The Primarchs of the Sun were a Serrakhanian Divine Order of six immortal demigods whom Malekith made to enforce his rule over the Serrakhan Sultanate. Five he fashioned from the ribs of the Great Serpent, and the sixth, Volkier, was a mortal duelist he raised to their rank. The Holy Order of the Sun preached them as saviours. Sealed away in the Fourth Age and freed in 9100 AA, they brought the Scourge of the Seven Suns on the desert until the Sunsations imprisoned them again. The order is defunct: its members lie sealed in the Dawn Device, and they are presumed destroyed with their maker.
Origins & History
The Primarchs were born of a betrayal. Altair Emrys, an advisor to Avatar Lumina then called Alistair Emrys, led six Solir paladins into the Sands of Serrakhan in search of a celestial wyrm. The Serpent tore the paladins apart and was about to devour Emrys when Malekith struck a bargain with it: it would help him destroy Itela and the Solir of the Sun Realm, and it would be given power in return. Malekith's true aim was the Ebony Amulet lodged in its heart, an Continuum Shard of the Continuum Crystal corrupted by time. Once the Sun Realm lay scorched (see: The Elegy of Emberfall), he killed the Serpent and tore out the amulet.
From the Serpent's ribcage he fashioned five radiant beings, each given a fragment of his essence and a mind shaped for purpose and pride. The sixth was chosen. Volkier, called the Unbent Blade, was an undefeated pit fighter and duelist of the young Sultanate. He held his own against Malekith in a duel and, though beaten, earned enough respect to be offered immortality at the cost of his humanity. He accepted on one condition: that he keep his honour and fight on until he found an opponent who could beat him fairly.
The Holy Order taught that the Primarchs had helped Malekith save the Sultanate from Solir aggression. Their names were cut into sunstone and their deeds painted in golden murals. Behind the myth they grew wrathful and unstable. They punished settlements that questioned doctrine and took bloody retribution on their own followers, until even members of the Holy Order rose against them. Volkier stood apart, bound by his code.
The High Priest Ishmael saw them as rival tyrants. He proclaimed the Temple of the Seven Suns their monument, a sun for each Primarch and a seventh for Malekith, and fed their pride until they came to consecrate it in person. There he sealed all of them but the twins Thavok & Gharok inside its enchanted mural, a scene of a war between the Sultanate and the Solir that was never fought, and left them fighting its phantom battles. The elder Runewright Talus designed the binding runes. Talus had already sealed the twins beneath the ruins of Twinstone, and that deed drew Ishmael's eye; the two struck their bargain at the Tomb of the Sun's Eclipse. Prometheus wounded Talus during the ritual, and Ishmael later killed him. The sealing took place late in the Fourth Age, in the 8890s, and the temple sank into the dune sea for some two centuries.
In 9100 AA the Sunsations, adventurers of the Emrys Adventuring Guild, found the ruined temple on the road to Torbah while hunting the Snake Cult. Kairus the Brass and Losk the Wanderer were drawn into the mural, and when Prometheus tried to possess Kairus the enchantment gave way (see: Primarch's Release). The temple collapsed and the Primarchs scattered across the desert.
They set out to force the Holy Order into desperation and to win back the people's worship. Droughts, heatwaves, sandstorms, plague and flame-touched locusts killed tens of thousands, and the Primarchs presented themselves as the only salvation. They worked to break Ishmael's control of the Holy Order and to discredit the Emrys guild. Arkhan hid in the crypt of the Order of the Flaming Sun and plotted with Ser Menge to frame the guild. Naziith conjured the false valley of Nazareth from the western dunes. Prometheus allied with MorrÃgna, Queen of the Court of Wither, and merged the Plane of Faewyld with the Prime Plane in the Conjunction of the Realms of 9102 - 9103 AA, raising the Promythean as a shrine to Malekith.
The guild hunted them one by one. Kairus sealed Naziith with the help of Dune and Arrath, then met Volkier in single combat and beat him, the duel Volkier had waited centuries for. The Sunsations subdued the twins in the Ruins of Twinstone. At the Promythean, where Prometheus killed Emrys, Kairus and Losk fell and rose again as Primarchs. The Sunsations sealed Prometheus and every remaining Primarch, their two friends among them, inside the Dawn Device, a golden phylactery Talus had made to trap divine spirits.
Structure & Leadership
The Primarchs were ranked in the order of their making and answered to Malekith alone. Prometheus, the first and greatest, led them. Naziith, made from an upper rib, was the second and Prometheus's right hand, and Arkhan, made from the opposite rib, was the third. The fourth and fifth, Thavok and Gharok, were made as linked twins, and Volkier was the sixth. In Malekith's absence Prometheus and Naziith acted as enforcers and creators in his place.
Nature & Powers
Each Primarch carried a fragment of Malekith's essence, which made them immortal while the sun burned overhead. A slain Primarch dissolved into light and re-formed at dawn. They appeared almost angelic, with golden skin, radiant eyes, flowing white robes and sunsteel armour, but their true forms were grotesque. The Braziers of the Sun, radiant gauntlets, let them wield Continuum Shards, the source of their divine power. Their souls could be captured only in a powerful phylactery.
Doctrine & Goals
The Primarchs were Malekith's prophets and warriors, wardens of the world he meant to remake, and they served his will while he was absent. When freed they sought vengeance on those who had sealed them, dominion over the desert and their master's return. They held themselves bound by no moral law. Volkier wanted only a worthy opponent.
Significance & Connections
The Primarchs gave Malekith's theocracy its gods on earth, and the Holy Order built its early faith around them. The twin towns of Twinstone were dedicated to Thavok and Gharok. Murals beneath the Palace of the Sun show Malekith and the Primarchs standing by as Ishmael bound the Sphinxes to the throne. The Archfae Yokai was bound to serve them until the Mask of the Oni was fractured. The Sunsations fought them from the start of the Scourge to its end, and the Scourge's plague and fires fell hardest on Shariz, where House Al-Hakim led the recovery.
Legacy
The Dawn Device was kept warded and watched in the guild's vaults. In 9107 AA Talyen released Kairus and Losk from it to judge the construct that had taken Emrys's place (see: The Star of Dawn), and the Edicts of Empyrean later cleansed them of the Primarch affliction. Night Mother Nyx sent her champion Saren to steal the device. After Malekith's defeat in the Battle of the Black Sun of 9113 AA the Primarchs' essences are presumed destroyed with his, though no one has yet opened the device to find out.