Gregor Eisenhorn
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Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn is a fictional character in the science-fantasy game Inquisitor by Games Workshop. He was one of the original characters created for the game. Eisenhorn subsequently became the protagonist in a trilogy of novels Xenos, Malleus, and Hereticus written by Dan Abnett.
Originally a rigidly puritanical member of the Imperial Inquisition (specifically Ordos Xenos), the height of Eisenhorn's early career was the hunting and destruction of the renegade Inquisitor Quixos. At first disgusted by Quixos and his dabbling with demons, Eisenhorn appears to miss the irony when he later makes a pact with the daemon Cherubael.
By the end of the trilogy, Eisenhorn is at least eight hundred years old, an age not unheard of. This relies on the first book happening in c.40,240AD and that Eisenhorn is forty-two. It also relies on the current chronology that implies that the thirteenth Black Crusade occurs during 40,999AD. (Nota bene: It also relies on the assumption that Eisenhorn is still alive by the time of the 13th Black Crusade.)[1]
Contents |
[edit] The Eisenhorn Omnibus
Dan Abnett tells the story of Gregor Eisenhorn's life through the first person in a series of three books (Xenos, Malleus and Hereticus) that have been subsequently released as an omnibus, called simply, Eisenhorn.
[edit] Early life
Gregor Eisenhorn was born 198. M41, on DeKere's World. Eisenhorn was mentored by the staunchly puritan Inquisitor Hapshant. It was here that Eisenhorn picked up the puritan views that he would hold in his early career. Titus Endor was another student of Hapshant, and it was here that Endor and Eisenhorn met and became friends. At the age of 24, he became a full Imperial Inquisitor. Before the events of Xenos, he is known to have employed Uber Aemos, a savant, Midas Betancore, a pilot, Lores Vibben, a soldier and Eamanda, an undercover operative.
[edit] Xenos
When the events of Xenos begin, Eisenhorn describes himself as being 42 standard years old; young by comparison to many inquisitors. He is a moderately powerful psyker, and has prowess with a blade. He describes himself as being a puritan, specifically an Amalathian. Eisenhorn is hunting a recidivist by the name of Murdin Eyclone on the frozen world of Hubris. Eisenhorn kills Eyclone in the opening passages, although he is unable to stop Eyeclone sacrificing several thousand dormant natives. Eisenhorn remains on Hubris in an attempt to trace Eyclone's employers, despite being initially blamed by the natives for Eyeclone's arrival. It is here that he meets both Godwin Fischig, who at that point was an officer in the local Adeptus Arbites, and Alizebeth Bequin, then a prostitute hired by the men Eisenhorn is chasing. Eisenhorn discovers that Bequin is an Untouchable (a generator of negative psychic energy, which effectively blocks out all psykers in the immediate vicinity), and enlists her services. Bequin and Fischig both become essential members of Eisenhorn's entourage; Bequin for her psychic-blankness, and Fischig for his shrewd, hard-working, and dependable attitude. Note: it is stated later on in the trilogy that Fischig remained attached to Eisenhorn as an Arbites liaison before eventually transferring as a permanent member of his retinue.
Midas Betancore, Eisenhorn's pilot, arranges passage off-world with Tobias Maxilla, master of the rogue trader vessel 'Essene'. Tobias runs his ship alone, with only mechanical servitors for crew, and is deeply lonely, having spent most of his career making trade runs through the Helican Subsector. He is a flamboyant character, and gets on very well with Bequin. Eisenhorn is initially suspicious of him, but eventually realises that Maxila's willingness to help is the product of an adventurous streak, rather than a desire to lure him into a trap.
Eisenhorn traces Eyclone's employment to House Glaw (a heretical house with ties to Slaanesh) of the planet Gudrun in the Helican Sub-Sector. Whilst on the planet preparing for his investigation, the house is attacked in the night by two other members of the Inquisition, Commodus Voke and his apprentice, Interrogator Heldane. Voke is following his own leads to Gudrun, and has been there publicly investigating the House for some time. He found links between 'Sire Farchavel'(Eisenhorn's cover identity) and Glaw, and decided to follow up on them. After the mistake is sorted out, Eisenhorn asks Voke's permission to try his own, more subtle approach. Although sceptical, Voke agrees on the condition that Heldane accompanies him.
Eisenhorn infiltrates the house one night after posing as a grain merchant and discovers the "The Pontius." It is the psychic consciousness of Pontius Glaw, a heretic servant of Chaos dead for close on two thousand years, trapped in a rock-like orb in one of the dungeons of House Glaw. Eisenhorn is knocked unconscious by the psychic force of the Pontius, and later awakens chained to a torture rack. He is subsequently tortured for information by a House Glaw servant, Gorgone Locke, who uses a nerve-penetrator device to render Eisenhorn's face permanently expressionless. Eisenhorn, Bequin, Fischig and Heldane, along with several envoys from the trading consortium that 'Sire Farchavel' used as cover, are then placed in Roman-esque coliseum by Lord Glaw to be fed to a group of Carnodons (evolved saber-toothed tigers).
All of the envoys are slain, and Heldane is badly mauled, before a surprise attack is launched on the Glaw estate. Midas Betancore, who managed to evade capture, contacted Commodus Voke with news of the capture of Eisenhorn. Voke takes this as all the excuse he needs, and masses a large attack force made up from Battlefleet security elements and Imperial Guardsmen from the newly raised 50th Gudrunite Rifles. This operation is code-named 'Pacification 505'.
Before Eisenhorn can follow up leads to the planet of Damask to seek out those who escaped Pacification 505, a sudden disturbance occurs in the Helican sub-sector (later known as the Helican Schism): there is a sudden rash of bombings on Thracian Primaris, the capital world, a passenger vessel bound for Hesperus is seized and destroyed, and a toxin decimates one of Messina's Hive-cities. Then, the battleship Ultima Victrix explodes at anchor in orbit. This results in a short period of time in which the hallowed Battlefleet Scarus wages war upon itself, and in the process, a 14-ship frigate group under the command of a certain Captain Estrum makes a system jump claiming pursuit. These diversionary tactics are used by the arch-enemy of mankind to divert the Imperium's attention from an imminent transaction. Still pursuing the Glaws, Eisenhorn travels to Damask, where he finds a group of Glaws excavating several ancient alien archaeological remains under the protection of a Chaos Space Marine of the Emperor's Children chapter called Mandragore. They are discovered, and after a furious firefight manage to escape the planet aboard their shuttle. Due to a chance discovery, Eisenhorn takes with him the Pontius, which is unable to do anything without one of the support devices like the one found on Hubris. Eisenhorn finds out after his ordeals that Estrum is in league with the heretics (including House Glaw), and thus follows him on the Essene to a 56-Izar, a world populated by the Saruthi.
The Inquisition is then led to the Saruthi planet in hopes of stopping the heretics from obtaining the Saruthi copy of the Necroteuch. The Inquisition has the backing of Battlefleet Scarus and the Deathwatch Chapter of the Space Marines. Moving through the jungle, Eisenhorn, after his Space Marine escort had killed another Chaos Space Marine, comes upon a battlefield in which Heldane is laying, injured badly. Dazzo was found kneeling nearby, near a pillar of stone. Heldane informs Eisenhorn that Dazzo used his prodigious psychic powers to compose a primer for the Necroteuch, which is the only way the Saruthi language will be decoded. Eisenhorn takes the primer and continues with Betancore and Bequin. Eisenhorn stumbles upon the Saruthi Necroteuch which is being held by Gorgone Locke and after a brief struggle with him and his men, Locke's lower torso is crushed by an alien pillar. Molitor then shows his true colours, and stops Eisenhorn from destroying the Necroteuch. However, Bequin moves in, and her psychic null repels Molitor and enables Eisenhorn to escape, with the primer, to the roof of the Saruthi edifice. He is confronted by Molitor, who Eisenhorn kills, but the final servant of Molitor reveals himself to be the blank-eyed man Eisenhorn had been dreaming of, a daemonhost named Cherubael. Eisenhorn decides to crush the primer beneath his boot, and is saved by his gun-cutter. He escapes before the Exterminatus, which Molitor had ordered, is enacted. (In Malleus and Hereticus this ordeal, is referred to as the "affair of the necroteuch".)
[edit] "Missing in Action"
Eisenhorn lost his left hand during an investigation on Sameter. This investigation had started with the discovery of bodies found murdered in a ritual manner, with their eyes plucked out, spine extracted, brain removed, and hands and tongue cut away. At first believing the killings to be of standard heretical nature, Eisenhorn approached the investigation as a purge of some chaotic cult. Soon, however, it was revealed that the culprits were ex-soldiers of the Imperial Guard. These former soldiers of the Ninth Sameter Infantry had been driven mad by the horrors they had faced in war, and were ritually killing regular citizens. The now-fanatical ex-riflemen thought they were serving the Golden Throne by killing anyone they thought was in any way related to the vile forces of Chaos. In their twisted minds, they could only see heretics in the guise of their fellow citizens. With squads of Adeptus Arbites, Eisenhorn managed to corner the fanatics in an abandoned and decaying building that they had converted into an Imperial temple. There, a firefight broke out and Eisenhorn lost his hand to an experienced former-sharpshooter. All of the remaining members of the Sameter Ninth were killed after fighting to the last man, serving the Emperor until death.
[edit] Malleus
This book took place ninety eight years after the incident concerning the Necroteuch. Eisenhorn was on Lethe Eleven chasing the accursed xenophile Beldame Sadia, who had strong links with the Dark Eldar. He had with him a worthy band of agents under his employment, above those agents were Bequin and Gideon Ravenor, an interrogator by then. A battle ensued in the early passages which ended with the death of Sadia and also several of Eisenhorn's agents, most notably Arianrhod Esw Sweydyr, the wielder of Barbarisater. Eisenhorn himself also almost perished under the hands of Arnaut Tantalid (a member of the Adeptus Ministorum, he believes Eisenhorn to be a heretic). But the quick actions of Medea Betancore, the daughter of Midas stopped Tantalid. Midas at this point is long dead, having been killed by the heretic Fayde Thuring, who escaped judgement. Eisenhorn was then summoned to Thracian Primaris for the celebration to Honour Warmaster Honorius and his victory in the Ophidian Campaign. But his summon was for more than the celebration, he finds this out from his friend Titus Endor and Lord Rorken. Cherubael had spared an inquisitor's life thinking it was him; this had gotten rumours flying about him being a heretic and he was under the watchful eyes of the Ordos Malleus.
A parade was organized during the celebration to honour the victory of the campaign. The parade consisted of all the different forces of the Imperium along with the prisoners from the campaign: it was attended by an incredible number of citizens. When Eisenhorn’s section reached the Spatian Gate, a monument to honour the late Admiral Lorpal Spatian, he felt compelled to stop, leaving Ravenor and the procession to move on. Fortunately that’s when disaster struck, eight Lightning fighters lost control and crashed into the crowd. Three more then proceeded to open fire into the crowd, and were taken out by other armaments in the parade. But the damage had already been done, the prisoners broke free and a shoot-out ensued between the captives and their captors. Amongst those released were psykers of level alpha and above. These psykers caused a lot of damage, especially one known as Esarhaddon who controlled hundreds of Imperial citizens as puppets, using them against the Imperium. He was incinerated in front of Eisenhorn by a plasma shot from Inquisitor Lyko... or so it seemed. In the ensuing aftermath, it became clear how much the attack had cost the Imperium, to Eisenhorn it came in the form of Ravenor. He was caught at the edge of the explosion of one of the Lightning fighters. He suffered 100% burns which made him paralysed, blind, deaf and mute. It can be argued now that if not for this incident Gideon Ravenor may not have become the force he later became, contributing vastly to Imperial Learning. But it was because of him Eisenhorn swore to find out who was the cause of this tragedy.
Information then got to him attention that it was not actually Esarhaddon that was killed by Lyko. He tried to confront Lyko about this but he had already left that planet, this made Eisenhorn suspicious of him. He tracked his fellow Inquisitor to Eechan where he and his agents posed as a twist who wanted purchase a psyker. They were lead to the outskirts of the main town where they and other buyers had to bid for the psyker. Eisenhorn placed the highest bid almost immediately which shocked most of the bidders except one who revealed himself to be Cherubael. Lyko then revealed himself ordering the deamonhost to kill everyone. A battle ensued, which ended with Lyko being killed by Cherubael who then disappeared with the psyker.
Eisenhorn was then lead to Cadia due to the investigative work of Godwyn Fischig, who got word of a Cherubael sighting. On Cadia they then found a connection between the daemonhost and a long forgotten Inquisitor named Quixos. But the team ran into another daemonhost called Prophaniti, and endeavored to subdue it. But their efforts were derailed when Inquisitor Osma of the Ordos Malleus arrived and arrested Eisenhorn for consorting with a daemonhost, and despite the plea of everyone around him he was locked up awaiting trial. After three months of interrogation, with the help of Fischig’s clever thinking, he is broken out and goes on the run. He is declared Heretic and Extremis Diabolus by the Inquisition, but it does not dampen his resolve.
Struggling with his agents, to lay hidden, he then makes it to Cinchare, Eisenhorn is looking for Gerrad Bure, a tech priest he befriended a while ago. On Cinchare, Eisenhorn and Co. discover apparently friendly miners who turnout to be corrupted by Chaos. They are forced to flee to the underground tunnels where they meet Bure. After being reunited, they are attacked by a Chaos creature, and hordes of miners. Eisenhorn searches to find the source of the corruption and finds the Lith, a rock corrupted by Chaos, which is destroying the minds of the miners. Invasively, he sets out in a mining pod and configures its ultrasonic sonar to continually broadcast at maximum volume 'The Emperors Prayer of Abrogation against the Warp". The Lith was 'killed' as a result, the Chaos Creature dying at the same time. In gratitude for his help, Magos Bure supplies Eisenhorn with the tools he needs, after Eisenhorn consults with the 'item' the Magos had been holding for him all this time; Pontius Glaw. Pontius, quite happy to see Eisenhorn starting to 'slip' towards the grasp of Chaos, is only too pleased to provide detailed information on how to build a weapon to combat a daemonhost, in exchange for a new Servitor body. The result of their discussions is the production of a 'runestaff'; a force-weapon built to the most exacting standards, using a chunk of the 'Lith' itself to conduct psychic energy on a scale sufficient to banish a Daemonhost back into the warp, forever. He also has his 'normal' -but incredibly well made- sword 'Barbarisater' enhanced with high level Pentagrammatic wards that would make it too a powerful weapon against Daemons or psychic attacks.
Leaving Cinchare, Eisenhorn sends out invitations to the few Inquisitors he thinks he can trust implicitly. His old friend and classmate Titus Endor, the conservative Commodus Voke, Raum Grumman -standing in for Cadia's Inquisitor General Neve and Massimo Ricci, a representative of Inquisitor Lord Rorken, Eisenhorns most powerful remaining supporter. Eisenhorns old student, Inquisitor Gideon Ravenor while unable to attend, sends a message of support...along with a -correct- guess at Quixos's current location and consecrated amulets of Daemonic Protection. Lord Procurator Olm Madorthene of the Imperial Navy, another ally of Gidion, supplies the heavy forces in a detachment of capital ships and a large number of elite troops.
Under the official leadership of Commodus Voke, the group attacks Quixos on the planet Farness Beta, right on the edge of the Eye of Terror. The operation is bloody, fanatic cultists and mercenaries putting up stiff resistance as the Imperials push troops into the attack. Commodus Voke is attacked by and engages the Daemonhost Prophaniti in a duel and as Eisenhorn moves forward, he is blown back by Cherubael, who suddenly appears and gleefully informs Eisenhorn that this is the moment that their interactions have led to, that this is the point where Eisenhorn would give it what it most wanted. Eisenhorn tells it he would never do such a thing and using his runestaff blasts the Daemon...giving Cherubael exactly what it wanted.
Freedom from Quixos, sending it back into the warp and setting it free from its bonds.
Commodus Voke puts up an astonishing fight against his Daemon Prince, but Prophaniti triumphs and slays the Inquisistor before it attacks Eisenhorn. Enraged by the fact that he HAD given Cherubael exactly what it wanted, Eisenhorn channels so much power through the runestaff that this Deamon is actually killed, obliterated forever, just before Quixos attacks with superhuman speed, slaying Inquisitors Ricci and Grumman in seconds, before his strike against Eisenhorn is barely stopped by Barbarisater and its warp infused power. In the moment the swords meet, the pair confront each other, the insane Quixos claiming that it had a plan to duplicate the effects of the Pylons of Cadia to blow up the Eye of Terror...or perhaps just the planets he was trying his experiments on. The rogue Inquisitor, utterly corrupted by Chaos in his intention of using Chaos against itself duels Eisenhorn, who finally manages to stab Quixos with Barbarisater and kill him. After the final cultists were killed and the rogue Psykers turned over to the Inquisition, the site was demolished in an orbital bombardment. The carta against Eisenhorn, in light of the huge amount of evidence and statements from other Inquisitors, is quashed.
In a final Epilogue, we find out that the Malus Codicium, a proscribed book that teaches about Chaos, was recovered by Eisenhorn and not turned over to the Imperium. Eisenhorn, using the proscribed knowledge of the Malus Codicium summons and binds Cherubael into a vat grown host. In revenge for its using HIM for so long, now it would remain bound alone in a deep, dark vault, forever...
[edit] Characters
[edit] Gregor Eisenhorn
The protagonist of Dan Abnett's trilogy. The books are told entirely in the first person from Eisenhorn's perspective. He is a much-heralded Imperial Inquisitor of Ordos Xenos. The trilogy focus on the evolution of Eisenhorn's skill set, mannerisms, and psychology. Eisenhorn's skill with a blade continually improves throughout his life as he gains friendships with more and more skilled swordsmen. He falls in love with Alizebeth Bequin for a time until he realizes they could never be together because he is a psyker and she is an Untouchable (a psychically immune individual, it physically hurts Eisenhorn to touch her). At the beginning, he is a staunch puritan, devoutly fighting Chaos most efficiently in ways that never involve using Chaos against itself. By the end of the series he has evolved into a man who will mentally rationalize using whatever means necessary to attain his ends.
[edit] Alizebeth Bequin
A girl found working during a case on the planet of Hubris, Bequin was inducted into Eisenhorn's retinue mainly because she is a Pariah, or Untouchable. Untouchables cause feelings of uneasiness at best in normal people (which tends to mean that Untouchables live generally unhappy lives), but for Psykers, this effect is far more pronounced. The discomfort extends even up to a physical level.
During the course of the trilogy, Eisenhorn gradually finds himself falling in love with Bequin, which presented a dark irony to their relationship; as Eisenhorn himself points out at one point, to be with an Untouchable would cause himself, a psyker, terrible pain. Indeed, during one undercover operation where they portray a particularly lustful couple, Eisenhorn is simultaneously struck with the desire that comes with Bequin being physically close to him, and the terrible pain at her unconscious and uncontrollable psychic nulling abilities.
In a supremely tragic twist near the end of the series, Bequin is critically injured and is placed in stasis, deep in a coma. It is only when she is unconscious and unable to respond that Eisenhorn is able to go to her side and confess his feelings for her.
[edit] Uber Aemos
Eisenhorn's old friend, and savant. Aemos contracted a meme-virus at an early age, which forces him to remember everything he witnesses to the smallest detail, and to never end his thorough search for knowledge. Near the end of Hereticus, Aemos dies after binding Cherubael to the lifeless body of Fischig. His last words are "Most perturbatory."
[edit] Midas Betancore
An ingenious pilot from the world of Glavia. Midas can outfly just about anyone, and is very dangerous on the ground, as well, with his set of lethal Glavian needle weapons. He is killed by a heretic at some point between Xenos and Malleus.
[edit] Godwyn Fischig
An Adeptus Arbites chastener from Hubris. Loyal to a fault, tough, and reliable. He helps track down Cherubael on Cadia, and when Eisenhorn begins to turn to radicalism Fishig tries desperately to stop him. He eventually betrays Eisenhorn and his team to Inquisitor Osma, and is shot by Medea before he can kill Eisenhorn and has Cherubael bound to his body.
[edit] Tobias Maxilla
A rogue trader, smuggler, merchant, and sophisticated individual. Eisenhorn hires him to transport his team off of Hubris to Gudrun, and becomes attached to him. Maxilla proves fiercely loyal and assists the Inquisitorial band in all three books. He has an Adeptus Mechanicus-like preference for machines; his entire crew are servitors and a large portion of his body is augmetic. He is killed in the battle with Osma and Cherubael in the end of Hereticus.
[edit] Pontius Glaw
An Imperial noble turned heretic; he was corrupted by the enscorcelled torc of a pit-fighter he purchased, and wreaked havoc until an Inquisitorial purge destroyed him. His family preserved his consciousness in a device known as the Pontius, which was stolen by Eisenhorn. Glaw was interrogated and eventually convinced by Bequin to divulge the traitorous Glaw family's plans, and Eisenhorn later acquired information on daemonhosts from him. He was left with Magos Geard Bure on Cinchare, and, after receiving a body, killed Bure and set out to take over the galaxy. Operating under the alias "Khanjar the Sharp", he destroyed Eisenhorn's entire operation and nearly succeeded in capturing another dark prize, until Eisenhorn and Ravenor hunted down and killed him with the help of the Eldar.
[edit] Medea Betancore
Midas's daughter; every bit as skilled and dangerous as her father, though much more headstrong. She is very emotional about her father and she disobeys Eisenhorn's orders in an attempt to kill the man who murdered Midas.
[edit] Harlon Nayl
An ex-bounty hunter and one of Eisenhorn's best men. Extremely proficient with all types of weaponry, as well as demolitions and disguise work.
[edit] Cherubael
Cherubael, or the Cherub of Bael, is a daemonhost of immense power. Cherubael was formerly in the service of Inquisitor Quixos, a renegade Inquisitor killed by Gregor Eisenhorn. Although Eisenhorn despises Cherubael at first, he begins to find need for the daemonhost's extraordinary power leading to Eisenhorn's slide into radicalism.
[edit] Inquisitor Quixos
A legendary inquisitor, long thought dead. He went mad and became an extreme radical, orchestrating the Atrocity on Thracian Primaris and killing millions of Imperial citizens. He believed that the Cadian pylons, which held back and neutralized the Warp, could be amplified with alpha-plus psykers and used to destroy the Eye of Terror. Eisenhorn slew him in a massive battle on Farness Beta.
[edit] Appearance
In his early life Gregor Eisenhorn is clean-shaven with dark eyes and even darker thick hair. He himself considers his physical appearance of little merit but his service to the God Emperor of Mankind paramount. His left hand is an organic replacement after he lost the original on Sameter. He has no facial expression as a result of nerve damage inflicted during torture by the heretic and rogue trader Gorgone Locke early on in the series. The skull on his rune staff, created by the late Tech Magos Geard Bure, is an exact duplicate of Eisenhorn's skull and carved from a sentient tele-empathic crystal called the Lith. At the end of the third book in the trilogy, Hereticus, Eisenhorn was wielding a Carthaen blade called Barbarisater. In the short story Thorn Wishes Talon, he was again seen with the blade during a meeting with his former pupil Ravenor on Malinter, where he destroyed a dreadnought with his blade.
[edit] Origins of the Character
To coincide with the release of the Inquisitor game the Black Library, part of Games Workshop's publishing arm, released a three-volume account of Eisenhorn's life written by successful author, Dan Abnett. Abnett had become interested in the idea of such a story after seeing early concept art from the Inquisitor game (in particular a piece named "Inquisitor Tannenberg" by the artist John Blanche) and went on to write what many regard as the Black Library's standout series.
The trilogy consisted of the books Xenos (Abnett, 2001a), Malleus (Abnett, 2001b) and Hereticus (Abnett, 2002). The books are named after the three major divisions of the Inquisition, the Ordo Xenos, the Ordo Malleus and the Ordo Hereticus, and the titles also played off the themes of the books themselves. There are also the short stories Missing in Action, which is set between Xenos and Malleus, and Backcloth for a Crown Additional, set between Malleus and Hereticus. The trilogy, written in first person, added much more depth to the character and his life, presenting his slide into corruption as a consequence not of simple moral decay but as the result of a cumulative series of choices, each of which looked harmless or justified at the time. The relationship with Cherubael is also ambiguous: Eisenhorn hates the daemon at their first encounter, but arguably hates him just as much by the end of the series – their "pact" is a far more complicated understanding than that.
The end of the Eisenhorn books was designed to bring the character to the point at which he is described in the Inquisitor rulebook, so that players can then create his further exploits for themselves if they wish. Although many readers have asked for more Eisenhorn stories, for the moment Abnett is continuing with a spinoff series about Inquisitor Gideon Ravenor, a crippled psychic genius who appeared as a secondary character in the Eisenhorn books. Ravenor does have some contact with Eisenhorn, however, in the short story Thorn Wishes Talon which is found as part of a collection in the book What Price Victory.
The trilogy has since been re-released as a single compendium volume (Abnett, 2004), complete with the three stories, two connecting short stories, and a foreword by the author.
[edit] glossia
an informal code that is used by Eisenhorn and his staff (and later employed in small amounts by his student Ravenor). Based upon poetry it cannot be cracked using regular code breaking means (although it is compromised by Ravenor's nemesis Molotch at their first meeting).The main elements of Eisenhorn's band have various signifiers:
Fischig-'Hound'
Betancore-'aegis'
Ravenor-'talon'
Eisenhorn himself-'thorn'
various words and phrases in a poetic syntax are used to explain certain situations e.g;
"aegis descending"-Betancore is inbound
"pattern thimble"-for the team to take action to defend themselves.
[edit] Notes
- ^ It should be noted that, on many timelines and in the Daemonhunters Codex, Inquisitor Eisenhorn is stated to have declared Quixos Extremis Diabolus in 342. M35. This is incorrect. According to the novelization, Eisenhorn defeated Quixos in M41.
[edit] References
- Abnett, Dan (2001a). Xenos. Nottingham: Black Library. ISBN 0-7434-1169-2.
- Abnett, Dan (2001b). Malleus. Nottingham: Black Library. ISBN 1-84154-204-0.
- Abnett, Dan (2002). Hereticus. Nottingham: Black Library. ISBN 1-84154-236-9.
- Abnett, Dan (2004). Eisenhorn. Nottingham: Black Library. ISBN 1-84416-156-0.
- Thorpe, Gavin. Inquisitor Rulebook (PDF). Games Workshop. Retrieved on 2006-08-15.
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