Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-3416287-20140306195559/@comment-3416287-20140504024856

The gene seed of the Dragon Lords was relatively stable with a few exceptions. The Dragon Lords become psykichly linked to their primarch, he almost fills the same role of a Tyranid syanapse creature. When the astartes are in proximity to Maximus, he acts as a relay, all Dragon Lords, despite whether or not they are psykers, can send thoughts to their primarch. This allows Maximus to be the greatest battlefield commander, as these psykich thoughts can't really be jammed, plus he is seeing, hearing, and feeling whatever his troopers are, the only downside to this is that this psykich field has a limited range.

All astartes implanted with the gene seed of Maximus developed gills. This allowed for them to be extremely effective when conducting amphibious assaults and fighting on planets covered with a lot of water.

The Dragon Lords also developed a mutation that allows them to breathe fire, which is where their name comes from. At the back of their throats are these glands that can store flammable gas, the Dragon Lords can open force the gas through valves in their throat. The ignition comes from flints that are implanted in their mouth when a recruit undergoes transformation. This organic flamethrower has limited range though, only two feet, plus the gas glands don't hold very much gas, so they can't use the flamers for long before having to let them fill up again, but this mutaion helps to demoralize the enemy, as now they are facing angels of death that breathe fire.

These mutations disgusted the other primarchs, which was another reason why the Dragon Lords were destroyed, when the Emperor issued an arrest for the Dragon Lords, the primarchs had no intention of capturing the soldiers of the XI legion, only Maximus. Normally, anyone else who had these mutations would be executed, but the Emperor tolerated these because he needed the Dragon Lords. The gene seed of Maximus is still around today though, but it isn't used because the inquisition doesn't know who it came from.