To those of you who are new to this, most Holy of Conclaves, it would be understandable if you found yourself feeling bewildered by all that has gone before. Since the establishment of the Conclave, innumerable events and actions have taken place. However, gathered in the data-files below are short accounts of some of the most notable actions of the members of this Conclave, in an attempt to illuminate the newcomer and refresh the memory of the veteran inquisitor.

All attempts will be made to refresh these accounts regularly, and should any Inquisitor have any event he or she believes should be included are invited to get in touch with myself and outline their case.

Benedict Saussure Ordo Hereticus Terran

File 1: The Order Vampiris

In the earliest days of the Inquisitorial Conclave, Inquisitor Luthferious Richenstein presented before us a report of a most fascinating nature – a treatise upon the nature of the beast which history and legend classes as the Vampire. Luthferious first encountered these beasts upon the backward world of Kalsha III, during his investigations of a supposedly daemon-worshipping cult. What he discovered was in fact a pack of Vampires, and this first experience caused him to delve further into these beasts. The final result of his studies was the Luthferian Manuscript, an authoritative report upon the Physiology, Psychology, Sociology and Combat Tactics of these foul beasts, including detailed field reports.

The most startling conclusion of the Luthferian Manuscript was not that the Vampire was no urban myth, but that it is in fact a highly specialised form of daemonic entity, and was therefore a huge threat to the Imperium. Armed with the information Luthferious had provided, a number of Inquisitors, led by Lord Inquisitor Jaydred Taren saw fit to join together to pool knowledge and resources on this subject, and formed a new Lesser Ordo, to be henceforth known as the Ordo Vampiris. However, it was argued by many that the emergence of vampires did not justify a new Ordo, as they are technically a variety of daemon and therefore come under the jurisdiction of the Ordo Malleus. The Order Vampiris was approved, but as an Order within the Ordo Malleus, headed by Lord Inquisitor Taren.

The new Order was formed just in time to combat a Tyranid splinter fleet, which had consumed a vampire-infested world, creating a terrifying hybrid. Through Taren’s best efforts on the front line, the threat was destroyed, and much knowledge gained on the nature of vampires through field research. During this conflict many new weapons were developed for the purpose of combating vampiric foes, including such oddities as bolter shells impregnated with silver, and amber edged blades designed to play upon the creatures’ weaknesses.

The Order proposed the creation of a militant Adeptus Astartes wing, but this was turned down, as the Grand Council did not consider vampires enough of a threat to warrant it. Since then it has remained a small Order of Ordo Malleus Inquisitors, briefly headed by Inquisitor Mentirius when Taren disappeared for several months, though there have been a worrying number of vampiric servants appearing in the retinues of some Inquisitors of the Order. The fact that many of the Inquisition are making use of what is essentially a form of daemonhost brings into question whether the Order is serving its purpose effectively, but with the 13th Crusade looming there has not been time to fully investigate these reports. While members of the Order have been quiet as to their activities in this field of late, they are still regular visitors to the Conclave, and the casual observer should be aware of their existence.

File 2: The Nexus Schism

Alessandro Nexus, Arch-Radical. This was a name notorious among the puritan element of the Inquisition, even when the man in question still held full Inquisitorial status. Widely known for his extreme radical beliefs, and his open declarations that he used daemonhosts and alien servants to further his goals, Inquisitor Nexus was celebrated by radicals and reviled by puritans throughout the Conclave. His experiments in the world of Ezaar IV produced enhanced orks for his personal greenskin armies, and all manner of mutants and unspeakable creations. All was in the name of the Emperor, or so he claimed, and these creations were put to use on several documented occasions in cleansing worlds of Chaos taint and destroying enemies of the Imperium.

However, Nexus was eventually challenged by an Imperial Fists Captain, having insulted the marine’s honour with his distain for the Adeptus Astartes. Captain D’Argent attempted to declare Nexus a heretic, but as this was beyond his jurisdiction, challenged him to stand trial and prove his innocence. Nexus accepted, determined to clear his name and justify all that he had done, and the trial of Imperator v Nexus was presided over by the Chief Justice Robert Macfarlane.

Facing four charges, Nexus defended himself passionately, believing fully that he was in the right and would be proved innocent. But when the verdict was announced, the result shocked the conclave. While Nexus was found innocent of threatening D’Argent, the verdict was guilty for the remaining three charges. Consorting with Xenos, Consorting with Chaos, and Denying the Divinity of the Emperor. He was to be sentenced by the Grand Council of the Inquisition, and every charge would almost certainly have him condemned on its own. Guilty on three counts, Nexus was doomed.

However, en route to Terra, the prison ship on which Nexus was being held was attacked by a band of Inquisitors, supporters of Nexus who believed that the verdict was unjust and were determined to free him. After fierce fighting they were able to rescue Nexus and escape, nearly managing to kill the Chief Justice in the process, though he was rescued in the nick of time by Inquisitor Rex. However, one among the rescuers, Confessor Dessemus, was captured by Inquisitor Trachtenberg, and taken to Terra to answer to the High Lords.

Dessemus was a firm opponent of the High Lords, claiming to know a secret that proved their corruption. He preached that they were using the Emperor as a figurehead to rule the Imperium, and were not serving him as they should. When he stood defiantly before the High Lords and declared them corrupt, he was sentenced to death, but his last recorded words, ‘Preach my words!” inspired Nexus and his companions to stand against the Imperium in his place. Declared Extremis Diabolus for their actions by the Chief Justice’s allies within the Inquisition, they resolved to avenge Dessemus, and follow in his footsteps, serving the Emperor but cursing the High Lords and the Imperium.

Nexus and many of his allies are still at large, though the Inquisition is hunting them ceaselessly. The Nexus Schism was one of the most severe inter-Inquisitorial conflicts in recent times, and the repercussions are still being felt, as the Puritan Council seeks to ban radicalism on Terra, and Nexus’ attacks on the Imperium become more extreme. He is thought to have found refuge in the Tau Empire, though his associates are scattered throughout the galaxy.

File 3: The Crisis of Authority and the Puritan Council

Following the trial of Alessandro Nexus, there were many calls in this Conclave for the true hierarchy of Inquisitorial authority to be laid bare before our eyes, as the Adeptus Arbites initiated investigations of several prominent inquisitors. Debate raged for several days, until the venerable Savant Hall entered the debate. Carrying what many saw as the seal of the High Lords, his words shocked the Adeptus Arbites to the core as he appeared to issue a decree confirming the absolute authority of the Inquisition. While other voices argued that there were too many monolithic organisations within the Imperium for such a sweeping decree to possibly hold any truth in reality, many Inquisitors, especially those of a devoutly Puritan mindset, immediately held these words to be gospel truth.

After briefly withdrawing from public view to re-assess his position, the Chief Justice of the Adeptus Arbites, Robert Macfarlane, initiated the Puritan Council. With the aim of cleansing Terra of the Radical taint, and with the advantage of Inquisitorial backing, the Chief Justice gathered around him a cadre of highly Puritan inquisitors, including the zealous Caspiel Rex and the Lord Inquisitor Tyrrannis, and set about his new-found task with vigour. The Council remains convened and active at the present time, ensuring the purity of the soil of Terra from the taint of radicalism.

However, doubts have recently cropped into the minds of some associated with the Council following the revelation of plans to extend the Council’s activities to Cadia in light of the coming Black Crusade. Rumours abound that the Council are planning to circumvent the proper role of the Ordo Sicarius using Puritan Inquisitorial influence, and have Officio Assassinorium operatives stalk Radical Inquisitors across Cadia, using the carnage caused by the Chaotic invasion to dispose of Radical Inquisitors following Xanthite ideology. These rumours have caused several Puritan inquisitors, foremost amongst them Inquisitor Arucard, to denounce the Council as a misguided collective which is actively destabilising the Inquisition at a time when unity is more important than ever.

File 4: The Heresy of Inquisitor Perseus

The occasional visitor to the Conclave may be shocked to hear hushed mention of the heresies of one Inquisitor Perseus, and his alter-ego Inquisitor Orion. The inquisitor was a radical who, for a brief time, made frequent interventions in the work of other Inquisitors, to the detriment of all around, not in least thanks to his schizophrenic tendency to hold long conversations with his own alter-ego, Inquisitor Orion. His meddling eventually saw him brought to heel by an Inquisitorial cell led by Inquisitor Mentirius, and the heretic was finally declared Excommunicate Traitoris, and put to death Inquisitor Hereodotus Benedict Saussure.

While his name sullies all associated with it, his meddling caused such discord that occasionally he is still mentioned, and new Inquisitors should be aware of what is being referred to. Old associates of Perseus are occasionally discovered – the criminal Vernos was most recently ousted and executed on the order of Chief Justice Macfarlane.

File 5: The Atrocity of Leon San V

If ever there was a case put before this Conclave to exemplify the twisted scheming and horrifying brutality of the Arch-Radical Nexus, the Atrocity of Leon San V would be it. The facts which can be conclusively gathered by the Inquisition are slim, but those we know are presented below.

In the aftermath of his flight to the Tau Empire, Nexus made it his goal to destabilise an entire Segmentum of the Imperium in his attempts to undermine the rule of the High Lords of Terra. To the Arch-Radical, no price was too great in the pursuit of this goal, and whole worlds could and would be sacrificed in the name of his goals. To this end, Nexus brought together various different parties and skilfully interwove them in his grand scheme. The Dessemussian cult known as the Dead Faith grew under the patronage of the rogue inquisitor, the assistance of the foul xenos Tau was enlisted, and illegal equipment was supplied by the criminal Vernos, himself a lackey of the heretic Perseus. However, most worrying of all was the allegiance struck with the being known to the Ordo Malleus as Charax the Eternal, a daemon of Chaos. All of these threads would come together at the Cardinal World of Leon San V.

Leon San V was most likely chosen as a target because of its religious populace – the destruction of such a world is a direct attack against all the Imperium holds precious. Nexus planned the destruction of the world by making use of a foul infection bred from the very stuff of Chaos, doubtless obtained from the daemon Charax. The Cult of the Dead Faith, pawns in his game, were to be the carriers of this plague onto the planetary surface, where it would sweep like wildfire and devour the populace within hours. Psionic resonance scans carried out by a Black Ship in the aftermath of the atrocity have allowed a picture of the events to be obtained by the Inquisition.

The infected Dead Faith cultists were deployed from an orbiting Tau craft, and made planetfall safely. The disgusting, diseased plague carriers burst forth from their pods, to be met by warriors from the rebel Soul Drinkers Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes. Why these warriors were present is unknown to the Inquisition, but it is assumed they were lured to Leon San V by the machinations of Nexus. Regardless, they died near instantly, despite their enhanced metabolisms, as the plague swept through them. At the same time, the planetary astropaths and psykers were infected via a psychic transference of the plague, caused as they scanned the incoming drop craft. With the death of the Astartes and the psychic populace, the psionic scans indicate the manifestation of a power from within the Warp. In an indication of the foul pacts sealed between it and Nexus, the daemon Charax cheated the Lord of Decay of his plague victims and absorbed their departing souls for himself. With his presence on the planet, the plague was carried at an astonishing rate as the skies clouded with warp-spawned magicks. Seven hours after the initial infection of the planet, the entire populace of Leon San V had perished in excruciating agony. The chief astropath conducting the séance on board the Black Ship was irrecoverably traumatised by what he saw, but still reported his visions of the instant of the population’s death;

“People, almost all over the planet, scream out in desperation. Clawing insanely at their scabrous spines and blind eyes, they cause only more unimaginable pain. A world screams out in anguish, but none hear it. Children die almost instantaneously, women wretch on the ground, trying to scream with liquefied vocals. Priests, millions of priests, die in their very churches, giving thanks to Him on Earth, so far away. An atrocity...”

The reference to priests giving thanks to the Emperor is horrifying, suggesting that Nexus somehow managed to convince the people of Leon San V that they were about to receive some gift from He on Terra. If it were true, it was a false hope – the Atrocity of Leon San V saw the death of nearly five hundred million inhabitants, the twenty three carriers from the Dead Faith, and eighty six marines of the lost Soul Drinkers chapter. The psychic shockwave of the event was felt on Terra itself. Such death tolls are usually associated with only the most horrific of invasions by the forces of Chaos, or the all-consuming advances of Tyranid Hivefleets. It is amongst these horrors that Alessandro Nexus now ranks.

The Atrocity caused widespread revulsion amongst even those who had previously held out some hope for the soul of Nexus – his association with the Dark Gods has been shown, and he is doomed to the path of damnation in the eyes of the Ordo Malleus. Reports indicate that a brief crisis of faith reigned amongst his closest allies when the truth of what had happened, but it was quashed by Novus Versaal, the most devoted of all the followers of the Arch-Radical. It is known that Inquisitors Amnon, Thraxus, Helmadore and Tratchenberg have all begun hunting the Arch-Radical in aftermath of Leon San V. Indeed, Thraxus raised Nexus’ residence and laboratorium complex on the world of T’au to the ground. It is thought that even the enigmatic Eldar have turned their eye to the situation after the Atrocity, and damned the soul of Nexus and all those who walk with him.