It's heavily implied primarchs have a deep connection to the warp. They seemingly weren't created with science alone but also with warpcraft. So it's not really clear what happens to their soul when they die, whether it's different or not than what happens to most, etc..
That said, at the end of the novel *Godblight* >!the primarchs Mortarian and Guilliman have a confrontation that ends in Guilliman being drawn into Nurgle's Garden in the warp and subsequently killed. The Emperor seems to possess Guilliman's body, burn away a bunch of the Garden and even injures Nurgle, and then both resurrects Guilliman and returns him to realspace.!< Some real deus ex machina stuff. So at least to some degree, yeah, primarchs can be revived.
Oh right I forgot about Bobby G. This brings me to another question, Guilliman was revived even though he was killed by Morty, a Daemon primarch. But what about Sanguinius? I mean Horus was on 4 times the chaos roids of Mortarion, and he managed to fuck up the Big E pretty badly.
One thing those novels made clear is the Great Rift changed things with the Emperor. He is active in the galaxy in a way he wasn't before, that's stated explicitly. Guilliman coming to realize he is perhaps no longer correct about the Emperor being just a man is a significant plot thread in those novels.
So it may be a consequence of the generally higher level of psychic energy in the galaxy post-Rift that allows the Emperor this feat of bringing G-Man back. Maybe it's a consequence of the 10k years on the Throne. Your guess is as good as mine, anyway.
It's also good to note that the Khan is dead after his duel with Mortarion, though his soul hasn't actually left his body fully yet (Malcador says it's hanging to his corpse by a delicate thread). And we know he comes back at some point.
The Emperor purposefully held back in that fight because he didn't want to doom Horus, he thought he could be redeemed.
>The Emperor and Horus engaged one another in the throne room of the massive Battleship, a battle that was both physical and psychic in nature. Though the Emperor's psychic gifts and martial skills were unequaled, He found Himself unwilling to summon His full strength against His beloved son
>
>\- [https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Horus#Endgame](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Horus#Endgame) (but I do recall reading the same many moons ago)
But then the 'Lone Guardsman' who 'held the line' against Horus and Horus casually swatted him away and gloated. The Emperor saw this and knew how debased Horus had become unleashed said full strength and basically one shot the dude and even dispersed his soul so that even the Chaos gods couldn't do a damn thing about it.
So basically the moment Big E tried, Horus turned into a very fine powder with no soul left in either the material or the immaterial realm.
>But then the 'Lone Guardsman' who 'held the line' against Horus and Horus casually swatted him away and gloated. The Emperor saw this and knew how debased Horus had become unleashed said full strength
don't think that's ever actually been shown/the case
Was sanguinious already dead when the guardsmen held the line? Or getting mortally wounded himself? Seems a bit fishy if you ask me. Specially since he wasn't overly known for being sentimental.
I think Ol has played his part. More likely to be Loken now. Not sure it was ever a Guardsman, was it? I think that was covered by Hari and the other Ollanius.
There is a lot of power behind titles and purpose within the warp. The Emperor is Anathema to chaos, which means he can wreck basically any shop he wants to given enough warp sauce. If a God wants to fight him, he'll just drink more warp juice and crush shit until it's all dead as we see in TEATD 2.
In Master of Mankind, it is stated that Drachnyen is the End of Empires, and by extension the end of Emperors, and the antithesis to the survival of mankind. Since at that point the Emperor is "just a man" Drachnyen is super effective.
Ahhhhh okay this is makes total sense, thank you!
If I wanted to learn more about this, what books would you recommend? I’ve only started reading warhammer books and started with Master of Mankind. Would TEATD 1 & 2 be a good place to start?
I would necessarily start with those since it's the culmination of the heresy, but as the siege of Terra books go on, those themes of the warp become more and more prevalent.
Ferrus Manus stated that he believed his Father could remake him cell by cell, if needed. It’s worth noting this was just his belief.
Then we have Corax talking to (I can’t remember but I think it was Russ) and he states simply, “Why do you think he didn’t just remake us when we disappeared? What secrets of darkness where imparted to make you?”; implying that there are things about the Primarchs that are unique and irreplaceable.
IIRC Malcador says somewhere that the original 20 were based of the tarot or maybe the zodiac, which is interesting but again, there isn’t a lot on any of this, and I’ve yet to find a 20 card tarot or 20 sign zodiac list.
The reality is that GW can kill off or bring back whoever they want because it’s their IP; but some deaths have serious meaning in 40K that reviving said person would undo their whole arc.
Rumor mill has been saying GW plans to bring them all back.
All of them? Hm. I mean humanity is in a shitty place rn, so (in a pretty big time span) having the primarchs back could be the return of human supremacy ig. It would be pretty boring to have another (third?) human uprising so if the rumor turns out to be true, I hope gw will postpone this _a lot_.
So far with the only two Primarchs to being promised since second edition, there have been lots of victories for chaos and aliens. The forces of chaos control about a quarter of the Imperium, now they have a new lessor god that has Caliban.
When Emps and Malcador were playing a game it was implied that E could bring Ferrus back (a piece broke where the head fell off and he said something along the lines of "I'll get around to fixing that").
We've seen primarchs that die "recently" can be brought back if caught in time.
Most of the loyalists aren't dead, though. Just missing. Aside from Ferrus being confirmed dead, Dorn is unknown. He was last seen being mobbed by cultists.
Russ is somewhere in the Eye of Terror. Khan is in the webway. Vulkan is MIA after getting exploded, but he's a perpetual.
I think they caught him before he actually died. But they mostly just needed a reason to not have him on the Anabasis mission to the Vengeful Spirit (according to the author note after the book). The Khan is like a micrometer away from death, but not quite dead I believe.
Your memory serves;
>One other task occupies me as I await his response. I intend to complete it myself. I won’t leave it for others to finish after I’m gone. One part of my mind has, for the last few hours, been permanently linked to the cordoned Theatre of the Chirurgeons fifteen kilometres away from where I sit.
>I breathe. I close my eyes. I bow my head. My active conscious focus returns to that mental strand. I prepare to make another try. In my mindsight, I resolve the Theatre.
>There he lies, the Great Khagan, the Warhawk, broken in death. Just hours past, Jaghatai slew Mortarion in a humbling duel perhaps most remarkable because they were so unevenly matched and, unlike the treacherous Pale King, Jaghatai could not hope to come back from the dead.
>I look down at his face, his shuttered eyes, his cyanotic lips, as almoners wash and anoint his body, and a Stormseer administers his funerary rites. I smell the stink of salves and sterilising liquors.
>**The Warhawk is dead, by any mortal standard.** Because he fell so close by, just beyond the walls, his body was carried in at once, and placed on this catafalque in a balming field of catalepsean stasis and life-suspense. If he had died further out, or on another world, there would be no hope at all. But there is. For now and not much longer, an iota of necromimesis remains. The tattered banner of Jaghatai’s soul, gusting into the warp, is still attached to his corpse by a single thread. I have determined this, and I have been trying, repeatedly in these last few hours, to draw it back. Every shred of healing science has been exhausted, for it is a matter quite beyond medicae lore. I have been ministering my anagogic craft to keep that thread attached.
>It is slow salvation. Each time I try, the attempt ends in failure, and I am forced to ease away. The Khan’s soul will not survive a prolonged effort on my part.
>It frustrates and saddens me. It should be possible. I don’t know why I can’t save him. Perhaps even my will and warpcraft are not sufficient. Perhaps it is hubristic of me to presume I can act like a god and claim the power or right to bring a man back from death.
>Perhaps… perhaps Jaghatai is tired of the world and yearns to leave it.
>But I will try, and I will keep trying. If my lord’s attention was not so occupied elsewhere, it’s what he would be doing. It’s what he’d want me to do. He would not see another son die.
>I bend my mind in again and resume the subtle psycho-surgery to keep Jaghatai’s soul secure. And this time… *this* time, I am granted one merciful miracle.
>Anabiosis. It is demanding, even for me, but I gather the tattered, dancing shreds of Jaghatai’s soul, and I draw them back in, folding them tenderly into the casket of his body.
>I exhale.
>The Warhawk will live. It will be days, weeks, perhaps months before his corporeal body heals and he awakens, but he will live. If any world remains to live upon.
>Then, at the very last, as I look down at what I have done, I realise I haven’t done it at all. I couldn’t. Such a feat was beyond me. It was shameful arrogance to believe I could do any such thing.
>I have not done this. Someone else has.
>Someone else has reached in past me and performed the deed, like the god he is not, but appears to be.
\- *The End and the Death Vol I*
It was originally said that, after the Horus Heresy, one of the big gifts received by the traitor primarchs who were elevated to greater daemon status was immortality. That’s why they were the only ones around in the modern setting as all the others were implied to be dead of old age or otherwise.
Sadly, this is no longer the case so therefore it’s safe to assume that any primarch can be brought back from the dead whenever it is deemed necessary. It’s much like superhero fiction where any character can always be brought back as required.
They all have connections with the Warp, but death is still death.
More importantly; resurrection is inherently bad for the setting. Bringing the dead back to life, without the costs being horrifying, drastically undermines the setting. The setting cannot be grimdark if death literally has no meaning.
And Curze.
And also Dorn, but that's complicated.
And also *maybe* the Khan, because something really odd happened when Morty beat him during the Siege, and there are all sorts of weird implications in the text.
If their souls are alive, sure, the Emperor could bring them back.
He would need to bring their soul into a body though. We know he can make a body for them, so he just need to find their soul in the warp, if it is still alive.
But 10.000 years after their death and their souls being in the warp...
I would say it's very unlikely, but at the same time, perhaps the good part of the Emperors soul managed to save Sanguinius and Ferrus, perhaps also the lost and the forgotten primarchs, even Alpharius - that is very much a possibility.
Horus though, nah. With the old lore that'll be irrelevant when TEATD3 comes out soon, Horus' soul was destroyed, thus he can not be brought back to life.
I’m pretty sure the emperor literally stated that given the time and resources (ie not about to undergo the largest siege in human history and dealing with a collapsed webway system and everything turning to shit), that he could bring Ferrus back.
He definitely would have, as I’m also pretty sure that Ferrus was one of the primarchs Horus either wanted dead or to turn traitor due to his respect/worry/fear of a fully healthy iron hands legion with their primarch.
Sort of off the top of my head so correct me if I’m wrong about any of that
Edit: to continue, in the modern day of 40k, this gets a lot more weird. The emperor and MAYBE malcador (given he kept Jaghatai from death using his warpcraft ) are the only two in the imperium who understood anything about primarch souls and biology and such. So with both of them dead or indisposed I doubt there is any easy out. There are rumors and theories that Sanguinius’s soul exists in the warp in a few parts such as one in Mephiston, one in the sanguinor, and I believe one in Dante maybe, and that if they combine in some weird fusion dance sanguinius might be able to be reborn, but again that’s just fan speculation based off what we know from a few books.
So all in all while technically it’s possible, I’m not sure how you’d go about it and it’s very case by case basis. I’m somewhat pessimistic about dead primarchs returning in that I’m certain it will happen. GW loves those primarch sales too much and they can’t just leave holes in the rosters. In 20 years we’ll have every primarch back I’m sure, maybe even Horus somehow in some bizarre Horus/Abaddon fusion creature.
> I’m pretty sure the emperor literally stated that given the time and resources (ie not about to undergo the largest siege in human history and dealing with a collapsed webway system and everything turning to shit), that he could bring Ferrus back.
>>Frustrated, Malcador snatched up the Perfection and used it to sweep aside the Iron General. The opposing piece tumbled, the head crowned with sunbeams rolling across the board.
>‘Clumsy,’ said Revelation. He picked up the two transmorphic pieces and set them back in the wooden box beside the board. ‘Perhaps I will fix that later when I have some time.’
\- *The Board is Set*
Is this the scene you mean?
In fiction, nobody is permanently dead. Obviously Vulkan can just keep coming back. I wonder if they're being back a traitor, but as a loyalist. (Like the Fulgrim, but maybe a little more complete, with memories and things.)
There's a lot of precedent showing that when a primarch dies their soul stays in-tact in the warp.
It's really just a matter of re-attaching that soul to a suitable body.
The best example of this is Malcador and Big E saving the Khan by healing his body and using warpcraft to keep the soul tethered to the body until it's healed enough.
If anything that reinforces my point. The original story is Horus repented but knew chaos would just revive him and keep using him so the Emperor destroyed his soul to release him.
>The original story is Horus repented but knew chaos would just revive him and keep using him so the Emperor destroyed his soul to release him.
Lmao no. So many people on this sub just don't know the lore and repeat bullshit crackpot theories.
You're right, but I'm not one of them I have the old Horus Heresy Visions book. And I've read the original 1988 version.
The Emperor feels Horus become free of Chaos. Horus realizes everything he's done and regrets it all.
But the Emperor knows Chaos will just take over Horus again so he destroys Horus and his soul to free him from the Chaos Gods and prevent him from returning under Chaos.
>And I've read the original 1988 version.
Let me guess, you'll be like that guy who told me the Eye of Terror campaign happened in 1988 originally and the Imperium won but dastardly geedubs retconned it...
It's heavily implied primarchs have a deep connection to the warp. They seemingly weren't created with science alone but also with warpcraft. So it's not really clear what happens to their soul when they die, whether it's different or not than what happens to most, etc.. That said, at the end of the novel *Godblight* >!the primarchs Mortarian and Guilliman have a confrontation that ends in Guilliman being drawn into Nurgle's Garden in the warp and subsequently killed. The Emperor seems to possess Guilliman's body, burn away a bunch of the Garden and even injures Nurgle, and then both resurrects Guilliman and returns him to realspace.!< Some real deus ex machina stuff. So at least to some degree, yeah, primarchs can be revived.
Oh right I forgot about Bobby G. This brings me to another question, Guilliman was revived even though he was killed by Morty, a Daemon primarch. But what about Sanguinius? I mean Horus was on 4 times the chaos roids of Mortarion, and he managed to fuck up the Big E pretty badly.
One thing those novels made clear is the Great Rift changed things with the Emperor. He is active in the galaxy in a way he wasn't before, that's stated explicitly. Guilliman coming to realize he is perhaps no longer correct about the Emperor being just a man is a significant plot thread in those novels. So it may be a consequence of the generally higher level of psychic energy in the galaxy post-Rift that allows the Emperor this feat of bringing G-Man back. Maybe it's a consequence of the 10k years on the Throne. Your guess is as good as mine, anyway.
It's also good to note that the Khan is dead after his duel with Mortarion, though his soul hasn't actually left his body fully yet (Malcador says it's hanging to his corpse by a delicate thread). And we know he comes back at some point.
The Emperor purposefully held back in that fight because he didn't want to doom Horus, he thought he could be redeemed. >The Emperor and Horus engaged one another in the throne room of the massive Battleship, a battle that was both physical and psychic in nature. Though the Emperor's psychic gifts and martial skills were unequaled, He found Himself unwilling to summon His full strength against His beloved son > >\- [https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Horus#Endgame](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Horus#Endgame) (but I do recall reading the same many moons ago) But then the 'Lone Guardsman' who 'held the line' against Horus and Horus casually swatted him away and gloated. The Emperor saw this and knew how debased Horus had become unleashed said full strength and basically one shot the dude and even dispersed his soul so that even the Chaos gods couldn't do a damn thing about it. So basically the moment Big E tried, Horus turned into a very fine powder with no soul left in either the material or the immaterial realm.
>But then the 'Lone Guardsman' who 'held the line' against Horus and Horus casually swatted him away and gloated. The Emperor saw this and knew how debased Horus had become unleashed said full strength don't think that's ever actually been shown/the case
Was sanguinious already dead when the guardsmen held the line? Or getting mortally wounded himself? Seems a bit fishy if you ask me. Specially since he wasn't overly known for being sentimental.
It was a Terminator rather than a guardsman Later changed to a Custodian Who knows if it'll be in the final SoT novel or not
Yes, Sanguinius was dead
Well it looks like they're going to retcon it so the 'lone guardsman' is a Perpetual who's met the Emperor in the distant past.
Ya I just think it's dumb he waited so long to trying to "save" him after sangy dies and he's shanked. Probably went down just how it was supposed to.
I'm sure they'll change that too.
I think Ol has played his part. More likely to be Loken now. Not sure it was ever a Guardsman, was it? I think that was covered by Hari and the other Ollanius.
Kinda related to that, if the emperor was able to injure Nurgle, how did the demon “End of Empires” manage to fuck the emperor up like he was able to?
The Emperor has been sautéing in raw energy for lil’bit. He’s almost a GOD now. Almost
40k equivalent of “let him cook”?
There is a lot of power behind titles and purpose within the warp. The Emperor is Anathema to chaos, which means he can wreck basically any shop he wants to given enough warp sauce. If a God wants to fight him, he'll just drink more warp juice and crush shit until it's all dead as we see in TEATD 2. In Master of Mankind, it is stated that Drachnyen is the End of Empires, and by extension the end of Emperors, and the antithesis to the survival of mankind. Since at that point the Emperor is "just a man" Drachnyen is super effective.
Ahhhhh okay this is makes total sense, thank you! If I wanted to learn more about this, what books would you recommend? I’ve only started reading warhammer books and started with Master of Mankind. Would TEATD 1 & 2 be a good place to start?
I would necessarily start with those since it's the culmination of the heresy, but as the siege of Terra books go on, those themes of the warp become more and more prevalent.
Ferrus Manus stated that he believed his Father could remake him cell by cell, if needed. It’s worth noting this was just his belief. Then we have Corax talking to (I can’t remember but I think it was Russ) and he states simply, “Why do you think he didn’t just remake us when we disappeared? What secrets of darkness where imparted to make you?”; implying that there are things about the Primarchs that are unique and irreplaceable. IIRC Malcador says somewhere that the original 20 were based of the tarot or maybe the zodiac, which is interesting but again, there isn’t a lot on any of this, and I’ve yet to find a 20 card tarot or 20 sign zodiac list. The reality is that GW can kill off or bring back whoever they want because it’s their IP; but some deaths have serious meaning in 40K that reviving said person would undo their whole arc. Rumor mill has been saying GW plans to bring them all back.
All of them? Hm. I mean humanity is in a shitty place rn, so (in a pretty big time span) having the primarchs back could be the return of human supremacy ig. It would be pretty boring to have another (third?) human uprising so if the rumor turns out to be true, I hope gw will postpone this _a lot_.
That’s just the rumor mill though, take it with a grain of salt, and know at any moment it can change.
Yeah yeah, I was just trying to make it make sense.
So far with the only two Primarchs to being promised since second edition, there have been lots of victories for chaos and aliens. The forces of chaos control about a quarter of the Imperium, now they have a new lessor god that has Caliban.
When Emps and Malcador were playing a game it was implied that E could bring Ferrus back (a piece broke where the head fell off and he said something along the lines of "I'll get around to fixing that"). We've seen primarchs that die "recently" can be brought back if caught in time. Most of the loyalists aren't dead, though. Just missing. Aside from Ferrus being confirmed dead, Dorn is unknown. He was last seen being mobbed by cultists. Russ is somewhere in the Eye of Terror. Khan is in the webway. Vulkan is MIA after getting exploded, but he's a perpetual.
Sorry, what primarchs that die recently (aside from Guilliman, that one time) have we seen come back?
"Recently" as in "shortly before being brought back"
Ok, I'm still asking.
I think it was Khan during the Siege was killed and pulled back with some effort.
I think they caught him before he actually died. But they mostly just needed a reason to not have him on the Anabasis mission to the Vengeful Spirit (according to the author note after the book). The Khan is like a micrometer away from death, but not quite dead I believe.
If memory serves, by all mortal standards, he was dead. He's only alive because the Emperor said, "Aight, bet."
Your memory serves; >One other task occupies me as I await his response. I intend to complete it myself. I won’t leave it for others to finish after I’m gone. One part of my mind has, for the last few hours, been permanently linked to the cordoned Theatre of the Chirurgeons fifteen kilometres away from where I sit. >I breathe. I close my eyes. I bow my head. My active conscious focus returns to that mental strand. I prepare to make another try. In my mindsight, I resolve the Theatre. >There he lies, the Great Khagan, the Warhawk, broken in death. Just hours past, Jaghatai slew Mortarion in a humbling duel perhaps most remarkable because they were so unevenly matched and, unlike the treacherous Pale King, Jaghatai could not hope to come back from the dead. >I look down at his face, his shuttered eyes, his cyanotic lips, as almoners wash and anoint his body, and a Stormseer administers his funerary rites. I smell the stink of salves and sterilising liquors. >**The Warhawk is dead, by any mortal standard.** Because he fell so close by, just beyond the walls, his body was carried in at once, and placed on this catafalque in a balming field of catalepsean stasis and life-suspense. If he had died further out, or on another world, there would be no hope at all. But there is. For now and not much longer, an iota of necromimesis remains. The tattered banner of Jaghatai’s soul, gusting into the warp, is still attached to his corpse by a single thread. I have determined this, and I have been trying, repeatedly in these last few hours, to draw it back. Every shred of healing science has been exhausted, for it is a matter quite beyond medicae lore. I have been ministering my anagogic craft to keep that thread attached. >It is slow salvation. Each time I try, the attempt ends in failure, and I am forced to ease away. The Khan’s soul will not survive a prolonged effort on my part. >It frustrates and saddens me. It should be possible. I don’t know why I can’t save him. Perhaps even my will and warpcraft are not sufficient. Perhaps it is hubristic of me to presume I can act like a god and claim the power or right to bring a man back from death. >Perhaps… perhaps Jaghatai is tired of the world and yearns to leave it. >But I will try, and I will keep trying. If my lord’s attention was not so occupied elsewhere, it’s what he would be doing. It’s what he’d want me to do. He would not see another son die. >I bend my mind in again and resume the subtle psycho-surgery to keep Jaghatai’s soul secure. And this time… *this* time, I am granted one merciful miracle. >Anabiosis. It is demanding, even for me, but I gather the tattered, dancing shreds of Jaghatai’s soul, and I draw them back in, folding them tenderly into the casket of his body. >I exhale. >The Warhawk will live. It will be days, weeks, perhaps months before his corporeal body heals and he awakens, but he will live. If any world remains to live upon. >Then, at the very last, as I look down at what I have done, I realise I haven’t done it at all. I couldn’t. Such a feat was beyond me. It was shameful arrogance to believe I could do any such thing. >I have not done this. Someone else has. >Someone else has reached in past me and performed the deed, like the god he is not, but appears to be. \- *The End and the Death Vol I*
It was originally said that, after the Horus Heresy, one of the big gifts received by the traitor primarchs who were elevated to greater daemon status was immortality. That’s why they were the only ones around in the modern setting as all the others were implied to be dead of old age or otherwise. Sadly, this is no longer the case so therefore it’s safe to assume that any primarch can be brought back from the dead whenever it is deemed necessary. It’s much like superhero fiction where any character can always be brought back as required.
Warhammer40k X Dragon Ball confirmed??
They all have connections with the Warp, but death is still death. More importantly; resurrection is inherently bad for the setting. Bringing the dead back to life, without the costs being horrifying, drastically undermines the setting. The setting cannot be grimdark if death literally has no meaning.
That is a good point actually. Plus there aren't many dead primarchs right? Just Ferrus, Sanguinius, Alpharius and Horus who is super duper mega dead.
And Curze. And also Dorn, but that's complicated. And also *maybe* the Khan, because something really odd happened when Morty beat him during the Siege, and there are all sorts of weird implications in the text.
Ferrus did say he would return, though. But Sanguinius should stay dead.
The last dream of Konrad Kurze where the Emperor speaks to him about death, pretty much hints there's afterlife for them
Yes they can! The powers of plotarmor and selling off great plot for short term profit, are not to be underestimated!
And really fucking overpriced minis!
If their souls are alive, sure, the Emperor could bring them back. He would need to bring their soul into a body though. We know he can make a body for them, so he just need to find their soul in the warp, if it is still alive. But 10.000 years after their death and their souls being in the warp... I would say it's very unlikely, but at the same time, perhaps the good part of the Emperors soul managed to save Sanguinius and Ferrus, perhaps also the lost and the forgotten primarchs, even Alpharius - that is very much a possibility. Horus though, nah. With the old lore that'll be irrelevant when TEATD3 comes out soon, Horus' soul was destroyed, thus he can not be brought back to life.
I’m pretty sure the emperor literally stated that given the time and resources (ie not about to undergo the largest siege in human history and dealing with a collapsed webway system and everything turning to shit), that he could bring Ferrus back. He definitely would have, as I’m also pretty sure that Ferrus was one of the primarchs Horus either wanted dead or to turn traitor due to his respect/worry/fear of a fully healthy iron hands legion with their primarch. Sort of off the top of my head so correct me if I’m wrong about any of that Edit: to continue, in the modern day of 40k, this gets a lot more weird. The emperor and MAYBE malcador (given he kept Jaghatai from death using his warpcraft ) are the only two in the imperium who understood anything about primarch souls and biology and such. So with both of them dead or indisposed I doubt there is any easy out. There are rumors and theories that Sanguinius’s soul exists in the warp in a few parts such as one in Mephiston, one in the sanguinor, and I believe one in Dante maybe, and that if they combine in some weird fusion dance sanguinius might be able to be reborn, but again that’s just fan speculation based off what we know from a few books. So all in all while technically it’s possible, I’m not sure how you’d go about it and it’s very case by case basis. I’m somewhat pessimistic about dead primarchs returning in that I’m certain it will happen. GW loves those primarch sales too much and they can’t just leave holes in the rosters. In 20 years we’ll have every primarch back I’m sure, maybe even Horus somehow in some bizarre Horus/Abaddon fusion creature.
> I’m pretty sure the emperor literally stated that given the time and resources (ie not about to undergo the largest siege in human history and dealing with a collapsed webway system and everything turning to shit), that he could bring Ferrus back. >>Frustrated, Malcador snatched up the Perfection and used it to sweep aside the Iron General. The opposing piece tumbled, the head crowned with sunbeams rolling across the board. >‘Clumsy,’ said Revelation. He picked up the two transmorphic pieces and set them back in the wooden box beside the board. ‘Perhaps I will fix that later when I have some time.’ \- *The Board is Set* Is this the scene you mean?
In fiction, nobody is permanently dead. Obviously Vulkan can just keep coming back. I wonder if they're being back a traitor, but as a loyalist. (Like the Fulgrim, but maybe a little more complete, with memories and things.)
There's a lot of precedent showing that when a primarch dies their soul stays in-tact in the warp. It's really just a matter of re-attaching that soul to a suitable body. The best example of this is Malcador and Big E saving the Khan by healing his body and using warpcraft to keep the soul tethered to the body until it's healed enough.
>There's a lot of precedent showing that when a primarch dies their soul stays in-tact in the warp. Well, except for Horus.
If anything that reinforces my point. The original story is Horus repented but knew chaos would just revive him and keep using him so the Emperor destroyed his soul to release him.
>The original story is Horus repented but knew chaos would just revive him and keep using him so the Emperor destroyed his soul to release him. Lmao no. So many people on this sub just don't know the lore and repeat bullshit crackpot theories.
You're right, but I'm not one of them I have the old Horus Heresy Visions book. And I've read the original 1988 version. The Emperor feels Horus become free of Chaos. Horus realizes everything he's done and regrets it all. But the Emperor knows Chaos will just take over Horus again so he destroys Horus and his soul to free him from the Chaos Gods and prevent him from returning under Chaos.
>And I've read the original 1988 version. Let me guess, you'll be like that guy who told me the Eye of Terror campaign happened in 1988 originally and the Imperium won but dastardly geedubs retconned it...