Inquisitor Lord Ghankus Dhar

Lord Dhar has served as the Proctor of the Scholariate at Arms
for almost three decades, guiding his Chamber through a
number of major incursions and saving the sector from several
full-scale Warp breaches. He is said to have the ear of Lord Caidin himself, having served in the High Council of the
Calixian Conclave and as a Master in Council for the Calixian
Ordo Malleus. He is devoted to his Ordo, and has defeated
several attempts by rivals to oust him from his position. Several
of these rivals claimed that by serving as a Master in Council he
was undermining the legitimacy of individual Inquisitors, who
had no need to recognize any authority but that of the High
Lords. In response, Dhar confronted the disaffected Inquisitors,
defeated the ringleaders in battle, and expelled the remainder
from the Calixis Sector. Dhar operates within a structure
established centuries ago by the mutual consent of the majority
of Ordo Malleus Inquisitors in the Calixis Sector, and has no
intention of stepping down or dismantling a structure that has
seen the Ordo through hundreds of turbulent years.
Lord Dhar is a craggy, weather-beaten man with skin
the texture of old leather. It is not known whether he has
ever undergone rejuv treatment, but if he has, it was out of
devotion to duty rather than vanity, for his face bears the lines
and scars of many centuries of service. When called upon to
take to the field, Lord Dhar wears a suit of mighty terminator
armor, the surface of which resembles black marble shot
through with crimson veins. It is said that when Lord Dhar
dons his blank-faced marble helmet, he takes on the aspect of
an immovable mountain or a titanic statue, standing unbowed
as wave after wave of daemons crash against him.
Lord Dhar carries a Daemon Hammer of great power
and obscure pedigree. This weapon is at once both the sign
of his status within the Ordo Malleus and a tool by which
the infernal enemies of Mankind are banished. The weapon
is called formally the “Hammer of Promeus”, but has also
been called “Fiend-Hewer”, “Warp-Crusher”, and “Mason’s
Hand”. When presiding over the Chamber of the Scholariate
at Arms, Dhar keeps his hammer at his side. It has become
symbolic of both a judge’s gavel and an executioner’s tool.
It is said that this hammer was passed down to Lord Dhar,
from generation after generation of predecessors, and that it
predates by millennia the foundation of the Calixis Sector.
Some have said that the weapon belonged to one of the very
first Inquisitors, in particular one who was instrumental in
laying the foundations of the Ordo Malleus. The truth about
the hammer’s history, however, has been lost to time.
Inquisitor Lord Dhar is unusual in two ways. First, he appears
not to maintain a retinue of Acolytes, or if he does, they operate in
secret and have never been detected. He does however command
a household of administrators, serfs, and servitors, who are
responsible for maintaining the holdings of the Scholariate at Arms.
As the Inquisition operates not as a gestalt entity but an extended
alliance of individuals and their servants, this arrangement allows
the Scholariate at Arms and the other Chambers of the Calixian
Malleus to endure from one generation to the next. Upon the death
of the Proctor, the other Inquisitors elect one of their number
to replace him, and this new Proctor inherits the household of
the last. Second, following in the footsteps of all past Proctors
of the Scholariate, he displays no outward signs of any factional
allegiance. Within the Chamber of the Scholariate at Arms, none
are permitted to discuss factional matters, so it is logical that the
Proctor should keep his own loyalties to himself. Furthermore, the
rules and traditions of the Scholariate at Arms forbid any of Dhar’s
peers from enquiring into the matter of his factional leanings, and
none who knew him before he ascended to Proctor appear to have
been close enough to have guessed his mind. Dhar keeps most
of his fellow Inquisitors at arm’s length, relying only on his own
counsel on most matters.
Lord Dhar personally saw through the purging of the House of Ios upon the world of Spectoris, which had become corrupted by the agents of Slaanesh.