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It is all fiction so paint your models any way you want. Make a Black Guilliman or an Indian Lion, if you want. GW will probably retcon some epic characters in different skin colours anyway so you’ll be ahead of the curve.

RaptorusRex wrote:

 Gargantuan wrote:
Why would the primarchs look anything like the people on the planets they grew up on? They were all created in a lab on Terra using the Emperors genetic material as a base.

I'm pretty sure there's lore that implies they "shapeshifted" when discovered to look more like their home planets' peoples, but I can't source it off the top of my head.

Gert wrote:Probably because it doesn't exist.
Magnus could change his form due to his immense psychic might but none of the other Primarchs shapeshift in anything I've ever read.
I've seen people suggest it but they've tended to be overly literal when reading a passage like "drawing to his full height" and the such to mean literally changing shape when its just an expression.

Mr Nobody wrote:
Additionally, in the book Wolfsbane I believe, Leman Russ learns that all the primarch are partially beings of the warp. So, although they are flesh and blood, the primarch are also subjective beings that change based on people's perception of them. They are literally 'mythical figures' who's size and shape is based on their and other's emotions. So when Guilliman walks in and someone sees a halo over his head, he might literally have an aura of light emanating from his head. Magnus is just the most extreme version of this, being much closer to the warp than most of his other brothers.

It's all a little (intentionally) vague, but there's been plenty of conjecture both in the books and among the community about how weirdly suited a lot of the primarchs seem to be to their respective homeworlds. How aesthetically convenient that Russ and his legion have super-sniffers that remind people of wolves. How convenient that the radiation on Nocturne and the prevalence of red hair in the local population happens to give Vulkan and his sons an appearance reminiscent of embers or magma.

And it's essentially confirmed at this point that primarchs have one foot in the warp even when they aren't overtly psychic. You've got the Khan being able to stab xenos the same way a Thousand Sons psyker can even though the mundane weapons of the other Scars present don't seem to affect them. You've got all the semi-supernatural stuff with Russ and his howl or his trips to the spirit world and such. You've got Curze and Sanguinius' visions, Corax's wraith slipping, etc.

The Corax and Alpharius stories both have moments where they intentionally "activate" their larger-than-life appearances to intimidate people. They talk about actively suppressing or enabling it the same way your character might activate an ability in D&D. This sort of thing is usually written just vaguely enough that you could opt to read it as the primarchs basically just shifting their postures and expressions, but the Corax and Alpharius stories make it more clear that there's something more supernatural going on.

All of which is to say, I don't think it's ridiculous to think that the appearances of the primarchs might be based partially on the people of the planets they landed on. It's probably not exactly "shape-shifting" per se, but whatever forces conspired to make the magma guy grow up on the magma planet could also probably cause a primarch to happen to bear a passable resemblance to the locals.

Good question. The authors/creators/Illustrators or who ever came first probably never thought of it. Or perhaps they just preferred them in that tone.

Scientists have special lated that with mobility beeing what it is now genes will spread more. They will no longer be boxed in by geographical features. By the time years 29 000 comes around most of the people of earth should share some very similar off brown/tan brown skin colour. At least one estimate I saw in an article talking about it. Red hair would also be very rare. Of course the 40k setting is more rule of cool then hard sci-fi. (I am not claiming white skin is cool.)

Back in the days of the original Rogue Trader, it was pointed out that the tech of 40k years in the future would be so advanced, that any attempt to describe it using 20th Century language would be meaningless - similarly, English and latin were used to represent what would be 'current' and 'ancient' languages of the future - with that latin being inferred to be a hybrid of ancient Terran languages - possibly Chinese and English mixed up. Equally, there would be no 'races' as we know them today - skin tones and features would have morphed to suit the worlds humanity settled on, irrespective of origins. Callling someone 'middle eastern' when they were born 50m light years away from the middle east would be a meaningless reference for them, but helps paint a picture in the 20thC audiences mind.

Very much so for the above.

People try to relate too much to the “design of the today” in 40k. Whether tech, races and everything else.

Side note, but I always thought the Word Bearers could lean into a more middle eastern aesthetic.

I can imagine three reasons why Russ ended up on viking-themed Fenris and not the magic-themed Prospero or the nomad-themed Chogoris.

1) The Emperor designed the primarchs to adapt to their surroundings at "birth" - their first impressions would change them towards the "main culture" both in powers and mentality (while also being super strong, intelligent and overachivers). So any primarch that landed on Fenris would become a uber-Viking with a taste for beer and fighting, just as any primarch that landed on Prospero would become a psyker focused on knowledge and exploring the Warp. The plan was to hatch the primarchs in optimal surroundings to get whatever the Emperor wanted, but instead he got this mixture.

2) The primarchs are unconsiously connected to the Warp, and can change their appearance to fit their surroundings. With time, experience and growing strength/skill they saw less need to use this ability - but then they hade become used to their shapes and personalities. This ability (given by the Emperor, Chaos or something else) is still active and is part of why the primarchs can do and survive what others don't.

3) Chaos did something to the primarchs before spreading them over the Milky Way. Either 1/2 above, or adapted each to his new planet.

 Mr Nobody wrote:
Side note, but I always thought the Word Bearers could lean into a more middle eastern aesthetic.

Nah, it's important for them to have the "Space Catholicism but demons" aesthetic, otherwise it seems like you're making a bigoted point against middle easterners...

 Mr Nobody wrote:
Side note, but I always thought the Word Bearers could lean into a more middle eastern aesthetic.

Yeah, the generic demonic catholics aesthetic has kind of gotten bland honestly. I wouldn't mind seeing different interpretations of each of the legions.