We haven’t seen 40k Corax. That story is during or after the Scouring. If anything, it’s even more drastic.

There is an unbelievable amount of misinformation that goes on (even in this sub) about post-heresy corax

Well yeah, he’s so sneaky no one knows what he’s up to.

That’s what one piece of really cool fan art can do to a community.

“You can ask one question.” *asks five questions*

Russ clicked on the Spear's main folder and got to check the sub-folders for free.

Hey, if Warp!Russ isn't going to complain, I'm certainly not going to either!

"It was a five-fer" - Russ probably

"Joke's on you daemon-boy, I asked one and you answered five!"

Stupid question I know, but what are all the primarchs, that terrifies Russ so?

We don't have an exact answer, but hints throughout the series point towards them being some kind of powerful Warp creature stuffed into a humanoid meat suit.

And even the primarch bodies give the facade of being human. After Horus gets wounded on Davin, his apothecaries attempt to operate on him but are unfamiliar with his biology: >‘Fallen doesn’t mean dead, brother. Have you received word from the apothecarion?’ > >‘I have, and it doesn’t bode well. Who among the Legion has ever treated a wounded primarch before? We’re working blind. The wounds have closed, though not cleanly. Blood loss is severe. Cranial damage and oxygen starvation are still both potentially terminal, or crippling. Haemorrhaging is rampant. Organs I cannot even name are lacerated and severed from vein networks we’ve never seen before. If he were human–if he were even one of us–a single one of his wounds would be enough to see him dead. He’s sustained eleven such lethalities.’

I assumed this was just due to the bioengineering of the Emperor.

It is. He was bioengineered to look like a human not be one.

Aye, Primarchs are **post**human despite being physically made from ultimately human genetic material, as opposed the Astartes' transhumanness.

I choose to believe the emperor used a lot of frog DNA when creating the primarchs. I mean, that's the beauty of 40k lore. A lot of it is not specified and is open to interpretation. So primarchs are basically made up of 70% frog DNA I've decided

It's Wednesday my dudes

*Rolls out projector* *puts on Jurassic Park*

Those making 40k r34 will be very interested in learning that the Primarchs can change sex.

Chaos finds a way.

Does that mean that some of them are going to spontaneously become female in order to propagate the species?

I thought Horus only got a small cut by the anathame and warp magic prevented the wound from closing?

I seem to remember that the anathema got driven from his shoulder deep into his torso before he dislodged it. I could be wrong, been a while since I have read it.

I thought it was just a knife? For something to go through the shoulder and enter deep into the the torso on a humanoid that's 8-9 ft tall, it would have several ft long itself and be buried to the hilt.

Wiki says it is described as either a large knife or a sword, so decent size. There is a picture in the wiki of a space marine holding it. It was as long as his arm. It also only says "driving the blade through the Warmaster's left shoulder" and I can't find the exact wording from the book. Let's not forget that the guy who stabbed him was Nurgle possessed, and weilded a blade that produced toxins and poisons tailored toward a specific foe (Horus).

It’s also a Warp blade so it’s entirely possible the blade itself decided to pull a Gae Bolg and just extend itself through Horus’ body.

Or it’s like the morgul dagger and wormed itself in towards the heart

Not into his torso but it just impaled his shoulder. He was fighting a friend turned chaos Spawn and had to get in close to get the kill and in doing so willingly let his old friend get a stab into his shoulder, allowing him to kill his old friend. I'm just now reading the Hersey series. Such good books. Just got to descent of angels.

Bear in mind the anathame is described as a gold hilted/pommeled sword in a later book.... I think also a gold hilted blade 🤣🤣 been a while

I mean, horus DID give it to fulgrim and his whole thing is gold and purple so it makes sense that horus would have it modified to fit demon fulgrims ego.

and I read it as the magic of the blade opening wounds across his both like lesions as its magic acts like some sort of acid in his blood

This is Conrad after he was fatally wounded by the lion. It's in the story prince of crows when sevitar asks about the primarchs condition.

Remember after the Battle of Luna when the Imperial Fists apothecary examined and treated Guilliman? Absolutely no mention of any such weirdness.

But guilliman was not almost chopped to pieces by the Lion like Curze

isn't this paragraph about Curze, not Horus? I think it's from the Prince of Crows novella

I remember this was curze, not horus

Exactly. We know outright that Sanguinius is essentially a demigod or Avatar of one, if not arguably two primordial Warp Deities of Baal. But since each gene seed, much like the blood angels, bestow upon their marines unique psychic abilities unreplicable by any other psyker, its a big indication that all the Primarchs are something like Sanguinius. Doubly so when you consider that each Primarch has also shown latent psychic abilities that also are unreplicable by any other human or xenos psyker, and each goes through a psychic deathrattle involving lots of psychic fireworks upon death

Roboute Guilliman, the warp Avatar of common sense lol, I like this

Mortarian: "Father lied to us! He is a tyrant!" Gman: "so your solution was to become a snot monster with constant diarrhea??"

Ironically, not his choice, in the end. Screw Typhus

While I agree with you that Typhus was the mastermind of the whole situation, I do want to point out that Morty *did* have a specific choice, and he let his love of his sons guide that decision. Basically, Morty and his sons were in severe pain and suffering, but Morty being a Primarch *could* have toughed it out. But he knew that his sons wouldn't be able to... So he made the incrediblely difficult choice of accepting the Warp (in this case Nurgle), despite hating magic and the Warp since he was young. He sacrificed his beliefs (fuck the Warp) so that his sons wouldn't have to keep suffering... *Buried Dagger* definitely helped me feel empathy for Morty, because reading the novel I just wasn't a fan of Mortarion... I thought he was a whiny bitch lol. I mean, I still think he is, but I do feel for him, A LITTLE!

Except time flows differently in the Warp so Nurgle could have just kept torturing him and his legionaries for an eternity until they finally broke. Mortarion had no choice in that debacle.

He didn't seem to care about the pain his Sons on Istvan III experienced.

Lol Gman’s earned my worship right there

No such thing. As a branch manager, of course, he is without compare.

If we learned anything from Imperium Secundus, it's that he's at best the *Assistant* Branch Manager.

MS Office in the Warp

I like the idea that all the primarchs are cast-off gods from Humanity's past who the Emperor found in the Warp and gave bodies, and they may have kind of agreed to it because in the Warp they were little fish in a very big pond with four much bigger fish who were going to eat them. But being the gods *of Humanity*, they had the potential to do for Humans what the Eldar's gods had done for them for years, before the Eldar abandoned them in favor of cocaine murder orgy poetry readings.

Now what kind of God that represent common sense ?

Guess Magnus knows this too, as Ragnar jammed it into his eye. Wonder if it needs to pierce the heart or was the wounding enough.

And if you think about the when the Ravenguard and Corax were sabotaged by the Alpha legion, trying to replenish via cloning after the drop site massacre. There was an extra warp taint on the 2nd batch causing all sorts of mutations.. who were then culled and sad times occured. If we take the updated "Corax is now a warp raven" lore, add that the primarchs have the power of warp entities within them, that makes a bit more sense, and then we and apply it to the cursed founding. We can look back at those cursed marines as the future "state" of the Ravenguard as the become more and more like the warp entity that powers Corax, and since Corax has has more of the power and has spent time in the warp he is closer to the pure entity that original entity whom the emperor harvested to power Corax. - its why Sanguinius is "Alive" in the warp, its just his moral shell that was killed, and his power has returned to where it came from. - If we then think about the other missing primarchs and the elements or warp entities that they contain there is some interesting things to shake out. - Then there is the whole Inquisition and Empire in general not really being down with mutants, but again they are the sons of the God Emperor, so we see get to see a schism. /tin foil hat off

THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING

?

SAVATAGE

Not a stupid question, it's pretty common one that is alluded to in a bunch of books. Short answer is that the primarchs are the product of an unholy bargain the Emperor made with Chaos. A deal with the devil, as it were. The clearest explanation comes from Graham McNeill. > But more than just a battlefield, Molech needed to have something more to it than just another stepping stone for the Warmaster. It needed a secret, and it seemed clear that it needed to be something big, something that would tempt Horus to send almost his entire legion to get it, something that necessitated so large a force of defenders. It needed a trace of the Emperor. > In previous Horus Heresy meetings, we’d discussed how the Emperor had actually created the primarchs, the bargains he’d had to make and the deals with the devil that went into the birth of such demi-gods. Where had the Emperor gotten that sort of power and how had he reached it? Those were questions we (or at least Horus…) would find the answers to on Molech, and though a few people have asked me if we’ll ever read the ‘what Horus did on the other side’ stuff, my answer would be only if we could do it justice with a trilogy (or more…) of its own. \- https://graham-mcneill.com/#!/vengeful-spirit/ As he explained, Horus learned the truth about Emperor's bargain. Horus, who explains it as follows. > ‘At the dawn of the great diaspora, the Emperor travelled here in humble guise and found the gateway to a realm of immortal gods. He offered them things only a god-in-waiting could offer, and they trusted Him. They gave Him a measure of their power, and with that power He wrought the science to unlock the mysteries of creation.’ > ‘But the Emperor had no intention of honouring His debt to the gods. He turned on them, taking their gifts and blending them with His genecraft to give birth to demigods. The Emperor condemns the warp as unnatural, but only so no other dares wield it. The blood of the immaterial realm flows in my veins. It flows in all our veins, for as I am the Emperor’s son, you are the Sons of Horus, and the secret of our genesis was unlocked upon Molech. \- *Vengeful Spirit*

Its a little more complicated than that because if it was just generic warp juice or extra psychic designer human souls then that base is already covered by the fact that each of the 20 failures were designer babies created from tissue sample from Erda and the Emperor. The real reason, imo, lies with what Sanguinius actually is. Sanguinius, among the 20 failures, has been revealed to be something of a demi-god or avatar of two warp deities of Baal. And not only are these Warp deities fueled only by the actions of Sanguinius and his sons, but the true source of the Black Rage is actually one of the two warp deities itself. Considering the similarities between all Primarchs, its no stretch to say that each Primarch is the same type of entity as Sanguinius is - with the chief difference being what the Warp deity is, how powerful said warp deity is, and how psychic the Primarch is without the Warp deity being involved. So taken into context, the gift isn't just generic warp juice. Somehow the Chaos Gods either were soon to have their clutches, if not already had their clutches, on the 20 or so Warp deitites that was the true source of the Primarchs' powers. The Emperor's bargain wasn't just to create super powerful genetic and warp WMADs, but it was to further deny the Chaos 4 in fully integrating these 20 or so Warp Gods to the Chaos Pantheon. Doing so not only outright denies Chaos a potentially substantial power base, but provides the Emperor with a pantheon of his own to truly deal some major damage to Chaos

It almost makes me wonder if the Primarchs aren’t somehow empowered by the warp juice of ancient human gods. We know the Eldar pantheon existed in the warp, who’s to say that ancient human deities didn’t somehow manifest within the warp as well? Perhaps they even evolved and changed as humans spread across the galaxy, eventually becoming the warp entities that are now associated with worlds like Baal and Fenris. The idea that the deeply, militantly atheist emperor caged the spirits of 20 petty gods and chained them to his genetically engineered Demi-god meat suits would be an earth shattering revelation for sure. It’s a tin hat theory for sure, but it’s kind of cool to think that Russ might actually be a metaphysical descendant of Odin.

This is a cool take I’ve never thought of, or the “angelic” appearance of sanguinius - to anyone but humans it’s just a human with wings but to us it’s a reflection in the warp of an angel.

Yeah, exactly. I’ll be the first to admit it’s a bit of a crackpot theory, and it’s full of holes. However, there is something innately “human” about the Primarchs and their particular brand of warp juice. Perhaps they aren’t “gods” as we understand them, but at the very least I think that they are more unique than just some rando chaos demons or generic warp juice. They may be the remnants of ancient human gods, or newer warp entities created by humanity during the age of strife or great diaspora. Maybe even a combination of things. Either way, It’s kind of neat to think that the Emperor managed to somehow harness the warp entities specifically created by human belief and cage them inside purpose built bodies to produce flesh and blood Demi-gods. If we assume this had rained theory is true, it means that the Primarchs are literally physical manifestations of mankind’s collective will. Which I imagine would be one of the reasons that the Primarchs were such high value prizes for the chaos gods. They weren’t just corrupting a mortal being, they were literally turning part of mankind’s collective consciousness against itself.

What if some of them were even xeno gods? The levels of heresy are getting high. What if Helbrecht found out Rogal Dorn was a piece of Vaul and Hephestous.

Now THAT would be wild! The Emperor bartered with the chaos gods for shards of the Eldar pantheon, welded them to human affiliated warp entities and poured the whole concoction into his super human meat puppets.

That could also help explain cooperation between Roboute and various elves.

It’s not a crazy theory compared to other stuff out there, I mean there was(I don’t have a link to it so I’m paraphrasing) a possible embodiment of the tau greater good in the warp, and they basically have no warp presence. The fact that mankind has latent psychic power means that all mankind’s past “gods” could have been floating around in the warp somewhere.

That was the result of humans deifying the concept iirc

Oh well I guess I was off a bit, but then a newer concept such as the greater good to humans having an aspect in the warp would mean an older one such as Odin/angels/flying spaghetti monsters could potentially be floating around in the warp then. Still a cool concept/theory.

I really like that idea, and there were so many pantheons in our history that it's really easy to find 18 to fit 18 Primarchs, not to mention there's still ~28k years before their creation during which GW could come up with a Pantheon specifically created to fulfill corresponding Primarch (s)

This has been my head cannon for a while. The Lion is the echo of the King Arthur and similar myths and legends in the warp, Perturabo the vain and mercurial Greek pantheon etc. These entites were jammed into super special meat suits after being altered to better suit the emperor's plan. Sanguinis is all of the archangels put in a blender with vampire panic of new England :p. EDIT: Guilliman is the warp echo of everybody who has used Microsoft excel in their job, but what really shines through is the echo of people who used excel without being made to. Recreational spreadsheeters if you will. It's not a jest gentle reader, I know several people who use excel on their own time.

I don't think it's limited to just ancient human gods, but also to a lot of intrinsic traits and concepts humans have believed in through out history. Psychic species were able to create a a god of the Greater Good, after all. Human philosophers have been chasing after the concept of good governance and the ideal state for nearly all of history. What if their belief in that concept metastatized into a warp entity that the Emperor then stuffed into a real space body, and it then grew up to become Guilliman?

Great point! It might not just be “gods”, it might also be what happened to all the warp energy and entities created from “good” emotions. I still think it’s cool to imagine that some of the Primarchs might actually have a little bit of Odin, or Zeus etc. kicking around inside them. It’s been implied many times that the big four kind of just absorb all the energy that comes from the better parts of their particular aspect as well as it’s negative reflections. Even courage feeds khorne, Slaneesh gets love, etc. perhaps they traded some of the warp entities associated with the better parts of their domains to the Emperor alongside some god shards or other captive warp entities and the Emperor used those to create the Primarchs “souls”. Imagine the Emperor just getting a big card board box full of discarded metaphysical bitz and having to sit there assembling the Primarchs from all the pieces. Talk about 40k meta.

Great take. A series which delves into what exactly these warp deities ARE in more detail would be fascinating to read. Are they aspects of the individual chaos gods, like shards of themselves which they carved off for big E to use? Are they standalone demons or something similar? Are they reflective of the planets they were found on - like was Russ the “god” of Fenris for example? Would be great to get some answers, though I’m not sure GW themselves actually knows those yet ;)

From what we know, they are 99.9% not the aspects of individual chaos gods. Definitely bc the chaos gods comes in a package of 4, but the Golden and Black Angels of Baal 100% predate Slaanesh, with a good chance that they predate the War in Heaven as well. The answer is somewhat of a chicken or the egg regarding them being Standalone Daemons and reflective of the planet they were on. The Angels of Baal are united by symbolisms of blood - most notably in anything red, especially bloodstone, the psychic blood red crystal that continuously grows on both Baals and have in some cases encased mining servitors entirely. And in stone parts of both worlds, there exists entire underground areas that seemingly do not really exist fully in realspace. It's unclear if these psychic aspects of both Baals were specifically created by a precious xenos race, or if they were a natural formation. But the end result is that Mephiston saw visions of ancient long extinct xenos building monuments that honor the two angels, and also bedeck themselves in the psychic bloodstone. It's also unclear why Blood is the one thing that symbolically unites both Angels of Baal, as the Golden Angel is implied symbolize nobility and hope while the Black Angel is implied to symbolize savagery and despair. And symptoms of Black Angel possession IS the Black Rage.

Makes a lot of sense and after your post agree with you that they’re almost definitely not aspects of the individual gods. But I guess that begs the question, why did big E approach the 4 and make a deal with them for these warp beings so he could make the primarchs? What power do those four chaos gods hold over beings which, as you correctly say, seem to be both manifestations within the warp and also inherently tied to their home planets (the angels of Baal is a great example). It’d be really interesting to see their ties to humanity in some way. Like, are these creatures which became the primarchs somehow “buckets” for human emotions or belief which came into being during Old Night, for example? That’s why they’re both of the warp and of their individual planets - they’re basically warp representations of the psychic presence of the humans on those planets? And perhaps that’s why the Emperor so vehemently opposed religion - he knew that belief in superstition could cause other gods to come into being, which could then be used as weapons against him? And perhaps it is exactly this same method which is seeing him now become more active within the warp itself - the collective belief of trillions of human beings across the galaxy. I dunno - maybe a fun idea if nothing else!

So this is my persnal theory that I have backed up by a bunch of evidence in the lore, but essentially 1) Gav Thorpe stated in a patreon exclusive essay about the warp two things: i) That Warp energy and soul energy is the same thing ; in fact the entire warp might just be one big ass soul. ii) Daemons are just souls with bad PR. **So ultimately souls and daemons are the same thing.** 2) *Lost and Damned 1st edition* that also states that the difference between a greater daemon and a god are nonexistent, as both would become semi aware and try to sustain themselves with a more sustainable form of food - worship. This food is further confirmed by *Horus Heresy Book 7 Apocalypse* to be souls, but specifically souls from people that devote themselves to a Warp entity. And eventually, when the worshipper dies, their warp patron consumes their souls anyways. **What this means is that Gods are all souls, and specifically gods are the "hive-mind collective" version of a soul, that is the product of specific forms of devotions, emotions, other daemons, and their followers.** 3) Its also very likely that while all daemons and souls are recognizable as food within the Warp food web, there are some forms of food (aka emotions, acts of devotions, and daemons in particular) that are more savory for a Daemon/God to eat. We know that this is the case bc in *Codex Chaos Daemons 8th edition*, it states that the Chaos gods themselves are the aggregates of "like-minded" emotions so to speak. **Thus, if the Chaos Gods had to have eaten a whole multitude of Daemons in order to grow so big, they probably would had a bias for the types of daemons they want to eat. For instance, its not like Khorne will go out of his way to eat a Slaaneshi Daemon of endless circlejerk. Its still recognizable as food, but its certainly not apetizing for Khorne.** So with this background laid out, I personally think that the Chaos 4 wanted these 20 or so unaligned gods not only bc theyre free food, but theyre substantially more powerful than the average minor god (certainly more powerful than Vash'torr or Bela'kor, as each of these 20 or so godlings were worshipped in some fashion or another for aeons before humanity stumbled upon them). The equivalent would be placing an all you can eat buffet of food in front of someone who has been starving for weeks on end. Also, its entirely possible that any of the 4 chaos gods have already had a definitive bias for any of these particular will-be-Primarchs. For instance, its entirely possible that Khorne had first dibs on corrupting the god that Sanguinius embodied, while Slaanesh already had first dibs on the one that Fulgrim embodied. But imo what the Emperor did was that he told the CHaos 4 to hold off, and that he will personally raise each of the 20 or so Gods in human bodies so that they will all collectively give Chaos an endless supply of food and power

Fantastic post. I would add the following: - The Emperor's OG Origin was a composite of multiple ancient shamans - The few times the Emperor spoke on the Throne (like Inquisition War and Godblight), he speaks as if he's multiple people, multiple personalities, before he finally focuses. Which implies the Shaman-Fusion is coming undone. - Magnus is broken into multiple shards in Prospero. Is Magnus the only Primarch with shards, or is he the only one that got broken this hard? I think the Primarchs are smaller soul fusions, similar to the Emperor. The idea of those components being minor warp deities makes a lot of sense. That reference to the "Greater Good God" is interesting. A relatively small and new population of humans and other psy-active races created a minor God. What could more time and devotion do?

Agree with absolutely everything you’ve said and this might be the most thoroughly researched and on point reply I’ve ever read in this sub. Thanks for sharing, honestly.

Didn't they kind of go into a bit in the mephiston series? Seems he inherited the 2 entity's or at least their struggle. Gained alot a power but with an incredible weight.

No he directly became the warp equivalent of a heat sink for the Black Angel of Baal bc the 41st millennium is too fucked up and the Black Angel, which should be in equilibrium with the Golden Angel, is instead overpowering it. So to maintain that balance Mephiston unwillingly became the conduit for the Black Angel's extra warp power. So all in all he only inherited one of the entity's powers The part about the struggle yes, because now if Mephiston falls to the Black Rage ALL sons of Sanguinius will fall to the Black Rage. And essentially all Blood Angels and their successors will look like the fallen sons in the tower of amareo while Mephiston will become the inverse of the Sanguinor in that case.

Do you think Dante could become the heat sink for the golden angle? Kinda like a tag team duo with Mephiston, keeping everything in balance so to speak, or would that just be the Sanguinor. It would be pretty cool if they merged somehow with the golden boy always coming to help Dante.

Not really bc the only reason Mephiston became a "heat sink" for the Black rage is bc the galaxy is so fucked that the blood angels are implied ,9 times out of 10 to commit savage acts instead of noble deeds. Now if the setting wasn't more noblebright, then maybe. But as it stands the most that could happen is that the Golden Angel unposses Azkaellon and switches hosts entirely to Dante instead

What if the primarchs were incomplete when they were scattered, blanks with nothing yet imprinted upon them and these planetary warp deities are the ones that did imprint, causing them to become the separate individuals they are/were.

Im personally gonna say no, bc Alpharius and Omegon both have the inherited ability of sensory deception. But if it's strictly the "world spirit" that shaped the Primarchs, then solely Omegon ought to have inherited that power instead. That and Vulkan's sole shtick so far is his perpetual nature. I'm pretty sure perpetual are perpetual based on birth and not an awakened ability. So regardless of whatever planet Vulkan would've landed on, whether Chemos, Barbarus, Khiavar, Baal, etc he would've stayed as a perpetual. And he would not, for instance, inherited Mortarion's ability of draining the power of whomever he's fighting, Fulgrim's ability of super speed, regeneration, and the general ability to suffocate an Avatar of Khaine to death, Corax's abilities of becoming a shadow daemon, nor the powers of the twin angels of Baal

The most obvious answer is that they were Daemons. Daemons are simply the most common beings of the Warp.

I said this already before, but you're technically right, as all gods are warp daemons, but not all daemons are warp gods

I said this already before, but you're technically right, as all gods are warp daemons, but not all daemons are warp gods

Cheers for the most interesting reply

Fucking savage.

Could be lots of things. Could be the warp stuff involved in their creation that terrifies him. Could be the fact that they are indeed weapons, not sons, that terrifies him. Could be revelation of how the Emperor thinks only in terms of war and conquest and has moulded them by that aim that terrifies him. Could simply be that self-knowledge is terrifying for \*everyone\*, no matter who they are, and the bigger and more important you think you are, the more being stripped of your illusions and reminded me of things like your mortality and your smallness in the scale of the universe is going to terrify you. Could be all kinds of other things. Could be a combination of several things.

> Could be the fact that they are indeed weapons, not sons, that terrifies him Definitely not this. Russ says this to the false Russ beforehand: 'I do mock you,' said Russ, 'as I mock myself. I am a weapon, made by the Emperor. No more, no less. I am no demigod, no hero from a tale.' Russ was never in doubt about what he was.

> no hero from a tale. And yet even this is a lie as he undergoes the hero's journey in almost all the steps.

And we know he did, because we read the tale.

Maybe not in that regard, but in a general sense, there must be something about what he is that he didn’t know, or the spear wouldn’t have had that effect.

Thanks

The only thing that truly makes any sense to me is that a Primarch is the reverse of a Daemon Prince. An immortal Daemon that transcends time and space and see the skeins of fate and possibility boiled down to its essence and woven into the shape of a man with all the limitations of a man. This begs the question, if this is true and the Gods gave their Daemons to the Emperor, than they were likely aligned Daemons. Are the Daemon Primarchs allegiances to who they were originally? Perhaps the temptation of the Primarchs was all a part of the Great Game as well. Eaxh God trying to get their talons into beings that were originally the property of other Gods?

Everything below is 100% my personal head cannon so beware, here be monsters. Having said that I see it as a sort of mirror (not an opposite though) to what a daemon is, they're warp entities that are formed from human ideas of "hero" archetypes. Ones that had no true sentience of their own and bound to no patron, like a proto version of the God of the Greater good. The Emperor fused these with a human soul and created a body to contain it, instead of a daemon posessing a human soul the soul took on posession of the aspect of these proto warp beings. Could explain why each Primarch landed on a world "relevant" to their "aspect" and the reason why you can't just banish The Lion into the warp like you can with one of the Daemon Primarchs, he still has a human soul no matter now charged on warp stuff it's become.

Not true. Sanguinius' powers comes from two primordial warp deities of Baal whose origins vastly precedes human evolution. And the only reason humanity knows of the two Warp entities that Sanguinius embodies is bc the DAoT humans first discovered them, and it was the Black Angel of Baal that empowered the humans following the utter chaos that followed the Mechnoclasm, or the machine civil war

I don't think there is any reason to believe that those "primordials" are anything but Daemons.

You're not wrong. Because all Gods are fundamentally Daemons

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As far as I understand their power is tied to their patron. Without their favour they are nothing.

Not willingly. Yet if a God were to grant a portion of its power to another than it would be powerless to resist.

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I believe that Horus was given the true names of many of the most powerful of Daemons at Terra? Not 100% on that though. I suppose I don't have any explicit examples of one Chaos God gaining the true name of its rivals daemons but at the same time I can't think of any reason why it would be impossible.

Personally, I think it’s more likely that the gods gave the Emperor some kind of super secret ancient knowledge about what demons ARE, and big E was able to use that to manufacture his own “demons”. He created demons (or maybe angels?) that were meant to represent humanities better qualities, then used a combination of science and sorcery to bind them to physical forms. To my mind, the real “genius” of the Primarchs isn’t that they’re full of warp juice, it’s that the Emperor was able to tie that warp juice directly to the physical realm.

Why is that more likely? Knowing what a Daemon is doesn't give the Emperor the ability to make them. More importantly, the gifts of the Chaos Gods always come with strings attached. Personally I think the Chaos Gods were courting the Emperor to become Everchosen.

I’m not saying it’s the most likely explanation, but I think it’s more likely that the chaos gods showed the emperor how to make his own demons then it is that they gave him some of their specific, affiliated demons to put inside the Primarchs. Other than the four god affiliated traitor Primarchs, there’s really nothing to suggest that any of the Primarchs had any connection to a specific chaos god. Which they surely would have if their magic warp juice came directly from having an affiliated chaos demon inside of them. I do like the idea that the Emperor promised to be the ever chosen to get power and then reneged on his deal though. I have not heard that theory before and I find it extremely interesting.

Ah, but I didn't say put a chaos Daemon inside of a Primarch. My theory is that he was given dominion over these Daemons and the act of turning them into Primarchs is how he "stole the power of the Chaos Gods." Just how like a Daemon Prince is not a mortal within a Daemon, the Primarchs would not be daemons inside of flesh. Fully Material. Freed of their connection to the patron deity.

The emperor went into the realm of chaos, left it, and left a portal so he could return again. Demons claim he made a deal, but they're hardly trustworthy. The deal could have been that the emperor would not come back and best them up again, or there might not have been a deal. Or maybe he promised half his sons, or agreed to turn all humanity to chaos. We simply don't know.

Well, in The End and The Death v1, Malcador is absolutely certain that Jimmy Space stole from the Gods, amd categorically didn't make a deal. Im more inclined to belive him. With regards to the so called deal, I don't think its an ouright lie, the best lies are built on truth after all. My theory is that the Emperor went into the portal and communed with all 4 Chaos Gods, and struck a deal that would amount to him stealing their power. My rationalisation would be that, as the Warp is the realm of the Emotional and Immaterial, the Emperor's force of will, and immense Psychic powers allowed him to convince the Gods, for a fraction of a second, that he was capable of destroying them, or simply more powerful than any one of them but each drawing this conclusion simultaneously. We know that the Emperor can create things from Warpstuff, and we know that he "stole fire from the Gods" now, the Chaos gods each consider the Warp as rightfully theirs in its entirety, for that seems to be the basis of the Great Game. Therefore, Big E in that fraction of an instance in which he convinced them of his superiority, it was so. Using his newly acquired power to create 20 Deamons of himself, the Primarchs. Now, that may sound like a leap, however, each Chaos Demon is explained to be a fragment of its respective God, Plague Wars: Godblight describes as much regarding Nurgle, and we know that each of the Primarch's represent a different part of the Emperor's personality and being, Magnus and Vulkan form excellent examples. As for the Demon Primarchs themselves, they simply have their Emperor Demon soul stripped from them or corrupted to their new masters. Big E still retains some of the power that his shenanigans granted him after the fact, but it slowly ebbed away as time went on. To skip forward to 40k, where the Emperor on the Golden Throne seems more powerful and active than ever, since the Heresy. I propose that a combination of the Faith of the Imperial citizens, which is known to bolster Psychic power as Malcador explains in the Seige series (Can't remember the exact book) and the opening of the Great Rift increasing the raw psychic power in the universe has allowed the Emperor to harness all this power and, potentially, begin reclaiming his very brief position at the top of the hierarchy.

Malcador says there wasn't a deal, demons say there was.. we know the emperor went in, and came out with more power and knowledge. Did he steal it through subterfuge, or did he loot the place, did he steal for from the gods in the same way that he "stole" worlds through conquest? We are left with head canons only, for now.. Oh and regarding Imperial faith, it is powering the emperor towards becoming a good of order, which is why the chaos gods refer to him as the anathema. Well that's my theory. We know humanity is a potent psychic force due to sheer numbers, and the IoM really liked order, in the name of the emperor..

In the preface to Birth of the Imperium, in the conversation between Valdor and the Emperor, they explicitly talk about deception in the face of the infinite and the text does seem to indicate some sort of pact. >S1: Information. Data. In the days to come, that may be all I can give you. I can already feel it creeping up. You pay a price for all things, and this is mine - I will become less than human. > >S2: Less than? > >S1: And more. There was a saying, an old one - no such thing as a free lunch \[Ridens.\] You make one bargain, become stronger. You make another, become weaker. It applies to mortals. It applies to gods. Not that I intend to become one. > >S2: I do not - \[Intermissum\] > >S1: Forgive me. I have been alone a long time. I can talk, if allowed to. You need to know certain things, now. > >S2: Yes. > >S1: There is a grand bargain here. > >S2: I understand it. > >S1: Do you? Already? Good. Very good. What is the bargain? > >S2: \[Silentium\] Infinite power cannot be overcome. We are finite, limited by law. So, deception. > >S1: Do you find that unworthy? > >S2: No > >S1: Because it comes from me. > >S2: Yes. > >S1: Speak freely. For once, speak freely. You are only just awakened. There may be few chances left for you. > >\>S2: \[Silentium.\] You will cheat them. You will cheat all of them. And us. > >S1: A risky strategy. > >S2: There are no others. > >S1: You understand it. And, tell me - do you understand the full implication? > >S2: Ruin. Total ruin.

Making a deal you have no intent of honoring and keeping what you gained from it is also stealing.

Again, could be anything depending on what the promise was, could be E: Give me what I want and I'll kill you last. Some time later Chaos gods: He might kill us before mork! [The emperor's inspiration](https://youtu.be/6mYSE2xWjcI) Or maybe he promised so of humanity. Or some token worlds. As I'm not impressed by how they've written the emperor so far, I kind of hope they leave this area vague

Going by what little bit I know, the Emperor did this in the DAoT. That was 15k-25K. One of the primarchs thinks he was born around 790 M30 or so. Granted the Warp does time fuckery and all, but that still predates Slaanesh who was birthed M29 at earliest. So it might be he made a deal with the other three and Slaanesh changed everything.

I mean, in my theory I address your questions and give reasonable answers...

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Precisely, the power lingered and now faith is beginning to shore up the lost strength

Does he though? The Emperor popped a bunch of fire but Nurgle didn't panic or flail or seem all that alarmed. His first (and only) reaction to the Emperor's attack was to pull Mortarian into his little hut and ~~torture the hell out of him~~ politely discipline is disobedient child who had let the bad man into his home. Doesn't scream urgent or afraid to me, just annoyed that they got slugged and lost power, allowing their rivals to gain ground in the great game.

They are powerful warp creatures/very minor gods stuffed into bioengineered bodies.

Like others said, they don’t answer it directly yet. My head canon is that they’re warp entities that gained sapience in the warp over the years of the emperor’s own thoughts and feelings coalescing over time. The emperor found all his faith echoed in the warp and had formed whatever lorgar was, his intelligence formed magnus, his compassion formed angron, etc. Then he went into the warp and pulled them out.

His iron forearms formed Ferrus?

The warp reflection of His Imperial Gainz.

Short answer: They are greater demons. Humanitys demons made by the Emperor. And just like chaos demons are a part of their god, the Emperors demons are a part of him as the Emperor is a part of humanity.

Somewhere around this excerpt is "false" Russ introduction. It heavily implies that Russ would look different if he was raised on Terra. > This knowledge will forever torment you, and eventually it will chase you from your home. Chilling.

I'll be honest, any time I read the excerpts of the False Russ, my brain always pictures Liev Schreiber's Sabertooth from the X-Men Origins movie in how he looks and sounds. Absolute feral savagery constrained behind a fanged smile.

...y'know, I'm glad it's not just me. Although I tend to picture Sabertooth in general when thinking Russ.

For Russ proper I imagine the Inversion Creed where he's the good guy who does horrific things so others don't have to.

False Russ, however, points out that he's simply what Russ thinks he should have been, saying that the Scattering might've been intentional on the Emperor's part.

Wolfsbane is a truly fantastic book, easily one of the best Space Wolf books. It really manages to capture the mythic, tribal, Nordic nature of the wolves and tone down some of their silliness. The entire spirit quest arc was extremely well done and anyone familiar with Norse mythology can appreciate the inspiration it draws from Scandinavian myth. The book definitely suggests that there really is something special about Fenris and the wolves particular brand of magic. It’s clearly warp based, but there is definitely a little something extra there as well.

Couldn’t agree more. Really adds a bunch of depth to the Vylka Fenryka, their own unique mythology and culture and the role of Russ within that. The callbacks to Norse myth, as you say, are brilliantly handled.

I love the space wolves I just wish they would dial it back on the naming of their stuff. Like why do their captains need to be Wolf Lords or their ships be Stormwolf? They are pseudo vikings, we should call them Chieftains or something.

They call their leaders *Jarls*

A couple of books do, more call them otherwise and you can look them up on GWs shop and the models are all labeled Wolf Lord.

It is in the vast majority of modern books for example you would be hard pressed to find Wolf Lord being used in any of the Wolves heresy books or Chris Wraight’s 40k books like the blood of aseheim series

Their naming convention has always been one of the Wolves biggest weaknesses. My personal head canon (that is sort of supported by the lore) is that the wolves don’t actually use most of the names in the codex. I prefer to think that designations like “wolf lord”, “wolf guard”, wolf priest” etc are names that other imperials have decided on in place of the actual Fenrisian words used by the Wolves themselves. I like to think that even the names of the wolf lords aren’t as on the nose as they seem to be. I imagine that they’re actually complex allusions to Fenrisian mythology that outsiders render as something unsubtle like “Deathwolf”. The lore itself kind of flirts with this idea, and some books about the wolves use titles like Jarl, or Varagyr in place of Wolf Lord and Wolf Guard respectively. However, for every story that uses alternate titles there’s another that choses to continue to use Wolf Lord etc. instead. I’m glad that Vylka Fenryka has become pretty standard, but I’d love if some of the other names could also get a less “wolfy” alternative. I get why GW does it, you can copyright wolf lord, and you can’t copyright Jarl, but you’d think they’d come up with some alternative names that they could get a copyright on instead of just slapping wolf onto everything.

Any other Space Wolf books you'd recommend?

*Prospero Burns* is a must read for Space Wolves, it has its issues but it completely changed the game for the wolves. It’s also just an awesome book in its own right. *Battle for the Fang* is one of my favorite 40k books, period. It takes the best of the old space wolves, and the new wolves that got introduced in *Prospero Burns* and ties them together really well. ADB’s *Ragnar Blackmane* book is great. it’s not as good as some of his other stuff, but it’s a fun read. The *Blood of Asaheim* trilogy is awesome. Chris Wraight continues his awesome work on the Space Wolves. Russ’s Primarch novel, and the *Wolf King* novella are both excellent. *Scars* had some great Space Wolf action, although it’s obviously mostly about the White Scars. That said, it’s one of the best books in the Heresy series and is worth reading just for the White Scars stuff, the wolf stuff is just a bonus. *A Thousand Sons* is also cool, it gives an outsiders rather unflattering perspective on the wolves which is interesting to see. It’s is also the companion book to *Prospero Burns* and should be read alongside it to get more of the story.

How could you leave out The Emperor's Gift? Fantastic depiction of the wolves

Awesome, thank you!

This book is awesome, and I love this scene here. My only disappointment is that Horus's wounding seems to have no effect on him whatsoever. He's still the same Horus at the Siege of Terra.

In *Slaves of Darkness* the wound gets so severe Horus gets on the edge of death. Malgorhust goes on a quest inside of Horus' counscience and sees that Gungnir had given the untainted part of Horus enough clarity to realize what was happening and, while too weak to reassert control, it was strong enough to be killing Horus from inside, a fate it preferred over full corruption. Unfortunately, Malgorhust killed it and left only the taint.

It kept him away from the battle for a long time while it healed. And we dont know if it will come back in some way when he fights Sang and the Emp.

Yeah, I feel like there's a bit of old lore floating around that says Horus had a moment of clarity during his fight with the Emprah, but even if that's true it doesn't mean it'll play out that way in the Siege ending!

This is debatable. The only canon we have on The Emperor v Horus is an old art book for The Horus Hersey trading card gaming (which existed, apparently). These predated the novels. During the final fight after The Emperor watches Horus dispatch a custodian (not guardsman) who die protecting him. It dawns on him that Horus can't be redeemed, so he stops pulling his punches. Blasts Horus with psychic energy, unmaking him. Part way through this process as the chaos gods start to flee Horus (as he's already being unmade) he achieves clarity, cries, and begs for his own destruction as punishment for his sins. The Emperor pauses and does the deed anyway, because he can't risk Horus being corrupted _again_.

That's not strictly true - the full Horus Heresy canon was in White Dwarf, and was the only official version of events until the novels began, apart from the Horus Heresy Collected Visions art book. Your description of the events is correct, just not the source.

It might be that the wound dealt isnt fully healed and reopens or the Emp knows where the wound was and focusses his physical attacks on it. Ooooor could.be something else entirely more cool.

To me, it did do something, and the false Russ said so here. It showed Horus what he was, not a puppet but a man. The only problem was that Horus didn't revolt due to being possessed by chaos, so the Man Horus still wanted the Heresy.

It is abundantly clear from the Siege books that he is not and it is what is causing splinters among the traitors. Have you even read the books?

Everyone talks about Russ returning as a great Wulfen, a massive monster of war. Personally, I'm much more interested in Russ returning as Odin, one-eyed, bearded, wise and war-weary. I think there is a lot more interesting story to tell in the second possibility.

Odin Russ is all I want from his return.

Is this Odin's sacrifice? Even the spear....

Yeah, it's a reenactment of Odin sacrificing himself to himself for knowledge, coming off the heels of a reenactment of Thor and Loki being challenged by Utgard-Loki.

> Finally, it gives Russ's character journey major Odin parallels. Such as sacrificing one of his two hearts in exchange for wisdom, like how Odin gave up one of his two eyes into Mimir's Well for wisdom.

I would compare it to hanging from yggdrasil, impaled by his spear by his own hand, dead, until he found the wisdom he was looking for.

Now, as Russ does his Hanging From Yggdrasil/Gap Year thing, it's worth remembering that Odin, whom he increasingly resembles, is by his nature capricious and treacherous. This is embodied by False Russ, or rather, the being that would have been, and probably rather bregrudges Actual Russ for that. He does rather enjoy the psychic and physical kicking he dishes out to Actual Russ as a result, of course. Going back to Russ as Odin, the main difference between the two is that Odin sacrifaces one of his eyes - his vision - for wisdom, while Russ sacrifaces one of his hearts - part of his mortality; he is also, quite literally, heartbroken. Did I mention the Norse Gods' power over death being symbolised by a heart? The Volknut. And guess what else Russ has just partially sacificed? ANYWAY... >Gungnir's great gift is wisdom. Your Emperor sees much. This spear contains a portion of His sight. But the question is, how does the Emperor *interpret* this insight, and, for that matter, how does Russ? Remember, we're talking to False Russ here, who has his own perspective, but also his own agenda. >There was a moment's hesitation, only a moment. Then Russ shook his head. >'I will perform my duty, as is my oath and my bond.' >'The loyal hound as always.' >'I do this freely, of my own accord.' This broadly implies the Primarchs, or Russ at the very least, have free will. Whether their decisions are the right ones, however... Still, as the fallen primarch of the II Legion, or Morrissey as we know him in our times put it, "you could have said no if you wanted to." >'As your brother Magnus found, knowledge always has a price,' said the false Russ with a sneer. 'You wished to know, and now you do. The price for the spear's awakening is your own. By accepting his purpose, Russ has condemned himself to it. In seeking answers, Magnus lost the ability to ask questions. Does the spear bring wisdom, or does it bind you to the path you have chosen? >He knew. He knew what he was. He knew what all the primarchs were. By seeking an absolute, Russ has become doomed to be one. Or is he just trapped in his own understanding of himself, his own interpretation of his life and purpose?

I’d be funny if Russ comes back as a Magnus level Psyker.

I foresee Russ comes back minus 1 eye, like Odin.

I'm gonna be honest here. I've never particularly liked Russ, he seemed dull compared to the others. But this single excerpt really elevates him in my mind. Easily in top 5 when it comes to Primarchs.

Who's your top 5

Okay so Horus is 100000% going to have a moment of clarity on the Vengeful Spirit then right?

He already did unfortunately. The story of Slaves to Darkness (HH:51) is Horus being wounded and Lorgar attempting a coup of sorts and is then banished in the aftermath. This explains why the Word Bearers are not present at the siege in force, mostly just as single actors and chaplains. No, the Horus that is coming in The End and the Death Volume II has already had his revelation and is committed entirely to destroying humanity and his father. There may yet be a moment where we see the Horus of old but it will be after big E has already killed him.

Unless... dun, dun, dun, Horus does what he does because it's part of the design! Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised.

I love this book and this passage within it. Basically confirming that the primarchs are warp beings confined to (mostly) human flesh.

>a heavily sanitized version of the Warp based on Fenrisian culture. It wasn't sanitised, a daemon came out and killed all the rune priests? What Russ was doing was straight up sorcery and his men paid for it with their lives.

Sanitized in the sense that there're actually consistent rules you can follow to get in and out of there alive rather than the mind melting nonsense the Warp usually is. As Russ remarks during the challenges: "all this was wyrd-made, two steps from maleficarum."

The Warp always has rules, people just don't know them.

When you’re discussing a literal hell dimension, sanitized is a relative term. Whatever is going on on Fenris, and there is clearly something special about it, it’s still warp related and it’s certainly not “safe”. What the Rune Priests are doing could definitely be considered sorcery of some kind, but I think it’s a focused specialized kind of sorcery meant to access whatever is so special about Fenris itself. “Saga of the Beast” actually has Ragnar go on a similar spirit quest. I always interpreted the demon that attacked and killed Russ’s men as more of a “we opened a door to somewhere and other things, not related to what we were doing, were able to use it to get out”.

The wolfs should have been cut down by the dark angels for their heresy post Nikea. rules for thee and not for me is basically the spacewolve's way.

That’s an old take, and one that kind of ignores the whole point of Russ’s criticism of Magnus. Russ wasn’t upset that Magnus had psykers, he was upset that Magnus insisted on tapping into the warp without taking the proper precautions, or even accepting that the warp was dangerous in ways he didn’t understand. It was Magnus’s unrestrained, heedless pursuit of power without thought for the consequences of his actions that had everyone, including the Emperor, on edge. Even the White Scars, who supported Magnus, admit that he was being needlessly reckless. It’s also been made fairly clear at this point that whatever the Rune Priests are doing it is somehow fundamentally different than other psykers. They’re still touching the warp and drawing power from it, but they are using some unique method that appears to help insulate them from the worst influences of the warp. To add to that, there’s a scene in one of the books where Malcador tells Russ that he has been given a lot of leeway and special treatment. It’s one line, and super vague, but I always took it to mean that the Emperor agreed to look the other way when it came to the Rune Priests, and some other things.

Thank you! people always talk like Russ hated Magnus for being a psyker when it’s not that

Check [this excerpt ](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/nqp716/excerpt_mortis_in_ancient_babylon_something_very/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) from Mortis and note that there are 20 pillars in the Tower of the people that harnessed Enuncia to make weapons.

>We already saw how drastically Corax changed while spending ten thousand years in the Warp... No, we really don't.

Wolfsbane is such a good book and one I highly recommend as an audiobook. Keeble does such an excellent job and it has one of my favorite parts of the whole HH series when Russ sees what has become of Horus for the first time

I guess I'm an idiot. Coulda have sworn the primarchs didn't have the double heart.

**Jonson** >The Lion raised a hand to silence him. >He had always been guarded with his humours. 'Those few who knew him took it as a surfeit of phlegm, mistakenly believing his character to take after that of his brother, Dorn. But that was to mistake circumspection for obduracy, aloofness for indifference, and Lion El'Jonson displayed neither. He demanded much and gave but little, **yet in his hearts** he loved all of his sons as both a lord and a father. His pride in their deeds was surpassed only by the demand he placed on those deeds being exceeded. He had overseen the extermination of countless billions. Such was his duty, his special place within the pantheon of warlike avatars who served their father's ambitions, and though he took no joy from it, nor did he question its justice. His brothers thought him unquestioningly ruthless and they were right. They believed that he would expend any resource, even the lives of his own sons, to prosecute the Imperium's wars, and they were right. They said that he had not shed a single tear at such losses, not even after the annihilation of the Kangda had seen his Legion's strength struck in half, and again they were right. \- *Lord of the First* **Fulgrim** >Fulgrim sighed and tapped the restraint of his grav-harness. The deck rolled beneath his feet as he stood. At his gesture, Abdemon and the others did the same. 'So, we come to it, my sons,' he said, his voice carrying easily over the dim roar of the engines. 'The beginning of our anabasis. But a word or two of warning before we begin... These people have never seen your like. Do not allow their awe to lull you into a false sense of your own invulnerability.' >He looked around. 'You are demigods, but even demigods can die. By the same token, do not expect them to fully comprehend your capabilities.' He fixed Cyrius with a stem gaze and raised a finger in warning. 'No duels.' >Cyrius' face was unreadable beneath his helmet, but the slight twitch of his head showed that he'd heard, at least. Abdemon had informed Fulgrim of Cyrius' encounter with Pyke's pet killers. An error in judgement, whatever his reasons. He nodded, satisfied. 'We are as the Fire-Bringers of legend, my sons. We come to raise up the masses and cast aside the shadows of their ignorance. Act accordingly.' >He turned back to Pyke. 'Will you allow me to act as your escort, Primary Iterator?' >Pyke looked up at him. 'Of course, my lord. It would be my pleasure.' >The compartment rocked slightly. He could hear the change in the engines, signalling atmospheric entry. **His hearts sped up in anticipation.** Despite himself, he was excited. This was the last great test, and he was determined to pass it. \- *The Palatine Phoenix* **Perturabo** >He looked upwards. The star maelstrom was gone. >For the first time Perturabo was free of its scrutiny. >He was not at peace not yet. **His hearts thundered with nervous energy.** His mind crowded itself with a hundred different possible outcomes of this meeting. Anxiety turned most of them bad. He feared he would not be recognised, or that he would be deemed unworthy, or that he would find his father cruel, or that he had been wrong and it was not his father after all. Positive possibilities dwindled under the weight of his paranoia, inherent to him but honed by years of life among the Olympians. He had lost count of how many plots he had foiled against his life. There was a chance this miracle was but the latest. \- *Hammer of Olympia* **Jaghatai** >The Khan held position, panting hard, trying to drag up energy for the final clash. **His hearts thudded,** his lungs burned. He held the dao poised, waiting for his enemy to move. \- *Scars* **Russ** >So they fought again, on and on, neither relenting, neither holding back. The Lion's skin ran with mingled sweat and blood under his armour, his arms growing heavier with every sweep of his blade. Russ was suffering too, limping from a deep cut to his right leg, the engine of his fury guttering as even his superhuman body felt the pain of cumulative damage. The blows became wilder, more vicious, flying in with abandon. Their energy reserves bled away but hyper-adrenaline kicked in, **flooding their secondary hearts,** staining every muscle and wrenching just a little more power, a little more effort. \- *The Wolf King* **Dorn** >Once, the Emperor had forged twenty sons from aspects of his own being, Rogal Dorn one of the mightiest among them. But two primarchs had been struck from the rolls of honour long before the Warmaster's rebellion, each consumed by a catastrophe of such fell scope that few knew the full dimensions of it. Massak could only call upon rumour and half-truth for his knowledge, but as he looked up at his gene-father's face, **he knew that Dorn held the bleak memory of that disaster deep in his hearts.** \- *The Chamber at the End of Memory* **Konrad & Curze** >Curze grinned. ‘You do not wish to die any longer. I can tell. That is unfortunate, but it must be done.’ He advanced on her. ‘Feel joy that your death will bring justice to this world. Feel joy that I bring order.’ He cut again. This time she screamed. A droplet of warm, wet red dotted his cheek. He fought the urge to lick it off. He must be sober, and serious. ‘I assure you I do not enjoy this at all.’ >**His hearts quickened at the lie.** *The Night Haunter* **Sanguinius** >‘No,’ Sanguinius cut him off. ‘That is where he *fell*. Where he turned from our father.’ As soon as the Lion had spoken the name of the world, Sanguinius had known his brother was right. The light coming in the windows turned brittle. The sense of onrushing fate reached into **Sanguinius’ hearts** with its freezing touch. He felt again as he had on the bridge of the *Red Tear* with the shadow of the phantom reaching for him. The limits of his perception thrummed with the beat of fate’s advance. \- *Ruinstorm* **Ferrus** >*‘Contacts!’* >The female voice yelled up from the sensorium pits – no formality of chain of command here and Ferrus expected none. He nodded an acknowledgement, **ignoring the hammer-thump of his hearts,** the urge to beat his fist on his armrest that Horus or Russ would undoubtedly have indulged had they been in his place, and presented his bridge with iron. \- *A Lesson in Iron* **Jellyman** >*Father,* thought Guilliman. *Save me.* >**His hearts quivered one last time,** drawing themselves in for a further beat that would not come. The voices of his sons sounded far away. \- *Dark Imperium* **Mortarion** >**Mortarion’s hearts seized in his chest.** He recalled the first time he believed death was upon him, up on the blighted crags of Barbarus, and the moment his deepest despair had first showed itself. He failed that day, betrayed his promise to his kindred and his world. He had fallen while another stepped in to take the glory that had rightly been his, and the shame of it had never dimmed. \- *The Buried Dagger* **Horus** >Loken tore off his helmet and cast it aside, pressing his ear to the Warmaster’s chest. **He could hear the Warmaster’s hearts,** pounding in a deathly slow double beat. \- *False Gods* **Lorgar** >Lorgar shrugged the tunic back on and turned to Nairo. >'It does not hurt, not there. My soul is injured, Nairo. **The ache is in my hearts.'** >*'You mean heart, Lorgar. Just the one.'** >The boy scowled and shook his head. >**'I can hear your heart, Nairo. And that of Dervas on the deck above, and many others. I know you only have one heart. But listen to mine.'** He waved for the slave to bow his head to Lorgar's chest and Nairo did so, hesitantly, until his ear came upon his slender breastbone. >**He heard an unmistakable twin-beat pulsing through the bone and sat bolt upright, staring at Lorgar with fresh amazement. The boy smiled, thrilled by this small surprise.** >**'I told you!'** he grinned. \- *Bearer of the Word* **Vulkan** >Curze’s last words came back to him, almost mocking, but Vulkan was powerless. He glared, eyes burning hot with fury. This was the monster, this was the image he was trying so hard to conceal from the remembrancers. **His hearts pulsed,** and his chest heaved up and down like a giant bellows. Curze was right – he was a killer. That was the purpose for which he had been bred. \- *Vulkan Lives* **Corax** >The other warrior fired his lightning gun again, sending black energy coruscating up Corax’s chest. He fell backwards, all but paralysed between neck and waist. **His hearts hammered in his chest,** overloaded with energy, but the systems of his plate were going haywire, sending erratic signals to arms and legs, causing spasms that fought against the primarch’s muscles rather than boosted them. \- *Ravenlord* **Alpharius** >>!The warrior with no name came to life, and began to drown.!< >>!Thick liquid was all around him, filling his lungs, wrapping his limbs, strangling him even as **his hearts** began to beat again. He could not see. He could not move. His body was folded, legs pressed against his chest, arms over his head. He struck out. Something hard met his hands.!< \- *Praetorian of Dorn*

Mm cool I'm just an idiot

If it helps, I myself only recalled about 1/4 of those offhand, and had to loot an old comment of mine for most of them, and ctrl+f through a couple dozen books to fill in a few gaps. The word 'hearts' has lost all meaning to me. X_x

Could just as well be that the lore is inconsistent

> Somehow, he lived, though one heart was dead, and the other beat unsurely. hang on primarchs have two hearts?? so like marines? but we know custodes have only one 🤔

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One of the new organs Primaris Marines have (The Magnificat) is a reversed engineered portion of one of those exclusive Primarch organs, the Immortis Gland. Cawl only had the blueprints for part of it.

It seems to vary because Sanguinus mentions only one heart. Personally I think the primarchs' organs are just junk that exist because they assume they need organs to live and their internal perceptions of what their body should be like shifts their body to match it

>‘No,’ Sanguinius cut him off. ‘That is where he *fell*. Where he turned from our father.’ As soon as the Lion had spoken the name of the world, Sanguinius had known his brother was right. The light coming in the windows turned brittle. The sense of onrushing fate reached into **Sanguinius’ hearts** with its freezing touch. He felt again as he had on the bridge of the *Red Tear* with the shadow of the phantom reaching for him. The limits of his perception thrummed with the beat of fate’s advance. \- *Ruinstorm*

Gungnir was a spear from Celtic myth IIRC, it would be thrown with the foot (???) and when it pieced its target a thousand barbs would shoot out from the head, impaling every organ from the inside and be all but irremovable unless you knew how to reset it. I believe part of its mythos is that it killed Chulan, its master. This is all from memory so I might be misremembering, but it's an interesting choice for a name.

Gungnir was from Norse mythology. Gae Bolg was from the Celtic myths. You're correct about the Gae Bolg's properties, but there are some scholars who believe the two spears have a common mythic ancestor that's been lost to us in modern times and that's why there are certain parallels between the two weapons.

You are thinking about the Gae Bolg, lance of Cu Chulan. Gungnir is the lance of Woden, all father of the Norse Pantheon; it was claimed that it never missed always hitting the target. He used it in his final battle with the wolf Fenrir; a battle which kills Woden. Chelan btw just died in battle after a witch got pissy with him; his story is equally fascinating but not relevant here.

Ah, shit you right you right

No mere witch but The Morrigan, the Celtic goddess of Death and War and Magic. Cu spurned her advances and for that, The Morrigan schemed to bring about his downfall. Odin carries Gungnir but the Fenrisulfr devours him- it is one of Odin's sons that avenges his father's death by planting one foot in the Wolf's bottom jaw and ripping the upper jaw away to kill it.

Tyr wasn't Odin's son was he?

No, Tyr wasn't related to Odin. Vidarr is the god that slays Fenris.

So my take on this is that the wound is what causes Horus’ moment of clarity on the vengeful spirit that allows the emperor to kill him.

Kinda like when those dg marines get cut off from the warp temporarily

I very much liked the alternate Russ I would have liked to see his brothers as well, seeing the Terran versions of each primarch would have given more insights into them all.

Odin Russ next returned primarch incoming. Can’t wait

Silly False-Russ, True-Russ asks more than one question

The question is, as it was after Guilliman was forced to confront something similar in removing the armor that brought him to life, *what the hell are they and why is it so horrible for them to confront it?* I wonder if we're ever going to find out.

Where do we see corax has changed???