Vulkan was one of the 20 superhuman primarchs and a Perpetual created by the Emperor of Mankind from altered versions of His own DNA to lead his Great Crusade and reunite the scattered peoples of Humanity within the Imperium of Man. The XVIIIth Legion, created from Vulkan's genome and originally known as the Dragon Warriors, was re-named the Salamanders after the great fire-resistant reptiles native to his volcanic homeworld of Nocturne in memory of the legendary contest between the Emperor and Vulkan that had involved slaying one of those dangerous beasts. The outcome of this contest had revealed the Emperor's identity to Vulkan and restored the Primarch to the Imperium. Approximately a thousand standard years after the Horus Heresy, Vulkan hid 9 sacred artefacts he had created around the galaxy for the Salamanders to find, intended as a test to see if they were worthy of his leadership. He then disappeared, leaving his genetic sons with the message that whenever the Forgefather of