ADEPTA SORORITAS
The Adepta Sororitas is an elite sisterhood devoted
to the Emperor of Mankind, possessing unwavering
spiritual purity and fanatical zeal that guards
against corruption and heresy. As the military arm
of the Ecclesiarchy, the Sisters of Battle are a sword
of righteous fury drawn to slay the enemies of the
Imperial Creed.
Members of the Adepta Sororitas are
inducted solely from the Schola Progenium, the
vast Ecclesiarchy-run organisation that raises the
innumerable orphans of the Imperium. Indoctrinated
strictly to the Cult Imperialis from an early age, the
Schola Progenium provide education and gruelling
physical conditioning to create ideal servants to enact
the Emperor’s will. The most pious and powerful
young women amongst them are selected to join the
exalted ranks of the Adepta Sororitas — perhaps the
most faithful of all the Emperor’s subjects — and sent
to fight the Ecclesiarchy’s righteous Wars of Faith.
Though a part of the Ecclesiarchy, the duties of the
Adepta Sororitas often overlap with the Inquisition.
The Wars of Faith the Sisters of Battle zealously
wage against blasphemous traitors are the shining
counterpart to the Inquisition’s shadowy operations.
In addition, the Ordo Hereticus are permitted to call
upon the Sisters of Battle as a military force to aid
their
witch hunts.
The aptly named Order of the Sanctified Shield
is based on the Shrine World of Enoch of the Gilead
System. Through tragic acts of self-sacrifice on the
Heartworlds and beyond, the Adepta Sororitas have
proven themselves defenders of the people. This
devotion has left the Order battered and broken,
though their courageous reputation and the leering
presence of Cicatrix Maledictum mean the populace
of
the Gilead System readily aids any Sister.
SISTER HOSPITALLER
A battlefield healer of both mind and soul. You
ministrate to the injured with great Medicae
expertise and inspire the pious with your cavernous
well of faith.
When plague runs rife or blood spills, every Imperial
Citizen prays the Emperor will send a skilled and
compassionate Sister Hospitaller. They are the
Emperor’s loving embrace, devout women sent to
purify festering flesh and stitch the faithful’s wounds.
Becoming a Sister Hospitaller requires complete
dedication to the Adepta Sororitas’ teachings and
meticulous research of anatomy and physiology. They
study the cells that hold the body together as well
as ways that biology can be abused and annihilated.
Whilst focusing on the noble purity of the human
form, they also study xenos biology to undo its ugly
existence.
Their expertise in Medicae and resolute will makes
them invaluable assets for unlocking the secrets of
bizarre xenos biology, decoding deadly neurotoxin
bombs, and discovering non-lethal but excrutiatingly
painful torture techniques. A Sister Hospitaller fulfills
the vital dual role of physical and spiritual healer in a
group. Though they usually prefer to put people back
together, they are also skilled at taking them apart.
Sisters of the Order of the Sanctified Shield
have zealously plunged into danger across the Gilead
System wherever the need for medical aid is greatest
to aid and embolden the Imperium’s faithful, and are
widely revered as a result.
ASTRA MILITARUM
The galaxy’s greatest army, the Astra Militarum,
is the massed military force of Humanity. The
Imperial Guard is made up of women and men from
every world of the Imperium; neither genetically or
mechanically enhanced, they rely on blind faith,
dogged determination, and endless numbers to defeat
Humanity’s frightful foes. Human lives are spent
as freely as bullets, all willing sacrifices to see the
Emperor’s will done and His realm defended.
Every world raises its own Regiments to
defend itself from the untold enemies of Humanity.
The dramatically different cultures, environments,
and training of each planet ensure each Militarum
Regiment is unique, excelling at a specific method of
war.
To support the galaxy-spanning conflicts of
the Imperium, at least one-tenth of a planet’s standing
forces are tithed to the Departmento Munitorum every
year. On some worlds, recruitment is an honour; the
firstborn sons of nobles duel to distinguish themselves
and enter the ranks of His forces. Other planets are
painfully aware of the fate that awaits most troopers,
threatening recruitment as a prison sentence.
Though a planet can usually provide its
soldiers with uniforms — be they proud heraldry
passed down through generations, or threadbare rags
cobbled together from the scraps of other industry
— the Munitorum are responsible for their arms and
armour. Requests are made from the Forge Worlds of
the Adeptus Mechanicus; a renowned regiment with
good connections to the Cult of the Machine might be
blessed with respirators, consecrated armour, or even
a cache of plasma weaponry. Those further from the
Omnissiah’s light may have to scrabble for what they
can find, wielding primitive projectile weaponry or
relying on swords and bludgeons for close combat.
The
majority receive stalwart mass-produced flak armour
and las weaponry; proven patterns that are cheap and
reliable, and so simple even conscripts from
backwards
worlds can point and fire.
Multitudinous and adaptable, the Astra
Militarum may be deployed alongside any other
Imperial Faction. Their numberless hordes support the
holy wars of the Ministorum — in return, Ecclesiarchy
priests sermonize amongst the soldiers, singing
empowering battle hymns. The Inquisition call upon
grizzled veterans with grave intuition to fill out their
retinues. Some Astartes extoll the faith and bravery of
their mortal brothers and sisters, others tire of their
weakness and inability to keep up with their
genetically enhanced strides.
IMPERIAL GUARDSMAN
A footsoldier in the galaxy’s greatest army. You
are one of billions of raw recruits trained to stand
and fire against the monstrous enemies of
humanity. Citizens plucked from planets across
the Imperium’s staggering expanse, each member
of the Astra Militarum survives brutal training to
prepare for their purpose; war. Armed with
mass-produced weaponry and flung across the
galaxy on voidships, uncountable waves of
Imperial Guard fight back the alien and the
heretic as the Emperor’s hammer.
An average human is no match for a rampaging
Ork, a sly Aeldari Psyker, or a monstrous Tyranid
bioform. Even those well trained and armed
cannot hope to match the horrors they face. To
stand in the face of such nightmares is akin to
madness. And yet the Guard, shoulder to
shoulder with brothers and sisters at arms from
across the Imperium. The Astra Millitarum proudly
proclaim their strength is their Emperor-inspired
bravery in the face of such dangers.
A Guardsman’s origins are varied; their parentage
is irrelevant compared to their ability to stand fast
and fire a Lasgun. Every Imperial planet provides
a tithe of warriors to replace the constant
casualties. To some this is an honour. To others
it’s a death sentence.
Each cope with the physical and mental scars in
their own way. Some embittered souls deal and
await death with weary nonchalance; while others
develop a morbid sense of humour, or resort to
illicit drugs to keep their personal demons at bay.
Though the Guard’s more pious members would
deny it, few would think twice about taking a job
that freed them from their duty and the endless
cycle of war and death. Inquisitorial agents and
other high-ranking officials prize skilled veterans
as bodyguards. Any warm body with military
training is highly valuable
in the Gilead.
Cadia, officially known as Cadia Prime, was a
terrestrial, Earth-like planet originally classified as the
Imperium of Man's most important Fortress World by
the Administratum before its destruction and
consumption by the Immaterium in 999.M41.
The world's landscape was dotted by strange black
monoliths comprised of the arcane substance called
blackstone that were of clear xenos origin, known as
the Cadian Pylons. These devices were actually
constructed by the Necrons millions of standard years
ago to make the world immune to the psychic
energies of the Old Ones, for it was the site of an
ancient Necron military base during the War in
Heaven. After the formation of the Eye of Terror at the
end of the Age of Strife following the birth in the Warp
of Slaanesh, the Cadian Pylons acted to hold the
Warp rift in check and provide a navigable passage
out into Imperial space from it called the Cadian Gate.
The Cadian Pylons created the unusual area of
realspace stability known as the Cadian Gate near the
Eye of Terror that was unaffected by the constant
Warp Storms that surround that Warp rift. Cadia's
location directly adjacent to the dangerous Eye of
Terror made it necessary for the people of Cadia to
fortify the planet to an extent where almost the entire
population lived in massive fortress-cities known
locally as "kasrs."
Thus Cadia had an odd mix of dense urban areas and
vast open tundras and other natural landscapes
unspoiled by the hand of Humanity.
Unfortunately, disaster struck at the climax of the 13th
Black Crusade in 999.M41. Archmagos Dominus
Belisarius Cawl, with the aid of the Necron Lord
Trazyn the Infinite, had finally learned to use the
Cadian Pylons to close the Eye of Terror once and for
all. But Abaddon the Despoiler, enraged by the
continued defiance of Cadia's people, gave up on his
personal attempt to bring the Fortress World's
defenders low with the activation of the pylons.
Instead, he sent the bulk of the Blackstone Fortress
Will of Eternity, badly damaged by the assault of the
Imperial Fists' star fortress Phalanx, crashing into the
surface of Cadia like an artificial meteor.
This monstrous kinetic strike wiped out most of
Cadia's defenders, destroyed the network of Cadian
Pylons and tectonically destabilised the world.
As the Warp and its foul denizens claimed the
remains of the Fortress World, Lord Castellan
Ursarkar E. Creed arranged an evacuation of the
planet that saved 3 million of its citizens before the
planet finally ripped itself apart -- though not before
Creed himself mysteriously disappeared.
The fall of Cadia represented a once-unimaginable
triumph for the servants of the Dark Gods, and the
Eye of Terror began to slowly expand without limit,
opening Abaddon the Despoiler's coveted Crimson
Path to Terra and creating the Great Rift that divided
the Imperium in half.
Yet among the few survivors of Cadia was a handful
of Imperial heroes who had successfully escaped the
destruction of the Fortress World with the aid of the
newborn Aeldari faction known as the Ynnari. The
combined forces fled through a Webway gate found
on the ice moon of Klaisus in the Cadian System.
Together, these Imperials -- the so-called Celestinian
Crusade -- would forge an uneasy alliance with the
enigmatic xenos that would offer a new hope for the
servants of the Emperor in their fight against the
waxing power of the Archenemy -- the resurrection of
the Primarch Roboute Guilliman.
In the wake of its destruction, the remains of Cadia in
the Era Indomitus were resettled by the forces of
Chaos. It has since become a Chaos stronghold at
the heart of a burgeoning new Renegade empire
close to the Eye of Terror terminus of the Great Rift.
The survivors of the Fall of Cadia have largely taken
up residence on the Industrial World of Chaeros in the
neighboring Agripinaa System in the wake of the
Battle of Faith's Anchorage. They have renamed their
new homeworld "New Cadia."
The Cadian Shock Troops, also sometimes called
Cadian Shock Troopers, are the highly disciplined
Militarum Regimentum soldiers conscripted in large
numbers from the Fortress World of Cadia for the
Astra Militarum, which once stood sentinel as the
preeminent bastion of the Imperium of Man in the fight
against the Emperor's ancient Archenemy, Chaos.
They are deployed in every segmentum of the
Imperium and are particularly skilled at defending
fortified positions against extreme assaults and in
warfare against the forces of Chaos.
From the famous Shock Troops of its infantry
regiments to the dedicated crews of its armoured war
engines and the gunners who man its artillery and
heavy weapons, the discipline and highly-professional
warriors of the Cadian Regimentum are lauded
throughout the Imperium as born soldiers.
The legendary status of these troops still sees Cadian
regiments serving in warzones vast distances from
Cadia. As such, the influence of Cadian regiments
can be felt on worlds in every segmentum, influencing
combat doctrine and logistics. Cadian Interior Guard
forces employed standardised Departmento
Munitorum equipment and vehicles, allowing them to
seamlessly transfer into the service of the Astra
Militarum, and there are only a few types of regiment
that cannot be raised from Cadian forces.

Cadians believe that discipline is the single most

important factor in the operation of any army. While
there are those who justifiably disagree with this
position, it has nonetheless served the Cadians well
for millennia, and countless Imperial victories can be
attributed to the effort and determination of the sons
and daughters of Cadia. Even with the loss of their
homeworld after the Fall of Cadia, millions of Cadian
troops, many now raised and trained in transit to war
zones, remain a vital cog in the defence of the
Imperium from its myriad foes.

That there will be no more of their kind born on Cadia

itself is not the death knell that many fear: the Cadian
lineage continues in every new generation that comes
of age as the fleetborne armies make their
standard-years-long transitions through the Warp
between war zones. Cadian tactics and dogma have
spread to many other worlds and Cadian regiments
are frequently reinforced with soldiers from other
regiments. In these ways the lost Fortress World's
culture survives, its huge armies now marshalled by
Lord Castellan Ursula J. Creed.

Every generation of Cadian soldiery still undergoes

total military indoctrination. At the age of most other
worlds' raw recruits, every Cadian already has had
more than a solar decade's military experience;
through constant drills and endurance trials, they train
to be deadly shots in the bloody cacophony of war
and proficient in hand-to-hand combat.