Arriving via ebon-hulled transport today is a new trailer for the second instalment of The Tithes animated anthology. Episode II: Harvest stars Atlacoya, a voiceless and deadly warrior of the Silent Sisterhood.
The Sisters of Silence are an unusual breed, and even in a galaxy of exotic terrors they stand apart. We spoke to the Warhammer Storyforge Team to find out a little more about why these soulless hunters are such a fascinating concept for 40k storytelling.
“The Sisters of Silence are an anomaly. Warriors out of time, created for a secular age of tyranny under the guise of progress and supposed enlightenment. Scorned, misunderstood, and feared, they don’t really have a place in the Imperium’s grinding, labyrinthine layers. As fascinating as that is, seeing a faction so out of place in the 41st Millennium, it means they need to be treated with a light touch in the service of great stories.
“They’re also vanishingly rare. Rarer even than the relative handful of individuals that accompanied the Great Crusade when the Emperor still walked among Mankind. The few who remain are too precious to risk on mundane battlefields – and would likely be executed by witch-hunters or zealous preachers if their soulless nature was known. Instead, they work in the shadows, shepherding the human harvest of psykers who are fated to become essential fuel for the Imperium. And they’re uniquely suited for this thankless, dangerous task.
“To most of the Imperium, the Sisters of Silence don’t exist. They’re no longer a formalised order in their own right, the hidden survivors work in the shadows as members of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, and as silent emissaries of the Custodian Guard. That means they often lean on others to enforce their authority – and when accompanied by a towering, golden Custodian, that’s easy enough…
“But they, too, are rare. More commonly, it’s an adept of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica dishing out the orders, as we can see here, accompanying a squad of Arbitrators.
“One obvious challenge in bringing the Sisters of Silence to animation was showing how they communicate. They don’t speak (the clue is in the name), but they are far from bystanders. Atlacoya, like her sisters, is a competent, emotionally nuanced character, and that had to come across, or there’s no story.
“Thoughtmark has long been established as their language for on and off battlefield communication – but what does it look like? Miniatures don’t move, and most of the sculpts are depicted in dynamic battlefield poses, not idle chatter. And though Thoughtmark has featured in several Black Library novels, they tend not to come with diagrams…
“The solution was to sit down with people who are fluent in sign language and intimately familiar with Warhammer lore. The animators used motion capture to record these performances and transfer them onto the character. The end result is that Atlacoya becomes a mesmerizingly satisfying character to watch. Even with no voice and half her face covered, she still makes her opinions and emotions abundantly clear every time she is on screen*.”
Rob from the Warhammer studio was one such person who advised on the specifics of the Thoughmark dialogue.
“It was an honour to be asked to input into this episode. As a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults) I grew up around sign language users and, although my own is fairly rudimentary, it is still very important to me. It makes me really happy to see this kind of diversity being represented in media, and to be able to contribute to its first visual inclusion in Warhammer was a big deal.
“Sisters of Silence aren’t deaf, but that sense of detachment and isolation still resonates with me and my experiences. There’s a moment in the show where a Space Marine which Atlacoya is speaking to basically says ‘I am not familiar with those signs’ and I felt that. That lack of connection and understanding is a sad fact of life a lot of time for deaf people. Conversely, when someone has taken the time to learn your language and acknowledge your needs, there is immediate respect and rapport, as you get between Atlacoya and her Custodian partner.
“Thoughtmark is based on British Sign Language. There were some challenges: having half the sister’s face covered makes it tricky in places as a lot of the nuance comes from facial expressions. This is even more true of BSL where non-manual signals are an important factor, so we had to work out other ways to compensate for that. And there were some uniquely Warhammer words that just don’t have a direct BSL translation that we had to create.”
The Tithes Episode II: Harvest will be available to watch on Warhammer TV for Warhammer+ Subscribers next week. You can catch up on the first instalment, Sacrifice, now.
* And don’t worry if you aren’t fluent in Thoughtmark, subtitles will be available.
