Vanus Temple - History: Like the other temples of the Officio Assassinorum, the Vanus Temple was originally the Vanus Clade, created some time during the Great Crusade in the late 30th Millennium at the behest of Malcador the Sigillite, the Regent of Terra, who was secretly the Grand Master of Assassins, and the clade's first Director Primus, who was known only as "Sire Vanus" to the clade's operatives.The Vanus Clade was established in a secret location on Terra at the direction of the Grand Master of Assassins and was tasked, like all of the Assassin clades, with killing those who opposed the formation of the Imperium of Man and the will of the Emperor of Mankind. The Vanus Clade was known for being able to remove the enemies of the Imperium through the manipulation of data rather than outright termination through the use of lethal force.Unknown to anyone outside their temple, the Vanus watched over all of the Imperium's components, even the other Assassin Temples. Their cogitator-stacks were filled with terabytes of data on all of the temples' operations and personnel. It was how they maintained their own position within the Officio Assassinorum when their operatives specialised in non-lethal operations -- through blackmail.During the Horus Heresy, the Assassin clades were handed the monumental task of assassinating the Traitor Primarch Horus. Each clade threw their most gifted students into a proverbial meat-grinder, sending them in blind and half-prepared. Every strike against Horus was broken, and he shrugged off these attempted assassinations without notice.In all the history of the Council of Assassins, there had never been a target whose retirement required more than one mission to prosecute. The Horus problem eventually claimed 8 Officio Assassinorum operatives across all 6 of the primary clades. The Sigillite demanded a solution to rid the Imperium of the Emperor's turbulent and wayward son.The veil of secrecy preserved all that the Officio Assassinorum was. Its operatives continued to work in the shadows of the Imperium, at the margins of the Emperor's knowledge, and for good reason. They served Him in deeds that He must never know of, in order to maintain His noble purity.The deployment of an Assassin was a delicate matter and never one taken lightly. In this period, some clades had fielded two or three operatives in a single mission when the circumstances were most extreme, but then always from the same clade, and always after much deliberation.With the approval of the Master of Assassins, the founders of each clade devised an audacious plan to provide members to the secret Imperial Execution Force, an elite unit hand-picked for the task, that contained Assassins from all 6 prime clades of the Officio Assassinorum to try and eliminate Horus upon the world of Dagonet.Deploying six Assassins at once, from every prime clade, was unheard of. The Emperor would never sanction such an action. But Malcador reasoned that the Arch-traitor had displayed no such qualms about violating the so-called "rules" of war.Horus had bombed his sworn brethren during the Isstvan III Atrocity, his own warriors and gene-sons, into obliteration. No action was beyond the pale for him. Unfortunately, the mission to Dagonet ultimately failed, much to Mankind's ill fortune.