Fanfic / The Coffin of Roboute and His 20 Sisters

Written by Seat Admiral on SpaceBattles.com, The Coffin of Roboute and His 20 Sisters (alternate link to Archive of Our Own here) is an ongoing Peggy Sue Alternate Universe Fix Fic of Warhammer 40,000. It is also (rather unexpectedly) a stealthy Intercontinuity Crossover with a spoiler work.

Roboute Guilliman dies to Mortarion's blade, and finds himself in the far distant past. However, something's wrong. His once-brothers are women now.

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The Coffin of Roboute and his 20 sisters provides examples of:

• Abduction Is Love: On Macragge, the traditional courting procedure consists of a highly ritualized kidnapping ritual, where the prospective groom, at least one week following a formal declaration of intent, must successfully kidnap his desired from her family compound while tying a belt or collar to her somewhere, and defend against counterkidnapping attempts from her male relatives, usually between one and three depending on how much they like or dislike him. During this time, he must also provide for the woman from his household supplies and see to her entertainment, preferably with song or a musical instrument. Should he succeed in these things, they are declared married.
• Abusive Parents: Several of the Primarchs were in pretty bad position when Roboute found them;
  • Necare tried to force Morrigan to become his successor as an evil necromancer.
  • Kor Phaeron's treatment of Aurelia deserves particular mention: it's explained that Primarchs grow faster in response to danger. Roboute grew up in a normal home, and it took him ten years to reach full (for a Primarch) height. Whatever Kor Phaeron did to Aurelia, she grew to seven feet in just seven months. Notably, this is far, far faster than any of the other Primarchs did — and remember that, just like in the original timeline, Kassandra Curze grew up literally fighting for her life almost constantly from birth, and Morrigan spent most of her life directly waging war against a cabal of Nurglite sorcerers and their Flesh Golem legions. Kor Phaeron's misdeeds registered as significantly more dangerous and traumatizing than that.
• Adaptational Badass: While Magnus the Red was already the second-most-powerful psyker in the Imperium (just below the Emperor) and already The Archmage bar none, his female counterpart of "Madonna the Magnificent" also possesses the ability to see into both the past and future a la Kairos Fateweaver.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Malekith is still the arch traitor to the Eldar, just like he was to the High Elves in Warhammer Fantasy. However, the catch here is that in 40k, the Aeldari Dominion was a dystopian hellhole whose descendants would become the first Drukhari. As such, Malekith being the "arch-traitor" to the Aeldari in reality means that he was the first one to reject the pleasure cults and lead the first Exodites.
  • While in canon 40k Guilliman was already one of the more "moral" and mature Primarchs, he was still not a very good person (i.e., Roboute fondly reminisced about multiple genocides he'd committed against entire alien species during the Great Crusade after being resurrected into the present day). In this fanfic, thanks to both the Odd Friendships he's formed among the Exodite Eldar and him having further matured as a person, this version of Roboute is a significantly kinder and more empathetic person more willing to keep an open mind about his surroundings. Furthermore, Roboute has also become less xenophobic (as seen with him openly sympathizing with the Trauma Conga Line the Aeldari have suffered through) and is more willing to be self-critical and capable of recognizing his own mistakes (such as him shamefully admitting that Lorgar Aurelian's fall to Chaos in the prime/canon timeline was at least partly his fault due to him following through on the Emperor's orders to raze Monarchia).
  • As a whole, the Emperor of Mankind is significantly kinder and more empathetic towards his followers, family and even strangers; He can still be a right Jerkass along with being Innocently Insensitive and having a bad habit of thinking he knows way more about a situation than anyone else (as seen when he discusses the Chaos Gods with an Exodite Ranger and dismisses the Exodite's warnings that the Ruinous Powers are actually sentient entities as poetic license when he himself believes them to be mindlessly rampaging natural forces), of course, but the biggest difference between this version of the Emperor and the version seen in canon 40K is that he seems to be actually going out of his way to legitimately act as a father to his collected children (as shown in him playing along with Danu and Fulgrim's attempts to show off a new fortress design they've cooked up), and regards the Primarchs as his children & allies first and potential tools second. Additionally, instead of simply euthanizing the Thunder Warriors as he did in canon, this version of the Emperor decided to give them a more honorable end by tasking them to meet with Roboute and either assist him in his conquests if he's legitimate or assassinate him if he's a dangerous liar.
  • Thanks to the Drukhari raiders on Nocturne largely being culled by an Exodite warrior sent by her older brother and her even developing an Odd Friendship with him, Vesta never develops a fervent Fantastic Racism towards the Aeldari as did her male counterpart Vulkan in the canon timeline.
• Adaptational Name Change: Thanks to all of them having their genders flipped in this universe, virtually all of the Primarchs are given different names.
  • Among those rescued by Roboute, Perturabo's counterpart is named "Petra", Konrad Curze's counterpart is named "Kassandra" and Mortarion's counterpart is named "Morrigan". There's a slight exception with Lorgar Aurelian's counterpart, who is only named "Aurelia" here.
  • Among those collected by the Emperor, Horus Lupercal's counterpart is named "Hathor", Rogal Dorn's counterpart is named "Danu Dorn", Magnus the Red's counterpart is named "Madonna the Magnificent", Leman Russ's counterpart is named "Lofn", Lion El'Jonson's counterpart is named "Atalanta", Ferrus Manus's counterpart is named "Athena" and Vulkan's counterpart is named "Vesta". There is an exception with Fulgrim, whose female counterpart still has the same name in this timeline.
• Asshole Victim: Upon gazing into Kor Phaeron's memories to see exactly what happened to Aurelia to accelerate her growth to such an extreme extent, Guilliman immediately slaughters him and his cult and shifts priorities from "getting out of Colchis as soon as he can" to "purging the planet". Granted, this also includes a lot of unwitting Chaos worshippers but few tears can be shed for what is effectively a nascent Daemon World.
• Awesomeness by Analysis:
  • Petra has the ability to see structural weak points with a glance, with Guilliman noting how seeing weaknesses everywhere he looks was likely a major reason as to why Perturabo was so miserable. Seeing the Emperor's blade and shield makes her perk up, as they are the first items she has ever seen that plainly can't be broken.
  • Roboute has the ability to absorb, process, compartmentalize, and apply incredible quantities of information very quickly, just like in canon. What makes it even more of an Heart Is an Awesome Power than in the original timeline, is that this ability allows him to apply his knowledge of the future to it's maximum effectiveness, though it does also mean he has to rewrite his plans when a large unexpected development takes place.
• Big Brother Worship: All of the Primarchs found so far quickly come to adore their new big brother, especially since he pulled some of them out of truly horrific circumstances (he specifically made first for the Primarchs who had the worst childhoods).
  [Petra] had no reason to put faith in some god. Her brother was going to fight two gods to rescue a third, worshiping a god seemed quaint compared to him.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: The Everqueen interprets non-Eldar names as chains of Aeldari phonemes and extrapolates Aeldari names from that, leading her to interpret Guilliman's name as Roban Utu Tëa, 'Indicating Deep Wilderness', Petra's as Pet-Rá, 'To Tell on Behalf Of', Kassandra's as Kasse-Sanda, 'Above-Shield', Aurelia's as Aurë-Lia, 'Daylight-Threads', and Mórrigan's as Morë-Rig-Gon 'Lord of Snarling Darkness'. To be fair, she also has a fair amount of trouble even with modern Eldar names.
• Broken Bird: In a sense, this is also how all of Roboute's sisters were/are before he rescued them - Kassandra was a feral child growing up on the streets of her homeworld eating animal corpses (and was tormented by horrible nightmare visions of the future), Petra can't not see how everything she looks for can be broken, Morrigan watched the world she fought so hard for turned into a Nurglite Daemon World, and Aurelia's horrific treatment at the hands of Kor Phareon and his men caused her to think she deserves to be punished for being treated with kindness and basic decency (to the point that she thinks she needs to repay her brother for not punishing her, as she thinks he loves her too much to do so, rather than the fact she did nothing wrong).
• Can't Argue with Elves: Averted by the Exodites, who are actually very heroic, don't look down on other races, and are the first ones to join Roboute's cause against Chaos. It's also averted in an Exact Words sense by Roboute and Asarnil, who both enjoy verbal sparring matches with each other.
• Clueless Chick-Magnet: Roboute has no idea how easily he keeps making Exodite Maidens fall for him, much to Asarnil's amusement.
• Color-Coded Characters: invoked Word of God says that each of the Aeldari pantheon is associated with their own Color Motif. Examples include Asuryan being associated with gold, Isha with blue, Khaine with red, and Lileath with white. Slaanesh, technically being an Aeldari goddess herself, is associated with the color fuchsia.
• Commonality Connection: When Roboute suggests writing up a primer on basic Eldar language, Asarnil comments it is likely to be viewed negatively by the Eldar traditionalists, who are particularly proud of the difficulty of their language. Karl can relate, as much of the Mechanicum regards their own language with the same pride.
• Death by Adaptation: In canon 40K, Kor Phaeron survived the Horus Heresy and even into the "present day" of the 42nd millennium has continued to plague the Imperium. Here, after Roboute rescues Aurelia from Colchis and learns of what horrors Phaeron inflicted upon her, Roboute vaporizes him with The Emperor's Sword before proceeding to lay waste to much of Colchis.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: A bizarre planetary variant; in canon 40K, the planet of Colchis was semi-accidentally shattered to pieces by the Inquisition following the end of the Horus Heresy. Here, it first has virtually all of its inhabitants massacred by Roboute and his Exodite allies after rescuing Aurelia, and is then later completely wiped clean of all life by the Emperor using Cyclonic Torpedoes. Similarly, the planet of Barbarus was canonically destroyed by possibly multiple different forces (some sources say that it was destroyed with Virus Bombs by the Imperium following the Horus Heresy, while others claim that the Dark Angels used Cyclonic Torpedoes to destroy it prior to the Siege of Terra). In this fanfic, it is turned into a Nurglite Daemon World before it is invaded by the Emperor and its daemonic overlord is given a True Death, bathing the entire planet in fire and reducing it to a lifeless wasteland.
• Entertainingly Wrong: During an interlude with Malcador and the God-Emperor, they discuss their suspicions that Roboute is from a theoretical "Second Batch" of Primarchs, made in case of some future emergency, one that they made male for some reason. This is not at all the case.
• Expy: Several.
  • The Custodes Shield-Captain Kytan is one to Little Kitten from If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device, and might actually be Kitten.
  • There are also a plethora of original characters in the fanfic based on various assorted canon characters in Warhammer Fantasy.
    • Asarnil is an Exodite Dragonlord (basically a warrior king), named for an elven mercenary, with both even riding dragons named "Deathfang".
    • The primary Arch-Magos from Gryphonne that joins Roboute is named Karl Calculus, and has an eagle-motif; he's based on Emperor Karl Franz of the Empire of Man.
    • Malekith Mallorn, named for the Witch King Malekith of the Dark Elves, is here the first of the Exodite Eldar.
  • invoked As per Word of God, the Black Knight Abram Cadmus was inspired by characters like Adam Smasher, Robert Baratheon and Beowulf.
  • The Legion Master of the Eighth Legion of Space Marines - those under the lineage of Kassandra - is named "Raynor," and his conversation with his Primarch shows him to be strongly inspired by James Raynor of Starcraft fame.
• Fanservice: The fanfic doesn't exactly shy away from noting how attractive many of its characters are, though special detail is usually paid to Roboute, Asarnil, the Emperor and the Everqueen.
• Fix Fic: Invoked In-Universe, with Roboute Guilliman having been sent back in time by Cegorach after his death to free Isha from Nurgle's clutches. He is also taking advantage of this opportunity to try and fix as many of problems in the Crapsack World of 40K as much as possible, such as saving many of his sibling Primarchs from hellish fates to prevent the Horus Heresy from ever happening and preventing the Absolute Xenophobe policies of the Imperium of Man from taking root by forming strong alliances with the Exodite Eldar.
• Flaming Sword: The sword of the God-Emperor of Mankind traveled with Roboute Guilliman back in time.
• Gender-Bent Alternate Universe: Due to being send back in time Roboute Guilliman's Primarch brothers are now all women. Since it's an alternate universe there also exists a female version of Guilliman out there. It's later explained that Cegorach, due to his nature as a Trickster God, could only send Guilliman back in time if part of it was a jest. Notably, it's only the Primarchs who have their genders switched in this universe, with both the Emperor and the Astartes all still male.
• God's Hands Are Tied: Gods are bound by their domain what they're able to do, like how due to Cegorach's nature as a Trickster God, he could only send Guilliman back in time if part of it was a jest.
• Heroic BSoD: The Emperor, upon handling his sword from the future, containing a psychic imprint and over ten thousand years of horrid memories of the complete failure of the Imperium, to say nothing of the unimaginable agony he was personally undergoing on the Golden Throne. The bombastic, hammy, literally larger-than-life Conan, Emperor of Mankind, visibly freezes in place, his halo flickers, and he is reduced to a quiet, for him, "I see." True to form, he recovers quickly and returns the sword to its bearer, but that brief moment connecting with his future self was visibly agonizing.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: A major flaw of Morrigan (and, by extension, many of the other female Primarchs saved by Roboute) is that she doesn't give herself enough credit and instead views most of her successes as being the result of Roboute's efforts. Tomas, the ad-hoc leader of Barbarus' survivors on Jedartha, refuses to let her believe this, with him revealing to her that their new settlement's banner will immortalize Morrigan as having been their savior and defender.
  Morrigan: [stunned] ...Why?
  Tomas: [sheepishly shuffles his feet] Ah, well it's just one of those 'pay yer respects' sorta thing. We'll choose a different one if ya want.
  Morrigan: No, why… [awkwardly swallows] ...I didn't do anything.
  Tomas: [shakes his head and smiles] Yer brother may have brought us here, and we appreciate it and all he's done for us, we truly do. But we didn't forget how you were there first, with nothin' but a beat-up scythe, some ragged clothes, and a mean look in your eye. You were willing to fight for us when you had just as little. We don't want tah forget somethin' like that.
• Honorary Princess: As one noblewoman of Jedathra points out to Morrigan, because her brother Roboute is crowned king of Jedathra, Morrigan is now technically a princess (and by extension, so are all of the other Primarch sisters). The same can be said about their role in the Imperium of Man, being the daughters of the Emperor of Mankind, they're all technically crown-princesses.
• Hope Bringer: Guilliman inadvertently turns himself into a one in the eyes of the Exodites and even a few Craftworlders, attracting a massively outsized horde of them to his banner against all of his expectations. He greatly underestimated how much an easily verifiable genuine demigod, showing up very shortly after your race has seemingly ruined everything forever, promising to rescue your last remaining goddess from the clutches of the Great Enemy and destroy evil for all eternity, might reignite the hope in the hearts of the traumatized and scattered Aeldari. The only point in his disfavor is being a human, and the Exodites at the very minimum don't seem to particularly care.
• Lighter and Softer: Downplayed; on the one hand, the fanfic is noticeably lighter and more optimistic and hopeful than canon 40K, featuring numerous adorable and/or hilarious scenes of Roboute getting to act silly and bond with his "little sisters". There is also a general focus on helping uplift people out of suffering and emphasizing why and how different groups and factions can work together for the common good along with letting various characters simply kick back, relax and bond (as best shown in the Odd Friendship between Asarnil and Roboute) while also going out of the way to help avert various canonical tragedies (most obviously the Horus Heresy). However, this is still fundamentally a Warhammer 40K fanfic, and thus there are numerous heartbreaking and/or horrifying moments present to make it clear that the heroes’ struggles to rebuild the galaxy won’t be easy in the slightest - perhaps best shown in despite all of Roboute, Asarnil and Morrigan's best efforts, her homeworld of Barbarus is turned into a Nurglite Daemon World and many of its people are either killed or have their souls devoured by daemons before they can be all evacuated. Plus, a scene following the Emperor scouring Colchis of life reveals that while the Chaos Gods now consider the abduction of the Primarchs to be largely a wasted effort and have more or less given up on trying to corrupt them to their side, they still have plenty of backup plans.
• The Long Game: Roboute Guilliman's plan for founding the Kingdom of Albion is founded on multiple different complex plans that stretch far into the future and will not have their end merits shown for quite a while. Just as an example, his expansion efforts are aimed primarily at Feral, Feudal and Knight Worlds throughout his region of the galaxy since they will be the easiest to merge into his growing kingdom along with elevating their cultures and technology bases so that they can become efficient and productive members as soon as possible to help with further expansion and stabilization. In sharp contrast, Roboute's forces shy away from Death Worlds (unless their human inhabitants are seen as sufficiently skilled in battle that it'd be a net positive to integrate them into his kingdom), Hive Worlds and Forge Worlds, as not only are many Forge Worlds still technically under the vassalage of the Mechanicum of Mars (and thus he doesn't want to risk causing a political incident), but both Hive & Forge Worlds are so vast in terms of population and designed so inefficiently that they'd be absolute nightmares to properly integrate and uplift (as in, within the measure of literal centuries as opposed to the decades or even years seen with other less technologically advanced worlds).
• Master Race: Discussed. When the Emperor and Malcador learn of the time-displaced Roboute's existence from an Eldar messenger, both seem convinced that having a male Primarch interact with twenty female Primarchs will inevitably lead to them breeding a new Human Subspecies that would threaten to enslave mankind. The Emperor is confident he'll be able to manage a potential Primarch subrace should it come to that, but trusts Malcador to prepare countermeasures just in case.
  • It's also mentioned that during the Dark Age of Technology, there was a transhuman race which rose and dominated the rest of humanity until they were wiped out during the Men of Iron uprising. The Emperor considers this human subrace partially responsible for causing humanity's first fall and it's implied he made all his Primarchs the same sex (males in canon, females in this fanfic) in an attempt to specifically defy History Repeats.
• Mood Whiplash: Happens a lot throughout the story. One moment that particularly stands out is when Asarnil bursts into hysterical laughter over how cartoonishly evil the Drukhari are in canon 40K in that they literally refer to themselves as "Dark Ones"... and then Slaanesh uses this instance of passionate emotion by Asarnil to target him and almost devour his soul, causing him to immediately stop laughing and forcing Roboute to assist him in essentially performing an ersatz exorcism.
• Mundane Luxury: Kassandra was forced to kill for food, eating nothing but raw meat, and generally living as a feral animal from the moment she was essentially still a baby. So when she eats a simple loaf of bread given by Roboute, she thinks it's so tasty that she cries unconsolably and keeps eating even though her stomach hurt from eating too much.
• Mythical Motifs: The vast majority of the female Primarchs in this timeline are named after various women and goddesses from different mythologies.
• Naked People Are Funny: Roboute Guilliman returns back to the past armed with the Emperor's Sword and his shield... and being otherwise as naked as the day he was born. Notably, it's strongly implied that this was actually part of Cegorach being able to send Roboute to the fanfic's Alternate Universe in the first place. Sending Roboute back in time while fully armored would be a practical but dull choice, while sending Roboute back armed but otherwise naked would be an amusing joke at the Primarch's expense... and making it something that would result in Roboute's rescue falling under the purview of the Aeldari Trickster God.
• Nuke 'em: When the Emperor of Mankind's crusade fleet arrives over Barbarus (now a Nurglite Daemon World), he tries to Exterminatus the planet's surface using his private stock of primitive atomic missiles. This being a Daemon World, the atomic bombardment has little discernible effect with the only consolation being that the Emperor no longer has thousands of nuclear missiles (which are acknowledged in-universe as being extremely outdated relics even by 30K standards) taking up storage space on his flagship. This instead forces the Emperor to personally lead a ground assault on Barbarus and kill the Greater Daemons ruling over the planet.
• Odd Friendship:
  • Asarnil is a very "rough and tumble" Rated M for Manly Exodite Warrior Prince, while Roboute is a calmer and more stoic transhuman Emperor Social Scientist. They soon become the best of chums.
  • Kytan is a member of the Adeptus Custodes, the Emperor's personal bodyguards and most skilled of all his warriors. He makes friends with the Exodite maids, bonding over cleaning techniques for armor and clothing.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • When Roboute first meets the Exodites, he notes that they are oddly polite to him (which still means "quite condescending," which is admittedly better than 40k's "extremely condescending" standard of Exodite) and haven't heard of humans before, and outright correct him when he refers to his species as "Mon-Keigh." These are clues that he puts together to realize that he's in the past.
  • When the Emperor and Roboute finally meet, the first thing the former does is ask for his sword, filled with his future self's psychic imprint and therefore his memories. The second thing he does is immediately and powerfully embrace the Avenging Son. While there's certainly other evidence of it, this is by far the starkest proof possible that the Emperor has fully taken Roboute's warning to heart, as one of the key thrusts of XIII's letter was that being merely a creator and not a father to the Primarchs is the biggest reason the Imperium failed. The OTL version of Emps, even this Conan version of him, would absolutely never have hugged his children; him publicly wrapping his arms around Roboute and telling him that he has done well is proof positive that the latter's letter has caused the former to truly alter his mindset.
• The One Thing I Don't Hate About You: Roboute reflects on the Imperial Faith in Chapter 47, and muses the only aspect of that religion he wholeheartedly appreciated is how the sheer fanaticism and fervor it incited in the Imperium’s forces both made them obey his orders without question and last far longer on the battlefield than reason would normally dictate. More specifically, Roboute notes that during the OTL iteration of the Great Crusade, the mortals he commanded would typically take at minimum one-third of their own forces in casualties thanks to their morale inevitably breaking. In sharp contrast, during his time in the 42nd millennium, morale breaking among even mortal forces was regarded as a statistical anomaly, and entire regiments being slaughtered to a man just to buy time elsewhere was regularly anticipated as part of standard battlefield doctrine.
• Our Elves Are Different: From the standard fare for 30/40K, that is. The Exodites are a bit Tolkienesque, if anything, valuing family, loyalty, honor, and all that above all else, and being much kinder and more joyful and less aloof than their Craftworld cousins are seen to act in 40K. It also helps that as the first "human" they meet Guilliman is an extremely good specimen of his race.
  • Later played with when shit hits the fan, and even the Exodites seem to almost automatically revert into the ruthlessly pragmatic and stoic mindset that is far more like how one would expect the Aeldari to act in this universe; it's implied that this is an emotional state that Eldar enter to cope with general misfortune... which says a lot about just how much of a bad time the Craftworlders in particular are having in 40K.
• Parental Substitute: The Eldar Head Maid Miriel is a maternal figure to the Primarch sisters, doing things like singing lullabies to Kassandra when she was scared, and helping Morrigan wash her back. And of course, Roboute has more or less become the adoptive father for his younger sisters in his care, though he insists on only being viewed as their "big brother."
• Peggy Sue: Roboute Guilliman is send back in time by Cegorach, The Laughing God.
• Raise Her Right This Time: The first part of Guilliman's plan is to find his traitor Primarchs siblings and prevent them from growing up in the horrible circumstances that caused them to become traitors in the first place, robbing a possible future Horus Heresy of allies, and potentially stopping it altogether. In the case of Angron, Guilliman ended up arriving at Nuceria years before Angron's equivalent would and decides to install a Puppet King whom he leaves with some codexes, an Eldar adviser/overseer and an order to improve the state of the planet by the time he returns.
• Rule of Funny: Cegorach is quite literally unable to do exert his powers in a way that isn't a joke at someone's expense.
• Save Your Deity: One of the missions that Cegorach gave Roboute when he send him back in time was to save Isha from Nurgle.
• Scrubbing Off the Trauma: Mórrígan does this after seeing her world turn into a Nurglite Daemon World, as well as developing a near-obsession for cleanliness in general. Considering how disgustingly vile Nurgle and his forces are, it's a more than understandable reaction.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Why Roboute Guilliman was send back in time by Cegorach. Aside from uniting the Eldar to save Isha and forging strong links with them to the Imperium, Guilliman is also determined that this time around, there will be no lost or purged Primarchs from his family.
• Shout-Out:
  • Interlude 1 has the last lines to the "song" of The Emperor's Sword be "Khadga O'melas". The final word is almost certainly a reference to the famous Ursula K. Le Guin story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," in which a single person must suffer in order for the rest of the society to be happy and prosper... akin to how the Emperor's torment on the Golden Throne allows for the survival of mankind through keeping the Astronomican lit.
  • Interlude 5 has the Emperor paraphrasing William Blake's famous poem "The Tyger" when commanding his Custodian Kytan to stop bowing before him and listen to his commands.
  • In Chapter 43, when Kassandra meets with her Space Marine Legion and presents them with Exodite Ambrosia, the Legion Master Rylanor near-explicitly quotes a famous StarCraft II teaser by shifting the cigar in his mouth and remarking, "It's about damn time."
• Species Loyalty: The Imperium is a bit perplexed that the Exodites are willing to defy this and ally themselves with the Emperor rather than follow the rest of their species.
• Staring Contest: Kassandra (Konrad) has one with Aurelia's Gyrinx at one point, which she wins.
• Street Urchin: Kassandra was living as a rat-eating orphan on the streets of Nostramo when Roboute found her.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Through seeing the circumstances that the Traitor Primarchs grew up in as well as learning about their unique "gifts", Guilliman comes to understand how they turned out the way they did.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Asarnil and Roboute rapidly become very close friends; they also spend most of their interactions snarking at one another.
• Voluntary Vassal: Part of Roboute's long-term plans for the galaxy are to have "the Kingdom of Albion" (the new galactic state he is creating with the help of the Exodite Eldar and the Forge-Empire of Gryphonne in the southern reaches of the galaxy) willingly submit to and become a semi-autonomous state within the greater Imperium of Man. Complicating matters is not only the Emperor's great suspicion towards the Aeldari, but the Mechanicum of Mars (one of the Imperium's most vital allies) and the Forge-Empire of Gryphonne repeatedly butting heads while accusing the other of techno-heresy.

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