The Only One They Fear Is Him (Legendary Figures WIP) (Patreon)

Hello!

And so we've come to the Big E Himself!  Without hyperbole, the Emperor is the most important character in 40K.  Every war the Imperium has ever waged has been in His name.  And every book starts with a blurb describing how a thousand souls are sacrificed to the Emperor daily so He may never truly die. His battle against thirsting gods is the focal point that defines the setting and the main reason why it works so well.  

The Emperor's backstory has always been vague and reinterpreted between editions/writers so I'll try to stick with what's been consistent.  He was apparently born in Central Anatolia (modern day Turkey) in 8000 B.C. and is one of the first humans to reach the next major evolutionary milestone.  Seemingly immortal, the Emperor has made it His goal to elevate the rest of humanity alongside Him.  To that end, the Emperor took on different personas throughout the millenia, from spiritual leaders to charimatic personas which influenced the course of human history.  It would take forever to list all things the Emperor had a hand in, but I will say He has been playing a very long galactic chess game.  Between the Mechanicus, Custodes, Thunder Warriors, Primarchs, Space Marines and Webway Project the Emperor's ultimate plan was to unite every human in the galaxy under His aegis.  By doing this, the Emperor would have defeated the forces of Chaos, who He recognized as the greatest danger to life in the galaxy.  

In turn, the Ruinous Powers consider the Emperor as the ultimate threat to their existence.  Even the primarchs are merely pawns in their Great Game, but the big four fear Him like no other.  While Chaos corrupts pretty much everything, with the Emperor it's actually the other way around.  Lesser Daemons who stand in His presence are burned out of existence and even Greater Daemons cannot survive His aura.  The Ruinous Powers have labelled the Emperor as the Anathema, the direct opposition of Chaos which is a level of respect they give no other opponent.  And the fact that it take four cosmic entities pooling their resources to fight the Emperor on equal footing should give you a sense of how powerful He is.  

Anyways, the Horus Heresy and the timeline after that is pretty well documented so I won't go too deeply into it.  But I will say that the whole 'The Emperor Protects' mantra in the 40K setting isn't just empty rhetoric.  After Cadia fell and the Eye of Terror spilled into the galaxy, the Astronomican briefly went offline.  The moment this happened, Terra was immediately besieged by a daemonic incursion while the rest of the galaxy went more tits up.  The point I'm trying to make is while the Emperor sits on the Golden Throne, He is definitely active in the warp and has been keeping the galaxy from nose diving off a proverbial cliff.  If He wasn't fighting the Ruinous Powers throughout the millennia, the galaxy would have been much much worse (somehow).  

Recently, legendary Black Library author Dan Abnett gave an interview about the Emperor and Chaos in general.  If anyone's interested in these subjects, you can see the interview here. 

So I'd like to reiterate that the Emperor's current design isn't final.  I've tried to swap out some elements but if I get the impression there will be a lot of pushback from GW, I'll have to modify it further.  Still working on the Keeper of Secrets but it's coming along and honestly, I'm kind of freaking myself out while designing it.  Will show the WIP when it's more defined.  Stay tuned!