They have become weapons of vengeance, to be turned upon those who betrayed the Emperor and left Him a broken shell. The Misericordia still shows its wielder to be the Emperor's sanctioned executioner, yet since His fall at the end of the Horus Heresy these blades bear a second, grimmer meaning. Instead, it came to represent the right of the bearer to act as the arbiter of the Emperor's judgement, and to put to death those tyrants, lunatics and demagogues who stood against Him. No longer would the Misericordia be a symbol of tyrannical rule. As the Emperor led His wars of unification, His Custodians are believed to have co-opted the term for their own use. More than a lethal sidearm, the Misericordia signifies something greater. After the end of the Unification Wars, the Emperor adopted the old practice, but only Imperial agents and judges in the service of the Emperor were now allowed to carry the Misericordia. The Misericordia originated on Terra during the Age of Strife, when they became symbols of the authority of the executioner-judges in the service of the tyrannical techno-barbarian warlords of Old Earth who held the ultimate power of life and death over all of their subjects. The Misericordia was designed to deliver a single, mortal blow, and despite their symbolic nature, were sometimes used by individual Custodians to carry out a death sentence or offer the Emperor's Peace to a mortally wounded and grievously suffering warrior. The blade was symbolic, intended to represent that the Custodes were beneficiaries of the Magisterium Lex Ultima which placed them above the reach of all Imperial Law save for the commandments of the Emperor of Mankind Himself. The Misericordia ( High Gothic: 'blade of mercy') is a long dagger or short sword that was carried by the Custodians of first the Legio Custodes and after the Horus Heresy, the Adeptus Custodes. A Custodian Warden wielding a Misericordia as well as a Guardian Spear

Misere recordia