The Frateris Templar

The Frateris Templar were the martial host of the Ecclesiarchy in ages past, a vast crusading army raised not from trained soldiery but from the boundless, fervent multitudes of the faithful. Where a preacher called for war, the people answered, and columns of zealots numbering in their millions marched to purge the unbeliever and the alien with fire, faith, and whatever weapons their hands could grasp.

For centuries the Templar were the sword of the Cardinals, a force answerable to the Ministorum alone and beholden to no secular lord. Their crusades carved bloody roads across the stars, and their fanaticism made them terrible in the charge, heedless of casualties so long as the enemy fell. Yet that same unchecked power sowed the seeds of ruin, for an army of believers loyal only to the Church proved a blade that could turn upon the Imperium itself.

In the wake of the great schism known as the Reign of Blood, the decree of the Ecclesiarchy holding no men under arms saw the Frateris Templar cast down and disbanded. Their duty passed in part to the Sisters of the Adepta Sororitas, who bear the Emperor's wrath under a subtler letter of the law. Yet in the deep frontier and among fervent congregations, the old name endures still, a whispered promise of holy war raised anew.