Fulgrim

Fulgrim is the primarch of the Emperor’s Children, the III Legion of the Space Marines, and a daemon prince of Slaanesh. He is known as the Phoenician, the Illuminator and the Prefector of Chemos, and after the Horus Heresy as the fallen exemplar and the blighted phoenix. Born on Terra in the late thirtieth millennium and cast to the mining world of Chemos, he rebuilt that world’s industry, received the Emperor at Callax, and took command of the remnant III Legion, which the Emperor named the Emperor’s Children.

In the Great Crusade he conquered Byzas with seven Space Marines, defeated the Diasporex with the Iron Hands at the Corollis Star, and led the Cleansing of Laeran, where he claimed the Silver Blade of Laer, a daemon weapon held to have hastened his fall to Slaanesh. At Tarsus he rejected Eldrad Ulthran’s warning of Horus’s corruption, destroyed a Wraithlord and an Avatar of Khaine, and afterwards ordered virus-bombings of Eldar maiden worlds. At Deep Orbital DS191, already set upon the path of corruption, he killed Commander Vespasian for protest at the Legion’s conduct. At Isstvan III he returned from his embassy to Ferrus Manus in time for the traitor withdrawal, and the Emperor’s Children under him purged loyalist brethren among those abandoned after the virus-bombing; after that Atrocity he took possession of the Anathame. At the Isstvan V Drop Site Massacre he killed Ferrus Manus, his closest brother among the primarchs; a daemon of the Silver Blade then possessed him, though he later expelled it and devoted himself to Slaanesh of his own will.

On the crone world of Iydris he betrayed Perturabo, drained him with the Maugetar stone, and was reborn as a daemon prince of Slaanesh in serpentine form. He met Horus and Mortarion at Dwell after that battle and survived an Iron Hands assassination attempt. In 012.M31 his followers summoned him to the Pale Stars, where he killed the Salamanders commander Brant Hesioth and vanished in an explosion likened to a supernova. During the Siege of Terra he led the Emperor’s Children against the Saturnine Gate, fought Sigismund and Rogal Dorn, then quit the field when Abaddon’s subterranean attack failed. Rylanor later lured him back to Isstvan III and detonated a virus bomb that wounded Fulgrim’s pride.

In 121.M31, during the Great Scouring, he ambushed Roboute Guilliman’s fleet at Thessala and slit Guilliman’s throat with a poisoned sword, after which Guilliman was placed in stasis and Slaanesh gave Fulgrim the daemon world of Callax. In the Era Indomitus he killed Iron Captain Sind Grolvoch at Sabbyst and conquered the mining world of Crucible early in M42, where he was declared king. Index Astartes I records that he did not attain daemonhood until after the Horus Heresy; Angel Exterminatus places that apotheosis during the Heresy on Iydris.