It's possible for all of the Primarchs to be brought back

[Blindhamster]

8 hours ago, Brother Captain Arkley said:

Not watching the video but if he is right and dear god I he is wrong.

 

I am done. Some can't be brought back. If Sanguinius, Kurze and Horus return what the hell is the point of their character arc?

Depends, his video goes with the idea of NEW versions of them, be that clones or whatever. Lets face it, that's been done already in setting by Fabulous Bill

[LSM]

1 hour ago, Brother Captain Arkley said:

...Ferrus as a LOW for LotD is cool 40k Ghost Rider type thing...

 

(The LotD having been turned into a bunch of Ghost Riders is one of the things that really threw me when I returned to the hobby. Much prefer them just being the remnants of the Fire Hawks; a chapter having contracted a crazy warp-disease, and deciding to go out in style.)

[Brother Captain Arkley]

Just now, LSM said:

 

(The LotD having been turned into a bunch of Ghost Riders is one of the things that really threw me when I returned to the hobby. Much prefer them just being the remnants of the Fire Hawks; a chapter having contracted a crazy warp-disease, and deciding to go out in style.)

Agreed but after the Master of Mankind book that genie is out the bottle.

[lansalt]

8 minutes ago, Blindhamster said:

Depends, his video goes with the idea of NEW versions of them, be that clones or whatever. Lets face it, that's been done already in setting by Fabulous Bill

Maybe he's heard about new 30k versions of older sculpts, like Horus or Fulgrim. Or the 40k daemon primarchs like Perturabo that we know are around but haven't show up yet.

 

Otherwise all Fabius clones were a failure, because he could clone primarch bodies, but he missed the Emperor's secret soul sauce that make them terrifying reality warping demi gods. The only exception was the last Fulgrim clone, and we all know that now he's part of Trazyn's collection.

5 minutes ago, LSM said:

 

(The LotD having been turned into a bunch of Ghost Riders is one of the things that really threw me when I returned to the hobby. Much prefer them just being the remnants of the Fire Hawks; a chapter having contracted a crazy warp-disease, and deciding to go out in style.)

IIRC that's still the case in the lore, and the ghosts in Master of Mankind are unrelated, not to mention separated by millennia.

[phoenix01]

6 hours ago, brother_b said:

Sanguinor, he’s already in the fluff and lore and has a model. Just supersize it! I’m just a BA fanboy though.

 

In truth, I’m not really fond of loyal primarchs in 40K. Someone already mentioned it there should be no hope just slow, inexorable decay and assault on the imperium.

 

Adding a bunch of powerful primarchs blunts the horror of 40K.

 

Then I see how bad ass the lion model is and I’m pushed to the other side and would really love Khan for my scars, etc.

There should be hope. Can't have shadows without light, and seven or eight candles in the darkness provide scant illumination.

[Cenobite Terminator]

They will have to bring them all back and that’s exciting.

[Blindhamster]

23 minutes ago, phoenix01 said:

There should be hope. Can't have shadows without light, and seven or eight candles in the darkness provide scant illumination.

Defining characteristic of selune and shar for d&d

 

[tinpact]

It's things like this that make me wish Forge World still did 'for fun' models. A line of "what if?" models would be neat, right?

[Noserenda]

They still havent been definitive about the Legion of the Damned, if someone is telling you a definitive answer they probably missed the point :D 

Though personally i like the idea that they are Daemons of the nascent Emperor warp god. ;) Which reminds me, have they essentially ditched the Psychic awakening arc outside of the Dawn of fire series? 

[phandaal]

9 minutes ago, Noserenda said:

They still havent been definitive about the Legion of the Damned, if someone is telling you a definitive answer they probably missed the point :D

 

A lot of people do indeed not get the point of mysteries.

 

They will ask for the answer to everything until the lore is all tied up in a neat, boring little pretzel. Then people move on in disappointment after getting exactly what they asked for.

[Noserenda]

Some answers can be good, but always be sure to chuck in some unreliable narrators, further questions and deep reframing of assumptions or its definitely a disappointment train, something the Heresy series demonstrates time and time again :D 

[Karhedron]

20 minutes ago, Noserenda said:

Which reminds me, have they essentially ditched the Psychic awakening arc outside of the Dawn of fire series? 

 

GW don't do arcs in the sense that some fictional universes do because the 40K universe is primarily a setting rather than an ongoing narrative. For years it did not move at all with the clock frozen at 5 minutes to midnight. Then at the end of 7th edition they moved things forward. Abaddon destroyed Cadia and opened the Great Rift. The Primarchs started to return things that had been merely teased for years finally started to happen.

 

But it is not a linear storyline. There are different plotlines moving in fits and starts and their primary purpose is still to sell models. The Psychic Awakening saga was an opportunity to give all the factions a mid-edition refresh. Certain elements tied into this such as Mephiston's novel but it could be years before anything from PA is picked up again, or maybe never. Arks of Omen is the same. It's job is not simply to tell a story from start to finish but to plant a fresh set of plot hooks that GW can come back to in future. The Psychic Awkening is not an arc waiting to be finished, it is a part of the setting that GW can use to expand factions or take things in new directions. Or simply leave until they wish to pick it up.

 

This is not really anything new. Way back in 2nd edition the Eldar Legends mentioned immortal demi-gods known as the Yngir. The 3rd edition BRB mentioned "the quiescent perils of C'tan". Not until the Necron codex were these woven together with the Necrons as being ancient star gods from the Eldar pre-history. GW are quite open about planting hints without any idea of what they will eventually be developed as (or even if they will at all). I am sure elements of PA will be picked up in some form but I would not expect to see it as part of the overarching meta-narrative beyond the notion that psychic activity is increasing all across the Imperium following the opening of the Rift.

[Noserenda]

Yes im aware of that, but psychic awakening was a giant prelude to something, that was clearly defined throughout and then it just stopped? Might be they just had less competent writers working on it i guess, or bottled whatever that was going to be as they tend to be wary around the golden goose. 

They do absolutely do arcs though, something that is very possible to do without a linear storyline, or have you already forgotten the Arks of Omen and the dozens of others theyve run through over the years? Its separate to plot seeds because there is intentionality there, the writers in second had absolutely no idea what Ynigir or Ctan were, that got woven together later when they came back to it; but Abbaddon was always going to open the great rift, Vashtorr was always going to do whatever he maguffined together in the end, those were story arcs :D 

[The Emperors Champion22]

9 hours ago, brother_b said:

Sanguinor, he’s already in the fluff and lore and has a model. Just supersize it! I’m just a BA fanboy though.

 

In truth, I’m not really fond of loyal primarchs in 40K. Someone already mentioned it there should be no hope just slow, inexorable decay and assault on the imperium.

 

Adding a bunch of powerful primarchs blunts the horror of 40K.

 

Then I see how bad ass the lion model is and I’m pushed to the other side and would really love Khan for my scars, etc.

It doesnt really blunt the horror at all, guilliman came back and the imperium is worse off than ever. The lion came back and he lost too. The setting wont ever end and bringing back all the loyalist primarchs wont change that, nor will it save the imperium in any meaningful way.

 

its also way more grimdark and bleak to have these legendary figures back and still lose.

[LSM]

4 hours ago, phandaal said:

 

A lot of people do indeed not get the point of mysteries.

 

They will ask for the answer to everything until the lore is all tied up in a neat, boring little pretzel. Then people move on in disappointment after getting exactly what they asked for.

 

When it comes to the Legion of the Damned specifically, I don't remember them being introduced as a mystery. They were... just the Fire Hawks. It appears that they were "mysteryified" around 6th edition (?), though as I wasn't in the hobby at that point I could be wrong about that. 

 

Either way, I kept seeing people post their (very impressive) conversions of LotD, with them being skeletons on fire (instead of terminally warp-diseased dudes, who painted skeletons and flames on their armour because they're rad). And more than once I've seen people reference the Flame Falcons - the Fire Hawks' fellow Cursed Founding chapter who did burst into flames, until their purging by the Grey Knights. (Though for all I know, the Flame Falcons are intended as a retcon of the Fire Hawks, and are one of the new possible origins of the LotD.)

[Dont-Be-Haten]

Bring 'em all back. I'm here for it.

[phandaal]

1 hour ago, LSM said:

When it comes to the Legion of the Damned specifically, I don't remember them being introduced as a mystery. They were... just the Fire Hawks. It appears that they were "mysteryified" around 6th edition (?), though as I wasn't in the hobby at that point I could be wrong about that. 

 

When they were introduced back in the 80s, they were legit just the Fire Hawks. No mystery, just a description of what happened to their chapter. Although they were also zombies, basically, and back then the Emperor was still around and was pretty upset that the chapter had been lost... so things were a little different in the lore at that time. They weren't supposed to be anything supernatural, just a Space Marines chapter that had been mostly lost to the Warp, and the remnants had been mutated and were seeking their glorious death in combat.

 

By the time Sergeant Centurius was released in the 90s, the Legion of the Damned had turned into the more supernatural force that most people remember. They were not Fire Hawks at all at that time, although White Dwarf 223 did have a quote alluding to the Fire Hawks, from a mad scribe awaiting execution. I think that was more of a throwback Easter egg than anything. The lore was very heavy-handed on the Legion being "mysterious and unexplained."

 

The other details have been slowly added in over time, and now the Legion is back to being Probably Fire Hawks. I preferred the late 90s mystery myself, but they do still look awesome, so there is that.

[Cleon]

12 hours ago, jaxom said:

^This, and it was a problem for a long time for Marine armies, they didn't have anything like an Avatar, Daemon Prince, or Greater Daemon, or Hive Tyrant. Dreadnoughts kind of fit the role, but not quite. A Primarch fits the bill perfectly, and so would a properly sized Sanguinor. The only loyalist left out in the rain is Ferrus Manus, and I don't Iron Hands make up enough of a slice of the pie that GW would worry about them.

 

 

That's one thing I really disliked when the retconned the 200 year time jump. Guilliman, with a military force larger than the original Great Crusade, barely reconquers half the territory in the same amount of time as the Great Crusade. 

 

He may have had more Marines, but the Indominus Crusade was short 17 Primarchs a functional Imperial Army and pre-heresey Titan Legions, I don't beleive overall it was anywhere near the size of the combined Great Crusade.

 

Also on the Legion of the Damned, that is part of the joy of the setting. It is entirely possible the Legion of the damned circa M38 were the Fire Hawks stricken with a warp disease and determined to go out in style, but as the warp disease progressed and their legend grew they became something else, or something else grew up around and alongside them as they died out.

[Alternis]

Outstands me how people casually forget how Sanguinius is loosely based on the Christianity messiah and often forget the whole “his second coming” prophetic texts. 
 

Sanguinius coming back has already been set on the cards 

 

from his visions with Dante & Mephiston 

to the emperor subtly giving Lion a prophecy regarding Sanguinius 

 

Even going on GW business sense, bringing back Sanguinius is extremely profitable.

 

And finally the real life mythos the character is based upon has roots in the term ‘resurrection’, people who often use the term “oh but it ruins the lore/character arc/the meaning of his death” often forget the whole basis of what it was grounded on to begin with.

 

The Primarchs are and always will be partly warp based entities, when they die unless their soul is completely obliterated as is the case with Horus, they still exist in a spiritual sense within the warp, all the narrative needs to do is explain how to return a Primarchs soul from the warp to the material plane as they already did with Guilliman.

[Marshal Rohr]

14 hours ago, Karhedron said:

 

GW don't do arcs in the sense that some fictional universes do because the 40K universe is primarily a setting rather than an ongoing narrative. For years it did not move at all with the clock frozen at 5 minutes to midnight. Then at the end of 7th edition they moved things forward. Abaddon destroyed Cadia and opened the Great Rift. The Primarchs started to return things that had been merely teased for years finally started to happen.

 

But it is not a linear storyline. There are different plotlines moving in fits and starts and their primary purpose is still to sell models. The Psychic Awakening saga was an opportunity to give all the factions a mid-edition refresh. Certain elements tied into this such as Mephiston's novel but it could be years before anything from PA is picked up again, or maybe never. Arks of Omen is the same. It's job is not simply to tell a story from start to finish but to plant a fresh set of plot hooks that GW can come back to in future. The Psychic Awkening is not an arc waiting to be finished, it is a part of the setting that GW can use to expand factions or take things in new directions. Or simply leave until they wish to pick it up.

 

This is not really anything new. Way back in 2nd edition the Eldar Legends mentioned immortal demi-gods known as the Yngir. The 3rd edition BRB mentioned "the quiescent perils of C'tan". Not until the Necron codex were these woven together with the Necrons as being ancient star gods from the Eldar pre-history. GW are quite open about planting hints without any idea of what they will eventually be developed as (or even if they will at all). I am sure elements of PA will be picked up in some form but I would not expect to see it as part of the overarching meta-narrative beyond the notion that psychic activity is increasing all across the Imperium following the opening of the Rift.

 

40K was a setting. Now it’s just the curtains on the mobile card game it has become. There’s no depth to it anymore and if Valrak is right, this would be the final nail in the coffin between the older eras of Armageddon and 13th Black Crusade and the new “Season” model like PA and AoO. A drop of new, shallow books that have no depth or resolution, just a new “Map” like a DLC for this years Shooter franchise. 

[phandaal]

2 hours ago, Alternis said:

Outstands me how people casually forget how Sanguinius is loosely based on the Christianity messiah

 

I think you mean "astounds," and it may astound you even more to know that the Horus Heresy is actually based on Lucifer's rebellion in Paradise Lost. For example, Horus (Lucifer), is defeated and his legions are cast out of Heaven (the Imperium) and into Hell (the Eye of Terror). As a consequence of the rebellion, God (the Emperor) becomes more distant from humanity (gets interred in the Golden Throne). Sanguinius himself takes the part of the Archangel Michael, although in this case Michael gets himself strangled to death rather than defeating Lucifer in a duel.

 

You might be thinking that the story isn't exactly the same, and you would be right. Just because something happened in the material that inspired the story, it does not have to also happen in this story.

 

I do agree that GW is more likely than not going to do whatever they think will bring them money, but hopefully even they will understand what a disaster it would be to the lore to bring Sanguinius back in the flesh. They do have the Sanguinor set up as a thing, so maybe we will get that beefed up instead.

[LSM]

8 hours ago, phandaal said:

...By the time Sergeant Centurius was released in the 90s, the Legion of the Damned had turned into the more supernatural force that most people remember. They were not Fire Hawks at all at that time, although White Dwarf 223 did have a quote alluding to the Fire Hawks, from a mad scribe awaiting execution. I think that was more of a throwback Easter egg than anything. The lore was very heavy-handed on the Legion being "mysterious and unexplained."...

 

Thinking back, my main exposure to the LotD would have been the Cursed Founding trial rules (WD ~261/260 c 2001, apparently). It had rules for the Black Dragons, Minotaurs, Lamenters, Flame Falcons, Sons of Antaeus, and LotD. The latter's lore blurb:

 

The Legion of the Damned is a legend amongst the Adeptus Astartes. Appearing as ghostly apparitions to aid beleaguered Space Marines, this mysterious force has intervened in desperate battles on numerous occasions. The legionnaires reportedly wear power armour painted black and adorned with symbols of death, skeletons writhing in the flames of purgatory being a dominant theme. Eyewitnesses report the visible areas of the Space Marines` flesh are in a state of decay, lending the legionnaires a horrific, charnel aspect.

 

The examination of starship debris recovered in the Maran sub-sector suggests a link between the Legion of the Damned and the fate of the Fire Hawks Chapter. The Fire Hawks were declared Lost in the Warp in 983.M41, twenty years after the entire chapter set out for Crows World on a counter-invasion mission against the Eldar. The Inquisition are unsurprisingly keen to discover if the Legion of the Damned and the Fire Hawks are in fact one and the same chapter, and if so, how they gained their mysterious and deadly abilities.

 

I suppose there's still mystery there, though it's pretty heavily implied that they're Fire Hawks. More to my original thought, though, is that at that point they were still "zombiesque" marines, who decorated their armour with skeletons and flames, rather than being Ghost Riders.

 

//

 

And to bring it back around to the original point: Ferrus Manus being brought back as a LotD Primarch would be... just so weird to me.

[Emperor Ming]

Since there are now 3 cannon examples of a primarch coming back, 

 

The Emperor and ynnead healing guilliman the first time around during the psychic awakening. 

 

The Emperor bringing guilliman back to life after he dies in the plague wars. 

 

and the lion, from what I gather he healed himself over time and the emperor is helping indirectly through the watchers in the dark and the teleporting ability/sword/shield

 

Sanguinius would probably be easier to bring back than most assume, since there is the body and the soul. The Emperor would just have to duck tape them together

 

While I understand peoples frustrations over the feeling of: what's dead should stay dead, that's not how 40k works folks, when the realm of souls and souls exist. It may be almost impossible for a soul to return to a body or even having a body, but as of the plague wars and Gman dying, we have a cannon example of that being possible

 

Also from the saint celestine books, human souls do mostly go to the Emperor in the warp

 

I'm not a fan of the Primarchs coming back, but here we are

[lansalt]

10 minutes ago, Emperor Ming said:

that's not how 40k works

I would say that's how it actually works unless we talk about chaos and other warp related events outside the Materium. Both the Lion and Guilliman were alive, they just needed to be patched up.
Sanguinius death is a keystone of the setting and defines the BA way beyond the Fallen did the DA. It has also two avatars in 40k of his good and bad sides in the Sanguinor and Mephiston.

[Magos Takatus]

16 hours ago, phandaal said:

 

A lot of people do indeed not get the point of mysteries.

 

They will ask for the answer to everything until the lore is all tied up in a neat, boring little pretzel. Then people move on in disappointment after getting exactly what they asked for.

Personally, I think there should be a balance between mysteries and plot hooks becoming utilised. Your mileage may vary, but after decades of "It's a mystery! OoooOOOOooh!" plot threads like the missing Primarchs the mystery is starting to feel mundane almost a wasted opportunity. Thank goodness the Heresy novels poked the coals once or twice to make sure there were still embers there. Hearing space marines gossiping about the reason for the missing legions and the inflated size of the Ultramarines legion being so large and other breadcrumbs like that added new avenues for discussion without ultimately spoiling the whole ultimate fate of the two missing Primarchs and legions. Granted, bringing back Primarchs is a little closer to things being a little too explained, but it would be interesting to bring back some Primarchs and introduce new mysteries. I would love to see a 40k Sanguinius model but I wouldn't like to see the lore put through the wringer to justify it. Perhaps the next Loyalist Primarch could be... let's use Dorn for an example. Maybe he is recovered from a space hulk collected from remains of the Black Crusade fleet that he was lost with. Maybe he is resuscitated and has either no recollection of what happened or his only recollection of his time aboard the fleet as traumatic flashbacks. He might secretly believe he can't entirely trust his own memory or something. I don't know, I'm not a writer (especially not a good one ) but having the Primarchs return changed by the time they have spent away makes it more interesting than just copy and pasting them into the current 40k setting. I must admit I've not been able to keep up with Black Library novel output for years so I can't speak for how Roboute Guilliman was but his strong distaste for the current Imperium he is forced to fight for seems more intriguing to me than just "He ded, lol" 

 

Wrapping up my meandering post though, Mysteries that GW never addresses, develops or speculates around are wasted potential. Not everything needs to be explained with 100% reliability (So yes, I do agree with you to a point) but keeping most of the lore utterly stagnant for decades generates no new discussion, which I personally would find far more dull than allowing a lot of the lore to be added to. I don't want people to feel they are opening a necro post on B&C because no new lore is developed for a 30-year plus plot hook. 

Edited October 21, 2023 by Magos Takatus