Order of the Ebon Chalice

Order of the Ebon Chalice
Founding	M.36
Daughters of	The Daughters of the Emperor
Canoness Superior	Unknown
Strength	Less than average
Specialty	Orthodoxy, Anti-Psyker, Flamers and Melta
Allegiance	Imperium
Colours	Black Armor, with White Cloth

"We are beset by many terrible foes in these dark times, but we walk in the light of the Emperor, and we shall not let a single foe stay us from our duty. We are the Sisters of the great Ecclesiarchy, and we will fight to the bitter end."

– Canoness Palmiro, Order of the Ebon Chalice

"Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire."

– Gustav Mahler

The Order of the Really Cool Cup Ebon Chalice is an Orders Militant of the Sisters of Battle. They are one of the OG orders, created just after the Reign of Blood, and as close to being the Brides of the Emperor as you could possibly get in the 42nd Millennium. As such, they're definitely the most stereotypical Order: A bunch of high-strung heretic smashers who burn most of their foes to ash as soon as they get the chance. They are also the order who had that thing you know most about the Sisters of Battle happen to them.

About the Order of the Ebon Chalice

An Ebon Chalice battle sister on the lookout for HERESY to set on fire.

The Order of the Ebon Chalice was founded directly by the original Bolter bitch herself: Alicia Dominica, just after she went to the Emperor personally to meet with him, and came back out so spooked by what she heard she had to go behead the nearest batshit tyrant she could find, and Goge Vandire's neck was looking ripe for a sword to go through it, thus ending the Reign of Blood. Not too long after, the Ecclesiarchy founded the first three Orders Militant, of which the Ebon Chalice was among. They quickly established themselves through successful holy war after successful holy war, all while led by Dominica, and their exemplary zeal and her tacical genius allowed them to become the model Sororitas order. Seriously, the fanclub for Dominica was huge; most Sisters in some way tried to emulate some of the stuff she did in order to feel closer to their Spiritual Liege. Unlike a lot of their sister orders who decided to branch out and go give Big E's word to the masses in the farthest reaches of the galaxy, Alicia and the Ebon Chalice decided to stick closer to home; snuffing out Chaos cults wherever they could and burning mutants whenever they came across them, and saving Shrine Worlds from Xeno infestation if they happened to be unusually green or elf infested. This also extended to more domestic things, like imperial guard regiments and planetary governors who were getting a little too lax with the Imperial Creed, and usually responded to any resistance with enough Flamers to char broil an entire hive. But like all Sororitas saints, and a worrying trend for them to be sure, Alicia Dominica was martyred on the field of battle, and arguably got done the very dirtiest of any of the Brides of the Emperor. Unlike the others who either disappeared without a trace or killed their attackers or some other badass stunt, she got hit with a very lucky shot with a lasgun, ending her reign over the Ebon Chalice. And that sent shockwaves throughout both her order, and all the other orders because she was the Sister of Battle to a lot of people. And her order responded the same way they always did; get back into the fight.

The Order's Ebon Chalice name also comes from a literal black grail that Dominica carried around after the order was founded, said to be a literal and figurative sacrament of truth between her and the big man, and is one of their most holy of relics. The thing is loaded with power, and Dominica was able to accomplish all sorts of wild things with it like set every psyker on a planet on fire whenever she used it, some of the things it did apparently even bordered on the heretical. Not that we know, as the order is not keen AT ALL with sharing any information about it, as they tend to kill anyone who witnesses it's use, and confiscate any written accounts of it. The Ebon Chalice as an organization is, as stated, one of the closest to being like the Brides of the Emperor as any of the other Orders Militant, as they all picked up aspects of their patron saint and converted it into dogma. In a sense that's true of the Ebon Chalice, but as Alicia Dominica was the very best of the Brides of the Emperor, so too do all of the sisters who enter her Order wish to embody her religious zeal, and held true to the stringent tenants of the original order. While it does mean that the order is militarily and spiritually disciplined beyond compare, it does mean that they have to be especially picky when picking new prospects from the Schola Progenium. They'll only ever take the best of the best, and even then there's no guarantee that the aspirants they pick up will make it all the way into being pure Battle sisters. Each is drilled with the miracles, tactical and martial strength, and zeal to even hope to coming up to Dominica's kneecap, or in other words, a merely "alright" Bride of the Emperor. Which means that any time, the number of sisters of this order is far below that of any of the others, but their troops are far better trained. But if they live long enough to become a Celestian or Zephyrim, they will have more experience and skill of any Battle sister in the entire imperium, and will be given the most powerful thing the order has: a tiny sliver of the knowledge given to Alicia straight from the God-Skeleton himself.

In the 42nd Millennium, the order has been kicking around doing the Indomitus Crusade as well as safeguarding the worlds in Segmentum Solar from the now very real threat of daemon incursion with their buddies the Mechanicus, the Astartes, and the Custodes, who have an especially deep relationship with the order since they were the ones who got Alicia's attention in the first place.

Notable Campaigns

• Fall of Belatis IV (143-151.M41) - Abaddon's booze cruise The Planet Killer comes to the planet Belatis IV, and the Imperium decides to get the fuck out of dodge. This emboldens all sorts of Chaos Cults into coming out and holding some demonstrations, leading to a desperate game of "fight the chaos worshipping maniacs while also trying to leave". The Ebon Chalice distinguishes itself as they pick up many irreplaceable relics and evacuate hundreds of thousands of Ecclesiarchical officials, as well as being the very last ones on the transport outta there before they call it quits.
• Magdellan Prime Civil War (143-151.M41) - Chaos cults on Magdellan Prime cause a massive shitstorm and eventually a planetwide civil war that the Ebon Chalice is forced to bear the brunt of. While the masses threaten to overwhelm the order, they do not once give in and successfully defend their Preceptory from Chaos. By the time relief shows up in the form of Space Marines, the sisters are already halfway done with the planet and ultimately winning out.
• The Bloodtide Martyrs (876.M41) - The revised version of events that some dipshit scribe previously shat out onto lore. The Basilica of St. Mariel on the planet Van Horne gets an uninvited guest in the form of a massive Khorne daemon invasion, as a broken statue that kept a massive daemon prison deep underneath the planet sealed shut allowed the Bloodthirster Ka'jagga'nath to free himself and his daemon hordes and wreak havoc upon Van Horne as he saw fit. The sisters of the Ebon Chalice are the first to engage this massive horde, and are promptly never heard from again. The Grey Knights show up just in time to find a much weaker horde than they were expecting, kill the Bloodthirster, and finish the daemons off, and as they sift through the rubble, they find that every single sister on planet gave their lives in order to give Van Horne enough time for reinforcements to arrive. Everyone who fell on that day is considered an honored martyr by the Order.
• Battle of the Penitent (938.M41) - The Ebon Chalice and their weird friends from the Valorous Heart deal with a massive green tide led by Warboss Blackaxe. They retreat to the Cathedral of St. Dufaux and the Sisters Repentia (presumably from both orders), hold off the attackers for as long as they can, before they open the doors to the cathedral to show their secret weapon: Dozens of Penitent Engines, who help mulch the greenskins and eventually win them the day.
• The Promethean War (980.M41) - The Salamanders and the Ebon Chalice come together to do a massive scale urban warfare with the Black Legion on the planet of Heletine. With both orders love of flame, they get along famously, and are doing well enough and gaining victory until the Daemon Prince in charge of the whole shebang decides it's time to step it up a notch by dragging in some Possessed to counteract the sheer amount of Flamer fuel being used. Things look pretty dire, until everyone's favorite Living Saint shows up to save the world just in the nick of time.
• Keepers of the Faith (M41) - The World of Vangore's Folly finds some ancient texts deep below the planet's surface, and they are sent to the Orders Dialogus to go be translated and interpreted. The Promethium barons on the planet assume it's going to be something cool or something the Emperor wrote...And then the Order of the Ebon Chalice shows up, blows up their spaceports, says a prayer over the loudspeakers for the souls of the Barons and their serfs, and then exterminatus everything.
• 13th Black Crusade (999.M41) - Four Preceptories join in on the grand fight to help stop the Fall of Cadia. It doesn't go well.
• Indomitus Crusade (M42) - Big daddy Rowboat wakes up from his nap to see everything's gone to hell, and he's going to go fix it. The Ebon Chalice is instrumental in the very early days, joining the crusade early, and fight alongside Guilliman's forces to keep Segmentum Solar safe.
• War of Beasts (001.M42-025.M42) - The planet Vigilus is being hounded on all sides, and is a critical place in the Dark Imperium as one of the few planets on the border of the great rift with a safe exit over onto the other side of it. The Order is currently fighting tooth and nail to keep it from xeno and chaos hands.

On the Tabletop

Flamers and Meltas for dayz. Oh, and tell your opponent's psykers to eat shit personally to their poorly painted faces. Seriously, the amount of lethality you can put on dudes with their conviction "Daughters of the Emperor", which gives 5++ FnP against Mortal Wounds and allows you the option to discard a miracle die when performing an Act of Faith that is becomes an automatic 6 is a little stunning. Their relic weapon auto damages Psykers for 3, and their stratagem can allow you to just choose a unit with flamers that just auto-roll the max possible. In short, if your army's footsloggers aren't loaded with as many flamers and melta weapons as you can realistically pay for, you're already doing this one wrong. Your Repressors should also have about as many flamers as you can tack on there, just to be safe. Pairs well with a Canonness with dedicated Anti-Psyker loadouts.

Gallery

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