Pauper Princes - History: The Pauper Princes are devoted worshippers of the Star Children, xenoform gods from beyond that are only ever referred to in veiled terms and vague, implied concepts. They also revere their own prophets and living saints, who they protect with fierce dedication. They are selfless to an almost alien degree, so faithful to their creed that they will gladly take a bullet for those closer to the Genestealer Patriarch than they.They never hesitate to give their lives to protect their war leaders. This self-sacrifice, this utmost loyalty, is not enforced so much as inspired -- for the martyrdom of their first Magus sent ripples throughout the cult's collective psyche that define its members hundreds of Terran years later.The Pauper Princes originally hailed from the ochre-hued Imperial slum world of Chancer's Vale, which although still listed as an Imperial-held planet is almost entirely under the cult's sway. Much of the populace lives in the squalid shanty towns that pepper the coasts, their skin badly desiccated by the constant mining of minerals from its barren seas.The planet exports millions of tonnes of saline cubes every year to those planets in the same sector that have no seas of their own; these are used for scores of purposes, from curing meat to the preparation of healing salves. Those of the Pauper Princes who hail from Chancer's Vale have a wrinkled, pale cast to their skin -- an appearance that marks them out as blessed scions of the holy land to those who have colonised other worlds in the cult's name.Such is the deprivation and abject poverty of Chancer's Vale that many of its people originally joined the cult not because they were forced to by coercion or the Genestealer's Kiss, but because they were desperate for a way off the planet. Word had spread that there was an offshoot of the Imperial Cult thriving in the principal spaceport of Senfarr -- though the source of its formation, the Purestrain Genestealer that still made its lair on the super-barge Just Strength, remained secret.From the Just Strength came a cult which preached hope, solidarity and new beginnings, an intoxicating mixture to the downtrodden and desperate population of the planet's searing coasts.The first and most talented demagogue of the cult, Magus Marovitch Tenndarc, spoke with such conviction about a new life amongst the stars that thousands fell under his sway in the space of a few short solar weeks. Swathes of the world's populace united in their devotion to the Star Saviour.Every Emperor's Day, the Magus sermonised to rapturous applause about the glories to come. Tenndarc died saving the Star Saviour himself -- the cult's Genestealer Patriarch -- by diving in front of a Ratling sniper's bullet. The Abhuman assassin was torn to pieces within the solar hour, Tenndarc attained the status of saint, and the cult's flock quadrupled in size overnight.Since that day the cult has had a fierce hatred of Ratlings, and in any war zone that harbours these diminutive Imperial Guardsmen, they will go to great lengths to destroy them -- for that which nearly killed their Patriarch may one day finish the job, and this they cannot allow.If any cult embodies the unthinking obedience of the Broodmind, it is the Cult of the Pauper Princes. The zealots of the cult would do literally anything to save their masters. There are reports in Ordo Xenos files of a hundred extreme incidences of self-sacrifice, some so shocking they seem more like the behaviour of an insectile hive than a group of Humans.There are pictfeeds of mutant hybrids running through promethium fires to hurl themselves into the path of oncoming Primaris Space Marine Aggressor Squads, purely to buy their war leaders a few more seconds to escape. There are reports of Neophyte Hybrids making dense walls out of their own bodies in front of their cult leaders, acting as living sandbags to soak up the phosphor bullets of a war clade of Kastelan Robots without emitting a single scream of pain.There is even grainy footage of Pauper Princes making mass charges against the giant spiked rams of Ork Bonebreaka wagons so as to jam up their workings and protect their Patriarch -- only for the alpha Tyranid predator to skitter nimbly up the side of a building without looking back.It is near-impossible to bring the tactic of military decapitation to bear against this cult, for it has a strange prescience when it comes to danger, especially when the heart of its dark organisation is threatened. With their war leaders living what amounts to charmed lives as a result, their extreme methods have proved to be incredibly successful.As they say amongst the faithful flock, to be one of the Pauper Princes is to live forever -- though none admit that it may not always be in the same body, or even anatomy, as that of their birthright.