Okay, can the peanut gallery clear this up for me.
Primarchs can be scared, there is all sorts of references to scaring in the books, Big G has one on his neck.
Buuut, apparently Primarchs can not be tattooed? I heard in Angel Exterminatus, Fulgrim approaches Perturabo with a snake tattoo that is fading due to his biology.... But if Primarchs can heal away a tattoo, why not a scar?
So fandom... Which is right?
In the case of Guilliman, it's a very specific scar; it's the throat cuts inflicted on him by Kor Phaeron and Fulgrim. Both of those injuries are explicitly stated to have damaged and scarred his soul. That's why Fulgrim's poison worked so well on him, and why he continues to feel a sort of hollowness outside of the Armor of Fate. His soul is permanently damaged. I don't think it's ever said outright, but I've always assumed that Guilliman's scar is more like a physical manifestation of something Warpy, rather than regular old scarring.
For comparison, consider the Alpha Legion assassination attempt in Unremembered Empire. Guilliman is pretty badly wounded by the end of it--multiple broken ribs, gunshot wounds, etc. Anything similar would scar a baseline human--hell, it would scar an Astartes. But after a few days of recovery, we don't hear anything about Guilliman's injuries. There's no physical therapy, no lingering aches, no nothing. It's safe to say that he made a full recovery with no scarring.
Presumably Fulgrim didn't use an athame to tattoo/scarify his literal soul, hence why his tattoo faded after a while. Though tattooing your soul does sound pretty Slaaneshi to me.
But one problem.... Angron.
He is very often described as scared and has ritualistic scaring on his torso, apparently its a Nician gladiator tradition of after a victory, cutting yourself and rubbing some dirt in the wound, I think it's call a victory chain or something?
.................i think the horus heresy guys needed to sit down and talk out the basic rules of the setting a bit more ><
Vulkan has tattoos and scars all over his body.
" Vulkan was stooped over a worktable – the heavy bench had been set onto a plinth, but it still barely came up to the primarch’s waist. He was stripped down to the inner harness of his war-plate, revealing jet-black skin marked across every square centimetre with scars, tattoos and brand marks."
Gav Thorpe "Beast must die"
Maybe he knows some special ways how to save it.
