Primarch

This article is about the Space Marine Primarchs; for the Anthology, see The Primarchs (Anthology).

Space Marines Portal

An assembly of the Primarchs during the great Triumph after the Ullanor Crusade. Left to right: Sanguinius, Mortarion, Magnus the Red, Angron, Jaghatai Khan, Lorgar Aurelian, Rogal Dorn, Horus Lupercal, and Fulgrim.¹⁶

The Primarchs were the twenty genetically-engineered "sons" of the Emperor. The Emperor used his own DNA in their creation, and they were designed to be far superior to the average human: immensely larger, stronger, hardier, faster, and more intelligent. They were also incredibly charismatic, as their main role was to be generals and leaders of the Imperial military.

Creation of the Primarchs

They were created in a secret underground laboratory on Luna under the tightest security. However, the forces of Chaos somehow managed to spirit them away just prior to their maturation and it is speculated that they also managed to tamper with the infant Primarchs. These were scattered across the galaxy, beyond the Emperor's reach, and all of them landed on different worlds. The Emperor could sense that the infant Primarchs were alive, but was unable to reach them. Therefore he used their previously collected DNA samples to create the Space Marines. The genetic material of each one of the Primarchs was used to found a single Space Marine Legion, twenty in total.

The new homeworlds of the foundling Primarchs and their infancy would influence and mould them to a large extent. There they quickly grew to adulthood and often rose to power, ruling, leading, and helping the inhabitants. As the Emperor found them, he was generally pleased by their actions, and quickly gave them the leadership of their respective legion.

The first Primarch to be found was Horus, who became the Emperor's favourite. Most Primarchs somehow recognised the Emperor on sight, and immediately pledged their allegiance on the spot. A few, (Leman Russ, Ferrus Manus and Vulkan) only followed him after being bested in contests. Angron refused, and was abducted from his homeworld, something he never really accepted. The last to be found was Alpharius.

At the end of the Great Crusade Warmaster Horus fell to Chaos, and eight of his fellow Primarchs followed him against the Emperor, resulting in a full-scale civil war known as the Horus Heresy. Each Primarch chose his side, loyalists against traitors, leading their legions against their former comrades.

Legion Number	Name	Homeworld	Name of the Legion	Allegiance	Current Status
I	Lion El'Jonson	Caliban	Dark Angels	Loyal	Alive, asleep within a secret chamber on the Rock.
II	Deleted from Imperial records, authorisation unknown.
III	Fulgrim	Chemos	Emperor's Children	Traitor	Daemon Prince.
IV	Perturabo	Olympia	Iron Warriors	Traitor	Daemon Prince, ruler of Medrengard.
V	Jaghatai Khan	Mundus Planus	White Scars	Loyal	Unknown, disappeared into the Webway.
VI	Leman Russ	Fenris	Space Wolves	Loyal	Unknown, disappeared into the Eye of Terror.
VII	Rogal Dorn	Terra13	Imperial Fists	Loyal	Died in a Black Crusade.
VIII	Konrad Curze/Night Haunter	Nostramo	Night Lords	Traitor	Dead, assassinated by Callidus assassin M'Shen.
IX	Sanguinius	Baal	Blood Angels	Loyal	Dead, slain by Horus.
X	Ferrus Manus	Medusa	Iron Hands	Loyal	Dead, slain by Fulgrim and his head offered to Horus.
XI	Deleted from Imperial records, authorisation unknown.
XII	Angron	Unknown	World Eaters	Traitor	Daemon Prince.
XIII	Roboute Guilliman	Macragge	Ultramarines	Loyal	Mortally wounded by Fulgrim currently held in stasis, rumoured to be healing.
XIV	Mortarion	Barbarus	Death Guard	Traitor	Daemon Prince, ruler of the Plague Planet.
XV	Magnus the Red	Prospero	Thousand Sons	Traitor	Daemon Prince, ruler of the Planet of Sorcerers.
XVI	Horus	Cthonia	Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus	Traitor	Dead, slain by the Emperor.
XVII	Lorgar	Colchis	Word Bearers	Traitor	Daemon Prince, ruler of Sicarus.
XVIII	Vulkan	Nocturne	Salamanders	Loyal	Unknown, disappeared.
XIX	Corvus Corax	Deliverance	Raven Guard	Loyal	Unknown, disappeared, last seen heading for the Eye of Terror.
XX	Alpharius Omegon	Unknown	Alpha Legion	Traitor	One may be dead, slain by Roboute Guilliman. (It is not known which of the twins was killed. The reliability of this information is disputed, therefore it is possible that both Alpharius and Omegon are still alive.)

Fate of the Primarchs

Traitors

• Warmaster Horus was killed by the Emperor of Mankind, and his soul was obliterated. His corpse was completely destroyed by Abaddon the Despoiler, who also took over his place as overall leader of the Chaos Space Marines.
• Magnus rose to the rank of Daemon Prince of Tzeentch.
• Angron rose to the rank of Daemon prince of Khorne.
• Mortarion rose the rank of Daemon Prince of Nurgle.
• Fulgrim rose to the rank of Daemon Prince of Slaanesh.
• Lorgar rose to the rank of Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided.
• Perturabo rose to the rank of Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided.
• Konrad Curze, aka Night Haunter, was assassinated by Callidus assassin M'Shen. He allowed her infiltration, apparently wanting to die.
• Alpharius was killed by Roboute Guilliman, but the source which reported his death may have been manipulated. It is not known if Alpharius or Omegon is the Primarch killed in the report. Due to the report's unreliability, neither may have been killed.⁸.

Loyalists

• Ferrus Manus was killed at the Drop Site massacre at the start of the Horus Heresy by Fulgrim who presented his head to Horus.
• Sanguinius was slain by Horus after refusing to join him.
• Lion El'Jonson returned to his homeworld of Caliban only to discover that his friend and second-in command Luther and the Dark Angel garrison had turned against him². He led a strike force of his own loyal Dark Angels against the traitors. He disappeared amongst the inferno as the world was blasted apart by a Warp Storm and a bombardment from his ships in orbit. He sleeps deep within the Rock, the biggest piece of Caliban and current home base of the Dark Angels^1,2. Only the Emperor and the Watchers in the Dark know of this secret.^1-p14
• Jaghatai Khan disappeared while pursuing the Dark Eldar into a Webway portal after they had managed to raid Mundus Planus. There are rumours that he fights there still, lost in the twisting paths of the Webway. After nine thousand years it seems highly unlikely, but not impossible.
• Leman Russ disappeared in the Eye of Terror. The Space Wolves hold a legend that says Russ went on a quest to find a means to cure the Emperor. His final words before his disappearance is that he would return for the 'Wolftime' (the final battle). It is also said that Leman Russ led the 13th Company into the Eye of Terror and ordered them to hunt down the Traitor Legions which had fled to the Eye of Terror, particularly the Thousand Sons.
• Rogal Dorn boarded a Chaos cruiser during a Black Crusade alongside a company of his sons and died fighting. Today, his hand is housed in the holiest shrine of the Imperial Fists chapter, and his dead body encased in amber and put in Phalanx ¹¹.
• Roboute Guilliman was struck down with an envenomed blade by his former brother Fulgrim. His body is perfectly preserved in a stasis field at the heart of the Temple of Correction³. It is rumoured that he is still alive and that his wound is slowly healing, something normally impossible in a stasis field. The truth of this rumour is unknown but this is seen by many (including Captain Uriel Ventris) as mere optimistic thinking.
• Vulkan disappeared. The position of Chapter Master, filled by the Captain of the First Company, is considered to be a regency as the Salamanders believe that Vulkan will one day return and lead them on a great crusade against Chaos.
• Corax was racked by guilt and shame. In order to rebuild quickly the strength of his legion from the dropsite massacre on Isstvan V, Corax accelerated the growth of the gene-seed organs, producing more Space Marines, but this process also deteriorated the Gene-seed, causing many to become hulking monsters. Riddled with guilt over what he had done, Corax administered euthanasia to all of them and then locked himself away within his sanctum, the Raven's Tower. Exactly one year later he left his tower, haggard and gaunt, and took a small shuttle craft with the words Never more. It was last monitored setting a course for the Eye of Terror.

Two unknown Primarchs

Almost nothing is known about the two unknown primarchs.

References to the second and eleventh Primarchs are made in the short story, The Lighting Tower¹², in which Rogal Dorn describes the plinths on which their statues stand should be vacant and says that 'no one ever spoke of those two absent brothers. Their separate tragedies had seemed like aberrations. Had they, in fact, been warnings that no one had heeded?' Also in The First Heretic, Lorgar makes several references saying that the Emperor ordered them to be forgotten. During the time five Word Bearer captains spent being shown secrets of the galaxy by the deamon Ingethel they are shown the Emperor's gene-labs where he is creating the Primarchs and the moment that they were scattered by Chaos. During their time wandering the labs as insubstantial ghosts undetectable as long as they don't touch anything they speak of the two lost legions, mentioning how they were erased from Imperial records and how Roboute Guilliman's Ultramarines legion mysteriously swelled in numbers each time one of the two legions was "erased." The implication seems clear that at least part of the fighting force of the "lost" legions was entrusted to Roboute Guilliman and incorporated into the Ultramarines.¹⁵

Note: If this is true then perhaps entire chapters descended from the original Ultramarines legion are in fact part of the gene-seed of the two lost legions. At the time of the Heresy remarks made by the five Word Bearers captains Argel Tal, Xaphen, Torgal, Malnor and Dagotal suggest that the fate of the lost legions is relatively common knowledge though kept hushed up. In the intervening ten millenia between the Heresy and the current age of the 41st milenium it is likely this information was forgotten. It is an interesting side-note that the lost legions were numbers two and eleven. Two plus eleven equals thirteen-the number of the Ultramarines legion.¹⁵

The traitor Primarchs in this story are covered with a shroud, so the fate of the second and eleventh is undetermined. They may have been found and befell a tragedy as it implies they were spoken about previously.

Sources

• ¹:Codex: Angels of Death (2nd Edition)
• ²:Angels of Darkness by Gav Thorpe
• ³:Nightbringer by Graham McNeill
• ⁴:Hell in a Bottle (Short Story) by Simon Jowet
• ⁵:Malleus by Dan Abnett, page 89 "...the Primarch of the White Consuls..."
• ⁶:Codex Imperialis, section previewed in White Dwarf 166
• ⁷:Codex: Ultramarines (2nd Edition)
• ⁸:Index Astartes IV
• ⁹:False Gods by Graham McNeill
• ¹⁰:Renegades by Andy Chambers, Jervis Johnson & Rick Priestley
• ¹¹:Space Marine
• ¹²:The Lightning Tower by Dan Abnett, page 9
• ¹³:Codex: Space Marines (5th Edition), Page 8
• ¹⁴:Ultramarines: The Omnibus by Graham McNeill
• ¹⁵:The First Heretic (Novel) by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Chapter 17, pages 295-296
• ¹⁶:The Primarchs (Anthology): Cover Illustration

Related Articles

• Primarch Project