Continuing on our aftermath of the Pilgrym game, it’s Fulgrim with a stellar introduction of his destructive forces:

01001001 00101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01010011 01100001 01100111 01100101 00101100 00100000 01110011 01101111 01110101 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100001 01101010 01100101 01110011 01110100 01111001 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01001000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100001 01110101 01110100 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110100 01100101 01110010 01110010 01101001 01100110 01111001 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101110 01100110 01101111 01110101 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110011 01110000 01101001 01110010 01101001 01110100 01110011 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01100100 01100101 01110011 01110100 01110010 01101111 01111001 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100111 01100101 01101100 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100001 01110011 01110100 01100001 01110010 01100100 00100000 01110011 01110000 01101001 01110010 01101001 01110100 01110011 00101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100100 01100001 01100101 01101101 01101111 01101110 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101111 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110011 01110100 01110010 01101001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01110011 01110101 01100100 01100100 01100101 01101110 01101100 01111001 00101100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01101100 01100101 01100001 01100100 00100000 01100001 01110011 01110100 01110010 01100001 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110011 01110000 01101001 01110010 01101001 01110100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110101 01101110 01100100 01100101 01110010 01110011 01110100 01100001 01101110 01100100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01101101 01100001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01100100 01100101 01110011 01101111 01101100 01100001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01101001 01110010 00100000 01101000 01100101 01100001 01110010 01110100 00101110

Song for the Sage, Canticle of the Lilith Cult. 

Ostensibly, the Priesthood of Mars is an entirely fraternal organisation, with most adepts eschewing all outward representations of their former sex and gender as rapidly as they shed all other bodily failings. There is a notable exception to this display, however, with one particular cult maintaining a deeply symbolic appearance of femaleness: the Iron Sisterhood – the Lilith Cult.

A sect as old as Mars itself, legends appear in all known cogitation libraries in varying scraps and guises across the planet. At the end of the 41st millennium, the cult occupies a key strategic role in the Imperium in its rule over the massive conglomeration of dry-docks and starship manufacturing facilities known as the Ring of Iron, and in its role as tithe-masters of the Imperium’s infant farms.

The earliest known record of the cult’s titular Queen cite her as being a Martian native, who, in seeking peace with the first Terran invaders, span gold and copper from her enchanted hair as gifts of placation; a ritual mimicked by all subsequent Arch Magii who undergo a baptismal sealing of their hair and face in molten gold upon reaching their ascension to rule.

Much of the cult’s history lies deeply obscured within a carefully protected web of myth and fable: labyrinthine even by Martian standards. A period of history that is widely acknowledged (largely through the propaganda of the cult’s adherents), however, is their rise to power in the tragic events now known as the Isaiahan Schism.

Following the dissolution of the Martian Parliament, the first Fabricator-General Talmun-Isaiah, exiled the leaders of the Lilith Cult to the Noctis Labyrinthus, under charges of blasphemy, forever disallowing the ‘unclean’ from tending to machinery. With the establishment of the Emperor of Mankind as physical embodiment of the Machine God, Talmun-Isaiah declared the Zoharian tenants of the Shekinah – the female aspect of the Omnissiah – as heretical, and exiled the Iron Sisterhood, who refused to denounce their core values.

Fleeing to the deserts of Phoenicis Lacus, the inner core of the cult were given refuge in the maze-like system of deep, steep-walled valleys and grabens of the Noctis Labyrinthus by the savage Edomite tribes.

The cult lay largely forgotten in the Labyrinth until the rise of Kelbor-Hal in the period leading up to the Martian civil war. Over a hundred and thirty year period immediately preceding the Horus Heresy, Kelbor-Hal began to build a vast tower in the Phoenicis Lacus desert: concerned that the site was a being used as a locus of forbidden experimentation following a series of night terrors, the Edomites and the Lilith Cult began harrying the tower’s construction (and the dark experiments therein) in a protracted series of guerrilla raids. Seeking vengeance on the infidel Edomites and the Iron Sisterhood, Hal launched a full onslaught on the Noctis Labyrinthus, sending no less than a full War Maniple of the Legio Magna to level the area.

Devastation befell the area, the majority of the Edomite skirmish forces quickly reduced to molten slag at the hands of the Legio. Fearing all was lost, the then Arch-Magos Lilith began reciting the Tetragrammaton – a Canticle considered so holy by Martians that it is an unspeakable anathema to all men. The devastating enunciation staggered the God-Machines, acting as a binharic scrap-code, and rendering the forces insensate. Seizing their opportunity, daemons enslaved within the Legio Titans tore themselves from their captivity, turning on their masters and slaying them in their droves. Singing out the Song for the Sage into the noosphere, the Lilth Cult exorcised the daemons from their machinic hosts, driving them back into the Immaterium.

Upon his subsequent ascension to the rank of Fabricator-General following the Martian schism, Zagreus-Kane pardoned the Cult, redacting the Isaihan Edict and appointed the then Arch-Magos Lilith as Forge-Queen of the Ring of Iron. In order to ensure that no subsequent Fabricator-General can disallow women from joining the ranks of the Martian Priesthood again, Zagreus-Kane ordered that the likeness of the Arch-Magos be carved into the Lybia Montes forge temples: the feminine visage forever watchful into the depths of space.

Now the Cult are on a war-footing again. Word has reached the Iron Ring Temples that the most grotesque apostacy has occurred on Terra itself: Priests of the Ordo Biologus have committed abominable acts at the very foot of the Omnissiah’s Gate. Readying her most devoted agents and sacred guards, the current Arch-Magos Lilith, The Dragon’s Consort, is to leave Martian space for the first time in three hundred years to bring the full motive force against the heretek and the cursed.