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Battlefleet Calixis guards the citizens of the Calixis Sector from the hazards of the Halo Stars and defends the worlds of the sector in the Emperor’s name. Many thousands of vessels, some millennia old, patrol the stars under the guidance of the Lord-Admiral Calixis and her staff at Port Wrath, Battlefleet Calixis’ headquarters and one of the most vital installations in the whole sector. Orders passed down from Port Wrath to the admirals, commodores, and captains that control day-to-day battlefleet operations ensure that ships are directed to where they are most needed to combat the Emperor’s enemies and defend His people.
Monitoring the activities of Battlefleet Calixis and ensuring that the mighty power of the Imperial Navy isn’t squandered, subverted, or wasted falls under the auspices of the Ordo Militum Calixis, one of the Ordos Minoris within the Calixian Conclave. Charged with supervising the military bodies of the sector – the Astra Militarum, the Imperial Navy, even the vaunted Adeptus Astartes – the Inquisitors of the Ordo Militum Calixis scrutinise orders, monitor battlegroups, and root out subversion and heresy within the ranks.
Inquisitor Silas Marek is one of those Inquisitors. Recruited into the ordos by his former master, Inquisitor Essam, Marek is a former Imperial Navy lieutenant who now investigates and reviews the actions of Battlefleet Calixis from outside of the naval hierarchy. An experienced investigator and veteran combat leader, Marek has been drawn away from Port Wrath by the sudden disappearance of his old mentor. Inquisitor Essam, the senior Inquisitor within the Ordo Militum Calixis, vanished while en-route to review Patrol Group 686, the so-called Retaliator Group, when his vessel failed to re-emerge from the Immaterium. Inquisitor Essam had been travelling aboard the Chalice-class battlecruiser Redemptor Sanctus. The disproportionate number of losses among that class - many of them inexplicable - alongside the loss of his mentor, have drawn Inquisitor Marek into an enigma that may shake the core of Battlefleet Calixis.
Master-at-Arms Jerrod Hanspur is a born-and-bred naval man. Born aboard the Dauntless-class light cruiser Sword of Truth he initially served as a cabin boy, messenger, and general dogsbody until he came of age and followed his father into service as part of the ship’s company of armsmen. Charged with guarding the vessel from enemies within and without, Hanspur took his duties seriously. He worked his way up through the ranks with a combination of attention to detail, an unshakeable will, and a willingness to escalate to maximum violence as soon as necessary.
Hanspur was assigned to the bodyguard detail of Inquisitor Marek when he came aboard the Sword of Truth some five standard years ago as part of a review of the commanding officer’s difficulty in following orders. Marek’s investigation uncovered a cult of personality surrounding the first officer, who had been subverting the ailing captain’s orders for his own gain and leading his junior officers into the worship of forbidden gods in an attempt to increase his personal power. Hanspur fought alongside Inquisitor Marek as they cleansed the officers’ mess of the cult and prevented a daemonic incursion which would almost certainly have doomed the vessel and every soul aboard. Pleased with Hanspur’s martial skills and strength of character, Marek recruited him into his cadre to fight with him in the battles to come.
Dariel Sh’Rass was a hunter and scout on Ganf Magna before he joined up with Inquisitor Marek. A frontier world plagued by roving bands of feral Orks, Ganf Magna provides the Imperial war machine with polygum, a tree sap used in the manufacture of many explosives. The few settlements are well defended by the planetary defence force and the shipping lanes are guarded against pirates and marauders by the ships of Battlefleet Calixis. A squadron of Sword-class frigates, Squadron Epsilon-Theta 4, under Captain Lesic was the designated patrol group two standard years ago when a marked increase in pirate activity saw the output of Ganf Magna threatened. Sent by the Calixian Conclave to investigate possible renegade activity by Squadron Epsilon-Theta 4 Inquisitor Marek found a competent group led by a skilled but overlooked commanding officer.
His investigations took him down to the surface of Ganf Magna where unusual warp transmissions had been detected by the squadron’s astropaths. Though this would normally have fallen under the purview of ordos outside of Marek’s remit he nonetheless investigated as he was inevitably the nearest available inquisitor. He and his small cadre were guided through the dense forest by the very experienced Dariel Sh’Rass, a man of advancing years who had honed his skills in the forests of his homeworld for decades, protecting the logging camps from ork raids and tracking down nests of greenskins for extermination by the PDF.
The warp signature detected from orbit led to a grotto in the central uplands of Ganf Magna’s largest island, within which a local shaman and his unholy brethren had been attempting to draw the power of Chaos into the forests of the planet to destroy the polygum forests and turn them into a plague-ridden morass to create a kingdom fit for their daemonic patrons. Marek led the attack, autopistol barking and his transonic blade – a gift from his friend and ally Magos Galra of the Lathe Worlds – singing and slicing. Rather than standing away Dariel waded into battle, shots from his recurve bow splitting heads with barely a whisper. When the dust settled into the blood-soaked floor, Marek had a new comrade and Dariel had found a new calling – hunting down the enemies of the Imperium.
Inspired by the many excellent Inquisition WIPs and threads here on B&C and on the wider internet I decided to start my own cadre. I’ve been a fan of the Inquisition since I first read the original Codex: Daemonhunters and Codex: Witchhunters, and playing in a long running Dark Heresy game deepened my love.
Having recently returned to 40K with my Raven Guard, and being a kitbasher at heart, I set my mind on creating a small cadre from one of the Ordos Minoris, who are often overlooked in favour of the more widespread and well-known Ordos Majoris. The Ordo Militum took my fancy and I combined it with a fascination with the Imperial Navy (originally kindled by Battlefleet Gothic) to create Inquisitor Marek. The Ordo Militum doesn’t seem to be as fleshed out as many of the other Ordos so I’ve run with what I think they represent.
Comments/criticism/ridicule/befuddlement are all welcome as I start building up the Inquisitor and his cadre.
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