Living Saint

The Living Saint Celestine purging some heretics.

"I am proof... OF THE EMPEROR'S MIGHT!"

– Saint Anais

Living Saints are Imperial Daemon Princes *BLAM!.... ehem ... as I was saying... Living Saints are, as the name implies, saints who are canonized before death. Often, this is due to the ability to perform fantastic miracles seemingly at will, such as resurrecting the dead, rapidly healing from even the most grievous wounds, or making daemons spontaneously combust with a glance. They're basically zombie-Buddhist angels with absolutely fabulous hair. Living Saints are almost always members of the Adepta Sororitas and thus mostly female, however Living Saints have also arisen from the ranks of the Imperial Guard.

Overview

Living Saints themselves are exceptionally rare even in the Ecclesiarchy, let alone the wider Imperium as the deeds needed to make a Living Saint are almost next to impossible to accomplish. In order to even have a chance at becoming one, the particular individual must be innocent, pure, incorruptible, forgiving when needed, vigilant when needed, merciful to the weak, merciless to the guilty, kind, compassionate, charitable, selfless, modest, heroic, brave and reasonable. And this is just the personal qualities, not to mention the external qualities especially when considering the judgement of both the Ecclesiarchy and the Inquisition. Essentially, Living Saints are the purest, pure, pure, 100% purity approved human in its purest form which is an impressive feat on its own, making Living Saints by definition more pure than the Emperor himself...at least in the personality and maternity department.

This said, they aren't all nice - Saint Lozepath was dangerously self-aware of his own divinity status and was not afraid to abuse it, to the extent of promising to execute a Space Marine chapter master for questioning his orders or engaging on incredibly risky courses of action on the premise they would be kept safe.

The arrival of a Living Saint is often rare as they only appear during times of extreme hopelessness and despair, but when they do appear they can turn the most cowardly of Guardsmen into a Khornate Supermen that could take on an entire tank division. On the battlefield, Living Saints are manifestations of the Emperor's might, using the powers at their disposal to ruthlessly purge the enemies of man. In a galaxy of Grimdark Living Saints are the brightest beacon for hope and a testament to humanity's resolve.

Powers and Abilities

Living Saints are among the mightiest beings in the Imperium, said to be blessed by a portion of the God-Emperor's power. They are often able to decimate foes with blasts of holy fire and are seemingly impervious to all but the most potent attacks. They often carry a large holy weapon blessed with scripture and possibly anti-daemonic wards. In addition to this, they seem to be completely immune to the taint of the warp, making them a living nightmare for Chaos and its minions.

Many Living Saints can also conjure angelic wings, allowing them to bring righteous death from the air. Death itself is not permanent for a Living Saint as they can be resurrected should the Imperium need their help again, although the process is extremely taxing and can be stopped, as happened with Saint Gerstahl. This ability is explored in more depth in Fall of Cadia, and as is the case with everything in Warhammer 40k, it's far more grimdark than one might expect.

Dawn of War

Living Saints feature in the Soulstorm expansion pack of Dawn of War. While they were arguably one of the weakest relic units, they have been often seen as a really annoying unit thanks to their resurrection abilities. Due to the fact that Living Saints have relatively low health in contrast to other relic units as well as low damage per hit, they often lose against the likes of Greater Knarlocs and Bloodthirsters which are units that are supposed to be easily defeatable by Living Saints in the fluff. So it was often best to use Living Saints as a support unit as its resurrection ability and high morale in the faith-o-meter makes it great when grouped with a large Sisters army.

On the Tabletop

Unfortunately, GW has yet to grace us with official rules for living saints other than Celestine, and given the rather limited state of the beta Sororitas Codex, that doesn't look likely to change anytime soon. That being said, if you're down with homebrew rules, Codex - Adeptus Ministorum /tg/ Edition has rules for customizable Living Saints to lead Your Chicks into battle.

Notable Living Saints

• Saint Anais, also known as the Scourge of Heretics. She's the living saint from Soulstorm. There's not much to say about her except that she looks and acts almost exactly like Celestine, begging the question of why they didn't just use her instead of making their own character. During the Battle Sister's stronghold defense, she was able to teleport from shrine to shrine while acting like a DISTRACTION CARNIFEX against the invaders. Regardless, she was apparently killed as the Sister's stronghold was overrun.
• Saint Celestine, the most famous living saint in the Imperium as of M41 and postergirl for living saints everywhere.
• Saint Gerstahl, legendary soldier of the Imperial Guard
• Saint Grendel, noted Daemon slayer of the Ordo Malleus
• Saint Sabbat, founder of the Sabbat Worlds

Gallery

This page is needs images. Help plz.

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  Hair so fabulous it makes even the Eldar blush.

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  Saint Katherine of the Order of Our Martyred Lady