'Great iron wheel lined with flesh-flaying blades. Device of torture used by Inquisitor Ghiza. As the wheel spins it causes severe pain and blood loss. The design was adopted for use as the iconic weapon wielded by Iron Virgins.' The Iron Maidens, the canon also calls them Abductor Virgins, are mobile gaol-engines built around a single great iron wheel lined with flesh-flaying blades. The wheel was Inquisitor Ghiza's torture-engine, the canonical design copied wholesale into the maiden-construct's torso. Each maiden is the size of a building. Each contains, inside her hollow body, a cell that snaps shut around any traveller her grasping arms catch.

'Hood made by sewing together patches of smooth skin. Subcutaneous fat makes it plump and soft. Worn by Godskin Nobles. Nobles are the most ancient apostles who are said to have assimilated inhuman physiology. Not unlike the crucible, the Erdtree in its primordial form.' The maidens were built to capture and transport prisoners, at the academy, at Volcano Manor, in Mt. Gelmir, to the inquisitorial chambers of the Order's enforcers. Their masks are nun-blank, their long arms gentle in posture and lethal in motion. The first one the Tarnished encounters, in the Raya Lucaria academy library, ambushes from a corner of an otherwise quiet study. The canon's quietest critique of inquisitorial method is the engineering choice : the device of mercy and the device of torture, in this construct, are the same machine.

◆ Sources

Item / MiscGhiza's Wheel

Great iron wheel lined with flesh-flaying blades. Device of torture used by Inquisitor Ghiza. As the wheel spins it causes severe pain and blood loss. The design was adopted for use as the iconic weapon wielded by Iron Virgins.

ArmorGodskin Noble Hood

Hood made by sewing together patches of smooth skin. Subcutaneous fat makes it plump and soft. Worn by Godskin Nobles. Nobles are the most ancient apostles who are said to have assimilated inhuman physiology. Not unlike the crucible, the Erdtree in its primordial form.