Spanish Inquisition
Unlike their Imperial counterparts, the Spanish Inquisition does not shove Inquisitorial retinues up your ass whenever you commit the slightest of offences. It was however probably inspired by it, or at least, the romanticized version of it, with the grim dark turned up more than a few notches of course.
The real-life Spanish Inquisition were a combined political/religious party formed in 1480 by the Spanish Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms and to replace the Medieval Inquisition, which was under Papal control. While the groundwork was laid in AD 1478, the Spanish Inquisition was in power from 1480 to 1834 - 356 years (using 1478).
The Spanish Inquisition is often stated in popular media and medieval history as an example of Catholic intolerance and repression. Modern historians now question or disagree with earlier accounts concerning the severity of the Inquisition. Henry Kamen asserts that the 'myth' of the all-powerful, torture-mad inquisition is largely an invention of nineteenth century Protestant authors with an agenda to discredit the Papacy". The statistics and reputation was further exaggerated later by anti-Christian and/or anti-religious critics - ironically more people were killed by, for example, the atheistic Khmer Rouge which only lasted 1975 - 1979 (4 years) than the Spanish Inquisition in OVER THREE CENTURIES! (with the timespans offsetting the population differences). Even the 9/11 attacks death toll surpassed the Spanish Inquisition's in ONE DAY.
Although records are incomplete, estimates state about 150,000 persons were charged with crimes by the Inquisition and about 3,000 were executed. The records that survived, as was standard with The Spanish Inquisition, are very detailed. According to those, during the several hundred years they were in power approximately 50,000 people were tried by the Spanish Inquisition and of these 1,500 people were sentenced to death (with some escaping before the sentence was carried out so the Spanish Inquisition merely burnt them in effigy). If you average that out for their 356 year time of existence, that averages to either eight people dead a year using the 3,000 estimate or 0.237 people dead a year using the 1,500 executed in there records (including those who weren't actually killed but burnt in effigy, making the actual death toll lower still). Either result gives the inquisition a lower fatality rate per year than lighting (in 2015, 33 people in the US alone died of lighting strikes, in smaller Spain this figure would be even lower).
While they have a reputation for and habit of using torture, the extent of it has also been exaggerated by their detractors. They actually had regulations stating it was only to be used as a last resort and placed limits on how far the torture could go (no removing body parts and nothing that resulted in death). While the first head of the Spanish Inquisition made frequent use of torture, the Pope at the time did strongly disagree, he went to the King and Queen of Spain to try and stop his cruelty. But the monarchs politically strong-armed him into silence. The Spanish Inquisition are known to have been fairer, and used torture less often, than the secular courts at the time. There were several cases where people were on trial in secular courts for lesser crimes who would blaspheme in the court room just so they could be tried by the Spanish Inquisition instead, who would give them a fair(er) trial.
Victoria Lamb makes some pretty badass Spanish Inquisitorial models.
The Spanish Inquisition is not to be expected. ( Despite the fact that they were legally obliged to give thirty days notice. )