Towards the end of the Age of Strife, the Emperor crafted 20 magical clone babies that he called Primarchs. The forces of Chaos didn’t like the Emperor very much, so they kidnapped his magical clone babies and threw them randomly all over the galaxy, and the Emperor had all kinds of adventures finding them again. This thread is about the eighth magical clone baby the Emperor recovered – Roboute Guilliman, Primarch of the 13th Legion.
Roboute, known as Rowboat Girlyman to his friends, landed on the Earth-like world of Macragge, and was found by one of the two Consuls who ruled Macragge and a small set of nearby worlds. He was given every advantage in life, and when he and his adoptive father put down a coup attempt by the other Consul, he became master of a miniature interstellar empire. Five years after this, ol’ Rowboat met the Emperor, who immediately gave him a legion of super-soldiers and told him to go conquer more planets.
When Horus started his rebellion, Roboute sided with the Emperor, continuing the Primarch’s string of unearned wins. After the Heresy, Guilliman wrote the Codex Astartes, a book of rules and regulations that broke up the massive legions of the Great Crusade into smaller chapters, crippling the ability of any of his other brothers to stage a rebellion of their own, and only coincidentally leaving his soldiers, who had already been following the rules in the Codex, with a massive doctrinal and experiential advantage that would persist for centuries.
With the Emperor entombed on the Golden Throne, Rowboat was effectively the ruler of the Imperium for the next century of so. Then his brother Fulgrim’s music started playing, and he ran in and stabbed Guilliman right in the fuckin’ neck. Instead of dying like anyone with a smidgen of humility might have, Roboute was instead put into a stasis field, stopping time within it, and keeping him almost-but-not-quite-dead.
10,000 years later, a cure for neck stabbings was invented, and Guilliman was brought back to full health. Because this guy can’t even almost die without coming out of it smelling like roses, the Emperor had become even more almost-but-not-quite-dead than he had been before, and a terrified Imperium immediately made the Magical Clone Baby Lord-Regent of the Imperium.
It is unknown as of press time how Roboute Guilliman will continue his Gladstone Gander-esque streak of unbelievably good luck, but we can rest assured that if there is a way to rise higher on the misfortunes of others than RULER OF THE GALAXY, our man Rowboat will find it. You all don’t need that kind of good luck to prosper in today’s OT, just be kind to one another, have fun with it, and don’t let your brother stab you in the neck.