Editing Culexus (section)

==Overview==
The origin of the [[Blank|Pariah]] gene is an unknown, it may have been part of the [[C'tan|Deceiver's]] plans to fuck with the [[Old Ones]], but much of that fluff is no longer referenced and is believed to be [[Matt Ward|retconned]]. More recent fluff variously considers the gene to be leftover by some tampering during the [[Dark Age of Technology]], or some kind of evolutionary adaptation against the forces of the the warp.

Individuals with the Pariah gene are rare enough, but to regular humans, their aura is filled with some degree of sickness both figuratively and literally that it means that a lot of them are killed during their early years of childhood. Coupled with the fact that the [[Sisters of Silence]] have been quietly maintaining their numbers for millennia and the Inquisition have their own various uses for Pariahs means that the Officio Assassinorum has to do well to get their hands on any. That, and most initiates to the Officio Assasinorum undergo merciless testing that thins their numbers out even further before they can even undertake their first apprenticeships within their Temples, meaning that the "rare few" pariahs the temple receives probably dwindles even further. That said, given pariahs’ usefulness and rarity, the Culexus is likely much more careful with their initiate’s lives than the other temples so that failures can still be useful to the Imperium.

As early as the [[Great Crusade]] the Culexus Clade/Temple had been working with the Mechanicum to clone their own pariahs in laboratories, which is certainly one way to bulk up the numbers. Though at some point prior to the [[Siege of Terra]] the Tech-Priests declared that they were ending their "Pariah Project" and made a big show of "executing" their specimens. Though the records of the event revealed that the [[A Game of Pretend|number of executions didn't match the number of pariahs]], and what they actually did was move themselves to a hidden fortress on Terra to continue the project.

After the Wars of Vindication in M36, there was a requirement that the temples be separated from each other to avoid corruption, so the Culexus Temple moved to a hidden planetoid somewhere beyond the reach of the [[Astronomican]], and keeps all Assassins within the facility unless they are on active duty; meaning [[Neckbeard|they really don't have much of a social life outside the Officio Assassinorum.]] Ironically, at some time after M37, the Adeptus Mechanicus attempted to claim ownership of the Fortress of the Soulless on Terra ''(likely the one they built in the first place, but left abandoned)'' but got into a conflict with the entire Officio Assassinorum who ended the crisis with a [[Vindicare|snipers bullet]]. Say what you want about the Assassinorum, but at least respect that they seriously stand up for each other.

Those who survive their initiation receive biological implants to increase their reaction speed and agility alongside the standard-issue [[Bodyglove|Panoply of the Assassin]], plus the dreaded [[Animus Speculum]], which when coupled with their extensive training means that a Culexus assassin is one of the deadliest and rarest individuals in the Imperium.

A fully trained Culexus assassin is pretty much the worst thing a psyker could ever encounter, as their mere presence is enough to cause considerable pain and even death to weak-minded psykers. The Eldar harbor a particular hatred and fear of blanks, what with every Eldar being a psyker and whatnot. Furthermore, blanks are totally invisible to [[daemons]] due to their lack of warp signature. The Culexus assassins therefore target exclusively psykers, as most psykers would rather chew their own arteries out and slowly bleed to death than face one.

And not only psykers, like that time a full [[Assassinorum_Execution_Force|Execution force]] (4 assassins, one of each kind) was sent to kill Tau VIPs...and the only one to succeed was the Culexus. And Tau don't even have psykers! Still, even against non-psychic targets, the Culexus has the advantages of a maddening aura of distilled fear and pseudo-invisibility, their Pariah gene allowing them to be ignored ''so hard'' by both the living, the machines and the daemons that this one "sneaked" inside a transport by merely not bumping into the passengers, like a fa/tg/guy in a disco.

<strike>Culexuses</strike> <strike>Culexi</strike> These guys also somehow manage to have no soul so hard (nah, they just have a weird sort of anti-soul, and psyker's reaction to them is kinda like an anti-matter and matter reaction) that they're able to fire beams of not-soul (anti-soul) out of the gun attached to their heads and assuming there's enough psykers around, this beam can become arguably one of the best anti-infantry guns in the game.