The Covenant of the Ebon Creed, commonly referred to as the Creed, is a post-biological theocratic civilization occupying a network of sterilized tomb worlds. Its adherents exist almost exclusively as mechanized entities, having sacrificed their bodies—and, by most conventional definitions, their souls—in pursuit of absolute devotion to death. The Creed claims allegiance to Deimos, though its actions have instead precipitated the emergence of a separate Khaos entity now identified as The White Death.
The Creed sustains itself through planetary annihilation rather than habitation, converting once-living systems into necropolises optimized for mechanical existence and eternal persistence.
Origins & History
The Creed originated on the planet Mor’thelis, within the Mor’thelis system, where death rites and ancestral entombment were central to pre-industrial cultural identity. Early Mor’thelian society practiced structured funerary traditions focused on remembrance, preservation of remains, and ritual acknowledgment of mortality. Deimos was revered not as an instrument of destruction, but as a custodian of the boundary between life and death.
This equilibrium collapsed following the rise of a fanatical sect within the Mor’thelian priesthood. This faction rejected traditional entombment practices as insufficient, arguing that continued biological life—even in reverence of death—constituted defiance of Deimos’s will. Through violent purges and theological coups, the sect seized control of Mor’thelis and dismantled its ancestral institutions.
The first mass brain extractions and mechanical implantations occurred during this period. These acts were framed as transcendence rather than sacrifice. Mor’thelis was subsequently sterilized and rebuilt as the Creed’s first tomb world.
Expansion followed rapidly. The Ascetiscar system to the south was entirely sterilized and converted, followed by the northern Ossuary Reach, which now serves as a distributed necropolis and staging region. The cumulative scale of planetary glassing and enforced conversion created significant Khaos resonance, culminating in the spontaneous manifestation of The White Death—an entity the Creed neither recognizes nor understands.
Structure & Members
The Covenant of the Ebon Creed functions as a centralized theocracy.
Ultimate authority rests with The Seraphiel, regarded as the Arch Angel of Death and sole interpreter of divine will. Below the Seraphiel are the Seraphim, each of whom governs one or more tomb worlds with absolute autonomy. There is no secular governance; all authority is theological.
The majority of the population consists of the Anointed Dead (aka Seraphim Sentinels by outsiders). Physically, Creed members appear as tall, craned mechanical figures. Their bodies are fully synthetic, while their skulls—retained wholly or partially—are preserved and mounted as devotional artifacts. The skull is the only permitted organic remnant and functions as both identity marker and religious symbol.
There is no reproduction, inheritance, or succession in a biological sense. New members are created exclusively through forced conversion of conquered populations prior to planetary sterilization.
Purpose & Philosophy
The Creed’s doctrine asserts that life is a transient contamination and that death represents the only valid state of existence. Biological continuity is rejected; permanence is achieved through mechanical stasis bound to ritual obedience.
While the Creed claims devotion to Deimos, its practices reflect an attempt to instrumentalize death rather than honor it. Death is not an end within Creed doctrine, but a tool for expansion and conversion. The retention of skulls serves as acknowledgment of mortality without surrendering operational capacity.
External theological analysis uniformly concludes that the Creed’s ideology is incompatible with Deimos’s domain (Plane of Oblivion. The rise of The White Death is attributed directly to the Creed’s sustained genocidal activity and mass eradication of sentient life, positioning the Covenant as unintentional servitors of Khaos.
Significance & Connections
The Covenant of the Ebon Creed represents one of the most destabilizing forces in the outer galaxy. It currently threatens expansion into southeastern neutral space via the hyperlane known as the Passage of the Long Night, prompting heightened alert status among neighboring polities.
The Creed maintains no alliances and does not engage in diplomacy. Its interactions with other civilizations are limited to annihilation or forced conversion. The Aurelion Ascendancy, Halcyion Federation, and multiple neutral coalitions classify the Creed as an existential threat rather than a conventional state actor.
The continued spread of tomb worlds and the growth of The White Death present a converging risk: the Creed’s expansion accelerates Khaos influence, while Khaos manifestations further destabilize containment efforts. Long-term projections suggest that unchecked expansion will result in cascading system failures across adjacent regions.