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I have a model lying around that could make a neat Inquisitor and am looking for a bit of nice fluff. I tried to read up a bit about the Ordo Minoris and found a very short snippet in the Lexicanum about the Ordo Barbarus

The Ordo Barbarus is a minor Ordo of the Inquisition. Consisting of only a little over 10 Inquisitors, they oversee Pre-Industrial Human planets and ensures they don't fall into deviant worshipping.

Has anyone ever stumbled about what "oversee" means in this context? Is it "just" their job to keep pre-industrial worlds from getting into religion that might lead them to the ruinous powers or does it go so far as to nudge them in a direction that keeps them useful for the Imperium/prepares them for the tithe? (Not sure if that would more be a job for the Missionaros Galaxia or the Munitorum)

I also read about the Ordo Astra being tasked with "Stellar Cartography". Any idea what is meant by that? Is this meant literally as them being kind of astronomers?

Apart from that: do I understand correctly, that the list of Ordo Minoris is not necessarily complete and that an Inquisitor might as well be indipendent and not see himself belong to any Ordo?

And finally more a kind of idea inquiry than a question of sources: One idea I have in the back of my head is an Inquisitor that was a real pencilpusher tasked with some incredibly boring tasked that led her to my homebrew Regiments system in the Segmentum Pacificus. Then the Night of a Thousand Rebellions came and she was suddenly sitting right in the middle of it and as ANY Inquisitor seems to have the authority to adress ANY threat to the Imperium, she had to rise to the task. Any funny proposals what that initial super-boring task could have been, that it might still have been forced upon an Inquisitor?

For that first one, I'm thinking it's along the lines of what we see in the game Stellaris. An observation post is built over a planet and the scientists monitor the planet's progress via passive (pictures from space) or aggressive (abductions and dissections) study. I imagine the Inquisitors are basically just project managers watching for reports from operatives that would indicate a society regressing or falling to chaos worship. If the latter happens they likely contact the Hereticus to come do some purges.
Stellar Cartography is just star maps. Very boring.
Ordo Minoris is just a catch-all term for any small group of inquisitors doing a specific job. Inquisitors can be independent if they want it's usually just easier to be part of an Ordo for resources and connections.
As for funny super-boring tasks. Inquisitorial attache to a local Ecclesiarch of an Agri-World. Making sure a bunch of farmers who can't read or write don't stop praising the Emperor.

In a galaxy spanning empire I would say my that star maps were one of the most important thing there is. If there are groups corrupting the space lanes or misrecording things its pretty serious.

Oh for sure it's important but I'd wager its hardly an fun work environment when the planets your mapping jump from hand to hand rapidly and without warning

It's important to keep in mind that the defining trait of an Ordo is that its members consider whatever they specialize in to be the greatest threat to the Imperium. Or at least the greatest threat that they feel they can do something about. Most of the Ordo Minoris didn't even have a sentence written about them. Just a single word or two in a table listing them. The Ordo Barbarus is one such example. Because of this, I'd say we're pretty free to theorize on their operations all we like.
I'd guess that there's some belief among these Inquisitors that pre-Industrial societies are more "pure" and their fall to heresy or corruption would be seen as an even greater tragedy. Kinda like how Asuryani can get ultra protective of Exodite worlds.
For the Ordo Astra, I'd say they're interested in being on the lookout for certain astrological patterns that can have ritualistic symbolism. "The stars are right" type of deals that are likely to bring out plenty of cults and degenerate groups ready to bring their master plans to fruition.

For your idea, the Ordo Redactus sounds like the perfect origin for him.

 Gert wrote:

Ordo Minoris is just a catch-all term for any small group of inquisitors doing a specific job. Inquisitors can be independent if they want it's usually just easier to be part of an Ordo for resources and connections.

I would just note that there's a little more nuance to that. Ordos tend to be work that could apply to anywhere in the galaxy, or at least a fairly large area like the Eye of Terror.
Cabals are a group of Inquisitors focused on a specific example within their specialty. The Tyrantine Cabal was focused on the mystery of the Tyrant Star in the Calixis Sector. Or the Mycosapian Cabal, who are dedicated to rooting out an institution trying to create human-ork hybrids (I just made that up).
Conclaves are all of the Inquisitors that operate in a particular geographic area, regardless of specialty.

 Gert wrote:

Stellar Cartography is just star maps. Very boring.

Since it is the Inquisition it is almost certainly more interesting than that. I could see Ordos Astra Inquisitors doing stuff like investigating an area like the bermuda triangle and trying to map hazardous bits of space, mapping a mysterious dust cloud that is in fact an area of space that twists in on itself due to warp anomalies and contains an ancient alien civilisation that must forever stay trapped in there, making sure certain top secret or heretically perilous locations don't appear on maps, producing maps that show if you fly around a star cluster three times widdershins whilst chanting a passage from a heretical text you suddenly fly into a hidden pocket dimension... that kind of stuff.

 Unknown_Lifeform wrote:
... producing maps that show if you fly around a star cluster three times widdershins whilst chanting a passage from a heretical text you suddenly fly into a hidden pocket dimension... that kind of stuff.

I agree with the whole post, but just got struck by this last bit as a perfect bit of chicanery... the Ordo sets up the maps,.and just have a handy Hereticus inquisitor at the appropriate star system to catch any starship that appear to be orbiting it widdershins

 Pyroalchi wrote:
Any funny proposals what that initial super-boring task could have been, that it might still have been forced upon an Inquisitor?

I just re-read the core book Inquisition page, and the funniest bit is that there is an Ordo Vigilus whose job it is to watch the Ordo Necros but nobody knows what the Ordo Necros are doing. How about she was sent to watch the Ordo Vigilus guy who is watching the Necros guy and nobodies actually doing anything (that can anyone can detect). Shoehorn in a Monty Python reference and you're golden

@ all: thanks for the input

@ Gert: that is a cool idea, and even compatible with the Ordo Barbarus stuff. In my fluff there are some feudal/feral planets in the vicinity that she might have been send to watch and as you say: supervising a couple of hundred sheep herders (because due to some filling error her superiors though they were a vital, triving 100 billion planet, that can not be risked) on some backwater planet "Sheepistan IV", sounds sufficiently boring.


@ PaddyMick: lol, that also sounds funnily pointless. Especially as I have another mini (currently intended as Crusader) that would make a nice inquisitor. I could see the first of them send to the sheep herders and then the second send after her to the backwater system because her superiors are suspicious what she is doing there. The first one gets contacted by her boss who by now has realized the mistake and that Sheepistan IV is just boring but has heard that another inquisitor has been send there from the other order... very suspicious...
and so both of them find themselves tasked with watching each other without any reason to do so.