In the grim darkness of the far future, the Officio Assassinorum stands as the clandestine knife of Imperial justice. Founded in secrecy and honed by millennia of warfare, this shadowy organization trains the deadliest killers in the galaxy. Operating from hidden temples and answering only to the highest Imperial authority, its agents—known as Imperial Assassins—can alter the course of wars with a single pull of the trigger or plunge of a blade. Below, we explore the lore of the Officio Assassinorum: its origins in ancient Terra, its secretive hierarchy, the infamous assassin clades, legendary kill-missions, and its role in the 41st Millennium.
Origins and History
The roots of the Officio Assassinorum reach back to the Emperor’s earliest conquests. During the Unification Wars on Terra (late 30th Millennium), the proto-Assassin order was employed to eliminate key enemies of the Emperor as he unified humanity’s homeworld. In those days, these killers answered to the Ephoroi of the Adeptus Custodes (the Emperor’s guardians) rather than any bureaucrat. The formal Officio Assassinorum as an institution was created during the Great Crusade that followed, when the Emperor’s regent Malcador the Sigillite convened the first masters of the assassin clades in secret. Masked and sworn to anonymity (even from each other), six Directors Primus representing distinct styles of assassination forged a pact on Terra’s Mount Vengeance – unknowingly under Malcador’s leadership. Thus were born the founding Assassinorum temples (or “clades”), each under a Director Primus, with Malcador himself as the first Grand Master of Assassins.
The Assassins truly came into their own during the galactic civil war of the early 31st Millennium – the Horus Heresy. Sensing the dire threat of the Warmaster’s rebellion, the Officio Assassinorum was unleashed against the Traitor legions’ leadership. They famously deployed eight assassins from across the major clades in an attempt to decapitate Horus’s rebellion by killing Horus himself. This unprecedented joint operation (the first “Execution Force”) was authorized by Malcador and the Captain-General of the Custodes as a last resort. Though audacious, all attempts on Horus’s life failed, with several Assassins perishing in the attempt. (Imperial records note that the final failed attempt was by a master poisoner of the Venenum Temple, who nearly struck Horus down before being discovered.) Nonetheless, the Officio Assassinorum proved its worth in the Heresy’s aftermath – most infamously when the Callidus Temple operative M’Shen succeeded in slaying the Night Lords Primarch, Konrad Curze, in vengeance for his atrocities. These early exploits cemented the Officio Assassinorum as a fearful weapon of the Imperium, operating in the shadows even as Space Marine Legions and Titan armies waged open war.
Over the subsequent millennia, the Officio Assassinorum became a formal pillar of the Imperium, but not without periods of crisis and reform. By the mid-32nd Millennium, the Assassinorum’s Grand Master sat among the Senatorum Imperialis (High Lords of Terra) – a position of immense influence. This power was dramatically illustrated in 546.M32, when Grand Master Drakan Vangorich betrayed the other High Lords and had them all murdered in a single night. This bloody coup, remembered as “The Beheading,” threw Terra into turmoil and proved how dangerous an unchecked Assassinorum could be. Vangorich was eventually toppled, but the incident led to major changes in how the Assassins were controlled. Later, in the aftermath of the Age of Apostasy (M36) – another period of strife sparked by the tyranny of Goge Vandire – the Assassinorum was further reined in. The secret Inquisitorial sect called the Ordo Sicarius was founded specifically to monitor and control the Officio Assassinorum. From that point onward, every assassination mission requires the sanction of the High Lords (a supermajority vote of the Senatorum Imperialis). The Officio’s temples were also scattered across the galaxy rather than all clustered on Terra, so that no single corruption could compromise the entire order. Strict oversight was imposed: Assassins must undergo regular psycho-indoctrination and log detailed mission reports available for Inquisitorial inspection. These measures—born out of hard-learned lessons—formalized the Officio Assassinorum as an Imperial institution that endures into the 41st Millennium: lethal, but leashed by the Imperium’s highest authorities.
Structure and Organization
Hierarchy and Leadership: At the top of the Officio Assassinorum sits the Grand Master of Assassins, one of the High Lords of Terra (though often cloaked in anonymity). The Grand Master is always a consummate assassin themselves, elevated to lead the entire Officio after a lifetime of successful kills. This figure resides on Terra in the sealed Temple of Assassins, directing the Officio’s efforts across the galaxy. Directly beneath the Grand Master, each primary temple (clade) is led by a council of senior assassins often titled Masters or Lord Assassins. These temple masters handle training, strategic planning, and oversight of operations for their clade’s specialty. They rarely field-operate themselves anymore, instead coordinating from the shadows and grooming the next generation of killers. Promotion within the Officio comes only through demonstrated lethality and success; an operative who attains the revered rank of Sicarius Primus earns the right to refuse certain missions and may even take assignments outside their temple’s usual remit. Those who distinguish themselves further might be called to Terra to serve in the Officio’s central command, or even ascend to Grand Master.
Hidden Temples: The Officio Assassinorum is subdivided into multiple specialized temples (also called clades), each headquartered in a secret shrine-fortress. With the exception of one, all major temples are still believed to be hidden somewhere on Holy Terra – their exact locations unknown to all but a trusted few. The outlier is the Eversor Temple, which for security reasons does not maintain a single fixed base; instead, Eversor operatives are kept in stasis aboard scattered vault-ships and black stations across Imperial space, ready to be thawed for a mission at a moment’s notice. Every temple also maintains satellite facilities throughout the Imperium: sub-temples at the Segmentum and Sector levels, where recruits are trained and local kill-orders issued. All these threads tie back to the central Temple on Terra, which houses the Grand Master and the Officio’s senior command echelons. The Terran headquarters includes departments like the Office of Missions and Office of Operations, whose administrators manage the flow of intelligence, target dossiers, and mission assignments across the galaxy.
Given the Officio’s history of internal treachery, layers of control ensure its loyalty. The Ordo Sicarius (Inquisition) plants covert agents among the Assassins to report on any suspicious activity, and the High Lords carefully vet each sanctioned kill-order. For every assassin in the field, thousands of unseen staff support them – from adepts who gather intel and identify targets, to armorers who craft their exotic weapons, to logisticians who arrange secret transport between star systems. This sprawling support network operates entirely in the shadows of Imperial bureaucracy. Even other Imperial forces often know nothing of an Assassinorum operation in their midst until the target’s head rolls. Assassins typically work alone, slipping in and out without fanfare. It’s not unheard of for an Assassin to covertly aid an Imperial Guard army or Space Marine strike force during a campaign, but they rarely formally join other units – their methods and objectives are better served solo. Only in the most dire and exceptional circumstances will multiple Assassins from different temples collaborate on a single mission. Such a team-up is designated an Execution Force, and it is considered an extraordinary measure reserved for nearly impossible targets. (The legendary first Execution Force during the Horus Heresy set the precedent for this, and a handful of others have been deployed in the millennia since.) Ultimately, the Officio Assassinorum’s organization is as secretive and specialized as its trade: a knife in the dark, guided by the distant hand of Terra.
The Assassin Clades
The Officio Assassinorum employs a variety of temples, each mastering a unique form of sanctioned murder. While there have been many sub-temples and experiments over time, four major clades are most renowned, each producing a very different kind of operative. All Assassins, regardless of clade, undergo extreme indoctrination and bio-conditioning from a young age. But their skills, tactics, and preferred targets differ vastly between temples. Here we detail the primary assassin clades, as well as a few lesser-known temples whispered of in Imperial records:
Vindicare Temple – The Unseen Snipers
The Vindicare Temple produces the Imperium’s most skilled marksmen and long-range killers. Vindicare Assassins are sharpshooters without peer, trained to eliminate their targets with a single perfect shot from afar. Their motto, “Exitus Acta Probat” (“The outcome justifies the deed”), reflects their patient philosophy. A Vindicare might spend days or even years in wait, stalking a target’s every movement, camouflaged in shadow, until the exact moment presents itself to take the kill-shot. These operatives are equipped with specialized sniper weaponry – most famously the Exitus Rifle and Exitus Pistol – firing custom rounds that can punch through tank armor or strike a victim from kilometers away. Clad in stealth suits of synskin and photo-visor masks, Vindicares move like ghosts, exfiltrating as silently as they arrive. They often execute those deemed “untouchable” by conventional means: corrupt planetary governors surrounded by armies, heretical generals inspiring mass rebellions, even daemonic hosts that have possessed a human vessel. One famed Vindicare achievement saw an assassin remain in position for six years to line up a shot on a Dark Eldar pirate leader – and not once did his resolve waver. Vindicare Assassins exemplify patience, precision, and an almost inhuman focus on the single bullet that will change the fate of a world.
Callidus Temple – The Shape-Shifting Infiltrators
The Callidus Temple specializes in deception, infiltration, and literally becoming the enemy. Its assassins are masters of disguise and shapeshifting, using a unique drug called Polymorphine to alter their appearance at will. A Callidus operative can assume the form of a trusted aide, a bodyguard, a lover – any persona that brings them close enough to the target to strike. Their training emphasizes flexibility and cunning. They often embed themselves within enemy organizations or cults for weeks or months, slowly working into positions of trust. When the moment is right, the Callidus drops the charade and eliminates the key targets from within, sowing maximum chaos and confusion in their wake. Many a heretical cult uprising has been quashed before it truly began, its leaders mysteriously found dead by “unknown causes” – later revealed to be the work of a Callidus assassin at the highest levels of the cabal. Callidus Assassins favor weapons that complement their subtle approach: neural shredders that scramble a victim’s synapses, or the C’tan Phase Sword – an alien blade that can phase through solid matter to strike at an unguarded heart. They are also extremely acrobatic and skilled in exotic martial arts, able to eliminate targets in silence if needed. Secrecy is the Callidus’s greatest weapon. Indeed, the mere rumor that any advisor or soldier might be a Callidus in disguise can breed paranoia among the Imperium’s foes. The most famous Callidus action is perhaps the assassination of Night Lords Primarch Konrad Curze by the operative M’Shen – she infiltrated the Traitor’s fortress and struck down a demigod, a feat only possible through deception and close proximity. Whether impersonating an Imperial deserter to get recruited by a Chaos cult, or literally taking the shape of an Ork or Aeldari via polymorphic enhancement, the Callidus Temple’s agents are the ultimate chameleons.
Eversor Temple – The Berserk Killers
Where subtlety and patience define other clades, the Eversor Temple embraces the art of total destruction. Eversor Assassins are chemically augmented berserkers, unleashed when the Imperium needs an entire enemy stronghold annihilated in a single night of carnage. These assassins are kept in cryogenic stasis between missions (often on remote ships) due to their volatile psycho-conditioning. Before deployment, they are pumped with a cocktail of combat drugs, stimulants, and aggression enhancers that send them into a hyper-violent killing frenzy. Once awakened and deployed, an Eversor is a one-person massacre: sprinting and screaming through the battlefield with inhuman speed, a skeletal death’s-head mask upon their face, and psycho-induced rage driving them to slaughter anyone in their path. Standard armaments include a neuro-gauntlet (a powered claw or fist that can tear through armor and flesh), an Executioner pistol (combining a bolt pistol’s punch with toxin-laced rounds), and an array of melta-bombs or acids to ensure nothing is left alive. The Eversor’s approach is not about a single target but about sending a message of terror. If a planetary governor and his entire court are suspected of Chaos corruption, an Eversor might be deployed to eliminate them all – leaving a blood-soaked palace as a grisly warning to others. The fear these assassins instill often accomplishes as much as the kills themselves; in the aftermath of an Eversor mission, resistance to Imperial rule tends to evaporate quickly. The downside (or perhaps intended feature) of the Eversor method is uncontrollable fury – if an Eversor somehow falls in battle, their body is rigged to self-destruct in a cataclysmic explosion to ensure they never fall into enemy hands. Utterly terrifying and indiscriminate, the Eversor Assassins are blunt instruments of death, used only when the High Lords deem the collateral damage acceptable and a loud example needs to be made.
Culexus Temple – The Psyker-Hunters
Even among the Officio’s killers, the Culexus Temple is uniquely feared – often regarded with dread by their own allies. Culexus Assassins are specialized to hunt and destroy psykers (beings with warp-spawned psychic powers). They achieve this not through technology or training alone, but by virtue of a rare mutation: all Culexus operatives are Blanks, born with the Pariah Gene that makes them soulless and null to the warp. To a normal person, standing near a Pariah is deeply unsettling, provoking instinctual fear. To a psyker, it is agony – the Culexus Assassin is like a walking void in the warp, their very presence shutting down psychic abilities and inflicting excruciating pain on witches and daemons alike. In essence, they are the pure counter to any warp-touched entity. The Culexus Temple recruits these pariahs (often shunned as ill-omens in their home societies) and forges them into the ultimate anti-psyker weapons. They wear a distinctive skull-faced Animus Speculum helmet – an arcane device that amplifies their innate Blank aura into focused blasts of warp-negating energy. A single Culexus Assassin can obliterate a powerful sorcerer or even destabilize a minor daemon with a direct “psychic annihilation” attack. Because of their nature, Culexus are deployed sparingly and covertly. Imperial forces, even those who request help against an enemy psyker, prefer not to know the details of how the threat was eliminated – only that afterward, the witch was found dead, eyes burned out and soul seemingly devoured. The Culexus temple itself is hidden more carefully than any other (rumors say it lies on a lightless planet outside any star system). Even within the Officio, these assassins are viewed with unease and extreme caution. But when a rampaging daemonhost or renegade psyker is turning armies to ash, a Culexus is the Imperium’s surest remedy. An example of their impact: during the Second War for Armageddon, a Culexus known as Dranos single-handedly destroyed a Chaos sorcerer who had been impervious to Space Marine Librarians. Culexus Assassins truly are horror to the heretic psyker – the “null” that spells their utter end.
Lesser-Known Temples and Rumors
Over ten thousand years, the Officio Assassinorum has experimented with many forms of killing, giving rise to lesser-known or highly classified temples beyond the big four. Two such examples are the Venenum Temple and the Vanus Temple, which are considered “classified” in many Imperial records. Venenum Assassins are consummate poisoners – experts in stealthy delivery of toxins, venoms, and chemical agents to eliminate targets without a fight. They carry exotica like dissolving nano-toxins or poisons derived from alien beasts, and their kills often appear as mysterious illnesses or “accidents.” The Vanus Temple, by contrast, is less about direct killing and more about intelligence and manipulation. Vanus assassins (sometimes called “Infocytes”) are strategists and data-savants who orchestrate assassinations by indirect means. They might turn a city’s own power grid into a weapon or feed false information to provoke a target’s enemies into doing the deed for them. A Vanus prefers to make it so that when the target dies, it appears to be pure coincidence – when in fact every circumstance leading to the death was engineered by the assassin. Another temple known as Adamus (said to be one of the oldest) focuses on the classical decapitation strike – they are duellists and swordmasters who specialize in beheading the leadership in the midst of battle. And then there are the failures and the forbidden: the extinct Maerorus Temple, for instance, which according to fragmentary records tried to create assassins from human-xenos hybrids that could absorb biomass and evolve new deadly abilities. The Maerorus project ended in disaster and the temple was purged from existence. It is also whispered that the Assassinorum has cloaked “operative clades” that remain completely off the record – possibly to infiltrate the Adeptus Astartes or other loyalist institutions if they ever turned traitor. Such rumors are officially denied by the High Lords. What is known is that the four main temples handle the vast majority of sanctioned killings, while these lesser temples handle more specialized assignments when subtle poisons or deep intel-war are called for. True to its name, the Officio Assassinorum has a “thousand ways to kill” – and only a few are commonly known.
Notable Assassins and Key Operations
Across the centuries, the Officio Assassinorum’s operatives have quietly shaped Imperial history by removing key figures – be they heretical Imperial officers, scheming heretics, alien warlords, or even fellow High Lords. Only a fraction of these missions are known to Imperial historians (most are shrouded in secrecy), but a few exemplars have become legendary:
• The Execution Force Against Horus (M31): As mentioned, during the Horus Heresy the Officio deployed a team of assassins from multiple clades in a desperate attempt to slay Warmaster Horus himself. Though the effort failed, it marked a milestone as the first multi-temple Execution Force. Each assassin gave their life trying to penetrate Horus’s inner circle. This bold plan’s failure demonstrated that even the most lethal humans had limits against the demigod Primarchs – a lesson that tempered future use of Assassins. Shortly after, however, Callidus Assassin M’Shen achieved what the Execution Force could not, by infiltrating the lair of the Night Lords Primarch Konrad Curze and assassinating him. This famed kill avenged countless atrocities committed by Curze. M’Shen’s success (allegedly foreseen by Curze in a prophetic vision) removed a dangerously unpredictable Primarch from the post-Heresy equation.
• The Beheading (546.M32): Not all “notable” assassinations were benevolent. In mid-M32, Grand Master Drakan Vangorich – effectively the chief of the Officio Assassinorum – turned his blades against the Imperium’s own leadership. Feeling the High Lords of Terra were failing the Imperium in the wake of the devastating War of the Beast, Vangorich masterminded the simultaneous assassination of all twelve High Lords in one night. Officio Assassinorum agents (and possibly Vangorich himself) slew the most powerful individuals in the Imperium, from the Ecclesiarch to the Grand Provost Marshal, in a bid to wipe the slate clean. This bloody coup, the Beheading, threw the Imperium into chaos. Although Vangorich claimed to act for the good of the Imperium, he was eventually overthrown and executed by loyalist forces. The Beheading stands as a dark cautionary tale of the Assassins’ potential if subverted – and directly led to the stricter controls on the Officio’s autonomy thereafter. It is the only recorded instance of the Officio Assassinorum being openly used as a tool of coup d’état at the highest level of Imperial power.
• The War of Assassins (M36): In the Wars of Vindication following the Age of Apostasy, the Assassinorum again became embroiled in internal conflict. A renegade Callidus assassin Tziz Jarek attempted to assassinate the Grand Master of Assassins, plunging the Officio’s Terran temple into bloody infighting. Several assassins died in these shadow wars within the Imperial Palace itself. Eventually the Grand Master prevailed and order was restored, but this episode further spurred the creation of the Ordo Sicarius and the reforms that required oversight on Officio operations. (This era also produced the infamous Execution Force Omega incident, wherein four assassins were sent after the Apostate Cardinal Bucharis – and though they eliminated him, the entire team was lost, showcasing the high price even a successful mission can exact.)
• Xenos Warlord Eliminations: The Officio Assassinorum has proven invaluable in decapitating alien threats that conventional armies struggled to contain. In 452.M34, for example, a Culexus Assassin struck down Eldar Farseer Lithandros-Esmanthil, who had been orchestrating a major Aeldari warhost against Imperial forces. The Eldar, who rely heavily on psychic foresight, were blindsided (literally) by the presence of a Blank among them, leading to the Farseer’s death and the collapse of the Eldar invasion plan. In another case, a Vindicare Assassin named Dejedris Garamach spent years tracking a Dark Eldar pirate lord known as Skyknife. He eventually took the shot that ended Skyknife after an incredible six-year hidden vigil on a remote outpost world. Patience and precision such as this prevented further xenos raids that had claimed thousands of human lives. More recently, during the Second Agrellan Campaign against the T’au Empire (late M41), a team of Assassins managed to eliminate Aun’va, the Ethereal Supreme of the T’au. A Culexus operative, working as part of an Execution Force, nullified Aun’va’s cadre of psychic bodyguards and delivered the killing blow to the T’au leader. The psychological impact on the T’au of losing their spiritual figurehead was immense, proving the strategic value of a single assassination in warfare. (Imperial records note that this particular mission was so secretive that not even the Imperial Guard commanders on Agrellan knew why the T’au suddenly fell into disarray – the Assassins had already vanished by the time anyone realized Aun’va was dead.)
• Heretic and Renegade Purges: The Officio’s kill-list includes countless renegade Imperial officials and heretic warlords. In 563.M37, for instance, Venenum Temple assassin Urhua Thereaux was dispatched to poison a treacherous planetary governor. Arriving only to find the governor already slain and replaced by a heretical populist council, Thereaux decided to wipe out the entire new government. Over three days, she quietly killed every member of the so-called “People’s Council” one by one, using undetectable toxins. By the time Imperial troops arrived, the separatist leadership was simply gone – regime change courtesy of the Officio Assassinorum. Another account tells of Callidus assassin Militzia Scarvelli, who infiltrated an Ork warband by impersonating a scrawny Gretchin. She got close to Warboss Oilguzla and at the opportune moment revealed herself and slit the brutish alien’s throat. That an assassin could mimic an alien (with the aid of polymorphine and surgical implants) illustrates the lengths the Officio will go to terminate a threat. In the late 41st Millennium, as the Macharian Crusade drew to a close, there are even rumors that the great Imperial commander Lord Solar Macharius met his end due to Officio involvement – a Vindicare agent allegedly delivered a mercykill to the dying Macharius to prevent a civil war over his succession. The truth of that incident remains classified, but it wouldn’t be the only time an Assassin’s bullet “tidied up” a politically inconvenient situation within the Imperium’s own ranks.
These examples barely scratch the surface. The Officio Assassinorum’s roster of notable operations spans from the shadows of Terra to the distant edges of the galaxy. For every celebrated victory won by the Space Marines or Imperial Guard, there may have been a quieter victory in the shadows—a single shot or stab that ensured the larger battle was won. The Imperial propaganda machine rarely publicizes Assassinorum deeds, but the tales circulate in high-level circles and among those with a taste for conspiratorial history. They all serve to reinforce a simple truth: no one who betrays the Emperor’s trust is ever truly safe. The Emperor’s judgment may take years, but His Assassins will find you eventually.
The Officio Assassinorum in the Modern Era
In the 41st Millennium – particularly after the catastrophic events of the Great Rift – the need for the Officio Assassinorum’s talents has only grown. The opening of the Cicatrix Maledictum (Great Rift) has plunged half the galaxy into anarchy, giving rise to new tyrants, prophets of Chaos, and xenos conquerors. The Imperium, under the leadership of the resurrected Primarch Roboute Guilliman, has launched the Indomitus Crusade to reclaim lost territories and restore order. Alongside the massed battle fleets and Space Marine forces, Guilliman has quietly employed the Officio Assassinorum as a scalpel to remove obstacles that armies cannot easily reach. For example, during Guilliman’s initial reformation of the Imperium’s bureaucracy, an episode known as the “Primarch’s Scourge,” the new Lord Commander made active use of Assassinorum agents to purge corrupt or obdurate officials. Grand Master Fadix, the head of the Officio in this era, personally demonstrated his loyalty to Guilliman by executing several members of the so-called “Hexarchy” (a cabal of High Lords who plotted against the Primarch) before their coup could destabilize Imperial leadership. Such decisive action cleared the way for Guilliman’s reforms during the Indomitus Crusade’s onset.
At the battlefront, Officio Assassinorum operatives continue to target the enemies of mankind. In the chaos of the Indomitus era, requests for Execution Forces have increased as Imperial forces encounter nearly unkillable foes or linchpin leaders whose death could save millions of Imperial lives. During the ongoing Indomitus Crusade, there are accounts of assassins eliminating key Chaos warlords who emerged in the Imperium Nihilus. One Execution Force infiltrated a warband of the Crimson Slaughter and took out Sorcerer Lord Severin Drask moments before his dark ritual could lay waste to an entire sector. In another theater, three Callidus Assassins gave their lives to hunt down a Genestealer Patriarch known as the Grandsire Wurm on Vigilus – they succeeded in decapitating the cult, though tragically none of the assassins escaped alive. Even the secretive T’au Empire has felt the sting of Imperial assassins: the death of the Ethereal Supreme Aun’va at the hands of an Officio Execution Force dealt the T’au a blow from which they have yet to fully recover. Meanwhile, in the wake of the Great Rift, some Imperial commanders have become more willing to call upon assassins to deal with renegade Astartes and other threats that were once considered off-limits targets. (There are unconfirmed reports of Officio agents being sent after Chapter Masters or Imperial Governors who refuse Guilliman’s commands, highlighting the Primarch’s relentless drive to enforce unity – by the Emperor’s will or by the silent blade.)
Even as they fight in the Emperor’s name, the Assassins remain figures of myth and terror. To the common citizen of the Imperium, the Officio Assassinorum is almost unknown – or perhaps spoken of in hushed tones as boogeymen. Imperial commanders know of them only when a communique arrives from Terra bearing the seal of the Officio, granting a Sigillite Mandate for an assassination mission. The assassins then slip away on their starships and the commander is left to wonder which of his rivals (or superiors) is marked for death. The Adeptus Astartes (Space Marines), for their part, have an uneasy relationship with the Officio Assassinorum. Many Space Marine Chapters consider assassination dishonorable, and would rather face enemies in open battle. Yet, time and again, Chapters have unknowingly benefited from an assassin’s intervention that saved them from catastrophe – a fact not lost on certain Chapter Masters who quietly respect the Officio’s results if not their methods. It is a testament to the Assassinorum’s secrecy that whole crusades might pass with only a few inquisition liaisons ever realizing an assassin was operating in the warzone.
In the modern era, the Officio Assassinorum persists as an indispensable instrument of Imperial policy. When open warfare would be too slow, costly, or futile, an assassin’s hand is the Emperor’s solution. From sniping Chaos champions on the battlefields of the Cicatrix Maledictum, to infiltrating rebellious hive city insurrections, to silencing dissident Imperial commanders who threaten unity, the reach of the Assassinorum is felt across the galaxy. Their credo remains as it was in the days of Malcador: no matter how well-protected or remote the target, “No man escapes the Emperor’s judgment.” Each Assassin is an army of one, and in this time of blood and darkness, they are needed more than ever. In the shadows of the 41st Millennium, the Officio Assassinorum waits, watches, and strikes – ensuring that the enemies of the Imperium, from alien warlords to treasonous demagogues, live in fear of the day when a silent blade or bullet will end them, utterly and without warning.
