Within the Ministorium there are many orders and disciples who value human life, believing it to be sacred to the immortal emperor of mankind. One such organization, the starfaring missionary cult known as the Tree of Man, preaches peace and an end to war. Those who die quietly in bed after helping a community avoiding conflicts that involve human deaths are escorted to the emperor’s Hall of Deliberation by beautiful beings on pegasusi.
The order’s militancy is reserved for xenos, with every member taking a holy vow to cleanse the galaxy of all foul xenos, using the emporer’s holy flame (and any other weapon that falls to hand). As can be imagined, this is a difficult goal and many holy men go to extremes to ensure their place in that heaven.
For example:
They go vegetarian and walk everywhere to avoid hurting animals.
Are exceedingly polite to avoid raising someone's ire.
Shout "Forgive!" as they strike another human in combat.
Develop Machiavellian strategies to keep communities politically and financially motivated to find a peaceful solution to their problems.
On Devos IV, Monk Sven Jharden had no other choice but to face Shatter Fang, chieftain of the Oolong, a large tribe of pastoralists, in a champions duel. The Oolong were a large Grox herding concern and had assimilated other Grox herding tribes in southern Benq. The predicted outcome was that Shatter Fang would eventually gain a strangle hold on the supply of protein into the planet’s only hive, San Cantor. He had a bad experience therein during his formative years and was known to have sworn a personal oath to bring the place down.
Monk Jharden, on the planet to defend the population from the indigenous Eldar population on Devos XII, found that the far greater threat to human life was the threatened conflict between the Grox herding majority of the population and the smaller but more organized and technologically advanced urbanites. So he set off, following local customs, to fight his way through the ranks of the Oolong until he faced Shatter Fang.
The monk had already spared many lives by forcing the chieftain into an honorable duel, but to seal the deal, he needed to win the combat. Knowing that he needed every skill he could muster, he doubted that he could hold back. He feared for his immortal soul for the amount of pain and perhaps death he might inflict. The night before, Jharden prayed to the emperor and petitioned the ancestor spirits in the Hall of Deliberation for a weapon that could subdue such a ferocious opponent.
Filled with faith, he went on towards victory on the dueling field and forged a lasting peace between two disparate cultures.
The Ministorium delegation accompanying 73rd Army Group has largely been drawn from the ‘Tree of Man’. The delegation is led by Bishop Popper. He has fourteen Brothers under holy orders and fifty two lay preachers with him. The fourteen Brothers are a mixture of administrators and combat teachers, allowing the Bishop to concentrate on helping the Generals to appreciate the Ministorium’s (and therefore the Emperor’s) policies on Devos IV. And to ensure that the lay preachers are ready to accompany the 73rd Army Group’s units into battle.
The Oolong were effectively cleansed as a tribe from the Benq population. Oolong has passed into the local dialect as a word for Rough Riders; in modern military parlance, Rough Rider formations within the PDF are referred to as Oolong units.
There is a shrine to St Jharden, but on the continent of Acer, rather than Benq. On Benq, revisionist historians have recently been portraying Jharden as an off world meddler in other people’s affairs. He is said to have slaughtered his way through to Shatter Fang, before butchering the old statesman, who was only trying to get a fair market price for Grox meat for all of the herding peoples of southern Benq.
The Ordo Hereticus has made sure that so far, Bishop Popper remains ignorant of the blasphemous sentiments popular on Benq.
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