Temple Tendency

"You have betrayed your god. You have defiled His temples with the unworthy and sold His divinity to beggar..."

— Parchment writ nailed to the door of Confessor Ishmael Xandus(found murdered on Sentinel 712.M41)

The Temple Tendency is the vengeful remains of a Cult of the Emperor's divinity that once held sway over the entire Imperium. The Temple Tendency does not have truck with aliens or worship infernal powers; it is composed of the faithful devoted of the Emperor, who claim to follow the heritage of those who first declared the Emperor as a god. Once their faith was the faith of all the Imperium. Their armues and ships were as numerois as the stars, their power all but unrivalled, and below the Golden Throne none was mightier. This might was long ago lost in the cataclysm known to Imperial history as the Age of Apostasy, and they have been reduced to perpetuating their faith in the shadows, nursing their hate and contemplating their vengance.

Millenia of subterfige have made the Temple Tendency a deadly and thirsting shadow of the holy organisation it once was. Its poisonous presence slipped into the foundling Calixis Sector during the days of its birth, where the Tendency has festered and grown slowly down the centuries. The Calixian Temple Tendency is stronger now than it has ever been, and a threat to which even the Inquisition is blind, lurking unseen like a serpent poised to sink its fangs into the Sector's heart.

The Temple Tendency is so called of the lingering elements of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor that exist in parts of the Imperium and within the Ecclesiarchy. The tone of rituals, dress, even the layout of chaples can bear a style or flourish that marks them as being linked to the ways of the pre-reformation era of the Ecclesiarchy, these distinctive features can be marked enough to elicit a feeling of "tending towards the temple" or having a "temple tendency".

Over time, this phrase has become a euphemism within the Ministorum for marked greed or the desire for wordly power within its own rank. In the millenia since the reformation, heretics following the old ways have been unearthed. They have been similary labelled as being of a "temple tendency" rather than admitting what they truly werem and so the label has been perpetuated. To these sects, they are of course not the "Temple Tendency" at all, but the members of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor, champions of the old and "true faith. To them it is the Ministorum's faith that is false and corrupt, a morally bankrupt upstart that has doomed mankind to a slow death.

History
The story of the Temple Tendency is the story of faith in the God-Emperor and its forging by the most bloody times of an age when war was rife across the stars. Its root are in the birth of the Imperium itself, and its downfall is the consequence of its own domination of humanity. To undersatnd the Temple Tendency is to walk through a story of the apotheosis and apostasy and see mankind in both its glory and in its ruin.

The Imperium of Mankind is an empire of faith -- it guides its actions, gives solace to the masses and is its shield  against the dark. It was not always so. Once, the Emperor was not seen as a god but as the perpetuator of an enlightening truth that would heal and unite humanity, and free it from the tyranny of demagogues and the worship of false idols. Then came the mythic times of the Horus Heresy. The Emperor's favoured son ripped apart his father's dream and the price of the Emperor's victory was eternity in the Golden Throne. In the wake of this disaster, the Imperium was shaken to it its core, and a belief that had been growing in secret became reality as people searched for comfort and purpose -- that the Emperor was not a man, but a god. Cults emerged on thousands of worlds, each declaring and embracing the Emperor as divine. Over time, sects merged, warred, and prospered until, amongst the powerful, one emerged to tower over all others. This sect was the Temple of the Savior Emperor, and over time it became known as Adeptus Ministorum.

Over the following millenia, the power of Ministorum, grew, its leader earned a seat with the High Lords of Terra, and its influence extended to every facet of the Imperium. Only the Adeptus Astartes and Adeptus Mechanicus were immune to the demands of the Ministorum, and then only becuase none dared to enforce their submission. Soon the Ministorum was the most powerful organ of the Imperium, commanding feelts of ships and legions of crack troops -- who were are used to wage wars of faith and bloody crusade at the command of the priests. At the height of its power, the word of the Ecclesiarch could make or unmake laws, decree wars, and refashion the Imperium at a whim.

Age of Apostasy
As the Ministorum bloated with secular power, its need for wealth to sustain its holdings became an insatiable hunger. Huge tithes levied with the authority of the Ecclesiarch pushed worlds into open rebellion. The Frateris Templars punished such defiance without mercy, with governors and officials burnt as heretics for defying the Emperor's will. Entire populations were decimated to drive home he lesson that those who did not bow to the Ecclesiarchy would find death their only reward. The lesson was not heard.

As rebellion spread acroos the Imperium and the wrath of the Ecclesiarchy grew, storms blew up out of the depths of the warp and the burning Imperium was blinded. Thousands of systems were completely isolated, travel between all but the most local systems became impossible, and the psychic messages of astropaths became desperate shrieks at the rising maelstorm. Anarchy boiled up across the Imperium, Rogue zealots led thousands in turning their worlds into funeral pyres where cults and sects spawned and struggled in a cloud of blood, dragging mankind down into dark nightmares of extermination perfumed with the smell of burnt flesh. The few pitiful worlds still open to warp travel became the focus of the Ecclesiarchy attempt to assert its authority on a dream that had gone astray. Millions lay dead at the hands of the Frateris Templars.

The storm had broken. but the initial anarchy of bloodletting was only the harbringer of worse to come. As the Ecclesiarchy rose to its position of near supreme power, it was in constant struggle with the Adeptus Administratum -- The balance of power shifted several times between the two great organs of the Imperium but neither achived decisive control over the other. Howeverm as the Imperium began to pull itself apart, one man would break the deadlock. That man's name lives on infamy down even to the current age. He became master of both the Ministirun abd Administratum, a tyrant whose rule would be called the Reign of Blood in an age already mired in conflict. The name of the man who came close as Horus to destroying the Imperium was Goge Vandire. His dark reign was a time of absolute authority executed without restraint or sanity, where worlds were virus-bombed at whim and vast armies mustered to destroy Imperial subjects for suspected or imagined sedition.

At the last, it took the forecs of the Mechanicus, Astartes, and the rise of one of the greatest saints ever known to bring down Vandire. The man who broke Vandire's power and later became Ecclesiarch, reformer of law, and after death was declared foremost among Imperial saints was Sebastian Thor.

Thor was the leader of The Confederation of Light, a faith cult declared heretical by the Temple of the Saviour Emperor. He was imbued with the great charisma and vision but was also supremely humble and, if the current creed is to belived, performed miracles by the God-Emperor's grace. High Lord Goge Vandire was to die under the sword of his once most loyal servants and thereby be immortalised in infamy. Usurper and corrupt though he may have been, Goge Vandire was the last Ecclesiarch of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor. With his end also came the end of the Temple's dominace of faith in the Imperium.

Sebastian Thor's Reformation
Six thousand years of religious rule by the Temple of the Saviour Emperor came to an end with the fall of Goge Vandire and the Reformation that took place in the wake of Sebastian Thor's ascension to Ecclesiarch. Many things changed within the Imperium as a whole, but most importantly to the Adeptus Ministorum, Thor brought with him the penitent teachings of the Confederation of Light. In an ironic reversal of positions, the followers of the teachings of the Temple of the Savour Emperor found themselves heretics.

Though the old ways of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor were not completely supplanted, the excesses of power and wealth, untempered by sacrifice and humbleness, were the subject of the most brutal change. So it was that the Reformation brought the end of the military might of the Ministorum fleets and the Fateris Templar. The political and spiritual power of the Ecclesiarchy was split between Ophelia VII and Terra, and the power of the individual Cardinals was diminished. The message was clear -- The old ways were gone and the power of the Ecclesiarchy was now a part of the Imperium rather than its sole regent.

The Ecclesiarchy had was been born anew, and it was not bloodless birth. The tales the Calixian Temple Tendency tell to themselves claim that key pillars of the old order slipped away to be lost in the vastness of the Imperium, or had their lives ended in its darker corners. The reformers  were rutthless and subtle; howeverm they could not excise all those who had been part of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor. So it was that an enemy was cowed and humiliated but ultimately allowed to survive and nurse its malice. A few of the followers of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor who survived the Reformation kept their "faith" alive as an outlawed sect, They endured mostly in places where the Temple of the Saviour Emperor had previously held great sway. Today, this sect is known as the Temple Tendency.

Tenets, Goals & Heretical Beliefs
At the core of the Temple Tendency lies the absolute belief by its member that they are true and pure worshipers of the God-Emperor of Mankind. Furthermore, they are convinced the Ecclesiarchy is a heresy of the highest order that has usurped the faithful and damned the souls of countless billions by perpetuating a faith that is a tainted lei. This belief warped and poisoned by millenia, informs all they do in what they regard as the battle for the Emperor's soul.

To the the Tendency, the Ecclesiarchy is a heresy and all who are part of it should be put to the flame. All those that acknowledge the authority of the heretic usurpers are also heretics and so have cast themselves to the darkness. Thus does the Tendency believe that only by the return of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor to tis rightful place can the ignorantly damned billions gain repentance, and only the purging of the heretical Ecclesiarchy can save humanity.

Guided by these convictions, the Temple Tendency's activities work to further three goals for the salvation of all:

The Preservation of the True
Those who maintain the ways of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor are few in number, and preserving the faith of those few comes before the Tendency are often linked by blood or fealty to a noble lineage that has passed alleigiance to the Tendency down the generations. The sect is actuely aware that, if discovered, a single member of their faith can quickly lead to the discovery of the others by the way of family association or background. To counter this inherent weakness in their structure, the Tendency has evolved through and rigorous methods of protection, concealment, and misdirection that acn baffle all but the most sophisticated and subtle of enemies.

Given the Tendency's small size, any depletion in its ranks weakens its ability to work towards its other goals, and so the Tendency will go to the most extreme and extraordinary lengths to preserve its security and anonymity. Assasination, misdirection, planting false evidnce, rebuilding identities, and even provoking atrocities and open warfare to distract those who might discover the Tendency are all tactics employed by it.

The Return of Might and Majesty
The Temple Tendency's central aim is to return the control of the political and military might to the hands of the pure and the true. Such a grand goal could only be truly achieved by the overthrowing of the Imperium as it currently exists. Therefore rheTendency workds towards gathering military and polotocal power to its service through the placement of its members and manipulation of the organs of Imperial power through infiltration, blackmail, and bribery. It slowly erodes, where it can, the influence of the Ministorum and the cohesion of the Adepta.

The Return of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor
Ultimately, all of the Temple Tendency's energies are channelled to one end -- the overthrow of the heretics who have suborned the Ecclesiarchy and led the Imperium astray. The protection of those who still keep the pure and true worship of the Emperor alive, the gathering of military power, and the subversion of other organisations of power are all but steps to this final goal. The Tendency knows it will have to win victories in small pieces -- a soul, a city, a planet, a sector at a time, and that millenia of failure and blooshed lie ahead. This knowledge has done nothing to blunt the potency of the Temple Tendency's dedication to this ultimate end.

The Temple Tendency in the Calixis Sector
The Temple Tendency came with the crusade that carved the Sector from the godless and infested margins of the Halo Stars. in all likehood they were refugees from some other purge. Today, who these "pilgrims" were remains largely unknown even to the Tendency's masters. Perhaps they were senior officers in Angevin's forces or part of the Eccesiarchy's army of missionaries that moved in the wake of the conquering Imperial soldiers. no matter who they were, they came to newborn Calixis and brought their heretical faith with them, infecting their successors with paranoid secrecy and fear of discovery.

Since that time, the Tendency has made great efforts to solidify its position with near infinite patience. Its two main goals have been supporting and protecting High-born families of the faithful and building its shadow preisthood to hold them together with far distant dream of using Calixis to further its true goals of a restoration of the faith. Over the centuries, the Tendency jas weathered the storms of history, surviving plagues, wars, reversals of fortune, and unforseen disasters and gaining ground and influence with measured precision and intent, until today its position in the shadowed hierarchies of the Calixis Sector is stronger than it has ever been.

The old ways of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor and the priesthood which exists to keep them alive live in the shadow of the Ecclesiarchy. The priests minister to an exclusive number of highly -- placed families and hide almost in plain sight among the masses of the faithful. Although the Temple Tendency is strong and highly placed, it is geared more to survival and secrecy than open rebellion. It might be argued that it is troubled both by complacency in its current state and the fear of showing itself openly. It has also lost contact with any branch of the sect outside of the Sector -- a fact that the hidden Pontifices who command the sect have long concealed from their followers.

Lineags of the True and Pure
The Tendency has chiefly survived through the efforts of its hidden priesthood and the powerful noble families that secretly cling to its creed. The majority of the Tendency's scattered congregation is made up of families who have passed their hidden faith down by word of mouth and who have strict code of silence. Most families are well-established and thought of as being either part of the local elite or, in a few case, powerful and infuential clans with sector -- wide influence. In secret, these families maintain their worship and have formed a symbiotic relationship with the sect's preisthood, providing the Temple Tendency with resources and influence, while benefiting from its secret network and alliance. These families seldom know each other, being tied together instead only through the Shade Priests who come and go to minister to them in secret.

The Hidden Pontifices
The Pontifices are the ruling elite of the Tendency. In them the ancient authority of the first men to proclaim the Emperor as a God is preserved. While the noble families are the bedrock of the Tendency and the Shade Priests the web that holds it together, the Pontifices are its guiding hand, There are no more than a handful in the Calixis Sector, each watching over a sub-sector and answering only to the High-Priest of the True.

Each Pontifex also leads a double life, usually having a position of some importance within the organisations of the Imperium from where he can exert influence or be privy to useful information. Some may be members of the Administratum or planetary goverment, while others are members of the Ecclesiarchy itself, working to undo the very organisation that they are part of.

Current Conspiracies and Plots
At any one time in the Calixis Sector, members of the Temple Tendency may be pursuing a number of schemes for the furtherment of their outlawed faith: the corruption of an individual mission to spread the Ministorum Creed, the assassination of a perceived threat, or the obtaining of illegal arms and equipment. Its most abiding concerns however, are maintaining the faith and the shield of secrecy that hides it. The temple Tendency is also hampered somewhat in that it must always operate under a paradox that further complicates matters -- while it hates and despises the Imperium as it is currently manifested, it cannot afford to see it fall to outside forces, for that too would be a betrayal of the Emperor. The Tendency is as firm in its gatred of the witch, the alien, and the tainted as the most hardline Puritan and its faithful act accordingly.

Currently, the Holy Ordos are ignorant of the Temple Tendency's entrenched presence in the Calixis Sector. This is a state that has been maintained by the sect at the cost of the lives of several Inquisitorial Acolytes and numerous cell members. This ignorance on the part of the Calixian Conclave is in part due to the fact that the Tendency is often found tied to places where the Temple of the Saviour Emperor was once powerful -- an age long passed by the time Calixis was born. This fact has hidden the Temple Tendency, and while the Inquisiton is aware of certain incidents, it does not suspect a single heresy or group to be behind them, much less that the heresy is the Temple Tendency.

The Infaltration of the Red Redemption
The Temple Tendency has recently set its sights on the Red Redemption. Redemptionists are an ultra militant sect of the Imperial Credd that sees humanity as saturated sin and who can only be redeemed by fire and blood. Followers of the Redemptionist creedare militant o a frenzied degree, and groups of different sizes are found across the Calixis Sector, varying from small underhive gangs to the huge army of Seth the Voice on Iocanthos. Redemptionists see heretics all around them, yet are often blind to those that stand amongst them. The Temple Tendency began its infiltration of the Redemption a few years ago, starting by funding the Redemption and then infiltrating members into the Redemption's local leadership. So far it has not managed to penetrate the Redemption enough to exert any real influence over the sect, but should its plans progress unimpeded, it will eventually have gained control over a fanatical army of followers to use as unwitting cannon fodder in a war yet to come.

The Manipulation of the Lucid Court
The Temple Tendency's chief achievement in the Calixis Sector is the extent to which it can influence the Sector's governance. The Temple Tendency has caused the dismissal of officials so that it could subsitute its own pawns and thereby influence the balance of the power in the Sector. To this end, it has taken advantage of aspects of Lord Sector Hax's character to bring about a political situation that favours its schemes, not least of all his innate paranoia and dislike of outside interference to his rule. This goal has been achieved bythe placement of trusted followers of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor within the inner circle of Lord Hax's court, a thing that has taken centuries of positioning and bribery to achieve.

Chief amongst these secret heretics is Lord Verence, who coordinates the manipulation of Hax and his court fellows with the delicate and invisible hand of a master. Other work in ignorance for the sect, believing instead that their perry corruptions fuel noble vendettas or simple greed, not realising their paymasters' true natures. Ultimately thye sect whishes to push Hax into ever more tyrannical actions, turning his suspicion and wroth against rival noble families, competing powers, and troublsome members of the Adepta, all in the furtherance of its own long-term power, and perhaps even provoke a carefully managed sector civil war.

Servants of the Old Faith
Shade Priests - Also known to the Inquisition as the ''Vandiran Apostates. ''The Shade Priests are the bonds by which the Temple Tendency and its enterprises are held together. Each is chosen at a young age from amongest the children of the faithful and the schooled in the creed of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor along with the skills that he will need to keep that faith alive. Each is a controlled, capable fanatic who will do anything to preserve what he sees at the true creed, trained to  slip unnoticed through the Imperium like a ghost in order to do the sect's work -- either by secretly spreading the faith or executing the apostate.

Assassination Cells - The Tendency assassination cells are small groups of seemingly ordinary people who are in fact highly trained covert agents and fanatic adherents to the cult. They operate as semi-autonomous executioners of the enemies of the Temple (both perceived and real) and engage in the Cult's plots.

Chantry Guards - The Guard watch over the hidden Temples of the sect and serve as the secret bodyguards of the Pontifices. Encased in gilded plate and implanted with synthetic muscle grafts, these warrior-fanatics are a distant echo of the now forbidden Frateris Templars that served as the Cult's vast army during Vandire's reign. Most are drawn from the military retainers of faithful noble families. Each Chantry Guard is bound to protect a scared place or gaurd his Pontifex until he dies or is too feeble to fight. Occasionally, a Chantry Guard will be dispatched incongnito to watch over a member of the sect on an important mission or an ally who might prove false.

In addition, the Tendency can call upon almost all Imperial organizations at a low level thanks to the diverse roles its adherents play in the Imperium. The Tendency has a number of priests and allied family members who are reasonably senior members of the Administratum, Ecclesiarchy, and the Imperial nobility. It also has extensive contacts with merchants, smugglers, and the criminal underworld, often through false identities and intermediaries.

Ordo Hereticus Departmento Analyticus Threat Briefing
The Temple Tendency is a known heretical movement, under millenia old standing orders of purgation. Historically its followers have been found in various bodies of the Imperium and have a degree of organisation and coordination behind their actions. The presence of the Temple Tendency in the Calixis Sector is currently considered doubtful by the Ordos Calixis. Several cells of regressive heretical faith have been encountered and purged in the past, but none can be concretely linked to an organised or widerspread sect.