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Warhammer 40,000: Codex: Witch Hunters
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Graham McNeill: The Witch
Hunters are the branch of the Inquisition tasked with rooting
out heretics, mutants, and most importantly, witches from
within the Imperium. Aided by the Chamber Militant –
the zealous and uncompromising Adepta Sororitas, the
Sisters of Battle – the Witch Hunters purge the unclean
and wicked from the Emperor's realm. Codex: Witch Hunters
allows you to field them on the tabletop battlefield.
Codex: Witch Hunters is the second
book in our trilogy of Inquisition Codices (which includes
Codex: Daemonhunters and the forthcoming Codex:
Alien Hunters). When Andy and I were first handed this
project just before Christmas 2002, we jumped at the chance
to take a project from its earliest conception through to
a finished product. It was a great opportunity for us, and
we weren't about to let it go.
Codex: Witch Hunters was the first
project for Warhammer 40,000 that would go through a new design
process. The initial stages of this process required a number
of people with a vast knowledge of the 40K universe sitting
in a room and collecting everything we knew about the Inquisition,
the Witch Hunters, the Sisters of Battle, the Ecclesiarchy,
and anything else that would be relevant in establishing this
Codex.
As well as drawing upon existing material
(which stretched back 15 years!), we threw idea after idea
around the group, batted them about, and allowed every mad,
insane thought its time in court. This process allowed our
conceptual artists to go off and sketch out every bonker idea
they could think of, based on what had come out of our meetings
and whatever insanity bubbled from the depths of their crazed
minds. You never know what might come out of the maddest idea.
Just check out Inquisitor Lord
Karamazov's Throne of Judgment if you don't believe me.
As well as imagery, we needed to ask the
big questions. Who are the Witch Hunters? Where are they,
and what do they do? How and why do they do it? And, perhaps
more importantly, what are the consequences if they fail?
We knew that before we focused on the actual content of the
book, we had to answer these questions. Even though the book
could not possibly contain everything that would emerge from
this process, it was important to establish as much about
the Witch Hunters and their forces as we could before we put
finger to keyboard.
The end result of this process was a wealth
of conceptual imagery and reams of paper describing everything
from how the Witch Hunters go to war on a planetary scale
(complete with the colossal Cathedral on tracks) to the subtle
differences between all the shades of grey that distinguish
a Radical Witch Hunter from a Puritan one. It was enormous
fun to take part in these meetings and spend entire days coming
up with ideas and concepts for something that was essentially
brand new. Once we were done, we could begin the process of
actually writing the book.
Andy: Once the design team had detailed the insanity
of the Witch Hunters, many dark secrets and matters which
no man should know were revealed or created. Bearing in mind
the foreboding character and role of the Ordo Hereticus, we
slotted in the Sisters of Battle as the Witch Hunters' Chamber
Militant, though we were keen to maintain the Sisters' identity
as separate from the Inquisition. The Sisters are still primarily
controlled by the Ecclesiarchy, but given that the Ordo Hereticus
must police the Adeptus Ministorum, we decided that there
should be more than a small degree of crossover.
So, allying the Sisters with the Witch Hunters
puts them in an interesting context. You'll have noticed by
now that the Inquisitors and other agents of the Ordo Hereticus
are somewhat malevolent and dark, quite unlike the shining
paladins of the Ordo Malleus and their Grey Knight allies.
In my view, presenting the Sisters as holy and pure, yet vengeful
and uncompromising, complements the Witch Hunters well. On
one hand, the Sisters provide an example to Humanity of the
very best a person can aspire to. On the other, the Sisters'
must take necessarily harsh actions in order to protect Humanity's
future (as dictated by the Inquisition). By the standards
of the 21st century, these girls are fanatical zealots, but
in the context of the 41st millennium, they're paragons of
virtue, whose every action is a manifestation of Mankind.
It's all a matter of perspective, you see.
Andy: The Battle Sisters of the Adepta Sororitas
made their first appearance in the Warhammer 40,000 universe
back in the days of Rogue Trader. Though the Sisters had no
list of their own (hardly any race did back then), they did
have a couple of miniatures.
When it came to presenting the Sisters in
the new Codex, we decided to start by going way back to their
roots. The description of the Adeptus Ministorum in Rogue
Trader actually said an awful lot, and, thinking of the role
we envisioned for the Ordo Hereticus, I was particularly struck
by the following passage:
| Every single day, squads of Battle
Sisters descend upon unsuspecting departments of the Adeptus
Terra, administering genetic and psychological tests in
order to expose wrongdoers, mutants, and malcontents.
Whole companies of Battle Sisters travel out to warzones,
to the fortress-monasteries of the Adeptus Astartes, to
the fleets and to the scattered worlds of the Imperium.
No one is free from their vigilance. |
Pretty much the same as the Ordo Hereticus
then, eh? This passage gave us a basis for the character of
the army – vengeful warrior-adepts tasked with ensuring
the purity of other Imperial organizations. The Rogue Trader
art even shows a Battle Sister exacting that vengeance upon
a Space Marine, so this seemed particularly appropriate. In
fact, the Space Marine shown was from the Rainbow Warriors
Chapter. As we haven't heard of them for some time, I guess
the Sisters' mission was successful!
Next:
Designer's Notes, Part 2
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