Ticia Cenva

Ticia Cenva, who lived from 173 BG to 88 BG, was the daughter of Grand Patriarch Iblis Ginjo and Supreme Sorceress Zufa Cenva. Bred to be the most powerful Sorceress of her generation, she was meant one day to take command of the school on Rossak, and she did succeed her mother as leader of the Sorceresses of Rossak. Cold and remote, she steered the order through the crises of the Omnius Scourge and the spice politics of the League of Nobles before her own ruin during the Rossak Epidemic.

Conception and early life#

Zufa Cenva had noticed that Iblis Ginjo possessed the raw ability needed to be a Rossak Sorceress, a trait extremely rare in males that contributed to his unrivaled charisma and powers of manipulation. Calculating that a pairing between them would most likely produce the offspring she sought, Zufa conceived Ticia during an encounter with Iblis while he was still smarting from the rejection of Serena Butler, High Priestess of the Butlerian Jihad. The child was delivered with the help of the breeding mistress Ticia Oss, after whom she was named, and despite Zufa's advanced age she was the first healthy baby her mother brought to life.

Shortly after Ticia's birth, Norma Cenva's transformation occurred, prompting Zufa to regret her harsh treatment of her elder daughter and to join Norma on Kolhar. Ticia was left to grow up under the care of other Sorceresses. She came to hate her half-sister Norma, wished her dead, and pointedly ignored her existence except when conversation was unavoidable.

Leadership of the Sorceresses#

Ticia grew up on Rossak and became cold and remote as leader of the Sorceresses after her mother, stern and wholly dedicated to the Butlerian Jihad. She had gone out on one of the last raids against the cymeks, where she and her fellow Sorceresses were prepared to take their enemies with them as they died. All of her companions sacrificed themselves and Ticia would have been next, but the cymeks retreated, leaving her the sole survivor. She always resented being denied her chance, and her personality was thereafter formed of regret, blame, and determination.

Spice politics and the Omnius Scourge#

During the crisis of the Omnius Scourge, Ticia addressed the Hall of Parliament and demanded that the best DNA samples be preserved, noting that the archives of the Sorceresses had such capacity. At the same assembly Vorian Atreides and Norma Cenva announced that VenKee Enterprises would assist the League by supplying spice as a countermeasure to the Scourge. Ticia then proposed to Grand Patriarch Xander Boro-Ginjo that Arrakis be annexed to increase spice income, and he agreed, setting off a spice rush as prospectors flocked to the planet to gather melange for the League Worlds. Soon after, she accompanied Abulurd Butler to Ix and argued with him over her insistence on saving the bloodlines of the populace rather than the people themselves. In the aftermath of the Scourge, Ticia guided the population restoration programs of the League Worlds using the lineage knowledge maintained by the Sorceresses.

Decline and death#

After the Great Purge, Ticia bore at least one child, Jimmak Tero, who like the other Misborn was exiled to the jungle. When the Scourge reemerged as the Rossak Epidemic, Ticia proved unable to protect her people and reluctantly sought help from the League medical task force. She received Raquella Berto-Anirul and Nortie Vandego with skepticism and hostility, blaming them for failing to cure the disease and accusing them of worsening it. She even attempted to assassinate Raquella with the Rossak drug, but Raquella survived. It was eventually understood that the virus itself had damaged Ticia's character and accounted for her hostility. In the end Ticia surrendered to the disease and took her own life, and her position passed to Raquella, who would begin the transformation of the order into the Sisterhood that became the Bene Gesserit.