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I know the absolute power is fun and all, but hunting down heretics all you life has got to take it's toll. I know mortality rates are generally high in the ordos, but say even with juveant treatment an inquisitor is getting on in years, can he just say "Screw it! I'm done, give me a gold watch or something and I'm off to live the simple life." or do they just work until they're put in the grave or slide to radicalism? I mean what happens when an inquisitor does retire? is he like some old cop who hangs around a bar educating the young rookies? or does he just fade away quietly? these things I wonder, anyone have answers?

I'd say it depends, I mean Inquisitors are genrally hated, and really after hunting down xeno's and such how can you go to a real life.
But i say yeah if they are no longer able to do their job they might.

I don't think this was ever covered in any background, so ... let's speculate!

Personally, I think that most Inquisitors would continue working until they grow so old that their opponents will simply get the better of them. I imagine this is how it works with most Space Marines as well.
A viable alternative would be to "semi-retire" to a post where the Inquisitor doesn't do frontline investigations anymore but rather concerns himself with more political stuff or scientific analysis. They may preside over Inquisitorial conclaves deciding the fate of entire worlds, Marine Chapters or even other Inquisitors, or they will live out the rest of their life inside a huge Inquisitorial base where they pluck at the strings of their web of influences, sending out lesser Inquisitors on missions and connecting the dots they uncover, or spend countless days brooding over some ancient scroll or daemonic artefact trying to unlock its secrets.

Fantastic question. I agree with Lynata - if they can't be killed first, but can no longer perform the duties required of them on the front lines, they probably just take a backseat and "drive from there."

Let's think about it, eventually they're going to get to be too old. So they have to.

Doubtful. If he survives long enough to become too feeble to continue working in the field, he probably acts as an instructor for new Inquisitors, or works in intelligence on xenos/daemons/what have you until he dies. Some kind of "easy" desk job.

Of course it's 40k so I reckon that once they get to old to do thier jobs anymore, they get 'retired' because of all the secrets they know...

In agreement with a few other people's speculations on this.

Backseat management of their team could certainly be the most likely, followed up by promotion to higher ranks in their order in which case they are more in intelligence and delegation of missions. That way they aren't really front lines any more.
I don't however think that you can just hang up your coat and go your separate ways. I recall a line from one of the books that basically described it as a life-long service to the Emperor and the IoM. So basically, keep working, move up in the order, or end up renegade. A retired Inquisitor is a dead Inquisitor.

They'd probably be declared a traitor for dereliction of duty or something.

Inquisitors are like Casey Ryback.
They cannot retire, because each time they do, a new and more awful threat comes out of the warp, and they have to quit their retirement to fight it.

The hero retirement has been killed by the "getting out of retirement to fight one last time" scenario.

There's this inquisitor in the old Grey Knight books who is so old he lost nearly all motor skills - he had an exoskeleton suit crafted for him so he could continue fighting.

I think in the beginning of the story he was the "backseat mentor" type to become more active later in the books.

I guess they take desk jobs if they aren't killed in the line of duty. Being an Inquisitor also gives you a vast amount of power, it must be very difficult to give that up.

Commodus Voke from the Eisenhorn series was supposed to have been a very old age before his demise at the hands of the Daemonhost Prophaniti, so how old is a very old age in Inquisitor terms?

Some, like Titus Endor, are forced to retire due to ... bad health I guess you would call it.

Can anybody in the Imperium ever retire? Hell, the Emperor has been dead for ten thousand years and they still won't give him a day off.

All good points, so I guess I should change the fluff background on my inquisitor in my IG/GK army to be semi-retired instead of fully retired. He never plays politics so he's not getting promoted, so he'll be the guy that trains the rooks, and as for why he's traveling with a rogue trader: Where better to get experience than traveling the stars seeing worlds untouched by the Imperium and setting up imperial dominance there.

I've never heard of an inquisitor living long enough to consider retirement. If you read the Eisenhorn Series there was an inquisitor called Commodus Volke or Voke...can't remember. But he lived close to three hundred damn years on juvenats and artifical lungs. And he was still working till the time he died.

Inquisitors have access to the highest tech available. So life extension is within their grasp.

They are more likely to just become less active - and as so much with inquisitors - the nature of this will depend on their individual personality.

Some will end up hiding from their enemies, others ever more powerful in the more mainstream Imperial heirarchy. Lots of options for them............

Inquisitors know to mutch to retier. Far to mutch is at stake.

However, I could se somebody think they had "payed there dept to th eperor" (heresy!) and retier. Or there could be reasons to lay dormant while you prepared for the threat that one inquesitor meant was the most dangerus one.

Nah, they either die in the line of duty or accept ever more rejuvinat treatments and/or augmetics.

i suspect some of them slow down as they get along though; relying more on their support networks and position of personal power within the inquisitor herarchy that they've established during their earlier years and less on personal interaction.

I'd say they'd drop out of fieldwork and take a desk job - like Lord Rorken in Eisenhorn, maybe they'd rely on their operatives to act in their stead?

I can imagine an old, burnt out Inquisitor (or two) fake their death and retire onto a paradise world far from the front line territories, spending their last days at posh parties among various aristocrats, fine wine in hand, young trophy mistress (or two) on their arm, etc.

If they aren't allowed to retire in this way in the eyes of the Imperium, then surely those who are clever/rich/powerful enough to do so off the books will make it happen in some way or other.

I imagine the older, distinguished inquisitors move up the ranks to being part of the administration/headquarters for a sector or subsector.

Having just finished up the Ravenor trilogy, Lord Rorken comes to mind.

I guess it isn't really "retirement" in the sense we would think of. But honestly, if you spend practically your entire life serving in the inquisition I imagine it is pretty hard to get out of the lifestyle/job entirely.

They either die in the line of duty, or become corrupted by it.

Ive no basis for this but i think if they get to old they could retire or maybe just teach the next generation of inquisitors after all instruction from the genuine artical beats a text book any day.

I would imagine they do. Of course, they keep half a foot in, in case anything particularly important comes up that they're required to go to a council or the like...

I do think it's quite common however for them to say, start staying at their inquisitorial mansions for most of the time and write their memoirs or treatises etc.

A lot of like what Amberlay is doing in the Cain books but more full time. Ravenor was also known for his writing.

Old inquisitors never retire. They either die, or go rogue.

However, they probably semi-retire, letting their team and other inquisitors do the work while they direct things.
If they choose to augment themselves and stay on the front lines, eventually they'll be shot and killed. Such are the hazards of the job. Even with half your body bionic, clad in terminator armour (they could do that in the 3ed 40K rulebook), eventually some bright spark will pack a lascannon.