Luna Sisters

The Luna Sisters are an order of warrior priestesses who worship the goddess Lune, the moon.

The order was founded around 290 BH, although none but the Priestesses themselves know exactly when and for what reason.

The order's headquarters are on the Isle of the Moon, while dozens of monastaries are littered across the Indas archipelago.

Every year, during a period known as the Harvest, young orphans or girls who are simply unwanted, from all over the Midlands are brought to the Isle of the Moon. Over the course of a week, the children will be inspected. Any who are sicky or malformed will be rejected. Only the strong are able to truly serve Lune.

All the girls that pass the inspection then begin training. For the next five years, the girls spend their days training to become a Luna Sister. Any girls that fail a task or struggle to keep up are culled. If they make it through this harsh training regime, they are then permitted to enter the next phase of training.

In total, girls must complete 9 years of training to earn the right to become a Luna Sister. If they do complete the training, the girls take on the name 'Moonborn'.

Holy War
For several hundred years, the Sisters enjoyed a period of relative peace, while in the south, the worshipers of the patriachal god Khaal had begun to spread across the continent. The new religion had little tolerance for 'pagan' beliefs and quickly declared Holy War of the 'enemies of Khaal'. Kingdom after kingdom fell before the fanatical fury of the Khaalics, as they were known. With the Helvan citiadel at Utene the only remaining 'free' fortress, the loss of the continent seemed complete. But Utene did not fall. Helvan poured all its resources into keeping their last foreign province.

During the war for Utene, the Khaal Sesteu, or Priests of God in the common tongue, learned of another, more threatening heretical 'cult'. The fact that it was not only an all female cult, but a female cult in which the women are trained in the arts of combat was particularly blasphemous.

The Khaal kingdoms sent forth dozens of ships to eradicate these pagan worshipers from the Indas Archipelago.

But the Luna Sisters were not just some cult to be exterminated. They were sisterhood of warrior priestesses who had perfected the art of combat over the course of hundreds of years. The Khaalics attacked dozens of monastries across the Archipelago. The conflict was not pretty. Any Sisters who were captured were repeatedly raped and sold as slaves. In the face of such brutality the Sisters responded in kind; any Khaalics that were captured were castrated and branded.

The climactic battle of the first phase of a conflict that would rage for over 30 years came when the Khaalics launched an attack on the Sisterhood headquarters, the Temple of Lune on the Isle of the Moon. Whilst being a place of worship, the Temple was also a full functioning fortress. Nearly 25 ships landed on the Isle, carrying nearly 750 troops. The 108 Sisters in the fortress were able to inflict a crushing defeat on the Khaalics, named the Battle under the Moon.

Despite this defeat, Khaalic ships regulalrly raided monastries every season. The attacks were often very spiteful and bloody.

The attack on the Fifth Monastry of the Full Moon was particularly brutal. Two ships landed on the beaches below, disgorging over 70 soldiers, while the monastry contained only 26 Sisters. The fighting was intense and bloody. The path up to the monastry gates was littered with bodies, while the courtyard was covered in a carpet of corpses. Over 40 Khaalics were killed while all of the Sisters died, bar one.

Ledasya Moonborn, the First Sister, was knocked unconious during the final stages of the fighting. She was taken prisoner by Khaalics.