Editing Perpetual (section)

===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]].