Known Enemy/Heretic Organizations

The following information is general knowledge that any acolyte or Throne Agent would have access to and be aware of. The follow noble lines, cults, groups and related powers are organizations that have been openly declared Hereticus and as such are open targets and can be freely prosecuted without requiring any proof of illicit behavior on the part of the targeted member. The fact that these organizations still exist despite this sanction is a subtle nod at their resources, capacity for stealth and resolve and as such interaction with their membership should be done with all due caution. That being said, each group is classified at its relative danger grade of: Minima, Minoris, Majori, Extremis and Terminus.

House Lertes
Once a revered and ancient Navis Noblite line which migrated to the Expletio Sector when it first returned to its rightful Imperial owners, the members of House Lertes were revered for their ability to produce stable, resourceful and skillful Navigators for the Imperium's needs. Their assistance and generous contract prices greatly served the Imperium during the Sarken Crusade and their rapid deployment of their bloodlines to service the newly reformed sector greatly increased their prestige. However, it appeared that a string of family Patronovas couldn't withhold their desire to push the family ever higher, dabbling in the genes of their younglings, attempting to produce ever more potent Navigators to push through into the mysterious worlds of the Hidden Stars subsector. The resulting mutations soon began to run amok and the house was declared renegade after a series of particularly horrifically corrupted Lertes scions sacrificed their ship's crews as part of an attempt to gain the riches that lay upon a planet within The Way system.

However, it was not until an experiment was discovered by Inquistor Mors Rolth in 758.M41 that brought them the full attention of the Inquisition. An attempt was being made to employ unsanctioned and rogue psykers as a form of specialized shielding during warp travel in their continued attempts to enter the Hidden Stars. Furthermore, acts of Bio-tech heresy were discovered to be in use by the Renegade House, which allowed them to fuse the psykers into a single organism used for some sort of Warp-debased divination ritual that was capable of detecting and even slightly shifting warp storms (usually at the cost of expanding the warp storm elsewhere at a far greater "volume" them the device/abomination displaced). Inquistor Rolth succeeded in breaking their operation, soon learning that the whole of House Lertes consisted of three elements: part work of their insane bloodline tampering, part assistance from a strange xenos breed known as the Kulras and part aide from the Heretek cult known as the "Seekers of Omnissiah". While unable to finish the House or the Heretek cult, Rolth's work did put an end to their warp storm creation.

Present Day: The house is a strange mix of rogue navigator activity and psyker divination. As of such they are difficult to track as they can quickly move their assets without needing legitimate resources and are somehow able to detect the coming of hostile forces. Their exact activities are currently unknown though it is well assumed that it involves their continued quest to enter the Hidden Stars.
Threat Level: Minoris


Seekers of the Omnissiah
A heretek cult born out of the Kaelthir System in the Quilanis subsector, the Seekers of the Omnissiah were a group which, obstensibly, was simply interested in understanding the "inner mysteries of the Omnissiah through emulation of its ways". The Seekers of the Omnissiah consisted mainly of Magos Errants and Explorators, who were used to doing things as they saw fit and with concerns more for expediency and efficiency than for proper protocol. The way in which they choose to understand their god was in use of a type of cogitator that skirted dangerously close to the Silica Animus heresy, by creating a machine that could learn and take initiative to make new discoveries of its own. However, its functions never reflected the Mechanicus' understanding of the Iron Men and thus avoided censure. The denouncement came in 990.M41, after a covert investigation by Archmagus Melancholar revealed that the reason the machine worked as a tech abomination while avoiding the tag of Silica Animus was due to the merging of high level Logic Engines and Cogitators with a strange alien crystal matrixes which seemed to trap the souls of those killed in a certain fashion. The souls could then be used as blank slates on which information was written and then hidden from detection.

As information was finally pulled from the corrupted cogitators, it was soon learned that the Seekers had been storing a vast amount of information regarding xenos technology, daemonic lore and proscribed history texts in their machines and then used their "thinking ability" to create vile new creations of life, machine and daemonspawn. The machines were called Omni-locutors and were immediately declared Purgatus. Archmagus Melancholar was slain in the the ensuing counterattack by the Seekers who unleashed the first wave of their murder creations on her and her retinue. This resulted in the loss of a full Forgeworld city-stack on the planet Unity. Combined Inquisitorial and Mechanicus retribution was swift, resulting in the annhilation of many parts of the Seekers cult. However, many of their Omni-locutors were never found and several of the high ranking Heretek Magos' were missing as well.

Present Day: With the Hereteks and the Omni-locutors still at large, the Mechanicus and the Inquisition continue the hunt with all due energy in consideration of the possible threats the Omni-locutors could possibly form. While there is no direct evidence (on record) that suggests where they might be, it is believed that their operations are linked to a number of smaller tech heresies through Quilanis, the Sentinel Stars and Sarken's Reach.
Threat Level: Extremis; the Heretek's themselves are suitably dangerous, but the real threat is the constructs that might be formed by the Omni-locutors.


MORE TO COME!

The Red Redeemers
In the earlier parts of the 41st millenium a peculiar faction referring to themselves as the "Red Redeemers" first became known in the Sentinel's Stars sub-sector as a group of mutant hunters. Due to their activities (and preference for flamers and chainswords) and successes in making various mutat populations "disappear" they were largely assumed to be members of the similarly named Red Redemption and left to their fervent whimsy so long as their activities didn't cut too much into normal Imperial life.

The cult operated for close to 500 years before a discovery by Inquisitor Jamin Duran began an inquiry that would lead to the implication of the presumed zealots. In an unrelated investigation into rising mutant populations on the worlds of Fuson Prime, Findis and Setesh, Duran realized that a great deal of the mutations and behaviors that were be catalogued during his investigations were strikingly similar to those of various mutant "colonies" located on Herren and Drayek. Tracking the source of the mutant transportation between worlds, Duran soon stumbled upon the true face of the Red Redeemers.

The Red Redeemers did indeed hunt mutants and cause them to "disappear", only to have them re-appear on other worlds. The reason for this became apparent when one of Duran's interrogator's captured and cracked one of the Red Redeemer's masters, revealing that the groups real intention was to create a sort of "critical mass" of the normally ignored/downtrodden mutant populations and force uprisings. Bad enough in itself, Duran soon learned the true danger behind the Red Redeemers. Making use of a strange mutant strain as well as a number of psychically bonded wyrdlings/witches, the masters of the Red Redeemers had found a way to "muddle" all astropathic communcation leaving a particular world and then boiling up localized warpstorms across established warp lanes, cutting off the world from ALL forms of communcation. Using this, along with contacts within the Administratum, the Red Redeemers found a way to effectively blot whole systems off of the map. Subsequent investigations and purges within the Administratum were to show that at least 4 systems had been lost this way since the Redeemer's inception in Expletio. Inquisitor Duran himself was lost when the cultists successfully blocked off the Setesh system, though succeeded in ending that particular threat when he made use of lost atomics vault to erradicate the cultist groups at the cost of a slow radioactive death for the rest of the world.

Present Day: Further purges and hunts of the Red Redeemer's discovered that there are 3 (now believed only 2) sub-sects of the Red Redeemers, each individually capable of transporting mutant populations between worlds and believed to possess the necessary "equipment" to drop a planet off the map. An additional danger of the group is that they will often masquerade as another sect or cult while on their hunts to attempt to throw off suspicion of their activities. Finally, they are surprisingly skilled at finding their way into the various adepta, allowing them to use the sacred offices of the Emperor for their fell purposes.
Threat Level: Majoris; despite their ability to cause the Imperium to "lose planets" their efforts are hard to mask, even with their inside agents. As of such, regular purges and a watchful eye is usually enough to catch a uprising before it has a chance to let the Red Redeemer's act.


Genen'rakeen Mad House
An organization that recently came to light, the Genen'rakeen Mad House (usually simply referred to as the Mad House) is case of a "necessary evil" gone too far. A collection of merc, entertainment, transport and commerica guilds the once unnamed group took part in the darker forms of the cold trade; collecting monsters for fighting pits, kidnapping disenfranchised humans for slaves, smuggling illicit artifacts and drugs, and a number of other "petty" criminal behaviors that, by and large, were ignored as they ultimately served a purpose, even if it was a repugnant one.

This changed when the Inquisitorial Interdiction Buoy in the Genen'rak System, a place declared off-limits to all Imperial contact, had its records checked to find several incidences of warp disruption at the edges of the system, a usual sign of the use of warp engines to enter the area. A observer remained to see if any further disruptions would occur, as indeed they soon did. Tracking the ship to the homeworld of the extinguished xenos race, the Genen, the observer learned that the ship belonged to smugglers that had set up camp on the nuclear ash wasteland. Inquisitorial forces were quickly called, resulting in the destruction of the camp and the ship.

The reason for the reaction was due to the very reason the system was declared interdictus by the Inquisition. The Genen had been one of the earliest and longest resisting enemies of the Sarken Crusade that reclaimed Expletio for the Imperium. They were a peculiar group of xenos with a horrifying psychic potential. Capable of imprinting their psychic footprint on another intelligent species mind, they were capable of "replicating" themselves in another species, effectively stealing the body and soul of other races. While the race itself was believed annihilated, it was learned that they were capable of imprinting their minds and corrupted souls on pieces of material not terribly dissimilar from Eldar psycho-plastics and wraithbone. When come in contact with, these ornately inscribed artifacts, known as psy-ribbons, allowed the wielder to replicate the Genen's nature abilities of psychic domination, but also allowing the long sleeping Genen within a chance to awaken. Over time it would attempt to imprint itself into the users mind and effectively take control. The revival of the Genen was not a prospect the Inquisition took lightly.

Chasing the leads from the camp and the ship, the Inqusition discovered that the Genen had indeed manage to partially awaken, having claimed the minds of a number Imperial nobles, mutants and even aliens. When the Inqusition moved to attacked, the "Taken" (a term used to describe those whose minds were effectively over written by the Genen) and their allies quickly made use of their plundered powers to unleash a wave of psychic domination all over the Zindis Hive system. The result was a massive civil war that erupted right at the edge of the Orkish warzone. The sudden orgy of blood and violence was off-handedly named the "Genen'rakeen Mad House" by one of the involved inquisitors. The name stuck. Though the Inquisition And Officio Assassinorum succeeded in killing most of the Taken and their allies, the blow to the systems defenses was such that when an off-course Ork force happened upon the system, a new battle was joined against the Graltruk Waaagh in the year 001.M42, and has continued since.

Present Day: In the wake of the Zindis purge, the Inquisition has learned that they merely decapitated a monster that can regenerate its head. While temporarily stunned, the Mad House is by no means ended. While the Inquisition has stepped up defenses around Genen'rak itself to prevent anymore xenos imprinting, it is suspected that there is a reasonable number of Taken within the Expletio sector. Considering how far it has spread, Inquisitorial agents believe that the organization once centered merely around greed is now entirely in the thrall of the Genen, who continue to use the organization for its original purpose while it gathers resources for whatever future plans it has in mind.
Threat Level: Terminus; the Genen were an extremely deadly race throughout the whole of the Sarken Crusade. Their natural telepathic abilities, coupled with their effective psychic immortality makes them a hard group to stamp out, even more so now that they are hidden within the Imperium itself. Further concern exists as while the majority of the Genen psy-ribbons were located on Genen'raks itself, the Genen were spread across most of the lower rimward portion of the Expletio sector and the chance of their artifacts being spread throughout that space, yet still hidden, are likely.

Minor Organizations
The organizations and cults in this section are smallter groups that are either associated with a larger group, have been largely stamped out (but known to still exist) or are simply too minor to have warranted full inquisitorial attention. Yet, anyway.

The Witches of Kelitas: A group of unsanctioned psykers who believe that their nature makes them mortal gods and are therefore worthy of adoration and respect. They are largely benign as a group, mostly interested in evading the Black Ships and commiting acts of "heroism" for the "downtrodden". By and large they succeed mostly in scaring off blunts and recruiting another unsanctioned witch to their efforts. Their threat is limited as they rarely use their powers for actual harm of Imperial interest and the strongest amongst their number is a Beta minus at best. They are actively hunted by members of the Ordo Hereticus, and often employed by other considerably less holy institutions.

The Probing Violators: A group of chaos-worshippers who might be viewed as much more of a threat were they not simply so woefully (and sometimes comically) incompetent. Obstensibly servants of the Ruinous Powers of Pain and Pleasure, their rituals are often awkward attempts of public debauchery and their attacks usually result in more causualities of their numbers due to poor planning than Imperial response. Their one major skill is running away, which they do quite effectively, if nothing else. A mix of ineffectuality and quick feet have made them hard to stamp out as Inquisitorial time can rarely be afforded on such a minor irritation while arbite and enforcer groups have trouble locking them down. Their nature and goals are unclear as they have yet to achieve anything noteworthy, beyond their noted persistance and failure.

The Emperor Continually Reborn: A result of a radical inquisitor by the name of Reilly (originally of a Thorian disposition) the cult was a front for many of her personal operations. The essential position of the cult is that the Emperor has cast shards of destiny over his Imperium, each fragment a measure of the Emperor's own divine soul. They believe that the ones whom receive this shard shall receive prophecy and an Emperor given purpose to fulfill, with all detractors of the prophets words being seen as foes, even if they be members of the Imperial adepta or elite. The obvious use of this was that Inquisitor Reilly could see to it that any agent she needed to be served fully by a cult cell would be fitted with a group of dupes whom would carry out her every command, even if it cost them their lives. The cult was largely dismantled when Inquisitor Reilly was declared excommunicate tratoris (though she has yet to have been executed), though new cells turn up all the time. It is uncertain if Reilly and her cohorts are still attempting to create cells or whether her work was simply much more prolific than originally thought.