Editing Vulkan (section)

=== Horus Heresy ===
[[File:Vulkan Lives.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Vulkan Lives. And he's got a big hammer. (That Marine is totally going to reveal that he ripped his pants)]]
While the rest may be history, what happened after the [[Horus Heresy]] is an absolute records nightmare.

Sensing that the galaxy was about to change in a bad way, Vulkan created the post of Forgefather before leaving for Istvaan, with instructions to destroy all his masterwork creations so they could never be misused in the future. The new Forgefather protested, leading Vulkan to relent, and tell him to pick out [[Nurgle|seven]] artifacts to remain. Whether these are the same artifacts as in 40k is currently unclear.

During the Drop Site Massacre, the Salamanders took such severe losses that they were reduced to 780 battle-brothers. Worse yet, Vulkan was initially believed to have been killed in the Dropsite Massacre, although his body was never found, in earlier fluff this was a contentious sticking point, because "Vulkan" was also have supposedly survived at least up to the [[Second Founding]], although at that time it wasn't certain whether this was the actual Vulkan, or one of the Forgefathers that followed him.

The Horus Heresy novels cleared this up somewhat, then threw some new wrinkles into the equation: Vulkan died '''''and''''' lived. Like the [[Emperor of Mankind|Emperor,]] John Grammaticus, Mary Poppins and [[Ollanius Pius]], Vulkan is a [[Perpetual]]: a being who can't be killed by any means ''(decapitation, immolation, asphyxiation, having his heart torn out with a rusty fork, etc)'' and will regenerate from it. His first death occurred during the [[Drop Site Massacre]], where the [[Iron Warriors]] launched a tactical nuclear missile at the Salamanders, killing Vulkan and the bulk of the XVIII Legion. Vulkan (seemingly) survived, however, and was given over to [[Konrad Curze]] for [[Dark Eldar|sick, torturous fun]]. [[If_the_Emperor_had_a_Text-to-Speech_Device|He tried to kill Vulkan. Really, REALLY hard! With a FORK!]] But it soon turned to unstoppable rage when Curze learned he couldn't fully kill Vulkan, so he just kept killing him over and over, getting even more pissed off, which is strange; seeing as Curze is a murderous psychopath, one would hypothesize this would be a dream come true (one must assume Sevatar and Sheng were pulling straws on delivering Curze the bad news at this point) before Vulkan managed to steal ''Dawnbringer'', a thunder hammer originally intended as a gift for [[Horus]] with teleportation function included. The hammer teleported Vulkan off the ''Nightfall'' (though not before he beat Konrad, who had apparently forgotten ''"It's also a hammer"'', to a pulp) and sent him to [[Macragge]], where he burned up on re-entry and resurrected himself again. Unfortunately, the constant deaths drove Vulkan completely insane, into little more than a feral beast, attacking everyone he saw, including [[Roboute Guilliman]].

While this was going on, [[xenos]] were doing their thing: plotting. [[The Cabal]], a group of xenos who believed that allowing [[Chaos]] to win the [[Horus Heresy]] would get the [[Chaos Gods]] addicted on human emotions and then be destroyed outright when humanity collapsed on itself, so they sent John Grammaticus with a fulgurite, a piece of the Emperor's psychic lightning encased within a shard, to give to a Primarch with which to kill Vulkan, as they feared he might turn the tide at Terra. However, [[Eldrad]], in an incredibly undickish move, told John Grammaticus that if ''he'' killed Vulkan, he could instead heal Vulkan's mind, allowing him to perform his desired role. After Konrad Curze arrived on Macragge (after jumping off [[Lion El'Jonson]]'s battle barge after playing an extended game of hide and seek), Vulkan went apeshit and made a beeline for Curze. Apparently, the fulgurite could only kill Vulkan permanently if it was USED BY ANOTHER PRIMARCH. Curze killed him a few more times and amused himself by seeing how long it would take Vulkan to regenerate each time. During the battle, John Grammaticus had a change of heart and instead of giving the fulgurite to Curze to kill Vulkan, stabbed Vulkan with the shard himself, [[what|restoring Vulkan's sanity but simultaneously knocking him into a deep coma, while making Grammaticus fully human]]. Guilliman hoped he might revive himself, so he placed him in a coffin (or preservation capsule, as he told [[Lion El'Jonson]] and [[Sanguinius]]), hand-crafted by Guilliman himself, where he was guarded by some Salamanders who had made it to Macragge, who thought they might have heard a heartbeat. Before you get your hopes up, however, the coffin was named ''The Unbound Flame'', the last of the fabled ''Artifacts of Vulkan'' that the Forgefathers would be looking for in later 40k.

*Those of you who enjoy speculation should be getting a kick out of this. While internally consistent, it is almost completely incompatible with [[Vulkan He'stan]]'s lore, which is just as canon as ''Vulkan Lives'' as of the 6th ed Marines codex. Ignoring for a moment the question of how the "Unbound Flame" was lost to the Salamanders, "Unbound Flame" was ''Vulkan's'' name for the artifact, not Guilliman's, and it's a name that predates the Drop Site Massacre. Vulkan had no prior history of being able to see the future, and was unconscious, dead, or completely insane during any of the times when it would have made sense for him to tell Guilliman what to name his casket. Also, the coffin would have to be *extremely* oversized and only usable for a Primarch. The Horus Heresy Novel ''Deathfire'' is based around the Salamander remnants trying to return The Unbound Flame to Nocturne, which they succeed at. So far as we know, it is not now and has never been missing. The biggest problem is that the casket was made by Guilliman and the fulgurite and Vulkan himself were both made by the Emperor, so neither the casket nor its contents were made by Vulkan, and all nine artifacts that have to be recovered were made by Vulkan himself.
*This is somewhat mitigated when one considers that Vulkan only told his first Forgefather to choose seven artefacts rather than nine, so the other two had to come from somewhere else or made by Vulkan at some point after the Dropsite Massacre. It also turns out that the Unbound Flame (or Immolus as it was known on Nocturne), as well as being a title occasionally attributed to Vulkan himself, was a central concept to everyone on Nocturne - the all destroying fire and could refer to pretty much anything.
*In Nick Kyme's Salamanders Trilogy, the Chapter believes that the Unbound Flame might in fact be the soul of Vulkan, rather than a specific object. The Chapter are not aware of Vulkan's Perpetual ability and consider the possibility to the term could refer to him directly without them realising, though it could also be a form of reincarnation. Even though they conclude that one of their Librarians: '''Hazon Dak'ir''' is probably NOT the Unbound Flame ''(and therefore not a reincarnation of the Primarch)'' it doesn't mean they aren't correct with their original guess or that they don't realize they are hunting for Vulkan instead of an artefact.

The novel Deathfire ended up resolving a few issues and creating a few more mysteries. After First Captain '''Artellus Numeon''' of the Salamanders is rescued and relocated to Macragge, he goes a bit...crazy over finding out that Vulkan is dead. Weird things happen and the body is briefly stolen (by whom is unknown, though current bets are on the [[Lion El'Jonson|Lion]]) before being reclaimed by the Salamanders and fast tracked back to Nocturne. In spite of Vulkan's previous resurrection powers (which were supposedly removed), the remaining Salamanders believe that returning the body to Nocturne would bring him back to life, according to the Promethean Creed. After fighting off a variety of parties trying to get the body back (including a surprising turn from one of the shards of [[Magnus the Red]]), Numeon is told, not surprisingly, that the story was allegorical - any resurrection was a rebirth of spirit, ideals, and resolve; not a literal one. After getting a little suicidal about the whole thing, Numeon climbs the slopes of an erupting Mount Deathfire. A rescue party is sent out to find him (or his convection broiled corpse) but instead they find Vulkan alive and well, having ended up resurrecting himself after all.

'''Old Earth''' pads this resurrection out somewhat; Vulkan awakes in a cave inside of Mount Deathfire, missing some important memories but possessing some unexplained knowledge. Having a conversation with [[Eldrad|this dick in disguise]], Vulkan realises that there is still a Webway gate left on Nocturne, and that it is buried underneath Deathfire. Based on his own limited understanding of his Perpetual limits, he also comes to the conclusion that his Father's purpose for him is no longer to lead his Legion, arguing that the Imperium already has enough generals. So he decides not to rejoin the Salamanders or the Horus Heresy, but instead travel to Terra through the Webway, taking only three Legionaries with him and swearing them to secrecy about his return. When he does reach Terra, the Emperor tells him, in true grimdark fashion, that Vulkan had an additional purpose to uphold. In the event of Chaos winning the battle of Terra, Vulkan's interaction with the Golden Throne would somehow lead to the whole planet annihilating itself ; throneworld, loyalists, traitors, webway entrance and daemons alike. Whilst coming out of nowhere, it at least gives a reason for Vulkan to be on Terra but not seen during the siege itself if he was acting as a living deadman's switch.

As it turned out, the Emperor had kept Vulkan on standby within the Throne Room, to counter any attacks that Horus might launch upon the Emperor Himself. Here, Vulkan would face Magnus in a battle which saw him die over and over again, but rise each time to continue the fight. Eventually, his sheer tenacity (and his uber-regeneration) saw Magnus drained of power, both through physical damage and psychic exhaustion. In a last ditch effort to save himself, Magnus teleported their consciousnesses to a psychic dreamscape. He attempted to argue that Chaos was in fact a better choice than the Imperium, and that without the change Chaos brought, the universe was doomed to stagnation and un-enlightenment. But Vulkan was having absolutely none of it, and [[awesome|'''Told. Him. Right. The. Fuck. Off.''']] He called Magnus out in his entirety for his arrogance, his vanity, and his solipsism. He told Magnus that, instead of being the righteous victim as he had always considered himself, he was in fact little more than a [[Perturabo|petulant child with a martyr complex]]. He could have made any one of a hundred different decisions to prevent his own downfall, but had been so convinced that he was in the right that he never even thought to. Vulkan capped it all off by telling Magnus that, despite him believing that still he wove his own fate and made his own choices, he was so deeply in Tzeentch's clutches that he had completely misremembered his final interaction with the Emperor. For Magnus believed that he had deliberately refused the Emperor's last offer of redemption and of a new, uncorrupted Legion, for the sake of his Thousand Sons. He believed that he had, at long last, given himself over to Chaos completely of his own free will to serve a righteous cause. The reality was that the last uncorrupted shard of Magnus had in fact burst into the Throne Room and begged his father to save him. The Emperor, heavy hearted, had refused, for he knew Magnus too well to think he'd changed. Magnus proclaimed that it was Vulkan who was deluded, but Vulkan, demonstrating a remarkable understanding of Chaos (possibly the Emperor giving him a hand, though Vulkan is clearly stated as narrating his own words), laid out how Tzeentch had made Magnus into willing prey by feeding him everything he'd wanted to believe. Tzeentch had, for instance, allowed Magnus to believe he had cured the flesh change when all he had actually done was give Tzeentch a tighter grasp on the Thousand Sons. The Emperor would never have offered Magnus a place at his side once more, let alone a new Legion, for how could he possibly trust him now? Magnus had dreamed up his own redemption because he needed to believe that he still made his own choices.

After this, Vulkan hammered the spent Daemon Primarch into paste. For a moment, his ruined brother's form stirred his pity and he thought to spare Magnus. However, he quickly realized that his very hesitation, his mercy, was the path for Chaos to enter his heart. His mercy would be used to deceive him, and his seemingly virtuous choice would feel righteous to him as the Traitor Primarchs undoubtedly had been made to feel as they fell. He would believe his own principled decisions guided his hand, but in reality it would be the Chaos gods simply using him. Magnus then apologized the Vulkan (or maybe to the Emperor as he was kinda staring off past Vulkan at the time), but Vulkan heard at that moment the voice of the Emperor in his mind. His father told him that Magnus was lying, even to himself, for that was all his ruined brother could now do. He informed Vulkan that the Daemon Magnus had become was not in fact sorry but was gathering power to strike Vulkan down. In a bit of a reverse-Palpatine moment, He told Vullkan to [[meme|DEW IT]]. Vulkan made to strike Magnus down, but not before Magnus landed a final sorcerous attack that unraveled Vulkan's DNA both metaphysically and at an atomic physical level. It was an attempt to unmake Vulkan at his very core, and Magnus delighted at the level of power and understanding he had seemingly achieved. He reduced Vulkan to a disintegrating, immolated skeletal ruin, but Vulkan still swung his hammer. Magnus, in stunned, arrogant disbelief, lost his head to Vulkan's strike and did not regenerate. Vulkan moments later gave into Magnus's spell and fell to pieces next to his brother's corpse. Some time later, he managed to regain enough life to shamble out of the Webway, ruined to the point of appearing undead, but still enduring.

When Vulkan returned to the throne room, he learned that the Emperor, Sanguinius, and Dorn were preparing to launch an assault on the ''Vengeful Spirit'', as Horus had apparently dropped the ship's shields in invitation. Vulkan wanted to go along of course, but still in the midst of regenerating and with another purpose to fulfill, he stayed behind with Malcador. His task; to remain near the Golden Throne with the Talisman of Seven Hammers. Should Horus prevail, or Malcador succumb to the power of the Golden Throne, he was to activate the Talisman. This would turn the Golden Throne into some sort of psychic super-Exterminatus device. Terra, the Webway Portal, and the Traitors would all be annihilated, and the Chaos Gods would be irrecoverably crippled along with the Imperium.