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 15th magical clone baby the Emperor recovered – Jaghatai Khan, Primarch of the 5th Legion.

I’ve got to be honest with you folks, I’m writing this at the last minute because Jaghatai is so boring. I love the next three Magical Clone Babies so much, but this guy… this guy… he’s a speed bump on the way to the magical clone factory. He landed on the planet Mundus Planus (High Gothic for Flat Earth), called Chogoris by the natives. Chogoris had regressed to an early black powder level of technology, but managed to have a huge British Empire-style civilization. That is not where Jaghatai landed.

Jaghatai Khan landed in Chogoris’ equivalent of the Mongolian steppes where he was found by Chogoris’ equivalent of Mongolian steppe nomads and God help me, just read a biography of Temüjin, aka Genghis Khan, from this point.

Eventually, the Emperor arrived, Jaghatai saw an opportunity to conquer the stars instead of one stupid planet, they teamed up, and the steppe nomads upgraded from horses to motorcycles. The one interesting thing about Jaghatai was that he was really close friends with brothers Horus and Magnus, but when the Heresy happened, he remained loyal to his dad (although mostly by default).

He served nobly during the Horus Heresy, leading many rapid, hit-and-run assaults. He chafed under Rogal Dorn’s command of the Siege of Terra because Dorn insisted on pure defense, and the Mongolian horse nomad who specialized in rapid, hit-and-run assaults thought there should be more rapid, hit-and-run assaults. After the Heresy, he and his space marines helped reclaim the worlds that had rebelled during the Heresy.

Then, one day he chased some Drukhari dark eldar into the Webway and was never seen again. It’s unknown if he got lost or murdered or kidnapped or sold into slavery or found true love and married and settled down on a farm in the Webway. There are no legends about it. There are no mysterious artifacts associated with him. He just left the way he came in – without much thought or effort put into it. Which is, I have to admit, a shame because Jaghatai is one of the only minority Clone Babies – being northeast Asian in appearance – and he could have had some really interesting adventures and twists, but… he didn’t.