God-Emperor
The God-Emperor is a canon character, detailed here on Lexicanum. This article provides additional fanon details and history.
The God-Emperor is the founder, de jure (and previously de facto) ruler and deity of the Imperium of Man. Functionally immortal and ageless, possessed of immense psychic power and knowledge, the Emperor manipulated and guided humanity from behind the scenes for millennia before revealing Himself and unifying Terra - and then the human galaxy - under his rule, a rule which has endured for ten thousand years.
Known in academic circles as the myth of the Proto-George, taking its name from a saint of a dominant pre-Unity cult, the mythological kernel is the defeat of a monstrous winged creature by a lone knight in defense of an innocent. This is present in the mythostructure of many cultures and while peripheral details vary greatly, the core elements remain identical; the beast is winged, impervious to normal weapons, threatening a helpless innocent or innocents, defeated by a lone hero, and is defeated but not killed in the initial encounter, instead being rendered impotent and imprisoned.
The genesis of the myth of the Proto-George is the defeat of Mag'ladroth the Void Dragon by the Emperor in M1 or M2. Perhaps-allegorical accounts describe the Emperor as a lone warrior knight wearing golden armor and a scarlet-plumed helmet, riding on a mighty charger of midnight-black and wielding a tall lance of purest silver, from which flew a long red and white banner depicting a soaring eagle grasping a bolt of lightning. He fought the Dragon (described as being half crawling beast with talons like scythe blades and half loathsome bird, with an immense scaled head, a tail twenty meters long, malignant fire in its eyes, plate-like scales rippling like liquid mercury, and the light of devoured stars shining in its breast) and defeated it by thrusting his sword at a weak spot beneath the Dragon's left wing and then tied his banner around the helpless Dragon, although he was unable to destroy it completely. It was imprisoned beneath the sands of Mars in the Noctis Labyrinth.
Origin and Pre-Unity Period
The origins of the Emperor are unknown, although there are various and conflicting stories. What is clear, however, is that He was active on Earth from the very earliest period of human civilization (if not before) and carefully manipulated mankind's development throughout history, guiding their development on a path only He could see. Many of his interventions were so subtle or long-term as to be unnoticeable even in hindsight, but others have passed down to chroniclers as mytho-historical events. One of these is the defeat of the Dragon.The Great Crusade
During His reconquest of the galaxy, the Emperor was accompanied by Verity to Ophelia VII, where He led the charge in the final battle of the Pacification of Ophelia (exterminating the Garrison as a species). After Verity was interred with the Seraph in the Crystal Vault, it was the Emperor who laid down the edict concerning the mountains.The Horus Heresy
At the climax of the Horus Heresy, the Emperor personally fought the arch-traitor Horus, defeating and killing him but being mortally wounded in the process. He was interred in the Golden Throne, a piece of archaeotech discovered beneath the sands of Asia which had allowed access to the Eldar webway but now was modified into a psychic life-support system. For ten-thousand years, the Emperor has endured a hideous life-in-death, sustained by the awful sacrifice of a thousand human psykers a day, guiding and protecting the Imperium from the threat of Chaos. Although the operation of the Golden-Throne was understood by the Emperor well enough for him to not only use it for its (presumed) original purpose of allowing access to the Webway but also to direct its modification into a psychic life-support system after His mortal wounding, many of its secrets remained hidden and its ultimate genesis was unknown. It was always presumed to be an artifact of the Dark Age of Technology, a period when the technological sophistication of mankind reached an apex only rivaled by its hubris and its spiritual strength sunk to its lowest nadir. But this was always an assumption was was never proven and which many privately doubted.The Ophidian Crusade
In the second century of the 42nd millennium, Danforth Laertes and his entourage came to Terra, seeking to prevent the last of the Serpents from freeing itself and awakening Mag'ladroth the Void Dragon. They were too late to prevent the escape of Jinlong from its imprisonment by the Shadowkeepers in the Dark Cells beneath the Imperial palace, and the "Golden Dragon" threatened the very Golden Throne itself. It demonstrated a horrifying understanding and even control over the Throne, blasphemously revealing a xenos origin of the sacred seat of the God-Emperor. The Golden-Throne stopped working, the psychic life-force of the bound psykers no longer feeding the Emperor. It was only through the sacrifice of Alicia Laertes, finally falling to the Black Rage and hallucinating she was Sanguinius fighting to defend the Imperial Palace from Ka'Bandha, that Jinlong was delayed long enough to allow her brother to offer his life to the Emperor to sustain Him despite the failure of the Throne. Empowered by the willing sacrifice of the soul of a primaris psyker all at once, the Emperor was invigorated enough to banish Jinlong back to the Dark Cells, thus restoring the Throne to function.Divine Symbols & Sigils
Eagle, thunderbolt (personal symbols). The two-headed aquila (the Imperium as a whole)
Holidays
Feast of the Emperor's Ascension, Sanguinala
Divine Classification
God
Church/Cult
Children
