Temple of the Saviour Emperor

“You have betrayed your god. You have defiled His temples with the unworthy and sold His divinity to beggars...”
—Parchment writ nailed to the door of Confessor Ishmael Xandus (found murdered on Sentinel 712.M41)
The Temple Tendency is the vengeful remains of a cult
of the Emperor’s divinity that once held sway over the
entire Imperium. The Temple Tendency does not have
truck with aliens or worship infernal powers; it is composed of
the faithful devoted of the Emperor, who claim to follow the
heritage of those who first declared the Emperor as a god.
Once their faith was the faith of all the Imperium. Their
armies and ships were as numerous as the stars, their power
all but unrivalled, and below the Golden Throne none was
mightier. This might was long ago lost in the cataclysm
known to Imperial history as the Age of Apostasy, and they
have been reduced to perpetuating their faith in the shadows,
nursing their hate and contemplating their vengeance.
Millennia of subterfuge have made the Temple Tendency a
deadly and thirsting shadow of the holy organization it once
was. Its poisonous presence slipped into the foundling Calixis Sector during the days of its birth, where the Tendency has
festered and grown slowly down the centuries. The Calixian
Temple Tendency is stronger now than it has ever been, and
a threat to which even the Inquisition is blind, lurking unseen
like a serpent poised to sink its fangs into the sector’s heart.
==Tenets, Goals, and Heretical Beliefs==
At the core of the Temple Tendency lies the absolute belief by
its members that they are the true and pure worshipers of the
God-Emperor of Mankind. Furthermore, they are convinced
the Ecclesiarchy is a heresy of the highest order that has
usurped the faithful and damned the souls of countless billions
by perpetuating a faith that is a tainted lie. This belief, warped
and poisoned by millennia, informs all they do in what they
regard as the battle for the Emperor’s soul. To the Tendency,
the Ecclesiarchy is a heresy and all who are part of it should
be put to the flame. All those that acknowledge the authority
of the heretic usurpers are also heretics and so have cast
themselves to the darkness. Thus does the Tendency believe
that only by the return of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor
to its rightful place can the ignorantly damned billions gain
repentance, and only the purging of the heretical Ecclesiarchy
can save humanity.
Guided by these convictions the Temple Tendency’s
activities work to further three goals for the salvation of all.
The Preservation of the True
Those who maintain the ways of the Temple of the Saviour
Emperor are few in number, and preserving the faith of
those few comes before the Tendency’s other goals. Those
who are part of the Tendency are often linked by blood or
fealty to a noble lineage that has passed allegiance to the
Tendency down the generations. The sect is acutely aware
that, if discovered, a single member of their faith can quickly
lead to the discovery of others by way of family association
or background. To counter this inherent weakness in their
structure, the Tendency has evolved thorough and rigorous
methods of protection, concealment, and misdirection that can
baffle all but the most sophisticated and subtle of enemies.
Given the Tendency’s small size, any depletion in its ranks
weakens its ability to work towards its other goals, and so
the Tendency will go to the most extreme and extraordinary
lengths to preserve its security and anonymity. Assassination,
misdirection, planting false evidence, re-building identities,
and even provoking atrocities and open warfare to distract
those who might discover the Tendency are all tactics
employed by it.
The Return of Might and Majesty
The Temple Tendency’s central aim is to return the control of
political and military might to the hands of the pure and the
true. Such a grand goal could only be truly achieved by the
overthrowing of the Imperium as it currently exists. Therefore
the Tendency works towards gathering military and political
power to its service through the placement of its members
and manipulation of the organs of Imperial power through
infiltration, blackmail, and bribery. It slowly erodes, where
it can, the influence of the Ministorum and the cohesion of
the Adepta.
The Return of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor
Ultimately, all of the Temple Tendency’s energies are
channeled to one end—the overthrow of the heretics
who have suborned the Ecclesiarchy and led the Imperium
astray. The protection of those who still keep the pure and
true worship of the Emperor alive, the gathering of military
power, and the subversion of other organizations of power
are all but steps to this final goal. The Tendency knows it
will have to win victories in small pieces---a soul, a city, a
planet, a sector at a time, and that millennia of failure and
bloodshed lie ahead. This knowledge has done nothing to
blunt the potency of the Temple Tendency’s dedication to
this ultimate end.
==The Temple Tendency in the Calixis Sector==
The Temple Tendency came with the crusade that carved the
sector from the godless and infested margins of the Halo Stars.
In all likelihood they were refugees from some other purge.
Today, who these “pilgrims” were remains largely unknown
even to the Tendency’s masters. Perhaps they were senior
officers in Angevin’s forces or part of the Ecclesiarchy’s army of
missionaries that moved in the wake of the conquering Imperial
soldiers. No matter who they were, they came to newborn
Calixis and brought their heretical faith with them, infecting
their successors with paranoid secrecy and fear of discovery.
Since that time, the Tendency has made great efforts to
solidify its position with near infinite patience. Its two main
goals have been supporting and protecting high–born families
of the faithful and building its shadow priesthood to hold them
together with the far distant dream of using Calixis to further
its true goals of a restoration of the faith. Over the centuries.
the Tendency has weathered the storms of history, surviving
plagues, wars, reversals of fortune, and unforeseen disasters and
gaining ground and influence with measured precision and
intent, until today its position in the shadowed hierarchies of
the Calixis Sector is stronger than it has ever been.
The old ways of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor
and the priesthood which exists to keep them alive live in
the shadow of the Ecclesiarchy. The priests minister to an
exclusive number of highly–placed families and hide almost
in plain sight among the masses of the faithful. Although the
Temple Tendency is strong and highly placed, it is geared
more to survival and secrecy than open rebellion. It might be
argued that it is troubled both by complacency in its current
state and the fear of showing itself openly. It has also lost
contact with any branch of the sect outside of the sector—a
fact that the hidden Pontifices who command the sect have
long concealed from their followers.
Lineages of the True and Pure
The Tendency has chiefly survived through the efforts of its
hidden priesthood and the powerful noble families that secretly
cling to its creed. The majority of the Tendency’s scattered
congregation is made up of families who have passed their
hidden faith down by word of mouth and who have a strict code
of silence. Most families are well-established and thought of as
being either part of the local elite or, in a few cases, powerful
and influential clans with sector–wide influence. In secret, these
families maintain their worship and have formed a symbiotic
relationship with the sect’s priesthood, providing the Temple
Tendency with resources and influence, while benefiting from
its secret network and alliance. These families seldom know
each other, being tied together instead only through the Shade
Priests who come and go to minister to them in secret.
The Shade Priests
The Inquisition’s archives call them the Vandiran Apostates or
Shade Priests, but to the faithful they are the “True.” These
individuals move through the Calixis Sector like ghosts from
family to family bearing messages, coordinating the actions of
the sect, and performing religious ceremonies. They are the key
to the workings of the Tendency---the means by which the
organization is administered and bound together.
Outwardly, Shade Priests may appear to be merchants,
traders, pilgrims, or practitioners of other roaming
professions, allowing them to move throughout the sector
unheeded. Beneath their appearance and mastered methods
of deception, the priests are fanatics, often educated from
infancy in the ways of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor
and meticulously trained in the field craft that allows them to
move and disappear like ghosts within the teeming masses of
the sector. Most are drawn from the illegitimate children of
noble families who are part of the Tendency, but perhaps the
most dangerous are those whom the Tendency has taken from
within the Imperium and converted to its faith. There are
perhaps hundreds of such priests at large within the sector,
and not even their masters know their full spread or extent.
The Chantries
Hidden beneath the manses of powerful Tendency members
or concealed in the bowels of trading vessels are the Chantries
of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor. These are the sacred
places where members worship the Emperor as was once done
throughout the Imperium in ages long past. Surfaces covered
in gilt glimmer in the light of candles and crystal lamps, while
from all around the Emperor looks down, His gaze frozen in
precious metal. The Chantry represents not only a place of true
and pure worship to the Tendency but also a reminder of what
once was, and which the cult prays, will be again. Huge wealth
is poured into the construction of these hidden places, and to
keep them hidden and safe. Each chantry is guarded by cloisters
of mute Chantry Guards, a long distant echo of the lost elite
of the Frateris Templars. These devoted warriors have the finest
muscle grafting, weapons, and training lavished on them, and
they will guard their Chantry with their dying breath.
The Hidden Pontifices
The Pontifices are the ruling elite of the Tendency. In them the
ancient authority of the first men to proclaim the Emperor as
a God is preserved. While the noble families are the bedrock
of the Tendency and the Shade Priests the web that holds it
together, the Pontifices are its guiding hand. There are no more
than a handful in the Calixis Sector, each watching over a subsector
and answering only to the High Priest of the True, Deacon Priam.
Each Pontifex also leads a double life, usually having a
position of some importance within the organizations of the
Imperium from where he can exert influence or be privy to
useful information. Some may be members of the Administratum
or planetary government, while others are members of the
Ecclesiarchy itself, working to undo the very organization that
they are part of.
Vengeance and Loathing
Of all arms of the Ecclesiarchy, the Temple Tendency
nurtures a special malice towards the Sisters of the Adepta Sororitas. The holy sisters were once called the Brides of
the Emperor and served as Goge Vandire’s personal shock
troops and bodyguards in the last bloody decades before
the Reformation re-forged the Ecclesiarchy. Consisting of
many Orders, each following a different calling, the Adepta
Sororitas have been the pure heart of the Ecclesiarchy for
over five millennia. Most famed of the holy Sisters are
the Battle Sisters, the military arm of the Ecclesiarchy
and Chamber Militant of the Ordo Hereticus; they are
manifestations of the Emperor’s judgment.
No matter what their Order, all sisters of the Adepta
Sororitas are despised by the Temple Tendency. To
this day, the Tendency will take any opportunity to
revenge themselves on the sisterhood, even acting with
uncharacteristic recklessness to inflict harm and suffering
upon them. The poisoning of the Sister Famulous adviser
to Lord Sector Hax two years ago and the “accidental”
unleashing of reprogrammed arco-flagellants on a Sister
Hospitaller medical facility on Tranch are but the most
recent manifestations of the Temple Tendency’s vendetta
against the Adepta Sororitas.
==Current Conspiracies and Plots==
At any one time in the Calixis Sector, members of the
Temple Tendency may be pursuing a number of schemes for
the furtherment of their outlawed faith: the corruption of
an individual mission to spread the Ministorum Creed, the
assassination of a perceived threat, or the obtaining of illegal
arms and equipment. Its most abiding concerns however, are
maintaining the faith and the shield of secrecy that hides it.
The Temple Tendency is also hampered somewhat in that it
must always operate under a paradox that further complicates
matters—while it hates and despises the Imperium as it is
currently manifested, it cannot afford to see it fall to outside
forces, for that too would be a betrayal of the Emperor. The
Tendency is as firm in its hatred of the witch, the alien, and
the tainted as the most hardline Puritan and its faithful act
accordingly.
Currently, the Holy Ordos are ignorant of the Temple
Tendency’s entrenched presence in the Calixis Sector. This
is a state that has been maintained by the sect at the cost
of the lives of several Inquisitorial Acolytes and numerous
cell members. This ignorance on the part of the Calixian Conclave is in part due to the fact that the sector is young
in terms of the Imperium and the fact that the Tendency is
often found tied to places where the Temple of the Saviour
Emperor was once powerful---an age long passed by the time
Calixis was born. This fact has hidden the Temple Tendency,
and while the Inquisition is aware of certain incidents, it does
not suspect a single heresy or group to be behind them, much
less that the heresy is the Temple Tendency.
The Assassination Cells
The Temple Tendency has a long history of venting its hate
of the Ecclesiarchy in episodes of spiteful bloodletting. In the
last half century, however, High Priest of the True Priam, the
sect’s Calixian leader, has charged his flock with supporting
and enacting the murder of members of the Ecclesiarchy with
greater vigor than his predecessors. The assassination cells
formed by this edict are made up of members of the secret
faith and are often of diverse profession and appearance.
Trained to move amongst the Imperium without notice,
the members of a cell may appear to be aides to a merchant,
pilgrims, or other innocuous travellers. The members of
a Tendency assassination cell usually work together for
years, selecting and executing their own targets. Many kill
opportunistically, slaying a lone preacher or missionary
and thus making the most any given advantage. Others
are more selective and aim to strike at key members of the
Ministorum presence in the sector. Indeed, the poisoning of
the previous Sororitas adviser to Lord Sector Hax was one
such assassination that was the result of careful planning by a
Tendency assassination cell.
The assassination cells are allowed and encouraged to roam
free, killing and working against members of the Ecclesiarchy
at will so long as they maintain their veil of secrecy. These
activities, however, are only to hone them for their real tasks.
Their true duty is revealed to them when they receive a name
or a series of objectives by the word of a Shade Priest at the
behest of one of the sect’s Pontifices.
The Infiltration of the Red Redemption
The Temple Tendency has recently set its sights on the Red Redemption. Redemptionists are an ultra militant sect of the
Imperial Creed that sees humanity as saturated with sin and
who can only be redeemed by fire and blood. Followers of
the Redemptionist creed are militant to a frenzied degree, and
groups of different sizes are found across the Calixis Sector,
varying from small Underhive gangs to the huge army of Seth the Voice on Iocanthos. Redemptionists see heretics all around
them, yet are often blind to those that stand amongst them.
The Temple Tendency began its infiltration of the Redemption
a few years ago, starting by funding the Redemption and then
infiltrating members into the Redemption’s local leadership.
So far it has not managed to penetrate the Redemption
enough to exert any real influence over the sect, but should
its plans progress unimpeded, it will eventually have gained
control over a fanatical army of followers to use as unwitting
cannon fodder in a war yet to come.
The Manipulation of the Lucid Court
The Temple Tendency’s chief achievement in the Calixis Sector is
the extent to which it can influence the sector’s governance. The
Temple Tendency has caused the dismissal of officials so that it
could substitute its own pawns and thereby influence the balance
of power in the sector. To this end, it has taken advantage of
aspects of Lord Sector Hax’s character to bring about a political
situation that favors its schemes, not least of all his innate
paranoia and dislike of outside interference to his rule. This goal
has been achieved by the placement of trusted followers of the
Temple of the Saviour Emperor within the inner circle of Lord
Hax’s court, a thing that has taken centuries of positioning and
bribery to achieve.
Chief amongst these secret heretics is Lord Verence, who
coordinates the manipulation of Hax and his court fellows with the
delicate and invisible hand of a master. Others work in ignorance
for the sect, believing instead that their petty corruptions fuel
noble vendettas or simple greed, not realizing their paymasters’
true natures. Ultimately the sect wishes to push Hax into ever
more tyrannical actions, turning his suspicion and wroth against
rival noble families, competing powers, and troublesome members
of the Adepta, all in the furtherance of its own long-term power,
and perhaps even provoke a carefully managed sector civil war.