Banish is a swamp-covered Feral World located within the borders of a quarantined sector of the Narasima Straits region of the Segmentum Obscurus. It is also the Chapter homeworld of the Exorcists Chapter and home to their fortress-monastery, the Basilica Malefex.
The Basilica Malefex also houses secret facilities known as the Halls of Tempering that belong to the Plutonians, a sect of the Inquisition's Ordo Malleus dedicated to using Daemonic possession as a weapon to hunt down other Daemons.
History[]
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.
It wasn't until the first Chapter Master of the Exorcists, Enoch Trismegistus, was possessed by the Lord of Change Keriath the Shrouded on the world of Totem IV that Banish became home to another mysterious organisation of the Imperium. The Plutonians, a Radical sect of the Ordo Malleus, had maintained an informant within the Chapter's command as a menial. Once they learned of Trismegistus' possession by the Greater Daemon of Tzeentch and his banishment of the Daemon with the aid of the Exorcists' Chief Librarian Goetos, they immediately asserted their authority as agents of the Inquisition to relieve Trismegistus of command over his Chapter and establish purpose-built quarters on Banish.
In the following solar months, the Chapter Master was tested and eventually reinstated after no proof of Daemonic taint could be found. During his interrogation, Trismegistus had been told of the Plutonians' theory about how daemonic possession could be used as a weapon against the forces of Chaos. After being possessed himself, Trismegistus saw the warped genius of the Inquisitors' plan. He made a proposal to the Plutonians: secretly stay on Banish and oversee the programme of turning his incorruptible brethren into Daemon-hunting specialists by way of possession.
Basilica Malefex[]
Beneath the steaming acid swamps of Banish lies the Exorcists' fortress-monastery, the Basilica Malefex. This mysterious 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 Inquisitors of the Ordo Malleus known as the Plutonians. It is here that Exorcists initiates are ushered into the gloomy depths of the Halls of Tempering where they will be possessed by Daemons. Full details of the arcane technologies housed in this place of 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 of Scars 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 presides.
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 other 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, and through keen analysis of Chapter records they strive to be as prepared as possible for any threats they might face -- Daemonic or otherwise.
Purgatomb[]
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A map of the galaxy displaying Banish's location in the Narasima Straits region of the Segmentum Obscurus (left edge).
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 entities that were not successfully banished. In a series of horrifying experiments, the Plutonians found that the living bodies of failed 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 standard 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 of the Basilica Malefex, 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 Exorcists' 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 standard 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.
Sources[]
- White Dwarf 462 (March 2021), "Index Astartes: Exorcists," pp. 43-50
- Codex: Space Marines (5th Edition), pg. 30
- Deathwatch: Honour the Chapter (RPG), pp. 115
- Imperial Armour Volume Ten - The Badab War - Part Two, pp. 125