A Light Not Extinguished

From the Ashes: Crimson Arbiter Codex

"Quite the interesting aesthetic you've chosen for them. The armour of the old Navigators, I presume?"

"Just a reminder of times when things weren't... this."

"Does it matter when no one save us and Malcador remember?"

"You're the one who named your son Horus Lupercal."

"...touché."

****

Crimson Arbiters: Her Red Right Hand

Archmagi of the Imperium. Daughters of the Thaumaturge.

Warriors cloaked in superstition that even the Imperial Truth has failed to fully erase, this order of transhuman soldiers serving the will of the enigmatic Kathicia Jorenn emerged during the middle of the Great Crusade, clad in armor of purest red. Completely composed of female psykers, each and every one is a formidable warrior, a juggernaut of empyrean might. Few are their numbers, even less than that of the vaunted Legio Custodes, and for that reason their mistress is exceedingly careful with their deployments. But when they are deployed in force, Imperial commanders know that victory is all but certain, for few can stand against the wrath of the Imperium's greatest psychic specialists...

History

There is much conjecture and hearsay about the woman who oversees the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, the organization that oversees the recruitment, education and training of psykers from all over the Imperium's worlds. The Thaumaturge- one of the titles most commonly used for the being known as Kathicia Jorenn, has origins shrouded in mystery that are equal to that of Malcador the Sigilite. As mysterious as her are the order of transhuman warriors directly under her command- the Crimson Arbiters.

When the initial fleets of the Great Crusade left the Sol System, Kathicia Jorenn was at the forefront of them, leading the Fifteenth Legion. It was said that they plunged into the worlds where the taint of Old Night was strongest, the Alpha-Plus psyker taking to the battlefield in person alongside Astartes to decimate foes against which conventional forces had no hope against triumphing; techno-arcanists who commanded hordes of self-repairing battle automata, gene-golems that towered even above that of Titans, and much worse. Such were the battles fought in those years that some of them still remain at the forefront of the Legion's rolls of honor. It is said that the first inklings of the Crimson Arbiters began there, in the form of a cadre of female psykers selected from worlds that the Fifteenth Legion commanded.

As the Primarchs were found one by one, eventually so was Magnus the Red found, and the Thaumaturge formally gave command of the Thousand Sons to the Primarch in a grand ceremony on Prospero, the event of such psychic spectacle that all who attended it had it seared into their very memory. Of note is that when Jorenn left, she took two things with her; the cohort of all-female psykers, and a small amount of equipment from the Apothecarion of the XVth Legion, among which was the technology to create new members of the Legiones Astartes.

The Thaumaturge then took up the mantle of overseeing the then-burgeoning Astra Telepathica, as it became apparent that an organization was needed to manage the vast influx of psykers from the great amount of worlds that the Imperium conquered every year- and she knew very well the damage uncontrolled psychics would do, having lived through the entirety of Old Night. And yet as she busied herself with the duties of such a burden, already she was planning the next stage of her transhuman army, bringing numerous members of the Mechanicum, Selenite genesmiths and technical staff into her fold.

The first time they would deploy as a full fighting force was at the battle of Gyros-Thravian, where a thousand-strong Crimson Arbiter telekine formation proceeded to slaughter their way through countless Orks and ripped apart the skull of Gharkful Blackfang with nothing but raw telekinetic power. Their next sightings were in the Rangdan Xenocides, acting as the vanguard against Rangdan war-beasts, and from classified archives they were present at the climax of the Xenocides when the Emperor and Jorenn together descended upon Rangda Prime to make war.