 In this universe of ours, the phrase to conquer one's demons is far too often an incredibly real prospect. Although perhaps prospect is not the correct word, risk maybe, or inevitability. We exist in a realm beset by things born of unreality, of foes gnawing at the strands of all that is so that their paradoxical, impossible existence may bring ours to an end. We label these things demons, for since their discovery no other words have been deemed fitting enough to encompass the mere idea of them. In doing so, we grant them acknowledgement, acknowledgement of their inherent malignancy, for the warp and its denizens are nothing if not molded by our fears, our worries, our nightmares. We have, to defend ourselves, built monsters to fight them in kind. We are trapped in an eternal battle with the mirror of ourselves, dark and terrible, wickedly lethal, and there is not we can do to escape it. The subjects of this record, however, appear to have taken the phrase mentioned at the outset as both challenge and doctrine. The knowledge I commit to this chronicle is highly restricted. Its revelations are for the eyes and ears of a select few, for its release would not only dam an admirably loyal chapter to utter dissolution, but may even prompt far more wicked and dangerous acts to be committed by those less experienced than my subjects. You know then, that this is a record of the unsung demon hunters, those who triumph over impossible initiations to bring the emperor's justice to the never-born themselves. The Exorcists chapter of the Adeptus Astartes. The Exorcists are but one of a few remaining operational chapters that can, as reliably as one may in this Imperium, trace their origins to the Tenebrous Thirteenth Founding. While records of quality are scanned in the archives of many a world, and those of Astartes' histories even more so outside of chapter librarians, the Thirteenth Founding is occluded indeed. This in and of itself is strange. Astartes' Foundings are typically subject to rigorous oversight by the Adeptus Terra at the behest of the High Lords. The recurrences usually take place at times of extreme peril for the Imperium, or in a particular political ascendancy or other. It is quite possible that rid of it remains somewhere upon the Throne World, sealed under order of some senatorium figure or other, now long dead. None know precisely how many chapters were raised during this Founding. Occurring some time between the 35th and 36th millennia, none know precisely how many chapters were even raised during this Founding, let alone its date. In fact, only three can be independently confirmed. The Death Specters, the Crimson Sabers, and the Exorcists themselves. Should any within the chapter know more than this, they do not speak of it nor put word to its record. This stonewalling of investigation naturally raises rumour and supposition. Not least, as one of the other triad of chapters raised alongside them was bound to fall to the thrall of the Dark Gods. The Crimson Sabers being deemed Excommunicate Tratoris sometime after their foundation. None of this is helped by the mysterious Happening surrounding archives and data pertaining to the chapter. Aside from those held in deeply secure archives, it has a tendency of vanishing or being destroyed in seemingly unlucky happenstances, at a rate far higher than the Imperium's admittedly less-than-stellar ability to retain data and information. This is not precisely aided by the chapter displaying a marked preference for engaging in combat actions against the myriad forces of the arch-enemy. For an isolationist chapter whose preclivities, we will soon discuss further, this has drawn many an eye that they would possibly find unwanted. What records do establish is that the Exorcists were initially intended to be a chapter fully in compliance with the strictures of the Codex's startes. The Tome penned millennia ago in the aftermath of the Great Heresy to govern the formation of Space Marine Chapters. It is likewise possible to now establish that their gene seed was derived from the Seventh Primarch Rogaldorn. Previously, such information had been deemed classified under a bull absolute, declared at the time of their foundation, by the inquisitorial representative of the High Lords of Terra. One is not precisely sure of the circumstances under which this bull was dissolved, but then again given the recent tumultuousness of the composition of the High Twelve, a great many things that once were, now no longer are. It is likewise rumoured that the Ecclesiarchy had emissaries present during the chapter's foundational processes, including the now excommunicated cardinal Rodrigo Nessun, although one is sorry to report that this cannot be independently verified. The Exorcist's first forays into the darkness of the galaxy, however, met with great success. The chapter distinguished themselves rapidly as a highly competent and adaptable fighting force. Strategic challenges, usually present with the founding of Astartes Chapters when they take to the proverbial field, were quickly overcome. The Codex-compliant Exorcists learned as they fought with an admirable dedication and conscientiousness. The chapter appeared for all the world to be a rising star of the dark founding. The compatriots dissolving into the murk of redacted imperial histories are becoming consumed by passions altogether darker. Fate, as it so happens, displays a curious tendency for symmetry, after a fashion, and the fate of the Exorcists would be forever changed by the planet Totem IV. An established, if not precisely flourishing, colonial world, Totem IV had been settled relatively recently in the annals of imperial colonization efforts. The colonists were as dedicated a band of settlers as the master of mankind could ask for, applying themselves to the thankless and backbreaking work with dedication, and developing over the success of generations a prideful and independent so often praised in imperial propaganda reels as the ideal pioneer spirit. This pride was to ultimately lead to their downfall. Despite themselves, they were assured, the sudden rash of Psyker births in their midst could be dealt with internally. No need to involve the adeptus astrotelopathica or their black ships. When the first demonic manifestations occurred, it was already far too late. Far too late for the people of Totem IV. The lesser emanations, cavorting and murdering through the streets of the once peaceful colony, drew the attention of far more powerful warp entities, leading to the incarnation of the Greater Demon Keriath Shrouded. The final astropathic plea from the world, soaked in all of the blood and terror demonic incursion could possibly derive, made its way to the void and was intercepted by the fleets of the exorcists, rushed to the world's defense. Their planetfall in haste was beset almost immediately by the gibbering hordes of the changer of the waves, in such numbers as to threaten to overwhelm even a large Astartes beachhead. During this battle, as they were deluged by tides of multicolored warpfire, as they plunged blades into the endlessly shifting forms of eldritch monster things, the exorcists displayed what become their greatest strength, and indeed greatest curse. Through a hitherto unknown quirk of their genetic adaptations, the chapters of Astartes displayed a marked ability to resist the perils of the warp sorcery thrown at them. Psychana is an ill-understood topic by the many, and even its greater mysteries are only explored with deepest care. But suffice it to say, the ability of a human to display a singular will power in the face of the warp has a pronounced effect upon its efficacy. The will of a human can resist the depredations of sorcery, protecting them from harm, from corruption, should it be iron-clad enough. In many a conflict with the demons of the shifting many, their sheer overwhelming miasma of change has led to the dissolution of flesh, the grand mal-mutation of the body, loyal imperial subjects devolving in dehydious amalgams of limb and armor and weapon. Not so the fate of the exorcists. On they fought, overcoming, turning the tide, and then advancing, despite all the demonic horror arrayed against them. The turning of the battle only served to enrage the more powerful of the emanations present, all of whom no doubt routinely delighted in their abilities to turn the minds and bodies of imperial citizens to their twisted aims. The mutagenic gifts of the changer and seemingly no grasp upon these astarties. Furious at this, the greatest monstrosity, Keriath, formed his essence into one singular psychic presence, a lance aimed directly at the mind of the exorcist's chapter master, Enoch Trismegistus. It is unlikely that any within the Imperium could have resisted such an assault, perhaps only within the highest echelons of the Ordomelius or the Grey Knights, but the gaze, indeed the power of the greater emanation of the Dark Pantheon, is a thing most fearsome. Trismegistus succumbed, his will shattering in the face of the eldritch assault upon his soul, his body now worn as a puppet by the demon thing. Keriath wrought calamity upon the exorcists as it wore the chapter master like a glove, laying about the astarties own ranks with his own weaponry. Yet its victory was not total. Despite having his self overcome by the warp creature, in the depths of the mind that was once his, the soul of Enoch Trismegistus battled the will of the demon. At first Keriath paid the human no mind, but then, slowly, was forced to devote more and more of its attention to keeping him contained. The ordeal of Trismegistus was unimaginable, but in the depths of his suffering was a woken revelation, both in the knowledge of his foe's weaknesses and a latent psychic ability he had not known he possessed. Casting a shard of himself outwards through the aether, passed the battle with his demonic opponent, Trismegistus communed with his chief librarian, Gotus, who added his own formidable psychic might to the chapter master's burgeoning abilities. In a feat of will little seen in history, the two astarties together drew the greater demon from Trismegistus' mind and banished it, howling curses in a language beyond words into the depths of the warp. As is common with such encounters with the eldritch and the arcane, the eyes of interested or suspicious parties were drawn to the actions of the exorcists upon Totem 4. One never quite knows who is watching whom in the Imperium, and in the case of these astarties, their paths had been dogged for some time now by a sect of inquisitors dubbing themselves the Plutonians. Drawn to the chapter by rumors surrounding their foundation, Plutonian agents had been monitoring their deployments for some time now, and once it was verified, as much as possible, precisely what had occurred upon the surface, word was dispatched with all haste by embedded agents to the inquisitors themselves. The faction moved immediately. Not solar days after the chapter had returned to their fortress monastery did Ordo Melius inquisitors arrive at their gates, brandishing their rosettes and asserting full inquisition authority to subject the chapter master to a debriefing. In typical inquisitorial language, the reality was an interrogation, and it was relentless. Christ Magistus was subjected to rigorous tests of purity, will, resolve, remembrance, and all the myriad tools for the examination of body and mind the inquisition had at its disposal. It took months. The chapter master emerged, relatively unblemished, from the monastery's dungeons, absolved of wrongdoing, cleared of from corruptive suspicions, and with a wholly new outlook on the future of his chapter. The interrogations had been just thus, but also far more than simply ascertaining the purity of their marine subject. In the darkness of the cells, the plutonian inquisitor had revealed their true agenda to Christ Magistus. Bears was a radical sect, a brand of inquisitors who seek to utilize the weapons and powers of their enemies to fight their foes themselves. Often deemed dangerous or heretical by their more mainstream colleagues, radicals typically operate under even deeper levels of secrecy than others of their orders, in order to avoid detection, all the while still bearing the full authority of said orders, conclaving and advancing their plans, planned blindly. In the exorcists, the plutonians believed they had discovered a unique opportunity to advance their specific research, namely into the applications of demonic possession as a paradoxical weapon against the very creatures and forces it would harness. Such practices have been seen in the retinue of several especially radical inquisitors, in the form of demon-hosts, lesser emanations of the primordial annihilator bound and sealed within a mortal body. Christ's possession and banishment had had an altogether different effect. The passage of Keriath the shrouded through his body had granted unto the space marine knowledge's arcane, and he believed wholeheartedly in the benefits that could be deemed from such an experience. A pact was then sworn, committed to by the chapter command of the exorcists and the plutonian sect of the Inquisition. Its secrecy was paramount. Should any within the Imperium beyond these two groups learn of it, the wrath of the righteous would come down upon both like a hammer from heaven. Excommunication was in a very real way the least of anyone's worries, should it be revealed. But both parties were possessed of a conviction, but the forces they now sought to bend to their wills would be of the ultimate benefit for humanity, even if in the process their own souls may be damned for it. The plan was and remains truly abominable. During initiation, a neophyte of the exorcist's chapter would henceforth submit themselves to a facility known as the halls of tempering, wherein they would be subjected to a demonic possession. The emanations summoned for the purpose would be of the lesser variety. Trice Magistus would not countenance the subjecting of mere initiates to the whims of a greater demon for a multitude of reasons that all agreed upon. The plutonians, remaining on the homeworld of the exorcists as a permanent clandestine cabal, would monitor the neophyte's progress, and after determining certain criteria had been met, banished the emanation from their bodies. Should the banishment be successful, and the life of the neophyte preserved, the initiate would be transferred back to the chapter apothecaries for convalescence, and supervised meditation and reflection at the hands of senior chapter marines. The process was intended to provide the astartes of the chapter with both a similar degree of experience and first-hand knowledge of the demonic, but as wide a spectrum as possible of both, as the emanations of the primordial annihilator are as myriad in character as they are violent and insane. Besides this, the process appeared in its early stages to enhance the stoicism and willpower of the exorcist's gene-seed expression, enhancing the resilience in the face of both chaotic corruption and possession attempts later in life. Naturally, the cost is horrific indeed. Not one initiate that survives the trials of the tempering does so without bearing significant mental or physical stigmata. As with the demons their bodies had carried, no scarring is alike. The imprint left behind by the banished emanation is as unique as the creature itself. Those who bear within them a demon of the brass throne are prone to bouts of bloodlust that borders on insanity, while those possessed by the scions of the dark prince have displayed a marked tendency for duplicity beneath features that had shifted during their ordeal towards an uncanny and sickly beauty. Many an exorcist subjected to the whims of a demon of putrefaction possess small physical scars that simply will not heal, tiny sutures that forever weep a thin pus. While those born of communing with the shifting many find their scars changing into shapes of arcane runic totems, forever moving around their body to new locations. Of course, the stigmata suffered by Astartes does not have to align to one of the particular polarities of the arch enemy, with some pronouncing themselves as bodily conditions that would be deemed unacceptable gene-seed degradations in any other chapter. Scaled skin, spine growths instead of hair, eyes that are either too far apart, or grins that have too many teeth. In what one presumes is an effort to acclimate to their new bodies and new realities, these mutations are borne by the Astartes of the chapter as marks of honor and passage, remembrances of an ordeal overcome. Yet there is a reason exorcists rarely remove their helms or armor when meeting those outside their chapter. The lesser reflected can play off the shifting hue of their eyes, for instance, but a warrior whose skin is now made of a silicate composite will never conduct chapter business with an outsider face to face, less pernicious rumors find root and spread. This is the price a chapter must reckon with for the knowledge and skills their possessions grant them, and yet it is not the only one. By far the most heinous consequence of the research of the Plutonians was born of an altogether unexpected discovery. Just as the exorcists were adept in mind at the expulsion of lesser emanations, so too were their bodies uniquely capable of retaining these entities within them, apparently almost indefinitely. A challenge radical inquisitors frequently face with demon hosts is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the host itself. A demon is a thing not of reality. Their corruptive effects are well known and documented, and the reason why demon hosts are often bound in runic chains and wards of impregnable purity. But at a base metaphysical sense, reality abhors on reality. Prolonged contact with the eldritch abominations of the warp simply degrades matter. Human flesh is not one of the most resilient things to begin with. Demon hosts simply rot. Their bodies degrade into flimsy, barely held together forms as the entity within constantly strains for freedom, as its presence frays the threads of what simply is. Be it a gene seed expression or their Astartes physiology, initiates of the exorcists who failed to have their demonic possessors banished, did not degrade with the same rapidity, or indeed much at all. Beyond this, even more horrifically, it was discovered that one such initiate could play host to several demons at once, with the plutonian overseers yet unable to find an upper limit for the quantity of abominations a single host may bear. Naturally, such a state is purest agony. A deathless, ceaseless torture where the initiates soul and body unable to be consumed is now a playground for innumerable captured emanations to cavort in, their minds torn asunder by gibbering non-things. A host may survive for centuries in this condition, and does so with the full knowledge of the chapter. Unable to serve their masters in battle, these would-be exorcists, these failures, fulfill an altogether different role, bearers of the chapter's secrets and its shame. They are effectively prisons. None within chapter command can countenance the release, even back to the warp, of a wicked intelligence that can comprehend precisely what they are undertaking in their dungeons, and would be willing to traffic in such information to potentially interested parties. The demons are a security risk. An immortal enemy is a dangerous one, and a malignant immortal enemy even more so. Fallen neophytes have become known as the broken ones. They almost certainly do not know the fate they save their chapter from. One cannot imagine this, even if they did, it would bring any degree of comfort, as their souls become playthings for the most infernal entities in existence. Naturally, the sheer number of these vessels of torment that have built up over the centuries cannot be held on the chapter's homeworld of Banish alone. The Apothecaryon, once gene seed has been harvested from the purged, dispatches the wretches to a deep space facility off-world, simply known as the Pergatum. This prisoncraft never remains in one location lest it be discovered. It plies the void of deepest, darkest space as far as possible from any inhabited systems to avoid any possible detection. Deep within its bowels, the broken ones howl in their ceaseless torture, writhing within wards of inquisition wrought materials. The Pergatum has served the exorcists for nearly 5,000 years without a single breach in security. The chapter takes its defense even more seriously than they do their own fortress. Should a single broken one be sundered, or worse let loose, the consequences for the Imperium, they may be even beyond imagining. For better or worse, the exorcists' heretical practices have persisted since their first meeting with the Plutonians, developing into a partnership that persists to this day as neither party has seen any need to halt the rites that have apparently served them so well. The fortress monastery of the chapter, hidden in the swamps of the secluded world of Banish, plays host to the Plutonians' own cabal headquarters, the mutually beneficial isolation and security serving the inquisitors well and keeping the prying eyes of the Imperium and their fellow Ordo members away from their arcane practices. The monastery itself has been adapted to accomplish this, but the halls of tempering being the most obvious and curious addition to the facility, but accompanying it is a vastly expanded library. The works of the chapter's Astartes librarians and mortal scribes is tireless. The exorcists are some of the most diligent record keepers amongst the entirety of the Adeptus Astartes. While all space marines put some degree of effort into the categorization, study, and taxonomy of the foes they are built to face, the exorcists believe that this is one of their most paramount concerns. As much information as possible is catalogued, preserved, and archived after each engagement with enemy combatants. Everything from verbal accounts of the Astartes in question, to helmet vid logs, to simple all-spec screeds and vox traffic. No detail is left untouched, for none can have their potential importance discounted. Naturally, a special attention is paid to battles with the demonic, consequently providing the exorcists with a body of forbidden lore on the pandemonia that, should its existence ever be discovered by the wrong sort of official, would lead to almost immediate Tratoris Praditia declaration. However, given the chapter's other practices, the presence of a librarian dedicated to the arch enemy seems rather trivial. But the exorcists do not take it as such. Admittance to the archives is strictly regulated. Only senior exorcists are permitted entry to certain reaches of it. Hexagrammatic wards cover almost every surface lest the tomes themselves lead cracks in the sky in reality. All wild, blind, mute thralls move through the perpetual fog of purifying incense. Since the coming of the Kikatrix Maladictum, the passage of the Noctis Aeternus, and the launch of the era Indomitas, the exorcists have been abroad across the galaxy as never before. For, so have the forces of the Primordial Annihilator. Their renowned incorruptibility has placed them in high demand with those who can it. The chapter's nature is primarily fleet-based, and seen their strike forces deployed to almost every segmentum simultaneously. The introduction of Primorus Marines to the chapter was one fraught with peril. The torch-bearer fleet seeking to deliver the gene-stock to banish was assailed frequently by demonic assaults as it struggled through the warp. The sheer ferocity of the Aetheric attacks worried even the watchguard of the Adeptus Custodes that were aboard. And with good reason, as several ships had their Geller fields eventually breached. In the fighting that ensued, the entirety of the complement of Primorus Grey Shields, born aboard, were killed in action, leaving the Magi-Biologis with only the Rubicon Primorus Ascension technology to present to the exorcists when the ships eventually limped into orbit around banish. Acolytes may likely surmise that this was quite honestly the best-case scenario for the chapter. Developing their own Primorus initiates from the baseline human stock of their homeworld would allow them to carefully monitor how this new breed of Astartes responded to their now millennia-old habitual rights, as well as avoiding having to expose fully mature Grey Shields to the chapter's inner mysteries and risk any unfortunate incidents that may arise. The initial trials were a success by any metric. The Primorus Neophytes passed through the halls of tempering at the same rate as their firstborn predecessors had. The flaws in any lied at the individual level. It appears that this was taken as further confirmation of the unique qualities of the chapter's gene seed, prompting several plutonian inquisitors to openly muse in their journals as to why this effect has not yet been observed in any other chapters delineated from the Seventh Primarch. The results have spoken for themselves in recent years. The exorcists have been campaigning with a renewed vigor, akin to many a chapter that embrace the reinforcements of Primorus technology. Close partnership with the Ordo Melius and its bands of demon hunters has been broadly observed, which is, of course, far from surprising. What one does find interesting about this is the choice of inquisitors. The exorcists serve at the behest of those who conform to both radical and puritan ideologies. One imagines that extra care is no doubt taken when fighting alongside the latter, but the inquisition has regardless come to depend upon the exorcists for dealing with demonic incursions in instances where the battle brothers of the Grey Knights are simply unavailable to do so. The chapter are no replacement for the Sons of Titan. Each Grey Knight is incorruptible and a formidable battle-siker. Exorcist Astartes possess no such special powers, bearing only bolt and blade and willpower in their fight against the Neverborn. Indeed, the chapter's monitoring of psychic potential is exceptionally rigorous. The Librarius brooks no exception to the standards they enforce, as they see readily the extreme danger uniformly possessed individual developing psychana of their own accord. The Era Indometus has seen the partnerships between chapter and inquisition expand and grow, and with it the dangers. More the exorcists engage the foes of the Imperium, the more chances they have for encountering allies that may question the peculiarities of their conduct or combat. The chapter's command is fully aware of the risks. That they continue to prosecute their campaigns to this day is, perhaps, a testament to the degree of dedication they bear to their stated mission. The usage of the warp to fight the warp. We can but hope that their successes will only ever continue. Ave Imperator Gloria in Excelsis Terra Like, subscribe, comment, let me know your feedback, and as ever, thank you very much for watching.