The Chain has held, for perhaps a millenia, perhaps more. Across unnumbered worlds of the Imperium it has maintained a watch and guard, taking opportunities where it can, and holding back the tides of darkness where possible. It stands against the darkness, against the perils of the darkest warp, and it’s mission is to aprehend those entities and aspects of the immaterium that are manifest in our reality, and bind them in archive to the emperor’s ends.

The Chain is made of links, and the Chain is threefold. It comprises the Faculty, the Shard, and the Levy. It is an institution in essence, and a rumour in the record. It is an association, affiliation, alliance, and a commitment. It is a responsibility, and a heavy one. The Chain has held for a millenia or more.

The Ordo Malleus of the Inquisition has within it’s ranks a wide and diverse range of perspectives on the most appropriate routes to vanquish the forces of chaos and protect the imperium – some are regarded as radical by others would would be considered, and consider themselves ‘puritan’. And then there are those who will skate on the precipice of purgation, risking all to snatch the tools of purest evil from the talons of their makers. This is the path of the Chain.

“It’ll seal. Don’t worry.”

Chief Morrow smiled reassuringly at the Interrogator as the shuttle’s lift engines began their slow, familiar wind-up for departure from the Anchorage. After uncounted journeys aboard the vessel, she knew exactly how long the shuttle’s seals would take to marry, and how horrifyingly slow the process always seemed to first-time passengers.

The younger woman’s eyes remained fixed on the stern ramp. Its heavy doors had almost met, yet a thin strip of hangar light still shone around their edges, flickering now with the blue-white flare of the lift jets gathering beneath the hull.

Beside Morrow, Lieutenant Harrow glanced up from tightening the strap of his webbing and grinned.

“She’s right, you know. Just needs a minute.”

He considered the ramp for a moment “…Or a firm kick.”

Morrow snorted. “You’ve been saying that for ten years.”

The Interrogator allowed herself the smallest of smiles before remembering she was supposed to be composed. She turned instead towards the shuttle’s interior.

The cargo compartment had become something else entirely. Folded furniture, lecterns, document cases and portable cogitator units had transformed the bare transport into an improvised Faculty officiorum. Servo-skulls drifted quietly between stacks of leather-bound files while augmented attendants carried out the last minute adjustments with the practised efficiency of people who had assembled the same travelling study a hundred times before.

At its centre, seemingly oblivious to the familiar vibration of engines that had carried generations of the Faculty, sat the Lord Inquisitor himself. Stooped over an open bundle of papers, spectacles balanced low upon his nose, he might have been in a college library.

The Three Institutions

The Chain is able to exist and persist in its terrible duties only by calling upon a wide range of the capabilities of humanity. The constituent institutions are drawn from Astra Militarum soldiery, Adeptus Astartes strike forces, and the Inquisition’s own arcane and academic traditions. The three institutions work in concert and shared focus, all with a commitment the detection, apprehension, retrieval, cataloguing, archival, and at times the reuse of objects which originate within the warp and the realms of chaos.

The Faculty

The Faculty is a large and unusually persistent Inquisitorial household, led by an Inquisitor Lord. The current holder of the chair is Lord Arcturus Karghull, though for him leadership is exercised more through scholarship and judgement than command. Around him is an extensive institution whose continuity stretches across generations. It is not unusual for several Inquisitors to serve within the Faculty at any one time, each bringing different expertise, temperament and philosophy, yet united by a pragmatic acceptance of the Chain’s terrible purpose, and nurtures dozens of interrogators and explicators, who may one day take on the mantle and burden of leadership.

The Faculty includes acolytes, servitors, sages and mystics. It encompases Storm Troopers and Breachers, each specialised in their domains, and stoically inured to engaging close to the dangers of chaos. Beyond the confines of its dedicated transport ships, and the Anchorage, it operates a vast network of agent handlers, agents, and assets across much of the imperium, watching and waiting for any signs of an opportunity for an Accession.

The Faculty does not exist to prosecute war. Others do that more efficiently. It exists to recognise what has been found, determine what must be done, and bear the moral burden of deciding which horrors may be safely contained, which must be destroyed, and which, in the direst necessity, may one day be turned against the enemies of mankind.

The Shard

The Shard of His Imperial Mercy is the oldest of the Chain’s three institutions. An ancient Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes, it has spent centuries engaged in a quiet and largely unseen war against the manifestations of Chaos that cannot simply be destroyed.

The Shard emerged as chapter I wanted to build based on the Relictors chapter – an excommunicated radical chapter who captured chaos weaponry and used it against the Emperors enemies. Rather than use their colour scheme (bit boring) and back story, I decided to use their ruleset in 3rd edition, and matched them with my Daemonhunters foce of that time.
Many of the models had been mine since Rogue Trader era, and the Terminators are still the metal Space Hulk era beasts, in the mid sea grey enamel I first used.

Its task is not conquest, but apprehension. The Chapter hunts those relics, artefacts and entities whose continued existence threatens the Imperium, recovering them from forgotten worlds, derelict voidships and battlefields before they can be lost, exploited or unleashed. Some are destroyed. Those that cannot be are entrusted to the Chain.

The Shard is a fleet-based Chapter whose vessels, vaults and armouries are as much archives as arsenals. Every relic, every vehicle and every suit of armour carries its own history of stewardship. The Chapter values continuity above novelty, maintaining and preserving that which has proved worthy through long service.

Its greatest victories are rarely celebrated. They leave no conquered worlds, no monuments and few surviving witnesses. Success is measured instead by disasters quietly prevented, and by burdens carried safely for another generation.

The Levy

The Warden’s Levy, more often simply called the Levy, provides the Chain with the finest of the Astra Militarum’s soldiery. Selected over generations by the Warden, its regiments, crews and specialists stand ready to accompany the Faculty and the Shard wherever the Chain’s duties require.

Where the Faculty provides judgement, and the Shard bears the burden of apprehension and stewardship, the Levy ensures that the work can be accomplished. It secures perimeters, protects investigations, escorts dangerous cargoes and, when necessary, wages the battles that allow the other institutions to fulfil their responsibilities.

The Levy maintains armouries of ancient and proven equipment, valuing reliability, adaptability and professionalism above spectacle. From its ranks are drawn the officers, Storm Troopers and specialists who, over long years of service, may come to serve within the Faculty itself. In time, from within those ranks, will emerge the next Warden.

A lore project for my Warhammer 40k forces

The Chain is a hobby and gaming and writing project spanning 40 years of playing Warhammer 40k, from the earliest days of Rogue Trader, to today, introducing my son to the hobby. Through it all I have kitbashed and hacked, rule bent and fabricated, all to the end of storytelling. Stories about people, and communities, and institutions. The Chain is a meta story – it describes the evolution of the modelling I\ve done, of the units and armies they represent, the lore of the characters and institutions, and the evolving playable forces I’ve built under various editions of the game.

This site is built around my personal history, modeling, lore, and rule sets. Text in this format is stepping out of the the projects own universe and sharing an insight into rules or models – over 35 years there’s quite a bit of history here.

These are the tales of lore, the snippets and fragments of in universe faction that the characters live within. It is stories of their origins, sometimes, but more often vignettes of their lives – moments of confusion, or realisation, fear and triumph.

Mysterious inscription on document suspected of being a meta/old ones artefact. Glimpsed once.