A senior Bene Gesserit, the Emperor's Truthsayer, and the woman who tests Paul Atreides with the gom jabbar - a poisoned needle held at his neck while he endures unimaginable pain. Mohiam represents the Sisterhood's millennia-long breeding programme and its ruthless pursuit of the Kwisatz Haderach.

Eldest daughter of Emperor Shaddam IV, a scholar and historian whose writings provide the epigraphs that open each chapter of Dune. Irulan is a Bene Gesserit trained princess whose role in the story grows from narrator to active participant across the series.

A Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother who rises to lead the Sisterhood during its greatest crisis. Odrade is witty, unorthodox, and possessed of an Atreides bloodline that gives her dangerous impulses toward compassion and individual action - qualities the Bene Gesserit normally breed out.

A young Fremen girl from Rakis who can command the sandworms - the first person to demonstrate this ability since the age of Muad'Dib. Every faction in the galaxy wants to control Sheeana, but she proves far more capable of controlling her own destiny than anyone expects.

An Honored Matre - one of the violent sisterhood that returned from the Scattering - captured by the Bene Gesserit. Murbella's relationship with the Duncan Idaho ghola and her gradual conversion to Bene Gesserit ways becomes central to the Sisterhood's survival strategy.