Inquisitors are, despite the secrecy of their investigations, among the most storied characters in the 41st Millennium, with a vast number of novels charting their clandestine adventures uprooting heresy, banishing daemons, and safeguarding the Imperium from predatory xenos. So where do you begin if you want to explore the dark underbelly of Warhammer 40,000 and read all about these Inquisitorial epics?
Eisenhorn
Gregor Eisenhorn is a complex character even for an Inquisitor – a man who began his career as a staunch puritan, but whose perspective and methods grew steadily more radical over the course of his long life. He’s gone so far as to bind the daemon Cherubael into his service, and has twice been labelled a dangerous rogue agent before ultimately proving himself loyal.
It is no exaggeration to call the Eisenhorn saga one of Warhammer’s seminal works, with the core trilogy of Xenos, Maleus, and Hereticus by Dan Abnett introducing many readers not just to the Inquisition, but Warhammer 40,000 as a whole. Several short stories including Missing in Action and Backcloth for a Crown Additional flesh out his career between the major novels, and all of them are collected together in the unmissable Eisenhorn: The Omnibus.
Ravenor
Once a protégé of Eisenhorn, Gideon Ravenor began his career as an Interrogator before a dastardly attack on an Imperial parade wounded him to the extent that he was confined in a suspensor chair for the rest of his life. Nevertheless, he was promoted to Inquisitor and threw himself into the hunt for the dangerous heretic Zygmunt Molotch, before being given the choice of retiring for good or taking down the most difficult quarry of his career – Eisenhorn himself.
Ravenor’s three novels – Ravenor, Ravenor Returned, and Ravenor Rogue – are themselves collected into an omnibus edition with the short stories Playing Patience and Thorn Wishes Talon, all by Dan Abnett. His story then continues in the series starring Inquisitorial agent Alizebeth Bequin, beginning with Pariah, where the one-time ally of both Ravenor and Eisenhorn is caught in the deadly feud between her two mentors.
Erasmus Crowl
Though one of the lesser-known Inquisitors in the annals of Black Library, Crowl played a vitally important role in the Vaults of Terra series as his expertise helped tackle a deadly conspiracy blooming on Terra itself, aided by the equally exceptional Interrogator Spinoza and representatives of the Adeptus Custodes. The plot ran so deep that it even involved the Emperor himself, and launched Inquisitor Crowl into a web of intrigue involving High Lords of Terra, rebel Inquisitors, and even the Drukhari.
His adventures, and those of his retinue, are collected in the three novels of the Vaults of Terra series by Chris Wraight – The Carrion Throne, The Hollow Mountain, and The Dark City.
Deploy your own Inquisitorial retinue to the battlefields of Warhammer 40,000 with Codex: Imperial Agents – now available at a local Warhammer store near you.