The PURITAN Factions of the INQUISITION | Warhammer 40,000 Lore

Inquisition is one of those factions you think you know, yet it keeps suprising you each time you hear about it.

I absolutely love the choice to deep dive into the inquisition its a great resource for the community that is sorely lacking

Which faction believed that the Emperor had to die in order to be resurrected? Am sure that was a thing at one point.

We all know the Racicals skateboard and wear thier caps backwards.

Even in universe: How can you believe that the Imperium functions fine? ^^

Monodominant Supremacy!

Obviously the Monodominants are deeply horrible. Textbook definition of Fascist. You'll get no argument from me.

But it's worth examining how subtly vile the Amalathian philosophy is. It's Liberal Centrism (as Americans understand it, anyway). A sincere, unquestioning belief in not merely the Emperor, but the system itself. Its institutions, its laws, its norms. That all things must be done according to The Process. The Process cannot fail, it can only BE failed. It must be trusted and protected at all costs, and anything that violates that Process is a threat.

The system is already perfect. Why would anyone want to change it? How could an Inquisitor who believes in this Civic Religion allow anyone to circumvent or alter it? To even attempt to do so is unthinkable heresy, scandalous in its wrongness.

If an official within the system exploits it to profit themselves, that's fine. So long as it's lawful, it's fine. But workers agitating for labor rights, or mercy from the system? Well that has to be stopped immediately and with extreme prejudice. That kind of agitation - that kind of unsanctioned violence, physical or economic - is unacceptable.

It's the philosophy of the credulous and the stagnant. Of the person who was born yesterday, and cannot imagine the system not working exactly as it does now. For whom the System and Reality itself are one and the same. The Cognitive Dissonance of being faced with the falsehood of this belief is distressing to the Amalathian, as much as if they stepped through a prop wall and discovered their entire world was a movie set. They will either go mad, or cling to their false reality, or be forced out into the wilderness of uncertainty. Knowing that the System is flawed, constructed, and not by the Emperor's hand.

I recommend you read The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin, you too will be a monodominant after reading that, like me.

its nice to know there are jahvos witness in the year 40k.. at least some things dont change aye LOL

Great video

Ah yes the real good guys of the setting

Karamazov is described as “a staunch Almathian” but isn’t he like, obviously a Monodominant?

Glad to see the last video has got more views than the ones before. Hope having to channels works out for you.

So the bad guys are bad. Geeeee, if only certain people knew this.

More on Ordos Minoris please. The Kronos ones must deal with a lot of the Fallen.

Awe man, that Inquisitor game had so much creativity and love go into its fluff. Such a shame it made so many missteps mechanically and with its core design elements. 54mm scale hobbled it right out the gate

Trump doctrine is monodominants, it all makes sense now!

The last time I was this early the tribes of old Terra had not yet been united by the Emporer.

Remember reading the Inquisitor rulebook and realizing that all these factions and philosophies were just the game’s equivalent of the D&D alignment system (or the political factions of World of Darkness games)

Comments for the comments God!

One thing I've appreciated about much of the older lore about Inquisitors is how "organic" much of it feels. Without getting too opinionated, I have to admit when it comes to these huge organizations, and cultures, I tend to prefer "there is a philosophy that arose and gained popularity over time as it offered some solutions to quanderies people had at the time, but it clashed with alternate philosophies, and from that clash, even more new philosophies arose" rather than "And then Malcador the Sigilite said what what was supposed to happen and they did it and that's that." I've always enjoyed when 40k doesn't give you the origins of things, the sense of SHEER AGE and loss of history of the Imperium is important to me, personally.

Awesome video, my eyes usually glaze over reading this in the lore books but this explained the ‘big 3’ puritan factions really well - I’m ready for the next eisenhorn novel!

There being so many varied schools of thought in the Inquisition is probably the most realistic part of the 40K lore

This is perfect timing I’m painting a new inquisitor and his war band for Adepticon and by then I’ll be able to tell people (if they want to know) exactly what my little idiot believes.

Wait, I thought monodominants were just Inquisitors that weren't Psykers? I guess I was wrong, or has this changed over time?

Eisenhorn was a puritan... 😂

Isn't it odd how many 40k characters get radical in old age? Why would philosophies that promote quick solutions be so appealing to old people with little time left to witness, and why are so many named like silly Putty or roman president 11? Why would GW do this?

Genuinely, how did 40k become the most lively space for insightful writers while everywhere else got the West Wing? Of all possible options, why did we all find eachother in Warhammer?

I was almost expecting you to say Branch Davidian or something in that list of denominations.

The Inquisition is the most interesting faction in the 40k setting!

Thank you for this great, comprehensive video! I love this topic and I remember myself new to 40k, frantically taking notes as Eisenhorn talked about Amalathians and Monodominants in Xenos.

Another fine video from the Arbitor - and a fine introduction to some of the more gothic elements of the setting.

I'm doing my part to please Algo

The trouble with all this Inquisitor lore is it doesn't really work very well with other lore. Outside of this lore, the whole rest of the Imperium is monodominant. By logic, Puritan Inquisitors would do nothing before rooting out and destroying all radical inquisitors. By having diverse factions, the Inquisition shows much lore about the monolithic adept Imperium to be a lie.

Hi Ian,
You use a great range of pictures from books and fan art across a whole range of time periods of 40k, do you have a favourite style/artist?
Thanks for the great videos!

The PURITAN AKA the fun police on steroids...

Casophilians are actually right

This was largely the product of the Inquisitor specialist game and it's accompanying Eisenhorn novels. The Inquisition had still been a vague secret police.

This was to be a game set in the Imperial home front. One where the players both roleplayed investigations and skirmished with whatever stood in their way. On a level smaller than a company-scale battle with as much importance.

This was continued in the different iterations of the TTRPG Dark Heresy where you play inquisitorial goons sent around a sector to prod stuff.

Yay! The Ordo Chronos is mentioned this time!

These people seem like good neighbors...

And once again here we are, with curiosities we didn't know we had a few minutes ago..thanks!

Hard to believe that the wonderful depth and background for the Inquisition and all their varied factions came about simply because GW could only make a very limited number of miniatures for the Inquisitor game. Necessity really is the mother of invention.

Oh. I must read Draco again. It's been at least 10 years.

Very nice.

Ian, I love you and I watch all of your videos, but you HAVE to get that hat off of your merch store. With the state of the world today, it's just not funny. It's immensely cringe and attracts the sort of demographic completely opposed to the H8 club and all that it stands for.

No one expected this video!

Coming around on how cool and interesting the Inquisition is feels like a coming-of-age moment as a 40k fan

I love Ians videos, but some of his pronounciations give me an aneurism

I love the saying “He who is a Puritan in their youth, lacks conviction. But he who is a Puritan in old age, lacks a brain.”