Evening, sorry I have not been around this past week, a five day migraine kinda messed me up.  I worked, I don’t remember working (or much of anything), however, it appears I somehow did a good job last week.  Anyway, glad to be here and head pain free.

Per Usual: Images and links are from Lexicanum or the Warhammer 40k wiki 

The Imperium of Man is a huge, bureaucratic organization made up of billions of scheming, manipulative, power hungry assholes.  So of course there is an official department for assassinations – the Officio Assassinorum (Office of Assassins) which is headed by the Grand Master of Assassins, an office that gives them a seat in the Senatorum.  Although the Grand Master oversees the organisation, they may only deploy assassins with the authority of the Senatorum, requiring a two-thirds majority of the High Lords to authorize the deployment of a single assassin, which seems to happen quite a bit anyway, even if according to the law that the improper use of an assassin is considered treason.  The Officio Assassinorum is located on Terra, but the actual location is secret and is kept hidden, and the Grand Master is never actually seen, acting through communications.  As you would expect the organization is extremely secretive, much like the Inquisition, with whom they occasionally work.

New assassins are recruited from the very young orphans around the Imperium, from the Schola Progenium, and from the populations of the feral worlds.  As they are transported to Terra for their final training their training starts, pitting them each other and hazardous environments, with maybe 1 out of 10 surviving the trip.  Once they arrive at Holy Terra the survivors are divided amongst the temples.  There their real training begins, 10 years where they are tested harshly and augmented depending on their temple

The Officio is divided into temples (or Clades): (list and links from Lexicanum)

Temples

• Vindicare Temple – sharpshooters, specialists in sniping and marksmanship.^[18a]
• Callidus Temple – chameleons, specialists in infiltration and impersonation.^[18a]
• Eversor Temple – berserkers, drug-fuelled killing machines.^[18a]
• Culexus Temple – pariahs, psykers are their exclusive targets.^[18a]
• Venenum Temple – specialists in poisoning their targets.^[3]
• Vanus Temple – intelligence-gatherers, in matters of strategy and tactics their insight is unparalleled. They often assassinate their targets indirectly using their intelligence and knowledge to bring down targets.^[3]
• Adamus Temple – The oldest of the formal Assassin orders, specializing in the decapitation strike.^[29]

An additional temple, the Maerorus Temple, attempted to create an assassin using illegal human/mutant/xenos hybrids capable of absorbing the biomass of victims to rapidly evolve new bio-weapons. The temple is now extinct.^[9]

Today we will cover the 3 main temples.

Vindicare – specialize in vengeance and revenge killings, they are trained in planning and patience, known to wait in position as long as 6 years for the perfect shot.  Trained to be loyal only to the Imperium, they are stoic speaking only in reference to their tasks, and all emotions have been conditioned out of them.  Armed with the Exitus Sniper Rifle  and Exitus Pistol which they have had customized to their preference.  Vindicare are for when you want to take out the leader of a cult, or enact revenge for a greedy power hungry individual killing someone they shouldn’t have messed with, or revenge for the foiling of Imperial planning and strategy.  They are the surgical strike, neat and clean.

Callidus Assassins – the most cunning of the assassins, they use the shape-changing drug polymorphine.  The drug and the associated training required to make proper use of it, allows the user to change their shape, their sex, their appearance, and even appear as one of the humanoid xenos races.  This ability allows them to get close to their targets, learn their plots and secrets, manipulate the target and their plans to suit the assassin.  Eventually they will terminate the target, and in some cases take over their identities to correct any problems the target had caused, usually they only carry the weapons their cover personality would have with them, but when they need to they can use more overt weapons, such as the Phase Sword, Poison Blades, and the Neural Shredder.  Usually used when the Imperium does not want anyone to realize that the target had actually been assassinated.  Oh, and polymorphine is very addictive, I mean the name even includes the word morphine.

And last we have the Eversor Temple for when you want to kill someone and do not give a fuck about who knows about it, how many casualties their are, or the amount of damage done.

These guys are the most gruesome monsters created by the Officio.  Bio-engineered, cyber augmented, experimental surgeries, drug crazed killing machines.  Their minds are manipulated so that they have a raging hatred for the target.  They are given adrenal ducts, because we could all use even more adrenaline in our systems, their brains are sped up giving them faster reactions, better planning and calculations.  They are given a second heart to help with blood flow and to make them even harder to kill.

So not only to the physical changes, they are marinated in combat drugs, making them psychotically insane, and completely addicted to the drugs.  These assassins are so dangerous that they are stored in cryo-crypts and only brought out when there is a mission.  Actually if they experience brain death or their hearts stop, the drugs will actually cause the assassin to explode, giving them one last chance at taking out their target.

When they are given a mission, they are taken out of cryo-storage and placed in a drop pod, information about the target is fed into their brains, the pod launches, and only then is the assassin revived.  Once they land they will head towards their target, killing anyone or anything that gets in their way.  They may even have multiple targets if the mission is for a group such as a cult, renegade government, or Chaos insurgency.  These assassins are the definition of shock and awe causing huge amounts of devastation and confusion.

They are usually equipped with an Executioner Pistol, Power Weapon and Neuro Gauntlet. The Executioner Pistol combines a Bolt Pistol with a Needle Pistol. The Eversor is also equipped with melta bombs to destroy tanks and heavy doors.

These were the main 3 assassin temples, I hope you enjoyed this little slice of mayhem.

Next time: the Tau – for the Greater Good!