Hope's Shroud
The Hope's Shroud is a Dreadblade Knight, whose downfall began in M36 when its pilot was a Freeblade and pledged a vow of loyalty to Goge Vandire.[1a]
During the Age of Apostasy, Hope's Shroud massacred thousands of soldiers in the name of faith, in order to protect Vandire from those who sought to dispose of him. The Knight was even being sent to kill Sebastian Thor, Vandire's greatest detractor, but before that could happen, the preacher brought his armies to Terra. Thor's forces then laid siege to the Imperial Palace and disaster would later strike, when Vandire was killed by his own bodyguards, the Daughters of the Emperor. When word of Vandire's death reached Hope's Shroud, its pilot swore to slaughter every last member of the traitorous bodyguard and this soon extended to the Daughters' successors, the Sisters of Battle. When Vandire was later posthumously declared a tyrant by the Imperium, Hope's Shroud turned its hatred against all those who followed the Imperial Creed and became a Dreadblade. Since that time, the subsequent pilots of Hope's Shroud have allied themselves with whatever Chaos forces would best aid them in their vendetta against the Sisters and the faithful of the Imperium. This has led the Knight to fight beside the Word Bearers numerous times, leading some within the Ordo Hereticus to believe that the pilots of Hope Shroud are being drawn from the Traitor Legion.[1a] During his vendetta Hope's Shroud personally killed and claimed the head of a Canoness Superior of the Order of the Ebon Chalice, and over the next two millennia claimed the heads of other Canonesses Superior, one for each of the six Matriarchs that turned on Vandire. Hope's Shroud proudly wear these heads on his warped armour as trophies.[1b]
