The other most notable landmark of Hive Sibellus is the Tricorn Palace, the palace of the Inquisition. A dark and austere trio of linked towers at the northern end of the hive sprawl, the palace is the headquarters of the High Council of the Calixian Conclave, which is to say that it is the administrative seat of the Inquisition in the sector. Since earliest times, the Inquisition has often convened and empowered a conclave of its members for each sector of the Imperium. Each sector conclave is ruled by a Lord Inquisitor of unimpeachable merit, selected and appointed by the High Lords of the Inquisition on Terra. For the past two hundred years, the Lord Inquisitor of the Calixian Conclave has been Aegult Caidin.
Though respectful of the Lord Sector, Caidin answers to no one except the distant High Lords. From the Tricorn Palace, he supervises and directs the general policies and activities of the Inquisitors under his command, as well as individual specialist cabals of Inquisitors sent upon “special circumstance” missions. The Lord Inquisitor is seldom seen in public. It is said that he keeps his true likeness secret, even from close aides and allies, so as to be free to operate unmolested and unrecognized. His true age is not known. Lord Inquisitor Caidin chairs the High Council of the Calixian Conclave, a ruling body of seventy senior Inquistors drawn from all three Ordos, which orchestrates and monitors the Inquisition’s work throughout the sector territories.
Estimates suggest that over eight thousand Inquisitorial personnel toil in the officio of the Tricorn, from lowly scribes to archivists, from savants to specialist Tech-Adepts. A small but potent army of Inquisitorial troops is garrisoned at the Tricorn and dedicated starships of the Inquisition are permanently stationed at high anchor above Scintilla for rapid response deployment. It is also suggested, but unconfirmed, that the Tricorn possesses its own astrotelepathic choir. In times of great crisis, the Officio of the High Council Calixis can call upon the help of any Imperial Adeptus it requires. The general multitudes shun the Tricorn, regarding it as a place of fear, peril and downright evil, though largely this is because the average citizen has no real grasp of the work and duties of the conclave. Nevertheless, to be seized by the Inquisition and carried to the Tricorn for questioning is a grim fate that few ever return from.
The Ordo Malleus chamber of the Scholariate at Arms has many facilities through the Calixis Sector and the Tricorn. It operates from an extensive complex within the Tricorn itself, in addition to other locations.
Grand Reliquarium[]
Entombed more than twenty-two hundred feet beneath the majestic Tricorn Palace is the Grand Reliquarium, a series of vaults that are home to many artefacts and powerful relics of the Calixis Sector. In these hallowed halls rest hundreds of items of power, from crafted trinkets of the Dark Age of Technology to the blessed weapons of venerable martyrs or even saints. Each of these countless vaults are heavily guarded, monitored, and tended to by the Custodiatrix, a small organization of curator assassins, each charged with the safety of the artefacts and assigned to one of the vaults. Reliquary 26 contains the relics of the Scholariate at Arms.
The Well of Souls[]
Within the Tricorn Palace on Scintilla, deep beneath the shaded plazas and ornate walkways, lies an oft-forgotten chamber, forever cast in gloom and guarded by tier upon tier of silent, grotesque stone sentries. This is the Well of Souls, and within its depths the pleas and accusations of the most despicable, treacherous---or so posterity would have it---Inquisitors are heard. The accused is bound within the bottom of the well itself, and a jury of his peers sits upon the tiered galleries looking down on him. The floor of the well is paved with red Iocanthan marble, all the better to hide the bloodstain of the executed. It was here that the arch-Radical Bompus Sept was finally brought to justice and executed for his sins against humanity. But it was also here that the trial of the heretical Inquisitor Vilnius Habib took place, whereupon he broke free of his bindings and unleashed a bound daemon upon his peers, slaying 99 Inquisitors and escaping into the warp, never to be seen again.
Librarium Mundi[]
A library of ancient provenance is sealed within the heart of the Tricorn Palace on Scintilla. It contains collected works from the estates of Inquisitors past, as well as materials provided by living Inquisitors: warnings and prognostications; excruciation transcripts; records of lesser heresy; self-serving accounts; and gaping holes of redaction. Acolytes might learn more by what is missing from the Librarium’s shelves than from the many scholarly accounts therein---but amidst the dross lie gems of information on dead xenos species and ancient ruins.
The Lightless Vaults[]
Deep beneath the Tricorn Palace on Scintilla are the Lightless Vaults. Built into the bedrock of Scintilla and accessible only by writ of Lord Inquisitor Caiden the Vaults are a warren of stone passages patrolled by servitors harnessed with weaponry and conditioned to destroy any who do not have the correct seals. Within the chambers that branch off the passages are profane and terrible artefacts recovered by members of the Calixian Conclave in the long centuries since it was convened. Here are weapons forged by hate, obsession and delusion, tomes filled with truths and lies that could corrupt billions. All are sealed behind adamantine doors etched with sacred script of protection and held in check by humming void field generators. In the cells that are at the deepest point of the Vaults, held by null and stasis fields, are the worst heretics and malefic traitors to have been captured by servants of the Ordos Calixis.
Forbidden Artifacts[]
Libellus Appello, the Book of Names
This small booklet, scarcely larger than an Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer, has a cover made from wooden plates covered in carefully prepared human skin. It opens via a single iron hinge, which has been fashioned to resemble the eight-pointed star of Chaos. A brass hasp locks the booklet closed. If opened, the pages revealed are shown to be made of fine vellum. Though of nominally human origin, the exact nature of these well-dressed sheets is far too monstrous for most Acolytes to dare contemplate. Each leaf of the Libellus Appello is covered in mathematical formulae, alchemical symbols, star charts, and dense blocks of text written in an obscure tongue.
Written by the disgraced and heretical Adept Hetoun Parang Levon, the Libellus Appello’s passages must be translated before a character can properly use the book. One this has been done, the Libellus Appello is revealed to be a guide to the true names of daemons, as well as how to divine them through thorough examination of certain astronomical phenomena. A number of daemonic names are included in the book—some added by hands other than Levon’s—along with scattered comments in the margins detailing the requirements of summoning any of the daemons mentioned in the main text (but not the summoning rituals themselves).
Levon was executed for heresy soon after the completion of his blasphemous masterpiece, and the book vanished for a time, only to reappear in the hands of various malefic cultists. Supposedly, at least one sorcerer used it to predict the next appearance of Komus, the Tyrant Star. Finally captured by Amalathian Inquisitors, the Libellus Appello currently resides deep in the vaults of the Tricorn Palace, located in Hive Sibellus on Scintilla.
Using the Libellus Appello
In order to make proper use of the Libellus Appello, a character must make a Difficult (–10) Scholastic Lore (Astromancy) Test in order to determine a daemon’s true name using the formulae given. Summoning a daemon already named in the book gives the summoner a +30 bonus to his Forbidden Lore (Daemonology) Test, as he knows the daemon’s true name. Simply reading the Libellus Appello from cover to cover will give a character a +10 bonus on his next Forbidden Lore (Daemonology) Test, but will also inflict 1d5 Corruption Points.
The Lash of Bitterness
The Lash of Bitterness is a long whip of bones and teeth taken from humans and the predatory creatures of Iocanthos. Within it is bound the tortured essence of a warp creature whose being is consumed by fear and insanity. The Lash of Bitterness was said to have been created by a slave champion of the Crow Father and to have been wielded in combat against Drusus himself. It was recovered from the battlefield by servants of the Holy Ordos in the wake of the saint’s cleansing of Iocanthos, and it is now is sealed in the Lightless Vaults of the Tricorn palace---its twitching coils muttering vileness and wishing ill to all life.
Special Rules
The Lash of Bitterness contains an Astral Spectre (WP 37) with the Mind Leech, Screaming, and Daemonic Presence (see below) attributes.
Daemonic Presence: Living creatures with 30 meters hear a constant wailing and moaning overlaid with the grinding and gnashing of teeth. All creatures, other than the wielder of the Lash of Bitterness, take a –10 penalty to Willpower Tests.
Melee, 1d10+4, I, PEN 3, The Beast Within, Lethality, Uncanny Resilience, Mind Leach, Screaming, Daemonic Presence, Flexible, WT 1.5kg