Lost amidst the endless temples, fortresses, and hive acrologies that have long since covered
Holy Terra, there can be found a lone mountain.
Upon its harsh granite face have been carved the stern visages of four warrior kings, to
which countless pilgrims now offer sacrament.
Who these men were that the Imperium of Man should choose to honor them in such a way,
upon the divine soil of the throneworld itself, has long since been lost to the ages.
They are venerated simply as nameless heroes, and that is enough for the faithful.
The notion that such figures might predate the Imperium itself died upon the lips of
historical scholars who perished millennia ago and if any thought to assert such claims
now, they would surely be executed for heresy.
Yet this lone mountain is in truth, one of the last surviving links between the Imperium
and the ages of mankind that came before.
A few across the Imperium have unlocked the secrets to an unnaturally long life.
Some among their number can remember the fiery nightmare of the Horus Heresy when the Imperium
was nearly split asunder.
Fewer still might have even seen the unrivaled glories of the Great Crusade, or the terrible
and mysterious “Dark Age of Technology”.
Perhaps, there may even be a blessed few who have persisted for so long that they might
share firsthand accounts of how mankind first spread across the galaxy, how industry was
brought to Mars, or give names to those four kings, carved onto the face of a lone mountain.
But across the million worlds of the Imperium of Man, there is but a single soul that can
undeniably be said to have witnessed these events and so much more.
A single soul that spans the eternity of mankind’s existence.
A single soul that connects humanity both to its past, and to whatever future it might
have remaining.
He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the gods and master of a million worlds by
the might of his inexhaustible armies.
He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology.
He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium, for whom a thousand souls die every day, for whom
blood is drunk and flesh eaten.
Human blood and human flesh – the stuff of which the Imperium is made.
He is the God Emperor of Mankind.
In life, the Emperor was the perfection of mankind, a manifestation of the ultimate potential
of his species.
There was no field in which he did not excel, no physical or mental test in which he exhibited
anything less than transcendent talent.
He was a peerless statesman, military leader, philosopher and scientist.
Seemingly immortal, he was able to craft his mind and body across countless lifetimes,
but his experience accounts for only a fraction of his ability.
The Emperor was a psyker, able to draw power from the extra-dimensional realm known as
the Immaterium.
His capabilities here were likewise unequalled, and there were few beings to have ever existed
across reality that demonstrated his same level of control or raw psychic strength.
In death, the Emperor is a shattered wreck, more corpse than man, yet clinging to life
through both his own inexorable will, and the wondrous forgotten technologies of the
Golden Throne.
His physical body is a frail, withered husk, a prison of flesh.
For ten thousand years he has sat immobile and silent.
Only his mind endures, yet locked in an eternal battle against the ruinous powers within the
Immaterium.
So long as he remains, there is hope for the galaxy.
Yet should he fall, all reality would be lost beneath a tide of demonic madness and despair.
How a being such as the Emperor first came to walk among mankind is likely beyond human
understanding.
There are many within the Imperium who would claim that the Emperor has always existed
in some form, and to suggest otherwise is the highest form of heresy.
Countless trillions have been put to death for interpreting the Emperor in a fashion
outside of the sanctioned Imperial Cult, and to think a reputable account of his origins
might be found in such a regime is to invite madness.
And yet records within the Library Sanctus appear to shed light on his beginnings, though
none but the Emperor himself can say for sure to what degree such stories reflect reality.
According to ancient texts, the being that would become the Emperor was born some 50,000
years ago in a long forgotten region of Terra.
Some accounts claim he was intended to be the first and greatest of a new race of human
psykers, a collective reincarnation of extinct shamans, sorcerers and wise-men who had guided
humanity during prehistoric times.
For thousands of years before becoming the Emperor, he guided and watched humanity develop.
He travelled the glove, assuming countless names and identities.
Sometimes adopting the persona of a great leader or advisor, a crusader, religious leader
or even messiah.
More often however, he remained an unknown contributor to events, influencing their outcomes
in a way that did not betray his involvement.
Whatever his actions, all were ultimately in the service of humanity, guiding his race
along a path of survival that he alone could see.
As more and more humans were born with the same ability to shape the powers of the Immaterium,
the Emperor realized he would need to take a more direct and open role in mankind’s
affairs than ever before.
The collapse of the Age of Technology brought about a time of ruin and without the Emperor’s
guidance, mankind would perish.
The Emperor’s first appearance in modern Imperial Records is as one of the many petty
warlords who struggled for control of Terra during the 30th millennium.
His brilliant campaigns against the other techno-barbarian warlords of the planet set
him apart however, as did his use of genetically engineered warriors.
Through his creations, most notably the superhuman Thunder Warriors, the Emperor reunited the
planet, but only at terrible cost.
The last casualties of the Unification Wars were the Thunder Warriors themselves, struck
down by the Emperor’s superior creations, lest their growing corruption tarnish everything
they’d fought to achieve.
Yet the Emperor’s greatest ambition were the Primarchs, 20 superhuman beings whose
genomes had been designed using his own genetic code as a foundation.
Once matured, they would be his greatest generals, diplomats and statesmen.
The power of the Emperor however had been recognized by the malevolent entities of the
Immaterium, and seeking to disrupt his plans, they cast out his 20 sons across the galaxy.
In the absence of his generals, the Emperor instead worked to craft his armies.
Using genetic samples derived from each of the Primarchs, the Emperor raised legions
of new superhuman warriors, the Astartes, and began his reconquest of the Solar System.
Through expert diplomacy, the Emperor forged a crucial military and political alliance
with Mars, cementing the foundation of the Imperium of Man.
With the industry of Mars, alien slavers were cast off the moons of Saturn and Jupitor,
and the Emperor turned his eyes towards the greater galaxy.
The Great Crusade has achieved a legendary status within the Imperium, surpassed only
by the Emperor himself.
The reports of victories and triumphs over xenos races, heretics and lost human dominions
are so numerous as to be essentially endless.
It was an era of rebuilding, reunification, and the rapid redevelopment of technologies
long thought lost.
The Emperor sought to unite all humanity under his banner and ensure human supremacy across
the galaxy.
With each new world brought under Imperial Compliance, his resources grew, accelerating
the process nearly exponentially.
But the Great Crusade also brought the Emperor back into contact with his lost sons, and
not all had grown to be the men he had intended them to be.
The galaxy they were cast into was one of brutal terrors and cruelty.
While all among the Primarchs had become expert statesmen, powerful warriors and wise philosophers,
many exhibited very human failings; fear, hate, arrogance and jealousy.
Yet the Emperor remained confident enough in their abilities to turn the Great Crusade
over to their care, and in particular, his favored son, Horus Lupercal.
The Emperor returned to Terra to personally oversee the construction of th eImperial webway.
This was his ultimate goal, a new means of faster than light travel that would forever
free mankind from its reliance on the Immaterium, and protect it from the depredations of Chaos
that lay within.
But the ruinous powers of the Immaterium had long since realized the threat to their existence
posed by the Emperor and moved to thwart his ambitions.
Through their manipulation of the Primarchs, the Chaos Gods convinced nine among their
number to betray the Imperium.
Horus himself had become their greatest prize and together with his brothers launched a
decisive strike against the work of their father.
The tragedies of the Horus Heresy are without number, yet none so cruel as its final turning
point.
As the Imperial Palace on Terra burned at the hands of the Chaos legions and demonic
hordes, the Emperor confronted Horus aboard his flagship the “Vengeful Spirit”.
The battle between the Emperor and Horus was like nothing the universe had ever seen, before
or since.
The powers unleashed were simply beyond comprehension.
The Emperor had confronted Horus as a means to end the conflict in a single stroke, but
according to legend, found himself unable to kill a son he still truly loved.
It is said Horus tore off one of his fathers arms, shattered many of his organs, and still
the Emperor refused to deliver a killing blow.
From what accounts survived, it appears that it was only when Horus casually and cruelly
flayed a man alive who attempted to intervene, that the Emperor realized his son was truly
lost.
The Psychic energies that destroyed Horus, tore his soul from reality in a manner that
blotted the archtraitor from all existence.
It was an act of destruction so final that not even the powers of the Chaos Gods could
save or revive their fallen champion.
But the act had come too late, the Emperor was mortally wounded.
His final instructions to the loyal son that found his crippled body described how to modify
the Golden Throne.
It had been intended to form the heart of the Imperial Webway, now it would be an arcane
form of life support, holding together the Emperor’s crumbling body.
Through his will, the Astronomicon would be projected, a psychic beacon allowing travel
through the immaterium and the survival of mankind.
For ten thousand years the Emperor has persisted atop the Golden Throne, his spirit guiding
an Imperium that has become a grim mockery of his original intentions.
In the Great Crusade, the Emperor brought to the Imperium a materialistic, atheistic
faith based on reason and science, rejecting all vistages of irrationality and superstition.
Now, superstition and irrationality rule over all, with the Emperor’s true values derided
as heresy and witchcraft.
The Emperor fought to purge all forms of religious faith, and break the power it had always had
over humanity.
Now, the Emperor himself is venerated as a god, worshipped by countless souls as humanity’s
divine protector.
The Emperor’s ultimate goal was to rid humanity of the influence of the ruinous powers.
Now the fates of both have intertwined to such an extent that it may be impossible to
ever reverse.
With his ascension to the status of a deity, the nuances of his personality and character
have been lost.
Was the Emperor a loving father to his sons and all humanity?
Or a cold and calculating tyrant whose brutal methods tarnished his eventual triumphs?
The truth is likely somewhere in between, but now impossible to know for certain.
Regardless, the being who today sits atop the Golden Throne is likely far different
than the man who was interned within it.
With each passing year, it is said that the power of the Golden Throne grows weaker, and
the Astronomicon it projects across the galaxy diminishes with it.
Only the greatest tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus know the truth, the Golden Throne
is failing and well beyond their ability to repair.
The Emperor is dying, and his fate may be inevitable.
The emergence of the Great Rift is yet another mortal wound.
The Imperium has been severed in two and tens of thousands of worlds are now caught upon
the very gates of hell.
Titanic warp storms roar across the galaxy, and everywhere, civilizations are tormented,
enslaved and altogether destroyed by demonic legions.
Many have proclaimed this to be the Time of Ending.
In such a dark and terrible era, the followers of the ruinous powers are jubilant.
They ridicule the servants of the Imperium, deriding the God Emperor as a corpse lord,
carrion god, a false god.
But the four ruinous powers of Chaos; Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh and Tzeentch have another
name for the Emperor, not one born out of mockery, but one perhaps, out of fear.
They know him as the Anathema for there is no greater embodiment of universal order,
and even in his ruined state, no more potent foe of Chaos.
The Chaos Gods believe themselves to be on the cusp of their ultimate triumph, but even
they cannot ignore the unprecedented events taking place across the galaxy.
Even as untold worlds are swept beneath a tide of demonic madness, the influence of
the Emperor is exerting itself upon the mortal plane in ways never seen before.
While the Emperor in life admonished those who named him a god worthy of adoration, in
death, he has become this and possibly, something more.
The worship of countless trillions has undoubtedly had an effect on the power of the Emperor,
rippling across the Immaterium in ways impossible to truly understand.
The few individuals privileged enough to enter the Golden Throne have come back with the
unshakeable feeling that even as his mortal body fails, his spirit and will have only
grown in power.
The Ruinous Powers of Chaos have faced mortal champions and armies, only to corrupt them,
manipulate them or else drown them in a tide of blood and death.
They have faced the progress of technology and the power of science, only to pervert
their use into crafting ever more grotesque augmentations for their followers.
They have faced rival gods, only to consume, shatter, or imprison every rival pantheon
set against them.
But in orbit of Holy Terra as the galaxy burned, they faced the Emperor, only to witness their
greatest champion, one imbued with all their power, struck down so completely as to be
beyond even their ability to save.
The Chaos Gods fear the Emperor not for his champions or armies, his promises of science
and technology, or even his ability to wield the powers of a god.
They fear the Emperor because he has become something more, something that for ten thousand
years has endured all the fury and corruption they could muster without hesitation.
They fear the Golden Throne is no longer keeping his decrepit body intact, but rather constraining
his ever growing abilities.
They fear that one way or another, should the Emperor ever rise from his internment,
he will do so not as a man, not as a god, but as a kind of power that reality has never
seen.