“One of my wealthiest clients once tried to ‘handle’ Brother Bill during a minor exorcism gone sideways. They’re still recovering—with a titanium jaw, a revised theological outlook, and an uncompromising respect for men who punch demons as easily as they quote scripture.”

— Soki Noles

Origins of a Reluctant Warrior-Priest

Brother Bill Hopkins was born into the Neamhan clans of Mars—outer family, but unmistakable. His auburn hair and beard, carmine eyes, and faintly pointed fangs marked his lineage even if he lacked the full predatory Mutations of the core bloodline. Athletic, striking, and simmering with the restless urge to test himself, he fulfilled his mandatory year in the Martian Militia and, with no clear direction afterward, enlisted with the Astro-Landing Force. There he endured nearly a full year of punishing training and even entered the Pinnacle—ALF’s legendary crucible of attrition and agony. Only one in ten make it through the full ordeal. Bill made it further than most before accepting the buy-out: pension intact, honor preserved, and future utterly uncertain. Restless and drifting, he signed on with the Seekers of Wisdom as a security guard, where a spiritual calling quietly took root. He accepted the cloth, became a cloister-priest, and was assigned to a small chapel on Deimos. His life narrowed into gentleness—catechisms for miners, counseling for orphans, and a bottle kept under the cot for long, lonely nights. He believed this was enough.

The Night the Red Light Came

The breach changed everything. When the illegal subspace-engineering project at the Stellaris Mining Consortium facility tore open reality, it began with a soundless explosion: a wave of crimson light and resonance that shredded minds before it shredded flesh. What followed was worse. Researchers, consumed by entities from Redspace, rushed out in packs of six-to-a-body, their limbs jerking with impossible angles. Bill and Claire—then a newly grown ward of the Mercy House—barely survived the first assault, scavenging weapons from fallen SMC security. Barricading themselves inside the Mercy House with terrified children and teachers, Bill invoked every rite, every liturgy, and every catechism he had ever learned. Whether divine intervention or sheer force of will, the breach parted around the Mercy House like a river around stone. Only a few things forced their way in—things packed with malignant intelligence. Bill and Claire fought side by side, steel and scripture against contamination. They won. They survived. And the experience purified Bill’s faith into something incandescent. What had been a quiet devotion became a purpose that burned in his bones.

The Making of a Templar

After Deimos, Bill was expected to retire into contemplation—cloister walls, higher vows, a life of prayer. Claire changed that. Haunted but unbroken, she knew exactly what she wanted: to hunt subspace contamination to the ends of the system. She asked Bill to train her. What started as morning drills and tactical lectures became years of apprenticeship. Bill found in her a mirror of what he had tried to bury—zeal, courage, a craving to strike back. Their first field operation, in the Wolf System, ended with the destruction of a Lechwight cult and the delivery of an actual Wight skull to the Seekers’ clerical desks. The church, forced to acknowledge results, granted them a Templar license. Their legend grew quickly: demon pits destroyed, breaches suppressed, rogue kthonikers outmaneuvered, and the occasional Wight or subspace thrall sent screaming back into nothing. As their reputations grew, so did their bond. They took every vow except chastity—choosing marriage over abstinence—and became the dual heart of the Order of Saint Sarah. Where they walk, contamination burns away. Where they strike, subspace recoils. They are not hypocrites, not opportunists, not self-serving zealots. They are true believers. And that makes them terrifying.