Orders Dialogous

"Sister Dialogus, what is this man trying to say?" "My...my lord...he is telling me I have a nice...ass..." "WHAT!? THAT IS HERESY!"

The Orders Dialogous are a group of non-militant orders of the Adepta Sororitas dedicated to interpreting language, breaking ciphers, and stockpiling information.

Overview

The Dialogous sisters are probably the most learned individuals in the Ecclesiarchy, perhaps even the whole Imperium excepting the savants of the the Adeptus Mechanicus.

They are selected from the novice sisters who have a talent for language and science, they spend much of their time attending datastacks and poring over tomes. A Sister Dialogous might have knowledge of hundreds of languages and access to volumes of technical information that is invaluable to outside agencies. They were often work hand-in-hand with the Orders Famulous in maintaining records of noble bloodlines and activities. They are effectively the nerds of the Sororitas and would be analogous to the Scribes of the Administratum.

Unlike their counterparts in the bureaucracy, the Dialogous tend to have far more interesting lives. They are some of the few people to have enough faith and fortitude to deal with heretical texts without becoming corrupted, as well as being trusted to have dealings with xenos races like the Eldar without being hoodwinked.

Occasionally, a Dialogous will be seconded to an allied force as a communications specialist or as a technical expert. The Inquisition also values their skillset and they occasionally find service in acolyte cells. However, the Sororitas actually doesn't like doing this and prefers to keep the Dialogous dedicated to their primary tasks. The value the Imperium places on a Dialogous is considerably higher than a faceless scribe; the Dialogous orders are typically sequestered within fortresses, guarded by thousands of Battle Sisters and may have a naval squadron in the area to protect them, such is the wealth of riches that can be found in the vaults and minds of the Orders Dialogous that requires protection.

Dialogous Sisters do still undergo the same basic training as all novice sisters of the Sororitas, so they are fully capable of defending themselves in the field if they have to. What's more is that the vows of Repentia and Oblatia are open to them if they feel they can no longer deal with sinful nature of the information they deal with, but since they have been judged worthy already then this is likely a rare occurrence.

Order Pronatus

A specialist sub order of Dialogous Sisters whose primary duty is the cataloguing and safeguarding of warp tainted relics, and the sisters spend much of their work trying to find ways of purifying them and will require considerably more mental fortitude to resist the corrupting forces for chaos.

Sisters Pronatus are particularly useful to Inquisitors who expect to be recovering warp tainted devices. Though it goes unsaid that these duties also overlap with those of the Grey Knights.

Tabletop

Previously derided as one of the worst units in the Sisters of Battle army list, nowadays they allow units within 6" to reroll acts of faith and give them +1 Ld.

The main problem is that as Sisters of a separate order, they don't benefit from many of the armywide rules and as a unit of a single model with a relatively poor statline aren't particularly useful for much else other than their aura.