Editing Nobledark Imperium Notes (section)

== Dorn ==

"''Of course we are at war. Why on Old Earth's green soil would you believe we are not at war. We are in what is essentially a siege position, with an unfortifiable border stretching an entire 360 degrees for several light years in every conceivable direction. Our enemy has no concept of "rest" or "armistice" and can pop up at any time, on any side, in any position within the massive amounts of space between the mud marbles that we call the worlds of the Imperium. The Imperium is always going to be at war. Why would you ever believe otherwise?''"<br>
- Rogal Dorn, showing his usual level of tact

Dorn's overall personality was like a combination between Winston Churchill and George Patton (except, you know, Calbian with Inuit heritage). Socially as blunt as a sledgehammer, no tact, and always said exactly what was on his mind, which often got him into a lot of trouble. He was also very harsh, think an army drill sergeant turned up to eleven. Despite all that he also had a rough sort of charisma, a dogged sense of determination, and a sarcastic, deadpan worldview that often saw him through these time periods and helped him pull himself out of the holes he dug and win people over. He was especially good at rousing speeches and getting people to hold the line.

=== Dorn and Perturabo's Awesome Bromance ===

At a meeting of several of the primarchs, Perturabo outlined a complicated, grandiose plan for constructing some defense, and Fulgrim calls it out as being terrible and says that even Dorn could bring the plan crashing down. Just like in canon, Perty demands to know if Dorn thinks the same way and Dorn bluntly says "Yes". But unlike canon, Perturabo says two words that completely change the future relationship of the primarchs.

“Show me.”

Perturabo obviously planned to use this opportunity to make a fool out of Dorn, castigating him for daring to question his tactical genius, but Dorn says “I would do X to Y, Z to A, and the whole defense plan would come crumbling down”, and Perty realizes…he’s right. Perty thinks for a moment and then tries to one-up Dorn by saying “But what if I were to do X”. Dorn replies “then I would do this…”. And so one of the angriest friendships in the history of the Imperium was born. Dorn and Perty would play wargames against one another, each using the opportunity to continually refine their strategies. Perty knew logistics and Dorn (to some degree) knew men. Together, the two of them created defenses so formidable that Terra had not seen their like since the days of Babylon. Of course, given the nature of M31, even these defenses could not always hold.

In particular, the two primarchs would play chess against each other, but one kept getting the upper hand through out-of-the-box means. Exactly who always won depends on who you ask, the Imperial Fists and their descendants claim it was Dorn, whereas the Iron Warriors and their descendants claim it was Perturabo. Before the Siege of Terra, a messenger from the Iron Warriors came to Dorn, saying that Perturabo had formulated a message prior to his incapacitation to give to Dorn in the event he could not be present for the siege of their homeworld, which both primarchs had known was inevitable. It was a single chess piece. Dorn knew what it meant.

What differentiates Dorn and Perty is that Dorn wasn't fucked in the head bar a slight case of masochism. Perty was an insane manchild who had all the charisma of damp turd. He could design a better fortress than Dorn. Dorn was better at manning defenses and getting other people to man them because he was bluff old soldier with a blunt sort of charisma despite often being socially offensive or insensitive.

Dorn instinctively saw a Fortress as something to hold out in and protect assets inside. Perty saw a Fortress as something to tempt the other side into attacking by using the assets as bait then using the fortress as a meat grinder.

Dorn had standards and a sense of fair play and chivalry. Perty would kick you in the balls and once you on the floor stamp on your neck despite your pleas of surrender.

Dorn would fight a heroic stand to the last man and the last round. Perty would order a sensible and ordered retreat to regroup and make a counter attack. Dorn saw his assets as people and noble warriors. Perty saw them as numbers and a means to an end/victory.

For all that, once you put them together they made up for each others weaknesses. They also got along surprisingly well because Dorn didn't try to hide his disgust at Perty's methods. Perty wasn't good at dealing with people and their unspoken social interactions. Dorn always spoke what was on his mind. Perty enjoyed being around Dorn because he was one of the few people Perty was 100% sure wasn't either fucking with him or looking down on him. Angry voices Perty can deal with. People not saying what they are saying less so.

To everyone else Dorn's lack of any tact was annoying as fuck. To Perty it was most welcome. When Perty would suggest a cold and callous course of action like letting a bunch of civvies die and deploy the troops at a more important installation the rest of the room would use phrases like "I don't think that's a very humane thing to do" or "that might alienate us and make things difficult in the long term". Dorn would more likely say "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Perty was hellishly competent at his job and had an inhuman work ethic. he also didn't hold anyone to standards he had not already reached. Dorn respected that greatly. Perty was still a little salty over the fact that his father passed him over for his lack of diplomatic ability, which fed into his obsession with building the perfect fortress so that he'll finally be recognized as simply good enough. Dorn sat on the opposite end of the scale, assuming that the mere promotion of Perturabo to Primarch is already all the answer he'd ever need.

''"Although I find you insufferable at times, it cannot be avoided - if you were not one of the finest military minds in the Imperium, you would not be among us."''<br>
-Dorn, to Perturabo

===Rough Draft, Early Life===
The story of Rogal Dorn starts in the garrison town of Onto Rontus in the not too long annexed land of Calbi. Born to a mother of the local tribes and an officer father of the Merikan army his start was not as tragic as it could have been. Often such half-breeds were not the result of consenting unions but Donovan Dorn held genuine affection for Kosa and was, unknown to his fellow officers, married to her.

Dorn was one of a large family and had many siblings though he was ultimately the only one to follow in his father’s footsteps. Dorn left his loving tribe and family and all he had known and travelled to the distant lands of Merika to begin his training, as his father had.

He learned much in those years and was an excellent student and would have been on the fast track to high station but for his circumstances of birth. No soldier of the greatest nation on Old Earth would gladly allow themselves to be given orders from a savage of the north. Despite all this his tutors could not deny his talents.

It was not a thing he took undue joy in but the ways of war came very easily to him. Despite the unfortunate circumstances of his birth he became the very model of a Merikan officer. He was well versed in military doctrine of all sorts and knew something of the history of his nation, at least enough to spot the revisionisms.

Although adept, or at minimum competent, at all aspects of war his true talents were found in siege warfare. In the tactical simulations and competitive VR matches Dorn was unbeaten.

Due to his knowledge of the locals and ability to speak at least one tribal language fluently Dorn returned to Calbi wearing a conquers uniform. He served as a lieutenant under the rule of Praefectus Adran, himself new to the post after the forced retirement of old Praefectus Stavart.

Praefectus Stavart had been very old and was unquestionably loyal to Merika but had dealt with the natives with some degree of fairness and even kindness when he could afford to. He was not loved by the locals, how could he be, but the elders were more than smart enough to know that his position as an intermediary between them and Merika was probably the best deal they could get in the circumstances.

For Stavart’s part he probably knew that as well. In his childhood Dorn had met him a few times with his father. He remembered him looking old then and unless he somehow genuinely had six sixty-seventh birthdays it was obvious that he had been lying about his age for a long time. In his way Stavart had cared about Calbi and it’s people as something other than a broken, subjugated state of Merika. He held on in the job until nearly ninety because he knew that Adran or someone much like him would succeed him. And he was right.

Praefectus Adran was not a nice man by any measure. His was the brutal rule of law and the authority of the Iron Fist. He wouldn’t be seen attending local festivals or events; they were there from the greatest to the least at his beck and call. They were savages and heathens and he was a man of the Greatest Nation and a paragon among them. Needless to say tensions between the conquered and conquerors increased.

At some point genuine tribal unrest turn into riots and Praefectus Adran orders mass executions.

Dorn is still well loved by the locals as they see him as their man on the other side and look to him to for salvation. Dorn is also well loved by the rank and file and quite a few of the officers.

There are a few days of communications black outs due to "faulty equipment" and some "regrettable accidents" that see some of the officers dead and Praefectus Adran commits suicide after a long period of depression. When asked how he managed to shoot himself in the back of the head with a shot gun acting Praefectus Dorn tells the investigators that Adran had been "very depressed.

Nobody believes it but, due to the difficulties in the still mysteriously faulty communications equipment, it does buy him enough time to root out more loyalists of Merika, secure his alliances with the local tribes and when the order comes from the capital to stand down and come back for questioning he declares independence.

The next day his is met by a freakishly nondescript man of average height and build, no distinguishing features, hard to estimate age, unremarkable clothing and an oddly neutral and hard to place accent. Claims his name is Alpharius Omegon and he comes representing the Imperium. Tells Dorn that his timing is awful and had he been able to spin his out for a few years, five at most, the Imperium would have been in a position to lend considerable military might to his Rebellion. As it is they will offer what less obvious help they can but the Imperium can't get dragged into a direct and total war with Merika at the current time. Dorn and a few of his elites get what must be some of the very last Mk1 Astartes upgrades, administered by local bio-druids for reasons of deniability.

Recently Merika had been supplying and training terrorist organizations in the lands conquered by the Imperium and Oscar had found out who was behind the seemingly random attacks. The aim was to disassemble the Imperium back into little nations for Merika to Manifest Destiny all over and Oscar was most unhappy, most unhappy indeed. But his forces were all tied up dealing with Ursh and the Pan-Pacific Empire so he couldn't act directly and was having to use Dorn and his rebellion, and later Fulgrim, to fight by proxy.

Not that Dorn would know the specifics of this until quite a few years after Unification Day.

Dorn holds out for long enough for Fulgrim Doe to raise his rebellion and make contact.

By this point Imperium is finishing off the last enclaves of Ursh, Lorgar is decapitating the Despot and Merika is in deep shit because of the multiple rebellions, the pissed off Imperium and the only neighbor it has left with whom it is not at war is Hy Brasil who hate both of them and are just going to sit back and watch.

Fulgrim "negotiates a deal of inclusion with very good terms" with the Imperium after he is appointed President of Merika and "abandons the unprofitable campaign to uplift and civilize the northern provinces". Calbi becomes an independent nation, Dorn appoints an Assembly of Elders to govern the nation and steps down from and decommissions the title Praefectus of Calbi. Though he does remain the head of the armed forces. The Elders and Dorn, or representatives of them in the case of the more elderly Elders, are present at the swearing of allegiance to the Empty Throne of Earth.

When Steward Oscar looks to the other worlds of Sol and to the stars beyond he names Dorn as one of his primarchs to the surprise of Dorn though not the people of his home nation who saw it as only right.

And then Great Crusade, WoTB, Reconquest and death on the walls of Cadia during the 1st Black Crusade of which I hadn't got around to thinking much about.

During the Great Crusade I imaged he went slower than most of the other Primarchs bar Lorgar but his diligence over speed, though criticized at the time, proved it's worth in the WoTB as the worlds he brought into the Imperium weathered the storm consistently better than others that weren't the work of Perty.

At some point he gets it into his head to grow his trademark mustaches. Some time later he has to have one of his eyes replaced and it sort of looks like a monocle.

Does not take part in the Raid. He was not the greatest personal combatant and also tended to be better at static defense than actually running around, so a quick Raid was not his strong suit. Also due to the buggy Mk1 enhancments he suffered from desensitization problems which gradually turned into a mild case of masochism.

Never married or had any children (that he or history knew about). Did have a large number of nephews and nieces and cousins and more distant kin. Quite a few of his family survived the WoTB, he was quite lucky in that regard.