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Was curious as to the various abilities and powers of the Primarchs, either shared or unique? Obviously they have enhanced strength, speed, stamina etc. Also some of the Primarchs shared or had unique abilities, like prophetic visions or super human charisma. What other powers are there? What are some of the crazy or odd powers that are not commonly known? I have not read many of the HH books, and wanted to know all the various powers they had. Specifically could any of the Primarchs force people to do what they said similar the a Jedi mind trick? Effect people around them either positively or negatively, and a more loaded question could any of them be a perpetual besides Vulcan? Have been writing my own fluff and wanted to see what powers seemed possible for them to have.

Angron, at least pre-nails, made people around him feel calm and happy.

Corax can turn invisible/go oddly unnoticed, given that he’s a 10’ tall genetically engineered superhuman.

Need anything peeled? Curze is your man!

There's that thing, apparently varying depending on the Primarch (and writer) where humans encountering a Primarch will fall on their knees in gratitude and worship. Lorgar, notably, was seen by a blind woman as a golden light.

All the Primarchs are incredibly charismatic, although some more so that others. Additionally, the Astartes have a genetic prediction to follow their Primarch.

Then there is the weird and unique stuff, like Ferrus Manus metallic skin and Sanguinius' wings.

Nurglitch wrote:
There's that thing, apparently varying depending on the Primarch (and writer) where humans encountering a Primarch will fall on their knees in gratitude and worship. Lorgar, notably, was seen by a blind woman as a golden light.

I think that's common for primarchs because their warp signature (which I take to be their essential "real-ness" and ability to exert their will onto the world) is so powerful. In The Outcast Dead, the astropaths comment on how Dorn shines so brilliantly in the immaterium, and as far as I know he's not known for any kind of psychic prowess.

Unrelated, but I think The Outcast Dead is low-key one of the best Horus Heresy books precisely because it treats the Heresy as a setting to tell stories, which helps preserve some of the mystery around it.

All Primarchs get superhuman strength, speed, toughness senses and healing. Some get more of this than others but it is hard to tell what is nature and what is nurture. The following are signature abilities that are clearly defined and definitely not shared widely by their brothers.

Khan: Calms the warp. Nearby psykers find it easier to use their powers without attracting unwanted daemonic attention.

Leman Russ: Possibly anti-psyker to some extent but this is hinted rather than clearly stated. Enhanced senses, even by Primarch standards.

Conrad Curze: Precognition. The ability to teleport by melding with shadows.

Sanguinius: Precognition, flight.

Ferrus Manus: Living metal hands. Exceptionally strong, even by Primarch standards.

Angron: Empathic ability to relieve the fear and pain of others. Apparently burned out of him by the Butchers Nails.

Mortarion: Psyker (although he hated psykers and generally repressed his abilities until the outbreak of the Horus Heresy).

Magnus: Pysker (the most powerful psyker in the Imperium after the Emperor).

Lorgar: Psyker

Vulkan: Perpetual

Corax: Invisibility. After pursuing the Traitor Primarchs into the Eye of Terror, he gained several new abilities including the ability to teleport through shadows like Curze and transform into a flock of ravens.

Alpharius Omegon. The twin Primarch, 1 soul in 2 bodies.

I’ve read on this forum that alpharius can move his soul into another body

Lorgar more so than just a psyker, he was the most skilled orator of the primarchs. He could weaponize his charisma in a very interesting way.

Thanks for the replies so far, especially the list Karhedon, I didn’t know that about the Kahn. I think I have also seen somewhere that Dorn can also do something with the warp that affects demons/warp but can’t seem to find it.

The stuff about people bowing to Primarchs and the obedience of the marines was also helpful. I remember that empathic ability for Angron now and that sounds like a cool unique power that went completely un-used.

Remember reading something similar mrFickle, another cool unique power that fits the legion.
I was brainstorming other powers and wondered if any of the primarchs ever died/killed and went to the warp and returned? Could that be a power of some kind or even worth having(ability to come back from the dead as long as his body was intact, not a perpetual).
Also the one I really like is the idea that a Primarch could see people in a MRI like view. Idea is a Primarch could see any and all physical flaws in biological beings? Also being able to see various light spectrums, hear sounds waves that others can’t? Something that could make him deadly in a fight but also good at healing/genetics(and I think Corax is sort of know as the geneticist).

Corax is basically some kind of warp supersaiyan loyalist demon-bird now. He found Lorgar in the eye and effortlessly smacked him, Lorgar had to flee through a Portal just to survive.

Ferrus didn't have warp magic make his hands. He just melted a metal worm.

Wasn't Mortarion also the toughest Primarch out there? I recall reading him tanking a shot to the face from a battle tank with not much of a flinch.

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Wasn't Mortarion also the toughest Primarch out there? I recall reading him tanking a shot to the face from a battle tank with not much of a flinch.

He was certainly very tough but several others have exhibited extreme durability. Perturabo went toe-to-toe with Daemon Angron and got away without much more than dented armour.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Corax also seemed to have the ability to see through illusions. When he met the Emperor, he could see the shining golden figure that everyone else was but he could also see through the glamour and saw a rather plain tall man.

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Wasn't Mortarion also the toughest Primarch out there? I recall reading him tanking a shot to the face from a battle tank with not much of a flinch.

Mortarion used to sniff poison gas for fun, did he have a resilience others did not?

I thought ferrus manus hands were made from the same stuff the necron are made from

Curze could always see the eye of terror, if that counts

The baseline every Primarch gets is superhuman physical strength, speed, durability, stamina, healing ability, and (allegedly) intelligence. To what extent heavily varies (much like with the Marines). Dan Abnett has the Primarchs as being undoubtedly superior to Marines but still fairly mortal and fallible. McNeill's Primarchs are the demigodlike figures of legend who level mountains with their might and destroy armies of lesser beings. Other writers largely fall somewhere in between or in ADB's case can vary from one extreme to the other depending on what the plot needs. They also all have extremely powerful Warp signatures, due to being superhuman abominations of science and sorcery essentially. This gives them a supernatural charisma and presence to normal people and even Marines, explaining the mindless obedience many of their sons showed in the Heresy, even to Angron, whom most of his Legion actively despised. Every Primarch had a great deal of psychic potential, though not all made much use of it and some definitely had more than others (or at least made better use of their potential).

Lion El'Jonson: Can "see" Warpstuff that only psykers can see (might also be shared with all his brothers), and when dueling Fateweaver actually instinctively channeled his psychic presence into his sword to destroy him.

Fulgrim: Nothing I know of before falling. After falling to Chaos he gained powerful psychic abilities and sorcery, at one point destroying a Warhound Titan by turning the pilots into horrible mutants with a gesture that grew so quickly and greatly that they burst through the hull.

Perturabo: Can see the Eye of Terror from anywhere in the galaxy and was essentially "born knowing"; other Primarchs had to learn their various trades and warcrafts, Perturabo was one of the greatest engineers in the galaxy for example without any need to learn how.

Jaghatai Khan: Not too read up on it.

Leman Russ: Enhanced senses, and had a powerful resistance to psychic abilities above his brothers, which he could also manifest as a mighty howl to make the powers of psykers go haywire.

Rogal Dorn: idk

Konrad Curze: Precognition.

Sanguinius: Precognition, flight, also seemed to use his psychic powers to help land a freefalling starship so maybe a more general psyker as well.

Ferrus Manus: Liquid metal arms that allowed him to forge with his bare hands and one of the physically strongest Primarchs.

Angron: Used to be able to calm the emotions of others but the Nails destroyed that. Also more or less the best hand to hand fighter of the Primarchs with very few capable of rivaling him.

Roboute Guilliman: Nothing I know of.

Mortarion: Could travel through shadows through supernatural means and is incredibly tough, even by the standards of his brothers.

Magnus the Red: Most powerful psyker in the galaxy behind the Emperor.

Horus: Nothing I can think of tbh

Lorgar: Also a very powerful psyker, if not as much as Magnus.

Vulkan: Perpetual, also one of the physically strongest Primarchs

Corax: Could make himself invisible kind of

Alpharius Omegon: Other than them being the only twin Primarchs who share a soul don't know.

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Wasn't Mortarion also the toughest Primarch out there? I recall reading him tanking a shot to the face from a battle tank with not much of a flinch.

Vulkan is probably the toughest Primarch, nigh unkillable. Also the strongest and used to hold back when duelling his brothers as he didn't want to hurt them.

Fulgrim was the equal of ferrus when it came to making stuff

 Karhedron wrote:
All Primarchs get superhuman strength, speed, toughness senses and healing. Some get more of this than others but it is hard to tell what is nature and what is nurture. The following are signature abilities that are clearly defined and definitely not shared widely by their brothers.

Khan: Calms the warp. Nearby psykers find it easier to use their powers without attracting unwanted daemonic attention.

Leman Russ: Possibly anti-psyker to some extent but this is hinted rather than clearly stated. Enhanced senses, even by Primarch standards.

Conrad Curze: Precognition. The ability to teleport by melding with shadows.

Sanguinius: Precognition, flight.

Ferrus Manus: Living metal hands. Exceptionally strong, even by Primarch standards.

Angron: Empathic ability to relieve the fear and pain of others. Apparently burned out of him by the Butchers Nails.

Mortarion: Psyker (although he hated psykers and generally repressed his abilities until the outbreak of the Horus Heresy).

Magnus: Pysker (the most powerful psyker in the Imperium after the Emperor).

Lorgar: Psyker

Vulkan: Perpetual

Corax: Invisibility. After pursuing the Traitor Primarchs into the Eye of Terror, he gained several new abilities including the ability to teleport through shadows like Curze and transform into a flock of ravens.

Alpharius Omegon. The twin Primarch, 1 soul in 2 bodies.

Worth noting that Ferrus wasn't born with the metal hands in older fluff, he killed a metallic drake and it's blood grafted itself onto his hands or something like that?

Likewise I don't think Khan knows he's a psyker but he can accelerate his speed/metabolism and channel a force weapon according to the HH novels.

mrFickle wrote:
I’ve read on this forum that alpharius can move his soul into another body

I ran with that in my headfluff in my Deathwatch campaign. I gave Alpha/Omega an ability to jump their soul back to either their twin or even into a nearby gene-son, because I thought the whole shared brotherhood aspect of Alpha Legion deserved something special to go along with it and there are hints such a thing could be a possibility. Transferring into a gene-son requires a period of transition as the body is empowered by the primarch soul to start the process of converting the physical form to primarch capability. Made for a really cool scene when I had the Kill Team working alongside Alpharius to retake the Phalanx back from Pertaburo (which was taken during the fall of Terra, yeah I did a crazy Chaos claims Terra, Emperor dies and ascends as a god of Law (that takes refuge in the actual Sun) plot that culminated in the retaking of Terra). Pertaburo ripped Alpharius in half for his treachery, but the librarian of the kill team was able to sense his soul that fled to a nearby alpha marine.

I made it so that jumping back to a not corrupted Omegon allowed for purifying of the linked soul. This allows Alpharius to become corrupted while maintaining the illusion of serving Chaos, and then periodically flush back to his brother to go through a period of cleansing. Works real well if you happen to like the long game loyalist concept for the Legion.

Major headcanon stuff, but within the realms of theoretical possibility considering existing fluff. Also did this before Praetorian of Dorn existed with THAT big spoiler, but my ideas still work if you figure that was actually how Alpharius and Omegon eventually found out it was even an option.

All the primarchs have a much higher psychic potential than normal humans. Even the non-pskyer primarchs can overpower psychic powers, effectively denying the witch. Gulliman did so in Dark Imperium when fighting Fulgrim. I think if they put their head to it, all of the primarchs could manifest psychic powers.

Just as a note, I wouldn't use the daemon primarchs are proof of this. Ascending to a greater daemon turns you into a psyker anyway (except for Khorne), so I don't count that.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

Perturabo: Can see the Eye of Terror from anywhere in the galaxy and was essentially "born knowing"; other Primarchs had to learn their various trades and warcrafts, Perturabo was one of the greatest engineers in the galaxy for example without any need to learn how.

Not true, all of the Primarchs had innate knowledge that far exceeded the level of technology of the worlds they landed on (except the most advanced worlds, like Macragge), they were practically walking STCs. Mortarion, for example, basically recreated astartes power armor with his Death Guard on Barbarous. What set Perturabo apart is that he had more of this knowledge than any other, or at least put it to the most use.