Inquisitor Herrod

“You think you can be an Inquisitor just because you’ve the courage to kill? Ha! Wisdom is a more terrible weapon than bravery, or hate, or even love. For a wise man knows when he has no choice, and when he strikes nothing can stay his hand, though it be stained with the blood of a murdered world.”
— Inquisitor Herrod
A renowned member of the Calixian Conclave for
nearly two centuries, Inquisitor Herrod famously
owned a pair of anointed Lathe-sabres and acquired
a skill for using them that made him one of the
most feared swordsmen of his time. Forged in the
high Imperial style, these long, louche sabres sent
countless heretics and unclean beasts to their deaths.
Herrod himself was an infamous duelist, ready to
avenge any slight with blood---even one made by
a fellow Inquisitor. Herrod habitually bore one of
the blades himself, while the second was carried by
his foremost Acolyte during his apprenticeship as a
mark of honor. On the nine occasions during his
career that Herrod officially sponsored one of his
charges to full Inquisitorial rank, he presented them
with a Lathe-blade of their own, never a copy of his
but each a unique design that “best suited their true
character”.
Seventy years ago, Herrod and his ship
disappeared without trace while pursuing a horrific
warp cult known as the Vile Savants deep into the
Halo Stars, but tales of the flamboyant Herrod and
his gifts live on, not least because Herrod’s blades
are now borne by several of the sector’s most
renowned Inquisitors.
==The Host-Bound==
The discovery of the stasis chambers aboard the Space Hulk
Unbound Corruption would have led any proper Inquisitor
to destroy every cryo-coffin. Unfortunately it was the
cybernetically resurrected Inquisitor Herrod who stumbled
upon those within the vast chamber. Unknown dark rituals
had been performed on hundreds of Imperial citizens,
preparing them as an army of Daemonhosts for a now dead
cabal. Thus prepared, but never filled with a Daemon, the
mortals were blessed with some limited defense against
the warp, and slumbered undisturbed aboard the Unbound
Corruption until Herrod found them.
The Tyrantine Cabal now allows these poor souls to filter
back into the population at large, placing them in positions
to be selected as Acolytes. Most live quiet lives of faith, as
any other Imperial citizen, believing that they have simply
emerged from a long trip in stasis as pilgrims to a new planet.
Many, however, are recruited into the Ordo Malleus to serve
as tools against the Daemonic.