Glossary

Neighbouring unit of the 41st Belthane in the Zobelmark; they have had the same drawing problem for seventeen months.

Regiment from Kasr Halrik, evacuated through the Halrik Gate and re-formed in the Ederhaven assembly area with remnants of the 1207th and…

Astra Militarum regiment, raised on the dyke and agri world Ossenfeld. Company Three fought at the Karnau Causeway in 934.M41.

Garrison regiment on Verrath IV.

Ressna Kade's regiment.

The stored personality of a dead Princeps in a Titan's manifold, taken in a nine-hour rite by three Tech-Priests. Addressable one by one;…

Malformed Genestealer Cult mutants, powerful but poorly coordinated, sent forward as shock troops.

A sector body that decides on the continuance of units. It sits only when convened by the sector Lord Commander, and therefore often not…

A Munitorum chancery that reconciles reports against registers; Ordinat Vhess is one of them.

The founding compact between the Chapter and the Mechanicus cohort on Kel-Vantor, made by the nameless first Chapter Master and the…

A brother does not belong to the Deathwatch but is seconded to it by his Chapter, for a term set down in the charter. Afterwards he…

The paper that attests a brother's secondment to a watch station. The formula runs "seconded … until further notice" and names a date on…

Strike cruiser of the Absolvers; aboard her, the chamber with Ischyron's records and the chamber with a window, where Saltzer ate for three…

Tactical sub-unit formed for a specific mission.

One half of the bookkeeping of Ombrist, set against the stock. "The abatement proceeds until settlement" stands as the First Entry of…

Early hybrid generations, still markedly xenos: four arms, claws.

Lowest step of the Librarian career, below Lexicanium. Full ladder: Acolytum → Lexicanium → Codicier → Epistolary → Chief Librarian.

The Imperium's keepers of the law. They watch over Imperial law, not planetary law — that is the Enforcers' business.

The official designation of the Space Marines. In Horus Heresy texts: Legiones Astartes, or Legionary in the singular.

The department of the Imperium that gathers psykers, tests them and makes astropaths of them — including the soul binding, which most do…

The Emperor's bodyguard. Also Legio Custodes, the historical term for the age before the Horus Heresy.

The Tech-Priest order of Mars; keeper of the knowledge of technology.

The Ecclesiarchy's sisterhood as a whole; "Sisters of Battle" technically denotes only its military arm.

The Titan order of the Adeptus Mechanicus; the umbrella body of all Titan Legions. Collegia Titanica is the more formal name.

Ruling caste of Arach-Prim.

The bureaucratic administrative apparatus of the Imperium.

Supreme commander of a fleet.

Silver-grey power armour of the Grey Knights, inscribed with wards. Not the Adeptus Custodes' — their equipment is auramite gold, and the…

Current faction name for the ancient psychic species long called Eldar.

The ancestral machine intelligence of a Leagues of Votann kindred, holding its recorded memory; the Votann themselves.

"The Hydra's Head". Traitor — whether by conviction or by a plan of its own is deliberately left open. Home world: unknown.

Honoured bearer of the Chapter banner.

Hub and administrative world in the Ereshkan Sector with a great astropathic choir; several thousand receptions a day. A great choir has a…

Vessel of nutrient fluid in which a Princeps is permanently housed.

Thagoth's own word for what has lived beneath his right jaw since his Gal Vorbak consecration: a second, small pair of eyes that looks in…

Vel'Schwur's word for the book a Chaplain keeps in his head, beside the paper chronicle in the Reliquarium. In it stands what is true and…

What the 331st Cadian calls the volunteers of the Ederhaven PDF who came forward after the first night; grey, brown and blue eyes,…

The mainstay ship of a Space Marine fleet.

Heavily armed bike with a sidecar.

"The Red Angel". Traitor. Home world: Nuceria.

The word of the Low Tongue said when you pick up a child who has fallen. Lower case; every void-born child knows it.

Chapter world of the Wall Brothers. A fortress world that has never been besieged, and whose entire culture consists nonetheless of…

Orbital transfer point above a world, where bulk transports are loaded. Berths for heavy tonnage set the loading capacity; an anchorage…

An event on Varanthos, two years and four months before the recantation; named in the text only as a marker in time.

Missile block carried as an arm weapon by a Warlord Titan, for area fire against massed targets.

The medical department of a Space Marine Chapter — both the room and the institution. Keeps the Chapter's gene-seed.

The Chapter's physician and keeper of the gene-seed. Equipment: narthecium and reductor. Among the Blood Angels the office is the…

The ordinary officer of the Adeptus Arbites.

Luther.

Civilian miners, smiths and transport crews who commute between the Chapter world Aschgrat and the forge moon Kel-Vantor. They stand closer…

Strike cruiser of the Fire Wardens of Nocturne.

Renegade Chapter in the succession of Vulkan. They call on no one to surrender. In «Was die Mauer hielt» they stand against the Wall…

Salamanders successor Chapter, marked throughout by archive and library: library-fortresses, archivists and psykers recur. Chapter colours…

Rim polity in the Thraxian Sector; it has held Kypros Secundus for thirty years.

A candidate of a Space Marine Chapter before implantation; after passing selection, a Neophyte or Scout.

Training place of the Ember Watch, twelve kilometres west of the fortress-monastery on Kaldrath: forty-two chambers without doors in the…

Brother Ossmar's office among the Dragon Wardens.

Where item nine-three stands: an empty ceramite suit holding forty kilograms of dust — the same quantity as the Rubricae.

The modern name of the Imperial Guard. Latin: "star army".

Psychic beacon on Terra, used for navigation.

Blind psyker telepath used for interstellar communication.

A body of astropaths who send and receive together. Only the choir makes a message reliable across great distances.

The Wall Brothers' way of dividing a line of defence: rather than building equally strong everywhere, a few points are strengthened into…

The register of the Iron Veins' Apothecarium, on ground ceramite leaves, in four columns: name, origin, throat gland, chest gland. It has…

A fire rite of the Dragon Wardens: one kneels on a grating above a bed of coals, lays one's hands into it, and recites one's own dead —…

Informal Skitarii term for elevation to fully initiated Tech-Priest.

Great warp rift near the Segmentum Obscurus into which the Traitor Legions fled.

The material of Custodes armour, and of the register plate.

The Black Templars' formula for a brother who is neither fallen nor missing.

The Techmarine's list of everything that has failed at a position. The reports are numbered and form a series. The important one is not the…

Seventeen thousand two hundred; it stands on the flyleaf of every volume.

An administrative state on Kel-Vantor: a name has been taken out of a running cohort list without appearing in another — not dead, not…

"The abatement proceeds until settlement." The sentence is the story's own quotation and recurs word for word.

Handheld detection and scanning device — heat, movement, ground echo. Plural: auspices.

Acid basins beneath the Viaduct of a Thousand Pistons.

A servitor produced by the rite of severance; "Unit 0774".

A low, cold processing level on Kel-Vantor — numbered, as in Severance Hall Nine — seven levels below the Chamber of the First Silence,…

The administration of both rites, on level nine.

Aeldari war leader who has walked several of the warrior paths and commands a warhost.

Rotary automatic cannon.

Fortress line on Ilmen, eleven kilometres long, between the eastern basin and the interior: a frontier wall from the settlement era, built…

Company of the Golden Wall; it holds the defensive levels.

A fighting sister of the Ordines Militaris.

A body of Chapter serfs that the Wall Brothers take with them in place of a baggage train: masons, carpenters, smiths, carters, cooks. A…

Secondary circulation unit in the lower third of a Dreadnought sarcophagus; it moves the amniotic fluid past the heat exchangers. Permitted…

Troop transport; she brought the First Vandauer to the front in 923.M41, fourteen months under way.

The final battle of the Horus Heresy.

A filter grade of the Skitarii noosphere. Classes one to four reach the bearer at once; five to nine run into a backlog that is practically…

Auspex reading of the heat distribution within another hull. A warship in service shows station patterns; broad occupancy with rest zones…

The register of silence-cuts carried out in Severance Hall Nine. Unlike the Last Service, severance is recorded, because it is a judgement.…

Main weapon of a Warlord Titan.

The 77th Belisarian Line Regiment, Astra Militarum in Vortan Hive; the unit of Lord Commissar Ilya Voss.

Primaris implant that releases a surge of energy in battle.

Imperial world; it has raised regiments for nine centuries.

Level three is watch condition, level one is action stations.

The furnace charging line of the Smelting Cathedral.

A warp entity takes a body.

The legal consequence of number eleven. The condemned keeps his command — without rotation, employment band or follow-on planning. No…

Poison gland in the mouth.

The Electro-Priests' theological term for divine electricity.

A grating walkway deep in the workings of Kel-Vantor, on which a candidate stands barefoot while his use is being negotiated.

A levy district on Belthane.

The volume of a district's running entries; on Vhassel it is kept in Precinct Fortress Seven.

Chairman of a reconciliation of losses on a forge world. He keeps the register, decides on the admission of vouchers, and closes the entry.

Seat of the Balance Archon on Karsis-Vor.

The rhythmic machine-song of the Tech-Priesthood; half prayer, half administrative act.

The formula of the secondment warrant: "Seconded to Watch Station Kalthorn, Ordo Xenos, from … until further notice." It means: until…

Strengthens the muscles.

The galaxy-wide failure of the Astronomican after the Great Rift opened (M42).

Paired energy blades for Terminators.

The human kin-groups aboard the Chalice of Revelation: technician kin, breeder kin and blood kin. Kin rather than clan, because they are…

The standard weapon of the Space Marines. Fires self-propelled bolt shells, not ordinary bullets.

Ammunition for the bolter. Carries a shaped-charge tip and a rocket motor.

One-handed version of the bolter.

The mass of Ork warriors.

Imperial spirit; the medic Devos drinks it in his off hours.

A hundred and sixty nails with pit tallies on them; the count at the board decides who is still in the mountain.

People of Bront; as in the 19th Brontians.

33rd Brontian Line Regiment, on the Vyaniah front.

Unmutated human members of a Genestealer Cult, drawn from the local population.

Patriarch, Magus and Primus together — the leadership of a Genestealer Cult.

An office in Salzgrund these three hundred years: one man works the fourteen sluices on the seven bridges of the trickle canal, so that the…

The ordinary form of address among Space Marines.

A command rank of the Grey Knights.

Internal White Scars term for a company-sized formation.

The principal formation of the Grey Knights: eight brotherhoods of roughly a hundred brothers each, every one under a Grand Master. Not the…

The rite, in twenty-one handwritten copies.

Kept on by every Oathkeeper; in it stands the testimony about Vel'Kaddar's decision.

The private theological work of Chaplain Mekhar Voss'aran of the Dragon Wardens, begun after an encounter with a dying cultist; its central…

The speed of light as the hard ceiling on sublight travel.

The Cadians' rallying cry since the fall of their world. A cry, not a report.

Of Caliban.

Rigid plate armour worn over a bodysuit: heavier than flak, lighter than power armour.

The ceramic composite of Space Marine armour and vehicle plate.

Single-combat rank within a Grey Knights brotherhood. Neither a Chapter Champion nor the Black Templars' Emperor's Champion.

A single champion of the Black Templars, chosen by the Emperor, one to each crusade. Not the Chapter Champion, who is a Chapter Master's…

The Traitor Legions and the renegade Astartes who serve the Ruinous Powers.

Corruption by the influence of Chaos.

Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle and Slaanesh — the four Ruinous Powers of the warp.

Home world of the White Scars. Also known as Mundus Planus.

The duty supervision of an astropathic choir: keeps the books, takes the reception count, and decides what is reported to the Sifting…

The average reporting figure of an astropathic choir; three times it triggers an examination.

Second rank of the Librarians (counting from the lowest).

The highest field rank of the T'au fire caste; leads a cadre from within a battlesuit.

The second Dreadnought type of the Adeptus Custodes alongside the Telemon, built on the Contemptor frame and carrying the Achillus spear.

Heresy-era pattern of Dreadnought.

"The Raven". Loyalist. Home world: Deliverance / Kiavahr.

An ancient xenos script, set systematically as scars into skin; augmentations need a second to translate it.

A warp entity. Always "Daemon" in Games Workshop usage, never "Demon".

The study of warp entities.

The older, explanatory form; Drukhari in modern terminology.

The fallen part of the Adeptus Mechanicus, in service to Chaos.

Tech-Priest specialist who directs the Kastelans.

Handheld device for text and lists.

The chamber militant of the Ordo Xenos, made up of brothers whom their Chapters second to it.

Ork walker with an Ork pilot built into it.

Short, wide cannon for buildings and bunkers.

The standing instruction for Astra Militarum commissars.

A warp presence in the sleeper's dreams; it inspects Lochos the way a buyer would. The circumlocution is the point, not a name.

The doctrine imprints of the Skitarii — never "doctrine implants".

Energy hammer; it throws a shockwave.

Dreadnought weapon exclusive to the Grey Knights, bound to psychic power.

Watch Captain Bernward's home Chapter. He has not seen it in a hundred and eleven years.

The Dragon Wardens' rite of entry; Vel'har passed it in two days instead of three.

Strike cruiser of the XVIII Legion.

Salamanders successor Chapter of the Second Founding (M31), founded by Tho'mar Vesh, who left the Chapter the orally transmitted Kessler…

Predator of Varanthos; the quarry of the dragon initiation, and the material for camouflage cloaks and the Chaplain's bone helm.

Reusable landing craft of the Traitor Legions, gripping its target with landing claws.

Walking war engine of a Space Marine Chapter, carrying a gravely wounded brother in its sarcophagus.

A gravely wounded Space Marine kept alive inside a war machine.

999.M41: Abaddon attacks Cadia.

An entry in the Protocol of the Oil-Hands: the sleeper is woken only if he is the only one, and only if he has been asked beforehand. The…

A grade among the techno-adepts and scribes of Karsis-Vor.

Cordon and barrier regiment of the Astra Militarum from the world of Ostrau, deployed in the Ereshkan Sector. Ostrau lay two centuries…

Campaign world in the Ereshkan Sector, sterilised during the events of the novel. The choir Drossek North District carries designation 6.

The current name of the Dark Eldar.

Priestly rank of the Word Bearers.

The pre-Imperial era.

The state church of the Imperium; it worships the Emperor as a god.

Agri and garrison world at the edge of Nihilus space: moor, coast, sound, harbour island. Munitorum collecting ground for Cadian remnants…

Form of address and collective term for the Dreadnoughts of the Iron Veins.

War party of the Leagues of Votann, assembled for one particular oath and dissolved afterwards.

Two meanings, one word: among the Dragon Wardens the implantation of the second heart, and in the Adeptus Custodes the embedding into a…

A saying of the miners of Vandau: to hang a tally on a nail and take it straight off again. The movement has no purpose, and means that the…

Heavily armoured elite warriors of a kindred.

A smith's word from Nocturne: to make a shaft oversize, set it in its bearing with grinding paste, and turn until shaft and bearing have…

The rite by which the Chapter's gene-seed is brought into an aspirant. The line consists of eleven cylinders, refilled again and again and…

Mechanicus category for sieges and for worlds behind warp storms; it covers the execution entire.

Young Salamanders successor Chapter from the Chapter world Aschgrat; an above-average proportion of Venerables, and a close bond to the…

The X Legion; they hold the flesh to be weak.

The battle of Sebastus IV (M31): Perturabo's trap for the Imperial Fists.

The governing body of the Iron Hands.

Chaplain and Techmarine in one, among the Iron Hands.

The Dreadnought formation of the Iron Veins — not a Codex element but a force of its own, answering directly to the Chapter Master, because…

The machine armies of the Dark Age, and the cause of its fall.

Warband of the IV Legion.

Still understood as a collective term, though Aeldari and Drukhari are preferred for the current factions. Not to be used loosely where…

Fanatical cult warriors whose bodies serve as living capacitors.

A village two valleys south; Brannt's home.

The number of receptions an astropath records within twelve months; the reference figure for the purity examination, which is triggered…

Maintenance priest attached to troop formations.

The counterpart to the soul binding. A routine procedure of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica by which an astropath determined to be no longer…

What the Unbound call Major Lennart Saltzer, their spokesman; only Ischyron still calls him a Cadian.

Cadian rift cult: whoever holds the oath to the fallen wall to be loosed covers his violet eyes with white cloth and greets with "I owe…

Siege term: the relief of a besieged fortress from outside.

Third rank of the Librarians, specialist in communication.

The limit in the reservation clause; for the Legio Servanda, a calculated loss probability of nought point four. People do not appear as a…

Fallen pardoned by Lion El'Jonson and taken into his personal following.

Artist or chronicler of the Great Crusade.

An administrative category of the forge worlds for a machine that is neither destroyed nor worn out but standing idle, because the release…

Company of the 331st Cadian formed from the former Whiteshields of Ederhaven, so called because they were there first; a hundred and ninety…

541.M41, by Alwe Sonneck; the origin of the ledger of the Abatement.

Rank above Adjutrix Secunda in Ordinat Vhess.

The name both of the interment ceremony and of the chamber in which the Iron Veins perform it, on the deepest level beneath Kel-Vantor.…

The place on Varanthos where Onnek cut the anchor-marks of the Alpha Legion.

Pre-Imperial machine intelligence akin to the Silica Animus complex, discovered in the Sixth Shaft of Kel-Vantor and destroyed there.

The only Astra Militarum regiment ever raised from the mining world Vandau — in 923.M41, after sixty years without a tithe. 2,400 men,…

The unit commander's signature on Form M-9; the countersignature is given by an officer not under his command.

What the chronicles of the Iron Veins call the incident.

Transfer point of the ore railways of Kel-Vantor. The Twelfth Cohort secured four of them during the attack on the south-west field —…

World in Nihilus space, cut off from the Imperium since the Great Rift; its only city is the hive Hollbrunn, on a salt dome amid a white…

Two-handed chainsword, carried among others by the Sororitas Repentia and by zealots.

Flagship of the Iron Veins.

The formal decree by which the Imperium declares a Chapter, a regiment or a world traitor.

The destruction of an entire planet.

Deputy ruler of a forge world.

M42. Cadia breaks apart. The Cicatrix Maledictum opens.

A Nurgle plague on Sordenval spreading through the groundwater; it takes the crops first, then the livestock, then the people. The cult…

Two lines at the foot of the form for the Last Service, in which the petitioner may name a person to be told once it is done. The sheet is…

Monastery-fortress of the Dark Angels, the remnant of Caliban.

Forge world and seat of the Legio Servanda. The unfinished tenth Warlord hall has stood there for four hundred years, because one joint…

"The Gorgon". Loyalist (fell at Isstvan V). Home world: Medusa.

Planet at a medieval stage of development.

Maxim of the Dragon Wardens. Fire is no image to them but a finding: the black basalt of Varanthos carries in its crystal structure the…

Salamanders successor Chapter with an especially close bond to the fire traditions of Nocturne. Named members include Captain Bre'kar,…

The writings of Tho'mar Vesh, first Chapter Master of the Dragon Wardens.

Fleet troopship that carried the 331st from the Halrik Gate to Ederhaven: nine ship-days, seven months by the calendar.

Gene-seed-bound thermal perception of the Dragon Wardens — heat as a sense of its own, not as a device. A term internal to the Chapter:…

Standard armour of the Imperial Guard.

The place of prayer of the Dragon Wardens' Chaplains; one stands in the fire, not before it.

Incendiary weapon.

Core doctrine of the Iron Hands.

The periodic Skitarii levy on the forge world Kadmus Secundus, every seven standard years, in which the priesthood deliberately picks the…

First signature and countersignature in the same hand. Unlike 9-a, a missing countersignature, and 9-b, a wrong date, 9-c raises no query…

Decommissioned coastal bastion of the fleet, on the only rise in the Ederhaven moor, with outwork, inner gate and gatehead after the…

The administrative act by which a unit is determined to continue or to have ceased. A negative finding strikes it from the pending roll,…

A term from the training code of the Iron Veins, in the section on conduct in a hopeless position: a brother who spends his life beyond…

What a manifold holds of someone who dies with the connection open and without the nine-hour rite of release: not a person but the last…

Light warship.

Holder of a Warrant of Trade: licensed to sail, trade and make war beyond the Imperium's borders.

The seven-day period for reflection before the Last Service is carried out, longer than the four days before a silence-cut, because the…

"The Phoenician". Traitor. Home world: Chemos.

Standard long arm of the Skitarii Rangers.

Tributary clan on Chogoris. A subject tribe.

Ork war machine of Titan size, larger than a Stompa.

Standing occupying force of a fortress or a planet.

Crew jargon for an alien consciousness, not consecrated as a Princeps, fed into a Titan's manifold through a secondary connection — to…

A ten-line prayer of the field chapels of Krieg, engraved on a bronze bulkhead door; the tenth line was added later.

The one word of Old Olympia's street speech that the Legion kept. It carries both the promise and the bookkeeping metaphor on which the…

The Dark Angels who fell on Caliban.

Strike cruiser of the Ember Watch.

Protective field against the warp during a warp jump.

A binding undertaking that a Templar force swears before a campaign and keeps for its duration — the Templars' equivalent of a combat…

Nurgle cult on Sordenval, grown out of a leader named Calder, "the Gardener", who recruited grieving survivors of a plague catastrophe. Its…

The legal consequence in a sealed precinct: if the deed is not cleared up within sixteen days, everyone present is jointly liable. The term…

The senior commanding rank of an Imperial Guard army.

The genetic inheritance of a Space Marine.

Unbound marked by the warp: arms too long, too many fingers, skin instead of eyes. The only ones among the veiled who are fast.

A warp-fed thing without sign, name or allegiance to any of the Four, which comes into being when a great number of people over a long time…

Aspirants struck from the list; they stay three levels deeper in the mountain and become the Returned.

The tenth line of the Prayer of Vraks.

Short sword of the Space Marines.

Fast reconnaissance vehicle.

Young Salamanders successor Chapter from the ash world Kaldrath. It carries the Nocturne marks only faintly: ash-grey skin, amber eyes.…

The killing of a hopelessly wounded brother by the Apothecary.

Chapter of the environs of Chainhold Thirty-Seven, bound up with the office of the Oathkeeper and with the rift the hold watches. Appears…

The life-sustaining device that holds the Emperor on Terra.

Religiously coloured term for a Titan in Mechanicus usage.

A border region with no inhabited world: a weak sun, seven rings of debris, thirty-nine buoys. A light cruiser of the Imperial Navy has…

Song of the 114th Grand Battalion; it outlived its regiment, and Cradle-1 sings it backwards.

As in the 41st Belthane Trench Rifles.

Skitarii tool and combat knife; it carries both uses, close quarters and engraving into the carapace.

A sixteen-metre trickling tower of blackthorn brushwood, over which brine runs and thickens. At Salzgrund below Hollbrunn it is works and…

The regular modification of a Skitarii, staged across decades — respiration, legs, pain conduction, eyes and noosphere, hands — in which…

Rimbert's home Chapter: the youngest brother on Kalthorn, and the only one who still means home when he names his Chapter.

The suspension fluid of a Dreadnought sarcophagus, in warders' jargon.

Affectionate by-name for Aschgrat among its inhabitants.

The smaller, weaker greenskin kind, in the service of the Orks. Short form: grot, plural grots.

Chamber militant of the Ordo Malleus, founded at the end of the Heresy from gene-seed said to have been taken from the Emperor himself — no…

Organisational level of the IV Legion (Heresy era).

The official name of the night on which the Kantor broke the Waaagh; Crypt Zero was consecrated as the Sanctum of the Answering.

Space Wolves: the equivalent of a company.

The Imperium's campaign of expansion under the Emperor. M28–M31.

Ore ramp up to the cathedral plateau of Kel-Vantor, four hundred metres wide and nine kilometres long, without traffic for forty years. It…

The Cicatrix Maledictum.

The hunting down of the Traitor Legions after the Heresy.

High title, used only for the Primarch.

The name for Jaghatai Khan himself.

Obsolete, very large ship class.

The new warp rift (M42) that splits the galaxy in two.

Commands one of the eight brotherhoods of the Grey Knights. Eight equals under the Supreme Grand Master — not captains in the Codex sense.

Numbered brass disc of the mining world Vandau, one to a miner, without a name. It hangs on the board of the pithead house while the man is…

The Kantor's chamber beneath Cauldron Nine.

A word of three tribes of Varanthos for a fire that burns so deep you notice it only when everything above is dead.

The Adeptus Custodes' weapon: a bladed spear with a bolter in the haft.

Ritual chamber on Kel-Vantor, two levels above Severance Hall Nine and rather more dignified, where the Last Duty is performed — with an…

A passage 120 metres long in the Chapter fortress on Ankerfels, both long walls made entirely of wall-stones set into them — 612 of them,…

Industrial world; a rising in the supply tunnels, around 925.M41. Three regiments failed there underground before the First Vandauer Shaft…

What the children of Kasr Halrik call the four-metre triangle to the left of the gatehead that no embrasure reaches, and the drainage…

The larger land gate of Kasr Halrik, through which the 331st embarked; the Kasrkin under Sergeant Runa Kalvek held it as rearguard.

Imperial world of wide moor and fen country; the Zobelmark campaign area lies on it. Seat of administration and supply head: Halvern East.

Alters the blood.

A rule of the Fire Wardens during the siege of Hollbrunn, from the fourteenth day: for anyone coming up the salt path, the leaf of Gate…

The cultists' name for a psychic warning net of stretched warp threads linking several ritual circles; it has hearing-knots through which…

The Aeldari troupes of Cegorach, who fight as they dance.

Rank of the Commissariat; here, Ilya Voss of the 77th Belisarian Line Regiment.

Commander of a company (100 men). In Horus Heresy: Praetor or Centurion for a company commander.

Company commander in the Imperial Guard.

Warband of heretic Astartes without heraldry or colour, which supplies written-off Imperial worlds and, on leaving, takes one inhabitant in…

The rank-and-file warriors of a kindred.

A religious name, used above all by ordinary people.

A spiritual place of cleansing.

Heavier lasgun of the Kasrkin and the Tempestus Scions, with an external power pack on the belt and a cable.

Astra Militarum flame tank on the Chimera chassis, with an inferno cannon and a promethium tank.

A piece of charcoal the size of a finger joint from the Chapter hearth on Kaldrath, which every brother of the Ember Watch receives at…

Records which gland a brother comes from, and from which brother a gland was harvested. Not to be confused with the intake book.

The Oil-Hands' form of address for Cradle-4. Not a rank but a form used in the house — "Lord" carries the deference, where "Master" would…

Bodyguard at the Golden Throne.

A psyker of a Traitor Legion who knowingly draws power from the warp.

Warp-craft worked outside Imperial sanction; in Imperial eyes always a crime.

A classification of an astropathic reception that is recorded and goes no further. Filed formally correctly, with no recipient, no term, no…

The official language of the Imperium, used by officials, the nobility and the Ecclesiarchy and in high-level negotiations. It is uniform…

Head of the Black Templars. Stands where a Chapter Master would; the Chapter does not use that title.

Hive on Eschenwerth, some 1.4 million inhabitants, grown rich on salt; the upper city on the salt dome behind the ring, the lower city…

Chaos Dreadnought grown together with the warp.

A shaft that siege engineers sink at intervals behind a wall, to hear mining work. It hears sapping and digging columns too. Among the Wall…

A rank particular to the Shadow Wings, between Sergeant and battle-brother, specialising in reconnaissance and interception — a function no…

A station that takes in astropathic messages and passes them on, so a report carries further than a single choir can send it.

Not a place but a procedure with a shell around it. "To report is not to send. To report is to write down." — Astropath Ruve Alant.

A small office of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica in an administrative seat — a few heads, one floor, reception and forwarding for one world.…

By-name of the Third Company of the Shadow Wings, specialists in reconnaissance, interception and the assessment of what the Invisible…

"The Warmaster". Traitor. Home world: Cthonia.

The civil war under Horus, around M31.

Xenos whose very proximity generates entropy fields, and with them accelerated ageing.

An office created on Candelis after the Trial of the Wax.

Hybrids in whom the Genestealer inheritance runs riot: claws and sickles instead of hands.

Industrial world in the Ereshkan Sector, not a hive: 90 million people in four conurbations and a wide interior, five months of frost.…

The metaphysical, religious, scholarly or philosophical register for the warp.

Imperial world, lost to scattered Orks in 936.M41. The Ember Watch cleared 412,000 people out of the residential levels in eleven days,…

Sororitas flame tank on the Rhino chassis.

The Emperor of Mankind, enthroned and undying on Terra.

The largest regular class of Titan, a walking fortress with a crew-city of its own. Very rare.

The Imperium's fleet arm: warships, crews and the war in the void.

The mass of the Imperium's ground forces. Newer name: Astra Militarum.

Single-seat war machine of a Knight Household, markedly smaller than a Titan and not subordinate to one.

Humanity's galactic state; the short form of Imperium of Man.

Humanity's dominion over the galaxy, ruled by the God-Emperor on the Golden Throne on Terra.

Consecrated flame weapon of the Grey Knights.

Bodyguards and hired killers of the Drukhari in black armour — bought, and feared. Plural.

Guilliman's crusade with the Primaris Space Marines.

A full brother of the Black Templars — the reverse of the general entry, where an Initiate is an aspirant. Among the Templars the aspirant…

The circle within the Dark Angels that knows the secret of the Fallen.

The Imperium's secret police and investigative authority.

A role among the Grey Knights: jump assault by personal teleporter.

Chaplain of the Dark Angels who interrogates the Fallen.

A Chapter in its own right. Attested so far only: yellow and black armour, and the by-name Vel-Breaker.

Thinking machines of the Leagues of Votann. Within a kindred they count as members, not as tools.

Fifth planet of the Isstvan system; the site of the betrayal of the loyal Legions — among them Salamanders, Iron Hands and Raven Guard — at…

Round assembly room aboard the Eternal Sky, with the silvered skulls of slain enemies on its walls.

"The Warhawk". Loyalist. Home world: Chogoris / Mundus Planus.

Squad leader of the Grey Knights, standing where a Sergeant would.

Veteran fire warrior who leads a cadre's shooting rather than taking to a battlesuit.

A word of the country people of Kessareth, in the Riedmoor dialect, for embers that live on beneath ash; the by-name Riedmoor gave to a…

Dessin Aulor's first formation, three decades before Drennhold.

Leader of an oathband.

Chapter world of the Ember Watch; volcanic, with ash falling three hundred days in the year.

Ship of the Ash Sons.

The Apothecary's chilled plasteel container for harvested progenoid glands, a forearm long, with twenty etched and numbered compartments in…

The interment chamber of the Iron Veins on Kel-Vantor.

A ship's log of engagements. The Unwavering carries eleven entries in a hundred and ninety years, nine of them pirates under a thousand…

Sewer conduit in the northern sector of Kypros Primus, and the only unguarded way in.

Binary battle-hymns of the Mechanicus.

Machine intelligence of Karsis-Vor.

Commander of a ship — distinct from a Space Marine Captain.

Not a personal name but a title of rebel leadership handed down over generations on Morthis IV; its bearers carry a tattooed generation…

Civilians of the evacuation columns, in the soldiers' speech of Maniple Theta.

Cadian fortress cities, and their elite troops.

Fortress city on a bay of the eastern coast of Cadia Secundus, with a land gate and a water gate; home of the 331st Cadian.

Fortress on the Cadian pattern on the high plateau of Orlach, built from slag and rockcrete out of memory by some twenty thousand harvested…

Robot of the Legio Cybernetica, directed by a Datasmith through a behaviour punch-card.

Among the Black Templars, the commander of part of a crusade or of a captured fortress; among the Grey Knights, a command rank. One word,…

Implant that lowers a Skitarius's need for sleep to two hours.

Replaces sleep.

The miners' lodge: changing room and assembly room at the shaft. On Vandau the board hangs there.

The Shadow Wings do not merely conceal themselves in the field; they have their operations removed afterwards from official Imperial…

Law of the Golden Wall. The single centimetre returns as an image: we hold one centimetre.

Forge moon in the Aschtor system, seat of a Mechanicus cohort and of ancient, partly pre-Imperial shafts. Pact partner of the Iron Veins…

Frigate of the Lost, with yard markings from before the Heresy; some nineteen thousand people aboard.

The concreted cellar of the Sinter-Two works, burnt out in 604.M41 and from 814.M41 the regimental staff quarters of the 41st Belthane…

Service tag with a designation. Anyone appearing in the works without one is noticed at once, and often not stopped even so.

Seat of the Fabricator Locum on Karsis-Vor.

Elite guard of the Primarch among the White Scars. From the Mongolian for "guard".

Agricultural world with a pre-industrial population in the moorland around the village of Riedmoor; the crash site of a Space Marine…

Sealed shaft zone on the southern continent of Karsis-Vor; Crypt Zero lies beneath it.

The orally transmitted fundamental law of the Dragon Wardens, passed from captain to captain and Chaplain to Chaplain since the first…

Ash world, recruiting ground of the Ash Sons for one hundred and twenty years.

Mountain range in the east of Varanthos; at its foot, the gate of the Dragon Wardens.

As a chainsword, but in axe form.

Heretical workers' rising in the hive of Drennhold on the hive world Kaethar, grown out of a rebellion of the smelting-works labourers…

The fortified main sector of the great wall of Ossil — the shared garrison of the Fire Wardens of Nocturne and their allied Chapter the…

Frontier fortress of the Golden Wall on Ossilar, one of thirty-seven along the Nihilus border worlds.

Blade with motorised chain teeth.

The rotating garrison duty the Fire Wardens of Nocturne perform at the Chainkeep under their long-standing pact with the Golden Wall — seen…

One who offends against the Imperial faith.

Betrayal of the Imperium or the Emperor.

The official Games Workshop term for Chaos Space Marines (8th and 9th edition).

Tribal leader and company commander of the White Scars. From the Mongolian for "ruler".

Female honorific among the White Scars.

Six-barrelled armament of the Contemptor Dreadnought (Heresy era).

Smaller Ork walker with a Gretchin built into it.

The name under which ordinary Guardsmen speak of the Shadow Wings, having no leave to name them.

Chaos cult on Ossilar around Perrin Auck, used twenty-two years after the Great Rift by the Dark Apostle Nehmoth for a ritual at the second…

A conglomerate of the Votann — clan, fleet and mining network in one.

A clan company of the Iron Hands.

The Iron Hands' name for a company; each is a clan in its own right.

Squad equivalent of the VIII Legion; its leader is a Claw Leader.

The mark of office of a Chaplain of the Dragon Wardens.

The equivalent of a computer.

Administrative and military formation of the Adeptus Mechanicus on a forge world or forge moon; it commands Skitarii maniples, priesthood…

Infernus cohort of the Salamanders under Sergeant Kha'el.

An administrative office on Kel-Vantor; where you go when a relative has become a case.

Political officer; enforces morale in the Imperial Guard.

Battlegroup commander, between Captain and Admiral.

Sub-unit of a Chapter. 100 Space Marines make one company.

Preaching rank of the Ecclesiarchy.

The faction of the Votann kindreds — descendants of ancient human colonists on the galactic rim, who venerate their ancestor cores.

"The Night Haunter". Traitor. Home world: Nostramo.

Specialist officer (Consul-Chaplain, Consul-Librarius and so on).

Where full conversion is carried out on Kel-Vantor. Unlike Severance Hall Nine and the Hall of Last Duty, it knows neither term nor…

The list of names of the living population of Ombrist, kept by the tithe scribe.

The name given by Imperial Navigators to an artificially shaped warp storm in the Mordacis Sector, which served as cover for a daemonic…

Fortified garrison settlement on Perdyns Fall.

Aeldari who live neither on a craftworld nor in Commorragh but in fleets of their own. Pirates, mercenaries, both.

Reinforced gauntlet sheathed in an energy field.

Standard armour of the Space Marines. Marks run from Mk I to Mk X Primaris.

Blade sheathed in an energy field.

Medium warship.

The Black Templars' formation in place of a company: a battle fleet operating on its own under a Marshal, often for centuries. The Chapter…

Black Templars crusade under Marshal Ehrenfried, some nine hundred brothers. The setting of the cleansing of Vhelsa in 936.M41.

Chaos Space Marines: a loose fighting grouping.

Horus bore the title of Warmaster — he was supreme commander of the Great Crusade.

The Aeldari aspect paths.

Engineer-specialist and the most senior field commander of the Iron Warriors, the IV Legion.

The Chaplain's weapon of office, the crozius arcanum.

By-name of Vhalen Sorr, a trader on level thirty-seven.

By-name of Xhoren Vaal: the man who puts out the lamps after the mass.

The people of the Leagues of Votann, in their own speech.

Heavy tank and transport.

Second Munitorum depot, twelve kilometres out across the Ederhaven moor, set up after the first night because nothing was stored in one…

Orbital landing capsule.

Gatehead after the Munitorum handbook at the landward end of the Ederhaven mole, and the only way in. Opened from inside during the…

A brother's fixed-term secondment to the Deathwatch.

A channel of basalt blocks forty paces long between the Valdek settlement and the river on Varanthos, with a fire-place at each end and…

Flagship of the Household, named for the table that runs through two halls of its crew deck, at which never all the places are taken and…

The Adeptus Custodes' term for the interment of a Custodian in a Dreadnought. Performed eleven times in ten thousand years; Andokar is the…

Clots the blood on injury.

Standard rifle of the Imperial Guard.

High-energy laser weapon against vehicles.

The Wall Brothers' procedure on taking up a position, across three days. On the first, each brother walks the line alone and keeps what he…

By-name of Chapter Master Auren Drak-Soln.

Envoy of a Primarch; a senior rank.

Titan Legion of the forge world Ferrun. Doctrine of machine preservation: it fields seventeen machines of the Warlord class, has built two…

The twenty original Space Marine Legions of the Great Crusade.

An Enginseer apprenticeship on Kel-Vantor.

"The King of Fenris". Loyalist. Home world: Fenris.

A voluntary rite of servitor conversion for exhausted or mortally ill Mechanicus servants who choose usefulness once more instead of an…

Deputy company commander (introduced in 8th edition).

Platoon commander.

The Imperial code of law, which the Arbites enforce.

The lowest official Librarian rank. Plural: Lexicani.

Electrostatic weapons, particularly effective against vehicles.

Unarmed converts of the Witnesses of the Wound who walk ahead of the attackers towards the defenders with candles, lanterns and torches,…

A single kindred-realm of the Leagues of Votann.

"The Lion". Loyalist. Home world: Caliban.

The liturgical text the Tech-Priests speak during the silence-cut. Its guiding line: "What is silent can no longer lie. What no longer…

Liturgy for the dying, called out by the field preachers of the Death Korps of Krieg in the shadow of the wall.

Prayer of the wounded in positional warfare; prayed from a machine-gun nest in the Badab War.

Gorrath's only word in sixty years; the counterpart to the Litany of the Second Breath.

The prayer the Iron Veins' Chaplain speaks only at a brother's first interment, never at the renewal of an existing Venerable. Counterpart…

The highest fleet rank in a segmentum.

The commander of an Imperial Guard army group.

The senior commissar.

"The Apostle". Traitor. Home world: Colchis.

Black Legion warband under Ischyron, some forty Astartes with the strike cruiser Absolvo. After the fall of Cadia their task is not a…

Ischyron's rite in three sentences: "The oath was bound to a wall. The wall is gone. The bond is loosed." Afterwards the door stands open;…

Improves the sense of balance.

"The year 882.M30" means 882 in the 30th millennium.

Belisarius Cawl's addition to the gene-seed, which makes Primaris Marines larger and stronger than Astartes of the older pattern.

"The One-Eyed". Traitor. Home world: Prospero.

War-making Magos, commander of Skitarii and Cybernetica formations.

The psychic seducer of a Genestealer Cult. The Magus wins people where the Primus leads them.

Battalion commander.

Vast ship's gun for orbital bombardment.

Manufactorum district on Karsis-Vor; Tavo Kyrr's home.

The point at which a ship enters or leaves the warp.

The linked field of perception and will formed by a Titan's crew and its machine spirit. It also carries the stored personalities of…

Tactical formation of the Skitarii and the Cult Mechanicus.

Pre-Great Crusade. Very primitive.

Early Heresy era. Piping and external systems on show; characteristically, external ventilation ducts. Above all the Luna Wolves.

Heresy. Frontal reinforcement for siege work. "Boarding Armour". Favoured by the Iron Warriors and the Imperial Fists.

Heresy. The first fully modern power armour. Popular with the White Scars.

Wartime emergency armour, assembled from parts of different marks. "Studded Armour" — the studs are repair patches, not styling.

Late Heresy. Beaked helm, a Raven Guard design — the "beaky". Popular and long-lived into the 41st millennium.

Post-Heresy. Iconic for 40k. Eagle on the breastplate. The standard armour of the 41st millennium.

Rarer. Reinforced gorget.

Primaris Space Marines. Stronger than Mk VII. Two variants: Tacticus (mobile) and Gravis (heavy, ponderous).

On Vandau, the man at the board who issues the pit tallies and takes them back. An office, not a rank.

Remote world in the Ereshkan Sector, four years without a report. Seat of a listening post in the administrative seat, and of the Grauhorst…

Leads a Black Templars crusade, standing where a Captain would.

An AI-like entity within machines and ships.

Ordinary real space.

Maxim of the Golden Wall: an outward collapse is the consequence of an inward one, not its cause. For that the Chapter has kept an empty…

Colloquial short form for the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Tech-Priest order of Mars.

Tentacle-like technical limbs.

A second lung for toxic atmospheres.

The highest station a mortal of the Mechanicus holds on a Chapter world.

Individually crafted, high-grade power armour.

Ork engineer; a Big Mek runs the larger works.

Absorbs radiation.

Daemon prince of Chaos Undivided; he works by arrangement and by calculating the enemy's reaction in advance, rather than by brute force.…

The fighting orders of the Adepta Sororitas — as distinct from those that nurse, teach or do penance.

Neural connection between crew and machine, in Titans usually through sockets at the neck.

Loss-free, warp-shielded storage for extracted memory sequences.

Officers in a Titan's head who work the weapons, the secondary systems and the laying of fire; subordinate to the Princeps. Singular:…

A raised causeway four kilometres long from the land gate across the sound to the harbour island of Ederhaven: two lanes, a passing place…

Humanity of the Dark Age of Technology, as the Kantor sees it.

"The Reaper". Traitor. Home world: Barbarus.

Agricultural world in the Mordacis Sector, twice forgotten by the Imperium: first some six hundred years before Campaign 47 of the Great…

Space Marine assault bike. The White Scars use them especially heavily.

Sweat-gland implant; protection against vacuum.

The supply department of the Imperial Guard.

Oath formula of the Iron Veins: "By the ash of the Mother Volcano."

The psychic and cognitive residue that contact with the First Warden leaves in survivors; it shows as intrusive fragments of whispering and…

High feast of Candelis, in memory of the Blinding Darkness.

By-name of Konrad Curze.

Legionaries of the Eighth as Candelis sees them. In the singular the same German word means the Primarch, the Night Haunter; both forms…

Frideger's home Chapter; on Kalthorn he keeps the chapel, though he is no Chaplain.

A list of the materials administration of Kel-Vantor, of gravely wounded Skitarii whose repair is estimated dearer than their replacement.…

Every fifty years the ledger of the Abatement is not carried forward but checked backwards: from the current line to the First Entry,…

Struck from the records. Name unknown.

Likewise removed from all records.

The Apothecary's medical arm device.

A psyker who steers ships through the warp.

The undying skeletal machine race of an elder empire, roused from sixty million years of dormancy.

Grey Knights exoskeleton with a LIVING knight inside it, standing upright at the controls. Not a Dreadnought: no sarcophagus, no dying man.

The heavy Nemesis weapon of the Grey Knights.

The most common Nemesis weapon of the Grey Knights.

Collective term for the weapons of the Grey Knights: halberd, sword, falchions, wardstave and daemon hammer. Not merely a power sword but…

A Space Marine in training, before reaching Scout status.

Later hybrid generations, outwardly almost human — the part of the cult that can wear a uniform and serve in a militia.

The Aeldari network of ways between the worlds, outside the warp and older than the Imperium.

Village in the forest belt of Varanthos, home of Eskil and Halvard. The villages of Varanthos are named to a pattern — a numeral and a…

A divergent form of the aquila with nine flight feathers instead of seven, ordered on Vhelsa in 622.M41 because nine was the number of the…

Analyses by taste.

The Onager's main weapon option.

The maxim of the Fire Wardens of Nocturne. Without ever naming it, it refers to the forbidden Vulkan research — a series of studies into…

The Adeptus Astra Telepathica's file formula giving the ground for an astropath's unbinding. It bears no relation to fault: it is a…

Not an official term but one commissar's word for the decision to omit an execution required by standing instruction. The Commissariat has…

The everyday language of the Imperium's common people: a simplified form of Imperial Gothic that has broken up into countless dialects. It…

The creole of the void-born, passed from ship to ship and taught by the mothers. Not a prayer — but one sentence of it is said in every…

The half of the galaxy cut off from the Astronomican. Also "Nihilus space" in prose; the full canon name remains the main form.

A senior, physically larger Ork; a sub-leader under a Warboss. Plural: Nobz.

The Mechanicus data-sphere.

Works site on Ilmen with the four lift towers to Anchorage Two: eleven kilometres without a single fortification, because in a hundred and…

Mountain range on Kaldrath; the origin of many of the Ember Watch's aspirants.

The adjective form of Nostramo.

A Space Marine in training.

A postulant of a Sororitas order, not yet received.

Senior Khan; overall commander of an entire White Scars expedition.

Home world of the World Eaters; a gladiator world, from which the Primarch Angron came as a slave-fighter.

Energy screen that shunts incoming fire into the warp — the standard protection of Titans, war engines, starships and fortresses.

Regimental commander.

Head of the Grey Knights. The Chapter has no Chapter Master.

Rank between Major and Colonel in the Astra Militarum; leads a regiment when no Colonel is confirmed.

A second, empty fire-place in a house on Varanthos, kept for a family member taken at a Counting and unheard of since. Wood is never laid…

A Black Templars crusade oath that a brother has sworn with the rest and that can be neither fulfilled nor withdrawn, because the man in…

The Imperium's assassin organisation.

Improves night vision.

Hereditary line of mortal warders to a Dreadnought; keepers of the Protocol.

Forge world beyond the last confirmed relay, under the Lord of the Lower Ring rather than the Imperium since 541.M41. The forging never…

The deity of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Takes memory in by eating flesh.

Four-legged walking gun platform.

Detoxification.

Twelve kilometres of lift tube between Skara and the Chainkeep; in the workers' mouths, the Ladder.

Sensor station above Candelis, extinguished in the first hour of the night.

The standing formation of the Space Marines since the Second Founding, roughly a thousand strong. Before the Heresy: a Legion.

Sororitas order on the shrine world Candelis; it keeps the Wax Service.

The Chapter Master's personal fighter.

A human in the service of a Space Marine Chapter: the fortress-monastery, the workshop, the armoury and the apothecarion are run by them.…

The headquarters of a Space Marine Chapter: monastery, fortress and workshop at once.

The closed vox channel of a Chapter, on which only its own brothers speak.

The highest rank of a Space Marine Chapter.

Leads the rites, holds morale, guards the faith. Wears black armour and carries the crozius arcanum. The Iron Hands' equivalent is the Iron…

The Chapter's rule, divided into parts and expressly not numbered — a Chapter that numbers its rule has questioned it once. It justifies…

Munitorum reconciliation chancery at the collection point Gethsemar; it reconciles loss returns and requisitions for several hundred…

Munitorum reconciliation chancery in high orbit above Belthane. For more than two hundred years it has been auditing campaigns already…

The Ordo of the Inquisition responsible for daemons. Not to be confused with Malleus East, a manufactorum district on Karsis-Vor.

The Ordo of the Inquisition responsible for alien peoples.

Chogorian for "host" or "army". Of Mongolian origin, whence the English "horde".

Style rule: Ork terms keep their deliberately faulty spelling — Boyz, Trukk, Deff, Killa, Kustom — and are neither corrected nor…

The greenskin warrior species: they grow from spores, live for war, and grow stronger by winning.

Dead mining world in the shadow of the Great Rift at the edge of Nihilus space: slag heaps, pits of standing water, leaning winding towers,…

Home world of the Golden Wall, written throughout as Ossilar: a bare frontier world under manufactorum smoke and mining dust, with a single…

Strengthens the bones.

Part of the Inner Palace on Terra; beneath it the fourth chamber and the three halls of the embedded.

World in the Ereshkan Sector, home world of the Third Ostrau Barrier Rifles. It lay two centuries under cordon itself.

Sector of the trench line of the 41st Belthane Trench Rifles in the Zobelmark; the setting of the breakthrough attempt on the 12th day of…

A workshop method of the Fire Wardens of Nocturne: two parts are not each made to standard measure but made oversize and ground against one…

Warlord Titan of the Legio Servanda; the oldest attested record runs seven thousand nine hundred years. The name means "the iron compact".…

The Ork "surgeon"; performs amputations and rebuilds.

Veteran of the Grey Knights, as a rule in Terminator armour.

The primal Genestealer of a cult, from which every hybrid descends. It directs the cult through the shared mind.

"The Lord of Iron". Traitor. Home world: Olympia.

Immortal leaders of the Aeldari Aspect Warriors — Asurmen, Jain Zar, Fuegan and others; their armour is worn by successor after successor.…

The ruler of a world installed by the Imperium.

The heaviest plasma armament of the Titan classes; a great draw on the reactor, and a great risk to the machine that carries it.

Plasma rifle, dangerous to its bearer for its tendency to overheat.

The energy heart of a Titan or a starship. In Titan prose often two reactors in the hull; their start-up note is a recurring motif.

Structural material of the Imperium: steel and plastics fused, light and very strong.

The Legion equivalent of a Captain or Chapter Master.

The stronghold of the Adeptus Arbites in a precinct: court, barracks, prison and archive in one building.

The Arbites fortress on Vhassel. For forty years it has held a constant eleven degrees, and nobody remembers any more how to turn it off.…

Neutralises poison.

The Emperor's gene-wrought sons, and the commanders of the Legions.

The war-leader of a Genestealer Cult; the Primus commands where Patriarch and Magus direct.

Commander of a Titan, joined to the machine by an MIU and usually housed in an amniotic tank. Latin: "the first".

Leading Princeps of a Titan formation, commanding the assigned Titans besides their own machine.

The senior Princeps within a Legio, below the Princeps Maior.

Honorific of the senior imprint in the manifold of a Legio Servanda Titan; not a rank among the living.

Commander of a convent of the Adepta Sororitas.

The 18th organ. Two glands — one in the throat, one in the chest — that store gene-seed.

The Grey Knights' college of augurs; it chooses the Chapter's candidates from across the galaxy.

Arbites rank below the Arbitrator; responsible for cells, rations and keys.

The unaugmented civil population of a forge world; their own name for themselves.

Imperial collective term for fuels and propellants, among them flamer fuel. Not the chemical element of the same name.

The Oil-Hands' handwritten duty book, carried on across twenty-one generations: at the front the inspection entries for the sarcophagus of…

Rapid-fire weapon of the Grey Knights, especially effective against daemons.

A power drawn from the warp and worked by a psyker.

Psychic gun of the Grey Knights, against daemons and armour.

A human with psychic ability.

Soldiers' speech in the 41st Belthane Trench Rifles for the Munitorum chain-haulers of the Halvern East line, order 41-B. For five years…

A role among the Grey Knights: bearer of the heavy psychic weapons.

A brother of the purest degree among the Grey Knights — a role, not a rank. The Purifiers form a body of their own and are NOT a ninth…

The street grid of the Lower Ring: Cross Street three to twelve.

Irradiating short arm of the Skitarii Vanguard; hits leave radiation burns.

Man-portable missile launcher.

Chaos warrior with a jump pack; among the VIII Legion, a specialist in terror.

Unofficial name for the choir of imprints in a Titan's manifold — the stored consciousness-imprints of earlier Princeps, which a serving…

Some 40,000 of the planetary defence force of the mining world Rauhgrat, three jumps from Eschenwerth, who follow the Witnesses of the…

The Astra Militarum or Administratum office that runs a population clearance: timetable, lists, tonnage, deadlines. The clearance quota is…

A drifting agglomeration of wrecked ships.

Middle Titan class, more mobile than a Warlord and often deployed to cover its flanks.

Not a thinking machine: it does not calculate, it keeps. One click for an entry, two for a change.

The Apothecary's surgical tool for harvesting progenoid glands.

The second conurbation of Ilmen, 6.2 million people. Occupied in 985.M41 and afterwards held without a cordon: trams to timetable, water in…

Statute 7 governs the severance of the contaminated.

Examination of an astropath whose reception count exceeds three times the choir mean within twelve months; conducted by an examiner from…

Genestealers of the unmixed strain — the cult's shock troops, and the form the Patriarch shares.

The sacral quarter of a Chapter within the fortress-monastery — the Chaplains' domain, and the place of relics, the Chapter archive and the…

The Fire Wardens of Nocturne's own archive, never catalogued by the Adeptus Terra; every Chaplain is given access at elevation and adds…

Hall of the Venerable in the Smelting Cathedral on Aschgrat.

Maintenance cavern of the priesthood on Kel-Vantor, a thousand metres below the surface.

A Chapter that has renounced the Imperium without thereby serving Chaos. The distinction matters to the story.

Penitents of the Sororitas. Their overseer is the Repentia Superior, who carries the lash.

After the breaking of the great Waaagh, scattered smaller raiding parties still operating in the Aschtor system and those adjoining, mostly…

The Space Marines' standard transport.

Moor village on Kessareth, thirty-nine inhabitants; where the Space Marine "Kadhun" was found, and for a time home.

The old city wall of Hollbrunn: eleven kilometres round, fourteen metres high, cut from the salt stone of the dome, with three gates down…

Skitarii conversion on Kadmus Secundus: seventeen procedures across forty days.

Honorific among the Purifiers of the Grey Knights.

The noble line of a knight world, passing its machines down the generations.

A Primarch's personal adjutant.

Part of the Vigil of the Venerable; closed to Astartes.

A formal Mechanicus procedure on Kel-Vantor that cognitively severs a mortal classed as contaminated and turns him into a servitor. It…

"The Proconsul". Loyalist. Home world: Macragge.

"The Praetorian". Loyalist. Home world: Inwit.

Deathwatch operational unit, traditionally six brothers.

Ahriman's spell, which halted the mutation of the Thousand Sons — and in exchange turned every non-psychic brother to dust in empty armour.

What remained of the Thousand Sons after the Rubric: armour full of dust, without a consciousness of its own, obeying only a sorcerer's…

The backwards check of the ledger during the recount.

The Shadow Wings' annual ceremony of silence, formerly the Cry of Corax: one hour of complete darkness and stillness. Held turned towards…

Aeldari psyker who guides a craftworld by reading the paths of the future.

The Ork who drives and oversees the Gretchin gangs.

Chogorian for "forgiveness in battle, or in death". A penitent formation of the White Scars, atoning for failure.

Lower city of Hollbrunn on the brine plain, some 90,000 salt-boilers, with graduation towers, boiling houses and the trickle canal;…

A vault of salt stone beneath the wall-walk of Gate Two in Hollbrunn: for twelve hundred years the salt store, empty since the Rift, and…

Tent city below Fort Ederhaven, where the Munitorum gathered the remnants of Cadian regiments; some forty thousand people before the rising.

"The Winged One". Loyalist. Home world: Baal.

The Blood Angels' equivalent of the Apothecary.

Ritual deck of the Chalice of Revelation, and the place of the sacrifices.

The life-sustaining core of a Dreadnought; "the cradle" in the internal jargon of the IV Legion.

A floating human skull fitted with implanted devices.

An empty room in Castellum Primum: no altar, no symbol, only smooth, unadorned stone. Brothers seek it out in the rare years between…

T'au battlesuits fitted for concealment, used to open an engagement from cover.

Raven Guard successor Chapter of the Second Founding (around M31), founded by Captain-Legate Saren Vel'koss after surviving Isstvan V. Home…

The flagship class of the Space Marines.

Neural combat implants of the World Eaters. They raise aggression and deaden pain, cut deeper into the bearer's mind with every battle, and…

The heaviest warship of an Imperial fleet. A single one is a strategic decision, not a unit.

Place of penance below the fortress on Kaldrath: ninety days breaking slag from the smelting furnaces.

By-name of Cradle-4, lower case. Capitalised in the title: The Sleeper of Olympia.

Company of the Golden Wall; its doctrine is the counter-attack.

Heat weapon; melts armour.

Chapter fortress of the Iron Veins on Aschgrat, half cut into the rock and half cast from ore.

As in Smelting Cohort Four.

Chronic lung disease — scarring of the alveoli, calcification of the bronchi — among the servants of Kel-Vantor after decades of…

Production world of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

The Imperium's school for orphans and foundlings, often the children of fallen Imperial servants; it trains commissars, staff officers and…

A world administered by the Ecclesiarchy, and a place of pilgrimage.

The collective psychic gestalt that binds a Genestealer Cult to its Patriarch.

Planet of vast megacities.

The Aeldari repository of forbidden knowledge, hidden within the webway. Not to be confused with the publisher Black Library.

Unofficial archives maintained by the Mechanicus for suppressed or forbidden knowledge; usually disguised as abandoned industrial plants…

The last implant; it makes the connection to power armour possible.

An Astartes with no provable Chapter allegiance who serves in the Deathwatch.

Informal network of runners, information dealers and deserters at the rail ring, which sets the official casualty lists against front…