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"By my will I deny thee, by my heart I spurn thee, by my hand I destroy thee; fiend of emptiness, to the void I cast thy blackened soul..."

— From the Liber Exorcismus

The Exorcists are a highly unusual Loyalist Chapter of Space Marines created during the 13th Founding, the so-called "Dark Founding" which occurred sometime between the 35th and 36th Millennia, before the start of the Age of Apostasy.

The true identity of their progenitors are known only to the highest-ranking members of the Ordo Malleus, and details of their creation have been placed under Inquisitorial seal, though it is widely accepted that they were raised from the genetic lineage of Rogal Dorn, and share many of the stoic traits of other Imperial Fists successors.

The Exorcists were founded as part of a highly-classified Imperial experiment to create Space Marines who were unusually resistant to daemonic possession and Chaos corruption.

As part of their initiation into the Chapter each Exorcist Astartes had actually been forced to serve as a Daemonhost for a short time before having the foul creature expelled back to the Warp by the intervention of an Inquisitor.

The details of the Chapter's Founding are not simply lost to the mists of time, however, for they have never been accessible to even the highest-ranked individuals.

All that can be ascertained is that the records were sealed at the express and irreversible order of one of the High Lords of Terra -- none other than the Inquisitorial Representative on the Senatorum Imperialis.

This has led some to postulate that the Exorcists were created on the order of the Inquisition, or perhaps as a result of their counsel. What dark mission could require the founding of an entire Space Marine Chapter is unknown, but certainly, the Exorcists are quite unique in many regards.

The Exorcists adhere in most ways to the precepts of the Codex Astartes, the only notable difference being the fact that they maintain not ten, but twelve companies.

Instead of just a single Scout Company, the Exorcists maintain two extra for a total of twelve companies within the Chapter.

While the reason for this divergence has never been openly explained, it is thought to relate to the esoteric and arduous selection processes the neophytes are subjected to, as this training requires a high influx of recruits in order to ensure the Chapter's continuation.

The exact nature of the Chapter's training and conditioning remains a mystery to the wider Imperium for good reason, but there are some Imperial savants who have correctly surmised that the neophytes are deliberately exposed to contact with the foul denizens of the Warp in the hope that they will be made strong by the process, or killed by it.

If true, this would certainly account for the high numbers of Exorcist neophytes -- up to 80% in one measure -- who, for whatever reason, do not survive service in one of the Scout Companies to become full initiates of the Chapter.

This is largely speculation, for if such a practice were to be brought to light, not even a Chapter of the mighty Adeptus Astartes would be free from prosecution by the Inquisition for such a crime.

Chapter History

"After a period of recuperation, the subjects were instructed in the methods of combating the daemonic, trained in the use of the 666 verses of the Book of Exorcisms and equipped with the weapons of an Exorcist. The two companies were then put into action on a Daemon-infested world on the northern fringes of the Eye of Terror. With a squad of the Grey Knights held in reserve, the Exorcist Space Marines achieved a kill ratio of 97:1. Impressive under normal circumstances, but against the daemonic, I'm sure you'll agree that these figures clearly indicate that the procedure is both safe and effective."

— Excerpt of a secret Inquisitorial report, by Lauram Clelland, Genetor-Major, Xenobiologis to parties unknown, 013.M36

Public Origins

This mysterious but noble Chapter is at once the epitome of the values of the Adeptus Astartes and an enigma. The Exorcists have saved many worlds and defeated many great foes in the service of the Emperor of Mankind.

The Exorcists is only the second known Space Marine Chapter to have been created during the mysterious 13th Founding (the so-called "Dark Founding"), alongside the equally mysterious Death Spectres.

Mark VII Brother Initiate

Exorcists Chapter colour scheme as displayed by a Firstborn Space Marine.

The exact nature and origin of the gene-seed used in the Exorcists' creation has remained classified by a special "Bull Absolute" of the Inquisitorial Representative to the High Lords of Terra issued by the Senatorum Imperialis at the time of the Chapter's creation, but they were in fact created from the genetic lineage of Rogal Dorn.

What is known publicly is that the Exorcists have maintained a long-standing link to the Inquisition. Some have even whispered that they are intimately involved with certain factions of the secretive Ordo Malleus.

It is most likely that the unique character of this Chapter has been greatly influenced by the sponsorship and designs of the Inquisitorial Ordos, and the Inquisition may well have ordered the Chapter's creation, either as a grand experiment or for some singular purpose.

ExorcistsHelliox

Exorcists Chapter colour scheme as displayed by Primaris Marine Brother Helliox, 2nd Company, 3rd Squad (battleline).

On the subject of the creation, a single communication remains, and was sent from a genetor-major of the Xenobiologis sect of the Adeptus Mechanicus named Lauram Clelland.

Members of the Ecclesiarchy were seconded to the Ordo Malleus to help with the creation of the Chapter. One member of the delegation, Cardinal Rodrigo Nessun, went mad after witnessing the high rate of failure of the early initiation process, turning to Chaos worship and fleeing with most of the Space Marines that could not be successfully exorcised, forming the Swords of Epiphany Chaos Space Marine warband.

The Exorcists have since been sanctioned as an official Chapter and are often involved in operations overseen by the Ordo Malleus, though the records of their creation were sealed at the order of the Inquisitorial Representative.

Secret Origins

ExorcistsPausaniusVanguard

Battle-Brother Pausanius, a Vanguard Infiltrator, of the Exorcists' 10th Company, 4th Squad (Battleline), wearing Mark X Phobos Power Armour and wielding a Marksman Bolt Carbine.

The Exorcists are one of a handful of Space Marine Chapters who trace their creation to the shadowy 13th Founding. Historical records of this obscure event in Imperial history are scant and often contradictory, so it is little wonder that the 13th Founding is commonly known as the "Dark Founding." Indeed, the full details of the Exorcists' foundation are not widely known even within the Chapter itself, and those who are privy to such secrets remain tight-lipped. This is in keeping with the Exorcists' customary silence on all matters that might attract wider scrutiny.

Such secrecy is a necessary defence, as although the Exorcists are renowned first and foremost as a heroic and accomplished Space Marine Chapter, they fulfil a second, clandestine role as hunters of Chaos Daemons. If knowledge of this mission -- and of the disturbing manner in which the Exorcists prepare themselves for it -- were to spread beyond their homeworld of Banish, many Puritan Imperial agents would denounce the Chapter outright as Heretics. Yet the likelihood of such a discovery is reduced by the fact that most archives concerning the Exorcists' Founding are either mysteriously closed or missing entirely.

In the absence of hard facts, speculation has mounted, and there are some who view the Exorcists with mistrust, noting that they seem to have been present in more than their fair share of war zones blighted by Chaos. Combined with the rare glimpses of the Exorcists' strange traditions and Chapter cult practices, this has been enough to provoke accusations of heresy. However unfounded, such ideas have found support amongst some of the Imperium's most zealous defenders, including the Black Templars. This is a point of considerable irony, as in truth the two Chapters share the same genetic primogenitor -- the noble Primarch Rogal Dorn.

Conceived as a Codex Astartes-compliant Chapter, the Exorcists were created from the resilient gene-seed of the Imperial Fists, and they soon distinguished themselves as worthy scions of Dorn. In the early years of the Chapter, the Exorcists proved adaptable to many different strategic challenges, whether fighting alongside other Imperial forces or blazing their own trail of destruction through the Emperor's foes. But when the Exorcists deployed to liberate the Daemon-wracked world of Totem IV, the fate of the Chapter changed forever.

Battle of Totem IV and the Plutonians

The Human colonists of the Totem System had long prided themselves on their independent spirit, and by the time they raised the alarm that they were under attack, the Chaos invasion led by the Tzeentchian Greater Daemon Keriath the Shrouded was already well advanced. The Exorcists were first to respond, and upon landing on the cardinal planet Totem IV, they were immediately beset by a huge host of Tzeentchian Warp-spawn. Though these eldritch horrors had the numbers to overwhelm the Astartes, the Exorcists' resilience of spirit was formidable even by the measure of Space Marines. Whether by some quirk of genetics or the invisible will of the Emperor Himself, they found themselves able to overcome the corrupting touch of sorcerers and Daemons in situations others would deem hopeless. So it was on Totem IV, as the Exorcists advanced boldly through the planet's blasted cityscapes, taking considerable physical damage but never yielding to the assaults their twisted foes made on their minds.

Angered by the Exorcists' strange resistance to the mutagenic gifts of Tzeentch, Keriath the Shrouded sought out their leader -- Chapter Master Enoch Trismegistus -- and hurled his entire psychic essence into the stoic Space Marine's mind. Even the heightened resolve of the Exorcists was no defence against such a powerful entity, and the Chapter Master succumbed to the possession. Yet Keriath's victory was not complete; though the Daemon spoke through his host's mouth and did much damage to the Exorcists' position, internally Trismegistus battled on, fighting a desperate battle of wills against the Daemon and putting its own psychic defences to the test.

While this ordeal took a grave toll on the Chapter Master's psyche, it gifted him with profound insights into the weaknesses of his daemonic foe and awoke a measure of his own latent psychic ability. In a feat of immense mental strength, he reached out to the mind of Chief Librarian Goetos, and together the two Exorcists drew out Keriath and banished him from realspace.

The consequences of this episode were momentous for both Trismegistus and his Chapter. Unknown to the Exorcists, a Radical Inquisitorial sect known as the Plutonians had already developed suspicions concerning the Chapter's unusual spiritual resilience and had embedded an informant in a menial position within the Chapter Command. When this spy reported on Trismegistus' daemonic possession, the Plutonians acted swiftly, asserting their authority as Ordo Malleus agents to relieve the Chapter Master of command and establish purpose-built quarters on the Chapter homeworld of Banish.

Here Trismegistus was interrogated relentlessly. Only after many solar months was the Space Marine absolved and reinstated as master of his brethren. This was only the beginning, however. In the course of their interrogations, the Plutonians had laid out to Trismegistus their own Radical theories concerning daemonic possession and how its controlled use might be a paradoxical weapon in the war against Chaos. Perhaps they broke their silence out of vanity, expecting the Chapter Master to face the flames of oblivion soon enough. But Trismegistus had drunk of Keriath the Shrouded's vast intellect and realised the warped genius of the Inquisitors' plan. Once his purity had been proven beyond doubt, he made his own radical proposal to the Plutonians, pledging his incorruptible brethren as partners in their cause.

Acting in utmost secrecy, the Plutonians therefore remained on Banish permanently to oversee a programme that would be met with outrage if known to the wider Imperium. Entering a forbidding facility known as the Halls of Tempering, each new Exorcists recruit -- and each compliant existing Astartes warrior -- would be subjected to daemonic possession like Trismegistus had been, albeit by entities of much lesser power and under tightly-controlled conditions. After a period of intense monitoring and scrutiny, the Inquisitors would then drive out the Daemon and return the victim to the care of the Chapter for a further phase of recovery and reflection. So began a unique Chapter initiation ritual that continues to this day.

Those who successfully emerge from the ordeal bear disturbing physical and mental scars but also exhibit qualities that, in the Plutonians' view, justify the brutal ordeal. The process seems to render the Exorcists still more fearless and resilient to daemonic corruption, and it gifts each battle-brother with personal revelations of the nature of Daemonkind that serve them well in later clashes with the servants of the Ruinous Powers. Whatever the true extent of these changes, the Exorcists maintain a stony silence on all matters of Chapter training and tradition, knowing that even a single breach of secrecy could be their undoing.

First Trials

Once the Plutonians had come up with their plan and Chapter Master Trismegistus approved it, the first group of chosen initiates of the Chapter underwent a process known as "Daemonic Possession Therapy." Each Astartes was, under very tight security, deliberately subject to possession by a minor denizen of the Warp.

The Inquisition arranged for each test subject to be possessed by Daemons for twelve solar hours before the Daemons were banished by Ordo Malleus Inquisitors. Some of the Astartes were so damaged physically and psychologically by the possession that they had to be terminated. But the majority of test subjects survived, needing only minor reconstructive surgery. They emerged unusually skilled in the ways of combating Daemonkind, just as the Inquisition had hoped.

After a minor period of recuperation the subjects were taught the ways of combating Daemons, trained in the use of the 666 verses of the Liber Exorcismus or "Book of Exorcisms" and equipped with the weapons of Daemonhunters. This process has also caused the subjects to have no psychic signature that psykers can detect.

The original test subjects, some two companies strong (200 Space Marines) were released onto a Daemon-infested planet on the northern fringes of the Eye of Terror, while a squad of Grey Knights was held in reserve, just in case they suddenly turned on the Inquisition. The Inquisitors need not have worried, for the Exorcists achieved extremely impressive results, achieving a kill ratio of 97:1.

Following this test, the Exorcists Chapter was fully chartered and allowed to begin recruiting once more until it had reached its full required strength of 1,000 Astartes, all of whom were subjected to the same test of daemonic possession before rising from the Scout companies to become full initiates of the Chapter.

Broken Ones

Soon after the Plutonians began their work, it became clear that the Exorcists were not just capable of enduring daemonic possession. Their corporeal forms also proved strangely suited to retaining any Warp entities that were not successfully banished. In a series of horrifying experiments, the Plutonians found that the living bodies of failed Exorcists initiates were able to hold indefinite numbers of Daemons prisoner, some subjects becoming so saturated with Warp-spawn that they were sustained in a state of deathless torture, their bodies enduring for Terran centuries while their minds broke apart. Even in this ignoble end, however, the Exorcists found a use for their fallen sons.

If these "Broken Ones" could not serve the Chapter on the battlefield, they could at least live on as vessels of imprisonment, harbouring in their flesh the myriad entities driven out of successful initiates -- immortal beings that might otherwise return to the Warp and scatter the Exorcists' deepest secrets far and wide. Thus arose the most chilling of all practices conducted within the Halls of Tempering, and over the millennia, the numbers of accursed Broken Ones have continued to grow.

Accommodating such vessels of evil on Banish would be unthinkably dangerous, however. As the Apothecarion is concerned with retaining only the untarnished gene-seed of successful initiates, Broken Ones are dispatched into deep space under maximum security protocols, to live out their untold years within a secret prison-craft known as the Purgatomb. Within the pitch-black bowels of this immense drifting bastion, the Broken Ones are left to writhe and scream, locked within the hyper-dense walls of their warded cells. For some five millennia the Purgatomb has served the Exorcists' grim purposes, and though its location has become known on occasion, its abominable contents have never yet become known to any ally or enemy. This is well, as if even a single Broken One were to escape, the consequences for the Chapter -- perhaps even for the Imperium itself -- would be catastrophic.

Armadel's Purge and the Swords of Epiphany

The initiation process of the Exorcists has always had its failures. Although most of these unfortunates die during their ordeal -- or worse, become Broken Ones -- one dark episode in the Chapter's early history demonstrated how dangerous these fallen souls could be. The initiative came from Cardinal Rodrigo Nessun, a trusted agent of the Ecclesiarchy attached to the Plutonians on Banish.

When Nessun witnessed the changes that came over those who had succumbed to possession, he experienced a revelation: to his mind, these beings were a higher breed of warrior who could take Humanity forward, not dangerous sources of potential Chaos corruption who should be executed or locked away. Unwittingly guided by the whispers of the Dark Gods, Nessun gathered up a contingent of these condemned initiates before they could be destroyed, and he escaped with them into the Warp, baptising his foul host the "Swords of Epiphany" and swearing them to the service of Chaos.

The existence of this warband of Heretic Astartes could not be tolerated by the Exorcists. More than staining the Chapter's honour, the Heretics might have retained memories of the hellish practices carried out in the Basilica Malefex and spread damning rumours through the wider Imperium. Thus began the campaign known as "Armadel's Purge," led by Captain Veyon Armadel, which hounded the Swords of Epiphany wherever they were sighted until at last the twisted cabal was declared extinct.

Era Indomitus

Since the birth of the Great Rift that marked the dawn of the Era Indomitus, the galaxy has been beset by Warp horrors and heretical uprisings on an unprecedented scale, and the renowned incorruptibility of the Exorcists has never been more in need. As a result, Exorcists strike forces have been deployed far and wide, some even plunging into the shadows of the Imperium Nihilus, their mission to combat the unholy forces rumoured to prey upon Imperial worlds there.

When the Primaris Marine reinforcements were dispatched to the Space Marine Chapters, the Torchbearer fleet bound for Banish met with intense and repeated daemonic assaults, to the extent that the Rogue Traders travelling with the flotilla came to regard the mission as cursed. Privately, even the Adeptus Custodes attached to the fleet muttered that such attention from the Dark Gods was ominous indeed. In the heavy fighting that resulted, all of the fleet's Greyshields fell in action, and when the battered Torchbearer vessels finally reached the Exorcists, the Magi Biologis were able to present the Chapter with only the technologies behind the creation of Primaris Space Marines, with no living proof of the new transhuman warriors Belisarius Cawl had prepared.

All the same, this gift of technology suited Chapter Command and the Plutonians well. Raising all of their own Primaris initiates on Banish would enable the close monitoring of training from its earliest stages, to watch for any signs of incompatibility with the initiation rite. No such signs came. The Exorcists' innate resistance to daemonic influence seemed present in the Primaris recruits also, further indicating that a peculiarity in the Chapter's gene-seed was responsible for the anomaly. As to the root causes of this phenomenon and why similar gifts do not present in the Imperial Fists or their other genetic successors, no further light was shed.

Nonetheless, the strange initiation rites left their mark on the Primaris subjects also. In war zones where they fought alongside other Chapters whose battle-brothers had endured no forced exposure to Daemons, subtle differences between the Primaris elements were apparent. Time and again, the Primaris Marines of the Exorcists seemed more stalwart in the face of Warp-spawn and sorcery, but they were also more prone to unexplained decisions and turns of mood.

Notable Campaigns

  • Aschen War (300-307.M40) - The Aschen War was a series of brushfire revolts and Chaos incursions that erupted across the Aschen Sub-sector in 300.M40, after a bloody Chaos Cult-inspired revolt on the Cardinal World of Dimmamar exposed how overstretched Imperial control over the surrounding region had become. Slowly stripped of much of its defences over the course of several generations to provide for the needs of other pressing conflicts nearby, this border region was ill-equipped to stave off catastrophe when it came. Very rapidly a three-way war developed between the beleaguered Imperial protectors of the Aschen worlds, Chaos Cultists who had subsumed several planetary defence garrisons to their cause and Ork marauders pouring across the border from the adjacent Blood-Maw Cluster. The Imperial counter-invasion was led by the combined forces of two Space Marine Chapters -- the Exorcists and the Dark Hands, backed by the Necromundan 54th and 60th Imperial Guard Rifles and the Battle-Sisters of the Order of the Valorous Heart. The Exorcists quickly realised that one of the keys to victory would be locating and destroying the single dark master of many names that lurked behind the divergent Chaos Cults in the region, a daemonic creature that on Dimmamar was known as the Horned God. A thing of shadow and malice, the Horned God was a master of hellish pacts who had become engorged on the souls its servants had slaughtered. When the Exorcists finally cornered the Daemon Prince in the maze-like pre-human ruins of the Dead World of Belphago, it was attended by a guard of thousands of its fanatical followers and several warbands of Night Lords Chaos Space Marines it had bound to its will. What followed was one of the hardest-fought and costly actions in the Chapter's history, as the Exorcists, with the aid of a hastily composed Ordo Malleus strike team, fought their way through suicidal attack waves of cultists and the skillful ambushes and vicious assaults of the Night Lords before confronting the blackly-burning Daemons that served the Horned God. In the final, titanic struggle amid the fallen ruins of a xenos temple to the Dark Gods older than the history of humanity, the Exorcists' elite Enochian Guard and a handful of surviving Inquisitors and their Acolytes confronted the Lord of Shadows in all its blasphemous and unholy glory. Shrugging off shot, shell and energy blast, the darkling beast slashed through the Exorcists' ranks, shearing Terminator Armoured warriors in half with contemptuous ease and ripping asunder the Daemonhosts of Inquisitor Grey before devouring their master whole. The Exorcists refused to retreat from the horror that confronted them despite their losses, and slowly the weight of their attacks began to take their toll. The turning point of the battle came when one of the Chapter's Dreadnoughts, the Venerable Sybra, sacrificed himself to rip a great chunk of the Daemon Prince's smouldering body away and exposed its blazing heart. This noble act allowed the Exorcists to press their attack while the Daemon reeled in agony. With a daring lunge, Librarian Malachite pierced the foul heart with his Force Spear, and with the utmost exertion of his powers and adamant will through the weapon severed the Daemon's connection with the mortal plane, finally vanquishing it. As the Daemon Prince's cries of rage and frustration echoed into eternity, all across the Aschen Sub-sector, those who had bartered their souls for a measure of the Horned God's power paid the price and were consumed by black flames, shattering the power of the Chaos revolt. A full third of the Exorcists Chapter had perished, but the tide of the war was now in the Imperium's favour, and within a year, the sub-sector was brought back under Imperial control.
  • Relief of Stonekraal (740.M41) - The Relief of Stonekraal was the defence of the minor Frontier World of Stonekraal within the Realm of Ultramar in the Ultima Segmentum from a small incursion by the Tyranids of Hive Fleet Behemoth. In 740.M41, a scheduled trader vessel, the Nostros Vex, appeared three weeks overdue and drifting, seemingly lifeless, on the edge of the Stonekraal System, and it was investigated by vessels sent out from the small Imperial colony in the system. This heralded the beginning of a nightmare for the colonists of Stonekraal. Soon a rapidly multiplying infestation of Hive Fleet Behemoth Genestealers broke out, and in an ever-growing plague, the horrific creatures hacked through the scattered, hardscrabble settlements of Stonekraal like a butcher's cleaver through raw meat. Alone, and realising their astropathic distress calls were unlikely to be answered, the remaining Stonekraal colonists did their best to gather their few weapons together and mount a defence, determined to sell their lives dearly if they could. When all seemed lost and only the last major settlements remained, all that was left for the terrified men and women cowering behind futile barricades was to pray for deliverance to the God-Emperor. Yet that deliverance came as deep crimson Thunderhawk gunships descended on plumes of fire above them. The Exorcists Space Marine Chapter's 3rd Company, driven off-course by the Tyranids' psychic shadow in the Warp, had heard the colony's cries for help. Their Strike Cruiser Hand of Glory, having already slain two encroaching Void Kraken in the outer system, now off-loaded its complement of Space Marines to make a stand on Stonekraal's broken ground. The battles that followed were swift but furious; the Genestealers first seeking to infiltrate by stealth only to be met by the firepower of the Exorcists Astartes waiting for them. The Tyranid broods quickly shifted tactics and sought to overwhelm their foes in a whirlwind of fang and claw. Inured as they were to the terrors of the Warp, even these nightmarish xenos, although deadly beyond measure, held little fear for the Exorcists Space Marines. With near-clinical efficiency the Space Marines set up interlocking fields of fire to trap their attackers into prepared killing zones in order to blunt the Genestealers' advantage in speed and numbers. Meanwhile the Exorcists' potent Librarian, Castor Machen, sought out the synapse creatures present within the brood and scourged them to ashes with coruscating soulfire. The people of Stonekraal survived thanks to the Exorcists' efforts; a small victory, perhaps, in the grand scheme of the greater battle against the Hive Fleets, but a victory nonetheless. After-action testimony taken by Ordo Xenos investigators record the fearful awe the surviving colonists felt for their saviours, and many spoke of how the sound of the baleful litanies the Exorcists chanted during battle still echoed in their dreams.
  • Badab War (908-912.M41) - The Exorcists Chapter participated in the latter stages of the Badab War led by Silas Alberec, the famed Exorcists 3rd Company Captain and heir-designate to the command of the Chapter. The Exorcists intervened in the conflict once the Secessionists had been declared Excommunicate Traitoris in 908.M41. Alberec, huge in stature even for a Space Marine, gained great fame and recognition for himself in the Badab War, leading his Space Marines in several noteworthy engagements. The first of these was the taking of the armed merchantman Soyuz-Maru during the Second Battle of Sagan, and the last was the bloody attack on the vital and heavily defended Sentinel-Sigma station during the Fall of Badab Primaris. In this latter battle, Alberec wielded the Hellslayer Power Mace to great effect, rapidly smashing his way through armoured bulkheads while under heavy fire from the Astral Claws. Alberec slew the Astral Claws' Chaplain Arkil Lionsmane in personal combat despite still suffering from grievous wounds earned in prior battles. The Exorcists' otherwise exemplary role in the Badab War was tarnished, however, when their blockade of the Badab System failed in the confusion of the final hours of the siege, as anarchy reigned on the surface of Badab Primaris after the Carcharodons fired the reactors of the world's hive cities and started a chain reaction that would doom the planet. In the scramble to flee the surface, both Loyalists and Secessionists struggled to escape in any spacecraft they could commandeer. In the confusion that followed, the Exorcists fired on and in some cases destroyed any vessel that could not prove itself to be an ally, unfortunately slaying many fellow Loyalists in the process. Worse, a vessel containing many Astartes from Lufgt Huron's inner circle escaped the blockade in the confusion carrying the badly wounded but still-living form of their master into the Maelstrom, who would return to plague the Imperium once more as Huron Blackheart, the Chaos Lord who commanded the piratical warband of Chaos Space Marines who called themselves the Red Corsairs.
  • Cleansing of Opridia (972.M41) - Inquisitor Lord Coteaz of the Ordo Malleus led the planet-wide exorcism of Opridia, casting out a million Daemonhosts and slaying the Daemon Prince Karpathi the Occludor. Crucial to the Inquisitor's victory was the deployment of the 2nd Company of the Exorcists Chapter, whose Librarians enacted Rites of Detestation unknown outside of their Chapter Cult.
  • Third War for Armageddon (998.M41) - The Exorcists deployed 12 companies -- the entire strength of the Chapter -- during the Third War for Armageddon.
  • The Black Sun (672.999.M41) - The Exorcists Chapter rushed to confront the daemonic incursions around the sun Sirie.
  • 13th Black Crusade (999.M41) - The Exorcists also participated in the defence of the Cadian Gate against Abaddon the Despoiler and the forces of Chaos during the 13th Black Crusade. The Exorcists are also one of only four Space Marine Chapters to have both fought in the Third War for Armageddon and against the 13th Black Crusade.
  • Indomitus Crusade (ca. 999.M41 - Present) - The Exorcists strike cruiser Wraith of Thenna under the command of the Librarian Bael Vordhane of the 2nd Company joined the crusade's Tertius Fleet's Battlegroup Haephestus. The Exorcist forces participated in the Drennox Cleansing campaign during the crusade.

Chapter Organisation

"Think of your Inquisition's pet Adeptus Astartes mongrels -- the Exorcists. Their training is spoken of in the Ordos' archives, you know. They've housed Daemons within their bodies, and endured exorcism under the Inquisition's watchful eyes. They are forgiven. Why not a Human like me? Where does your hypocrisy come from?"
"They are as corrupt as any other."
"Such a Puritan.
"

—Conversation between an Inquisitorial agent and former Chaos Cultist and a Grey Knights Astartes

The Exorcists are regarded as a Codex Astartes-compliant Chapter, with a great deal of their organisation, structure and tactical operations adhering to the tenets of the Astartes' holiest of tomes. Much of the Chapter's common practices, insignia, honours and basic tactical doctrine is based closely on that of the Ultramarines and their Successor Chapters. There are, however, several noteworthy and substantial deviations from the Codex's prescriptions.

The organisational structure of the Exorcists is largely compliant with the Codex Astartes, with a command hierarchy comparable to any conventional Space Marine Chapter. This conformity continues with regard to the company structure outlined in the Codex, except that the Exorcists maintain two additional companies beyond the traditional ten for a total of twelve. Due to the high influx of recruits required to ensure that sufficient numbers of battle-brothers survive the Exorcists' unnatural selection process, the 11th and 12th Companies solely comprise Firstborn Scout novitiates.

The reason for this high number of Scouts is the highly unorthodox and dangerous training practices used by the Chapter, which some outsiders believe may even include controlled exposure to Warp entities and daemonic possession before a neophyte can become a full battle-brother.

If such practices are employed, then the Chaos corruption and fatality rates would be extremely high for Exorcist neophytes, requiring a high influx of new recruits, hence the need to maintain two extra companies of Scout Marines. In fact, these practices mean that some 80% of the Chapter's neophytes do not survive the possession and attempted banishment process.

In truth, different Scout units serving within these companies will be at different stages of their initiation. Some will have passed out of the Halls of Tempering and into a gamut of physical and spiritual assessments overseen by the Master of Recruits and Reclusiam staff. Others are as yet unaware of the daemonic encounter they will soon have to face and assume the close vetting of their conduct and the intensity of their early combat missions to be typical of any Space Marine Chapter.

In addition to this organisational quirk, the Exorcists' 10th Company differs to those of most other Chapters in that, since the Primaris Marine creation technology reached the Chapter, what was once a third company of Scouts is now entirely composed of Vanguard Space Marines. In response to this, the Chapter's unorthodox 11th and 12th Companies expanded their neophyte numbers to make up the shortfall.

Orison Cults

There exist within the Exorcists' ranks certain esoteric sub-cults which dedicate themselves to particular fields of expertise and knowledge important to the Chapter, known as "Orisons." On the battlefield, many of these Orisons manifest themselves amongst the various squads and divisions, whilst their inner circles are primarily made up of the Chapter's Veterans and other high ranking battle-brothers and officers. Acceptance within one or more of these sub-cults is a mark of high regard within the Chapter, and membership in one does not preclude one from involvement in another.

Alongside the great institutions whose doors line the Cloister of Scars at the heart of the Exorcists' fortress-monastery on Banish, smaller, simpler portals give access to meeting places known as Orison Shrines. In these, battle-brothers initiated into specific Orison sub-cults reflect in different ways upon their duties as Space Marines, and they work to expand the bespoke libraries of knowledge each Orison maintains. These sub-cults are an important part of the Chapter's identity, and they open their doors to any Exorcists who would consult their records or learn more of their traditions.

To outside observers, the Exorcists' use of esoteric titles such as "brother-initiate" might hint at clandestine layers of battlefield organisation, but such terms are only honorifics with no role in the actual Chapter hierarchy that simply signify Orison membership. Nonetheless, certain Orisons do maintain historic associations with particular traditional Astartes battlefield roles. Many 1st Company Veterans belong to the prominent Orison known as the Enochian Guard, for example, while the sub-cult known as the Obelisk Thelemus attracts Devastators and Techmarines in greater number, and the Broken Tower cult is almost exclusively formed from Librarius personnel. Membership of one Orison does not preclude membership of another, and highly regarded heroes of the Chapter may have multiple Orison honours to their name.

Enochian Guard

Perhaps the most elite of these Orisons is known as the Enochian Guard, named after the Chapter's legendary Chapter Master Enoch Trismegistus, and is composed entirely of Veterans from the Chapter's elite 1st Company who usually fight as Terminators.

The shrine of the Enochians is the oldest and largest of its kind along the Cloister of Scars, with an archive particularly rich in occult lore. Although its doors are open to any battle-brothers who wish to broaden their knowledge or pay their respects, tradition holds that only Veterans of the 1st Company or other high-ranking notaries may be initiated into the Orison itself. Rank alone does not qualify an Exorcist for membership of the Enochian Guard, however. Only those known to have slain a Daemon in single combat are considered worthy candidates, and even then, prospective initiates must be vouched for by at least two other members.

Like all Orisons, the Enochian Guard are careful not to draw overt attention to their membership with grand visual display, so they keep battlefield markings limited. Nonetheless, before battle it is traditional for Enochians to adorn themselves with excerpts from the Liber Exorcismus and other hallowed writings in the Chapter's keeping. Some brothers choose to carve these directly into their armour and gun casings, while others ink the words onto long streamers of parchment which they then wrap around their limbs and weapons, believing that the verses will imbue them with righteous strength when the Emperor's light is furthest from reach.

Chapter Homeworld

Though the Exorcists spend extensive periods as fleet-based campaigners, the Exorcists' Chapter homeworld and permanent base of operations is the ancient Feral World known as Banish, which lies within the borders of the Narasima Straits, a quarantined sector of space on the Eastern Fringes of the Milky Way Galaxy in the Ultima Segmentum. The planet serves as the Chapter's primary training facility and armoury, with their fortress-monastery, the Basilica Malefex, housing their gene-seed stores, battle honours, and Apothecarion as well as vast archives of occult lore on the nature of Chaos and the daemonic.

Banish also houses several secret Ordo Malleus research facilities under the Exorcists' protection.

Boasting little in the way of natural assets or valuable infrastructure, Banish has proved an inconspicuous sanctum for a Chapter as insular as the Exorcists, being unlikely to draw unwanted attention from over-inquisitive allies. In addition, the primitive Human tribes of Banish have proven themselves a worthy recruitment pool for the Chapter's particular needs. These hardy nomads were descended from Imperial prospectors stranded on the planet in an earlier age, and centuries of isolation have made them a regressive but highly self-reliant people who have forgotten the promise of advanced technology and galactic exploration.

Beneath the steaming acid swamps of Banish lies the Exorcists' fortress-monastery, the Basilica Malefex. This mysterious and vast underground complex is unusual for being home to not only the strategic headquarters, Armoury and other facilities typical of most Space Marine homeworlds, but also the extensive precincts of the Radical Plutonian Inquisitors of the Ordo Malleus. It is here that Exorcists initiates are ushered into the gloomy depths of the Halls of Tempering. Full details of the arcane technologies housed in this place of daemonic possession are known only to the Ordo Malleus Radicals and senior figures in Chapter Command, and those Exorcists who emerge do so with no memory of the means by which the Inquisitors work.

The remainder of the fortress-monastery houses all of the infrastructure required by any more orthodox Space Marine Chapter, along with a number of peculiarities. At the heart of the complex, a quadriform walkway called the "Cloister of Scars" links together the Chapter's training grounds, living quarters and command centres, while the huge atrium at the cloister's centre acts as a burial ground for the battle-slain, with dimly lit spaces reserved for private meditation. The outer walls of the Cloister are studded with many stone archways of varying size and grandeur. The larger of these lead off to the great institutions of the Chapter -- the Reclusiam, Apothecarion, Armoury and the Council Chamber where the Chapter Master and his company officers preside.

The mightiest doorway of all leads to the Chapter Librarius. Behind thick blast doors sentried at all times, the Chief Librarian and his subordinates preserve detailed records of every Exorcists battle, paying special attention to any daemonic foes encountered and the methods used to defeat them. While all Space Marines seek to know their enemies and capitalise on their weaknesses, the Exorcists take this belief to the extreme, and their diligent accumulation of occult lore would be considered heretical by many Chapters.

The Librarians understand the risks, however, and the dim vaults that harbour such tracts are wreathed in hexagrammatic wards and a perpetual haze of purifying incense. In truth, arcane subject matter forms a relatively small part of the Chapter's record-keeping; the Exorcists are a well-rounded fighting force equipped to engage all manner of enemies -- mortal, xenos and daemonic alike -- and through keen analysis of Chapter records they strive to be as prepared as possible for any threats they might face.

Chapter Combat Doctrine

The Chapter shows a high-degree of adaptability and unpredictability in battle, both in terms of tactics and the weapons its Astartes employ. When an enemy counters one tactic used by the Exorcists, the Chapter plans accordingly, adapts, and changes strategy, enabling it to outmaneuver its enemies and catch them completely off-guard.

Exorcists Astartes are known to utilise certain occult mental arts to enter an almost trance-like state of higher consciousness which allows them to become completely devoid of fear and pain, even when confronted by the sanity-destroying horrors of the Warp. This capacity is not unknown amongst the Space Marines, but the extent to which the Exorcists are able to employ these techniques to distance themselves from physical and spiritual hardships and continue to operate has become legendary.

Exorcist battle-brothers are also masters of arcane lore concerning Chaos and the daemonic on a level unseen in other Chapters and unrivalled in the Imperium save by the Grey Knights and the Ordo Malleus itself. They are particularly adept at recognising the wiles of the Daemon and its work and know how to combat them.

To enable themselves to spiritually ward their arms and equipment against Chaos influences, it is said that each battle-brother must master the use of all six-hundred-and-sixty-six verses of the Ordo Malleus' Liber Exorcismus, sunder the seven seals of Salomoneth and become adept at the use of unicursal hexagrams. This degree of forbidden and dark knowledge is cause for grave suspicion of the Chapter by those within the Ecclesiarchy as well as certain Space Marine Chapters with a fervent hatred of witchcraft of any kind, even when wielded by the loyal servants of the Emperor, such as the Space Wolves and the Black Templars.

In contrast, the Exorcists have an unusually strong political alliance with the Inquisition, especially compared with the normal friction between the Adeptus Astartes and the Holy Ordos, so they face fewer difficulties or obstacles than many other Chapters when dealing with the Imperial bureaucracy or the High Lords of Terra.

Despite their superficial similarities with the Daemon-hunting mission of the Grey Knights, the combat doctrine of the Exorcists differs greatly from that of the sons of Titan. From their inception, they were conceived as a Chapter with wide-ranging strategic capabilities modelled on the tenets of the Codex Astartes. Where each Grey Knight is a psychically-gifted Firstborn Astartes warrior equipped with weapons and artefacts of extreme rarity, Exorcists Space Marines possess no specialised resources other than their hardened spiritual resolve and their wealth of archived lore.

Whether deployed against daemonic foes or otherwise, the Exorcists strive to be a step ahead of their enemies at all times. Key to this doctrine is effective reconnaissance, and the Exorcists make extensive use of the large numbers of neophyte Scouts necessitated by the Chapter's merciless recruitment process, deploying them behind enemy lines on covert intelligence missions. Indeed, the Exorcists also ask their Scout forces to endure combat duties that would normally fall to fully fledged battle-brothers, ostensibly to hone their martial skills but in reality to temper their spirits and weed out weakness before they pass through the possession ritual. A favoured tactic is to work neophyte forces into positions where they appear vulnerable and then reveal them, drawing out the enemy by giving them a false sense of tactical advantage before crushing their advances with the full weight of the Exorcists' main force.

In the Era Indomitus, the Exorcists have integrated the capabilities of Primaris Space Marines into their existing doctrines, notably by designating their entire 10th Company as a Vanguard company. These Mark X Phobos-armoured units have become a natural component of the infiltration missions that precede Exorcists assaults, while other Primaris elements such as Hellblasters and Repulsor tanks lend unprecedented strength to the Chapter's battleline.

Long before the Primaris technologies of Belisarius Cawl reinforced the Chapter, the Exorcists fought alongside Ordo Malleus forces seconded to the Radical Plutonian sect, and this close cooperation still continues on occasion. Whether the Inquisitors in these instances deploy purely as allies or to monitor behaviours that have concerned them within the Exorcists' own ranks, their specialised knowledge and potent wargear have proven decisive to several victories in the Chapter's history.

Chapter Beliefs

The character of the Exorcists is known to be studious, intelligent, highly honourable and above all calm outside of battle, but in war they undergo a transformation into an uncommonly aggressive force of Astartes. Their intellect is applied to rapid analysis and exploitation of conditions on the battlefield and on the decisive application of force to destroy the enemy.

As a Chapter steeped in an understanding of Chaos -- and an unusual immunity to its temptations -- from the moment of each Astartes' full acceptance into the Chapter, the Exorcists are always at risk of pursuing what the Inquisition would classify as Radical solutions to certain problems, including the use of Chaos weapons and strategies against the forces of the Archenemy. Even at its purest, the Exorcists are a Chapter who will often choose a pragmatic solution to a given problem rather than remain committed to the orthodoxies of Imperial doctrine.

As such, the Exorcists retain close links with the Inquisition -- both for tactical reasons and so that the Ordo Malleus may maintain a close watch on this most unusual and potentially dangerous of Astartes Chapters.

Another area in which the Exorcists differ from many of their brother Chapters is their cultivation and propagation of forbidden knowledge. The Exorcists are highly intelligent and rational, and each Astartes is steeped in the lore of the Daemon and of the Warp. Each is said to know numerous wards and can recite the most powerful of Daemon-slaying texts. The teachings of the Chapter's cult focus heavily on defeating the works of the daemonic, though it must be said that the Chapter is nowhere near as specialised as the secretive Grey Knights and regularly faces the entire spectrum of the Imperium's foes, mortal and xenos alike.

Nonetheless, the Exorcists are especially adept at combating the denizens of the Warp and this is manifest in another of the Chapter's practices. The Chapter cult is divided into a number of sub-cults known as Orisons, as noted above. Each serves as a lodge of warrior-mystics within the Chapter, the members of each privy to a particular, specialised branch of daemonic lore. When facing a threat that is the domain of a specific Orison, that group may be gathered together to confront it or to counsel others in doing so. The Orisons are not standing tactical formations and their existence does not contravene the dictates of the Codex Astartes, but they do allow the Chapter to focus specialised knowledge quickly and efficiently and thus defeat the servants of the Ruinous Powers.

Given their nature, it is perhaps inevitable that the Exorcists should maintain close ties to various bodies within the Inquisition. While it is far from unusual for Chapters to have special links with individual Inquisitors or with particular sector conclaves or other groups, the Exorcists go one step further. The Chapter's homeworld of Banish hosts several facilities belonging to the Radical Plutonian Inquisitors of the Ordo Malleus, though their exact factional leanings remain a mystery to outsiders.

If half of the suspicions regarding the Exorcists' recruitment and indoctrination processes are true, then outsiders believe it is possible that these allied Inquisitors and their servants adhere to one of the more Radical factions within the Holy Ordos, for no Puritan would countenance such practices.

Chapter Gene-Seed

The Exorcists trace their genetic lineage to Rogal Dorn, the primarch of the Imperial Fists, and echoes of Dorn's legendary resolve can certainly be seen in the incorruptible nature of those neophytes who survive their initiation to become the Chapter's warriors.

Yet like so many details of their heritage and identity, the Exorcists give no outward signs of this bloodline. Dorn's name makes no appearance in the Exorcists' battle cries or pageantry, and the Chapter maintains no fraternal links with the Imperial Fists or any of their many successors. Indeed, the truth of their lineage is not even widely known amongst the rank-and-file of the Chapter, and it is only upon induction into the 1st Company as Veterans that Exorcists are formally told of their descent from Dorn.

This gift of knowledge is seen as a mark of great honour by Veterans accustomed to the secretive ways of their Chapter, and they guard it with their lives.

Notable Exorcists

  • Chapter Master Aymir Vasaphon - The current Chapter Master of the Exorcists, Aymir Vasaphon is a taciturn warrior, garnering respect from all around him. Despite this, the inner workings of his mind remain opaque to all but a few. Three standard centuries have come and gone since he passed through the Halls of Tempering but the seasoned Space Marine is still haunted by the guttural voice of the Daemon who possessed him for seven solar days and nights. This malignant entity of Nurgle made many smug claims to Vasaphon before being banished, and the fact that several of these have since come true is an enduring source of concern to the Chapter Master -- so much so that he pursues the destruction of the Plague God's servants with particular zeal. The first member of the Exorcists command cadre to cross the Rubicon Primaris, Vasaphon felt it was his duty to endure the agonising procedure to become a Primaris Marine before asking his fellows to do the same. Clad in crimson Mark X Gravis Power Armour and armed with the relic blade Voidbane, the reborn Vasaphon is always a formidable force on the battlefield.
  • Chapter Master Enoch Trismegistus - According to ancient Chapter legends, Enoch Trismegistus was the Exorcists' first Chapter Master. After he was possessed by the Tzeentchian Greater Daemon Keriath the Shrouded during the Battle of Totem IV and later freed from its grip on his soul with the aid of Chief Librarian Goetos, Trismegistus struck the pact with the Plutonians of the Ordo Malleus to allow his Space Marines to be possessed by Daemons as part of their initiation process in the hope of making them better Daemonhunters. It is for him that the elite Orison of the Chapter known as the Enochian Guard is named.
  • Captain Silas Alberec - Also known as the "Wielder of the Hellslayer" and the "Keeper of Vigils", Silas Alberec is a mighty Space Marine whose Ogryn-like stature allows him to tower over even his fellow Astartes and who serves as the captain of the 3rd Company of the Exorcists. Captain Alberec, who is also the heir-designate to become the next Chapter Master of the Exorcists, commanded a large force of Exorcist Astartes during the Chapter's involvement in the Badab War. He is a phenomenal warrior whose strength has become legendary within his Chapter. But it is not only for his physical power that Alberec has been hailed, for his brutish exterior conceals a sharp mind and an extraordinary will, both of which have been tested in the harshest circumstances imaginable. While still a Neophyte Scout Marine of the Exorcists' 10th Company, Silas Alberec was assigned to a small strike force assisting an Ordo Malleus Inquisitor named Kahzan in combating a suspected daemonic infestation aboard the Mars-class Battlecruiser Sundered Star. When the tainted starship began to phase in and out of realspace, plunging all aboard into the nightmarish realm of the Warp, the casualties were enormous, and Silas Alberec was one of the few to survive, dragging the maimed Inquisitor out to a salvation pod before the Sundered Star disappeared forever into the jaws of hell. This was but the first of scores of acts of courage and fortitude attributed to him, earning Alberec an eventual place as the Captain of the 3rd Company, the Chapter's Keeper of Vigils and the Adjutant of the Orison of the Broken Tower, one of the few non-psykers to be granted the title. Captain Alberec commanded the Exorcists contingent that served the Loyalist cause during the Badab War. The Exorcists intervened in the conflict once the Secessionists had been declared Excommunicate Traitoris in 908.M41. Alberec gained great fame and recognition for himself in the Badab War, leading his Space Marines in several noteworthy engagements. The first of these was the taking of the armed merchantman Soyuz-Maru during the Second Battle of Sagan, and the last was the bloody attack on the vital and heavily defended Sentinel-Sigma station during the Fall of Badab Primaris. In this latter battle, Alberec wielded the Hellslayer Power Mace to great effect, rapidly smashing his way through armoured bulkheads while under heavy fire from the Astral Claws. Alberec slew the Astral Claws' Chaplain Arkil Lionsmane in personal combat despite still suffering from grievous wounds earned in prior battles.
  • Captain Veyon Armadel - After Cardinal Rodrigo Nessun escaped into the Warp with a group of Broken Ones initiates who had not successfully completed the Exorcists' initiation rite of daemonic possession, he transformed them into a warband of Heretic Astartes known as the Swords of Epiphany that the Exorcists had to hunt down at all costs to maintain their secrets. Veyon Armadel was tasked with leading a contingent of Exorcists on what became known as "Armadel's Purge." Armadel and his chosen battle-brothers hounded the Swords of Epiphany wherever they were sighted until at last the twisted cabal was declared extinct.
  • Librarian Malachite - A Librarian of the Exorcists Chapter who fought during the Aschen War in 307.M40. Because of the noble sacrifice of one of the Chapter Dreadnoughts, Venerable Sybra, when combating the unholy daemonic monstrosity known as the Lord of Shadows, Librarian Malachite was able to press his advantage and strike at the Greater Daemon's burning heart with his Force Spear, finally vanquishing it back to the Warp.
Epistolary Sabazius

Epistolary Sabazius, during his secondment to the Deathwatch, wielding the Serpent Staff of Sabazius

  • Epistolary Sabazius - The archives of the Deathwatch record that Brother Sabazius had served as an Epistolary in the Exorcists Chapter for almost a standard century when he was dispatched by his Chapter Master to fight alongside an Inquisition mission to scour a xenophage cult that had taken hold amongst the nobility of the Pleasure World of Leucosia. The legends of that world still recount the day the vengeful Librarian and his battle-brothers descended from the pristine skies upon pillars of fire to deliver judgement upon the fallen. So effective was that operation that millennia later, Leucosia is counted as amongst the most pious of Imperial Shrine Worlds, entirely dedicated to the purest of the Emperor's saints. It was during this operation that Sabazius drew the attention of members of the Ordo Xenos, and a decade later he answered the call to stand a vigil of the Long Watch at Watch Fortress Erioch in the Jericho Reach. Epistolary Sabazius was gifted with several psychic abilities counted as rare amongst battle psykers, not least of which was the ability to discern the soul of an enemy in the Great Beyond, and to assault it directly with powers unleashed by his own spirit. Thus Sabazius was able to bear witness to the soul-death of his foes directly, and it was this aspect of his powers that led him to the conclusion that the beast of Andronicus Prime was not myriad foes, but a single entity. When he summoned a select Kill-team comprised of Veteran Deathwatch members, Sabazius and his entire team went missing, their fate unknown.
  • Librarian Bael Vordhane - Bael Vordhane of the 2nd Company commanded the strike cruiser Wraith of Thenna that served as the Exorcists' contribution to the Indomitus Crusade's Tertius Fleet's Battlegroup Haephestus. The Wraith of Thenna participated in the Drennox Cleansing during the crusade.
  • Chief Librarian Goetos - Goetos was the Chief Librarian of the Exorcists during the time of its legendary first Chapter Master, Enoch Trismegistus. After Trismegistus was possessed by the Lord of Change Keriath the Shrouded during the Battle of Totem IV, it was Goetos who used his abilities to help his Chapter Master find the willpower to force the Tzeentchian Greater Daemon out of his body and relinquish its grip on his soul.
  • Venerable Sybra - During the Vanquishing of the Horned God (during the Aschen War) in 307.M40, on the Dead World of Belphago, this Venerable Dreadnought sacrificed himself to rip a chunk of a Greater Daemon's body away in order to expose its blazing heart, so that his battle-brother, Librarian Malachite, would be able to kill the nigh-invulnerable Daemon.
  • Battle-Brother Pausanis - A Primaris Vanguard Infiltrator of the 10th Company, 4th Squad (Battleline).

Chapter Relics

Staff of Sabazius

The Serpent Staff of Sabazius

  • Serpent Staff of Sabazius - A Force Staff formerly carried by the famed Exorcists Epistolary Sabazius, this weapon was as much a symbol of office as a potent weapon through which he was able to focus his arcane psychic powers. This master-crafted weapon was wrought for him by the finest Artificers of the Chapter, a weapon thought lost along with all traces of the Epistolary himself. The so-called Serpent Staff resided in Watch Fortress Erioch in the Jericho Reach, set into a niche within Sabazius' cell when the Epistolary disappeared during his last mission. Legends state that, at the very moment of its owner's descent into the raging fires of the crater on the world of Andronicus Prime, the staff came alive in its resting place, its rigid form twisting like that of a reptile, an event that earned it its title. Though the transformation was only temporary and witnessed only by Deathwatch Chapter serfs, it was later declared a genuine miraculous phenomenon. The Serpent Staff was transplanted from its resting place in the cell of the lost Epistolary and placed within the Catacombs of Watch Fortress Erioch along with countless other sacred relics of the Long Watch. Within a solar day, however, the staff was found to be missing, and following an exhaustive search it was discovered in its original resting place, in the niche in its former owner's cell. Since that time, the Serpent Staff of Sabazius has been carried into battle by numerous subsequent generations of Deathwatch Librarians. Several have fallen in battle while carrying it, and in at least three known instances the staff has somehow returned to its resting place even when its bearer's body was unrecovered. The staff was even returned to the Exorcists Chapter itself at one time, yet a standard year later it was found back in its niche on Erioch. As a result, the former cell of Epistolary Sabazius has been declared sacred ground, and it is maintained as a shrine to the fallen hero of the Scouring of Andronicus Prime. This curious Force Staff possesses a number of odd qualities. First and foremost, this weapon refuses to be separated from the Deathwatch Librarian who has requisitioned it.
Exorcists & Deathwatch ceremony

The Deathwatch accepts a relic weapon from the Exorcists for safekeeping.

  • Cessation - Cessation is an ancient Bolt Pistol. When the halls of the Basilica Malefex ring with a single discharge from this ancient bolt pistol, it is a sobering reminder of the Chapter's chilling initiation practices, and what they must do to fight their great enemy.
  • Exile Plate - Etched into the ceramite of this suit of power armour are powerful wards and hexagrams of exile. With the culmination of the Chapter's anagogic knowledge adorning every aspect of its surface, the bearer purges those black of soul and corrupted by the power of Chaos, particularly Daemons.
  • Expulsiaris - The length of this master-crafted Power Sword burns with an inextinguishable white flame, exemplifying the unquenchable resolve that burns within the Exorcists. It is a guiding light when the Chapter is most beset by the darkness, and when its edge strikes, it sets a fire in the souls of the enemy.
  • Hellslayer - The Hellslayer is a massive, master-crafted, barbed and sigil-etched Power Maul wielded by the captain of the 3rd Company of the Exorcists, Silas Alberec. It is a deadly bane to the witch and the Daemon, and is crafted from ultra-dense alloys so heavy only a warrior of Alberec's massive stature could wield it. Reputedly this weapon was gifted to him personally by the Holy Ordos of the Inquisition for reasons that remain shrouded in secrecy.
  • Silent Cry - This Stalker Pattern Bolter forged by the Exorcists reaped a great toll on insurgent leaders and foul xenos beasts during the Angevin Crusade into the Calyx Expanse, striking through impregnable defences to slay the enemy before they even became aware of the danger. The commanders of the Achilus Crusade have recently learned that this famous weapon now rests in the hands of the Deathwatch, and lobby with all their efforts to see it put to similar use on their behalf in the Jericho Reach. Some in the Deathwatch are sympathetic, arguing that the weapon calls out to be wielded on crusade once more.

Chapter Fleet

The Exorcists have an extensive, long-range Chapter fleet which includes the unusually high number of 3 battle barges.

During the Badab War they were able to deploy a sizable fleet composed of 2 battle barges, 4 strike cruisers and 3 squadrons of escorts and attack craft numbering 17 spacecraft in total.

The Exorcists' fleet is known to have possessed the following vessels:

  • Redeemer (Battle Barge) - One of the Exorcists' three battle barges.
  • Punisher (Battle Barge) - The Punisher is an Exorcists battle barge and was among the Chapter fleet that took part in the Gothic War.
  • Captain Augusta (Strike Cruiser) - The Captain Augusta is an Exorcists strike cruiser and was among the Chapter fleet that took part in the Gothic War.
  • Eternal Defiance (Strike Cruiser) - The Eternal Defiance is an Exorcists strike cruiser and was among the Chapter fleet that took part in the Gothic War.
  • Wraith of Thenna (Strike Cruiser) - An Exorcists strike cruiser that fought in the Indomitus Crusade under the command of the Librarian Bael Vordhane. It took part in the Drennox Cleansing as part of Tertius Fleet's Battlegroup Haephestus.
  • Hunter (Strike Cruiser) - The Hunter is an Exorcists strike cruiser and was among the Chapter fleet that took part in the Gothic War.

Chapter Appearance

Hexagrammatic Wards and Sigils

The Exorcists' battle-brothers commonly have etched sigils and engraved hexagrammic wards incorporated into their power armour and their personal weapons to help protect themselves and ward off the depredations and corrupting influence of Warp entities.

Scarred in Mind and Body

Even the most resilient Exorcists initiates who emerge from their subterranean fortress-monastery's Halls of Tempering carry physical and mental stigmata for life. The exact nature of these wounds can vary as widely as the nature of Daemons themselves, with each Warp entity leaving its own uniquely malign imprint. Initiates possessed by beings of a particularly duplicitous nature may be left with unshakeable paranoia that they are being plotted against, while some of those who hosted Khornate Daemons of rage and wrath afterwards find their own bloodlust difficult to subdue.

Beneath their power armour, meanwhile, most Exorcists bear unnatural physical scars and blemishes. Some of these take the shape of fell runes that throb with a dull pain in the presence of Warp-spawn. Others are tiny lacerations that never truly heal and require frequent repurification. Discoloured eyes and patches of scaly flesh are not uncommon, and some survivors even experience spiny growths sprouting from their head or limbs. While Exorcists regard these anomalies as marks of honour signifying the defeat of the unholy, to prying eyes they would be sure signs of heresy, and the afflicted are careful to conceal or replace with augmetics any stigmata that would draw attention.

Yet not all of the consequences of daemonic possession are burdensome. Many a hostile psyker has found the minds of Exorcists Space Marines to be particularly hard to corrupt, though they do not understand why. It has even been rumoured that Exorcists battle-brothers possess heightened psychic ability and wield arcane forces on the battlefield, but such claims cannot be substantiated. Like other Codex Astartes-compliant Chapters, the Exorcists tolerate psychic activity only amongst Librarius personnel, and any signs of deviance are quickly stamped out.

Chapter Colours

ExorcistsIconography

The Chapter colours and iconography of the Exorcists

The Exorcists' original Chapter colours included yellow power armour. The right shoulder guard was yellow with a checkered-pattern border for the trim. The left shoulder guard was dark purple and had bonding studs fastened to it. The then-standard Mark VI helm was also yellow with a black triangle pattern over the mouth of the helm's "beak." The eye lenses were red and the backpack was black.

The Exorcists' current Chapter colours include red power armour with black trim. Veterans of the Chapter often have white trim and wear helms that are white to mark their senior status.

The elite 1st Company wears red Terminator Armour with black shoulder guards instead of the standard red.

Squad tactical specialty markings -- battleline, close support, fire support, Veteran or command -- are worn on the right shoulder pauldron.

Squad number is designated by a High Gothic numeral inscribed atop the squad specialty marking on the right shoulder pauldron.

Company is designated by the colour of the shoulder pauldron trim as determined by the Codex Astartes -- -- i.e. white (1st Company), yellow (2nd Company), red (3rd Company), green (4th Company), etc.

Chapter Badge

The Exorcists' original Chapter badge was a dark brown, leering horned devil's head with red eyes.

The Exorcists' current Chapter badge is a simple bone-white horned skull on a red background.

Canon Conflict

When originally described in Imperial Armour Volume Ten - The Badab War - Part Two and in the short story Headhunted by Steve Parker later collected in the Heroes of the Space Marine anthology edited by Nick Kyme and Lindsey Priestley, the Exorcists were said to be the secret descendants of the Emperor Himself through the use of gene-seed taken from the Grey Knights. This was the explanation for why so many of their number were able to recover from daemonic possession.

However, this was changed in White Dwarf 462 in March 2021 where the Chapter's background was retconned to make them successors of the Imperial Fists' lineage.

This alteration in the lore preserved the Grey Knights' uniqueness as a Chapter and also better explained why many Exorcists neophytes failed the test of possession despite supposedly having a Grey Knights lineage.

Grey Knights are famously incorruptible by the temptations of Chaos, as not one has ever fallen to the service of the Ruinous Powers.

Sources

  • Adeptus Astartes: Successor Chapters (Limited Release Booklet), pg. 43
  • Battlefleet Gothic: To Cleanse the Stars (Specialty Game), pg. 75
  • Codex Adeptus Astartes - Space Marines (8th Edition), pg. 58
  • Codex: Armageddon (3rd Edition), pg. 18
  • Codex: Eye of Terror (3rd Edition), pg. 16
  • Codex: Space Marines (8th Edition) (Revised Edition), pg. 58
  • Deathwatch: Honour the Chapter (RPG), pp. 114-115, 133
  • Deathwatch: The Emperor's Chosen (RPG), pp. 45-48, 50
  • Deathwatch - Shadowbreaker (Novel) by Steve Parker, Ch. 37
  • Headhunted (Short Story) by Steve Parker
  • Heroes of the Space Marines (Anthology) edited by Nick Kyme and Lindsey Priestley, "Headhunted" (Short Story) by Steve Parker
  • Imperial Armour Volume Two - War Machines of the Adeptus Astartes (Second Edition), pg. 22
  • Imperial Armour Volume Nine - The Badab War - Part One, pp. 43, 47
  • Imperial Armour Volume Ten - The Badab War - Part Two, pp. 37, 44, 48, 60, 63, 99, 124-131, 179
  • Legends of the Space Marines (Anthology), "The Trial of the Mantis Warriors" by C.S. Goto
  • Warhammer 40,000: Compendium (1st Edition), "The Badab War" by Rick Priestley, pp. 33-35
  • White Dwarf 35 (July 2019), "Indomitus Crusade Fleets," pg. 45
  • White Dwarf 101 (UK), "Index Astartes: The Badab Uprising" by Rick Priestley
  • White Dwarf 462 (March 2021), "Index Astartes: Exorcists," pp. 43-50
  • Within These Walls (Short Story) by C.Z.Dunn
  • Warhammer Community - The Secrets of the Exorcists Chapter Revealed in March's (2021) White Dwarf
  • Third War for Armageddon Worldwide Campaign - Forces Disposition, Imperial Forces: Exorcists

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