Subject: Can I just say...
Author:
Posted on: 2022-07-14 07:35:06 UTC
Watching the two of you concocting theories about the overall plot and story arcs of the Fenrykan Heresy is just amazing. And I definitely didn't get a bit emotional about people I look up to engaging critically with my big fan project.
You can't prove it.
Shut up.
=]
So, for several months on and off, I've been working on (read: blabbering about) a Heresy-era Legion Swap. For them as don't know, a Legion Swap is when the various Adeptus Astartes switch sides, with the Chaos Marines staying loyal and the Loyal Marines falling to Chaos. It concerns Leman Russ falling to Tzeentch, and all that such a thing entails. Features include:-
• Legion discussions!
• Primarch histories!
• Magnus doing nothing wrong but for real this time!
• Horrible Nurgle stuff!
• The Night Haunter!
• And Much More!
• And Also A Bit Less!
Thank you for reading, and enjoy. =]
It discusses the shattering of the Legions into the Chapters of the 41st Millennium. I considered finding some more, y'know, Gothic-y name for them, but Chapters is legible and easily understood.
Thanks again to hS, Nesh, and Phobos for their help. It means a lot that people engage with my ideas. <3
EDIT: I have also finally included a table of contents with links to each subsection. This should help with the story's non-linearity. =]
You've pulled all our wandering thoughts together really well. I think my favourite line of the addition is Mortarion had a dissenting opinion that his brother could not pick apart, which just gets to the heart of your version of Perturabo in a handful of words.
Of your alt-legions, I think the most interesting fate is the Blood Angels. The idea of them being shambling horrors but not knowing is absolutely perfect(ly chilling).
Question: "Imperium Pandemonium". I kind of glossed over that when I read the first time, but: has Bobby Gulls got an actual functioning government down there in the Eye? Because yiiiiikes.
hS
It's... it's not the most original concept though. I borrowed heavily from the mordants and ghouls of Age Of Sigmar's Flesh-Eater Courts faction. They're undead zombies who still think they're questing Arthurian knights rather than semi-feral lunatics scrabbling around in rusty centuries-old chainmail and such. It's an amazing aesthetic, and one I really enjoyed working with to fit into a 40K context. It was also the first "full-length" Fenrykan Heresy narrative piece I wrote that really dug into the fall of a specific Legion.
I'm gonna be doing the upshot of Ferrus Manus and his quest for perfection at some point, but the CliffNotes version is: the Iron Hands go full Rubricae. Instead of dust imprisoned in power armour, they're a tangle of exposed nerves wrapped in delicate filigree patterns around a framework of perfect silver. Some of them have even directly connected their remaining nerves to the outside of their armour, the better to experience the rush of excess in the throes of battle. They're barely more than automata powered by meat-scraps, and they're all completely insane, and their jump-pack troops have bound minor Daemons of Slaanesh to these silver feathered wings so they can glide down at the perfect pace to strike.
As for Big Bob, he's got the Daemon-Realm of Ultramar which he directly controls, but a "functioning government" is a bit of a stretch. It's still beset by the same infighting and jockeying for position and general madness of any Chaos polity, but Bubba G's just got ten thousand years of managing it. All of it. So he's become the ultimate expression of fascist autocracy: power from strength, strength from power, and power used entirely at the Great Leader's ineffable whim. It is the ultimate mockery of order. It is Chaos wearing order's clothes. So yes, Ramjet Gargleblast is absolutely in charge of the Imperium Pandaemonium, as an absolute monarch and autocrat, a true king of hell. The process of trying to make that work drove him deeper into madness than anything else ever could have accomplished. He is so drenched in the politics of Astartes, daemons, and daemonic Astartes that everything he says and does can only be viewed in that context, and so to an outside observer it looks completely random. Why withdraw all your forces on the verge of winning an offensive, only to send them against a gigantic mass of enemy troops against which they could not hope to prevail? Why send a gigantic horde of Traitor Astartes to take one single agri-world in the galactic hinterland with a planetary population lower than that of the invasion force? Why anything? Because everything. According to Bob, everything is proceeding exactly as planned. It's just up to you whether to believe him.
Certainly more than I would Abaddon, for example.
I mean, look at it! His plan for the Siege of Terra - and it was his plan, there's no way the Wolf King would let the Emperor come or be brought to him rather than hunting him down - left the Wolf and the Emperor both dead or nearly so, and 2/3 of the surviving Loyal Primarchs so guilt-ridden or otherwise broken that they ran off to be ineffective for the next ten millennia. Meanwhile Guilliman has his own pocket empire, the entire Eye of Terror at least nominally following him, and at least some of his Chaos opponents - his brothers - ineffective as opponents.
In fact, let's do a quick rundown of...
Bobby Gulls' Grand Plan
Assumption: from the moment the Wolf King brought Guilliman on board, all plans were Guilliman's work. Russ may have thought otherwise. Russ was wrong.
The Daemon Primarchs: Sanguinius is too charismatic; neutralise that by giving him to Nurgle. Drive several of the others (Vulkan, Ferrus Manus) into twisting themselves and their children far beyond sanity; give others (Corax, the Lion) personal vendettas to distract them. Keep Omegon sane - he will be necessary later.
The Loyal Primarchs: Find some way to put Magnus in a coma. This will involve pitting him against a more powerful psychic force: a God of Chaos or the Emperor. The latter is preferred. Ensure Alpharius remains loyal and functional.
The Siege of Terra: Engineer the maiming of the Lion. If he takes a Loyalist Primarchs down, so much the better. Prevent Russ from going out after the Emperor. Ensure the Emperor comes to Russ, and that he is accompanied by Lorgar. Eliminate Lorgar: his preaching could revitalise the Imperium, but without him it will stagnate. Ensure Russ and the Emperor eliminate each other (or nearly). Then get out - Terra is meaningless.
For ten thousand years: Harass the Imperium. Never let them stabilise. Exhaust the Loyalist Primarchs by forcing them to keep waking. Oh - and infiltrate Magnus' mind while the most powerful psyker in history is unconscious and unshielded from the Warp.
Now: When the time is ready for the Great Rift to open, allow Magnus to awaken. He will assume the Throne of Earth, despite the corruption seeded in him. His co-rulers will be two exhausted Primarchs (Perty and Mortarion), one who has spent ten millennia in the Warp (Night Haunter), one ridden with guilt (Horus), and Alpharius. Replace Alpharius with his brother. Since NH and Horus never signed off on the Chapters thing, have Magnus and "Alpharius" throw their weight behind re-assembling the Legions - as a one off, to deal with the unprecedented crisis.
Oh look. Now you've got everyone who can conceivably hurt him gathered in one place, under the command of someone who was bathing in the Warp for ten thousand years. Sounds like a fun toy.
... at least, that's my mind-read of a mad demonic post-mortal.
hS
It won't have been ten thousand years for Robbie Gill and His Blue Meanies. Possibly this throws a wrench in the works (what do you mean that agri-world now has its own Chapter on it??), but also possibly it enables him to mess with the Imperium in a non-linear, completely incomprehensible way. Or both; probably both. The Imperium maintains just enough of an edge to stave off annihilation thanks to the occasional vision from Magnus, because he always knew time was fake.
Speaking of Magnus, by the way: I wanted to mention that I have Feelings about the necessity of keeping him off the Golden Throne in order for all this to work. Like, it's kinda funny, but also god dammit can't the guy get a break that doesn't involve a spinal rupture? {X' D
The Thousand Sons themselves, too. Another theory courtesy of Phobos: There's a good reason the Emperor called them the Thousand Sons before they were reduced to about that many by the flesh-change the first time. See, we know the Golden Throne runs on psyker batteries, right? And how many psyker souls does it consume at a time? One thousand. Inferior mortal souls burn for one day; imagine how much more juice you could get out of the most powerful of the Astartes psykers specifically trained to channel stupidly vast amounts of power without letting it burn them out. You wouldn't just have more powerful batteries, you'd have rechargeable batteries! They could take shifts!
It's very sad that the Sons are pretty much annihilated in this timeline rather than unwillingly corrupted. ... Though I wonder if Ahriman might still be running around doing Ahriman things with more or less exactly the same motivation and exactly the same dismal chances of success. {X D Unless he becomes the first Grand Master of the Grey Knights instead of Revuel Arvida Ianius Janus? 'Cause Malcador was planning the Grey Knights all along anyway, if I understand correctly, and if you can't get an actual shard of Magnus welded to an Astartes shell, Ahriman is definitely the next-best thing.
~Neshomeh
Because ye gods both great and small: once Bobby Gulls has (or believes he has) a presence in Magnus' mind, his absolute #1 greatest dream come true would be for Magnus to set his father's remains aside and take his place on the Golden Throne. That gives Guilliman the Astronomicon. It gives him the Webway. It gives him a direct psychic portal into the minds of everyone in the Imperium. Starting with those who are physically closest to Magnus at the moment he ascends: the remaining Loyalist Primarchs.
Even without Magnus being corrupted by marinating in the Warp for millennia, his usurpation would be easy to engineer: the Rift is so intense that an Astronomicon powered by the remnants of the Emperor isn't strong enough to pierce it, but a living mind (especially powered by the Thousand Sons) could, etc etc. And honestly, even with uncorrupted intentions: once he was on the Throne, would you trust Magnus the Red not to meddle in things Postmortal Was Not Meant To Know?
hS
This is a Magnus who actually did nothing wrong, right? He lacks the peak degree of arrogance that drove the original to ignore his father's orders under the assumption that only he, Magnus, was wise enough to perceive Horus' corruption and thus had to deliver the warning by means only he could accomplish (and prove Dad wrong about Nikaea while he was at it).
Now, in this case, Magnus making the more humble choice to respect the Emperor's edict leads directly to Magnus being crushed like a bug by his father, blinded by the lies of Russ. Magnus might have some resentment about that, but what's he going to do? The Emperor's already a barely living shell whose mind is in eternal torment. If the Warp whispers to the Crimson King of vengeance, or of making the Emperor see the folly of listening to Russ instead of him, the worst thing Magnus can do to the Emperor is leave him right where he is.
Rather, if Magnus takes his father's place on the Throne, he'll do it out of mercy and a desire to use its power for the good of the Imperium. Once he's there, even if Guillman thinks he has a leash on his brother, I reckon he'll find out pretty quickly that he miscalculated. For all Guilliman has been living with the Warp, he wasn't made to grok it like Magnus does. He simply cannot out-psyker the greatest living psyker with the full might of the Golden Throne behind him.
And, by the way, if Magnus doesn't bust up the throneroom as in canon, is it still fully functional, and the Webway pretty much secure? Forgive me if I'm forgetting something—but if we're talking about a Golden Throne that isn't being held together with duct tape and prayers, that's even worse for Chaos once Magnus takes over.
It still might be bad for the Imperium, too, though. It's like Galadriel says: Magnus might start using the power out of a desire to do good, but it is a power both great and terrible. Instead of a golden god, you would have a Cyclopean, red as the sky before a storm, unbounded by the bastions of the earth...
~Neshomeh
I think it indicates that the fate of the Grim Dark Far Future hinges, uncharacteristically, one one person, one moment: when (not if) Magnus finds himself on the Golden Throne... what does he do with it? Guilliman has one idea. The Emperor had another. The Hexarchy (minus Omegon) have a third. But who can know the mind of Magnus?
I'm not sure about the state of the Throne and the Webway Project. Scape said that the Emperor was ensconced on the Throne during the Heresy, which implies something happened. I meant to ask but I'm not sure I got round to it. It's possible the Emperor just thought his Project was more important than the boys' squabbles, and kept on it until Lorgar impressed him with the absolute importance of taking down the Wolf.
Which... implies that Malcador survives. If the Webway is not broken, the Emperor can just leave the Throne, no consequences. He still gets lashed into it afterwards, and the Project is cut off and abandoned - but Malcador the Sigilite lives, and Malcador knows.
Given that he was already building a Chapter of his own, I think we now know who the real driver behind Perry and Morty's decision was.
And if, somehow, he lives for ten millennia - then he is the one person who knows what Magnus will see when he takes the throne.
I said Bobby Gulls is the (dae)Man with the Plan - but the Sigilite certainly has a scheme to match him.
hS
Watching the two of you concocting theories about the overall plot and story arcs of the Fenrykan Heresy is just amazing. And I definitely didn't get a bit emotional about people I look up to engaging critically with my big fan project.
You can't prove it.
Shut up.
=]
Just like Russ' secrets were safe with Guilliman, who would never dream of using them against him.
Soooo, is the Fenrykan Heresy an ongoing project? I was treating it as a completed thing to which you might add new bits if they came to you (such as the Chapters chapter), but now I'm wondering if there's A Plan which we should be trying to mind-read off you.
What I'm trying to say is: do you know if Malcador is alive? (Or rather, are you certain he's dead? Because if you're not... he's alive. >:D)
hS
For she will say both =[ and =].
I do want to make something clear: the Fenrykan Heresy is an ongoing project and will be added to with whatever cool stuff my brain finds lying around like a seagull hunting chips. There's just so much goddamn Heresy that any document is inherently incomplete. The version linked in the OP was specifically published because I felt like I had a critical mass of Stuff To Show Off, with really strong narrative sections like the fall of the Blood Angels and the eventual fate of Fulgrim. I intend to keep updating it every time I write something worth adding.
However, this extremely informal approach means there isn't a Huge Overarching Plan. This is a great and terrible disappointment to Rochdale Gillingham, so I can only imagine how it feels for you, Nesh, and Phobos. I know that I want the Saviour Sons (that's Perry and Morty, with occasional assistance from whoever else is on hand) to have been more actively fighting against the Imperium Pandaemonium, with the crusading and heretic-hunting and such being a much more proactive process than in canon due to basically having, like, at least eighty-odd versions of the Black Templars for Imperial commanders to let loose, as well as the White Templars later on in the timeline. Fleet-based chapters on both sides of the Long War are a hell of a lot more common too, allowing them to operate as roving armed forces that can deploy wherever and whenever they see fit.
Sidenote: one very important point that you might have missed because it's only mentioned in passing: unlike the canon Black Templars, the Word Bearers' successor chapters all have a full Librarius that works closely with the chapter's Reclusiam. This is because they know through the Hymnalis Aurelian, the adapted foundational text of the Ecclesiarchy, that the Emperor himself was a master of the psychic arts -- which later theologians (post-Heresy) contrast directly with the warp sorcery of Russ, Jaghatai, and so on. Indeed, for the Word Bearers themselves, their Librarius is their Reclusiam, and vice versa; they have practiced and honed their psychic gifts into vehicles for the praise of the Emperor rather than mere conduits to the inchoate powers of the Immaterium.
So no, I haven't got something for you to try and tease out of my brain. I've got something far better: watching you tease things out of your brains, coming up with theories and ideas I'd never considered, using canon knowledge I don't always have to develop those ideas into fully-fledged ideas, and then getting to use those ideas to springboard my own creativity. I won't include anything directly written by you guys without your informed and explicit consent, obviously, but watching people care about this is what inspires me to think about the setting of the Fenrykan Heresy more, and therefore make more Fenrykan Heresy content. =]
Thank you. Thank you both.
And I'd also like to offer my sincere thanks to everyone else who has engaged with the Fenrykan Heresy Project on any level. You all helped me make a thing I'm genuinely proud of, and I'm so grateful to you for that.
I don't have much I can say about or add to the contents, given that my knowledge of Warhammer comes from being rambled at about it, TTS, and a Dark Heresy campaign, but I did still manage to get a sense of what's going on and you had, al usual, good writing.
Didn’t understand much. Guess that’s ‘cause I have zero canon knowledge.
Anyway, good for you for writing.
—Ls
This is fun. You've had to stretch a bit to literally flip the alignments (there's no single Point of Departure, except your vague "the Emperor makes better decisions"), but that's fine, that's the point. I like the fact that Tzeentch is the driving hand behind the Heresy this time around, which I don't think was the case in canon.
My two big questions so far are things that haven't changed. You mention chapters, but in my head they were a Gulliman innovation, so I'm not sure they would exist. And you also mention the Emperor staying out of the Heresy because he was sitting in the Golden Throne - but without Magnus Doing Anything Wrong, there's no reason I've seen so far that he wouldn't be out and about.
I would also query whether the post-Heresy Imperium would create a new Alpha Legion when the entire Legion except for one of its two Primarchs fell to Chaos. I'm thinking of how virulently they distrusted the loyalists from the Eisenstein and so forth, and also the whole "no, by the Emperor, you can't create Primaris Traitor-But-Not Marines, what are you thinking?!" thing. (The loyalist Angels, I can easily accept, though I'd imagine they don't talk much about where they came from.)
I also like how much you jump around. It's dramatically non-linear, but... this is the Horus Heresy! Those books have never been linear, so why should your version be?
Okay, lots to read, and I should probably do some work today too, so not sure when I'll get it finished.
hS
I'm glad you've enjoyed it so far. =]
Splitting the Legions into Chapters was technically an invention of Guilliman, yes. However, splitting the Legions at all was going to happen anyway. The Heresy was as bad as it was in either timeline because the leader of the traitor faction only had to sway, like, nine other dudes to get the overwhelming majority of their power-armoured transhuman demigods; splitting the Legiones Astartes into self-contained micro-legions with their own independence and territories prevents that happening again. At least, it does in theory.
As to why the geneseed of Alpharius is still used: the other Primarchs knew he himself never turned. The line was still pure, and he cast off the colours of his treacherous sons to fight as a Black Shield. Plus, it's Perturabo masterminding the rebuilding of the Imperium, and I've always had this sense that Perturabo is the kind of person who keeps a drawer full of bits of string because you never know when you might need one. He knows that the sins of Omegon are not those of Alpharius, and so the Hydra Shields chapter is born.
To tell the truth, getting your feedback and thoughts was one of the big motivators for putting this in a Google Doc in the first place. This is the kind of thing you've enjoyed doing in the past, in a setting you enjoy, and to have you miss out just because you don't use Discord seemed... wrong to me. So yeah. Glad you can take part in the madness. =]
First: Thanks for sharing this! 40k theories are always fun. I also have some thoughts, drawing a bit on conversations Phobos and I have had. A while back, he came up with an alternate Heresy that involved three factions: Chaos, the Loyalists, and the Screw This, You All Suck, the latter mostly being composed of the ones who never loved the Emperor or psykers.
A lot of that Heresy hinges on Curze the Night Haunter, i.e., what if his brothers actually listened to him, and acted on his warnings? That could stand the Loyalists in this timeline in good stead, too, especially if Magnus can put up with him long enough to actually teach him a thing or two. For as the Corvidae know well, whole point of looking into the future is to gain knowledge you can turn to your own advantage.
Angron interests me here. As with so many of the Primarchs in the canon Heresy, Angron falls in large part because he's got an enormous chip on his shoulder courtesy of Daddy Dearest. Angron already believed the Emperor was a tyrant and slaver without needing anyone to whisper in his ear. Take that away, though, and remove the Nails from the equation for his legion, and what you've got left is one of the most powerful armies in the Galaxy. The strength of the War Hounds, IIRC, is that they functioned in absolute unity. Their phalanxes were unbreakable: they marched, slowly at first, then faster, faster, faster, and they would not stop. Their reputation for brutality comes from this utter relentlessness more than any particular cruelty. They're simply what happens if the Juggernaut is an army: either you get out of the way or you cease to exist.
Phobos believes, and I'm inclined to agree, that their ability to function with such cohesion is tied to their gift, the gift of their primarch: empathy. You see it in the pain experienced by the Legion's psykers when they get too close to Angron—they can't stand it. Their primarch's pain is their pain, but without the relief granted by doing violence. In the canon timeline, nobody figures this out because all the War Hounds psykers die too quickly while the rest of the Legion is busy trying to make Dad love them by partaking in his worst qualities. Supposing they do figure it out, though. What you've got then is a Legion with the potential to perceive itself so completely that it can react instantly to the shifting arena of battle, because the left flank knows what's happening to the right and vice versa. Hypothetically, they were meant to be the Imperium's answer to the Tyranids, canceling out one of the hive mind's greatest advantages.
Following the Fenrykan Heresy, with no Ultramar on the eastern edge of the galaxy to blunt the Tyranid invasion, the Imperium could sure use a force like that... Too bad the death of Angron is gonna mess up the War Hounds as badly or worse than the death of Sanguinius messed up the Blood Angels. I can see them agreeing, possibly even volunteering to be split up with their morale utterly shattered like that. Maybe they can't stand to be around each other anymore, with the pain of their father's death shared, reflected, magnified between them.
I might have more thoughts later, but that's all I have time for this morning. I hope you like my ramblings!
~Neshomeh
You can consider that DEFINITELY being thrown in, once I've translated it into High Gothic. Assuming I have permission from you to use it, I mean. Hell, I don't even have a lot to say about it, it's a really comprehensive and fascinating addition and I'll definitely be adding it into its own section later.
I'm really grateful that you took the time to give it a read. I know you've been in the Discord, but it was scattered over four months of rambling conversations in a chat channel. I know how draining it was to go through and hoover up to put in a single document, because... that's exactly what I did here. So yeah, thanks for giving it a shot now that everything thus far is in one place. The Fenrykan Heresy: your one-stop shop for Leman Russ, Herald Of Tzeentch. =]
That's quite touching actually. :) Thanks for thinking of me.
(Still haven't read any more yet.)
I'm not sure His Nibs on the Golden Throne would agree that the Legions need to be split, but he's not exactly in on the conversation any more. I still wonder, because... the canon post-Heresy Imperium has two Legions which had basically split themselves already (the Wolves and the Scars), three which barely existed after the Dropsite Massacre, and one (the Ultramarines) led by The Man With The Plan, where The Plan is breaking things up. Your timeline doesn't seem to retain any of those factors, and I haven't yet come across any deaths other than Lorgar, so you've got several Primarchs who, like... don't wanna let go? Plus the Alphas are literally being rebuilt from the ground up with all the knowledge of what could go wrong, so why would anyone worry that they were going to contain the same flaws as the originals?
And then there's Perturabo - builder of fortresses, right? I'm not convinced that he would cheerfully oversee the breaking up of a massive force into smaller units that couldn't withstand a siege from, say, the Blue Legion. But we can construct mitigating factors - perhaps a siege went bad in the fighting on Terra, and a big chunk of his legion was wiped out, while a more broken-up group from multiple legions were victorious in similar circumstances? "I do not like it," Perturabo says, "but the logic is inarguable." (For a bonus: the Loyalist Angels were part of the mixed group, showcasing the anti-corruption benefits of the system.)
One other thought: once Magnus awakens in the modern era (I think you mentioned this in passing), would he be able to speak to the Emperor? I mean, if the Emperor lives through the immensity of his psychic power, and Magnus is The Psyker... can they talk? And might His Undead Nibs actually, finally... apologise?
hS
I love it. ^_^
I think the #1 best moment in the entire thing is the Atonement of Horus. The idea of the Warmaster off by himself, endlessly trying to atone for being a little slow for ten thousand years, is really wonderful for some reason.
Thinking about the Chapters again: I think you're wrong to pin it on the Primarchs this time round. Several of the Legions - at least the Blood Angels and the Alpha Legion (which really is a Traitor Legion, whatever Alpharius thinks) - fell not because their Primarchs did, but because they acted together. The corruption spreads, even up to a Primarch, whether it's plague or sourcery.
So how do you stop that spread? Quarantine. You separate pieces of the Legions from each other, so that if one Marine falls, he can only spread the infection to one Chapter, not an entire Legion.
I don't think you gave a concise list of Primarchs, so for my own benefit:
That is a lot of surviving Primarchs. And unlike the canon setting, there's a lot of relatively sane Daemon-Princes. The Khan, Dorn, Guilliman, and Omegon all seem to come through relatively intact, whereas in canon they're pretty much all off their heads crazy. I guess that's why you have multiple active and available Primarch left in the Imperium - to balance them out, because otherwise they wouldn't need anywhere near thirteen Blue Crusades!
hS
I love the idea of the chapters being a kind of quarantine measure in particular. It should definitely come from Mortarion. Partly because, you know, irony, but also because it's the kind of compartmentalization he'd really appreciate. Canonically, Mortarion and Perturabo were all about every infantryman being their own self-contained army, equipped with the toughest possible armour and the right weapon for any foe imaginable. Having small-theatre self-contained response forces is a very them kind of move. It also ties into Nesh's comments about Angron and the War Hounds, which just works really well. I'll add that in a bit once I've translated that into High Gothic, aka "English but way more pompous". =]
As for Magnus speaking with the Emperor during his long time in the Big Tizcan Sleepy Time Snooze Nest (patent pending), I think he tries to talk to his father... but whatever of the Lord of Lightning is actually there is just drowned out by his powering of the Astronomican, so bright that not even the Crimson King can see through it to the man beneath. And frankly, even if he did, the Emperor would not care. He always considered his sons to be anything but: subordinates at best, tools more often, and failed experiments at worst. Magnus was the loyal son who tried so hard to inform the Emperor of betrayal that he accidentally blew up part of the Himalayas. Hearing that even after ten thousand years his father didn't even consider himself a father at all would destroy him. At least that's what I think.
I haven't quite decided what to do with the Daemon Primarchs who are still around (which does include the Lion, he was banished to the Warp rather than killed outright), but the Imperium Pandaemonium definitely has use for them. This is at least in part because I really like the name "Imperium Pandaemonium" and don't want to see it wasted. I imagine they're all still raiding, chafing against Guilliman's nominal command and thinking that they are the true heirs of the Wolf King, Guilliman just had it easy because he was the ultimate REMF (old army slang for rear-echelon... well, I'm sure you can guess) who never fought like a reeeeal warrior, et cetera et cetera insert daemonic grumbling here. =]
Pointing out I never did anything with Jaghatai was helpful too. I'm imagining the Daemon Khan's legions riding around as cavalry mounted on a variety of horrifying Daemons, with heavy weaponry mounted on chariots and anyone too slow to keep up forced to go faster by getting turned into a kind of entity made of living Warp lightning, which sounds bad enough already. Then they turn back, covered in scarring and scummy pink froth dribbling from their mouths and their speech so fast it's incomprehensible. Guilliman has a use for them. Guilliman has a use for everyone. And woe be-shpxing-tide you if you don't agree with what that use is.
Thanks for leaving so much feedback. I really appreciate it. =]