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Can someone please explain perpetuals to me? they seemed to just come out of nowhere and it is just like "yep, that guy is indestructible."

Many people react the same way.

My own take on it is that the Perpetuals are a reimagining of the Sensei. In the Rogue Trader era, the story went that during the tens of thousands of years the Emperor roamed Terra, he had many children. These children possessed unique gifts and talents, chief among them being immune to possession and their special nature being invisible to psykers.

We've already seen many of these parallels with the Perpetuals. They each possess a unique talent, remain untainted despite the worst the Warp throws at them, and seem to remain undetected around psykers. Grammaticus met the Emperor himself, and the latter seemed to only be aware of John's psychic gifts.

The Illuminati, a secret sect of the Inquisition possibly in cahoots with the Eldar, planned on gathering these Sensei, and eventually sacrificing them to return that spark that makes them special back to the Emperor, thus reviving him. We've already seen such a power transfer in Vulkan Lives, and we know Ollanius Pious is heading to the Emperor. If I had to guess how it will play out, Ollanius will interrupt the Emperor's and Horus' duel, and when Horus kills Ollanius, that spark passes to the Emperor and gives him the extra push he needs to destroy his son. This clashes with the popular legend that this death let the Emperor finally realize how far Horus had fallen, but IMO, ascribing any sort of sentimentality to the Emperor after Outcast Dead and Deliverance Lost is naïveté. The man knows exactly how the final moments of the Heresy will play out.

The Illuminati themselves seem to have been reimagined as the far more sinister and nefarious Cabal.

So rather than some new crazy gak they just pulled out of their ass, this is a different telling of a story they pulled out of their asses 30 years ago.

John Grammaticus was in no way invisible to psykers. He was easily tracked down by both the Alpha Legion psyker Shere, and Nurthene psyker/daemons, both of which were more powerful then John and could have easily snuffed his life out. So, while John was definitely a special type of psyker, I doubt he was Sensei.

I haven't yet read Vulkan Lives (or whichever book it is), but how is Vulkan a perpetual? I mean, we all know primarchs are super-resilient, and functionally immortal, what is this indestructible business? Is BL saying that no matter how hard and how many swings you take, you couldn't say lop off his head?

 greg0985 wrote:
John Grammaticus was in no way invisible to psykers. He was easily tracked down by both the Alpha Legion psyker Shere, and Nurthene psyker/daemons, both of which were more powerful then John and could have easily snuffed his life out. So, while John was definitely a special type of psyker, I doubt he was Sensei.

I haven't yet read Vulkan Lives (or whichever book it is), but how is Vulkan a perpetual? I mean, we all know primarchs are super-resilient, and functionally immortal, what is this indestructible business? Is BL saying that no matter how hard and how many swings you take, you couldn't say lop off his head?

It's not a direct translation, but the parallels are there. John could not be killed by those things, he would just come back. He survived jumping out of an airlock.

Vulkan is a perpetual. Kurze tries very hard to kill him (decapitation, incineration, ripping out all his organs and destroying them, etc.) to no avail.

That's riiighhht....I forgot that John had died a few times. Must be handy to have powerful Xenos allies to resurrect you every once in a while.

As to the whole Kurze/Vulkan thing....kinds seems like being a perpetual could suck at times.

Perpetuals are 40K Highlanders, only not as cool.

squidhills wrote:
Perpetuals are 40K Highlanders, only not as cool.

But they do wear skirts??

 Iron_Captain wrote:

squidhills wrote:
Perpetuals are 40K Highlanders, only not as cool.

But they do wear skirts??

Not those Highlanders. I'm talking Christopher Lambert and Clancey Brown here, man.

Though I suppose Perpetuals could wear skirts if they wanted to. I mean, they are immortal. It's not like they care what other people think about them.

 thepowerfulwill wrote:
Can someone please explain perpetuals to me? they seemed to just come out of nowhere and it is just like "yep, that guy is indestructible."

From what I've read, the perpetual's are beings that keep coming back one they're killed. Perhaps the most famous of them are the one's who became the Emperor. The fluff mentions them running into a spot of bother that prevented more and more from coming back.

The perpetuals are the worst subplot to come out of the Horus Heresy series.

That just about sums them up.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
The perpetuals are the worst subplot to come out of the Horus Heresy series.

That just about sums them up.

+1

Just take anything that mentions them and chuck them all in a (figurative) fire.

So basically GW pulled them out of their when they realized they couldn't make space marines any more powerful.

Well... Perpetuals are kinda a thing that have appeared in 40K fluff previously, back in 1st/2nd edition, in a couple of different guises.

That Vulkan is one is a bit... well, it's daft, actually, but this is also why Im not reading these books, because I felt that pants-headedness was inevitable. It feels good to be proven right.

So, they didn't just pull it out, they just brought it back at probably a bad time on probably the wrong character.

eh, I never read the books either but I hear people talking about them so I got curious.

 Psienesis wrote:
Well... Perpetuals are kinda a thing that have appeared in 40K fluff previously, back in 1st/2nd edition, in a couple of different guises.

That Vulkan is one is a bit... well, it's daft, actually, but this is also why Im not reading these books, because I felt that pants-headedness was inevitable. It feels good to be proven right.

So, they didn't just pull it out, they just brought it back at probably a bad time on probably the wrong character.

So Vulkan, your chapter has always had very little fluff focused upon them. You yourself were entirely ignored whilst many of your brothers had a spotlight shawning radiantly upon you. It will ruin the mythology feeling of you... but it's your turn. Now will we reveal your internal conflict at being the odd primarch that was evidently born suited for peaceful ways of life, that odd sense that fighting wasn't your interest. Yur oddly human emotions and care for the common folk? Naw we gotta make you unique so we shall make you immortal! and soon after try and find a sword to kill an immortal thus making it kinda... odd and then throw in a hook to make it so that it is heavily implied you will revive. or something.

Making Vulkan a perpetual is brilliant for two reasons:

1) Salamanders regenerate body parts

2) The Emperor took an aspect of himself and wove it into his 20 children. In this case, his Perpetuality (is that even a word!)

Thus we can assume that The Emperor is in fact a giant lizard overlord.

I'm convinced the perpetuals are being built towards something. very likely some sort of revelation as to the very NATURE of the emperor

It's implied in the Horus Heresy series that the Emperor himself is a perpetual

Mellow wrote:
Making Vulkan a perpetual is brilliant for two reasons:

1) Salamanders regenerate body parts

2) The Emperor took an aspect of himself and wove it into his 20 children. In this case, his Perpetuality (is that even a word!)

Thus we can assume that The Emperor is in fact a giant lizard overlord.

I have to agree. I love the idea of perpetuals. At the minute there seems to be a few different types though.

We know the emperor is a natural perpetual in the way he was reborn form the spirits of shamans who themselves used to reincarnate as they died.
IIRC Grammaticus is a forced perpetual. The Cabal facilitates his reincarnations.
Vulkan getting it makes a lot of sense. It is an aspect of the Big Easy that isn't accounted for by the other Primarchs so why not?
Then you've got the others... Ollus (or something) for example. Could be Sensei or a spirit of a Shaman that wasn't part of the "joining" to birth Big E.

He's heading towards Terra and I love the idea that as he dies it gives E the edge.

Mellow wrote:
Making Vulkan a perpetual is brilliant for two reasons:

1) Salamanders regenerate body parts

2) The Emperor took an aspect of himself and wove it into his 20 children. In this case, his Perpetuality (is that even a word!)

Thus we can assume that The Emperor is in fact a giant lizard overlord.

Thus he donned his new name... Dovahkin

As the Golden Throne has proven... being a perpetual isn't all its cracked up to be.

As long as silly ideas such as these remain confined to some Black Library novels and not worm their way into Codex or rulebook fluff, I won't bother to go into nerdrage.

Actually, I find delightful glee in the fact that the 6E rulebook contradicts the HH novels in this regard.

Sorry to disappoint you Lynata but there's Anval Thawn - a character originally conceived in Codex: Grey Knights, miracle revival shtick an' all. A recent short novel called The Ghost Halls was basically written to confirm that he is apparently a perpetual.

Still no Codex fluff, then. "Miracles", to me, always allow explanation in the way of superstition mixed with misunderstood technology, coincidence, or Chaos sorcery.

...

Seriously, don't jinx it, man!

 Lynata wrote:
Still no Codex fluff, then. "Miracles", to me, always allow explanation in the way of superstition mixed with misunderstood technology, coincidence, or Chaos sorcery.

...

Seriously, don't jinx it, man!

No, it's codex fluff. The dude dies, and then just gets up.

The Emperor just needs to be unplugged so he can die and resurrect. I see no problem there.

Clearly staying on The Golden Throne is draining whatever it is that regenerates a perpetual so that he is in a state of almost dead all the time. Switch it off and his mojo can work its healing wonder.

Or The Emperor knew he wouldn't come back which is why he wanted a life support machine. But that would go against him saying he can be all powerful or all knowing but not both at the same time because he clearly wasn't all knowing or the HH would never have happened.

Omegus wrote:No, it's codex fluff. The dude dies, and then just gets up.

Yeah, but so did Celestine. That doesn't necessarily make either of them a "Perpetual".

I mean, really, we've had people in real life being declared dead only to see them get up again.

OMG! What if GW is planning to make all named characters perpetuals, so they can die in games without messing up the fluff? Similar to how Fabious has clones, and a certain Necron can jump into new body somewhere else.

 Lynata wrote:

Omegus wrote:No, it's codex fluff. The dude dies, and then just gets up.

Yeah, but so did Celestine. That doesn't necessarily make either of them a "Perpetual".

I mean, really, we've had people in real life being declared dead only to see them get up again.

Go read the fluff, and rules, for the character before just dismissing him, your sticking to an idea without the knowledge to do so is a bit silly. It doesn't happen once, it's over, and over, and over, and over.

... so did Celestine.