“Of course, my dear, I bow to your greater knowledge of the particular inclinations of your charge, but I wonder at your naiveté in expressing the view that these will affect our programme in the slightest. Margrave Honorious de Caul will marry the Lady Elissiabetta von Draag, and they will bear children who will serve our divine calling. Their own views are immaterial. There is no more to be said on the matter.”
-Coded correspondence between Sisters of the Order Famulous, Calixis Sector 766.M40
The sisters of the Order Famulous are a ubiquitous feature of the households of many noble families of the Imperium. These black clad Daughters of the Emperor glide silently through the great manses of the wealthiest and most influential houses, acting ostensibly as maidservants and chatelaines. Those sisters who serve in the Calixis Sector are no exception. They usually commence their service whilst yet young women, acting as nurses to the newborn infants of the nobility. They ensure the physical and spiritual development of their charges, quietly coding lifelong devotion and supplication to the Imperial Creed into the very souls of the future masters of humanity.
As the Calixian nobles under their care mature, they continue to influence and observe them, whispering words in their ears behind the scenes as they comb their hair or dress them for a masked ball. They guide their protégés towards advantageous marital unions or even certain discreet liaisons. They gradually increase their sway over the house they serve over the decades, acting as nurses to the next generation of Calixian nobility, and corresponding endlessly with other Sisters of their order. They match-make on behalf of the most powerful individuals in the sector, creating a network of influential families. They broker arrangements between the houses, quelling vendettas and feuds.
They are also tremendous diarists, maintaining meticulous histories of the families they serve, setting out the personality traits, physical characteristics, spiritual development and genetic purity of every member of the family in obsessive detail. By the time a sister of the Calixian Order Famulous reaches her dotage, she shall often be one of the most influential and powerful figures in a subsector, a secret manipulator who controls whole worlds to ensure that they obey the will of the Ecclesiarchy.
Those Calixian nobles who blossom under the Orders Famulous are an unusual breed, marked at once by all the typical ruthless overconfidence of the Imperial nobility, yet retaining a deep reverence for the Creed Imperialis not often found among their class. They are a fecund group, less prone to the vicious vendettas of the nobles than most. Their children often display peculiar oddities: high intelligence, brooding natures, messianic mental instabilities or uncanny insight. They often rise to high positions within the Ministorum as Cardinals or Confessors.
Famulous Protégé Characters
You are the product of noble liaisons ordained and controlled long before your birth by the machinations of the Orders Famulous, the most secretive and mysterious of the orders of the Adepta Sororitas. You have always believed that you were born to achieve a certain destiny, and that this shall reveal itself to you in due course. You are marked by a strange mix of bloodlines and ancestry which has showed itself in strange ways in your nature.
Famulous Protégé Skills
You begin play with Literacy (Int), Speak Language (High Gothic) (Int) and Common Lore (Imperial Creed) (Int).
Famulous Protégé Traits
Those bred and raised by the Order Famulous are smooth, devout, well connected and often highly eccentric. You gain all of the following traits, which should be recorded on your character sheet.
Etiquette
Your tutors have trained you to act with the highest standards of decorum, the better to serve the Emperor.
Effect: You gain a +10 bonus on Charm, Deceive and Scrutiny Tests when dealing with high authority and in formal situations.
Famulous Network
You benefit from the contacts made by your wealthy lineage and the networking conducted on your behalf by the Order Famulous.
Effect: You begin play with the Peer (Ecclesiarchy) Talent, and in addition you also gain Peer (Administratum, Military or Noble), selecting one category to reflect your family’s powerbase.
Wealth
Whether through the actions of your ancestors or through the subtle guidance of your mysterious mentors, you possess tremendous wealth.
Effect: You being play with double the starting number of Thrones. You are also Nobility for the purposes of determining monthly income.
Mysterious Lineage
Without your knowledge, your bloodline has been scrutinized and manipulated for centuries by successive agents of the Order Famulous. The Order has controlled your ancestors behind the scenes for decades, leading them towards your birth. Perhaps you are the end result of their scheming, a tragic misstep, or simply another unknowing link in a chain that reaches back into the shadowed past and will continue far into the future.
Effect: Roll a D10 and consult table 2-7 and apply the effect to your character:
1-2
You are extremely intelligent, though you are prone to peculiar headaches and delusions. Increase your intelligence and insanity points by 1d10 (roll only once and apply the result to both).
3-4
The constant manipulation of your family's ancestry has rendered you a mule, much to the disappointment of the Ordo Famulous. You gain the Chem Geld talent.
5-6
You are a naturally gifted orator and dissembler but are unaccustomed to not being the centre of attention. You gain the Talented (Deceive) Talent and a -10 to all Concealment and Move Silent tests.
7-8
Your health has been affected by an ancient genetic defect, but the Sister Famulous nevertheless prepared you for your destiny. Lose 1 wound and -5 Toughness but begin play with Forbidden Lore (Daemonology, Heresy, Inquisition or Psykers).
9-0
You are astonishingly comely externally but at the cost of hidden imperfections. Increase your Fellowship and Corruption points by 1d10 (roll only once and apply the result to both).
Starting Wounds
You begin play with d5+8 Wounds.
Fate Points
Roll 1d10 to determine your starting Fate Points. On a 1-3, you begin with 1 Fate Point; on a 4-9, you begin with 2 Fate Points; on a 10 you begin with 3 Fate Points.