The Emperor of Mankind

Founder and god of the Imperium, kept alive on life support for ten thousand years.

The Emperor of Mankind is the founder of the Imperium of Man in Warhammer 40,000, who united humanity millennia before the setting's present. He is the centre of the Imperium's state religion and its nominal ruler, but he was mortally wounded in battle and now lives on life support in a vegetative state.

Quick Facts

Role: founder and nominal ruler of the Imperium
State: on life support
Inspirations: Leto II (Dune), King Huon (Runestaff)

Lore & Background

Even in that condition his mind generates the Astronomican, the psychic beacon by which starships navigate the Warp. The character was inspired by fictional god-kings such as Leto Atreides II from Frank Herbert's God Emperor of Dune and King Huon from Michael Moorcock's Runestaff novels, and the fall of his favoured sons to Chaos deliberately parallels the fall of Satan in Paradise Lost.