Officio Assassinorium Operatives

So, TP asked me how much is known by the general Imperial population about the Officio Assassinorum.

Thread open to ideas.

How much a given person knows about Imperial Assassins definitely depends on how integrated and significant their planet or faction is into the Imperium. For example, most fully-initiated Space Marines and Sisters of Battle know about the Officio, and probably know about the four major temples, although anyone else not in the Inquisition or Ecclesiarchy is probably only vaguely familiar with the concept.

Well, from what you told me earlier....

• Only the High Lords of Terra know about the Officio Assassinorium.

• Everyone else just thinks it is an urban legend or a myth to scare the populace.

Is that it though?

TP, if only the High Lords new about the Temples, how would the Assassins ever be transported anywhere? Who would clean the Temples? Probably Servitors I suppose. But really. The High Lords can't review the status of EVERY SINGLE WORLD and be like, "ooh, we should send a Vindicare after this guy".

Besides it's pretty clear from various novels that all Inquisitors know about the Officio and its major Temples, and so do most initiated Space Marines, Sororitas Militant, as well as sector governors and very high-ranking Guard personnel. By high-ranking I mean Warmasters and Crusade commanders.

Right, makes sense. So that's it then? Pretty much nothing is known about the Assassinorium except by high ranking individuals, and everyone else thinks that we are the equivalent of the Boogieman?

It depends, TP.

Maybe some Guard Valkyrie pilots got called in to extract a Vindicare after a kill, and told their buddies later. The classic Vindicare more is to kill an apostate preacher or rogue governor in the middle of a speech, where hundreds of thousands, if not millions, can see.

With Eversors and Cuxleus, the whole point is fear. One is going to tear you apart in a drug-induced rage before you have time to scream, the other is going to crush your very SOUL.

The reverse is true of a Callidus. Really, you should never actually see their true form, since they can be whoever they want until the polymorphine wears off. The whole point is to manipulate the enemy from within their own ranks, and that doesn't work very well when you know there's a spy.

There's the Venenum Temple that does poisons, that doesn't work if you know they're out for you, and the Vanus are master manipulators.

True, true. I never thought of any of that. So maybe some people have seen Imperial Assassins, but the general populace just goes with the "scary story" type deal? Something like that maybe?

My examples above were of people who would know of the Officio Assassinorum, and its major Temples, BY NAME, as well as the traits of each.

Every Imperial world is going to have some rumor, bogeyman if you will, or hint of unseen retribution, just to keep them in check. Whether it's real or imagined is a whole 'nother matter.

Maybe a feral world has legends about a man who turned into a ravening beast one night and ripped a dozen people to shreds, before disappearing. The concept that immediately comes to our mind is a werewolf. In 40k, it could be just a legend. Or maybe it's some guy who was possessed by a daemon, or perhaps a Wulfen. Or an Eversor...

Our concept of a vampire is someone who drinks blood, which in 40k could be a daemonhost or a chaos cultist if taken literally, but what if they're really drinking your soul. A Cuxleus...

Someone isn't acting quite like they should be? Tons of possibilities! Enslaver Host, daemon, psychic mind control, Callidus...

The Vindicare Temple is harder to work into mythology or legend, but someone who was "struck down from on high", or "by the hand of god" could easily have been shot by a well-concealed sniper.

In a more well-developed society, they might not know the official designations or specialties, but they know there could be someone lurking in any shadow, evne if they don't have a name for it..

A big thing to remember is that there are PLENTY of other, "normal" assassins in 40k. The Officio Assassinorum is the most elite, highly trained assassins anywhere. There are only a million Space Marines, one for each world in the Imperium. There are maybe only a hundred agents from each Temple, tops. Even that seems a little high for the Cuxleus, Eversor, and Callidus, because those three rely so heavily on psychic traits or chemical augmentation.

A Templum Operative probably isn't going to be sent after anything short of a very influential planetary governor or apostate cardinal. I only know of two times that an Agent was deployed against the Tau, for example, and both were to kill Ethereals.
Horus himself only earned maybe a half-dozen, and he was the single biggest threat to the galaxy since the War against the C'tan. Only the Tyranids are more dangerous, and one assassin doesn't help much there.

Not to say they don't kill anyone of lesser rank, but those are just collateral or targets of opportunity. Realistically, you wouldn't have a player be ANY Templum Assassin, because they wouldn't work with ANYONE longer than what it took to hit a specific target.

"A big thing to remember is that there are PLENTY of other, "normal" assassins in 40k. The Officio Assassinorum is the most elite, highly trained assassins anywhere. There are only a million Space Marines, one for each world in the Imperium. There are maybe only a hundred agents from each Temple, tops. Even that seems a little high for the Cuxleus, Eversor, and Callidus, because those three rely so heavily on psychic traits or chemical augmentation."

I didn't explain this point properly. One MILLION Space Marines is a lot, but that's only one for every WORLD. An assassin, even in the least favorable circumstances, is the equal, in direct combat, of a dozen Space Marines. I've only read the accounts of the deaths of three Imperial Assassins in novels, and only one of those I'm SURE was a Temple Agent (see the thing about "normal" assassins.)

The first one, possibly a Callidus, but more likely a Death-Cult Assassin because she never shape-changes, is killed by Ragnar Blackmane and two other Space Wolf Honorblades. KILLED BY A NAMED CHARACTER WHO GOES ON TO BECOME THE YOUNGEST WOLF LORD EVER, AND WHO IS PROBABLY GONNA END UP AS GREAT WOLF! And Ragnar almost dies anyway. He bleeds out and falls unconscious with his fangs in her throat, and wakes up a week later to find out they finally killed her.

The second one could have been an Eversor. He had a xenos-craft needle pistol and a self-destruct device implanted in his body. He did NOT use combat drugs, have a neuro-gauntlet, or go into a berserker rage, as far as I remember. He was killed by a main character Sister of Battle with a Plasma Pistol, and it was a lucky shot.

The third one WAS an Eversor, for sure. And he tore his way through two dozen elite Fire Warriors before being gunned down by another dozen literally steps from an Ethereal. This is after rigging meltabombs on the whole base's defense system so that the incoming elite Elysian Kill-Team has half a chance (they end up all dying too.) And then his fail-safe blows and he gets the Ethereal anyway.

Wow.....alright. I'll keep all of this in mind.

Not to say they don't kill anyone of lesser rank, but those are just collateral or targets of opportunity. Realistically, you wouldn't have a player be ANY Templum Assassin, because they wouldn't work with ANYONE longer than what it took to hit a specific target.

You said that you wouldn't realistically have a player be any assassin....So why was I allowed to become a Vindicare, if I may ask that question?

1: Because the point is to have fun, not be realistic. Remember, Brad is a space priest whose title is "Master Immolator", is named after Jesus, and his goal in life is to smoke as many cigars as possible. (And this is not realistic either in real life OR in 40k.)

2: Because it's cool.

3: Because it's in the book.

4: Because a Temple Assassin might work alongside an Inquisitor as part of a very long-running mission, but we're talking real "Know what happened? I still got the shovel!" materiel here (Miles and Aaron will get the reference).

5: Because it's REALLY cool.

6: Because that's how Temple Assassins SHOULD work, not how they happen to end up working.

7: Did I mention cool?

Alright, guess it was a stupid question. But here is another stupid question: are there any records of crossover assassins? Something like an assassin from the Vindicare Temple getting training from the Callidus Temple? Of have the Imperial Assassins ever worked together in a mission?

The whole point is that nothing is known about them. But my guess is that they would NEVER train an assassin at two different temples. It's not like they need it either, I mean, each Temple alone gives better assassin training than any other institution in the galaxy. Besides, a lot of the equipment and enhancements they need for each role are mutually exclusive. Polymorphine isn't really gonna work on the guy with the giant bronze skull-shaped mind-cannon.

Have they worked together, sure. But if you need more than one assassin, the target is either:

A: extremely powerful, deadly, or tough. If one specialized assassin, with all his skill and wargear, can't bring the target down, you're gonna need a Space Marine Kill-Team at least.

B: extremely hard to get to, in which case adding more assassins will also drastically increase your losses (remember how much effort and training is put into a single assassin), without significantly improving the odds of taking out the target. If the best assassin you can get fails, is the second-best going to succeed? Probably not.

They only two times in canon I can think of are the attempted assassination of Horus during the Heresy, and the assassination of ALL of the High Lords of Terra, I forget when that was. And Space Marines would have been better at that, just they weren't part of the conspiracy.

So, I'm guessing that everyone in our group knows that I am a Vindicare Assassin, unless they have not been paying attention. And probably the crew of the Dauntless as well; would they know that I'm a Vindicare Assassin also?

Well, how much have you been blabbing? Knowing you, probably a lot.

Hey, I haven't been blabbing that much!!!....Only when Minx would get really drunk, or everyone is bored and we need some good tales to cheer everyone up, or stuff like that.

I mean....I don't think I would tell everyone that I'm a Vindicare Assassin. I might tell them that I have some special training or stuff like that, but I don't think I would outright just tell them.....I think....

So here is a question: if I were to have requested (before ascension) to become a different Imperial Assassin, could I have been? I mean, definitely not an Eversor Assassin, and I don't know much about the Culexus Assassins. But maybe I could have become a Callidus Assassin?

Anyway, I was just randomly wondering that. I'm happy with being a Vindicare, but that thought just popped into my head, and I wanted to ask.

You couldn't have been a Cuxleus, you need the Pariah Gene, and that's genetics. Eversor isn't really fitting for a PC, since they're only ever conscious when they're on a rampage, otherwise they're in stasis, although you could still play that. I gave you the option to be a Callidus, but you took Vindicare.

Yeah, I don't think I'd ever want to be a Eversor Assassin. But I don't quite remember you offering me the position of a Callidus Assassin; and that is something that I think I would remember.