OOC: DH The Purity of Sacrifice

[Erulasto]

Sister Severine

Character Sheet

Spoiler: Appearance

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Sister Severine appears as a young woman in her prime, though it is impossible to tell exactly how old she is. Her dark eyes possess the gaze of an old soul. She has thick shoulder-length black hair, usually worn up in a messy bun with several data-quills poked through. Severine is athletic in build, as most from the Schola Progenium are trained in combat as well, and her light coppery skin is covered from head to toe in vivid black hexagrammic tattoos and warding sigils. These creep up her neck and even across her cheeks and forhead. Clad in the crimson shield-robes of the Adepta Sororitas, Severine often leans wearily on the tall dialogous staff she carries with her.

Spoiler: Background

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There are no records of the birth - or life - of Sister Severine, save perhaps in some deep vault of the Inquisition. What is known of the reclusive scholar is that she is - or was - a member of the Adepta Sororitas, of the Convent of the Blessed Word. Of the Order Dialogous, she was a cryptographer and translator of the various languages of the Imperium. Now her skills are turned to learning and deciphering more heretical and unclean texts at the will of her Inquisitorial masters.

While that is all accurate, the truth is much more complicated.

Severine was born on a distant world, far from the Throne of Terra. The circumstances of her birth and her family are lost to the passing of time, but her story - in truth - begins when she was adopted into the schola progenium. Her quick wits and sharp intellect were enough to have her selected for more scholarly upbringing. Had this been any normal scholam, Severine would have lived her life in obscurity as one of the millions of scribes or adepts in the Administratum.

Glory House, as this particular scholam was known, was no ordinary institution for the education and betterment of the Imperium. It had a rot at its heart that knew no bounds. Practiced of radical ideologies, the administrators of the scholam were heretics and sorcerers of the darkest kind. They cultivated a foul harvest, with their orphan-students being indoctrinated and groomed for insidious purposes throughout the Imperium. Some, they sent to the Astra Militarum to serve in the Imperial Guard and slowly turn their units to heresy. Some ended up in the Ministorum or the Administratum, to corrupt from within.

Severine had been groomed for a special purpose. Her mental faculties were well-regarded, and she was able to absorb large amounts of information in a short period of time. That, in conjunction with biological markers of strange occult design, it was decided that Severine would be used as the vessel for a Daemonhost. From her early life, she was prepared for this singular task. She was exposed to intense psychic conditioning, and was educated in matters of heresy and daemonology. On her fourteenth birthday, they engraved her entire body in intricate hexagramic tattoos and wards.

The ritual was prepared and she was weighted in blessed chains to act as the binding focus. Then they began to summon the daemon.

Not all would go according to plan, however, as the scholam was raided by the Inquisition at that exact moment. In a brief, but intense firefight, the corrupt sorcerous administrators were slain and the ritual interrupted.

Noting that the ritual had not brought about the desired effect, the Inquisitor brought Severine into his custody where he and his acolytes delved deep into her mind with techniques both physical, emotional and psychic. When the Inquisitor learned the truth, he immediately spirited her away to the Convent of the Blessed Word. With a deal made in the shadows of the convents back rooms, Severine was inducted into the Adepta Sororitas and steeped in the faith of the God-Emperor of Mankind. The faith was a balm for the young girls broken soul and slowly she healed, turning those same wits and intellect to a growing education in the Imperial Creed.

When she had reached adulthood, the Inquisitor returned and began to give her strange texts to study and translate. Her already formidable knowledge of heresy and cults were turned to deciphering clues that would help the Inquisition route its enemies. With a new-found faith in the protection of the Emperor, Severine turned her mind to reading the most blasphemous of books to learn their secrets. And so, with her knowledge expanding, she was soon being called upon by all corners of the Inquisition's most Holy Ordos.

But there was a hidden truth, known only to a handful of individuals.

The ritual did not entirely fail. Severine had made contact with the Daemonic entity as it attempted to breach through from the Immaterium. It was a single moment of clarity as their minds linked. That single moment was enough to sear the daemon's true name into her mind. Now irrevocably linked to the daemon, Severine has lived for many lifetimes. None save the few know how long - Severine does not - and it is speculated that unless she finds death at the hands of another, she will persist agelessly until the daemon itself is destroyed.

Spoiler: Mechanics

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Blighted Schola Progenium Homeworld from Radical's Handbook.
Thy Name I Keep background package from Radical's Handbook. Provides an ability called Power of the Daemon. In knowing the daemons true name, you gain one power from the Dark Pacts listed on pg 242 of the core rulebook. I picked Timeless. She can also invoke the daemon, but all the brutal costs associated with this are incurred still.

Simple Black for me.

Spoiler: Homework

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GLORY HOUSE (Kofika Hive World):

Located on the Hive World of Kofika, the scholam affectionately known as Glory House was one of the pre-eminent educational institutions in the region. It accepted wayward youths and orphans from across the sub-sector. It even boasted that many of the planetary administrative positions, Ministorum positions and commanders of the Kofikan Guard regiments were graduates of this scholam.

In truth, Glory House was a bastion for indoctrinating the youth of the Imperium to radicalism, heretical ideologies and even warp-sorcery. While Glory House was, eventually, raided by the Inquisition over a hundred years ago, Kofika endures.

And the Inquisition is still trying to root out all those graduates from Glory House who have survived the scholam’s destruction.

THE SHRINE OF SAINT PERESIAN:
A small church in the mid-level of Hive Hapheastein devoted to the God-Emperor and a local saint named Peresian who lived several hundred years ago. The small cloister of Ministorum clerics who maintain the shrine are often forgotten in the great beaurocracy of Hive Hapheastein. Severine has, on occasion, gone here for worship and service. She likes the gloomy, cramped interior of the shrine as it reminds her of the darkened cloister she spent so many years in before coming to the Inquisition’s service.

NOMAN STURM:
Somewhere in the lower-spires of the hive is a street-preacher of the Imperial Creed named Noman Sturm. A former sergeant in the Astra Militarum, Noman was discharged after many years of service. While not an officially sanctioned member of the Imperial Ministorum, his faith in the Imperial Creed is strong. He is an older man to tends to the faith of the lower-hive inhabitants, fostering a strong belief in the protection of the God-Emperor of Mankind. He bears many scars from the brutal warfronts he participated in, and some of his limbs have been replaced with crude augmentation.