The Cover of the E-Zine
The Dornian Heresy was one of the first Alternate Heresies set in Warhammer 40,000. It was originally published as a pdf/electronic magazine on the forum Bolter and Chainsword
, and while it was a collaborative effort, its creation was led by user Aurelius Rex.
The point of divergence from canon, broadly speaking, comes on Davin. As in canon, the Warmaster of the Imperium of Man, Horus Lupercarl, falls ill with a supernatural disease. Rather than accept the help of the four Chaos Gods, Horus is healed by the efforts of Magnus the Red and Erebus of the Word Bearers. The Chaos Gods, thus, need a new champion for their war with the Emperor. They choose the next primarch who has a true leadership position; Rogal Dorn, who is driven to madness and into their hands via overuse of the Pain Glove.
Rogal Dorn went on to gather what primarchs he could to rebel against humanity, though, being less charismatic than Horus, he is only able to do this because many were leaning towards treachery to begin with due to them having different backstories than in canon.
It inspired The Roboutian Heresy that was written by Zahariel, and created the Alternate Heresy Sub-Genre, likely inspiring, directly or not, The Theoreticus Heresy and The Hektor Heresy/The /tg Heresy.
It can be found here.The first e-zine covers nine of the eighteen legions. The second was never finished, but a significant portion of development was done on the forums.
Primarchs/Chapters without their own section in the pdf
- Ferrus Manus/The Iron Hands
- Vulkan/The Salamanders
- Lion 'El Johnson/The Dark Angels
- Perturabo/The Iron Warriors
- Konrad Curze/The Night Lords
- Alpharius Omegon/The Alpha Legion
- Horus Lupercarl/The Luna Wolves/The Sons of Horus/The Black Templars do not have any article or draft dedicated to them, but they are given coverage in the narrative section of the e-zine, which precedes the write-ups on the individual leagions. Rogal Dorn and the Imperial Fists are in a similar position. Mortarion and the Death Guard appear to have virtually nothing written about them as far as this timeline goes.
The Dornian Heresy provides examples of:
- Actually Pretty Funny: When Fulgrim proclaims his legion "The Emperor's Children" most think that it is incredibly presumptuous and overly prideful. The Emperor just laughs and allows it to be come the legion's new name.
- Adaptation Distillation: In-Universe example. Explicitly, feudal worlds are given a simplified, dumbed down version of the Imperial Creed.
- Adaptational Heroism: The premise behind the Dornian Heresy is that the roles of traitor and loyalist legions get switched around, so that traitor legions are loyal to the Imperium while the loyalist legions become followers of Chaos.
- The biggest example is probably Erebus, who in canon was the architect of Horus' fall to Chaos and is a legitimate contender for the most evil human in the entire setting, having been a Chaos worshiper since before he even became a Space Marine. In this version, he's instrumental in saving Horus from Chaos corruption.
- Averted with Fabius Bile's counterpart, who is still evil. However, because the Emperor's Children are loyalist in this alternate universe, they tried punishing Fabius for his heretical experiments - but by the time they were able to break into Fabius' sealed apothecarion, he had already committed suicide, with powerful enzymes having rotted his body into an organic stew inside his armor already.
- Allohistorical Allusion: Here, the Lectitio Divinatatus is not, as in canon, the holy book of The Imperial Creed, written by Lorgar Aurelian. Rather, it is one of many cults preceding the Imperial Creed, one particularly popular with artists and soldiers. It became a part of Lorgar's movement of deifying the Emperor, allowing it to spread further.
- Alternate History:
- Any Alternate Heresy is essentially an alternate history story set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, but this applies especially to the Dornian Heresy. It doesn't impact the story very much, but the prologue states, essentially, that an eldar named Elaidanath was dying in a battle with the canon Death Guard. He started looking at the past for a timeline where the Death Guard had not turned traitor, but he did so carelessly, and so was flung into the timeline of the Dornian Heresy.
- Angron's backstory as the leader of a Gladiator Revolt on Nuceria is almost how it is in canon, but Horus was able to convince the Emperor that teleporting Angron to his flagship would only make him resent the Emperor. Instead, the Emperor and the Luna Wolves supported Angron's Slave Revolt, making the slavers flee instead of fighting. Furthermore, Angron's brain was not yet as damaged by the Butcher's Nails as it was in canon, enabling the Emperor to remove the malevolent implant without killing his son. The War Hounds were still renamed to the World Eaters, but they were never given their own Butcher's Nails.
- Bald of Evil: Much like Horus of the Horus Heresy, Dorn became completely bald after becoming the Arch-Traitor in the Dornian Heresy.
- Beauty Equals Goodness: Played with. The Blood Angels are, at first, beautiful, and they are the most devoted traitors. Their beauty is fake, however. It is explicitly Glamour. Fulgrim and The Emperor's Children are beautiful and loyal, but they are not kind. This could be taken to go from Good Is Not Soft all the way to Nominal Hero. Fulgrim serves the Emperor and mankind seemingly loyally. He is, however, cruel to Vulkan upon his discovery, and this is one contributing factor to the latter's choice to side with chaos.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: The former leaders turned chaos cultists on Angron's homeworld betray the Imperium after Ishtavan. The World Eaters retake it. So, the cultists decide to just blow it up.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted hard with the Blood Angels and Sanguinius. Played straight with Fulgrim and the Emperor's Children
- The City: Mundus Planus is reconquered by the Imperium and turned into a manufacturing/urban world. This is in contrast to its previous state as one part steppe, one part feudal but beautiful city. As the White Scars turned traitor, while not a nice place to live, this is not depicted as a bad thing.
- Disabled in the Adaptation: Canon Magnus is one-eyed, though how he got that way is Depending on the Writer. Here, Magnus' loss of one eye was attributed to a demon of Tzeentch taking out one of his eyes as an infant before his incubation pod crashed on Prospero, his missing eye being replaced with an "ugly welt of scar tissue". And after the Council of Nikea, Magnus privately approached the Emperor with a request to perform the soul-binding ritual on him and the Thousand Sons, both as a protective measure against Chaos and to assure the Imperium of his legion's loyalties. The process rendered him completely blind, but gave him the ability of second sight in exchange.
- Duel to the Death: Perturabo, during the Siege of Terra, breaks through the Imperial Gates in hopes of coming to conduct one with Rogal Dorn. Instead, he finds Sanguinius. It doesn't end well for Perturabo.
- Fatal Flaw: Leman Russ' flaw is his Irrational Hatred towards psykers, especially Magnus the Red, despite him being his brother. What drove him to side with Chaos and become a Khorne worshiper is Magnus convincing the Emperor to perform the soul-binding ritual on him. The fact that the Emperor chose to do so, in Russ' eyes, is a traitorous act of the highest order, and he stormed out of the Council of Nikea in a rage.
- Fire-Forged Friends: The Emperor's Children and World Eaters, thanks to them fighting side by side against the Salamanders.
- Gone Horribly Right: Elaidanath was looking for a timeline in which the Death Guard did not turn traitor. Strictly speaking, he found one.
- Harsher in Hindsight: In-Universe Example. The Battle of Isshtavan should not have needed seven legions, and people knew this. Dorn said that it was just to be a show of force. In reality, it was to gather and cripple the most loyal and powerful legions for the upcoming heresy.
- Ignored Epiphany: Horus was lain low and almost killed by a disease on Davin. This, for a primarch, should be impossible, and should have indicated that strange happenings were about. No one took this lesson to heart until it was far too late.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: Downplayed, but present. The leaders of Angron's homeworld after the arrival of the Emperor and Horus do have a quick skirmish with the Imperial forces, but they are quickly defeated and flee. After Angron joins with the Emperor and Horus, the homeworld forces are fairly quick to step down, realizing that they cannot hope to defeat this outside force or maintain power against it.
- Lighter and Softer: As compared to the Horus Heresy. There is still at least one surviving loyalist primarch whose location is, to an extent, known, and there are fewer true traitors.
- Mirror Universe: The entire premise Dornian Heresy is this; while it remains Grimdark, it switches the places of the loyalists and traitors, and in almost every major event the alternate choice was made. The Emperor sided with Magnus during the Council of Nikea, and Magnus privately requested that the Emperor perform the soul-binding ritual on him and the Thousand Sons to protect them from the influence of Chaos, meaning that the Thousand Sons gained the power to banish and in some cases even outright destroy daemons. Angron had Horus and the Emperor side with him during the slave uprising on his world, resulting in him removing the canonical Butcher's Nails in his warriors. After the Heresy, the Legions were never broken up to make sure they could stay strong and root out traitors within their ranks. Ultramar was tricked into fighting the Alpha Legion and Word Bearers, resulting in them becoming a third power, meaning that they were no longer held by the rules of the Imperium and began to tinker with their technology. Lorgar chose to declare a holy war upon Chaos rather than siding with them. And, most shocking of all, Abbadon became a tactical genius!
- Poor Communication Kills: Kind of, and played for tragedy. Jaghatai Khan left several White Scars on Chogoris. After the Siege of Terra ended, an Imperial Force was sent to reconquer the world. Khan had instructed the defenders to trust no one but him and the Emperor himself. The result was that the Chogoris White Scars defended the planet unflinchingly, thinking that they were the ones loyal to the Emperor and his vision. The Imperials only found this out after winning the day and killing these marines almost to a man. This is, therefore, a conflict born of misunderstanding that could have been avoided had the belligerents communicated. It is likely that it is what the Khan wanted, however, or at least likely that he would not be displeased with the result.
- Religion of Evil: The old leaders of Angron's Homeworld lose their de jure power, but not their wealth or influence. After the betrayal at Isshtavan, they turned to worshiping chaos.
- The Rival: A fair few sets of primarchs are personal rivals. Most prominent are probably Dorn/Perturabo and Guilliman/Alpharius.
- Salt the Earth: This is the only way to prevent the corruption of The Raven Guard from spreading.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: On occasion, Dornian Heresy characters are very clear substitutes for Horus Heresy ones. This can be either from the perspective of the overall narrative, or simply the personalities of the involved characters. Sometimes, the traits of two or more ay characters are also mixed into one Dornian Heresy equivalent.
- Dornian Heresy Konrad Curze fills largely the same role as Horus Heresy Sanguinius. Both are almost unabashedly heroic, both have prophetic visions of the future, both have a great deal of love for their father the Emperor, and both sacrifice themselves in a clearly doomed battle against their respective Arch traitor. In this case, the substitution is narrative.
- Dornian Heresy Sigsimund of the Imperial Fists is largely the equivilent to Horus Heresy Abaddon. Both are amongst the highest-ranked members of the Arch Traitor's legion, and both declare their primarch a failure after their respective Heresies, going on to reform their legion into a new, general traitor legion. Indeed, this is so much the case that they found the very same legion: The Black Legion.
- There is relatively little separating a Loyalist Perturabo from a Loyalist Dorn, though the treacherous versions of these two differ highly.
- Kharn the Deathless is essentially an amalgamation of Horus Heresy Lucius due to his unkillable nature and Horus Heresy Dante due to him returning from death's door after a vision from his primarch instructed him that he did not yet have permission to rest and instead had to live on and lead the legion.
- The Lord of the Hunt, however, is the real Dornian equivalent of Lucius the Eternal, both being members of the Slaneeshi legion who, when killed, take over the body and identity of their killer.
- Starfish Alien: To an extent, the Laer. Because they're not just Xenos; they're chaotic.
- Start of Darkness: Most traitor legions have one. See their character pages for details.
- Penal Colony: The homeworld/homemoon of Corvus Corax, Lycaeus, is one of these at the time he lands on it.
- Unbuilt Trope: Unlike most of its spiritual successors, the Dornian Heresy is a near-complete reversal of the canon traitor and loyalist primarchs, but not a total one. Some are switched, such as Dorn and Horus, but others, like the Ultramarines and Raven Guard, loyalists in canon, are not simply made traitors. To wit, the Ultramarines do not fall to chaos in the Dornian Heresy. Rather, they secede from the Imperium but remain a pro-human, non-chaotic faction. The Raven Guard do turn traitor, but Corvus Corax, their primarch, does not. The reason for this being a case of the tropes being unbuilt and not an intentional subversion is that this was the first well-known Alternate Heresy. It didn't defy the convention; that convention did not yet exist, and was formed primarily from a somewhat-simplified picture of the Dornian Heresy.
- Undying Loyalty: Downplayed with Horus, played straight with Angron and Lorgar, and exemplified most in Corvus Corax.
- Upbringing Makes the Hero: This applies to all of the primarchs, heroic or not. See their Character pages for details.
- Villain with Good Publicity: It is a fairly minor example, but, from the time of Konor Guilliman's death up to Roboute Guilliman's Too-Late Realization, Gallan.
