About a year ago, @Bright_Ops created a game called The Grand Crusade, a sort of AU to the setting of Warhammer 40000 where every Primarch was replaced by alternatives controlled by the players. It unfortunately ended prematurely, for reasons explained in the thread; however, its existence was recently brought to my attention via thread necromancy, and I actually found it quite interesting as a concept. I've since been inspired to recreate it in a way that might even be semi-feasible within the context of WH40K itself, with @Bright_Ops' permission (special thanks to him, by the by), and since step 1 generally involves creating an interest thread, here it is.

Persons of interest: @Jbcool @Keepvogel @Hank @Lord Coake @Sarpedon @agentmanatee @Kingfisher @Culluket @Durandal @Roosan @Enzayne @Zoldyck @Ozymandias @Winston Smith

@BCTheEntity
I'm in, sounds like a very interesting scenario. I assume that the big E will be controlled by the GM and that we want to have roughly the same story? I mean, there's still going to be some sort of betrayal and eventually a heresy, right?

Also, can I call dibs on the Magnus equivalent? You know, the psyker Primarch.

@BCTheEntity time for a new Primarch to be made... meaning I am in

@Roosan well the way bright ops framed it there didn't have to be analouges to the Primarchs and he wouldn't force a heresy.

He DID say he would give opportunities for Primarchs to be tempted and possibly fall though and as flawed as the real Primarchs were well...

@Roosan I will be controlling the Emperor, yes, and most likely a number of other NPCs where relevant. That said, you can make your Primarch in whatever way you like. They can be a psyker, a blank, maybe even a mutant, whatever works. Your characters don't explicitly need to be parallels to those in canon. Similarly, the story will develop based on player actions - as @agentmanatee says, it's up to you guys whether a betrayal/Heresy-esque event occurs at any point.

@BCTheEntity So I assume the goal is to have 20 primarchs, but are we gonna start before that, considering the Primarchs were scattered and gethered rather slowly?

I see...head-hunting in my own threads?

Don't ever do that again, @BCTheEntity, I'm asking you.

I will join this thread, however, and probably just rek everyone else at some point.

They can be a psyker, a blank, maybe even a mutant, whatever works.

I caught myself planning an Ork Primarch there and reluctantly backed away.

But alright, thanks for clearing that up. I'll probably still go for some sort of psyker but I'll see who else wants to do what before making an concrete decisions.

Definitely interested. Already formulating a plan for a character...

@agentmanatee The goal is twenty Primarchs, yes. However, we don't need to have every Primarch slot filled at the start; I'm thinking the game will start with the Emperor beginning his Webway project, with however many Primarchs in play at that point being dealt with accordingly, and any future Primarchs being discovered as the game progresses.

@Jbcool Oh, sorry. I was just looking at the Advanced WH40K games for players who might be interested, most of which happen to be owned by you... my apologies. Glad to have you on board, though. Actually, do you mind if I ask what you mean by "head-hunting" in this context? I'm seeing two possible meanings, and I just want to be clear on which one you mean.

@Lord Coake Glad to have you on board, friend.

@Roosan Oh, right, yeah. No, they do still have to be human. Or at least human-derived, given that that's what the Emperor is and/or had to work with, plus or minus whatever animals were available on Terra in the 30th millenium. I think, after further consideration, most forms of stable abhuman present in the 40K 'verse (e.g. ogryns and ratlings) wouldn't be accessible either, given their evolution on other planets and whatnot, and since the human-like Primarchs themselves would be more powerful than any abhuman regardless. Outright mutation might also need to be double-checked by me, since there are obvious issues with having a guy with tentacle teeth as the leader of a supposedly-human group of super soldiers, and the Emperor did not like mutants as-is. There isn't exactly a limit on psykers and such, though, so go nuts with those if you like.

@BCTheEntity
Sorry, I thought I made it clearer that I was joking about an Ork Primarch. Even my love for Orks doesn't go that far into lore mangling territory. At most, I'll give the character a distinct physical mutation that sets him apart from the others, like Sanguinius's wings.

@BCTheEntity I mean the act of coming into another's thread(s) and essentially advertising without a by-your-leave; I don't mind! In fact I'm quite happy to have another RP where I'm not the GM, but, please, ask next time buddy.

@Roosan That should be fine. I'd need to make sure it's not too much, but something like wings should be reasonable enough, as is pyskerism and blankism, of course.

@Jbcool Alright, you make a fair point. I wanted to make sure people saw the thread, but I guess all the, uh, mentions would've done the job well enough. My bad.

@BCTheEntity It's cool...I look forward to dethroning you in the name of some dark and blasphemous deity(s).

@BCTheEntity So I kinda already know what I want to do... should we wait for you to make an OOC for it and post them there, or should we PM them to you?

I also assume like in Bright's version we are also making our own Legions?

@Jbcool Guys I found this game's Horus Lupercal.

@agentmanatee You can talk about your ideas with me pre-emptively, just to make sure they're reasonable, but actual character sheets won't arise until the OOC thread itself is made, which will probably be during the weekend. And yes, you will be making your own Legions too.

Oh, by the way, guys, fair warning: I'm probably going to follow Jb's example in An Unholy Mass, and have at least one part of the Primarch's character sheets include a story section. That'll probably be how your respective Primarchs met the Emperor, since I don't necessarily intend to make people RP that IC.

@BCTheEntity I can haz shotgun Angron?

@Sarpedon Sure thing. Again, you don't have to fill in the same archetypes as the canon Primarchs, but you can if you want to, I guess.

@BCTheEntity I'm going to shake things up, it'll be fun.