dracopticon said:

As I understand it, there is only one Emperor. The God-Emperor and the Emperor are the same entity. There are simply multiply beliefs concerning him. It's most noticable in the differences between the Imperial Creed and the [multiple] beliefs of the various Astartes Chapters. If you want something generic; the common people see the Emperor as the God-Emperor, a protector. The Astartes see him as their father and master, above their Primarchs of course.

He only became the God-Emperor because he had no choice in the matter. The Cult that gave birth to the current Imperial Creed [and the Ministorum] was spreading rapidly in the Great Crusade, despite the fact that it was against the law to worship any gods in the Imperium. The Ecclesiarchy didn't come into power until after the Horus Heresy, around M33 [or something like that.] It only exist because the Emperor knew the common people would need a center of faith, something to believe in, or the Imperium would fall.

The interesting part about the Emperor is that he isn't a god, not in the same way that the Eldar have gods, or the worshipers of Chaos have gods. He is extremely powerful, and before the Heresy he was naturally immortal [i'm assuming.] As he is now, he is certainly god-like, gifted and cursed with huge perspective and power, but even with ten thousand years worth of psyker souls to absorb, he isn't warp born. And the consumption of so many psykers is a two edged sword. On one hand, there is more to his intelligence, more of him, to watch the Imperium, but he isn't a cohesive whole. His will is starting to fragment. And when it finally fragments he will cease to exist, daemons will pour through the Golden Throne, his protection of the Imperium will fall etc etc.

There are rumors that he might ascend to become a true god as well, purely a being of the warp. I think that is in old, old lore though. Look up the Starchild in a 40k wiki. I recommend Lexicanum.

igotsmeakabob!! said:

Nice speech, heretic. Any last words?

Alex

DJSunhammer said:

Kshatriya said:

Well, the Shamans had a set number of them. When that number started to decline, they made the effort to combine their essence just to maintain the power they had for humanities future.

The psykers are mentioned as being a mutation all over the place.

So, I think that although the two groups both draw power from the warp, they are different.

igotsmeakabob!! said:

Exactly! In Legion you get the idea that the consortium (some sort of quasi über beings group) painted the emperor as a bloodthirsty bastard. Someone they tried to recruit but failed because he wanted to go it alone. In the latest one, Outcast Dead , you see how the Emperor designed the original Thunder Warriors as a gene made warrior with a low shelf life. Take the planet then die off so as to not be a problem later. Although I had a few issues with Gav Thorpe's idea of how big they were. The Last Church is a great example as well, and one of my favorite of the Horus Heresy line. Come to think of it, most of the short stories are my favs.

As for 'the Emperor protects,' we always say, 'the Emperor protects those who protect themselves.'

AriasDerros said:

YES! I think so too. Hubris is so finger-tip-smacking-good when it comes to building stories on it! And everyone can be affected by it. Everyone.

To add to the Sisters comment. The Sisterhood of Silence did exist when the Emperor was still up and about during the Great Crusade. They were all blanks, and fought to capture psykers. I've heard two different things from sources, but either a group (known as null maidens, wearing bronze colored armor and sporting bald top knotted heads) were the only untouchables in their order, while the rest were simply skilled female fighters. Or they were all untouchables, I wasn't able to find the full answer. They also had black ships (much like the ones in the 41st M) that they used to detain the psykers they caught. So other then the ecclesiarchy needing a way around having an army, the Sisterhood of Silence may have been an inspiration for the Sisters of Battle. The reason why I say this is because even thought they didn't believe the Emperor was a god. They were very ritualistic (all were under an oath of silence among many things) in their own right. When I read the Horus Heresy series myself it felt like they were proto Sisters of Battle. On the False Emperor deal, it is stated in The Last Heretic I believe (don't have it on me at the moment) that Sevatar 1st Captain of the Nightlords at a meeting between several of the "back up" legions that would head to Istvan V (dropsite massacre) was first to coin this phrase. This is at a time when not all the traitor legions are completely familiar with the chaos gods, or even completely worshipping them yet. So in my mind "Death to the False Emperor!" was more originaly linked to them wanting Horus as their Emperor, and being mad at the Emperor leaving the front lines etc. etc., Cheers Gentlemen!

Sorry if this have been said before
1- He holds them empire together via the Astronomicon (the light in the warp)
If you read the old Inquisitor game source book about Thorian Inquisitors, in it there is a story about a preacher who is scruffiest to Chaos but in death the emperor speaks to ham and bring him back to life unbound and close to his chainsword

2- Many CSM sees Horus as the true emperor of mankind, or at least under the heresy, I believe many of Black Legion wants Abbadon to be the emperor (source to the last is Soul Hunter novel)

- Erik

I am pretty sure that the Emperor would excecute a lot of people if he woke up and found up he was declared a god... after all his own creed goes against the exsistence of god... (this is in The flight of the Eisenstein i think)

that said, he might still intervine (or it might be make-belive, or that because just happens things 'cause people belive it - just like orc weapons)

there is however some beacon on Terra that helps ships navigate (but that could be something else i dunno...)

The Chaos warcry "Death to The False Emperor!" dates back to origins of Horus Heresy. Basically in order to understand it you must know a few basics about that time and Horus Heresy. First of all, Emperor never wanted to be worshipped. Instead he forbade any attempts to deify and worship his own person. The Word Bearer legion was severely chastised for worshipping Emperors person and the original Imperial Cult of those days was actually illegal. Almost all of the Primarchs actually shared the Emperors scientific and atheistic view of the world. All except Lorgar of Word Bearers actually believed that there ARE no gods and for a man to call himself or be worshipped as a god was ultimate hubris and heresy.

One of the reasons why Horus fell to chaos was because chaos powers showed him a glimpse of future where Emperor was worshipped as god, many of the primarchs were worshipped as saints but there was no sight of statue of Horus anywhere. Horus took this as a sign that Emperor had been using him and lying all along and after galaxy was fully conquered Emperor intended to discard a full half of primarchs, including Horus himself, aside and legalize the Imperial Cult, instating himself a new god. Horus would have none of that and proclaimed that he would lead the mankind to the bright new future... a vision which Horus believed Emperor had betrayed. Thus to the Luna Wolves, later Sons of Horus and even later Black Legion Horus was the "True Emperor of Mankind" and the original Emperor who had betrayed his own vision and broken his own rules was the "False Emperor".

The "Death to The False Emperor!" doesn't make much sense to a loyalist 10 000 years later who thinks there is only one Emperor and he is God. But it makes a whole lot of sense to renegades who think emperor is just a title.

Hi guys,

found this interesting topic and wondered if any of you GMs out there meddled with the idea of the "Return of the Emperor".

Regarding the information the Lexicanum provides that could be a campaign consideration, couldn´t it? Any inputs here?

Grimbeard said:

Absolutely. The premise of my long term meta campaign (A DH, RT, DW and another DW group) basically is the return (or death) of the Emperor of Mankind. Basically works off the idea that humanity was the final weapon developed by the Old Ones in their fight against the Necrontyr. Humans themselves meant nothing, they were just a delvery system for the final product - a nascent Old One. Those ancient gods couldn't breed, couldn't create more of themselves, so they tried to build a race that would give way to a single, perfect individual... then the War in Heaven was lost and the Old Ones were destroyed or vanished. Now the various PCs need to help gather the Primarchs forth, hold the Imperium together just long enough and then witness the Eldar race committing mass suicide to awaken the Old One Ynead - the Corpse God, the Lord of Death, the Emperor of Mankind.

Then **** gets interesting...

That sounds splendid!

My campaign evolves around the "Emperor´s sons" topic. Refering to the information in the Lexicanum they are connected to the "Star Child" and it is fun to see in which direction my player´s actions will bring all this. And of utmost interest will be - in case the Emperor returns - what his thoughts and actions might look like when he sees what his Empire evolved to (maybe he is a little corrupted too, you know everything has its price.)

O.K. this kind of campaign might be a little daring considering that the whole 40k setting is based on the Emperor enclosed in his Golden Throne - and officially FFG won´t go in that direction - but as a game experience in a self- written campaign I think it is well worth it, isn´t it?

Indeed! The various canon threads have been twisting lanquidly in this direction since the beginning. And you point to the very crux of the matter, grimbeard: just what does the Emprah do when it respawns? And how corrupt is it? And how do the eldar tie-in? (the prof's mass suicide idear sounds like something i've heard tell of somewhere...but how would they coordinate such a thing? and how would they 'convince' their dark cousins? and just what oh what will Chaos do?)

And let us not forget the living descendants of the Old Ones, ready to enact the ancient plan.......nor should we forget the fifth Chaos God....

Yeah, I toyed with the idea of the Emprah waking up as part of my campaign, but have saved it for a later one. This one is about Primarchs, not their dad. But some seriously cool ideas here - Malal is very important to all of this. I hope.