Excruciatus

An Excruciatus Extraction Squad responsible for hunting down and capturing particularly dangerous Rogue Psykers commanded by the famed Silent Judge Meleana Verdthand at the time of the Horus Heresy.

The Excruciatus, who are usually members of an Excruciatus Cadre of the Sisters of Silence's Chamber of Judgement, and whose senior members are also known as the "Silent Judges," is more feared than its counterpart division among other high-ranking Silent Sisters, the Chamber of Oblivion. This is largely because the Excruciatus cadres are responsible for determining how the tithe of psykers taken for the Imperium by the Adeptus Astra Telepathica's League of Blackships will be prosecuted. They decide which Human psykers will be taken into Imperial service as Sanctioned Psykers or to be used to feed the energies of the Emperor so that He may continue to guide the beacon of the Astronomican, and which will be executed as threats to Mankind.

The most basic rank of Silent Sister in an Excruciatus Cadre is known as a Questora, while the senior Excruciatus are called Silent Judges.

Silent Sisterhood cadres composed of Excruciatus are the dreaded Silent Judges of the Sisterhood, whose task is to weigh the actions of the guilty and innocent when it comes to those seeking to conceal psykers from the demands of the tithe. When matters are not clear the Silent Judges of the Excruciatus cadres determine who truly possesses the psyker's gift and pass judgment on whether the psyker should be taken as part of the tithe or executed as a future threat to Humanity.

The Excrutiatus were clad in thick, buckle-studded coats of red leather. These sisters often wore two heavy ruby-coloured lenses over their natural eyes or had them replaced outright by augmetic implants to aid their hunts for psykers. It is said that to attain the esteemed rank of a Silent Judge in the Excruciatus, a Silent Sister must have personally slain 100 witches who represented a genuine threat to Humanity.

These specialists are selected from the ranks of the greater Sisterhood from individuals with highly attuned perception, quick wits, and unfailing purpose. Their work is not simply investigative, for they are trained and equipped to carry out raids and tactical assaults against the most nightmarish of foes -- Rogue Psykers and Daemons alike.

The most elite and feared of the Excruciatus are the Silent Judges. These individuals can identify the presence of a nearby psyker, sift truth from lies, and when needed, force any under suspicion to spill their darkest secrets. However, the order also operates pursuit experts known as Silent Furies and infantry comprised of the more junior Questora.

Role

Master interrogators and terror tactics experts, the dreaded Silent Judges of the Excruciatus cadres are charged with rooting out that which is hidden, tear through webs of lies and superstitions and leave no stone unturned in their ceaseless task to find the psyker. In the event of a conspiracy to conceal one of the "witch-born," the Silent Judges are deployed to ensure that the individuals involved are brought to Imperial justice and that the rightful tithe of psykers is retrieved.

The Silent Judges can identify the presence of nearby psyker phenomena, sift truth from lies and, where needed, put those unfortunate enough to fall under their gaze to the question and wring forth answers from the most intransigent witness or conspirator. No one speaks of the ultimate sentence suffered by those condemned by the Silent Judges, lest they risk the attention of the Judges be turned upon them for meddling further with the affairs of the Great Tithe and a similar fate befalls them.

Unit Composition

• 1 Silent Judge

Wargear

• Artificer Armour (Sized for a mortal)

• Spectra Cloak

• 2 Bolt Pistols

• Frag Grenades

• Krak Grenades

• Psyk-Out Grenades

• Distort Field

• Excrutia Armatus

• Flamer

• Heavy Flamer

• Vratine Grenade Launcher

• Adrathic Destructor

• Power Weapon (Any type) or Charnabal Sabre or Power Fist or Proteus Neuro-Lash

• Hand Flamer (As replacement for either or both Bolt Pistols)

• Needle Pistol (As replacement for either or both Bolt Pistols)

• Plasma Pistol (As replacement for either or both Bolt Pistols)

• Archeotech Pistol (As replacement for either or both Bolt Pistols)

Notable Excruciatus

• Silent Judge Melaena Verdath - Melaena Verdath was a Silent Judge of the Excruciatus of the Silent Sisterhood during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy. Her description of her work and methods, the tome called Voiceless Judgements, was studied by Acolytes of the Sisterhood for millennia after her time.

• Sister-Excruciatus Emrilia Herkaaze - Emrilia Herkaaze was a member of the Excruciatus of the Silent Sisterhood during the Horus Heresy who was known to believe that the Emperor was a god. Herkaaze was recruited from a world in the Belladone Reach by the Silent Sisterhood. She met Amendera Kendel in the hold of a Black Ship and the two became fast friends during their aspirant trials. At some point Herkaaze and Kendel encountered a fire-witch on Sheol Trinus. Unwilling to fall back and regroup, Herkaaze was struck by burning debris that blinded her left eye and badly scarred her face. The friendship between the two Silent Sisters soured afterwards as Herkaaze blamed Kendel for not supporting her during the battle. After the eruption of the Horus Heresy, Herkaaze served as an Oblivion Knight in command of the Black Ship Validus when it went missing. The prisoners escaped from the vessel and were able to survive because the system that was supposed to release the Life-Eater Virus that was intended to kill all of the captive psykers on a Black Ship in the event of a breach had been sabotaged. The Validus was located by Kendel, now also an Oblivion Knight, and together the two sisters tracked down the psyker gestalt that had taken over the ship. After it claimed to be a future version of Leilani Mollitas, a Silent Sisterhood aspirant accompanying Kendel, Herkaaze attacked Mollitas in the present to end the threat before it began. Left alone with Kendel, Herkaaze broke her Vow of Tranquility, chastising Kendel for thinking that the message from the future was worth hearing and claiming only the God-Emperor had the right to change the course of history. Herkaaze went on to become a Sister-Excruciatus of the Chamber of Judgement. When Kendel returned to the Somnus Citadel as the Imperial Regent Malcador the Sigillite's Agentia Tertius, Herkaaze met her and called her an oath-breaker, claiming that Kendel had shamed her cadre and ought to have been executed. When presented with the sigil of the Regent of Terra, Herkaaze reluctantly allowed Kendel to see The Seventy, the 70 Loyalist Death Guard battle-brothers who had accompanied Nathaniel Garro aboard the frigate Eisenstein when it fled the Battle of Isstvan III to report Horus' betrayal of the Emperor. Herkaaze had a topknot of rust-red hair and wore lightning bolt symbols on her shoulders as a mark of her senior rank. Her left eye was replaced by a blue augmetic. After becoming a Sister-Excruciatus she wore a heavy necklet and black steel torcs on her arms.

Sources

• Horus Heresy: Collected Visions, (Art Book), pg. 149 (Image)
• The Horus Heresy - Book Seven: Inferno (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pg. 254
• Warhammer: The Horus Heresy Second Edition - Liber Imperium (Specialty Game), pg. 46
• The Voice (Short Story) by James Swallow
• Ghosts Speak Not (Short Story) by James Swallow