Editing Vulkan (section)

=== Early Life ===
[[Image:Warhammer-40000-фэндомы-Vulkan-Primarchs-7575419 (1).jpeg|300px|thumb|A young Vulkan looking strangely like the late Michael Clarke Duncan. Coincidence? I think not.]]

Rather than be dumped in a volcano for being a bad omen, as is the fate of many small children who crash on feudal death worlds in space pods, Vulkan grew up as the adopted son of a blacksmith named N'bel, from whom he learned the basics of metallurgy. Of course, being a genetically engineered super-soldier like his brothers he reached adulthood at the age of three and started inventing new alloys like they were going out of style, bringing most of the planet up to the late Steel Age in a matter of months.

Anyway, Vulkan enjoyed his normal life (or as close to normal a super-strong basically Demi-God genius blacksmith could) and was reasonably happy until the [[Dark Eldar]] came to town. Nocturne, it turns out, was a favorite raiding destination for [[Mandrakes]], whose realm of '''Aelindrach''' was connected to Nocturne by a series of Webway gates. The populace, who had advanced to about the iron age before Vulkan came along, generally tended to hide from the space rapists with guns that shoot poisonous glass, but Vulkan didn't share their good sense (possibly having something to do with the fact that he could have tanked multiple RPG-7 rounds to the torso and only gotten mildly pissed off, but whatever). Instead, the first time they came after his arrival, he grabbed a pair of blacksmith's hammers and went to town on Spess Elf ass. ''(If this sounds suspiciously [http://whfb.lexicanum.com/wiki/Valten familiar] then congratulations, you're paying attention. If you also noticed that Vulkan predates that character, making the other one the rip-off, then even better! We will make an expert of you yet!)'' Although admittedly, Vulkan's first attempt at dealing with the situation resulted in a failure; he drove off the Eldar, but then he took a force of his best men into the webway to defeat the Mandrakes at their source, only to be picked off and murdered while they advanced. They got as far as [[Kheradruakh]]'s tower, but there Vulkan ended up being the last man standing and forced to retreat. When he got back to Nocturne he smashed the webway gate to bits, regretting his decision not to do it in the first place and lamenting the loss of so many good men. [[Troll|A season later the Mandrakes returned]], forcing Vulkan to realise that there was more than one Webway gate on the planet, and that his earlier attempt to destroy their entrance as well as the counter-charge were both futile actions on their own, meaning he would have to destroy each one if he wanted to protect his people. [[awesome|And guess what? He did exactly that!]]

<s>Shortly after Valt-- I mean Vulkan</s> {{BLAM}} {{BLAM|Heresy! Vulkan came first!}} drove off the raiders, his settlement threw a bigass feast to celebrate the victory along with a competition to see who had the biggest [[Pauldrons|man-parts]]. Amongst the events were to be anvil-lifting, weapon-forging, and bigass fire-breathing dragon-thing slaying. Or something like that. A stranger ended up intruding on the ceremony, and proved himself Vulkan's equal in every contest except the salamander slaying, which Vulkan won by virtue of his own thick-headedness and the stranger saving his sorry ass. (If you want the long story filled with themes of honor and dignity read the fucking [http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Vulkan Lexicanum]) Vulkan pledged his loyalty to the stranger immediately after being declared the victor, saying that anyone who valued human life over victory was worth following (and probably making the biggest misjudgement of a person's character he would ever make in his entire life), and with insufferable predictability the stranger revealed himself to be [[God-Emperor of Mankind|the Emprah]].

The short story ''Mercy of the Dragon'' adds a little more to the story however, in that Vulkan's acceptance was not immediate upon declaring the Emperor the victor. The two spoke for a while, with the Emperor trying to convince Vulkan to leave his homeworld and join the Great Crusade. After hearing about his brothers, the terrors of the Old Night and of the Imperial Truth; Vulkan put it quite plainly that as the son of a blacksmith, he had no interest in being a general or a conqueror. Pointing out that where his brother primarchs were already great and proud generals, Vulkan only desired peace. The Emperor told Vulkan that he was ''"utterly unlike"'' the rest of his brothers, and that was both his single greatest trait and the Emperor's proudest achievement. So when asked by Vulkan what could he possibly teach the other Primarchs, big Emps told him that his lesson was the most crucial and that he was uniquely disposed to teach it: his <u>Humanity</u>.