Folly of the Lost (Warhammer 30k, Lost Primarch Quest)

Culth 7d II
Campus of the Insect
Date Unknown

The Head of the Faculty used a cloth to wipe away the beads of sweat forming on his brow as he turned over the documents. It had been the seventh time he read these documents and they had sadly not changed spontaneously. His Directors would be up in arms once the news got out. The Head of the Facility glared at the parchment in his hands as if his focus would be enough to rewrite reality. To his endless disappointment that was still restricted gene-stock by the Campus of the Star.

No it would seem that the Oversight Committee had been killed and he had the dubious honor to ascend to their ranks. He looked over the sterile gray walls and the glass cabinets with all his personal effects. The pneumatic system for his messages. This well proportioned office with its own lab in the primary Annex had been his work for that last two and a half centuries. Now it was being taken away only a dozen years after his claim to the position. He clicked in frustration, he had always been minimalistic in how much he altered his body. Where other doctors would have two or three grafts before finishing their apprenticeship, to say nothing of the gene-work such a position would normally entail, he had kept his body rather human, his wings and dozens of rounds of longevity treatments were the only alterations to his body. His skin showed no signs of his age though his eyes had become yellow around the irises as a side effect of a less than pure gene-work on his last longevity treatment.

He sighed and gathered his underclothes, then his gray robes with the scarab symbol of his campus emblazoned on the back. He would have the rest of the year to make arrangements or try to weasel his way out of this. Perhaps the Head of the Faculty in the Campus of the Squid would be willing to aid him, he didn't have any favors she owed him but not being sent to the committee was worth owing even that woman several open ended favors. He took a step into the greenhouse where the regents for his personal lab was grown and turned up to the sky. Beyond thick void proof glass was the star dotted sky and looming at the horizon. Culth 7d I, he heard only horror stories of the planet that was sister to his own. He knew much of their flesh stocks were harvested from the local population, and he had a distant cousin involved in the management of the Void Arch between the two worlds.

If he was a member of the Oversight Committee he would be sent away to that cursed place expected to help take care of unsupervised settlements, manage the flesh farms, and make sure that the local population stade underfoot until the next political shake up had him meet an accident so someone new could be banished from their politically powerful position. He knew the Campus of the Squid had never sent a member to the Oversight Committee despite it being a responsibility of the facility. He could try some political wrangling to get another member of the Campus Board sent to the Committee but that would only work if he figures out who was pushing the strings that was leading him on his current course. If he had some big project he was working on Clause 6 Subsection D would allow him to excuse himself but he had just completed the void stable Locus project and the rounds of internal committees and review panels before a Campus wide project could start would take several years not the several months he had. None of his personal projects had enough weight to aid him in using Clause 6. Whoever was setting him up had taken their time and waited for the perfect moment to strike.

As the Head of the Faculty he was under watch enough he couldn't just pretend to have a big project. The board wouldn't accept his Immaterial Processing of Distributed Neural Operations as a Clause 6 because a ant hive mind wasn't something that could easily get the Campus a win in the next round of the Science Prizes. He could try to roll back the Locusts from the peer review stage, it would anger most of his co-authors who would loose several years of budget if he did it wrong. No that would possibly save him this year but it would guarantee that he would be sent to the Oversight Committee next year. He needed to get out from under without making more enemies, he had been too focused on his research to keep track of the local politics. A grave mistake he was paying for, he had finally got to the point where he didn't need to watch for attacks from above and he got complacent and forgot about attacks from below. He would require a novel genetic subject all but falling from the sky to escape the trap he found himself in without metaphorical scares.


Culth 7d I
Settlement 246-1735
Date Unknown

Operator S46 cycled through the last few minutes of her sense brain's memory. Her primary brain was already working on responses while several calculation cortexes were crunching hard numbers. The drop in plant stock from the agricenter meant that she would be behind on her flesh quota. That would mean she wouldn't have the bonuses needed to get a new cortex or two. That was unacceptable. If she had the adolescent livestock fed to the adult, mature flesh would be up but not enough to meet the Quota and it would drop per production values for the next several years until she could gain enough new livestock. Her birthing facilities were mostly older designs focused on the livestock's own self replication rather than the process of cloning infant livestock. So she would be seeing after effects for perhaps a Century if she kept trying to meet Quotas during that period.

She requested her attendant to start cycling the neurovita fluid in her cortex containments. She was processing too many paths and options and was chewing through the lifespan of the fluid much faster than normal. Centered at the core of the Settlement her sensor brain was plugged into every camera, and every microphone in the complex and she had the good fortune to even have an autoreader for loading documents into her cortex network rather than having to rely on attendant replication of the information. She could complain to the Operator of her Primary Agricenter but that wouldn't help fix the existent problem. Perhaps she could contact members of the unsupervised settlements and get the loose livestock to raid a shipment of food to Settlement 265-7182. Then she could either trade with the unsupervised settlement for the foodstuffs she would need to meet her quota, or just bring her self defense force to bare and crush the settlement so that she could claim the food stuff and the population.

Wild livestock, like most non-settlement humans weren't perfect flesh-stock having many genetic impurities from uncontrolled breeding and improper diets but they could be used to expand the next generation, or be reprocessed for food stock for the current population of the Settlement. That would balance out all her books nicely, though she would have to instigate it in such a way the Operator of 265-7182 wouldn't notice that it wasn't a natural attack from the livestock. If she remembered correctly that Operator had chosen a single cortex system with a powerful suit for it, that would mean she should be able to think circles around him but not knowing his exact location did mean he was a potential unknown. She would have to check his calendar to see when he would bee in a meeting with the Academics to negotiate who was buying his livestock. He had short contracts with flexible Quotas, less profit but almost no risk of a Campus coming down on you for not getting them the stock they had been promised.

She liked to think she was braver than him for having a long term contract with the more fixed quotas and higher price per head. She knew they all have their risks he could get into a spiral of not being able to get food stock to grow the population to sell for food stock. Just as she risked missing a Quota and having the Oversight Committee show up to shake all her containments and rattle her Cortexes if not use a sub-clause in the contract to buy out not only the settlement but her own ownership. She had been a number cruncher for too long before she had been able to purchase her own rights and she would claw over anyone to stop her ownership from being bought out from under her. She would have to get her attendants working on leaking the right files to the unsupervised settlement near the transport path.


Culth 7d II
Void Wastes - Sea of Desperation
Unknown Date

Nineveh turned his head slowly his scrap wrought void suit hissing with leaking air as he moved around on the surface Shamiram had been directing him to a crashed crawler but something in the wreck was disruptive to the vox caster he and Adad had with them. He watched as a menial crawled out of the wreck and let his armature fire the spike. The length of bone broke the faceplate and made the man's head snap back without a sound in the eerie quiet of the void. Adad made hand motions telling Nineveh that he would have to load the kill onto the sled. Hopefully they found more proper food stuffs the Academic Menials always had the taste of too many gene-writes, and their grafts were nearly universally too tough to be considered a good meal.

Adad pulled open the bulkhead to the cargo bay, this crawler had been hit by their cannon so they should have plenty of time to make it back to the lava tubes before the Acadies came around snooping. Nineveh saw A dad's face fall, excitement washed away but a resigned look. A quick communication in hand signs told him all he needed to know. It was a transport of equipment, graft stabilizer, cloning tanks, gene-lathes, and other arcane tools. It was the closest goods could be to worthless. They would take the half dozen menials as food for the next few days and maybe get one or two of the lighter pieces of equipment on the sled. They couldn't use it and it would take forever to make a safe trade with someone who would pay for it. He took the menials air packs to chain to his own to help keep up with the losses from his imperfect suit. With a wave Adad grabbed two pieces of gear he couldn't make heads or tails of and the two started back to their tubes entrance.

As soon as the sealing doors closed behind them Shamiram leaning on the void crab mounted cannon, he turned on her. "What was that? That crawler is worthless, no food, no real gear, just the junk the Acadies play with to keep their glands moist when they have that on the schedule." The woman barked out a laugh looking at the reflective visor of her helmet, her face was a battleground of scares with the strange gray eye he heard Adad say she had ripped right out of a Doctor's head on a raid into a Campus.

"You think I know what they send were and when? My ugly mug couldn't get within horizon sight of a Campus without getting artillery called." She let a dark smile take over her face and she leaned in conspiratorially. "Good thing for them cause that's bout the only thing that ill stop me." Her tone implied that she was laying out his chances rather than poking fun at the Acadies.

Adad coughed having taken off his helmet letting his long thin scraggly and patchy hair fall down partially covering his gaunt chocolate face and pitch black eyes glaring at Nineveh. "You're the new guy so this is probably your last warning, don't question the boss unless you want to be dinner. Comprehend?" He nodded having no interest in taking off his helmet in case he had to book it to the airlock. He turned heading a tearing sound to see Shamiram had torn off an arm from one of the menials and was holding it up to the void crab which was tearing off chunks with little care for anything but getting the meat into its mouth. Seeing the dozen of teeth lined mandibles unmaking the arm suit, bone, and meat Nineveh kind of wished he had stayed with Ashur's gang instead of thinking he could be a bigger rat if he went to a smaller nest.

He was knocked out of his thoughts when a knife was thrown at him and only luck and some small skill let him catch it. Shamiram was looking over the gear Adad had grabbed and gave him a smile. "Take care of peeling the catch would you kid?" He didn't think he would like the results of anything but a yes so he got to work cutting at the void suits trying to keep them intact enough for their use in repairs and patches.


Culth 7d I
River Nazhil
Unknown Date

Shasush shook his head as the hunters returned to their yurts. Too few by a hand, the river was being taken in by the people of the walls. He couldn't do anything against them and their divine beasts, he could only direct his kinsmen to leave the river and head upstream to the mountains and away from these people and their walls. He could feel every lost hunter as another crease in his wizened brow. The people of the walls wouldn't give them to the soil so that their spirit would be reborn in plant or beast, instead they were fed into the iron jaws of their forges and fed like animals to their people. Their spirit torn up and devoured. Shasush couldn't save a soul. He had heard of other tribes attacking the walls or even the divine beasts. Those tribes even if they won would lose. A break in the walls would pour out monsters that were beyond human reckoning, a slaying of their beast would have fire and plague fall from the sky.

They were but motes of pollen before the people of the walls. Their way of life slowly being ground underfoot. He couldn't stop it he could only watch, watch and weep for all he love being brought to ash. They would need a warrior from the spirits of all the land to fight the people of the walls. He was not that, none of his kinsmen were. His daughter had a strong understanding of tactics and had been a great warrior but she was captured by the walls like so many others. Hope was just a poison, making them squirm enough to the pleasure of the people of the walls.

He watched in the night as tents were backed up and loaded in canoes, as the tribe all that was left slowly started to work their way up the river, further from the arms of the walls. He was sure they all knew that it would happen again. Everytime they escaped they would only have a few years of peace before the walls dot the horizon once more.


Grand Terra
Himalazian Mountains
Date Unknown

Gestation pods wrought with arcane technology and mechanics beyond almost all mortal understanding. Each one is marked with a number, each one contains the seeds of the future. Before then all stands their maker, their creator. A man beyond all definitions of mortality in the scale of his power, the scale of his life, and the scale of his ambitions. He had long guided humanity from the shadows working as a mistro to guide and lead the symphony that was the human race. However with the collapse of the Federation and the age of Strife that followed this man could not allow humanity to manage itself. And as great a man he was he was but a man and so he forged here deep in the heart of a mountain the twenty Primarchs Warrior-Governors, Soldier-Bureaucrats. Those to work as his hands and his eyes in the vast domain he would seek to claim as his own in the near distant future.

Despite these intentions he was not the only one with designs that would see the Primarchs used to conquer and control. Where the Man seeks to unify under his own definitions of morality and perfection. These forces work only to their own ends and their own power. Each of them a mortal foe to one another but before the risks that the future tells of the man they unite. Their powers reach out beyond the simple ideas of time and space to capture the pods resting there in the mountain and cast them forth into the void. Each of the 20 would land on some far flung world, and each of them world forge a legend. To Culth 7d that strange pair of worlds bound by the might and hubris of an older age of humanity, to that world the second Pod would fall. Crashing from the warp to land within those lands. This fateful crash is perhaps the single most defining moment in the Primarch's life. For everything is written after because of the words that this put on his page.

[][Landing]The Campus
The Primarch landed in the greenhouse of the Head of Faculty. The child so crafted by gene-work easily the peer to their own was enough to stop the Head of Faculty from being pushed out of his position. The Primarch would be raised as a test subject and a protege doctor. His ability to learn and understand is unrivaled by any but the Campus of the Mind.

[][Landing]The Settlement
Settlement 246-1735 was disrupted when the pod crashed in the center near S46's compound. She would quickly see the use of the Primarch as more than livestock or another attendant. He would be formed into a perfect tool to crush her enemies and enact her plans unseen and unstoppable.

[][Landing]The Void Wastes
Crashing into one of the lava tubes the pod was found by a band of Waste Raiders. His strange origin enough to keep him from being dinner. They learned he could gain knowledge from the minds of those he consumed as was raised on the brain flesh of the raider's enemies feeding them targets and knowledge only he could obtain.

[][Landing]The River
Crashing like a star before the tribe the child was adopted by the elder. Their people would struggle to survive as he grew and the Primarch would know many he called friend and family dead. A primitive hunter he would grow into a desire for revenge against those with power and technology.


Imperial Data Archive
Martian Noosphere
Unknown Date

Archive repository on Imperial Primarch No. 2 gathered from Legion, Emperor's Records, and sampling.

Sequenced against Ultramarine baseline template.

Negative mutations noted.

Positive mutations noted.

Neutral mutations noted.

Sequence re-archived.

Processing data for display.

Spooling data tapes.

Loading Cogitator banks.

Display Positive Mutations

While normal deviance is 2 mutations, it is possible negative mutations correspond directly to the development of secondary positive mutations. Corollary data suggests neutral mutations are connected to positive mutations on a two to one basis. It should be noted no more than 3 negative mutations, and two additional neutral mutations have been discovered in stable gene-stock.

Compiling Primarch Gene Sequence…

[][Positive] Psyker Potential Rank
Gene Sequence shows that the Primarch had between Iota and Eta ranked psychic power.

[][Positive] Psyker Active Rank
Further Sequencing shows that while they have the requisite genes to be between Iota and Eta secondary features result in the displays of power expected of a Zeta and Epsilon ranks.
(Requires Psyker Potential Rank)

[][Positive] Psyker Extreme Rank
While all the above is true the Primarch displays even greater capacity and using special sequencing it is estimated they are a Delta or Gamma rank Psyker.
(Requires Psyker Active Rank)

[][Positive] Psyker Pinnacle Rank
Final testing estimates a Rank Beta or even a potential Alpha rank potential within the Primarch. Making them one of a few in the top of Psychic power.
(Requires Psyker Extreme Rank)

[][Positive] Durability
While most Primarchs are without equal beyond the greatest of Orks in their capacity to take damage the second is beyond even that with few things able to injure them.

[][Positive] Strength
While most Primarchs are without equal beyond the greatest of Ork in their strength. The second Primarch is strong as any of their brothers and more than many of them.

[][Positive] Mind
While most Primarchs are without equal in comprehension and understanding the second is peer with only the greatest few of their brothers.

[][Positive] Talent
Through the Emperor's efforts a natural tendency to enjoy and excel in a field has been worked into the second Primarch.
-[] Ground Combat
-[] Naval Combat
-[] Personal Combat
-[] Biomancy
-[] Telepathy
-[] Divination
-[] Telekinesis
-[] Development
-[] Deployment
-[] Diplomacy
-[] Spying
-[] Governance

[][Positive] Perpetual
While this sequence had been missed with examples from engagements involving the second Primarch we are sure that the is sequence is part of their perpetual nature.

[][Positive] Charm
While most Primarchs know how to lead people and how to control them the second has always been known to do so with a natural ease.

[][Positive] Resequence
The data banks are massive and it is likely information was missed in the initial load, please search for specific sequences.
(Write in options subject to approval)

[][Positive] Blank
The sequence shows that the Pariah gene is lightly expressed in the second Primarch making them a powerful anti-psyker tool.
(Can not have a Psyker Potential Boon)

[][Positive] Pariah
Further testing has show that the gene is fully expressed. The second Primarch is a natural witch bane who can actively manifest null power abilities.
(Requires Blank)

Display Neutral Mutations

While not a major deviation from the expected sequence these alterations seem to allow more positive mutations, it is expected all Primarchs display one.

[][Neutral] Odd Skin Color
These sequences display a mutation in skin pigmentation while not impactful to theoretical efficiency humans are known to have distinct responses to such overt displays of difference.
-[] Color

[][Neutral] Short
While not truly short mutations have resulted in the Primarch lacking the height of their brothers standing closer in stature to the Astares.

[][Neutral] Horns
A display of mutation easily seen and with associations in the galaxy.

[][Neutral] Eye Color
While more subtle than changes of skin pigmentation the alterations to the eyes including a blending of the iris and sclera is noted to be more disturbing.
-[] Color

[][Neutral] Voice
Some odd mutation results in the Primarch's voice having a distinct effect that while not necessarily unpleasant is immediately inhuman.
-[] Echo
-[] Reverb
-[] Buzzing
-[] Hiss

[][Neutral] Gender
The archives on Terra agree all 20 of the Primarchs were male, somehow something changed that for the second. What warp effects made them female is still under study.

[][Neutral] Twin
While not part of the original sequence, the sequence recovered from the Primarch shows that a warp phenom caused a duplication of their transport pod.
(Pick a second landing location)

Display Negative Mutations

Far be it from my cogitators to make statements against the emperor but it would seem many of the bases for all the negative effects displayed by each Primarch was built into their system before the touch of the warp.

[][Negative] Distain
Something in the genes of the Primarch has caused them to naturally hate a field of interest.
-[] Ground Combat
-[] Naval Combat
-[] Personal Combat
-[] Biomancy
-[] Telepathy
-[] Divination
-[] Telekinesis
-[] Development
-[] Deployment
-[] Diplomacy
-[] Spying
-[] Governance

[][Negative] Tainted Talent
A strange mutation has caused a negative feedback from one of the positive mutations. In particular the talent mutation causing a strange side effect to manifest.
(Requires Talent)

[][Negative] Animalistic
Some non-human DNA is mixed into the genome; exposure to the warp has caused it to actively express itself with physical mutations and psychological alterations.
-[] Animal

[][Negative] Paranoia
Beyond mere suspicion, sequencing shows that the second Primarch is physically incapable of trust on any level.

[][Negative] Gene Collapse
While not an issue for the Primarch the Second Legion rarely produces working geneseed and has the lowest acceptance rate of the Legions.

[][Negative] Bane
Something about the Primarch has always caused ill fortune to follow them. The following sequences are part of what is believed to be a proper curse.

[][Negative] Depressed
The sequences show that the Primarch is nigh literally incapable of feeling happiness or joy. All issues are one they distain.

[][Negative] Redraw
The vast archive found no matches in the initial sequence database. Pull a new set via a keyword search.
(Write in subject to approval)