Home › Factions › The Inquisition › Gregor Eisenhorn
1 / 4 · Click to enlargeOverview
Gregor Eisenhorn is the protagonist of Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn novels. He began as a Puritan Inquisitor and, over a long life spent fighting heresy and alien threats, drifted toward the very Radical methods he once despised. Through his journey Abnett explores the moral cost of the Inquisition.
He is a psyker with powerful telepathic abilities and fights with a runestaff and a bolt pistol. His journey from Puritan to Radical forms the heart of his story. He has fought daemons, heretics and xenos, and his methods have earned him enemies within the Inquisition. Gregor Eisenhorn is an Ordo Xenos inquisitor whose career, from his days as a Puritan to his fall into Radicalism, is told in Dan Abnett's novels. He began by hunting heretic cabals and gradually came to use the weapons of his enemies, including the daemonhost Cherubael. His pursuit of the heretic Quixos and his later conflict with his former student Ravenor show how the Inquisition's ideals can wear away.
Origins
Born on DeKere's World in 198.M41, he was taken as a child by the Black Ships. He became an acolyte of Inquisitor Hapshant and was raised to the rank of Inquisitor.
Taken by the Black Ships as a psyker child, he joined the Ordo Xenos and served under Hapshant. His early cases established him as a promising Inquisitor. His war against the Glaw family began the chain of events that transformed him.
The case that shaped Eisenhorn's life came in 240.M41, when he ended the killing spree of the mass murderer Murdin Eyclone. It brought Godwyn Fischig and Alizebeth Bequin into his service and set him on the trail of both Pontius Glaw and the Necroteuch. He destroyed the human copy of that book, written in High Gothic, himself. Radical Inquisitors called this a heretical waste. The local conclave, dominated by Puritans, outvoted them and backed his decision to burn it. A year later on Sameter he investigated what looked like cult ritual murders. The killers turned out to be veterans of the Sameter 9th Infantry, driven mad by what they had seen in war.
Key events
- Began as a Puritan of the Amalathian faction of the Inquisition.
- Waged a long war against the heretic Glaw family and the forbidden text known as the Necroteuch.
- Took the daemonhost Cherubael into his service, a turning point toward Radicalism.
- Mentored Gideon Ravenor, who became an Inquisitor in his own right.
- Was eventually declared a renegade by parts of the Inquisition.
In 312.M41 his closest friend and acolyte, the pilot Midas Betancore, was killed by the heretic Fayde Thuring, who escaped. Eisenhorn promised to watch over Midas' infant daughter Medea, who later followed her father into his service as his pilot. In 338.M41, after the Thracian Primaris atrocity that maimed Gideon Ravenor, he went undercover as a mutant on Eechan. He found Inquisitorial collusion in the release of the rogue psykers and Inquisitor Lyko in the company of the daemonhost Cherubael. The trail led to Cadia, a second daemonhost called Prophaniti, and the missing Radical Quixos. Inquisitor Osma then arrested Eisenhorn for consorting with daemons. He escaped and finished the hunt as an outlaw, sheltering with Magos Geard Bure on Cinchare.
On Cinchare, Bure made him the tools for the final confrontation. Cherubael had snapped his power sword, so Bure etched pentagrammic wards into Barbarisater, the Carthaen blade of his dead retainer Arianhrod, which Eisenhorn had kept in his safe intending to return it to her people. Bure also made him a force staff topped with a psychic lodestone carved in the likeness of Eisenhorn's own skull. Later, the escaped Pontius Glaw organised a campaign of revenge that tore Eisenhorn's life apart, and Osma and Heldane declared him outcast once more.
Battles & campaigns
- Gudrun: He fought a heretical cabal there and was captured and tortured by Gorgone Locke.
- Saruthi homeworld: He planned the raid in which he first met Cherubael.
- Quixos (338.M41): He hunted the heretic inquisitor after the Thracian Primaris atrocity.
Personality
Driven, stern and increasingly willing to break rules. He is haunted by the compromises he made to win.
He is driven by a sense of duty and willing to break rules to achieve his goals. He is often harsh and cold, but also loyal to his allies. His compromises haunt him, but he believes they are necessary.
Weapons & Vehicles
A master-crafted blade sheathed in a crackling molecular disruption field that parts ceramite, bone and steel with effortless lethality…
Psychically attuned silvered blades, halberds and daemon hammers forged exclusively for the Grey Knights of Titan, channelling the wiel…
The signature .75-calibre rocket-propelled mass-reactive firearm of the Adeptus Astartes, firing self-propelled explosive bolts that de…
A volatile directed-energy rifle that hurls bolts of miniature sun-hot plasma capable of vaporising Terminator plate and tank armour—at…
Storm troopers raised from childhood by the Schola Progenium, the finest unaugmented human soldiers in the Imperium.
Psychically null warrior-women who have sworn an oath of silence, hunting rogue psykers and fighting alongside the Custodes.
Explore all 48 entries in the Weapons & Vehicles armoury.
Connections
Characters (1)
Factions
- The Inquisition primary faction
Related units (3)
Also in this faction
Some links are thematic parallels (marked "parallel") rather than recorded meetings. See the connections web.
Legacy
Eisenhorn began as a puritan Inquisitor and slid steadily toward radicalism, using the very tools he once hunted. His career shows how the Inquisition's ends can justify any means, and how hard it is to tell a pragmatist from a heretic. Many in the Ordos consider him a criminal, and he has been declared one more than once. Eisenhorn is the definitive Black Library inquisitor, and his gradual corruption is still debated by fans.
Appearances & sources
- Xenos, Malleus and Hereticus (Dan Abnett)
- The Magos (Dan Abnett)
- The Bequin trilogy (Dan Abnett)