Officio Assassinorum

When the shit hits the fan, these are the guys that get their hands dirty. It's all about the wetwork.

You can tell you don't mess with the Officio Assasinorium 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, or be ripped apart by a drugged up psycho Wry-meister.

The Officio Assassinorum was founded at the tail-end of the Horus heresy 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." 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 Assassin, ranking equal to the Fabricator-General of Mars and the Ecclesiasarch of the Adeptus Ministorum. 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.

The Officio Assassinorum has four "temples," or specialist branches for operatives:

• Callidus - shapeshifters, masters of infiltration
• Eversor - cyborg drugged up killing machines that have two settings: coma and RIPNTEAR!!1!!1!one!
• Vindicare - snipers that can "BOOM! HEADSHOT!" from the horizon
• Culexus - soulless gothtards that are invisible & immune to psykers, daemons & the Warp.

The Death Cult assassins wish they were the fifth temple, but c'mon, jeez.