All members of the Host of Heaven are male. They generally communicate to each other and their superiors by way of telepathic mind-links. Members of the Host are generally soldiers who have been promoted up from the ranks and changed to superhumans by Innocent XIV himself - an incredible honour. Despite this, the Host is seen as a separate thing above and beyond the normal Roman military.
In addition to those listed below (who are listed in order of importance to the papacy), a number of other forms of superhuman exist, but these are usually specialised types, rarely seen outside of military or governmental facilities, or who go covertly in public. These include a number of spies (with various types of stealth powers) who also act as assassins on occasion.
Like Inquisitors, Hounds work far more with the Inquisition than other members of the Host, and are feared for it.
Their powers consist of superhuman strength and speed, enhanced resistance to damage, vastly enhanced senses, claws and a fireblast which they can shoot from their eyes. They also possess a number of survival and subterfuge-type skills.
Hounds are muscular with reddish-black skin, a prehensile tail and eyes which continually burn with orange-red flame. They usually move in a crouched gait.
Canis in Champions Terms.
These provide tunnelling and demolitions expertise to the Host, operating in a support role.
Their powers consist of vast strength and toughness, the ability to tunnel through earth and solid rock, immunity to most environmental extremes and large claws for rarely-needed offensive capability. They can see in the infra-red and are trained in various demolitions and combat engineering-related disciplines.
Sappers are short, stocky, very muscular men with powerful arms, leathery skin and huge, clawed hands.
Cunicularius in Champions Terms.
These form a cadre of far-ranging sentinels around the borders of the Holy Roman Empire, and often around Roman Naval groups at sea. They usually operate mind-linked to a member of the Host at their home base.
They can fly and travel underwater at high speed, are vastly strong and tough, very fast, can breathe water, and have various enhanced senses, including enhanced vision and a form of sonar. This sonar can also be used to generate a powerful, damaging sonic blast in an area in front of them. They are trained in interrogation and subterfuge skills.
Sentries are tall, impressive and muscular with pale bluish-white skin and large, dark eyes.
Excubitor in Champions Terms.
These are some of the most feared of the Host, as they are associated far more with the Inquisition than other Host members.
They have various powers and skills designed to obtain information from people - they are powerful telepaths, can cause a target severe pain via telepathic means, and are also highly skilled in the more normal forms of interrogation. They also possess a danger sense, are unaffected by darkness and are fairly resistant to damage and disease.
Inquisitors are tall, muscular, fast and have reddish-black skin and red eyes.
Inquisitors in Champions Terms.
The Legates form the bulk of Rome's Bishop-Generals, and as such are usually second only to Praetors or the Pope himself. They are very intelligent, possess a number of military and leadership-type skills, and are often known to lead from the front.
They have a number of superhuman powers. They are superhumanly strong and fast, very resistant to damage, heal rapidly and have a number of enhanced senses. Like Praetors they possess some kind of danger sense. Their combat powers consist of an energy sword capable of cutting normal humans in half with one blow, ranged autofire energy blasts capable of knocking out or debilitating a target, and also the ability to heal themselves and others.
Legates are tall, muscular, handsome and very impressive with faintly golden skin and bright golden eyes.
Legatus in Champions Terms.
The second most common members of the Host, providing air support and ranged combat ability.
They are capable of flight at fairly high speed and can generate electricity for a variety of offensive purposes - a bolt of lightning, an electrical explosion and a bright flash. They are also fairly tough and are trained in stealth.
All members of the Eagle Legion look fairly alike - they all have aquiline features, pale skin, piercing electric blue eyes and royal blue feathers instead of hair.
A member of Legion Aquila in Champions Terms.
The most common members of the Host, they provide ground combat capability.
They are easily the strongest members of the Host, and also very resistant to physical damage. They are trained in the use of many types of weapons, and sometimes carry small normally vehicle-mounted weapons as 'side-arms'.
Like the Eagle Legion, all members of the Thunderbolt Legion look similar - they are all large, impressive, thuggish men with huge muscles.
A member of Legion Tonitrus in Champions Terms.
The cream of the Elite who make up the Host of Heaven, these are those honoured to protect Innocent XIV himself. They are superhumanly strong, fast and tough, and can project damaging light in a cone from their eyes. All are highly trained soldiers who are fanatically loyal to the Pope. Each one would willingly lay down his life for him without hesitation.
All Papal bodyguards are identical-seeming large, ugly, hard-faced thugs, always dressed in an ornate uniform and heavily armed (with specially reinforced melee weapons, and/or support weapons modified for them to use as hand weapons).
A Bodyguard in Champions Terms.
The highest-ranking and most trusted of the Host of Heaven, Praetors usually hold a Rank of at least Archbishop in the Church. They usually control large areas of the Holy Roman Empire and as such are known to be very intelligent and possessing a large number of administrative-type skills.
Their superhuman powers consist of increased resistance to damage and disease, as well as purely anti-superhuman powers - they can turn superhumans into normal people and also stun or kill superhumans by turning their own powers against them. They are also nearly impossible to surprise or ambush, possessing some kind of danger sense.
Unlike many other members of the Host they appear to be normal humans, usually quite handsome and very striking.
Praetors in Champions Terms.
Members of the Host created as assistants and secretaries to officials in the Empire, they are the ultimate bureaucrats. They are highly intelligent, can handle and organise vast amounts of information, forget nothing, and can flawlessly perform highly complex calculations. They do not need to eat or sleep, and can maintain a mental link to the person to whom they are assigned. They are also trained in a wide range of useful administrative skills.
Scriba are all tall, thin, faintly grey-skinned bureaucrats, with a slightly stooped gait, monotone voices, no imagination, and no sense of humour.
Scriba in Champions Terms.
Unsleeping clairsentient watchmen who miss nothing, they provide psychic information and warning to the Holy Roman Empire. They also help link Roman forces together by maintaining mind links between far-flung parts of the Empire. Because their powers are entirely sensory in nature, they are rarely seen in public.
Sentinels are physically average, but have no eyes or ears, those senses (and all others) being replaced by their near-omniscient psychic senses.
Sentinels in Champions Terms.
Created by Innocent XIV to more effectively devise new machines for the war against heresy, Artificers are highly intelligent and can shape matter with their minds. Although useful they have proved slightly unreliable due to their obsession with tinkering and improving things even when it is not necessary. For this reason there are never more than a dozen artificers at a time, and they are all kept apart, working with teams of normal scientists and technicians. Only two artificers survived the nuclear war, and even they have not proved terribly useful in the aftermath due to the lack of an infrastructure to supply them.
Artificers are all short, with reddish skin, red eyes and black hair. They are very strong and tough, immune to most hostile environments, and do not need to eat or sleep.
Artificers in Champions Terms.
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The numbers given below do not show the equally large numbers of non-military people involved in running the Holy Roman Empire, who, if anything, suffered worse in the War than the military did.
| Pre-War | Post-War | |
| Artificers Eagle Legion Hounds Inquisitors Legates Papal Bodyguard Papal Concubine Patrollers Praetors Sappers Scriba Sentinels Spies Thunderbolt Legion |
500 50 50 50 100 Unknown 50 20 100 500 20 Unknown 1000 |
310 42 22 36 60 Unknown 45 12 78 86 8 Unknown 740 |
The pre-War numbers of the members of the Host roughly indicate their importance and usefulness; the post-War numbers are an indication both of toughness and also the location of the majority of that type (e.g. Scriba and Sentinels were both mainly city-based and so suffered proportionally greater losses than others).
| Pre-War | Post-War | |
| Regular Troops Slave Battalions |
1000000 |
20000 |
Regular troops are mostly conscripts, recruited by levies from all areas of the Holy Roman Empire. The slave battalions are recruited from the worst scum of the prisons, but only those convicted of non-political and non-religious crimes.
Innocent XIV's power to create superhumans has become somewhat unreliable since the nuclear war, meaning that about 10% of the people he tries to turn into a superhumans (usually to create new members of the Host of Heaven) turn into monsters instead. When this occurs the monsters are placed into a sealed section of the catacombs under Rome and left to their own devices (though they are monitored by Sentinels). They eat rats, each other, and the occasional prisoner who is thrown down as an unusual means of execution.
The monster-infested catacombs are about the only route by which the Papal palace can be safely infiltrated - on any other route the Sentinels area effect Danger Sense will pick up infiltrators, but the monsters are a danger in their own right and so 'screen' anyone else in the catacombs from the Danger Sense of the Sentinels.
Monsters in Champions Terms.