An (admittedly dumb) lore idea

[Kaede45]

To start off, this is an idea that I haven’t fully fleshed out, so there is definitely room for improvement.

 

To preface, as I was getting into 40K & learned of the Primarchs, including the missing 2nd & 11th Primarchs. It appeared to me that these missing Primarchs were a way to give people (like me) the ability to make their own Space Marine legions that weren’t part of the “known” Primarchs. It makes sense as a means to say “no one knows who they were, but players can take them & make whatever they want.”

 

However, in recent times it seems like GW has started making lore regarding these lost Primarchs meaning that (at least to me) trying to make lore surrounding them & making custom chapters is now conflicting with established lore.

 

My idea was “what if there were more than 20 Primarchs?” What if the Emperor had created more “proto-Primarchs” who either vanished when they were sent into the Warp, deemed failures & destroyed at some point or even just never made it past infancy? The Emperor likely would have still used their gene-seed to make more Astartes & it could be said that only those made from these proto-Primarchs have any knowledge of them. It could be a new & interesting way to make custom chapters who are not just descendants of the main 20.

 

Anyway, what do y’all think? The idea is still half-baked, but I’m open to feedback. As always, thank you for your time & input & God bless!

[Grotsmasha]

18 hours ago, Kaede45 said:

To preface, as I was getting into 40K & learned of the Primarchs, including the missing 2nd & 11th Primarchs. It appeared to me that these missing Primarchs were a way to give people (like me) the ability to make their own Space Marine legions that weren’t part of the “known” Primarchs. It makes sense as a means to say “no one knows who they were, but players can take them & make whatever they want.”

 

 

I forget the source (one of the employees responsible for the Lore at the time), but it's been confirmed to be the case

 

18 hours ago, Kaede45 said:

My idea was “what if there were more than 20 Primarchs?”

 

Technically, *TECHNICALLY*, he did.... 

 

But back to the actual question, definitely a fun possibility worth exploring 

Edited August 8, 2025 by Grotsmasha

[darkhorse0607]

19 hours ago, Kaede45 said:

My idea was “what if there were more than 20 Primarchs?” What if the Emperor had created more “proto-Primarchs” who either vanished when they were sent into the Warp, deemed failures & destroyed at some point or even just never made it past infancy? The Emperor likely would have still used their gene-seed to make more Astartes & it could be said that only those made from these proto-Primarchs have any knowledge of them. It could be a new & interesting way to make custom chapters who are not just descendants of the main 20.

 

Go read Valdor, feel the vindication 

[apologist]

The idea of proto-Primarchs certainly has merit; it strikes me as exactly the sort of fun idea that you could build a whole campaign or personal army around. 

 

The concept of the Primarchs has expanded from them just being the leaders of Space Marines Chapters (later Legions), and while they've now grown to being supersized and supernatural, I think there's still space. After all, it's a big galaxy, and with characters like Basilio Fo, Amar Astartes and the Selenar priesthood around (and their counterpart biological/technomantical/magical geniuses in the years that follow), it's entirely possible that other not-quite-Primarchs or Primarch/adjacent beings might exist.

 

We've had a couple of 'are-they-aren't-they?' figures like the Sleeper and Alpha Primus, so the creation of Primarch-lite or Primarch-like figures is possible; and there's also the twin precedents of the Grey Knights having geneseed that's not derived from the 20 Primarchs* and Cawl's production of Astartes from geneseeds beyond the remaining nine loyalists.

 

On a closely-related note, Rick Priestley posted the following comment on a YouTube video, which gives the author's intent on the missing legions:

 

 

There's more discussion and reading material on this thread, if it's helpful:

 

 

 

*arguably)

[Doghouse]

In all honesty I'd ignore whatever tidbits there are and just make one of the lost legions if that is what you want to do. I'm currently doing the 11th personally, the records of both are expunged so to be fair you can do what you want regardless.

 

Anything any of us do isn't going to become canon so why worry? Put together an awesome Legion idea and go for it I say!

 

As for your other idea, that's perfectly fine. One aspect of war that is massively overlooked when it comes to 30k is experimental warfare like the SOE in the second world war. Cawl probably wasn't the only one playing around with Primaris concepts and it's incredibly plausible that others were trying weird experiments on either side to give them the edge. The trick is not to tie this stuff to known characters in 40k like Malcador or the Emperor and instead create your own mad scientist type.

[Wormwoods]

My personal, silly headcanon has always been that there were only 18 Primarchs, but a latter Imperial scholar thought that was untidy, and fudged the numbers. 10,000 years is a long time. 

[Adeptekon]

Priestly said it was about leaving some mystery in the setting, but you can do whatever you like regardless. There was a powerful being E created long before known as the "The Angel" and there was also Leetu who shared E and Erda's genes.

[Antarius]

I don't think the lost legions were ever intended for that specific purpose (that was the "1000 chapters", asfaict), but I see no reason why you couldn't make your own story. I mean, some people won't like it and will think it's against the "true" lore, but that's the case no matter what and it's your hobby, so I'd say "go for it".

[Jings]

Regarding proto-Primarch, wasn't there lore of an "Angel" that was locked in a box in the old Inquisitor game? 

[Bloodwraith]

The Angel, one of the emperors first creations was likely a Proto Primarch, He was literally death incarnate. The Grey Knights are literally the Emperors own Geneseed. Thunder Warriors were made without Geneseed and so were the Custodes. So the Answer to all your questions is in a broad way.....YES> However I think what happened to the 2nd and 11th may one day be made clearer, maybe not a total reveal, but while I do think it was originally a way for us to DIY our own "lost legions" I now think given a lot of lore hints and implications, that they will eventually reveal some of what happened to them.

[Adeptekon]

I'm still with Leetu, I don't care what anyone says. He's a primarch!

[Karhedron]

20 hours ago, Bloodwraith said:

The Angel, one of the emperors first creations was likely a Proto Primarch, He was literally death incarnate. The Grey Knights are literally the Emperors own Geneseed.

 

I think that old lore has been retconned. The Emperor is a Perpetual, not a Primarch so he doesn't actually have any geneseed just like you or I don't. The lore from 8th edition onwards as well as the HH/Siege novels heavily implies that the Grey Knights are based on stabilised Magnus geneseed taken from Ianus so they are basically Thousand Sons 2.0.

[Bloodwraith]

6 hours ago, Karhedron said:

 

I think that old lore has been retconned. The Emperor is a Perpetual, not a Primarch so he doesn't actually have any geneseed just like you or I don't. The lore from 8th edition onwards as well as the HH/Siege novels heavily implies that the Grey Knights are based on stabilised Magnus geneseed taken from Ianus so they are basically Thousand Sons 2.0.

The 8th edition codex says the Grey knights were born from a new gene-seed that the "Grey Knights carried the gift of the Emperor's own flesh and soul." Now the 10th-edition Grey Knights Codex does not retcon the 8th but it does discuss their genetic origins, but the wording is more restrained than the famous 8th-edition passage.

 

Currently, the Grey Knights do not have gene-seed descended from one of the Primarchs.  Based on the codex. Their gene-seed is described as uniquely engineered, rather than being a conventional Legion/Chapter lineage. The established existing and not yet retconned lore identifies the Emperor himself as their genetic progenitor. 

 

The 10th-edition Codex describes the Grey Knights as being “grown from gene-seed untouched by corruption” and emphasizes that they are essentially purpose-built from the beginning for their anti-daemon role. But again doesnt retcon the 8th edition.  GW has also stated in 2008 by the Black Library Head at the time that Official Sources, Codexes, IAs etc were The Bases of all lore and that many of the Black Library stories are still lore but unreliable narrators, Aaron Dembski-Bowden and Guy Haley in seperate interviews also confirmed that they operate under the directive all all lore is "Loose lore" but the official sources are the basis and the stories are more interpretible. 

 

The HH novels do imply it but there is no smoking gun saying it emphatically and at this point and the codexes havent reversed it yet. Because the process to save/make Lanius/janus were never stated to be used on any other of the Grey Knights, the geneseed already existed, and the Emperor had numerous secret gene-seed labratories, so it is also just as likely the new 1000k sons geneseed could be in one of those. So defaulting to ADB, Guy Haley and George Mann, basically it aint true till its in the Codex. SO Grey Knight fans get to hold onto it a little longer until their 11th edition comes out and possibly retcons it.

Edited September 2 by Bloodwraith

[Lathe Biosas]

I always liked the notion that Sigmar was a lost Primarch when his ship (The twin tailed comet that fell from the heavens) crashed onto the Warhammer world.

 

☆☆☆

 

Everyone seems to forget some of the best Grey Knight creation stories come from James Swallow

The Buried Dagger (Book 54) and the audio drama Garro: Knight of Grey.

[Bloodwraith]

11 hours ago, Lathe Biosas said:

I always liked the notion that Sigmar was a lost Primarch when his ship (The twin tailed comet that fell from the heavens) crashed onto the Warhammer world.

 

☆☆☆

 

Everyone seems to forget some of the best Grey Knight creation stories come from James Swallow

The Buried Dagger (Book 54) and the audio drama Garro: Knight of Grey.

I still think all these years later that GW missed the mark when the decided the Fantasy and SCI FI worlds were not connected. Sigmar being one of the lost Primarchs would have been an awesome story, and making Archaon the other. A mini Heresy realm. Were for the last 10000 years the remnants of their legions formed the basis of their armies.

 

[Antarius]

I have always found it a funny idea that Sigmar was really a primarch (I don't think it's actually truly hinted at, but my gaming group and I certainly made the connection back in the late 90s, so it's just a pretty obvious idea, I guess). Archaon is something else though and I think it would cheapen the WFB world if he was a primarch (in a way that I don't think Sigmar maybe being a primarch would), as it would make WFB a bit of a sideshow to 40K, as well as present all sorts of problems for the WFB timeline (why does Archaon only appear long after Sigmar's death, why is Sigmar even dead, why don't the two meet up, etc. etc.) and to my mind, "fixing" these problems would inevitably turn WFB into a playground for two demigods rather than a complex world where things happen in their own right, for their own reasons.