Primarch

The Primarchs were the twenty sons of the Emperor, born leaders of man and the template from which the Emperor would craft his Space Marine legions. They were bred to be perfect generals, warriors and statesmen; larger, stronger, faster, and smarter than any normal human could ever hope to be. They possessed a charisma and martial prowess that made them like the mythical gods of old, untouchable by disease, old age or the petty failings of men. The primarch's were the Emperor's answer to Chaos. He would raise his sons to be the best commanders and leaders the Imperium had ever known, and they would bring the Imperial Truth to the rest of the galaxy in their father's name.

The forces of Chaos somehow spirited the children away, however, leaving them scattered across the galaxy. A massive localized warp rift was created within the gene vaults of the Emperor's own palace, deep under the Himalayan mountains on Terra. The capsules containing his unborn sons were scattered through the warp to planets long since lost to mankind. Whether the Emperor was able to affect this outcome is unsure, but every primarch landed on ancient worlds of men, planets long since lost to the light of the greater universe beyond the stars. This was a massive setback to the Emperor's plans. He had counted on his mighty generals leading his army of conquest out from Terra. Without them, his plans, so many millenia in the making, rested on a knife's edge. He needed an edge, something to give Mankind an advantage as they struck out against the galaxy. Taking the genetic blueprints of his primarchs, the Emperor crafted Gene-seed, an organ that contained many of the traits possessed by each primarch. The Emperor implanted this into his bravest, strongest, best warriors who would stand by his side at the vanguard of the Great Crusade. Thus were born the Astartes, and they would reconquer the galaxy at the side of the Emperor. As the new empire expanded, the Emperor used his powerful gifts of forsight and precognition to track down his wayward sons, scattered across the galaxy, and reunite them with their legions. Each Primarch was like a father and older brother to each legion, the source of the legions temperment and humours, a being in which each legion saw their perfection and aspects of war given personification in one perfect individual. This was the height of the Great Crusade. Thousands of worlds fell, and then hundreds of thousands, to the newly reunited Primarchs and their legions. Like gods they smote the battlefields of the galaxy, and their power was unstoppable.

At the height of the Great Crusade, Warmaster Horus fell to Chaos, and convinced eight of his fellow Primarchs to rebel against the Emperor and follow him. During the Horus Heresy, brother fought brother as the Primarchs led their legions against their former comrades; Horus himself fought Sanguinius and the Emperor. At the height of the final battle, above the surface of Terra on Horus own flagship, the Emperor himself clashed with the Warmaster. The Emperor was reluctant to use his full power against his most beloved son, and it was not until Horus had terribly crippled the Emperor and killed Sanguinius that the Emperor finally utilized his unimaginable psychic powers to completely destroy all traces of his son. Most of the remaining Traitor Legions fled to the Eye of Terror following Horus' defeat, and their Primarchs would sell their souls to Chaos, being Daemon Princes, each holding a small empire within the Eye of Terror.

Loss of the Primarchs
Today, all the Primarchs are either damned in servituted to the gods of chaos, lost or dead. As mentioned before, Sanguinius died at the hands of his beloved brother Horus, who in turn later died at the hands of his father, the Emperor. Ferrus Manus, of the Iron Hands, died on Istvaan V at the start of the Heresy. He was killed by his most beloved brother, Fulgrim, who used the Sword of the Laer, a daemon weapon that was undermining his own mind and that later possesed him to slay Manus. Fulgrim was later possessed entirely by the daemon (the Lord of Shadows) who was inside the blade. Rumours state that Ferrus Manus may be alive on Mars in assistance with the Adeptus Mechanicus. However the Mechanicum and the Iron Hands Chapter denies this to be true.

Over the next thousand years, the other remaining loyalist Primarchs died or disappeared one by one. Lion El'Jonson of the Dark Angels returned to his homeworld to find it in ruins, and the Dark Angel marines he had left were 'corrupted' by the bitter Luther to rebellion. He led a strike force of his own Space Marines against the traitors on the surface, fighting with a burning hate towards his lost sons. The planet was being heavily bombarded, drastically weakening it so that when the Chaos Gods realized they had failed to claim the Lion, they unleashed a warp storm of massive power and size. All that was left of Caliban was the Tower of Angels and and The Rock the Orders former stronghold, with the rest being either destroyed or sucked into the warp. When the Dark Angels marines got to the Tower of Angels, all they found was the body of Luther. The Lion was nowhere to be found. But some say that he is asleep inside The Rock (the floating remains of Caliban turned to a Battle Fortress) with the Watchers of the Dark that are healing his injuries. Some Dark Angels marines say he will return to lead them again. This would explain why Cypher, the fallen angel who has avoided capture time and again, has a special sword with him that he does not use in combat. This blade is believed to be the Lion's sword itself, and would be one of the first questions the Dark Angels would love to ask their most elusive of Fallen brothers.

Jaghatai Khan of the White Scars disappeared through a Dark Eldar warp portal whilst he was pursuing them after a raid on the White Scar homeworld. Rumors abound that he was captured whilst lost in the twisting paths of the Dark Eldar webway.

Leman Russ of the Space Wolves is one of the Primarchs whose disappearance appears to be one of the three voluntary. The Space Wolves hold a legend that say Russ went on a quest to find a means to cure the Emperor with fruit from the mystical Tree of Life, but the truth is likely to be far more complex. Others have said that Russ traveled to the Eye of Terror, to lead his lost 13th company against Magnus the Red and the Thousand Sons. (However the new story is that he himself was dying and that he shall return for the Wolftime to lead his brothers once more.)

Rogal Dorn of the Imperial Fists died fighting on a traitor cruiser alongside a company of his sons. He was one of the last Primarchs to die after the Horus Heresy. His hand, weapons and armour were recovered from the wreck, even as most of the ship burned up in the planet's atmosphere. Today, all that remains is his skeletal fist that are housed in the holiest shrine of the Imperial Fists chapter, preserved in stasis for all time.

Roboute Guilliman of the Ultramarines met his end slowly after fighting his former brother Fulgrim after being slashed across his throat with a corrupted blade which later poisoned him, the legendary Anathema that nearly killed his brother Horus. Today, his body lies at the heart of the Temple of Correction, maintained in a stasis field to preserve it. He was the one loyal Primarch to still exist, in some physical sense, in the entire Imperium. His sons and billions of pilgrims each year are blessed individuals, able to experience the awe-inspiring sight of such a holy figure as one of the Emperor's own sons, the bleeding wounds he sustained still vividly visible upon his neck and chest. Legend among the Ultramarines is that the stasis field is having a unique effect upon the Primarch, and that his wound is slowly healing, despite the impossibility of such a thing while in stasis...

There is little known how Vulkan of the Salamanders disappeared. As far as it is known, he vanished into thin air around a thousand years after the heresy. Rumours said he died on Isstvan V, however he was later present at the Imperial palace when Guilliman divided the legions. The Salamanders Chapter believe that after the forgefather finds all nine relics around the galaxy, Vulkan will return to lead the Salamanders to victory against the traitor legions.

Corax of the Raven Guard's end was tainted by guilt and shame. In order to rebuild the strength of his sons from the destruction of Istvaan V, Corax accelerated the growth of the geneseed organs, producing more of them but also deteriorating them rapidly, causing many aspirants to become hulking monsters. Filled with despair, he personally gave each degenerated brother the Emperor's Peace. Riddled with guilt over what he had done to save his legion, Corax locked himself away within his sanctum, the Raven's Tower, for a year. On the anniversary date of his self-imposed exile, he left his tower, haggard and gaunt, and took a small shuttlecraft. It was last monitored as setting a course for the Eye of Terror, the realm of the Chaos gods. He left only a single word as his legacy - "Nevermore."

Of all the Primarchs, excepting those missing or in unique conditions as Roboute Guilliman, only the damned Primarchs of Chaos live today, although to say that they truly live is a gross misstatement since their bodies, minds and souls now exist exclusively within the power of Chaos.

Primarchs & Respective Legions
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