The Order of the Bloody Rose
(A collection of gathered and mostly copied informations + House Rules)
By bolter shell, flamer burst and melta blast, the mutant, the heretic and the traitor alike are cleansed of their sin of existence. So has it been for five millennia, so shall it be unto the end of time.
– Words of Devotion, Verses IV-V, Chapter X, Volume LII
Founder: Ecclesiarch Deacis VI
Honoured Saint: Mina
Convent: Convent Sanctorum (Ophelia VII)
Founding: 38th Millenium
The Order of the Bloody Rose is one of the Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas, or the Sisters of Battle, founded in honour of Saint Mina by the Ecclesiarch Deacis VI.
The Order of the Bloody Rose was not formally created until two and a half millennia after the founding of the Adepta Sororitas, and by this time, its patron saint, Mina, was long dead. Mina had been one of the five companions of Alicia Dominica, the founder and patron of the Adepta Sororitas, Mina was known as a dark and brooding sister, quick to anger and deadly in combat. In the late 36th Millennium, Mina was martyred at the hands of a sanguinary Chaos Cult, the agents of which are said to have ambushed her at prayer in a small shrine on Hydraphur. None of her sisters were present, but it is said that when they came upon her body the entire shrine was covered in the blood of her assailants, a score of at least twenty, which lay dead around her own blood-drained form.
Her Order had existed as a small group of Sisters who provided a bodyguard for the Abbess of the Adepta Sororitas, and it was from this group that the new Order was formed. The symbol of Saint Mina is a red rose, with prominent thorns, representing her nature. Behind the rose are crossed two knife blades dripping in blood, symbolic of the circumstances of her martyrdom.
They are based on the Cardinal World of Ophelia VII within the Convent Sanctorum. The Order also operates a full Preceptory of Battle Sisters at the Shrine of the Seventeen Martyrs near the Hive World of Malfi in response to brewing religious conflicts in the Drusus Marches, a Sub-sector of the Calixis Sector located in the Segmentum Obscurus.
Order Colours
The colours of the Order of the Bloody Rose’s Sisters’ vestments and Power Armour is primarily a bright blood red colour with black vestments on the outside and pure white inside. Their weapons are the same black as their vestments.
Here is a nice video from Duncan (Warhammer TV) 🙂
Order Badge
The badge of the Order of the Bloody Rose is a blood red rose.
The Order in Battle
The following rules are based on informations about the new codex of November 2019.
Rules
Orders Convictions – Quick to Anger: Units with this gain +1 attack when they charged/charge/perform a heroic intervention. Pistol and melee weapons get additional AP.
Warlord Trait – Blazing Ire: +1 Attack and can Charge & Advance.
Relics – Benificence: Replaces a chainsword. S+1, AP-2 D2, make 3 additional attacks instead of 1.
Stratagems – Tear Them Down (1 CP): Use at the start of the Fight Phase, choose a unit. Attacks made by that Bloody Rose unit get +1 to wound.
Notable wars of the Order
085.M41 – Therrix Suppression
The entire Order (over two dozen squads of Battle-Sisters) participated in the Therrix Suppression, the purging of the blasphemous Chaotic Cult Epicurean on the Hive World of Therrix. Additional support during the suppression was provided to the Sisters by a delegation of the Adeptus Ministorum. Led by Inquisitor LordScallen and Battle Group Purgator, the Imperial forces were also composed of three separate Space Marine Chapters (the Mentors, the Novamarines and the Subjugators) as well as a Regiment of the 808th Mordant Regiment of the Imperial Guard. The Sisters of the Order were instrumental in scouring the Hive World of all Heretics.
777.M41 – The Achilus Crusade
The Achilus Crusade is an ongoing Crusade of the Imperium, begun in 777,M41 to reclaim the Jericho Reach region from Xenos and Heretics. Under the command of Lord General Militant Solomon Tetrarchus, he commands not only Imperial Guard detachments but also Space Marine detachments, Titan Legions, Adeptus Mechanicus forces and small Detachments of several Orders of the Adeptus Sororitas.
833.M41 – The Vinculus Crusade
The Black Templars under command of Marshal Ludoldus agreed to fight alongside the troops of Inquisitor Vinculus, a member of the Ordo Hereticus. Together with the Inquisitor and a detachment of Sisters of Battle of the Order of the Bloody Rose, they engaged the cult on Peleregon IV. The landing met little opposition and the Black Templars (including the then still Neophyte, Helbrecht) and the Adepta Sororitas pushed the cult members back to their mountain stronghold.
During the battle Inquisitor Vinculus confronted the cultleader and killed him. Unfortunately the daemonic presence that was building in the cult leader manifested itself and possessed the Inquisitor who was weakend by the injuries sustained during his battle with the cult leader.
A daemon of Khorne possessed the body of Inquisitor Vinculus and turned on the Black Templars and the Adepta Sororitas. Finally Marshal Ludoldus, Emperor’s Champion Ulricus and Canoness Jasmine were able to defeat the daemon with a Holy Orb of Antioch. The explosion resulted in the total destruction of the stronghold and a massive earthquake which shook the mountain and collapsed the volcano. The survivors narrowly escaped this destruction thanks to Thunderhawk gunships that braved the dangers. Once aboard, Ludoldus ordered the planet to be bombarded from orbit to make sure none of the cult and traces of the daemon would remain.
The Imperial force included a contingent from the Iron Knights chapter, one member of which, Hervald Strom, took heavy wounds during the fighting. Despite these injuries, he shortly thereafter won his second consecutive victory in the Feast of Blades.
858.M41 – The Defence of Dimmamar
Dimmamar, the birth world of the reforming Ecclesiarch Sebastian Thor, came under attack from the Eldar of Craftworld Ulthwé in 845.M41 without any warning or reason. Seraphim Superior Amelda of the Order of the Bloody Rose retaliated, leading her squad of Seraphim in a daring attack to slay the enemy commander, the FarseerKauerith. The Seraphim’s pistols blasted a bloody path through a score of black-clad Eldar before the Sisters were engulfed in a hurricane of psychic lightning. Though many of her companions fell, Amelda refused to yield and defiantly advanced through the eldritch storm, slaying the Eldar Farseer with a single Bolt round to the head.
999.M41 – The Defence of Hive Superior
During the dark times of the 13th Black Crusade, the Order of the Bloody Rose sent forces to the long-ignored Trail of Saint Evisser, which had been increasingly troubled by Chaos-inspired uprisings and cultic activities linked to Ghargatuloth, the Prince of a Thousand Faces, a powerful daemon of the Chaos God known as Tzeentch. Following orders of Cardinal Recoba, the temporal and spiritual power on Vulkanis Ultor, the Sisters of Battle were deployed near Hive Superior, the world’s capital to man its outer defences on the shores of the great Lake Rapax. Unknowingly manipulated by one of Ghargatuloth’s agents, the renegade Inquisitor Gholic Ren-Sar Valinov, the Sisters of Battles fought against the Grey Knights despatched by the Ordo Malleus to stop Ghargatuloth’s rebirth. Only through the brave actions and misgivings of Canoness Ludmilla, the forces commander, did the Sisters of the Bloody Rose recognize that they were fighting loyal agents of the Emperor and serving the interests of Chaos. Joining forces with the Grey Knights, the Sisters battled the daemonic servitors of the powerful daemon, thus enabling Brother-Captain Tancred and Justicar Alaric to banish the reborn Ghargatuloth.
Notable heroes of the Order
Saint Mina
Saint Mina is the patron of the Order of the Blood Rose. Although this long-dead martyr never led her Order in battle, it was founded in her name. She was one of five companions of Alicia Dominica, the patron and founder of the Adepta Sororitas. In mid-late M36, Saint Mina was martyred by a sanguinary cult whilst at prayer in a shrine on Hydraphur. When her body was found along with the shrine, she was surrounded by the corpses of twenty of her attackers – her body covered in their blood. Her personal symbol, the red rose, represents her strong character and her final death.
Canoness St.Aspira
Saint Aspira, 18th Canoness of the Order of the Bloody Rose, led her Sisters against the Heretic Denescura and liberated almost a hundred worlds from his power with only a thousand warriors. The Cloak of Saint Aspira, worn by the Canoness in life, remains a holy relic of the Order. Although she did not die there, Saint Aspira, the Saviour of a Hundred Worlds, was entombed on the distant world of Ero, in the Caradryan Sector of the Segmentum Tempestus. Over millennia, her tomb became a towering monument, the Reliquary Tower. Following the destruction of the Reliquary Tower, the bones of Saint Aspira have recently been transferred to the Order’s Convent on Ophelia VII.
Rules for the Cloak of Saint Aspira
Canoness Ludmilla
Ludmilla was the commanding officer of the powerful detachment of Sisters of Battle during the events of the Defence of Hive Superior during the 13th Black Crusade. Like other Imperial forces, Canoness Ludmilla had been purposefully misled by the Ordo Malleus Inquisitor turned traitor, Gholic Ren-Sar Valinov. The Canoness and her fellow sisters were duped into fighting the Grey Knights detachment, under the command of Justicar Alaric, that were sent to stop the rogue Inquisitor from summoning the Daemon Prince Ghargatuloth, the Herald of Tzeentch. Fortunately for the Grey Knights, Canoness Ludmilla had heard legends of the silver-clad warriors and recognised them as loyal servants of the Emperor that they were. Canoness Ludmilla led her fellow Battle-Sisters alongside the Grey Knights in an attempt to atone for her previous error by slaying the traitorous Valinov. Unfortunately, the rogue Inquisitor was protected by a Conversion Field, which absorbed Ludmilla’s shot, and the Canoness was slain in the subsequent hand-to-hand combat that followed.
Sister Julien
After several years of battle, Julien was assigned to the Schola Progenium on Perlia, overseeing Sororitas novitiates who had not yet committed themselves to a convent. Like the rest of the faculty, she was pulled out of retirement during the 13th Black Crusade, when a Chaos fleet led by Warmaster Varan invaded the planet.
She started training her novitiates in basic combat tactics, including counter-insurgency and urban warfare. She also suggested to retired Commissar Ciaphas Cain that he make a public appeal for the citizenry to volunteer for the PDF, which was already severely shorthanded as a result of excessive Guard tithes incurred by the Third Tyrannic War. Cain had doubts about whether Julien actually believed in his heroic reputation, but her instincts were shrewd: within days of his appeal, ordinary Perlians volunteered in droves.
Julien, dressed in full power armour, led her initiates in defense of the Schola campus, and against Varan’s forces in the final defense of the Mechanicus shrine in the Valley of Daemons. Before this final battle, she led a prayer to the Emperor. Cain, normally skeptical of the benefits of prayer, suggested that her words be transmitted to the entire base. Julien and most of her initiates survived the battle and were evacuated along with the other Imperial defenders
Severita
Formerly a Battle Sister of the Order of the Bloody Rose, for her failures, Severita has become a Sister Repentia. In an unusual move for one of her status, she chose to leave her Order behind and link her fate to that of Inquisitor Covenant.
Many claim they wish to destroy their enemies. If this were true, most would be compelled to destroy themselves.
– Abbess Helena the Virtuous “Discourses on the Faith”
Sisters of Saint Nora 