Editing Perpetual (section)

==Surfaced during and after the Great Crusade==

===Vulkan===
Like his dad, [[Vulkan]] of the [[Salamanders]] was a confirmed Perpetual. This was put to the ultimate test by none other than <s>[[Konrad Curze|the goddamn Night Haunter himself]]</s> [[Konrad Curze|the little emo goth kid on super-steroids]], who captured Vulkan during the Drop Site Massacre and proceeded to perform the [[Daemonculaba|most depraved tortures and murders on the Lord of the Salamanders in an attempt to break his will]], [[/d/|and had to invent several new ones just for the occasion]]. Whether he was [[Grimdark|shot with bolters at point-blank range, cut apart, decapitated, eviscerated, impaled, dismembered, evaporated, getting his throat torn out with a rusty fork, being quite literally mindfucked, or being tossed naked into an active warp drive]], Vulkan would neither break nor stay dead, [[Rage|pissing Curze right the fuck off]]. Eventually, Curze locked him in a maze courtesy of [[Perturabo]] where he would hunt Vulkan himself. Curze's mistake was to place Dawnbringer at the center of the maze. When Vulkan got to his hammer, [[Awesome|he proceeded to hand Curze a helping of it straight to the face]], then [[Just as planned|he activated a built-in teleporter that sent him right over to]] [[Macragge]] where he promptly burned up in the atmosphere like a human meteor, killing him again in the process.

Here things get complicated: Vulkan regenerated on Macragge but lost his mind, so Guilliman kept him locked up until he could figure out what to do with him, even concealing his presence when the Lion arrived. However, when [[Konrad Curze]] arrived on Macragge after stowing away on the Lion's flagship, Vulkan escaped in a moment of lucidity and tore his way across the planet (while naked) hunting Curze down and almost defeating him in a one-on-one duel. Shortly afterwards John Grammaticus found the broken primarch and stabbed him with the fulgurite, a stone spearhead charged with the psychic essence of the Emperor himself. He could not regenerate from this and neither [[Roboute Guilliman]], [[Sanguinius]], nor [[Lion El'Jonson]] could remove the spear from their brother's chest. Given that he was sent back to [[Nocturne]] for burial, we are forced to assume that his casket included a long tube-shaped appendage at least several feet long sticking out at an unusual angle, making this (while [[Grimdark|tragic)]] at least [[Khorne|eight]] times [[Lulz|more amusing]] (assuming that he was ever stabbed in the first place[though it was only the head of a spear not the shaft itself]).

Guilliman was hopeful that Vulkan would resurrect himself in time and insisted that the coffin was a preservation capsule, which Guilliman dubbed "The Unbound Flame". Some Salamanders who maintained a vigil of mourning thought they could hear a heartbeat. After an even more convoluted series of events surrounding the return of Vulkan's remains to Nocturne, the Primarch was found alive and well once more, which is even more confusing given that the fulgurite, which was supposed to kill him permanently, was still sticking out of his chest at the time of his entombment.

What raises an interesting question in Vulkan's case is regarding the source of his powers. If it was given to him by the Emperor, it begs the question why the Emperor did not give all of his sons this ability (though it sort of answers itself with the thought of [[Angron]] becoming the [[Juggernaut]] (bitch!). If it was not the case, it would suggest that the Perpetual trait can be passed down one's bloodline, or at least transferred by cloning. Big E certainly ''knew'' that Vulkan was immortal and depended on that fact in order to get him to bring the Talisman of Seven Hammers back to Terra. This couldn't have been the Emperor's "ultimate plan" for Vulkan, and seems more of a last ditch contingency considering how badly the Golden Throne got fucked over by Magnus; if he had planned to put a self-destruct on it all along, he probably could/should have done it before he got stuck sitting on it. (Granted it is implied that Artellus Numeleon's sacrifice brought back Vulan from his permanent death. The first but not the last time Human sacrifice is used to bring back Perpetuals from certain death.)

The Emperor also told Vulkan plainly that his son's "humanity" was his single greatest trait and also his proudest achievement, and that he hoped that Vulkan would eventually teach it to his brothers. Certainly Vulkan was probably the nicest of the Primarchs and as such would probably have been the best bet for an undying son, especially if you were relying on him to tone down the more [[Rip and Tear|extreme]] traits of his brothers after the Great Crusade was finished. When Empy was looking over the petri dishes for which one to add the immortality to he had to choose between (in order): [[Lion El'Jonson|a snooty inscrutable jerk]], [[Primarch#Two_Missing_Primarchs|a [RECORDS LOST]]], [[Fulgrim|a preening katty egotistical asshole]], [[Perturabo|a genocidal sociopath with poor impulse control]], [[Jaghatai Khan|Genghis Khan]], [[Leman Russ|a dick with a viking furry fetish]], [[Rogal Dorn|a stubborn joyless masochist]], [[Konrad Curze|a schizophrenic serial killing terrorist with bipolar mood swings between fatalism and nihilism]], [[Sanguinius|a guy with a terrible terrible secret]], [[Ferrus Manus|a Social Darwinist nerd who'd rather be talking to a toaster]], [[Primarch#Two_Missing_Primarchs|a [RECORDS LOST]]], [[Angron|an explosively violent psychopath with silly hair]], [[Roboute Guilliman|a patrician jerk with a heart of gold]], [[Mortarion|a bitter aspie maniac with an unhealthy love of toxins]], [[Magnus the Red|a massively powerful arrogant psyker who can't take orders]], [[Horus|a spoiled insecure egomaniac]], [[Lorgar|a petulant zealot with a pathological daddy complex]], [[Corvus Corax|an emo bird]], and [[Alpharius|two people obsessed with]] [[Omegon|secrets and lies]]. On the other hand, a lot of those traits were nurture rather then purely nature. Even so, if he did do it deliberately, he [[Just as Planned|made a decent choice]].

===Dalia Cythera===
Dalia Cythera is a former Administratum Transcriber and a latent psyker during the Great Crusade/Horus Heresy (specifically during the [https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Schism_of_Mars Death of Innocence]). While she was at one point at risk of [[Blam| unemployment]] due to her insatiable desire to learn and actually read the tomes she transcribed, she was soon protected by [https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Koriel_Zeth Adept Koriel Zeth] and delivered to Magma City, her forge on Mars. Dalia has three wow factors going for her: one, she was somehow not a braindead thrall after all that indoctrination; two, she possessed an eidetic memory and could read noospheric data without augments due to her latent psyker abilities; and three, she had a connection to [[Mag%27ladroth| a cold dark thing]] that gave her bad dreams and intuitive knowledge about technology.

Zeth involved her in the development of the Akashic Reader, her pet project to tap into the the sum of all knowledge, which was the hypothesized source of Dalia's ability. Using an array of a thousand sanctioned psykers as a surge protector and another, Jonas, strapped into a gold throne-like device (the Akashic Reader), the plan was to siphon the energy needed to pierce into the [[Warp| aether]] from the Astronomican, shove Jonas' perceptions into the Akashic Records and somehow get that fool enough paper to jot it all down for them before his brain liquefied. Dalia forgot the first rule of engineering which is to overengineer (not helped by faulty data and assumptions on her part); naturally it went tits up, but [[Warp| it would have anyways]].

Such a feat would have been a great leap forward for a rapidly booming age of technology in this wonderful time of development and progress! Unfortunately, the project was utterly annihilated during the Martian Schism due to [[Waifu| Koriel Zeth's]] last stand, in which she chose slagging the entire forge city over allowing the Dark Mechanicum and Kelbor-Hal to plunder the miraculous technologies she had uncovered. Absolutely everything was reclaimed by magma, [[Grimdark|resulting in Mankind's last hope for a golden future dying in hellfire]].

Meanwhile, Dalia and friends are off on a merry adventure to seek out that thing that's calling her out to join it in the void of the Noctis Labyrinth. They meet some jolly characters along the way like [https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Kaban_Machine Kaban-chan] and later Semyon, just a normal (if rather unhinged) unaugmented 10,000 year old dude with a pet servitor living at the bottom of a pitch black chasm. Dalia could relate, having a pet Protector of her own, Rho-Mu 31. Semyon was blessed by the Emperor himself to fulfil the role of 'Guardian of the Dragon,' protector of secrets and warden. Semyon talks about how he is 'running out of time' which implies that Dalia's Perpetuity either has a time limit of 10,000 years, or will begin to wane when her replacement is found. It is clarified that it wasn't the Void Dragon initiating, turns out it was [[The_God-Emperor_of_Mankind| Big E]] all along (at least in part)!

Dalia is The Chosen One (plus her pet too, I guess), and is destined to [[Irony| rot in a hole where her innate abilities will be absolutely useless to everyone]]. Her job duties include somehow keeping folks from releasing the Dragon of Mars, and thwarting any attempts to steal a tome (which [[fail|immediately gets swiped, implicitly by one of her surviving friends]]) which makes sure to [[Derp|explicitly impart the lesson that the Dragon was put on Mars so jerkoffs would make whatever wacky shit it dreamed about in captivity later, without any of the requisite explanations of why he made the book explicitly impart such a damaging secret, so that's not bad or anything]]. As soon as Semyon passes his Perpetual status to Dalia he and his servitor go the way of [[Malcador_the_Sigillite|Malcador]], collapsing into dust.

Come the present day, it's unclear whether or not she's still around, though as the end of the novel indicates that her successor as Guardian of the Dragon is currently being drawn to the Labyrinth of Night, her chances of surviving into the age of the Great Rift seem slim in the extreme, if at all.

===Anval Thawn===
Justicar [[Anval Thawn]] of the [[Grey Knights]] is the biggest mystery of them all. All that is known is that he can walk away from the most gruesome [[Daemon]]-inflicted deaths one can imagine, much to the chagrin of his brothers and bewilderment of the Brotherhood's [[Librarian]]s. It also begs the question of why him being a Perpetual was not detected during his induction into the Grey Knights, [[Gene-seed|either during the tests or abnormal recovery from the involved surgeries or the speed at which he accepted the nineteen organs]]. Perhaps the Perpetualness is undetectable by normal science or it manifests after a person's first death (much like in Highlander or the [[Planeswalker]] spark of [[Magic: The Gathering]]). Another option is that he might be Ollanius Pius or John Grammaticus, who were tired of dicking around for another 10.000 years and wanted a shot at becoming a [[Space Marine]] and then went all in to kill the Chaos bastards as a Grey Knight. And an even better question is how the fuck the [[Eldar]] were able to recognize him for what he was after only a short period of interaction with them.

===Cyrene Valantion===
Cyrene Valantion was a common woman from Khur, a planet conquered by the Word Bearers during the Great Crusade, until the [[Ultramarines]] blew her home city of Monarchia to ashes to send a "Stop Worshipping Me!" message from the [[Emperor|Big E]] to [[Lorgar]]. Since the smurfs weren't complete assholes they evacuated all civilians first (only [[blam|BLAMing]] those who didn't want to in the process). Well, except Cyrene and a couple (hundred) of others. She decided to stay out of the city borders and watch as the orbital bombardment erased her home. Apparently watching an entire city being nuked was not the best decision, since she lost her eyes and almost died due to the extreme flash of light and from radiation burns. When the [[Word Bearers]] arrived they rescued her and figured that she was the only surviving witness of their punishment, because smurfs couldn't be bothered helping civilians whose city they just destroyed. This turned her into some kind of saint in their eyes, so they offered her a position of Confessor/Holy Relic, aka "The Blessed Lady" in their fleet. During the few decades of her service to the Word Bearers she became close to [[Argel Tal]] and guided him on his path to becoming the first [[Possessed Marine]] and overall awesome guy who kills loyalists and doesn't afraid of anything. Everything was fine and dandy until the Heresy, when during the Drop Site Massacre she got herself killed by some Custodes assholes <s>for just being in their way</s> [[FATAL|who thought they'd have an easier way ''obtaining'' answers out of her than from any Word Bearer]]. Needless to say Argel Tal cried manly tears of rage over her corpse and swore revenge on the Custodes, which he delivered just a few hours later, butchering them all amidst the ashes of Istvaan V.

Fast forward one year to [[Erebus]] resurrecting her to facilitate his machinations with Argel Tal, because he's a dick. Mind you, while she was dead for a year, [[Grimdark|he had her soul torn apart and eaten by multiple daemons]], whom Erebus "persuaded" to give the pieces back. Being the badass she was, Cyrene recovered from the shock of being mutilated and tormented in hell surprisingly fast, until the battle for Nuceria, wherein her ship was blown up and she got rescued by none other than Damon Prytanis who told her that being resurrected had turned her into a Perpetual. And then... cliffhanger. During the Siege of Terra, she resurfaced as a blind seer who renamed herself as Actaea associated with Damon Prytanis and Alpharius. Actaea claimed to be part of Cyrene Valantion's cult in the Word Bearers, but Zardu Layak did some digging and found that no record of her existed. It is also possible that she became Moriana.

===Joaqhuine Desdemondra===
Joaqhuine Desdemondra is a Living Saint and a secret lover of Inquisitor Bronislaw Czevak. Formerly a blood-drinking Death Cult assassin from the Path Incarnadine, she was an associate of Czevak. Other names she was known as include Saint Joaqhuine the Renascent - Living Saint of the Imperial Creed, or The Idolatress. She was identified as a form of immortal called a Reanimate upon being introduced in the "Atlas Infernal" novel. Unfortunately for her, she was later captured by Ahriman and was tortured repeatedly by being incinerated to death in front of Czevak in order to break the mental wards placed on his mind so Ahriman can extract knowledge about the Black Library from him. While Czevak was later taken from Ahriman's hands, she remained in captivity. Which is a point of motivation for Bronislav to confront Ahriman again.

{{Imperium}}
[[Category:Abhumans]]