Short answer
The Emperor is the most powerful human psyker ever to exist. He united Terra, created the Primarchs and the Space Marines, and led the Great Crusade to rebuild humanity's empire. Mortally wounded by his favorite son Horus, he now sits on the Golden Throne: barely alive, worshipped as a god, and powering the light that guides ships through the warp.
Origins
The background places his birth in Anatolia around 8000 BC. According to the lore, he was born from the reincarnated souls of a council of ancient shamans and lived through human history in secret, ageless and hidden. Over millennia he guided events from the shadows, waiting for humanity to need him.
That moment came at the end of the Age of Strife, when warp storms cut Terra off from the rest of humanity's worlds. The Emperor stepped into the open, won the Unification Wars with his Thunder Warriors, and brought Terra under one rule.
The Great Crusade
To reconquer the galaxy, the Emperor created twenty superhuman sons: the Primarchs. Before they could grow up, the Chaos Gods scattered the infants across the galaxy. The Emperor built the Space Marine Legions from their genetic material instead, then set out on the Great Crusade, finding his lost sons one by one and putting each at the head of his Legion.
He found eighteen. Two Primarchs are missing from the records entirely, and the Imperium has erased all knowledge of them.
The Horus Heresy
When the Emperor returned to Terra, he named Horus Warmaster to lead the Crusade in his place. Horus was corrupted by Chaos, and half the Legions followed him into civil war. The rebellion ended in the siege of Terra itself.
The Emperor teleported aboard Horus's flagship, the Vengeful Spirit, and faced him in single combat. He destroyed Horus utterly, but he was left close to death.
The Golden Throne
The Emperor's broken body was placed on the Golden Throne, an ancient life-support machine. He has stayed there for 10,000 years. Every day, psykers are sacrificed to sustain him.
His mind still does two jobs the Imperium can't survive without. It powers the Astronomican, the psychic beacon that lets navigators steer through the warp, and it holds back daemons that would otherwise reach Terra.
Is he a god?
In life, the Emperor rejected worship and preached a secular "Imperial Truth". After the Heresy, the Imperial Cult declared him a god, and its church, the Ecclesiarchy, became one of the most powerful institutions in the Imperium. Whether he's becoming a god in the warp is one of the setting's deliberate open questions.
Timeline
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| c. 8000 BC | Born in Anatolia, a perpetual psyker who lives through human history in secret. |
| Late M30 | Ends the Age of Strife on Terra in the Unification Wars. |
| M30 | Creates the twenty Primarchs. All twenty are scattered across the galaxy as infants. |
| M30–M31 | Leads the Great Crusade to reunite humanity's lost worlds, finding eighteen Primarchs. |
| M31 | The Horus Heresy: half the Legions follow Horus into rebellion. |
| End of the Heresy | Defeats Horus aboard the Vengeful Spirit but is mortally wounded. |
| M31–M42 | Interred on the Golden Throne, kept alive for 10,000 years. |
Corin Ashdown is the pen name of the editor who writes and checks every guide on Vorbelutrioperbir. How we write and check guides.