[Liber Custodes] New lore about the Imperial Household, the Legio Custodes, the Anathema Psykana, the Ordo Sinister, …
Warning : the excerpts are translated from french, errors are very possible, either from my fault or from the book itself.
The new Liber Custodes has just been released and with him new lore. While short in pages numbers, the fluff part of the book presents some new things.
First is a more in-depth explanation of the Imperial Household, given a new name.
> The Imperial Household
>
> During the bloody era of Terra Unification, the Emperor surrounded himself with a coterie of enigmatic and talented beings : sages, warriors, artificers, scientists, chroniclers, strategists, spies, ambassadors, and more. While many of them went on to lead the early institutions of the nascent Imperium, a select few remained at the Emperor's side, forming the first cohort of his "Imperial Household," reserving their talents too crucial and secret to be entrusted to anyone else. When the Imperium left the confines of the Empire, they became the "Dynastia Imperator," with their own labyrinthine subdivisions, forever separated from the subjects by the nature of their service to him alone, never subject to the Council of Terra nor, later, to the Warmaster.
The book then presents the inner working of the Household.
> **THE EMPEROR'S HANDS**
>
> The core of the Imperial Household included a sizable contingent of civilians, heavily focused on research teams and artificer orders tasked with facilitating the Emperor's countless scientific and technological endeavors. These were the gene-writers and biotechnicians who contributed to the genesis of the Legiones Astartes, the artisans and smiths who equipped the Emperor's personal armies, and the techno-sages and aether observers meant to bring the Imperial Web project to fruition. They had unlimited resources at their disposal and, under the Emperor's own guidance, they spawned unimaginable wonders and horrors
>
> Alongside these divisions operated several clandestine entities whose true extent remains unknown, although many of them were later incorporated into the notorious "Elucidators" of Malcador the Sigillite. Their roles ranged from intelligence gathering to propaganda and information suppression, to far bloodier covert operations. These functions established a veil of secrecy that obscured most of the true nature of the Dynastia Imperator and its activities, disseminating a carefully crafted façade of opportune facts, half-truths, and tailor-made lies. This not only concealed certain elements of the Imperial Household but also clearly indicated the areas where any attempt to circumvent censorship would inevitably lead to ruin Some have even theorized that, given the Emperor's unparalleled psychic powers and his personal involvement in the legal psychic institutions of the Imperium, this dissimulation likely extended to telepathic disorientation, although no tangible evidence of this exists.
>
> Nevertheless, the aspect of the Dynastia Imperator that achieved the greatest renown (not to mention a good measure of infamy) was its unrivaled military might, which included the forces charged with fighting alongside the Emperor and rendering judgment in his absence. Chief among these were the legendary warriors of the Legio Custodes, whose individual strength surpassed that of the Space Marines, whose origins lie in the early days of the Symbi Unification Wars. Living by the Emperor's will, their blades fell with the implacable weight of his law. The emblematic image of the Custodians can also be useful in masking the actions of other military entities within the Dynastia Imperator, as evidenced by the emergence of the Ordo Sinister in the final years of the Great Crusade, a force capable of threatening the primacy of the Titan Legions.
We are introduced to another layer of the Household, this time external.
> **The Emperor’s Talons**
>
> While it is true that no imperial institution could escape a direct order from the Emperor, this granted a considerable degree of autonomy to the higher echelons of the Imperium with regard to the administration of the Lex Imperialis and the conduct of the Great Crusade. However, there were situations where his personal projects required the services of organizations external to the Dynastia Imperator, and in these cases, the organizations in question were employed with such regularity that they came to be perceived as extensions of the Imperial Majesty, in practice if not in practice
>
> A number of these organizations reported directly to the Council of Terra, where the presence of several of the Emperor's agents, including the Sigillite and Captain-General Constantin Valdor, ensured that their co-optation was simple and straightforward. Thus, entities like the Divisio Assassinarorum, the Templii Novitas, and certain Free Merchandise were frequently recruited (sometimes at their own expense) by the Emperor. However, outside this circle, the agents chosen by the Emperor met specific needs of such special organizations that the Imperial Household and the Council of Terra had no equivalent at their disposal. For this reason, very few of these organizations were called upon for particular frequency, with the notable exception of the Silent Service of the Anathema Psykana.
The next page is an organigramme of something called « The Belicosa Potentis Imperator ».
The first half is the military forces within or affiliated to the Dynastia Imperator. They are :
- The Provendes Imperator
> The Imperial Household had exclusive sovereignty over many techno-enclaves et artificers orders of Mars and others Forge-Worlds, mandated to produce weapons, ammunition, vehicles et gear necessary to the Dynastia Imperator. Many fielded defensives forces and while those could be mobilised by the Imperial Household, they relied often on the protection of the inner military forces of the Dynastia Imperator.
- The Legio Custodes
- The Ordo Sinister
Two new units are mentioned as belonging to the Ordo, as well as a change in the number of Psi-Titans and locations.
> Specialised Titanic sub-Legio based in secrets cryptes inside the Imperial Palace, the Ordo Sinister was the sole entity, by Imperial decret, to be able to field Psi-Titans, made for neutralisation and destruction of Alpha-class psychic threats. In addition to an undetermined number of Warlord-class Divine Engines, the Ordo Sinister fielded several auxiliaries forces, among them Secutarii and Questoris Sinister.
Still in the Household and under Imperialis Great Proconsul Malcador :
- Elucidatum Order
- Errants Knights
The second half is named « The Emperor’s Talons » and are described as such :
> Being forces outside of the Imperial Household domains but frequently served under the Emperor’s orders.
They were comprised of three groups
- The Officio Assassinorum
- The Anathema Psykana
- The Templii Novitas
The latter is, as far as I know, new, and described in these words :
> Under the joint supervision of Terra Council and Mars’s Parliament, the Templii Novitas were divided in several subgroups, each benefitting the Emperor’s direct authorisation to research a particular forbidden technological field, authorisation which, by effect, made any control impossible.
>
> The most well-known of these groups was the Templii Chronos, whose attributions were about temporal manipulations and aberrations. The subgroups were said to not have any army, instead lending theirs technologies to various groups given strict parameters and directly to the Imperial Household, with less overview.
Next is a short passage about the creation of the Custodes, where the text directly makes the « hand-made vs assembly line » comparison regarding Custodes vs Space Marines and a new information about the process itself.
> **Genesis**
>
> An obvious and erroneous assumption about the nature of the Custodians is that they are a more advanced version of the Space Marines, an initial superior model scaled down to facilitate the mass production necessary for the creation of the Legiones Astartes. In reality, this is like comparing a unique sword forged by a master craftsman to a rifle from an assembly line, because the Custodians and the Legionnaires are different, both in their process of creation and in the intent behind it
>
> Each Custodian is genetically rebuilt at the cellular level in late childhood through a meticulous process tailored to each candidate, so that upon reaching adulthood, a Custodian no longer ages and can heal from any injury if given enough time. The Emperor himself is believed to play a role in this process, and given the Custodians's inviolable psyche and unwavering determination to fulfill their duty, some form of psychic conditioning cannot be ruled out, and direct biomantic manipulation of the physiology of Custodians-to-be is certainly plausible
>
> Due to its complexity, this process cannot be interrupted once begun, because without precise timing and closure procedures, the preceding steps would risk becoming obsolete. In comparison, the Space Marine Legionnaire deployment program seems almost rudimentary and illustrates the difference between the intended roles of the Legio Custodes and the Legiones Astartes.
We are given details about the timeline on their formation :
> The Custodians also appear in the earliest known records of the Unification Wars of Terra, with no apparent change for nearly a millennium before the formation of the Legiones Astartes. No one knows to what extent, apart from its numbers, the Legio Custodes evolved as an order during this period and afterward, but its supremacy among the Emperor's armies remained unchallenged, and from the bloody conquest of Terra to the height of the Great Crusade, it was the Legio Custodes that faced and defeated the Emperor's most formidable adversaries
Following that is an already known text about the fluid hierarchy and chambers of the Legio Custodes, reinforcing these points, tho introducing a new layer, the Convocation.
> The fundamental battle group of the Legio Custodes was the Sodality, which numbered up to a dozen Custodians, but operated very differently from a typical infantry squad. Each functioned like an informal association of warriors, without a designated leader, where each Custodian acted as an individual fighter, relying on the personal coordination of his comrades instead of a strict hierarchy to work coherently. Nor was the Sodality an indivisible unit, for while it was in practice maintained as a balanced element to counter various types of threats, necessity occasionally required the Custodians to pursue more tactical objectives than the Sodality structure allowed. In such cases, the Sodalities would separate and reform like a stream encountering a rock, dividing without the slightest hesitation
>
> Above the Sodality was the Shield-Company, itself of entirely variable composition, ranging from three Sodalities to ten or more, the most important often being divided into subgroups called "Convocations" according to the divisions of the orders of the Legio's warrior Castes. Each Shield-Company was placed under the authority of a Shield-Captain, legendary warriors infinitely superior to the humble line officers of equivalent rank in other organizations, for every individual rising in the ranks of the Custodians undoubtedly possessed extraordinary martial and strategic skills.
>
> When the gravity of the situation required the deployment of several Wall Companies, the authority of a Tribune was necessary to assemble a Shield-Company, for the immense concentration of force such an organization represented was proportional to the power of the Tribunes themselves. This handful of warriors were among the Emperor's advisors, and they could call upon the services of virtually any military force in the Imperium, so that perhaps only the authority of the Primarchs was greater than theirs.
Next up is a very big change. We are presented with a new division of the Legio, on top of the Orders / Castes. They are the Templii Magisterium Tertia.
> Within this hierarchy, two other structural levels persisted even when the Legio Custodes was not called to battle: the warrior Castes and the mysterious Templii, whose authority was surpassed only by that of Captain General Constantin Valdor. The former comprised a stratum of general martial disciplines encompassing all warriors of the Legio Custodes below the rank of Shield-Captain. The most numerous were the Hykanatoi, which included the Sodalities of Custodians and Sentinel Guards, representing the archetype of the Legio as a whole, while those with the fewest numbers were the mighty Dreadnoughts of the Moritoi, whose power, according to some sources, equaled the Questoris Familia Knights' armour. In a typical operation, the Sodalities of the various warrior Castes were intermingled to achieve the flexibility present in the Legio's tactical organization; although in sufficient numbers, elements of specific warrior Castes could be grouped into Convocations if their skills were required in a more targeted manner
>
> **The Templii Magisterium Tertia**
>
It is understood that the Legio Custodes is divided into three distinct parts, each dedicated to the pursuit of a particular aspect of the Emperor's Great Work, although it was not until the fateful years of the Purge that the true extent of this structure could be speculated upon. Revealed to a handful of people outside the Imperial Household during the Horus Heresy Wars, and virtually unknown during the Great Crusade (at least as far as their purpose and form were concerned, if not their name), the very existence of the Templii Magisterium Tertia suggests that the scope of the Legio Custodes was far greater than previously thought.
>
> The oldest apparent of the three Templii, the Templi Lictoris, embodied the role of the Custodians as understood by the Imperium: that of the Emperor's bodyguards and companions-in-arms During the two centuries that the Legio Custodes spent at the forefront of the Great Crusade, the warriors of the Templi Lictoris were the ones who stood by the Emperor's side as he trod the battlefields of the galaxy to secure the rallying of countless planets, and following Magnus's madness, it was they who fought fiercely to prevent the terrors of the Empyrean from overrunning the Imperial Keep. One reason for the Templii Magisterium Tertia's concealment from the Imperium for so long was the presumption that the Templi Lictoris was representative of the Legio Custodes as a whole, a presumption the Imperial Household did nothing to refute, quite the contrary.
>
> The first of the Templi Lictoris's secret counterparts was the Templi Prudentia, charged with the security of the Emperor's many impenetrable plans—in other words, both the physical integrity of the secret facilities established throughout the Imperium and the preservation of their confidentiality. Its members protected crypts filled with weapons dating back to the Ancient Night, laboratories conducting research beyond comprehension, and prisons where the Imperium's most monstrous enemies were incarcerated. When the Emperor demanded that any forbidden technology from outside the Imperium be brought to him, the retrieval mission was entrusted to the warriors of the Templi Prudentia during the Horus Heresy, the isolated garrisons of Templi Prudentia and the fleets sent from the Sol system did everything they could to prevent the Renegades from seizing these artifacts, and during the fateful Siege of Terra, Templi Prudentia is said to have used nightmarish weapons against the Warmaster's forces.
>
> The third and final branch of the Templii Magisterium Tertia was the most secretive outside the Imperial Household, for its existence had terrible implications. Its mission was, in effect, that of the executioner: the complete and utter eradication of anything deemed unworthy by the Emperor, whether due to obsolescence or treason, so that even its memory would be forgotten It is believed that the Custodians of this "Templi Veritas" were the ones who eliminated the Thunder Warriors on Mount Ararat, and who disposed of those deemed tainted in the final days of the Rangdan campaign, not to mention countless other sinister tasks forgotten by all. During and after the Horus Heresy, they constituted the most warlike elements of the Legio Custodes, and when they were not serving to eradicate the enemy through conquest, they inflicted symbolic destruction, striking planets like Chemos and Arachnus with surgical precision, in order to demonstrate the irrevocable nature of the Emperor's judgment. In this era, the number of active Custodians within the Templi Veritas defied all preconceived notions about the strength of the Legio Custodes, especially following the bloody Webway conflict, which led many observers to assume that the Templi Veritas was preparing to undertake some major purge at the time the Horus Heresy broke out.
Each of those is led by a Legatus, standing just below the Captain-General but above the Tribunate in terms of authority.
> **Tribune**
>
> Under the absolute authority of the Captain-General and the Legatii, the Custodes Tribunat is the War-Council defining the Legio Custodes’s policy and holds the incomparable privilege of presenting their opinion to the Emperor himself. Each Tribune must have earned at least ten names and won three great battles, and is held in high esteem by the other Custodes. Only a Tribune has the authority to mobilise a full Shield-Host for they are among the most formidable warriors of the Imperium and death follows them wherever they go.
A few examples are given about Custodes from these Templii.
> **Daurama Nakisu of the Hykanatoi, Praecipit-Vesperum Sodality**
>
> Only during the Horus Heresy was the pale bronze livery of the Custodian Nakisu recognised as a mark of a distinct element of the Legio Custodes as this is only in these times the Templii Veritas was deployed in masses to the public eye. The XVth Legion’s enclaves destruction was probably the first occurrence, for while the immense fleet who destroyed the Thousand Sons’s domains spared a few witnesses, the brutal Custodes campaign was probably as demonstrative as punishing.
[…]
> **Moritoi Ancient Yihwa Nikaetor, Likourgeian Chamber**
>
> Mortally wounded during at the beginning of the Great Crusade’s second century, the Ancient Nikaetor was swiftly redeployed as soon as her entombment in a Dreadnought was done, and fought relentlessly in the 1st Expeditionary Fleet of the Emperor. When the latter returned to Terra, she was among the first pioneers Hosts sent in the Webway under the Imperial Palace, and a few years later was in the fiercest fights when the Templii Lictoris tried to preserve the Imperial Webway project against the daemons's attack.
> **Saeleh Certor of the Hykanatoi, Dolor-Heth Sodality**
>
> The Custodian Certor is here depicted during the Gordian League Campaign, when his Convocation accompanied a delegation of Commemorators and managed the Campaign’s archives and artefacts, confiscating several of those without warning or explanation. Certor’s livery is shared by severals elements of the Templi Prudentia, which many observers gave them an Emissaries role, a false idea which maybe helped these Host to recover artefacts and people all around the Galaxy to help in the Emperor’s Great Project.
The relation between the Templii and the Castes / Orders is briefly talked of.
> The strategic organization of the Legio Custodes was necessarily fluid, with Sodalities, Shield-Companies, and Shield-Hosts grouped or dispersed according to the needs of a campaign or a given mission, although some tasks required them to remain mobilized for years, even decades. Only the Templar Magisterium Tertia and the warrior Castes / Orders were permanent, although the exact relationship between the former and the strategic subdivisions of the Legio is uncertain, because while it is generally accepted that each Templar maintained a dedicated group of Custodians, it is likely that exchanges of personnel may have occurred over time.
The hierarchy is shown as :
- 1.Captain-General
- 2.The Templii, each led by a Legatus
- 3.The Tribunate
Each Shield-Host is led by a Tribune, each of the Shield-Companies in the Host are led by a Shield-Captain. A title is explained here, the Prefect :
> The highest-ranked Shield-Captain of an Ost was named Prefect and served as second-in-command for the Tribune. In some cases, Shield-Hosts of lesser size were under the sole command of a Prefect, generally as part of a larger campaign, in which case a single Tribune was responsible for the strategic supervision of several smaller Shield-Hosts.
[…]
> The title of Prefect denotes a senior Shield-Captain, being a mark of both veterancy and authority. Whenever the overwhelming might of an entire Shield Host of the Legio Custodes is called to arms, a single Prefect is always appointed as second in command to its Tribune, or even – on rarer occasions – the Shield-Host’s sole commander
We are also given the types of resources Shield-Hosts and Companies can use.
For Hosts :
> - Warships
> - interceptors squadrons
> - Moritoi Convocations
> - Assigned divisions of the Emperor’s Talons of Majoris level (Ordo Sinister, Silent Sisterhood Vigils, …)
> - Military ressources, as the Tribunate has full power to requisitionate any Imperial ressource
For Companies :
> - Flagship
> - Space Coteries
> - Cannonades crafts
> - Assigned divisions of the Emperor’s Talons of Minoris level (Officio Assassinorum agents, Elucidatum Orders’s Cadres, …)
Another title is explained here, the Proconsul :
> The Shield-Companies large enough to be divided in several Convocations (often between two and five) were in majority made of Hykanatoi Convocations with added elements of others Castes in support. In the case a specialised force was required, a single Shield-Company entirely composed of warriors from one Caste could be deployed, led by a Proconsul (high-ranking specialist entirely devoted to one of the warring factions) instead of a Shield-Captain.
The Sisters of Silence are given one full-page of lore, with a few changes. The number of Chambers is undetermined and no mentions are made of the previously known Chambers (Oblivion, Judgement, Vigilance and Astra).
> Anathema Psykana was an organization whose structure resembled a fusion of a law enforcement agency and a secret society or secular military order, for in the name of the "Great Tithe," or levy on the Imperium's psykers, it was occasionally deployed as a fully-fledged military force. Cabals of psyker-warriors, armies of mind-controlled soldiers, or forces of telepathically commanded artificial warriors were among the threats the Silent Sisterhood had to confront, not to mention a multitude of equally grave and even more mysterious perils. Such missions fell to the Chambers Militantes, for Anathema Psykana was divided into several Chambers, Militantes and Civilitas, each a highly specialized organization The exact number and strength of the Chambers Militant is unknown, but it is believed that different Chambers were tasked with suppressing psychic revolts, manning the infamous "Black Ships" and watchtowers of the Great Tithe, and countering psychically gifted xenoforms, or even the demonic forms that manifested during the Dark Ages.
A new layer in their organisation is introduced, the Synods :
> Beyond this overall structure, the methods and organization of the Sisters of Silence were impenetrable to outside observers, apart from certain ranks and divisions discernible to those who had the opportunity to fight alongside them. The Sisters of Silence most often operated in relatively small, highly specialized formations called Vigils, often composed of Sisters from various Chambers under the command of a single senior office.
>
> If these Vigils were formed to fulfill a specific mission that could take several years, the annals of the Great Crusade also regularly mention "Synods," suggesting the likely existence of more permanent bodies upon which the Vigils depended.
>
> At its most basic level, each host of the Anathema Psykana was subdivided into Cadres, each comprising a handful of Sisters from a Chamber and often designated by a highly specific role. For even at these smaller levels, the Silent Sisterhood remained extremely disciplined and focused on the tasks at hand.
Finally, the already known chemical reinforcements the Sisters goes under is repeated.
> On an individual level, each Sister was wholly devoted to the Emperor's cause, the product of a harsh regime of martial discipline, indoctrination, and chemical therapies, which in some ways surpassed even the methods of the Legiones Astartes in rigor. This enabled the warrior-investigators of the Silent Sisterhood to endure the horrors they faced, and also protected the Emperor from the possibility of their abilities being used against his own psychic powers.
A few details about Custodes weaponries in the Wargear part :
> **Arachnus laser weapons**
>
> While many examples of specialized laser technology from the Arachnus Mechanicum are in service with the Imperium's military forces, the Legio Custodes has exclusive control over several models of high-power rotating laser weapons produced on identical trajectories, eroding even the toughest armor at a single point with devastating effect. These weapons are produced only by the forge-world synod, and nothing similar exists anywhere else in the Emperor's domain. Regardless of their form, each consists of a bundle of parallel chambers and cannons, much like a traditional rotating projectile weapon, but with an increased rate of fire due to the absence of the lengthy cooling and charging cycles of ordinary lasers of comparable power. However, the most remarkable property of these weapons is achieved solely through the extreme precision machining of their collimators and emitters, which allows for such rapid rotation that synchronous shots follow an identical trajectory, eroding the same point the most resistant platings with disastrous effects.
>**Corvae Laser Pulser Weapon**
>
> Related to the laser destroyers in service with the Legiones Astartes, the particular branch of laser technology developed by Clan Terrawatt Corvae is essentially reserved for use by the Imperial Household, like other Clan Terrawatt productions. The most prominent examples of such weaponry, with the Legio Custodes, are found on the Gyrfalcon jetbikes and in the form of the immense dreadspear of the Contemptor-Achillus. These are powerful lasers tuned to emit intense short-range discharges that sacrifice the range of conventional lasers for unmatched armor penetration.
The new Neutronium weapons are given a few lore texts as well.
> **Neutronium Cascade weapons**
>
> Held exclusively in the arsenals of the Legio Custodes, neutronium cascade weapons form a rare and unpredictable technological branch of the radiological and neutron weaponry family, though with a destructive potential several orders of magnitude greater. It is not known exactly how the Legio Custodes procures the neutronium believed to power such weapons, as its production exceeds the known capabilities of the Mechanicum. Regardless of its origin, neutronium cascade weapons are instruments of absolute destruction, which the Legio Custodes employs without hesitation against all whose presence the Emperor's domain cannot tolerate.
[…]
> Neutronium cascade weapons emit exotic radiation of deadly energy, with such intensity and instability that a target, even if still standing, risks continuous molecular collapse.
The **Eternity weapons**, another new type, are also detailed.
> When promoted, each Shield-Captain is given an unique weapon of unmatched quality, forged by the personal armourers of the Emperor to the Custodian’s preferred shape. Each weapon has its own name, attached to the category of weapons called « Eternity weapons », in reference to Eternity Gate, where upon its steps the Emperor delivers himself each weapon to their owner during a ceremony of which it is think a sliver of the Emperor’s psychic might is imbued in the said-weapon.
About the numbers of Achillus in the Templi Lictoris :
.> ** Moritoi Excelsis Pluoton Sotirios, Herakleid Chamber**
>
> At the time when Excelsis Sotirios was entombed, toward the end of the Great Crusade, his Dreadnought was among the hundred models of that pattern in the Templi Lictoris, a testament to the endurance and will of the Custodes. However, after a few years, the rate of of required production of new machines by the vassals orders of artificers of the Legio Custodes became impossible to follow as the daemons assailling the Imperial Webway battled the Templi Lictoris Custodes.
No number are given for Galatus and Telemin are just said to be a handful.
Overall, the lore part is short but dense and with a very welcome new load of informations.
I didn’t see any new things about the Assassinorum but I do not know well this faction.