Primarch

The Primarchs were the twenty genetically-engineered sons of the Emperor of Mankind, born leaders of men and the template from which the Emperor would later craft his 20 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 Primarchs were the Emperor's answer to reclaiming all the lost worlds of mankind, and welcoming them into his new Imperium. He would raise his sons to be the best military commanders and political leaders the Imperium had ever known, and they would bring the Imperial Truth to the rest of the human-settled galaxy in their father's name.

The Ruinous Powers of Chaos somehow spirited the children away through the Warp, 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 where the Primarchs were gestating. The capsules containing the Emperor's unborn sons were scattered through the Warp to colony 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 a very hostile galaxy once more. Taking the genetic recipes for his Primarchs, the Emperor crafted gene-seed, genetically-engineered organs that contained many of the traits possessed by each Primarch. The Emperor implanted this into his bravest, strongest,and best human warriors who would stand by his side as the vanguard of the Great Crusade. Thus were born the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, and they would reconquer the galaxy at the side of the Emperor. As the new interstellar human empire expanded, the Emperor used his powerful gifts of psychic foresight and precognition to track down his wayward sons, scattered across the galaxy, and reunite them with their respective Legions. Each Primarch was both a father and older brother to each Legion, the source of the Legion's temperment and humours, a being in which each Legion saw their ultimate perfection and ways of war given personification in one perfect individual. This time marked the height of the Great Crusade. Thousands of worlds fell to "Imperial Compliance," and then hundreds of thousands, to the newly reunited Primarchs and their Space Marine Legions. Like the gods of mythic legend they strode the battlefields of the galaxy, and their power was unstoppable.

At the height of the Great Crusade, Warmaster Horus fell to the temptations of the Ruinous Powers of 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 Traitor Legions against their former comrades; Horus himself fought the Blood Angels Primarch Sanguinius and the Emperor. At the height of the final battle, above the surface of Terra on Horus' own flagship, the Emperor 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 bring the Warmaster down. Most of the remaining Traitor Legions fled into the Eye of Terror following Horus' defeat, and their Primarchs would sell their souls to Chaos, becoming Daemon Princes, each holding a small empire within the corrupted realms of the Eye of Terror.

Loss of the Primarchs

Today, all the Primarchs are either damned in servitude to the Gods of Chaos, lost to current knowledge of their whereabouts 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, Primarch of the Iron Hands, died on Istvaan V at the start of the Horus Heresy. He was killed by his most beloved brother, the Primarch Fulgrim, who used the Sword of the Laer, a daemonic weapon that was corrupting his own mind to Chaos and that later possesed him to slay Manus. Fulgrim was later possessed entirely by the daemon (the Lord of Shadows) who resided within the blade. Rumours state that Ferrus Manus may currently be alive on Mars with the cybernetic assistance of the Adeptus Mechanicus. However the Mechanicum and the Iron Hands Chapter deny 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 of Caliban 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's surface was the Tower of Angels and The Rock, the Dark Angels' former stronghold, with the rest being either destroyed or sucked into the Warp. When the Dark Angel 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 into a Battle Fortress) with the Watchers of the Dark that are healing his injuries. Some Dark Angel 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, and the truth of its origins 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 voluntary. The Space Wolves hold a legend that says Russ went on a quest to find a means to cure the Emperor with the 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 Power Armour were recovered from the wreck, even as most of the Chaos ship burned up in the planet's atmosphere. Today, all that remains is his skeletal fist which is 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, following a slash across his throat with a corrupted blade which later poisoned him, the legendary sword Anathema that nearly killed his brother Horus. Today, his body lies at the heart of the Ultramarines' Temple of Correction, maintained in a stasis field to preserve it. He is the only Loyalist Primarch to still exist, in some physical sense, in the entire Imperium. His sons and billions of pilgrims are blessed individuals each year, 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: that his wound is slowly healing, in spite of the impossibility of such a thing while in stasis.

There is little known about how Vulkan of the Salamanders disappeared. As far as it is known, he vanished into thin air around a thousand years after the Horus Heresy. Rumours say he died on Isstvan V, however he was later present at the Imperial Palace when Guilliman divided the Space Marine Legions at the Second Founding. The Salamanders Chapter believes that after the Forgefather finds all nine relics around the galaxy, Vulkan will return to lead the Salamanders to victory against the Traitor Legions of Chaos.

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 his Legion's gene-seed organs, producing more of them but also deteriorating them rapidly, causing many aspirants to become hulking mutants. Filled with despair and shame, he personally gave each degenerated Battle-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 still present in unique conditions like 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

Number	Primarch	Legion	Allegiance	Current Status
1	Lion El'Jonson	Dark Angels	Loyal	Missing - Commonly believed asleep in the Rock, or believed lost in the Warp. See 'The Fall of Caliban' or ref. 'Descent of Angels'.
2	Unknown
3	Fulgrim	Emperor's Children	Traitor	Body possessed by the Daemon of Slaanesh known as the Lord of Shadows from the sword he found on the world of Laeran.
4	Perturabo	Iron Warriors	Traitor	Daemon Prince of Chaos
5	Jaghatai Khan	White Scars	Loyal	Disappeared into a Dark Eldar Webway.
6	Leman Russ	Space Wolves	Loyal	Disappeared into the Eye of Terror.
7	Rogal Dorn	Imperial Fists	Loyal	Missing. Skeletal hand(s) found.
8	Night Haunter	Night Lords	Traitor	Also known as Konrad Curze. Presumed dead, "assassinated" by Callidus Temple Assassin M´Shen.
9	Sanguinius	Blood Angels	Loyal	Dead, slain by Horus at the end of the Horus Heresy. Visions of him still appear to Blood Angels, due to the psychic scar in their gene-seed.
10	Ferrus Manus	Iron Hands	Loyal	Dead, beheaded by Fulgrim.
11	Unknown
12	Angron	World Eaters	Traitor	Daemon Prince of Khorne, banished back to the Warp at the First Battle for Armageddon.
13	Roboute Guilliman	Ultramarines	Loyal	Mortally wounded by Fulgrim, rumored to be healing in stasis on the world of Macragge.
14	Mortarion	Death Guard	Traitor	Daemon Prince of Nurgle
15	Magnus the Red	Thousand Sons	Traitor	Daemon Prince of Tzeentch
16	Horus	Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus	Traitor	Dead, utterly destroyed, mind, body and soul, by the Emperor.
17	Lorgar	Word Bearers	Traitor	Daemon Prince of Chaos
18	Vulkan	Salamanders	Loyal	Disappeared, location currently unknown.
19	Corax	Raven Guard	Loyal	Disappeared, last seen heading for the Eye of Terror.
20	Alpharius1, Omegeon2 (twins)	Alpha Legion	Traitor	One may be dead, slain by Roboute Guilliman. The other now leads the Alpha Legion as a Daemon Prince of Chaos.