Wing bears a power sword into battle - and it is said that one among them is the White Blade of Illyria herself, which burns with its own fierce internal white light.

When the rebellion was destroyed and Imperial control re-established (the presence of the Fallen on Aventum III remained unknown to all but the commandry of the Night Angels), Illyria found herself faced with the cold reality of her convent's fate. By all rights the charred ruins should have been abandoned, and Sister Illyria and her handful of novices absorbed into one of the many other convents of the Order of the Bloody Rose. But Illyria found it difficult to detach herself from the ashen ruins of her former home.

It was there that she was found by one of the preachers of the Missionarus Galaxia.  He had come to begin the reconversion process of Aventum III and the eradication of any lingering heresy. He came upon her standing there, faintly shivering, amidst the ruins of the place she called -home- and where she had fully expected to end her days, her crimson power armor scorched from battle, the black tatters of her tabard hanging like a torn flag, and all around her feet, cinders and ashes, the ruins of wasted years. It is said the grief of Illyria on that night cut like swords.

The preacher draped his own robes over her shoulders against the coming night, and then they two stood there and spoke of many things, until darkness had more than fully fallen and the Aventum starfield broke above them. What words passed between them were for them alone, but when morning came, Illyria declared to her Sisters her intention to refound the convent precisely where it had once stood - the new constructed squarely upon the ruins of the old.

As for the preacher: his name was Mekhitar, later called The Consoler, and he was to remain on Aventum III well beyond the reconversion of the planet. He became attached to the rebuilt convent, and acted as advisor and confessor to the Sisters, and to Illyria in particular. His presence set a precedent among them: wherever in the future the Ashen Wing were to go, a single member of the Missionarus would go with them, to act as counselor and guide, and hold the honored rank of Mekhitar.

In the beginning the re-established convent considered itself still part of the Order of the Bloody Rose, and it was only the Seraphim of Aventum III who called themselves the Ashen Wing. They kept the crimson power armor of their parent Order and exchanged their black garments for the deep purple of the robe Mekhitar had draped over Illyria's shoulders. But time, distance, a flood of new recruitment and the bond forged by the tragedy in the surviving novices' past (now full Battle Sisters in their own right), combined to impress upon them a new identity. When in 135.M40 Illyria appealed to the Cardinals for the founding charter of a new Lesser Order Militant at Mekhitar's behest, the document itself was a mere formality. The soul of the Sisters of Aventum III was already entirely its own, and the name Ashen Wing had come to apply to the whole of them.

Thus it is that in the annals of the Adeptus Ministorum it is as the Order of the Ashen Wing that they are recorded, but - Sister to Sister - they are known as the Mekhitarans.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Impressive work, overall. I love the Order colors, but I don't think novice Sisters should be counted among the Seraphim, due to the fact jump infantry require significant training on how to use a jump pack- using novice Sisters the way you describe, is like requiring every infantryman in the US Army to go through flight school, and learn how to pilot a Black Hawk helicopter, before they can take their place in an infantry unit. (Yes, I know the Space Wolves do the same damn thing with their jump infantry, but it's a damn stupid thing to do, and Games Workshop is infamous for thinking its ideas are "So stupid, it's awesome!")

[*Furyou Miko]

Not only that, but Seraphim has a distinctive fighting style that's only taught to Seraphim... and the Seraphim selection process is far more specialised than simply "train a girl to use a jump pack". Seraphim haven't just been 'elite Sisters' since Celestians were invented to fill that role - the Seraphim are chosen from the ranks of the specially blessed. Angelic Visage isn't a result of Seraphim training, it's a pre-requisite.

[Mekhitar]

It is a pretty darn stupid thing to do; and you'd think that Illyria, having been Flamewing herself, would know better.  The Ashen Wing seraphim tend to get shredded on the field, almost without exception (and yet there always seem to be more of them).  I should probably clarify that newly-made battle sisters are supposed to serve a single conflict up there, not an indeterminate amount of time in those ranks, otherwise the Superiors really would be pulling their hair out, and I'm fairly certain the Order would completely cease to exist.  It's a small one to begin with.

I like to treat Angelic Visage as a direct result of the amount of danger those Sisters are in, (to paraphrase Band of Brothers - "we're jump pack infantry, sir, we're supposed to be surrounded") and the sheer unwavering faith they'd have to have to willingly put themselves in that situation, knowing that their training alone will be insufficient to keep them alive up there.  Withdraw them from that situation, after that single harrowing test of faith, and circumstances are different.  (Or maybe Illyria was just proud enough to think that only sisters 'specially blessed' would survive under her particular brand of command.)

It's definitely not the norm.  But it fit both with the past of the Order, and the practical way things tend to roll out with this army on the tabletop, so I decided to keep it in.

Edited to add: I tried to clarify the language in that part a little to reflect the above. :)

[Grand Master Raziel]

It can make sense, given how the order was born and the symbolic importance of Seraphim within it. - every Sister is trained as a Seraphim first, and they have their baptism of fire as a Seraphim before moving to other roles.  That way, every Sister is competent to be a Seraphim and can be seconded to a Seraphim squad as needed. 

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Grand Master Raziel: If an Adepta Sororitas Order requires every single Sister to be a proficient Jump Infantrywoman- a role that requires skills very few human beings have, and training very few organizations have the resources to provide, as well as equipment that requires special facilities to manufacture and maintain- it will never have enough warriors to have a significant impact on a battlefield.

 

To put things into perspective, the US Air Force has 332,854 military personnel and 185,522 civilian personnel (presumably including civilian contractors who perform maintenance on its aircraft), but only approximately 5638 aircraft- a ratio of 58 (excluding civilian personnel) to 91 (including civilian personnel) non-pilots for each pilot. Who'll hold the line? You can't expect Jump Infantry to do so, as holding the line- forcing them to remain in one location- will rob the Jump Infantrywomen of their primary advantage, i.e., the mobility their jump packs provide!

[Grand Master Raziel]

I'm not saying every single Ashen Wing Sororitas serves as a Seraphim all the time - I don't think that's what Mekhitar's backstory suggests either.  What I am saying is I can buy each one having her baptism of fire as a Seraphim before being permanently assigned to another squad.  It makes as much sense as Space Marines serving as Devastators and Assault Marines before being assigned to Tactical Squads.

 

Your real world numbers are not apt to the situation.  First of all, Sororitas are not really expected to "hold the line" anywhere - the Imperium has the Imperial Guard for that.  Secondly, the Ecclesiarchy is swimming in resources, so if there's an order of the Adeptus Sororitas wants to train all their members to the standards of Seraphim, the scratch is there to make that happen.  Third - space fantasy army fluff.  It can be a little farfetched if it makes the player happy.

[Mekhitar]

Perhaps it's in part a case, as well, of the novices who join the Ashen Wing being generally more suited to learn the skills / display the traits associated with seraphim.  (Or the Sisters could claim that the Emperor's grace 'makes' them so, much in the same way that the original novices miraculously survived their own ordeal by fire.)

I don't know if there is a great deal of lore out there on how, precisely, candidates selected from the schola are assigned to the various Orders of the Adepta Sororitas.  Randomly?  Maybe, but I'm inclined to think not - if for no other reason than that the major Orders have certain 'characteristics' (the coolheadedness of the Argent Shroud, the reckless zealotry of the Bloody Rose) that is in part due to the mentality - dare I say 'charism' - of the Order being entered into, yes, but also embodied in the suitability of any given individual for the order in question.

I imagine whatever Sisters are out there recruiting from the schola for the Ashen Wing know very well the characteristics among potential Sisters that would make them fitting to the Ashen Wing.  Perhaps Sisters recruited into it are more 'like' to the kind of Sisters expected to become Seraphim, on average, than is usual for any given Order of the Sororitas. What those characteristics might be we, as outside observers, are free to speculate.  I imagine the Sisters know their own fairly well, though!

Given the resources the Ecclesiarchy has at its command, and the sheer amount of time a Sister has to train... There's a limit to how close we can draw real world analogs, but I know quite a bit about today's religious orders, and the Dominicans - for example - spend seven years in Formation before they take final vows.  Yes, a novice has a pretty good idea of what ministries are more suited to them, and which ones are less.  But in formation, you spend time on them all, for the fullness of the experience, and because you might discover things about yourself that surprise you.  So I'd be very much surprised if every battle sister didn't, at some point, receive the most rudimentary experience with the arms and equipment of the Seraphim.  Would they all be expected to take them into combat?  I doubt it.  That's what sets this Order apart.  Because it's only when you have fully come to grips with your own inexperience / inadequacy in the face of the enemy that you can utterly, truly, rely on your faith in the Emperor to pull you through.  Or at least permit you to die in his name.  The Sisters?  They do that kind of thing on a daily basis.

I thought the trial-of-initiation a neat, in-your-face way for the Ashen Wing to brook no bones about it.

Or, you know, Grand Master Raziel's answer; it's shorter!