Jenetia Krole

Jenetia Krole, known in popular myth as the "Soulless Queen" or "The Witch-Bane," was the mistress of the Raptor Guard and one of the Emperor's personal battle confidantes. She was the Knight-Commander (or Vigil Commander) of the Sisters of Silence and Chief Investigatus-Militant of the Divisio Astra Telepathica during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy eras of the late 30th and early 31st Millennia.

History

One of the most mysterious and indeed feared warlords of the Imperium during the bygone eras of the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy was Jenetia Krole, or as the Remembrancers were wont to name her -- "The Soulless Queen" -- was the indomitable Knight-Commander of the Silent Sisterhood. The foremost battle leader of her Order, Jenetia Krole stalked the shadows of the Great Crusade at the behest of her master, the Emperor.

She commanded whole armies of the Sisters of Silence on those few and dread occasions when such were required to take to the field, sought out and slew psykers turned would-be gods, and cut the lives short of those who aimed either to subvert or deny the Great Tithe, and brought down bloody retribution on any who slew those of her Sisterhood.

Assassin, general, avenger and soul-chilling terror, Jenetia Krole was a creature of dark legend long before she was committed as part of the honour guard tasked with the retrieval of the Thousand Sons Primarch Magnus the Red. During the Fall of Prospero, upon the battlefield of the planetary capital of Tizca, Krole was personally responsible for the division of her ranks into protectorate detachments for the remainder of the Censure Host, a decision which allowed them to ensure the near-destruction of the Thousand Sons Legion though it required the sacrifice of thousands of her troops.

She herself sought out and slew many of the Thousand Sons' most vaunted sorcerers in hand-to-hand combat. By the time of the battle's ending, she appeared a spectral figure of some ancient myth, bedecked in the white dust of shattered marble and the spilled blood of multitudes.

The Knight-Commander would later return to Terra to lead her Order against the Forces of Chaos during the War Within the Webway within the Imperial extension of the Webway, whose entrance was located deep down in the dungeons of the Imperial Palace. The Emperor's efforts to free humanity from its dependence on the Immaterium for long-distance travel and communication were thwarted as a direct result of the interference of the Primarch Magnus the Red's sorcerous warning.

Magnus' psychic presence had penetrated the multiple psychic shields the Emperor had erected around the Imperial Palace in order to warn Him of the Warmaster Horus' perfidy in the days just before the Horus Heresy began. Magnus' psychic sending disrupted the crucial defences erected around the Terran spur of the Webway, causing great rifts to appear within. It was through these rifts that the creatures of the Warp were able to gain egress into the Terran Webway tunnels and threaten to infiltrate the Imperial Palace itself.

Krole took joint command of the Imperial Forces stationed in Calastar -- also known as the "Impossible City" -- an ancient and derelict Aeldari city within the Webway that served as a principal hub of the Imperial Webway and bordered the man-made tunnels of the Imperial Webway Project. She fought alongside the Legio Custodes Tribunes Jasaric, Kadai Vilaccan and Ra Endymion. During the intense fighting against hordes of daemons and Heretic Astartes, Krole survived the retreat from Calastar to the Imperial Palace, losing three fingers on her left hand during the battle.

Raptor Guard

Jenetia Krole was often accompanied into battle by her Raptor Guard cadre; the elite warriors of the Silent Sisterhood.

When not in battle, the Knight-Commander was also accompanied by a Proloquor, Melpomanei, who spoke on her mistress's behalf. Necessity demanded that Melpomanei remain a constant presence at her side. Something in Krole's appearance slid greasily from the senses of other people, refusing to remain in the mind.

Even the mighty Custodians of the Legio Custodes who had fought alongside the Silent Sisters for solar decades and understood their silent language of hand gestures and signs known as "Thoughtmark," could be looking directly at her, watching her hands move in patterns they knew as well as any spoken language, yet sense and meaning would came only in fragments, as though they were hearing the barest scraps of any conversation. This was due to Krole's powerful presence as a psychic Null.

Personality

Jenetia Krole has an acute sense of the fine balance of a conflict -- when to strike and when to stay her hand. Her strategic acumen was the match of any Strategos of the Divisio Militaris of the ancient Imperium. Proof of this came during the bloody war to liberate Mournful Gate from the clutches of Aeldari slavers after the Great Crusade Expeditionary commanders to which her cadre had been attached were assassinated as she was hunting down Aeldari psykers.

She herself assumed command of the terrified militia army and executed the panicked general staff and subordinate officers who remained, and thereafter succeeded in turning a disaster in the making of a triumph. The victory at Mournful Gate earned her the right to bear the Laurels Invictaris of a lauded general of the Imperium, the only one of her Order to do so.

Appearance

Tall and lithe, Jenetia Krole cut a striking figure. Her mouth remained hidden behind a great silver mouthpiece, surgically bound to her jaw and cheekbones. She was completely bald, with the exception of a large, red-dyed crest of hair on top of her head.

Ritualistically, the Sisters of Silence never cut their hair from the moment they take the Oath of Tranquility. Krole's mane, even bound at the roots into a topknot, was long enough to reach the base of her spine.

Wargear

• Artificer Armour
• Enhanced Voidsheen Cloak - The voidsheen cloaks worn by Oblivion Knights are made from micro-vitrious mesh designed to diffract and absorb energy, and are particularly effective against diffuse attacks. Those worn by the commanders of the Silent Sisterhood are further reinforced by refractor generators as a mark of their rank and office.
• Veracity, the Sword of Oblivion - Fashioned in the manner of a highly ornate two-handed Execution Blade of her Order, the Veracity is in fact the pattern from which all others of its kind were said to have been made, and stands as the symbol of the Knight-Commander of the Silent Sisters. This mighty weapon was once wielded by the Emperor Himself, before He made a gift of it to the Knight-Commander. The sword's true mystery lies in the substance of the blade itself, for it can cut almost anything without evidence of any kind of power field or disruption generator, its origins an enigma to all save perhaps the Emperor.
• Archaeotech Pistol
• Frag Grenades
• Krak Grenades

Sources

• Horus Heresy: Collected Visions (Art Book), pp. 85, 149-150, 152, 350-351, 411
• Prospero Burns (Novel) by Dan Abnett, Ch. 14
• The Master of Mankind (Novel) by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Chs. 2, 24
• The Horus Heresy Book Seven: Inferno (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pp. 69, 129, 258-259
• Forge World Online Store - Jenetia Krole, Knight-Commander of the Silent Sisterhood
• Warhammer Community Forge World Open Day