Space Marines - The Primarchs: Of the 1,000 or more Space Marine Chapters thought to be in existence at the present time, a blessed few can trace their beginnings back to an age more than ten thousand standard years ago in the late 30th Millennium, when the Emperor of Mankind still walked amongst mortals.In those days, the Emperor first created the primarchs, 20 immortal superhumans blessed with extraordinary intelligence, charisma and sheer physical might who were to be His proconsuls, generals and closest comrades during the Great Crusade to reunite the scattered and long-isolated Human colony worlds after the end of the Age of Strife.The primarchs wielded powers the like of which are not known in the Imperium today, yet they were lost to the Warp in an accident deep within the Emperor's gene-laboratories beneath the fortress that would become the Imperial Palace. They were were scattered, still in their gestation capsules, through the Immaterium to worlds across the galaxy by the will of the Dark Gods of Chaos.The first Space Marines of the nascent Imperium were also the creation of that era, each made using the genetic inheritance of one of the primarchs, albeit diluted a hundred times, for no merely Human body could contain such power.As each of the primarchs were encountered in turn by Imperial Expeditionary Fleets during the progress of the Great Crusade, they became the natural and obvious leader of the Space Marine Legion created from their genetic material and with whom they had so much in common.In many cases the primarch's adopted world became the new base of operations for their Legion and was known henceforth as that Legion's homeworld.The primarchs then recruited their loyal followers from each of these world's peoples into the ranks of their Legion while others were given rights to draw fresh blood from suitable warlike worlds that were liberated as the Great Crusade progressed.With the re-discovery of the primarchs and in many cases newly adopted homeworlds used as Legion fiefs (most commonly the worlds upon which a Legion's new master had been found), this was to change the character and culture of the original Legions profoundly.Some alterations were superficial: a habit of speech, a change in close-quarter tactics, martial traditions and warranted additions to iconography and even language.But for others the change would prove dramatic, with entire paradigms of culture, tradition and even ideology overwriting what had come before, such as in what came to be known as the Space Wolves and Dark Angels Legions.In many cases the stamp of the Legions and the will of the primarchs on their recruits came to largely outweigh differences of birth or blood.But in other Legions such as the Luna Wolves and the Emperor's Children, a subtle divide would grow between those veterans born on Terra who had been recruited into the ranks of the Astartes by the Emperor and those who had come into the Legion from their primarch's homeworld.This cultural rift would be one factor among many that would lead several of the First Founding Legions towards ultimate damnation.The names of many of the primarchs still echo down the millennia, and the tales of their deeds are legendary. Names such as Lion El'Jonson, Leman Russ, Rogal Dorn, Vulkan, Corax and the angel-winged Sanguinius are spoken of with awe on those worlds where Mankind dwells.They command a reverence second only to that afforded the Emperor Himself. Other names are cursed wherever men gather, for many of the primarchs rebelled against the Emperor and followed Horus, mightiest of their number, when he raised his standard against Mankind on behalf of Chaos.