St. Athaliah the Flame



Athaliah Kane aka St. Athaliah the Flame; Bride of the Emperor; Savior of Aliris, Mother of the Faithful, Our Lady of Necromunda - and so forth and so on for about a quarter of an hour - has led an uncomfortably interesting and temporally convoluted life that has brought her honors she does not deserve - and she frequently says so. Unfortunately it is always put down to Holy Humility and ignored.

Biography
Athalian Kane was enrolled in the schola progenium on Rigant at the advanced age of thirteen or fourteen. She was identified by the Assessors as a potential priest almost immediately and transferred to the seminary on Orphelia VII where she was ordained a Confessor of the Faith in 918.M41 and assigned to the newly created Eurydice diocese in the Hades Sector recently restored to full Imperial control. So much for the ascertainable facts. Athaliah's life there after is cloaked in myth and legend.

The Bad Beginning
Athaliah had the bad fortune to graduate from Seminary at exactly  the time the Cardinal of Eurydice was looking for Confessors to firm up the shaken faith of his new flock. Athaliah's entire graduating class was shipped to him for assignment. The Acta Athaliah claims that the Cardinal fell on his knees before the Saint-to-be and fired by holy inspiration handed over to her the greatest relic his cathedral owned. In truth the relic was entrusted to the young Confessor to carry to the desecrated grave world of The Emperor's Peace to be enshrined in the great Mortuary Hall. It was handed over to her  - with a long list of instructions and admonitions - by a Pontiff of the Diocese. Cardinal Vorthys never so much as laid eyes on the future saint.

Emperor's Peace was on the far side of a rather infamous stretch of space known as the Erebeus Triangle from the Cardinal world of Eurydice, Athaliah's vessel was far from the first to come to grief there. More than a century before a Strike Cruiser of the Consecrator Chapter had been lost with all hands in the Slinnar Drift of the Jericho Reach the whole width of the galaxy away. The young Confessor unsurprisingly did not know this, so though astonished to be rescued by Astartes of the Consecrator chapter she wasn't as stunned as she might have been. She and the Company Master shared the shock when they discovered that one hundred and seventeen years and innumerable separated their two disasters.

The Consecrators had taken refuge aboard a Craftworld they'd found abandoned in the drift near a huge webway entrance floating in space. Lacking any other form of transport the Company Librarian had attempted to steer them through the webway, realizing in transit that section they were in had been contaminated by the Warp. They emerged in the Erebeus Triangle over a century later. All agreed they had no choice but to try again and this time ended up on a long dead world in the Aliris sector, Tsin Prime home to the Phoenix Brethren Chapter, in the year 832.M41. Fortunately for her Athaliah was not well enough versed in Segmentum Obscurus history to recognize the date as the Year of the Black Sun.

It Gets Worse
Thus Athaliah found herself caught up in stirring events of the Black Sun Crusade and thrust into most unwelcome prominence as the religious leader thereof more than sixty years before she was born. This was all the more unwelcome as it not only exposed to the dangers of numerous battlefields as well as riot and civil unrest but drew down the attention of the Ordo Chronos a secretive sub-division of the Inquisition tasked with investigating temporal anomalies and preventing reality endangering paradoxes. Athaliah, being from 'the future' represented such a paradox and she was placed under special watch by Ordo Chronos Inquisitor Jaq Shadoe. By her own account Athaliah found this surveillance very pleasant indeed. And she needed some pleasant interludes as her post-Crusade life consisted of one war and/or crisis after another as she wandered the Imperium desperately seeking a little peace and quiet.

But Jaq Shadoe was an Inquisitor so of course he had an ulterior motive. Athaliah's two life-streams could not be allowed to overlap, her older self had to be eliminated before her younger self was born. Athaliah's date of birth was uncertain but could have been no earlier than 893.M41 so in 892.M41 Jaq regretfully arranged her death. Trouble was she kept surviving, a talent of hers, finally he was driven to the extreme of shooting her himself, with an Eldar D- cannon. At least he said he was sorry before pressing the trigger.

Personality
Acerbic, hedonistic, occasionally dishonest and a devout coward... not exactly traits one expects of a Living Saint. As Athaliah would gladly explain to you - at length -  there is nothing saintly about her. It's all a mistake and misunderstanding that she has been desperately trying to straighten out for nearly two centuries now. Her admirers gently counter with examples of her unquestioning faith and obedience to Him on Earth; the inspiration she brings with her presence, her unfailing maternal concern for the Faithful, The might of her cleansing flame and her healing touch.

All accidents, coincidences and well, yes, some things she can't explain that do look like miracles - but she certainly didn't work them! Athaliah will retort with greater or lesser degrees of fury depending how tired she happens to be. Of course she believes in the Emperor - who doesn't? - and she's quite certain he's meddling personally in her life - very much against her will! And the whole reason they made her a Confessor in the first place was because she could talk the metal legs off a titan and convince an audience that black was in fact white - so much for 'inspiration'. As for her 'maternal love for the Faithful, well that's overstating the case by quite a bit but it's not like she wishes the Emperor's people any harm now is it?

And so the debate continues.

Abilities and Traits
Athaliah's title 'The Flame' decribes her most unusual and inexplicable ability; the Sanctifying Flame. This power is characteristic of the Phoenix Brethren, one of the earliest Space Marine Chapters associated with Athaliah, and the talent first manifested itself through the Crozius Arcanum the Brethren's artificers created for her. Originally a faint werefire it strengthened over the years, possibly with practice, into a incadescent flame too bright to look at directly which the Saint is able to project in searing fireballs. Athaliah's theory is that the Flame is fueled not by her own neglible faith but by that of the soldiers of the Emperor following her. Maybe so but it is Athaliah who ends up drained and exhausted after calling upon the Flame.

Athaliah Kane is unusually tall, nearly two meters in height, and strong in proportion. She excelled in her self defense courses at the Seminary and constant training has rendered her quite formidable to opponents even with purely conventional weapons. Her preference is for ranged weapons with plenty of stopping power and failing that a polearm like her Crozius - in other words anything that keeps the enemy at a comfortable distance. Failing that she is a fine swordswoman. Her fighting technique is highly pragmatic - she is interested in results not style and not particularly worried about honor or fair play.

Equipment
Being friends with Space Marines, Sororitas and an Inquisitor gets one some seriously good presents - though not, alas, the vintage bottle of amasec or box of cheroots Athaliah would really like.

Adeptus Astartes
""There is a time tested and nearly infallible strategy for getting a man firmly on your side - unfortunately it doesn't work on Space Marines."

- St. Athaliah the Flame



Canoness Venicia
A senior Sister Framulous of the Order of the Holy Seal and Prioress of the Abbey of the Silver Star a massive Sororitas complex on Dominica, a planetary fief of the Convent Prioris, housing Framulous, Dialogus, Hospitaller and Militant Sisters. Venecia heads the most efficient and pervassive intelligence net in the Sector and has fingers in every pie; Administratum, Ministorum, Munitorum and even the Mechanicus.

Solomon Monck
"The thing about Solomon is even when it isn't pouring out his face looks like a rainy day."

- St. Athaliah the Flame