The Imperium's secret college of killers, made up of rival Temples such as the Vindicare, Callidus, Eversor and Culexus. Its operatives are sent only with the sanction of the High Lords of Terra, against targets that whole armies cannot reach.
4 units. Jump to: Character Types. See also the Officio Assassinorum faction page and its characters.
Grand Master of Assassins — Clade Synopses & Vanus Files
Originally founded in secret during the Great Crusade by Malcador the Sigillite and the enigmatic 'Sire' directors of the six Founding Clades, the Officio Assassinorum underwent a bloody internal civil war during the Age of Apostasy known as the 'Wars of Vindication' (M36), after the rogue Grand Master Drakan Vangorich slaughtered the High Lords of Terra and ruled the Imperium for eighty years before being slain by a Space Marine strike force led by Chapter Master Maximus Thane of the Imperial Fists.
While the four militant Clades (Vindicare, Callidus, Eversor, and Culexus) operate in the field, two sister Temples work from the shadows: the Clade Venenum, masters of genetically tailored toxins that kill only individuals sharing a specific ancestral genome, and the Clade Vanus, cybernetic 'Infocytes' who assassinate warlords and planetary governors by manipulating stock-feeds, vox-Intercepts, and orbital navigation beacons without ever setting foot on the target world.
Sub-Factions, Secret Orders & Classified Relics
- Clade Vanus (The Infocytes) — Data-assassins wired into noospheric cogitator webs who engineer 'accidental' warp-drive implosions, financial collapses, and friendly-fire barrages across entire sub-sectors.
- Clade Venenum — Alchemical poisoners whose toxins can lie dormant in a noble house's wine cellar for three generations until activated by a specific sub-vocal frequency.
- Clade Adamus — The oldest of the Assassin Temples, dating back to the Unification Wars, specializing in the 'decapitation strike' through martial blade-mastery and anatomical study of enemy warlords.
