The Burning One

"I consider the Burning One to be amongst my few but greatest failures as an Inquisitor. One day I will have the power I need to end his threat forever."
–From the journals of Felroth Gelt: 157.775.M41
There are those amongst the Holy Ordo Malleus who take
the radical view that the forces of Chaos are too vast and too
powerful to oppose with only the might of the Imperium.
They believe that they must harness the powers of Chaos,
the very thing they seek to undo, to even the sides in the
conflict. To that end, they plumb the depths of forbidden
knowledge seeking weapons to run back upon the forces of
ruin. Chief amongst these weapons are the Daemonhosts,
often willing and occasionally unwilling human beings
into whom a powerful daemon of the warp is enticed and
then bound with powerful wards. The purposes to which
these hosts are turned vary, as do the levels of power and
degrees of binding, but one thing is constant, they are
incalculably dangerous and seek to regain their freedom at
every opportunity.
One such escaped Daemonhost, feared throughout the
Calixis Sector, is known only as the Burning One. The name
of the Acolyte who became the Burning One is lost, as is the
name of the daemon who resides within him. What is known
is that he was created by the radical Inquisitor Kal Xorn as a
way to store vast amounts of forbidden lore without tainting
the minds of his personal retinue. Originally thrice bound,
as only his mental faculties were required, the Burning One
at some point acquired the knowledge of how to break his
conditioning despite his inability to break the wards binding
him inside his human host. The Daemonhost immediately
slew Inquisitor Xorn and several of his retinue whose habits
and weaknesses he had studied over a course of years. It is
believed that his first victim was a young sanctionite who
had been enticed to assist in his escape.
Unlike many Daemonhosts, the Burning One was never
intended to participate in physical combat, but rather he was
meant to be a stationary repository for information. To that
end, the Burning One’s host was bound to a crucifix–sized
Inquisitorial emblem with chains made of adamantium and
psychoactive alloys. When he found a way to break free from
his bonds, he shattered many of these chains, warping and
desecrating his prison in the process. He carries the remains of
his bonds with him to this day, though he is now able to travel
in the manner of other Daemonhosts by levitating above the
ground and simply flying wherever he wishes. His appearance
is that of a wasted and emaciated human man chained to the
shattered remains of his original prison with barbed chains.
His eyes and mouth are riveted shut with straps of metal to
contain the daemonic essence within him. As the Burning One
grows closer to escaping his host, his physical form becomes
more and more damaged. Flames of red, gold, and blue pour
from his many poorly stitched wounds, and pinholes of
cutting torch fire burn from the blinding strap over his eyes.
For any not already given over to Chaos, the very image of
the Burning One is enough to inspire madness and terror.
The Burning One has had three encounters with Inquisitor Felroth Gelt. The first was when the Daemonhost within the retinue of a college of Gelt's was immediately recognized by him, as he had read the Forbidden Tome of Xorn. The second was upon Scintilla, where Gelt assisted the Adeptus Arbites in tracking down an increasingly elusive cult that was led by the Burning One. The third and final encounter took place upon the tiny world of Faldon Kise. Gelt had been tracking a sorcerer for over two years only to find him dead at the feet of the Burning One. The sorcerer, involved in a conflict between three rival cults, each serving different daemonic masters, had attempted to bind the Daemonhost to his will in order to gain an advantage for his faction. After the ensuing battle with Gelt and his retinue, in which one of his clerics was killed, the Burning One vanished once more.