Arminius Uremedes

"'I enact my master's will, I am he who bars the gate.'"Arminius Uremedes, known as Gatemarshal Arminius among the byzantine hierarchies of the Adeptus Custodes, is Captain-Commander and Shipmaster of the Cathedral Terra. Within the annals of Imperial history, scant few instances of the existence of Arminius and his warriors can be pieced together amidst the wrack and ruin of Imperial History. Keen observation by the Administratum Historographers documenting the movement of the Custodes fleets have noted that Arminius spends little time on Terra itself, his ship hardly ever at anchor. His periodic arrivals remain under the highest secrecy, and all nearby orbital traffic is stopped to give him passage directly down to the surface installations of the Imperial Dungeons within the palace itself.

To the greater galaxy, Arminius represents the archetype of his order. Stoic, watchful, merciful as needed, feted utterly to duty, and incorruptible such that even the darkest whisper is cast from his mind with contempt. For all his virtues, those few who knew him in ages long past know of how his duty has changed him; ruthless, untrusting of any outside the order. A jailer without peer, Arminius has scoured countless worlds full of treachery and taint to find his targets and drag them screaming back to the Dark Cells in chains of ancient chronometric science.

History
In the deep archives of the Imperial Household, fragments of Arminius' past lie for the order to see. A proffered noble child of a dynastic line long dead amidst the vellum strata of Terra. A rigorous tuition, punishing regimes of tests and examinations, and a deluge of psycho-indoctrinated information that would break the minds of lesser men. Emerging from that crucible came a Custodian of rare make.

Ascension to the order coincided with the growing power of the Ecclesiarchy upon Terra, and the spread of new cults and vying orders all reaching for the power of religious prominence. His early years were spent in subterfuge and infiltration behind Falsehood to place himself into burgeoning cults where several notable religious leaders of the time such as Deacon Blackfire, Arch-Prelate Munorus, and the Preacher of True Emperor were assassinated. He vanishes again from Imperial Record once more at the tail end of the Dreghood Uprising and the reveal of their true nature as a chaos cult.

Some time later, Arminius appears briefly amidst the Dread Host during the Year of Ghosts in 831.M33, and vanishes once again into the arcane mysteries of the Custodes victory scrolls. Fragments of said to record the tale of worlds with no name host to a nightmare beyond comprehension, a blighted remnant of Old Night warded by screaming beacons of human dialect rendered ancient and unintelligible long before the Imperium had risen. A whirling maelstrom of star-spawned plagues and nightmare flesh bent on consuming all in their path. Void-parasites of such scale and hideous reach that they could not truly be bested even in exterminatus. Upon the costly defeat, five keys were turned and a codex authored, a watch-lock of such dread provenance, that it was born back to Terra where Arminius and his chamber immediately took the colours of the Shadowkeepers where they stood a watchful guard for many long millennia.

Brief mentions appear during the Age of Apostasy, as the Inquisition upon Terra split into varied factions in the wake of Goge Vandire's Reign of Blood. Certain radical factions, desperate for advantages and having pieced together fragments of knowledge made an attempt to breach the Black Cells. Unrest and psychic pressure permeated the prison, and many bound entities strained at their bonds. Maddened by the powers bound down in the depths, an Inquisitor, a Psyker of some power, made to disarm the locks, compelled to breach it by malign powers. In one last attempt, Arminius made to sway him from his path. He succeeded, only to be forced to eliminate his retinue mercilessly.

In mid M37, Arminius is found noted within the Household Archives as Lockwarden of the Dark Cells; his appointment lasted for approximately one hundred and seventeen years, after which point, his successor steps in, and he assumes mastery of the Cathedral Terra. As quiet as his appointment was, so was his departure from Terra for some time. The moment of release from the orbital docks coincided with a flicker in the Astronomican that lasted for but an instant. But dark times were foretold as keys turned in deep vaults and darkness was bound up forever more, with foreboding premonitions insinuating more to come.

Arminius' presence within Imperial Archives solidifies during the Khornate Invasion of Terra, when he was present at the Defense of the Genysi Vault and later surface installation battles to push back Khornate madness where it sprung up. In particular, Arminius and his forces committed themselves to the most warp saturated of sites and chaotic locations as to locate powerful daemons, and drag them back to the Black Cells such that their power may never be unleashed ever again.

Since his departure from Terra once more for reasons known only to him, whisper have passed the lips of high level agents of a mysterious nemesis, one who Could Have Been King.

Notable Campaigns

 * The Unsleeping Worlds: A Rogue Trader ship and its escorts appear suddenly in the Gileneas System, swiftly careening out of control and crash landing upon the Hive World of Malena. The peoples of the world are steadily afflicted with worsening nightmares, eventually spreading to the nearby worlds in a miasma of pestilence that carried about the void unnaturally. Unrest grew to panic as hordes of savages, eyes closed in sleep, began to overrun the security protocols of the cities. A single ship in midnight black appeared later above the world at the core of the plague, and in its wake, chunks of the planets crust about the crashed vessel had vanished as into thin air and the inquisitions purgation began.


 * The Tragedy of Faith: In times of darkness prophets arise. It is not the ken of the vigil of the Solar Watch to tolerate uprisings of the faith so close to their borders. The Cathedral Terra was contacted, and the false prophet found before its influence could spread beyond the dangerous confines of corrupt worlds. In the final days of the search, radical priests sought to recover their false messiah, sending their devout women at arms against the Emperor's Archangels.
 * Misplaced Research: Renegade Tech priests of a fallen forge began research into matters beyond their station. Psychic technologies dreddged up from dark places was bent toward the attempted control of the Hive Mind. Splinters of the Hive Fleet Leviathan were drawn into the sphere of influence on the edges of the Segmentum Solar and the Shadowkeepers responded. After initial trouble with roving Ork Bands, the Cathedral Terra broke broke through the alien fleets to make planetfall at the source of the beacon. Waves of maddened Tyranids blocked progress until the Shadowkeepers managed to locate the power couplings, tragically displacing Imperial Forces to lower the void shields. Swift teleportation movments allowed for the Custodes to find the core of the beacons, slaying the priests entierly and securing the ancient technologies for the Black Cells.


 * The Could Have Been King:

Personality and Beliefs
In his travels through the void over the long millennia, Arminius has grown philosophical, and kept with his own thoughts that would be unpopular with the greater order outside of his Theological Chamber. Long eons among the terrors of the Black Cells has bred impatience and an often blunt methodology of dealing with the galaxy for he has little regard for the greater Imperial hierarchy, bulling through it to accomplish his goals at the cost of many others agendas he perceives as shortsighted or idiotic. Those he believes to be virtuous of purpose he will often deviate in his own mission to facilitate theirs if it shall serve the Emperor.

Wargear
As all Custodians, Arminius bears unique weapons and armor.


 * The Daedolosun Plate: An ancient suit of terminator warplate, Arminius came into possession of it in ages past upon his permanent oath to the Shadowkeepers. A fortress of auramite and adamantium based on the patterns of Aquilon Armor more prevalent during the age rather than the more modern innovations of Allarus Plate. Incorporated into the suit are various redundant systems and mechanical apertures concealed within layered plates to increase strength and resilience. Key to its function is the various stasis technologies incorporated into its function; capable of projecting chronometric fields that hinder the progress of time about him. When directed, foes find themselves straining to strike a target that seems to accelerate past their perspective while striking behind their defenses.
 * Angrvall: A masterwork halberd of nonstandard pattern, designed for sweeping strikes rather than cleaving axe blades or thrusting speartips. Fitting with the unique fighting methods of Arminius, the weapon is used in a whirling cavalcade of blows and strikes and the modified grips allow for arcs of bladework and a trail of shining white light. Built into the blade is a artificer bolter equipped with Heliothermic rounds, once fired and within their target, these burst into brief, but sun-hot incendiary detonations, incinerating their victims from within. These shells are uncommonly dense, requiring a far stronger charge to launch than common bolt shells, and only the uniquely sturdy construction of Custodian wargear can handle repeated firing.
 * Arae-Shrikes: These ancient devices of the Dark Age of Technology twist and distort electromagnetic signals. This counterintelligence technology is considered blasphemous in principle and arcane function by the Priesthood of Mars, and persist only in the hands of the Emperor's household. By the use of malifica-djinn and hostile blight-code, they pervert the data-readouts of unshielded Cogitators and telemetry plotters with lying reports and malign falsehood, and what they can not deceive, they simply blind and deafen with a shrieking multi-frequency cacophony.
 * Misericordia: These cermonial blades of station indicate the right of Lex Magisterium and power of life and death. These blades cut not with gravitic field or crude plasma, but micromolecular dissonator spirits such that no armor may resist its cut.
 * Krak Grenades: Arminius carries several armor piercing bombs and charges.
 * Gravity Charges: Arminius carries several special tanglefoot weapons, once thrown deploy in spreads of arcane energies and esoteric matter to increase the gravity fields within the blast radius, leaving his targets as easy prey as their own weight undoes their momentum.