Cardinal Yvenna

“Saints have ever been a bridge between the God-Emperor and mankind; a stepping stone from the mortal to the divine. It is sadly however a link that can cloud the Master of Mankind’s holy message as it is filtered through the imperfect lens of these blessed, dead heroes.”
–Cardinal Yvenna, Markayn Arch-Diocese
Titles: Temple Mistress of the Calistra Covenant
Seat of Power: Solomon
Arch-Diocese: Markayn Marches
Yvenna might have a remote diocese, only marginally more
powerful than that of Quiro (whom she detests), but she makes
up for it with a fiery temper and burning ambition. Among the
youngest of the Sector Synod Cardinals, only just into her second
century, Yvenna is a tall, striking woman with stern features and
a shock of crimson hair; all part of an image she has cultivated to
impress her dominance upon the minds of those around her. In her
time as cardinal of the Markayn Arch-Diocese, she has relentlessly
pursued the interests of the Ministorum and gone to great lengths
to tighten its grasp on the worlds of the sub-sector. Unfortunately,
in her crusade for power she has been neither kind nor gentle
with noble houses and Administratum officials, creating many
enemies and numerous headaches for Ignato. For this reason she
is being courted by Kregory for her support within the Sector
Synod, and charmed with the promise of more direct support
from the central Ministorum synods for her diocese. While she
flirts with such offers, Yvenna is too sharp-minded to be easy
prey for Kregory’s overtures---though there may yet come a time
when she chooses sides.
Beyond the politicking of Ignato and Kregory, Yvenna has
her own concerns. The remoteness of many of the worlds
within her diocese as well as its high proportion of undeveloped
or frontier worlds has made many of the dark and forgotten
corners of the Markayn Marches a haven for renegades and
heretical cults. Although the heretics are neither especially
unusual nor especially dangerous, the zealots who have showed
up to purge them have been causing her problems, especially
the Red Redemption. Ostensibly, the Red Redemption is part
of the Ministorum; they are a fanatical cult focused on hunting
down and purging anyone or anything they see as an affront to
the God-Emperor (which needless to say is a pretty long list).
However the Redemption often sees itself as separate from the
core church, not corrupted or restricted by pointless bureaucracy
or administration. This is the case in the Markayn Marches and
Yvenna has found herself coming head to head with Archdeacon Ludmilla, leader of the Redemptionists, as the Red Redemption
swells in number within her diocese.
She has presented her concerns to the Sector Synod, but
with other things to worry about, Ignato and the other cardinals
have largely ignored her reports, putting them down to a ‘local
disturbance’ and deeming this not an issue for the greater
Ministorum to deal with. Unknown to the cardinals, however,
is that the problem may be far greater than they realize and on
more than one occasion Redemptionists and Ministorum servants
have clashed in the remote reaches of the sub-sector such as
the under-archives of Prol IX, the grey fields of Dreah and the
forests of Mosul as Ludmilla urges her followers to cleanse the
worlds of the Marches and hunt out those of weak faith. It seems
only a matter of time before things deteriorate further and open
fighting begins as either Ludmilla declares the Markayn Synods
corrupt and compromised by the dark powers or Yvenna tires of
the Redmeptionist’s meddling and brings the full weight of her
diocese and its resources crashing down upon their heads.