The Inquisition is the Imperium’s secret police, a sprawling network of agents who hunt down anything that threatens humanity’s souls. They answer to nobody but the Emperor, which makes them terrifying and, at times, dangerously independent.
What the Inquisition actually does
Its job is simple to state and impossible to finish: find and destroy every threat to the Imperium and to humanity. That covers heretics, mutants, rogue psykers, alien infiltrators and daemonic incursions.
An Inquisitor has near-total authority inside Imperial space. They can demand help from planetary governors, Space Marines or the Adeptus Arbites, and refusing them is usually a bad idea. The catch is that this power comes with no real oversight, so an Inquisitor’s judgement is only as good as the person making it.
Where it came from
The Inquisition was founded in the aftermath of the Horus Heresy, around M31, when the Imperium was still bleeding from a civil war that nearly killed it. Sources don’t fully agree on the details.
One account says the Emperor, before his internment in the Golden Throne, told Malcador the Sigillite to find people of character and skill to be trained as investigators. Malcador supposedly presented twelve recruits, a mix of Astartes and humans. Another version says four of the Emperor’s servants met in secret right after his entombment to decide what came next, and their disagreement split them into factions. Both stories are told in official material, so treat the founding as deliberately murky.
Ordos, ranks and the Chamber Militant
Most Inquisitors belong to an Ordo, a branch focused on a particular kind of threat. The three best known are the Ordo Malleus (daemons), the Ordo Xenos (aliens) and the Ordo Hereticus (heresy and rogue psykers), but there are others.
When an Ordo needs muscle, it calls on its Chamber Militant: the Grey Knights for the Malleus, the Deathwatch for the Xenos and the Adepta Sororitas for the Hereticus. Inquisitors also keep personal retinues, and the Inquisition runs Inquisitorial Stormtroopers and the Black Ships that ferry psykers to Terra.
- Ordo Malleus: daemons, backed by the Grey Knights
- Ordo Xenos: aliens, backed by the Deathwatch
- Ordo Hereticus: heresy and rogue psykers, backed by the Adepta Sororitas
- Headquarters: the Fortress of the Inquisition on Terra
- Leadership: none, represented by an Inquisitorial Representative
Puritans, radicals and why they fight each other
Inquisitors split into Puritans, who stick strictly to Imperial doctrine, and Radicals, who’ll use the enemy’s own tools if it gets results. A Radical might bargain with a daemon, study xenos tech or employ a sanctioned psyker in ways a Puritan would call heresy.
This means the Inquisition spends as much time watching itself as it does watching everyone else. An Inquisitor can declare another Inquisitor a heretic, and the resulting feud can tear a sector apart.
The Inquisition in games and books
The faction shows up across the wider Warhammer 40k media. The action-RPG Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor – Martyr, developed and published by NeocoreGames and released in June 2018, puts you in an Inquisitor’s boots in the Caligari Sector.
In novels, the Eisenhorn and Ravenor series by Dan Abnett are the usual starting point for anyone who wants a feel for how Inquisitors actually operate.
Key facts
- The Inquisition is the Imperium’s secret police, founded after the Horus Heresy around M31
- It answers only to the Emperor and has no single leader
- Its main branches are the Ordos Malleus, Xenos and Hereticus
- Each Ordo has a Chamber Militant: Grey Knights, Deathwatch and Adepta Sororitas respectively
- Inquisitors split into Puritans and Radicals, and often clash with each other
- Its headquarters is the Fortress of the Inquisition on Terra
FAQ
Who leads the Inquisition?
Nobody, officially. It has no single leader and answers only to the Emperor. An Inquisitorial Representative speaks for it when the High Lords of Terra meet.
When was the Inquisition founded?
After the Horus Heresy, around M31. The exact origin is deliberately unclear, with at least two conflicting accounts in official sources.
What’s the difference between an Inquisitor and the Adeptus Arbites?
The Arbites enforce Imperial law on a local level. Inquisitors operate above the law, hunting threats the Arbites aren’t equipped or authorised to handle.