Vindicare Temple - Notable Vindicare Assassins: Sire Vindicare - The founder and first Director Primus of his clade, Sire Vindicare was the namesake and founder of the Vindicare Temple. He was the foremost sniper-assassin of his age. He, along with the other founders of the various Assassin clades that would become the Assassin Temples, was present on Mount Vengeance. With his fellows he swore a pact in the shadow of the Great Crusade, an oath that breathed life into the creation of the Officio Assassinorum. The newly created clades hunted down the enemies of the Emperor through stealth and subterfuge, establishing the fact that there was no safe place to hide in the galaxy from the Emperor's justice.Eristede Kell - The traitor Eristede Kell was a Vindicare Assassin operating during the later stage of the Great Crusade and opening days of the Horus Heresy. He was an Assassin-at-Marque of Clade Vindicare who was ranked an Epsilon-dan, the senior-most rank within his order, which led him to be selected by his superiors to join the very first Imperial Execution Force composed of Imperial Assassins from every clade. Reunited with his biological sister, Assassin Jenniker Soalm of Clade Venenum, the Execution Force was sent to the world of Dagonet, where Imperial intelligence placed the Archtraitor Horus Lupercal. It would be the first time that the agents of the Officio Assassinorum would target a Primarch. As appointed leader of the Execution Force, Kell divised a plan to kill the Warmaster, but ultimately, their assassination attempt failed as an unforeseeable enemy, in the form of a highly adaptive Horusite assassin, clashed with the Execution Force, causing the death of the other members of the team. As sole survivor, Eristede Kell still took the shot at his designated target, only to find out that Horus had desisted and send one of his captains, Luc Sedirae in his stead. The assassination of Horus' envoy unleashed the fury of the Sons of Horus which bloodily descended on Dagonet. For a long time, Eristede Kell was believed slain in these punitive actions of the XVIth Legion, but he survived. As failure could not be tolerated, Kell resolved himself to take drastic measures: he commandeered a ship and intended to ram it right into the Vengeful Spirit’s bridge, where he suspected the Arch-Traitor lurked. As defensive fire proved too heavy, Kell resolved to take an escape pod and infiltrate the mighty vessel himself to accomplish his mission. However, by a dark twist of fate, Kell's saviour-pod landed right into a nest of unknown xenos-fauna that had manifested in the abandoned parts of the Vengeful Spirit since it had been purposely corrupted by Chaos. Escaping with his life and weapons, but not unscathed, Kell sought a hideout with a clear line of sight to his target. The envenomed bites of the xenos-serpents that had attacked him, somehow granted him a vision -- the precise, if future location of Horus. All he had to do, was remain where he was, prepare and wait. Kell waited for a number of years for the perfect shot, but in the meantime, the poison ravaged his body, slowly turning the assassin insane. It is unknown how long Kell was able to hide in the bowels of the Vengeful Spirit, but he was still in position when a second assassination attempt, led by the agents of Malcador the Sigilite, the famed Knight-Errants, was spoiled. Still fighting against the poison within him, or more likely, increasingly becoming corrupted by the power of Chaos, Kell resolved to change tactics -- instead of waiting for the Warmaster's arrival, he would draw his target to him. Murdering the only ally he had found on the ship and carving Horus' name in his former friend's flesh, Kell sent a bloody message to the Warmaster, who personally investigated the matter. Yet finally confronted with his target, Kell did take the shot but Horus saw him and snatched the round out of the air. He then confronted Kell, offering him the chance to use his Exitus Pistol to kill him. Kell fired his entire magazine, but as Horus shielded his face with his massive armored gauntlet, he was unable to kill him. Unable to assassinate Horus, and due to his inner doubts and the corrupting power of Chaos, Kell was instead turned by the Warmaster to serve the Traitors' cause. After he was corrupted, he was later sent to Terra to assassinate the first Imperial Saint, Euphrati Keeler, by order of the Warmaster. He was joined by the Alpha Legion operative known as Haln. He tracked the elusive saint to the Lectitio Divinitatus pilgrim sanctuary of Salvaguardia, located in the land of Afrik, in the outskirts of the Wasted Ranges, where he proceeded to slaughter the entire enclave with his unnatural Warp-based weapon, gifted to him by the Warmaster. Kell then tortured any survivors for information with his knife. Eventually, the pair of traitor assassins received information from an informant, which indicated that Keeler was aboard the massive Hesperides orbital plate. But they were not the only ones seeking Keeler, the Knight-Errant, Nathaniel Garro, was also looking for the living saint. Finding the location of their hidden church, Haln infiltrated the pilgrim flock as one of their own, while Kell took up a sniper's position. Unable to maintain his facade any longer, Haln broke his cover and attempted to stab Keeler when she finally made her appearance, but was bifurcated by the great sword Libertas, when Garro threw his weapon at the would-be assassin, foiling his plans. Kell fired upon the pilgrims, slaughtering many of them, before Garro finally joined the battle and fought the former Imperial assassin in close-combat. During the fight that ensued, Garro sliced off Kell's warp-cursed gun hand, and then destroyed the daemon that writhed helplessly on the ground. Before finally slaying Kell, Garro named Eristede Kell traitor, and ordered the failed assassin to stand and answer for his crimes. Incredulously, Kell replied that he was not the only traitor -- they all were in the end. They were all betrayed and then the betrayer. Kell accused Garro that he was no different than him. Garro angrily replied that he did not swear fealty to the first primarch and turn against his father, the Emperor. But Kell retorted, that Garro had turned against his own father, the Primarch Mortarion, and therefore, was a traitor in his own way. Fed up with the assassin's argument, Garro took Libertas and impaled Kell through his heart, freeing him from whatever devil's bargain he had made with the Warmaster.Dejedris Garamach - Dejedris Garamach was a Vindicare Assassin who successfully carried out a kill order given to his Temple to take out the predatory Dark Eldar pilot known as the Skyknife in 243.M39. Knowing that to enter Commorragh would be to court almost certain failure, Garamach determined the site of a previous sighting of the Skyknife's Razorwing Jetfighter. He mounts his vigil in the eye socket of the Threndian Colossus, subsisting on moss and the raw flesh of the birds that use the statue as its nest whilst never taking his eyes from the sky. Six years later, his vigil is rewarded when the Skyknife appears from midair in a flash of azure light. Within a half-second of its appearance Garamach puts a turbo-penetrator round into the cockpit, killing the pilot instantly.Morias Skult - In 924.M40, 2nd Class Assassin Skult was dispatched to the Roxanzand System to eliminate the threat of the Ork Warlord Urgak "the Unstoppable" who was uniting the disparate Ork tribes of the northern continent of the world of Roxanzand into a mighty Ork WAAAGH!.The Orks conducted a massive military build-up unabated, and most worringly, were in the process of constructing a mighty Gargant. Skult deployed without detection as a lone operative via a standard one-man Drop Pod and infiltrated the Ork camp. After killing five Ork sentries, their bodies were disposed of with hyphosphus quick-burning incendiaries. Skult then proceeded to insert himself into the near-completed Gargant. Planting high-charge, low-mass explosives throughout the various vulnerable points on the structure of the Gargant, he then extricated himself and took up a position at the top of a nearby cliff where he held a commanding view of the encampment. The next morning, Skult assassinated Urgak with a single head-shot from his Exitus Rifle. He then proceeded to fire upon the Gargant, igniting the carefully placed explosives, which caused a chain-reaction. The Gargant exploded spectacularly and Skult made good his escape. The Assassin then made his way back to his Drop Pod and was picked up. Despite this tremendous display of skill at infiltration and accuracy, Skult's mission was declared only 86% successful, for the damage dealt to the Gargant was not total enough to prevent reconstruction. However, the death of the Warlord and the delay in rebuilding the destroyed Gargant caused a slow down in the Ork's war efforts, allowing time for Imperial Navy vessels to arrive and bombard the site from orbit, effectively eliminating the Greenskin threat. Later in his career, he was part of an Imperial strike team of Officio Assassinorum operatives sent to the strife-ridden Imperial world of Opis to eliminate the rogue assassin Legienstrasse, formerly of the defunct Maerorus Temple. Though he attempted to kill her on several occasions, he ultimately failed in achieving his objective. While attempting to kill the rogue assassin one final time from an Imperial Fists Thunderhawk gunship, Legienstrasse leapt upon one of the flyer's wings and badly damaged it, causing the gunship to crash and kill everyone aboard.Tarim - Tarim is an assassin of the Vindicare Temple who played an instrumental role during the events on the planet Drex. He helped Inquisitor Gerhart to suppress a Chaos Cult that followed Daemons, first, by thwarting their attempt to assassinate the Inquisitor during his public proselytizing to the planet's masses, and secondly, by killing the failed killer, the heretic known as St'phen Tylr. Tarim had a habit of tattooing the names of all his victims on his left forearm to mark his kills.Viktor Zhau - Viktor Zhau was an assassin of the Vindicare Temple who was known for his skill and composure. He was selected to lead the Execution Force that was sent to the world of Achyllan Prime, located close to the Cadian Sector, during the Thirteenth Black Crusade in 999.M41, in order the halt the invasion of a large Chaos force of the infamous Crimson Slaughter Chaos Warband led by the Sorcerer Severin Drask. The Sorcerer was intent on sacrificing its suns with the Temple of Shades in order to create a Warp Rift that would endanger Terra itself. During this mission, the assassins were successful in assassinating Drask, but unfortunately for Zhau, he would be killed shortly thereafter, torn apart by both cultists and Crimson Slaughter Chaos Space Marines. The Temple of Shades soon collapsed thereafter, and the planet was left devastated.