Officio Assassinorum
"Ask not for whom they seek, lest it be thyself." - Tactica Imperium on The Officio Assassinorum
When the shit hits the fan, these are the guys that get their hands dirty. It's all about the wetwork. This branch of the Imperium recruits, trains and commands Assassins, for more information on the individual Assassin types, please visit this page.
You can tell you don't mess with the Officio Assassinorium when their official description is, "Ask not for whom they seek, lest it be thyself", this basically means ANYONE, from the lowliest of workers to the High Lords of Terra, at ANY moment, could have an enormous sniper round fly through their brain, shanked by who they thought was their mother, or be ripped apart by a drugged up psycho Wry-meister.
History
The Officio Assassinorum was founded at the beginning of the Great Crusade as a government department for holding any up-and-coming overlords or heretical leaders accountable for their actions. And by "accountable" we mean "disposed of." And by "disposed of" we mean "killed stone dead." Formed by Malcador the Sigillite and the six masters of the Clades (the future temples), it was hidden in extreme secrecy in an attempt to keep it out of the Emperor's knowledge to maintain his purity (a concept the Big E always found funny). Technically a terminatus order can only be issued by the Imperial Senate of Holy Terra, and the members of the Officio Assassinorum are kept on a very short leash. Unlike the Inquisition, they have no discretionary powers of their own.
The head of the Officio is known as the Master of Assassins, ranking equal to the Fabricator-General of Mars and the Ecclesiarch of the Adeptus Ministorum among the High Lords of Terra. Which if you think about it must be somewhat distracting during their meetings. The Lords sitting around and discussing the fates of billions of men. And as the debate goes back and forth, one of them says nothing, ever, just sits smoking in his trench coat almost completely overlooked. And then they remember that a majority decision could have them killed, and this is the guy who does that. And only that. His only job is to dispatch death on swift wings to any unpopular high officials. It'd be like having a guillotine built into your throne. Somewhat disconcerting.
Members are recruited at a young age, mostly orphans of those who died serving the Imperial Guard, but recruits are also taken from so-called "dead" worlds where children are usually considered a wriggling foodsource by the degenerates that survive there. Recruits are biologically augmented at a very young age and train en masse in Holy Terra's schools of assassins, until they reach maturity and choose one of the specialist temples to continue their education and eventually serve the Imperium.
The assassin specialists almost approach fabled Chuck Norris levels, as these orders have permission make use of "any means or tools to get the job done," even if it means banned tech from the Dark Age (like 'synskin'), xeno artifacts (like a C'tan phase blade). These assassins are also given crushingly restrictive psych treatments to never use these tools unless under orders, which can make them seem kinda spastic during downtimes when said tech is augmentations to their own body.
There are only 2 recorded examples of anyone in the order to become tainted, unfortunately it was the Master of Assassins.....The Imperium learned of his butthole treachery when he had the High Lords of Terra wiped out to the last man.......grimdark indeed (although the uncaring dicks did have it coming.....), anyways, an Astartes retribution force was immediately dispatched to 'resolve' the situation. It is not known how many space marines were dispatched, I can only assume since the force was from multiple chapters so probably somewhere between 1000-2000 marines. As soon as they landed, the commander got BLAMMED, leaving the remaining marines to break into the grand chamber of the Assassinorum, where they found 100 (!) Eversor assassins between them and the cunt Master. Only 1 marine survived to plug the Master in the brain with a Boltgun. This super-hardcore-awesome-ass-kicking marine is undoubtedly Logan Grimnar (Even though this happened in M.32, oh well....Grimnar probably invented a time machine just so he could go back to this event and do it for the lulz) The other one was the case of Vindicare Assassin 52.6.
Alas, they will always be second best, for they can never become Ultramarines.
This is most probably because during the Horus Heresy, 8 assassins from each temple were dispatched with the job of killing the asshole that started it. For some reason, like everyone in the Imperium who tried to stop it, they failed.
Divisions
The Officio Assassinorum has six "temples," or specialist branches for operatives:
- Callidus - shapeshifters, masters of infiltration
- Culexus - soulless gothtards that are invisible & immune to psykers, daemons & the Warp.
- Eversor - cyborg drugged up killing machines that have two settings: coma and RIP'N'TEAR!!1!!1!one!
- Vanus - leet hacker NERD CHESS PLAYERS. All are geniuses in the fields of intelligence gathering, strategy and tactics. Eg. "The cleanest kill is one that another performs in your stead with no knowledge of your incitement." They are what every neckbeard wants to be.
- Venenum - master poisoners who can take the things found in a local kitchen and kill a Space Marine.
- Vindicare - snipers that can "BOOM! HEADSHOT!" from the horizon.
The Death Cult assassins wish they were the seventh temple, but c'mon, jeez.
