Into The Fires of Battle, Unto The Anvil of War! (Grimdark WIP) (Patreon)

Hello!

The first Grimdark WIP of the month is here!  And it's time for the Lord of Drakes to make his debut!

So Vulkan the 18th Primarch is a pretty unique son of the Emperor.  Famous for being one of the best smiths in the galaxy, the wargear Vulkan crafts will be S rank in quality and lethality no matter what it is.  Ferrus Manus is equally skilled, but the Gorgon has no appreciation of art and only makes things look utilitarian with maybe one exception.  While anything Vulkan crafts will always look wondrous.  This is mostly wargear but even mundane household items are stunning to behold.  He is also considered the most human of the Primarchs, a quality that Big E told Vulkan was His greatest achievement.  And finally, Vulkan has one of the rarest and most unique gifts in the setting, something I'll touch upon later.  A lot of spoilers will be in the summary as usual.

So Vulkan's origin is actually pretty interesting and has one of my favourite Big E reunions.  His birth pod landed on the Death World of Nocturne, a planet of volcanos and giant beasts like the Salamanders.  The world has some super dangerous volcanic activity so there is only one really permanent city.  Each year, people have to migrate to that sanctuary and wait out the volcanic eruptions.  Vulkan himself was discovered by a worker called N'bel in the city of Hesiod.  N'bel recognised the child as the one prophesied to be a saviour by the teachings of the Promethean Cult and took Vulkan as a foster child.

Like all Primarchs, Vulkan grew at an astounding rate and mastered the art of smithing as a child.  He grew so proficient, he actually advanced Nocturne's technological level by several stages.  The planet was also a frequent target of Dark Eldar raids.  When this happens, the humans usually try to hide but in Vulkan's case roused everyone to meet the threat and led the assault with two hammers.  He killed a hundred Dark Eldar and after that Vulkan was known as the Fire Born, an accolade acknowledging that he was an unparalleled warrior.

To celebrate the victory, a tournament was held which involved tests of strength and craftsmanship which was pretty common in Nocturne culture.  But out of nowhere a stranger appeared to join the contest.  Everyone knew he wasn't native due the Outlander's unusually pale skin.  But the Outlander claimed He could best any person at the competition which sounded absurd after what Vulkan accomplished.  The stranger wagered that whoever lost the challenge would swear his eternal loyalty and obedience to the victor.  Vulkan smiled at this claim but accepted the challenge.

Lasting for eight Nocturnean days, the contest included many tests of strength and endurance.  During that time, Vulkan and the Outlander put everyone to shame with their feats of superhuman feats.  For example, one contest involved holding a hammer over their head as long as possible.  Both of them managed it for over a day before the content was called a draw.  All the other contests ended in the same way until the final one where each contestant had forge a weapon and slay the biggest Salamander they could find then bring it back.  Vulkan goes to Mount Deathfire and manages find an absolutely gargantuan Salamander and bags it.  But while returning, the volcano erupts causing the Primarch to fall and cling to the ledge with one hand while holding his Salamander prize in the other.

Vulkan was unwilling to let go of his prize so he hung on the ledge for a long time, gradually losing his grip.  But just as he was about to slip, the Outlander shows up with His own Salamander kill and Vulkan realizes it was bigger than his.  The Outlander throws His Salamander into the lava as an impromptu bridge and reaches Vulkan.  The Outlander saves Vulkan's life at the cost of His own prize.  When the two return to the tournament, they declare Vulkan the winner because he returned with the Salamander and the Outlander had nothing.  But Vulkan silences the crowd and bends his knee to the Outlander.  He declares that anyone who values life over pride was worthy of his service.  And that's when the Outlander reveals himself to be the Emperor of Mankind and takes His son to join the Great Crusade.  D'aww, what a wholesome reunion! 👍

So Vulkan took command of the 18th Legion the Dragon Warriors which he renamed as the Salamanders.  Vulkan's approach to war is pretty different from his brothers.  Raised with the teachings of the Prometheum Cult, Vulkan values self sufficiency but also the protection and liberation of humanity.  While many Legions produce huge amounts of collateral damange, the 18th Legion prioritises the safety of humans in and will go out of their way to protect regular people in their campaigns.  This has earned them favour with many planets they liberate, thereby making it easier to integrate them into the Imperium.

When the Horus Heresy kicked off, Vulkan was part of the disastrous Battle of Isstvan V, which saw the Salamanders, Raven Guard and Iron Hands completely decimated.  Vulkan himself was actually nuked and should have been vaporized but miraculously survived and was taken captive by Konrad Curze.  It's during his captivity that Vulkan's greatest secret is revealed.  You see, like the Dark Gods, Big E sometimes likes to give His sons cheat codes and Vulkan has one of the most broken ones by far.  The 18th Primarch is a Perpetual which means he cannot die unless you meet very specific conditions.  Enemies can behead him, incinerate him, throw him into the vaccum of space, poison him or blast him apart by warp magic but Vulkan will always regenerate completely unharmed.  It's kind of like that Living Saint ability in Soulstorm except there is no cooldown and can be used an infinite number of times.

Konrad Curze tries pretty much every technique known to man to kill Vulkan but he always comes back which probably made the Night Haunter more insane.  Finally Curze just throws Vulkan into an impossible maze on his flagship but with a little help from Big E, Vulkan manages to navigate to the centre of the maze and retrieve his hammer Dawnbringer.  After uttering the badass line 'It's also a hammer', the Lord of Drakes pummels Curze before activating a teleportation device on Dawnbringer to escape.

Okay, I'm going to gloss over a lot of events because most of it ties into too many storylines to summarize.  Basically Vulkan dies a whole bunch of times but eventually makes it back to Terra before the Siege.  Throughout this ordeal, Vulkan's mind is kind of shattered and he doesn't really remember all the details.  But with some psychic guidance from Big E, Vulkan created the Talisman of Seven Hammers, a compass-like device that guided him through the Webway to Terra.  The Talisman's true purpose is to act as a switch. Installed into the Golden Throne, Vulkan would activate the Talisman if the Siege of Terra didn't go the Imperium's way. This would create a roaring inferno that would consume all of Terra and deny Chaos the Throneworld.  Although this hasn't happened yet the switch is probably still installed on the Golden Throne in modern 40K (or maybe the Grey Knights have it).

So that's Vulkan in a nutshell.  A master smith who played a much more important role in the Horus Heresy than the fans realized before the books came out.  Why Vulkan was given such an overpowered ability isn't entirely clear.  My theory (and this is just a theory based on a bunch of stories) is that while some Primarchs were necessary sacrifices in the Great Game, some of them had to survive no matter what.  Vulkan was one of them because he needed to be there to remind his brothers of their humanity.

Visually, Vulkan probably has some of the best looking wargear among the Primarchs.  I did my best to stick to Vulkan's original design because his drakescale armour, skull pauldron and elaborate gold trim look absolutely marvelous.  For weapons, I gave him the set he had during the Horus Heresy.

Dawnbringer is a hammer considered indestructible and can sunder any defence.  It was originally meant as a gift to Horus but by the time the Horus Heresy was unfolding, Vulkan sensed something was amiss with his brother and withheld the gift.  The Furnace's Heart is a unique energy pistol Vulkan originally gifted to Ferrus Manus.  But during the Isstvan V, Ferrus presented it back to Vulkan for use in the battle which he did.

Career Highlights

• Vulkan is the strongest of the Primarchs in terms of raw physicality.  This makes sense due his upbringing as a smith and the fact that Nocturne has high gravity.  The 18th Primarch is very reluctant to spar with his brothers because he's might accidently hurt them.
• Like Vulkan, Salamanders usually have dark or jet black skin and bright, burning eyes which is a unique trait of their gene-seed.  It gives them incredible heat resistance and the ability to see in the infrared band of the electromagnetic spectrum, which gives them a natural form of night vision.
• Vulkan frequently hands out gifts to his fellow Primarchs as a sign of brotherhood.  Like the aforementioned Dawnbringer and Furnace's Heart, Vulkan crafted Scornspitter, a Combi Bolter for Leman Russ.  All these weapons are the absolute pinnacle of lethality and look super cool.
• During the Siege of Terra, Vulkan was in charge of defending the human portion of the Webway from Daemonic incursion.  The Lord of Drakes fought against Daemon Primarch Magnus who all juiced up with the blessings of Tzeentch.  Magnus blasted Vulkan apart quite a few times but the 18th Primarch just tanked it all and regenerated.  Magnus eventually wore himself out and lost the battle through sheer attrition.  An interesting thing about this battle was a discussion that the two Primarchs had regarding Magnus' final meeting with Big E.  Across two stories, it's told with wildly different perspectives about what actually happened.  Magnus thinks he rejected Big E's offer to rejoin the Imperium for the sake of the Thousand Sons.  Vulkan claims Big E flat out said no because Magnus was way too corrupted at that point.  While it's sort of ambiguous what's true, I personally interpret it as a technique on how Chaos pulls the wool over their victim's eyes.
• Vulkan disappeared from the Imperium after the Siege of Terra, although he did briefly pop back up during an Ork scare.  He left nine artefacts for the Salamanders to find (thousands he destroyed because they were way too dangerous for the Imperium to use responsibly).  It's claimed that once the Salamanders retrieve all of them Vulkan will return.
• Vulkan's Perpetual ability is not included in his tabletop rules.  Otherwise he'd probably be worth infinite points. 😄

On to the Xenos side of things we have KX139 Ta'unar Supremacy Armour (or as I like to call it the 'I'm not even going to pretend like I know how to fight' mech) which is one of the T'au's many cheese units.

As standard, a KX139 mounts a large, triple-barrelled Pulse Ordnance Multi-Driver on its back as its powerful main weapon, which it can use to engage enemies at range and destroy even Titan-sized targets. This can be swapped out in exchange for either a Nexus Missile System or a Heavy Rail Cannon and Fragmentation Cluster Shell Launcher, as the battlesuit's primary weapon.

As the name implies, the Tau Supremacy Armour is intended to counter the mightiest enemy units such as the Imperial Knights and maybe even the smaller titans.  I initially compared it to a Zaku but I guess it's more like a giant mobile weapons platform with legs.  I also imagine its cannons have an AP value so ridiculous, rival factions weep in envy.

I prefer my cheese green instead of blue but I'll say this for the T'au.  While I'm not a fan of the faction, they definitely have some of the best looking mechs in the setting, maybe across other settings too.  From a visual standpoint, every T'au model is a winner while a lot of the Imperium's stuff leaves me scratching my head.  Anyways, like the Warmaster and Eldar Titans, I'll try to provide as many options as possible for weaponry.

Okay, now it's onto the Golden Cheese Dreadnought and the Wraithlord!  Stay tuned!