Mortifiers

The Mortifiers are walking engines of atonement, each one a coffin-shaped war-machine bearing a single Sister of Battle who has been judged guilty of some grave failing. Bound permanently into the machine's frame, her flesh fused to its workings, the penitent knows that only death in the Emperor's service can cleanse her stain, and so she seeks it with terrible fervour. Great flails and buzzing blades sprout from the Mortifier's arms, and heavy weapons are slaved to its shoulders, all directed by a mind consumed with the need to expiate sin through slaughter. Where lesser penitents rage without direction, the Mortifiers are tended by the Adepta Sororitas and marched to war in shrieking ranks, their pilots' anguished prayers rising above the din. They feel no pain, know no retreat, and welcome the wounds that bring them closer to absolution. To their enemies they are a nightmare of grinding metal and screaming faith; to the Sisterhood, a solemn reminder that even the devout may fall, and that redemption is bought only in blood.