The Inquisitorial Rosette of the Imperial Inquisition.
The Plutonians were a Radical sect of the Ordo Malleus of the Inquisition who believed that daemonic possession could be used as a weapon to produce elite Daemonhunters. They formed a close alliance with the Exorcists Chapter of Space Marines and maintained secret facilities within the Exorcists' hidden, subterranean fortress-monastery of the Basilica Malefex on the swampy Feral World of Banish. Within the Halls of Tempering within that facility, it was the Plutonians who carried out the deliberate daemonic possession of Exorcist initiates by Warp entities and then helped them banish those beings a short time later. The process, combined with the unusual resistance of the Exorcists' gene-seed to daemonic possession, created Adeptus Astartes who were incredibly resilient to the temptations of Chaos and extraordinarily capable Daemon-fighters.
The Plutonians, as a Radical sect, were well-aware of how their practices could be viewed as extremely heretical by Puritans in the wider Imperium and so they were determined to maintain absolute secrecy at any cost.
History[]
Alliance with the Exorcists[]
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 and the Purgatomb[]
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.
Sources[]
- White Dwarf 462 (March 2021), "Index Astartes: Exorcists," pp. 43-45