#85 The Sisterhood of Blighted Souls
When Lady Beauvoir discovered that the False Apostle's unique abilities were the result of his fivefold sundered soul, she became fascinated with the potential power she could achieve should she succeed in splitting her own soul into separate parts. She was well aware that the False Apostle's very uniqueness was the result of the extreme unlikelihood of a vampire surviving the shattering of their soul, so she required expendable subjects upon whom to experiment. To that end, she instructed the Bloody Pilgrims to found their own cult alongside the other denominations of the Sanguine Rose. Thus the Disciples of the Red Redemption was created, a secret society of human thralls lured into servitude and worship of their vampiric mistresses by the promise of eternal life for a chosen few.
During her years of study in Barfunweltz, Lady Beauvoir had formed many and various theories about soul-sundering, each one since rigorously tested upon enthralled minions. The Disciples of the Red Redemption provides a constant supply of followers willing to receive her blood kiss, though most have enjoyed undeath for mere moments before their souls have been ripped apart and destroyed by her mystical experiments. Although she is yet to succeed in truly splitting a Soulblight soul into separate, stable entities her experiments have resulted in some happy accidents.
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| Kastellan Du Châtelet and the Blighted Sisterhood (Blood Knights) |
One such is the Sisterhood of Blighted Souls. Through the carefully ritualised application of appalling cruelty and necromantic torture, these vampires have had their souls separated from their bodies. Success rates are admittedly low, and the procedure only seems to work with female subjects, yet each survivor is rewarded with gleaming silver armour and a mighty broadsword. These Blighted Sisters are tortured souls, as cruel and merciless as the rituals which created them. After sundering, the vampire's body and soul must remain in close proximity, but the two are able to interact and assist each other - indeed they must in order to survive. With martial training from the Bloody Pilgrims, they have become a useful fighting force akin to Blood Knights: Each Sister's soul not only charges into combat with her, but sweeps about the enemy, attacking from all sides. The blighted soul can convey the vampire's body over short distances, granting speed, aiding in deployment and even transporting them out of undesirable melees.
Nonetheless, Lady Beauvoir's experiments in soul-sundering continue.
Given the diversity and independence of Soulblight vampires, I didn’t want all my blood knights to look the same. The official kit offers a few options, but I wanted to try converting other miniatures. The 40K Vigilator models caught my eye but I needed some way of representing the extra attacks and speed of cavalry. So I used some spare banshees from the Mortis Engine kit, and came up with the explanation above.
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