It is the thirtieth millennium.
The Emperor of Mankind has begun his Great Crusade to unite all of humanity's lost colonies among the stars. At his command are 20 legions of bio-engineered super warriors, the space marines, a force unmatched in all the galaxy. And for each Legion, there is a primarch, one of the Emperor's own gene-crafted sons, a myth made manifest to lead them.
But not all has gone well with His great plan. By fate or by trickery or by artifice of alien monsters, the 20 primarchs were stolen from the emperor's gene labs and scattered across the galaxy while in their infancy. Now, the legions crusade not only to unite mankind, but to find their gene fathers. The Imperial Truth was the manifest destiny of mankind, to conquer the galaxy as its highest power, for there were no gods, no spirits, no great divine plan. There was only mankind, their birthright among the stars, and the greatest man of them all, the Emperor.
Or so He told them.
In truth, the games of thirsting gods and the machinations of the darkest powers of the warp are very real, and horrifically malevolent. In their fear and hatred of the so-called Anathema and his great plan to starve them, the Ruinous Powers of Chaos reached into the Emperor's labs and scattered the primarchs across the galaxy while still in their infancy.
Some primarchs' dooms will be sealed by this scattering. Others will be empowered to defy the fate set before them. And some will return to the fold as if they had never left it. In another time, two of their number would be lost forever.
It is a time of trials, and a glimpse of the wonders to come, or horrors to plague the galaxy.
The Age of Strife will soon give way to the time of glories…
In the Dark Age of Technology, even before the discovery of the warp drive, humanity had attempted to spread across the stars. Vast colonization ships spread far across the stars with all the needed resources and technology to tame a world. These Long March fleets were supplied with STC databases and fabrication facilities to deal with most any threat. With the coming of the Age of Strife, many of these worlds regressed; the wondrous technology began to fail, leaving only scattered remnants.
Tabgach was an ocean world with no true continents, merely large islands and long archipelagos. It spins through the void, a blue marble spotted with green. Swirling clouds and storms crossed the oceans, legendary monsoons and hurricanes that would be the storm of the century on any other world. Tabgach long ago lost contact with any other human colony, and has since regressed to a feudal world in almost constant strife.
On the largest island – Zhongua – Shenzhou the Indomitable, Divine Empress, the Emissary of the Heavenly Court and blood of the Jade, ascended to the throne twenty years ago. This ascension was mired with scandal and accusations of patricide that she has always fervently denied. However, these suspicions lead her greatest general, one Chan Len, to break away from her rule and rebel.
The rebellion has not gone well for anyone. House Chan had many allies and more Knights, but the Empress had access to the
Staff of the Azure Sky, an irreplaceable machine that dwarfed of all the planet's knights. The slow grind of a global war has destroyed House Chan and its allies, leading from a war between two sides into a war of bitter, widespread conflict across the planet between various Houses and Lords. Allegiances and battle lines shift daily, and there is no clear victor, or even a clear goal
for victory.
The Kuji-nan (technology monks) have always remained neutral in this conflict, assisting anyone that requires help in fixing their errant machines, including the knights. However, this has not won them any favors. If anything, it's made all other sides angry, and each of their temples are pressured to pick someone and reject all further requests for aid. Some have allied with one lord or another, but most remain independent.
The peasantry suffer most of all. Though the Knights do not deliberately target the peasantry (with some notable and dishonorable exceptions), war is a messy affair at the best of times. It's hard to have a proper harvest when there's every chance a giant robot will rampage across your fields of rice, or start a fire that destroys your home. As such, many have simply taken to the rivers and seas, raiding supply lines for food, water, and any other valuable shipments. The greatest of these bandits – a woman calling herself the Reaver Queen – has gathered a fleet of warships under her banner, flying an ancient symbol near-forgotten on Tabgach: the jolly roger.
You know nothing of this yet, of course; your pod tumbles through the void of space, and begins to burn on re-entry…
-
Where do you land? Who finds you first, among all the planet's inhabitants?
[] –
Divine Empress - The palace of the divine empress, whose ascension was mired in conspiracy and treachery…
For twenty long years, the newly arise Divine Empress has fought a civil war against those who foolishly believe she killed her father to ascend to the throne. On the anniversary of his death, a pod containing a small child crashes into the very palace of the divine empress herself, destroying the shrine dedicated to her father. Could this, perhaps, be the reinforcements she sought from the stars?
Your miraculous arrival and proximity to the Empress will grant you immense global influence from the get-go. You will be raised among nobles and highborn officials, all jockeying for your favor and approval, as kin to the Empress.
As (adopted) kin to the Empress herself, you will immediately have near-global influence, with only a few pockets of true resistance. Your role will be advisor and influencer, but a good chessmaster always comes out ahead…
(Vizier. Forge alliances, manipulate factions, and maybe discover the truth of your adoptive mother's actions that night.)
[] –
Tech Monk - Near the shrine of a humble machinist, doing his best to maintain what cannot be understood…
Although most STCs have been lost or destroyed, there are orders of monks dedicated to protecting the few that remain. Though the monks maintain and use the machines, and fight off all those foolish enough to try to take them, they have lost the ability to innovate or change. But one fateful day, the machinists find a pod…
You will be among Knights and machines all your life, and will understand them perhaps even better than you understand humans. However, your life in a monastery will leave you with few people skills and no influence outside the monastery.
You will be a scientist and machinist, born to tinker and upgrade. The world around you may be a storm of chaos, but your intelligence and discipline are unparalleled…
(Cyborg Warrior Monk. Fix problems through inventing/improving on technology. A primarch's fists are great, but his mind is even greater.)
[] –
Rebel Nobles - Near a noble, yet failing household in rebellion…
For twenty years, an old noble house has lead a rebellion against the Empress after an act of patricide, and though they know they are right, they are losing. The night before the noble lord found the capsule, his wife had lost her newborn son. Both distraught, a grieving father chose to wander what was left of their estate in thought. A healthy child that fell from the sky seemed almost too good to be true…
You will be found by a noble line, but one long in decline due to rebellion. You will quickly become a leader of men, but with few other resources to call upon. You will have some Knights, and a loving family, but you will have little influence outside your small area.
You will be a guerrilla fighter, a sneaky tactician. You will take control of the rebellion, and possess the pride of a righteous cause: the removal of the patricidal Empress…
(Warrior-king. Lead battles and war against the tyrannical divine empress.)
[] –
Pirate Queen - As a miraculous savior crashing through a knight…
During the siege of the Broken Isles, your pod crashes through the knight leading an attack against a port claimed by the pirate queen herself. You will be inducted into her fleet, which has been on the run for years, but is not without strength.
You will have a strong connection to the dregs of humanity, a talent for inspiring them, and a strong connection to the sea (and later, space). However, you will be vastly outgunned; you've landed on a Knightworld, but you have no Knights and no way to make use of them even if you did. Your technology is lacking, but you are a primarch; all can be solved with the proper application of time and being awesome.
You will sail the seas, with little care for the world of politics, this rebellion against the Empress, or anything else. But above all, you will be free...
(Pirate. Swashbuckling high seas adventure. Piracy, sailing, treasure, and maybe hunting sea monsters. A pirate's life for thee~)
[] –
Eldar - In the water during a storm… and as you fight for your short life against the churning water, a slender hand grasps yours…
Your pod lands in the ocean water, and after a time, you are found by one of the alien Eldar.
The Eldar are a doomed and dying people; they know it, as do all who know anything of them. But not all is lost. This human experiment, this great hero, this
primarch… she is not sure why, but he holds the key to her people's future. He will kill many Eldar, like all of his brothers, but in the end he will save countless more…
if she can get to him before the humans do, and lead him right.
You will start out with an alien advisor whispering in your ear, granting you knowledge of the future. However, following that advice will always be to the aliens' benefit in the end, and you will have problems connecting with humanity. You will attempt to pierce the veil of fate that blinds you to the future of your deeds.
You will be a manipulator, with knowledge of the future whose source you cannot reveal. Something in your bones tells you that you cannot trust her to have your best interests in mind, but if she speaks true…
(Mysterious Stranger/alien focus. Lots of visions, prophecies, and using details you would otherwise have no way of knowing to get what you want.)
[] –
Write in
This option will usually be open and if an idea gets more popular support than anything I put I will probably use it.
From
@SpacePaladin
[]
Raised by sea creatures.
Your pod crashed into the sea with no human contact whatsoever. However, your incredible physical abilities allow you to extract what oxygen you need from the water and your Psyker abilities allow you to bond with the animals.
From
@yannoshka
[]
Among the lost, wretched and forgotten...
Within the heart of a perpetual hurricane, surrounded by reefs more deadly and treacherous than on any other part of Tabgach, and smack dab in the middle of the intersecting breeding grounds for the planet's deadlines aerial and marine apex megafauna, there exist an island where humanity never intended to habitat, but through fate and ill fortune people had survived shipwrecks and getting washed out and had managed to eek out a miserable existence. There amongst the castaways and their descendants do you land...
-
As you can probably tell if you're familiar with 40k at all, we're doing a bit of alternate continuity with the Lost and the Purged: the primarchs erased from Imperial history in the most thorough purging there ever was. There is little to no canon information on either of these two primarchs or their legions. So, let's build one of them from scratch.
The plan for this quest right now is to cover the time from the primarch's landing to being found by the Imperium. We might continue with this boi, or we might cover the other lost primarch before moving into the Crusade and elsewhere.
Character sheets will not matter here (you're a primarch, no one is going to be able to match you on this flooded rock) but your decisions
will affect the primarch's beliefs, skills and attitude going forward, and if/when we meet other primarchs, it will affect how he interacts with each of them.
Lastly...
Welcome to Primarch Quest!
