The Church of the Red Athenæum: Aseneth Levedescu, (3rd) Cardinal

And I feel so proud when the reckoning arrives.

With the blog recently turning 10 years old, it is hard not to reflect back on what we have done in that time. One of our favorite creations is the Church of the Red Athenæum. Designed for Iron Sleet’s Pilgrym event, the Church is a radical splinter of the Imperial Cult that believes suffering is the highest form of veneration of the God-Emperor. In 2021 we began to revisit the Church, creating a host of new models, including a Gunfighter, a heavy weapons specialist, a Halfling, and a new Bibliognost of the Church of the Red Athenæum. In 2023, we hope to continue developing and expanding the Red Church. And while we created a host of different characters from the Church, one of the most iconic is the current Cardinal, Aseneth Levedescu, and her mobile throne. We wanted to celebrate the character and showcase her again on the blog, seven years after her initial creation. To do this, we knew we could take better photos of the model and share the lore we wrote pertaining to her, but we wanted to do something more special. For this purpose, we commissioned the amazingly talented and visionary Nicky Grillet to illustrate and paint Aseneth!

The Pilgrym: Rules for the Church of the Red Athenæum

The Hunt begins.

After 7 furious months of work, the Pilgrym game has finally been played and we are back in the United States.  The event was a fantastic success, truly culminating everyone’s hard work and passion.  Over the next few weeks we are going to be creating a few posts detailing the event.  To start things off, we wanted to share the rules that we devised for our warband, the Church of the Red Athenæum.  The game was played using a modified version of the Necromunda ruleset, with a focus on narrative elements rather than strict adherence to any particular book.  For the Church, we wanted to take special effort to convey that most of its members are not fighters; they are civilians that are missing limbs and other body parts, further separating them from any sort of fighting elite.  They are, however, extremely devoted to their cause and due to their lives of suffering, able to withstand a lot of pain.  The only exception to this are the members of their military arm, the Order of the Crimson Hour, which are trained for combat and therefore have firearms, and Roland Arnesen, a sleeper agent of the Ordo Machinum.

The Pilgrym: Aseneth Levedescu, Cardinal of the Church of the Red Athenæum Finished!

The group is almost ready for Nottingham!

The penultimate model for the Church of the Red Athenæum is now finished!  As the largest model I created for the Church, Cardinal Aseneth Levedescu took considerably longer to paint than the others, but I am happy with the result.  And to go along with the pictures, my brothers and I wrote some background material for her, we hope you enjoy!

The Pilgrym: Aseneth Levedescu, (3rd) Cardinal of the Church of the Red Athenæum

Aseneth Levedescu, Cardinal of the Church of the Red Athenæum, in all of her somber magesty! 

When first devising the Church of the Red Athenæum, a fanatical splinter of the Imperial Cult fixated on the Emperor’s physical sacrifices, I imagined a hierarchy that was visible based on their self-inflicted wounds. Initiates might only be missing a hand, while the older members of the congregation would have accrued more wounds as a sign of their increased devotion. I envisioned that the head of the Church, the Cardinal, would be so mutilated that they could not even walk, limbs missing, spine severed, riding atop an ambulatory throne. A crude mimic of the Emperor on His Golden Throne. Not sure of how to realize this vision, I set the character aside, and worked on the rest of the Church. With 9 other models built for the Church, I finally set out to build the last model for the immediate future. I present to you: Aseneth Levedescu, Cardinal of the Church of the Red Athenæum (3rd).

The Pilgrym: The Church of the Red Athenæum

Not willing to rest on their laurels from last years Invitational, the hobbyist/artists from Iron Sleet have embarked on what is likely the most ambitious hobby project ever concieved: building a section of the Shrine-world of Holy Terra, to be the setting of a massive Inquisimunda game played this summer. The Pilgrym. Iron Sleet is not attempting this project alone, and instead has gathered a small group of dedicated individuals, including luminaries like PDH, JRN, Jeff Vader, and none other than Thistle himself! And we are excited to announce that we are going to be taking part in the project as well!