The Bloody Rose's penitent bodies are made to be lost, and so the Order draws more Faith from the pool than any other — every Repentia and Arco taken Seriously Injured or Out of Action feeds it at the rail's fullest, and the overseers keep them charging into the fire so they fall where it counts. That Faith is spent forward. The Order leans its miracles into The Passion, where a charging fighter gains +1 Strength and re-rolls failed melee Hits, and into Spirit of the Martyr, the free relentless advance toward the enemy, with Divine Guidance called on the eviscerator swing. It spends nothing on holding ground; to stand still is anathema to the charge. The Passion keeps no faith of its own — it draws on the same well every Sister prays from and bends all of it toward the melee and the advance. The wound is the victory: the more of the host that falls, the harder the survivors strike.
Signatures3
Acts of Faith are the beating heart of the Sisterhood — a single gang-wide pool of Faith that any faithful fighter may spend to call a miracle. The pool opens each battle with a single point of Faith, the reliquary carried into the field. Thereafter it grows through sacrifice: whenever a friendly fighter goes Seriously Injured or Out of Action, the martyr's fall adds a point; whenever a friendly fighter takes an enemy Out of Action in melee, the righteous kill adds another. No more than two points may be gathered this way in a single round, the pool never holds more than six, and each fighter may benefit from at most one Act in a round. A gang that neither bleeds nor kills calls no miracles.
Faith is spent on discrete miracles. For one point, a faithful fighter makes a free relentless advance toward the nearest enemy (Spirit of the Martyr), gains +1 Strength and re-rolls failed Hits in melee until the end of the round (The Passion), re-rolls one failed Hit or Wound (Divine Guidance), or lets herself and friendlies within 3" auto-pass their next Nerve or Cool test (Light of the Emperor). For two points, the Emperor's Aegis hardens the Shield of Faith to a 4+ invulnerable against one attack or ignores a wound outright, and the Hand of the Emperor stands a fighter up from Pinned or Prone to act freely, or grants a free 6" redeploy. Endure the wound, then answer with the Emperor's own grace.
The Emperor's Grace is the litany a Canoness or Sister Superior raises once per battle, when faith becomes manifest around her. Until the next round, friendly fighters within 6" may re-roll a failed Act of Faith and re-roll a failed Nerve test, the Champion's presence steadying the line and drawing the miracle out where it faltered. This is the saint's grace projected through her officers — not the Faith pool itself, but a surety that the faithful gathered near her will not be forsaken at the decisive moment. Where the Emperor's Grace shines, no Sister breaks and no miracle is wasted.