Assassinorum Kingmaker (Warhammer 40,000)

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Basically, imagine Grumpy Old Men, but far grumpier, as in to the point they're willing to kill each other, then exponentially elevate that to the Nth degree. Temple Secretum - It is whispered that there exists a "Temple Secretum," an Assassinorum temple named for its dedication to keeping the Imperium's darkest secrets by any means necessary rather than for a preferred method of killing. This is a full course meal of a story. It's fairly long but the pacing feels appropriate. Every act gets enough time to breathe and exhaust all its potential. The world feels appropriately fleshed out and casually barbaric. The characters broadly have motivations that make sense. Minor spoiler here, Guilliman's politics have consequences. The Reign of Blood (ca. 200.M36) - Goge Vandire, Ecclesiarch and High Lord of the Adeptus Administratum, falls from the Emperor's light. His tremendous influence, charisma and determination to overhaul the Imperium sparks a civil war that lasts for seven decades. His insurrection only ends when a counter-crusade mounted by Sebastian Thor tears power from the Traitor's cold and clutching claws.

Assassinorum | Warhammer 40k Wiki | Fandom Officio Assassinorum | Warhammer 40k Wiki | Fandom

There are four major Assassinorum "temples," originally known at the time of the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy as "clades", each specialising in a different form or method of assassination. However, Culexus Assassins have been transformed by the Necrons into their foul Pariah servants by transferring their consciousnesses into necrodermis bodies. In this way, the Vindicare can be likened to a spider or mantis, waiting motionless as stone before springing into action at the critical moment.The Officio Assassinorum safeguards the future of humanity. Its agents are the bloody-handed, secret saviours of the Imperium, killers charged with achieving the impossible... and Vindicare assassin Absolom Raithe has just been handed the most difficult assignment of his career. In time, these servants realised that they could not hide from even their own deaths forever, and that their skills must be passed on to a new generation if their great work was to continue. Thus, they finally revealed their existence to the Emperor. He saw, sorrowfully, the necessity for their existence and the terrible duty that they had taken upon themselves and he was most pleased. Great temples were constructed and the most skillful and deadly youths were sought out to train at them. Thus was the Officio Assassinorum created in secret, and the names of Callidus, Venenum, Culexus, Vindicare, Eversor and Vanus were forever immortalised. The strongest survived their rigorous training, and in turn passed on their skills to others. New skills were learnt and new temples of death were later founded; the art of blade and pistol, poison and garrote were honed in every aspect conceivable. So it is that there is no world in the galaxy beyond the Emperor's rule; no enemy beyond the Emperor's wrath. When the Emperor spoke this famous declaration during the early years of the Great Crusade, a number of his most loyal servants met, eager to help enact his dreams of uniting Mankind across all the settled worlds of the galaxy. These men and women were highly skilled in the craft of stealth and subterfuge and highly accomplished in the arts of death. They hunted down those who would bring ruination to the Emperor's plan for Human betterment. In secrecy they acted, preferring not to receive praise from the Emperor for their actions, for they felt themselves unworthy of such attentions amidst the great sacrifices and destruction caused by the ongoing operations of the Great Crusade. They carried out their executions silently, moving unseen from world to world in the wake of the Emperor's conquest, ensuring that promises made to the Imperium by rulers newly brought into Imperial Compliance were not reneged upon, that newly installed planetary governors remained loyal, and that treaties and pacts were enforced. Authors, if you are a member of the Goodreads Author Program, you can edit information about your own books. Find out how in this guide. A Destiny Denied (290.M41) - The Officio Assassinorum, having failed to destroy the obscenely powerful Chaos Lord Malfecius with operatives from the Eversor and Vindicare Temples, sends the Culexus Assassin Vaedrex instead. The Culexus haunts the steps of Malfecius across the Eye of Terror. Only when Malfecius ascends to Daemon Princehood does Vaedrex finally strike. With Malfecius' latest incarnation rendering him vulnerable to Vaedrex' Psyk-Out Grenades, the Culexus finally manages to kill the reeling Daemon Prince with a punishing series of blasts from his Animus Speculum.

Assassinorum: Kingmaker, by Robert Rath BOOK REVIEW: Assassinorum: Kingmaker, by Robert Rath

Given that the whole point of assassins is that they're basically killing machines, the characterization of Raithe and Sycorax is surprisingly good. You get a real sense of them as people. You also get plenty of lore about both knights and the inner workings of assassin temples. It works well as a stand-alone story, but has enough ties to something bigger going on that I could see Rath build this out into his own little series. Either way, I hope this does well for him. First and foremost, a potential Culexus Assassin is chosen because he possesses a very rare genetic defect, something that is at once unique and yet utterly abhorrent to the Imperium. Every living being has some sort of presence in the Warp, where the soul is reflected through from the real universe.Here lies the genius of this novel which, through a plot firstly meant to deliver the entertainment one expects to receive when consuming what is for all intents and purposes litterature written for the sake of advertisement, actually delivers a tale honed with unexpected literary qualities. For Robert Rath proves himself to be a genuine writer and a good author : one with an elegant way with words, a strong sense of plot, full understanding and control of and over the characters he employs, excellent skill in dialogue writing and a very real care for his craft. The story is three assassins, a Callidus, a Vindicare, and a Vanus who have to infiltrate a knight world and, well, make sure the death of the king and succession go the right way. And so what you get is the plot to infiltrate the closed, insular nobility of a knight world's feudal elite, while also seeing three different assassins from three different temples doing what they do best. Infiltrating the planet using returning Knight, Sir Linoleus Rakkan, who has been co-opted into their plans, the assassins arrive to find a world in turmoil. The planet’s two rival ruling houses are in constant battle with each other, and in the ensuing chaos, anti-Imperial sentiment is high, and the already invincible High Monarch is under heavy guard. Seeking to infiltrate the court of Dominion, the kill team begin to manoeuvre themselves into position, while manipulating the feuding knights around them. However, the assassins soon begin to realise that not everything is as it seems, and a dark secret lies at the heart of this noble planet. Can Raithe’s team achieve their goals, or are they destined to die at the hands of a dangerous foe with malicious plans for the entire Imperium? However, after the Wars of Vindication which took place shortly after the death of High Lord Goge Vandire during the Age of Apostasy in the 36th Millennium, a renegade Callidus Assassin by the name of Tziz Jarek attempted to assassinate the Grand Master of Assassins. After a series of terrible atrocities that were precipitated within the Imperial Palace itself, the Assassin temples were split up and distributed across the width and breadth of the galaxy.

Robert Rath (Author of The Infinite and the Divine) - Goodreads Robert Rath (Author of The Infinite and the Divine) - Goodreads

From storied successors including the Crimson Fists and Flesh Tearers to lesser-known Chapters like the Emperor’s Spears and Consecrators, you’ll be spoilt for no-holds-barred Adeptus Astartes action. I think it is fair to say that I deeply enjoyed Assassinorum: Kingmaker. Robert Rath crafted together a brilliant and exceptionally entertaining Warhammer 40,000 novel that was loaded with action, fun and great characters. Featuring lethal assassins facing down massive Imperial Knights, Kingmaker has a little bit of everything, including political intrigue, impressive use of Warhammer elements, and some fantastic war sequences towards the end. Easily one of the most impressive and captivating Warhammer novels of 2022, Kingmaker is a must-read for all fans of the franchise, and you are guaranteed to have an incredible time with this epic book. Kingmaker feels like a spy movie in terms of its plot and characters. There are political machinations, hidden agendas, murky loyalties, factions maneuvering both openly and in the shadows, while characters try to navigate byzantine networks of relationships as deadly as a battlefield. It’s very much a plot-driven novel, where events and actions are the primary movers of narrative threads.The first major praise I have for Kingmaker is its tone and atmosphere. Not necessarily the worldbuilding (though that’s no slouch here), but the overall genre experience. I’m not a connoisseur or expert in spy thrillers or the like, so somebody better versed in them would be more suited to comment on specific tropes, trappings, etc. I can say that Kingmaker feels very cinematic. From the first act of assembling the assassin operative team – opening with the various members mid-operation, the Liaison and his chain-smoking, ‘that’s need-to-know’ mannerisms, to the briefings and status reports, to the recorded conversations and the middle-act montage-like rapid sequence of sub-operations, this novel has a very distinctive feel in the reading. Explore a story told across the millennia that delves deep into a pair of fascinating necron characters, their relationship and their plans for the galaxy. He lives in Hong Kong with his family, amid and a growing pile of models he *swears* are for research. Robert Rath is an author and screenwriter from Honolulu, Hawai'i. Also audiobook adaptation is amazing. If you are fan of audiobooks, go for it, narrator is amazing and there's a fantastic voice acting right there.

Assassinorum: Kingmaker by Robert Rath | Goodreads

Two Imperial assassins take on their most dangerous mission yet – navigating the complex social landscape of a Knight World to ensure the right successor takes the throne. Acolytes of two very different temples of the Officio Assassinorum, these agents need to work together to succeed, for failure means raising the ire of the colossal Imperial Knights. Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh! by Nate Crowley I also need to highlight the great characters featured within Kingmaker as Rath has created an excellent collection of enticing figures whose unique personal stories deeply enhanced the overall tale. This was a fantastic group of deep and complex characters, and their statuses within this universe ensured that they all had some unique experiences. Most of Kingmaker’s narrative is spread amongst the three members of the Assassinorum who represent a different Assassinorum Temple, and as such have very different viewpoints on the universe and the best way to operate as killers. This provides some compelling initial conflict amongst them as they try to work together, something none of them are really good at. However, they soon start to come together as a team as the novel continues, and they ended up playing off each other’s strengths and personalities to create an excellent, core group of protagonists. It was fun and you wanted everyone to succeed. Would it have been more intense and gripping if the key players paid a higher cost? Or is that just outweighed by charm of the whole tale. Assassins are typically deployed alone wherever feasible, having been trained to operate extensively behind enemy lines with no support. Given the sheer potential political power of this Adepta and the fact that its operatives are known to have been used against rival High Lords of Terra in the past, the authorization to assassinate a target must come from the very highest echelons of Imperial command. For this reason, Assassins are watched very closely to make sure that they are under the control of the Imperium. The Officio Assassinorum safeguards the future of humanity. They are the bloody-handed, secret saviors of the Imperium, killers charged with achieving the impossible... and Vindicare assassin Absolom Raithe has just been handed the most difficult assignment of his career. [1]

I really, really loved the cool story in this book, which essentially boiled down to ultra-elite assassins attempting to kill the king of a planet of mecha, which is such an awesome idea. Despite this being a heavy concept to achieve, Rath managed to achieve it in spades, providing readers a fantastic and clever narrative that instantly grabs your attention. This book starts off extremely well, introducing the world of Dominion, the unique mission, and the four central characters of the three assassins, and their Knight patsy, and generally setting up all the key elements of Kingmaker to ensure some outstanding moments later. From there, the story turns into a bit of an espionage thriller, as the three assassins begin their infiltration of the court, impersonating the knight Rakkan, and coming to grips with the unique world they have arrived at. Rath provides an excellent balance of story elements in this first half of the novel, and the reader gets a fantastic mixture of character development, massive universe building, political intrigue, spy elements and some early mecha-action, all of which is a ton of fun and ensures that the reader is firmly addicted with this novel. This is a book about Necrons, so some knowledge of Necrons might be good in advance. You could also watch TIMELINE of the 40K UNIVERSE by Trazyn the Infinite by WarriorTier to understand whole history of the universe because Necrons are a long lived race and this book spans a period right between 30k and 40k timeline. Unless you already are WH fan, and know of the history, then no more words are needed. Though an operative's heart beats perhaps once per solar minute when in this state, subliminal triggers ensure he is roused into total focus the instant his target shows themselves.