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Ok, so I’ve been thinking about loyalist Primarchs and how they are to return. GW likely to make as many Primarchs return as they can, simply because they’ll sell and make more $. Knowing this, I’ve been thinking about Dorn, and how if he were to return, how he could do so in a way that was plausible, interesting and not still following the previous lore. He’s already been hinted at as alive in the Beast Arises series, though I have struggled to find a way to meet the above metrics. My favorite theory had been that Dorn faked his death so he could return to the Imperial Palace, take the place of the Custodian General and never leave the side of his father. This though falls flat now that Guilliman has entered the throne room, as he would have caught his cosplaying brother. So here’s my best attempt at a Dorn return. Dorn intends to die. He has watched his father die. He has been humiliated by his fallen brother. His legion has been broken. The dream for humanity is forever lost. All that remains is an honorable death, one to end his pain and leave a memory for his gene-sons to strive over. The Primarch fights a tide of traitor Astartes in the midst of a boarding action. His gene-sons are dead. Only Dorn lives, and with the wild abandon of a man who no longer wants to breathe. The endless foes wear him down. He has been cut in dozens of places. His armor is broken and battered. Dorn watches an axe take his hand, and doesn’t care. Dorn watches the final blow come, and is happy. Finally, release. But it never lands. For the Emperor’s light breaks into Dorn’s mind, the very voice of his father commanding him to fight, that Dorn’s role is not yet fulfilled in the Master of Mankind’s plan. The Emperor unlocks the shackles within Dorn’s mind, releasing the psychic potential within. Dorn awakens. The traitors assaulting him are all dead, the dozens of bodies smoking like burnt meat. Dorn can feel his brain tingling, can feel the warp like a shadow, a presence he did not truly notice before. But more importantly, the memory of his father’s voice lingers. The Primarch flees the battle, leaving his dismembered hand. The Imperium and traitors will think him dead, and Dorn wants it so. For Dorn knows he is now a psyker, perhaps rivaling in strength of Lorgar during the Heresy. His brothers might think him mad or corrupted, his own sons such as Sigismund would be horrified. Dorn arrives at his homeworld of Inwit, and enters his abandoned palace. There on this world will Dorn explore his new abilities. He wanders the frozen wastes of this world, where he cannot attract attention. He summons daemons and slays them. He peers into the past, from Old Night to the Eldar Empire to the war between Necrontyr and Old Ones. He reaches into the warp to talk to his deceased brothers’ souls. He hurls fire and lightning from his hands, forms beautiful sculptures out of light. He rages at his father’s immense warp presence for answers that never come. Every time the Primarch’s mind is exhausted, he retreats back to his palace, and his Pain Glove. There he receives penance and solace, in thought-ending pain. Sometimes he will remain there for years at a time. Millennia pass. Dorn leaves his palace and looks to the sky. The Great Rift stretches across the galaxy. The Archangel of the Imperium is ready for his destiny. PHEW. Ok, that’s my best shot. If you can do one better, please do, I’m not entirely satisfied with this (can anyone really spend 10,000 years torturing themselves and training magic?) So please, flush any ideas you got here, even completely different ones. One more thing. If you’re tempted to simply reply with “Dorn shouldn’t return,” try to resist that urge. I totally get it, from a narrative perspective it really makes more sense if he just died. But I’m trying see if there is a way for Dorn to return without it being really dumb, as GW’s probably going to jump the shark with it.