The God Emperor of Mankind. Named Anathema By The Forces Of Chaos
No one knows where the Emperor came from, or how old he is. The most prominent theory concerning his origin is the one of the shamans. Around 8000 BC, many thousands of Shamans (powerful psykers) realized that their souls, and those of humanity as a whole, were endangered by Chaos. The Shamans formed a conclave and decided to commit mass suicide. With thousands of powerful psyker souls entering the warp at the same time, they used their reincarnation to join together and form the “New man”, aka the Emperor, who was born somewhere in Anatolia (modern day Turkey). Beyond that, not much is known of the Emperor’s early life beyond small tidbits like talking with Ollanius Persson outside Ur. Unfortunately, we have very little when it comes to feats for the Emperor. But what we do have is quite impressive.
General Psychic Feats:
Forcing the entire Word Bearers legion (100k marines) to kneel. None could resist. ref: The First Heretic
Sight returned, banishing the grotesque feeling of helplessness. Such emotion was anathema, prickling at Argel Tal’s skin with a thousand insect legs. He managed to look through his dimmed visor, seeing a towering figure deep in a corona of agonising white light. Around the figure, cloaked and gold-armoured warriors hefted unique spears with practiced ease. Each one was the size of an Astartes, and no Astartes could fail to recognise them.
‘Custodes,’ he managed to speak through teeth gritted at the light’s intensity.
‘It’s…’ Xaphen stammered. ‘It’s the…’
‘I know who it is,’ Argel Tal exhaled the words through clenched teeth. And that’s when the voice hit him, hit them all, in a wave of invisible force.
+Kneel+ it whispered with the power of a hammer to the forehead. There was no resisting. Muscles acted instantly, no matter that many hearts fought not to obey. Argel Tal was one of them. This was not fealty, nor worship, nor service. This was slavery, and his instincts rebelled at the enforced devotion even as he obeyed it.
One hundred thousand Word Bearers kneeled in the dust of the perfect city, rendered prone by Imperial decree. A Legion was on its knees.
The Emperor raises his voice, and people go flying. Also causes Lorgar to suffer some minor bleeding. ref: The First Heretic
+LORGAR+
The voice came with a wall of pressure now, dense and all too tactile. It pounded into Argel Tal like a miasma of engine wash, heating his armour and throwing him to the ground. Around him, he could see his brothers sent sprawling, their armour skidding across the dust. Defiant in the cyclone of unseen energy, scrolls of scripture ripping from his armour, Lorgar raised his hand to point at his father.
‘You are a god. Say the words and end the lie.’
The Emperor shook his head, not in defeat, but calm defiance.
‘You are blind, my son. You cling to ancient perceptions, and endanger us all with them. Let this end, Lorgar. Let this end with you heeding my words.’
The psychic wind died with a peal of thunder. Lorgar stood where he was, trembling for reasons his warriors couldn’t discern. Blood ran from one ear, running in a slow trail down his tattooed neck.
I am listening, father,’ he said.
The Emperor reaches out to thousands of souls and influences their emotions. Also seems to mentally attack Magnus. ref: A Thousand Sons
THUS FAR, THE Emperor of Mankind had viewed the conclave’s proceedings from afar, an observer who hears all and deliberates without giving any clue to his thoughts. Now he moved to the edge of the dais, his armour shimmering in the light as the stars shone brightly once again. Ahriman tried to shift his consciousness into the Enumerations to keep his perceptions clear, but the power of the Emperor was too great and too magnificent to ever truly allow clarity of thought.
Every soul in the amphitheatre stared in wonder at this paragon of all that was good in humanity, the apotheosis of mankind’s dreams and hopes. His every word was seized upon and written in a thousand places, like the words once transcribed as the faithful recitation of a god from the forgotten ages. The scrivener harness of Mahavastu Kallimakus clattered to life in anticipation.
Thoughts of Kallimakus were forgotten as a warm sensation of approbation washed over him. Ahriman recognised this feeling for what it was, the influencing of another person by instilling a measure of your psyche into their aura. Ahriman could perform a similar feat, though on a handful of people at most. To reach out to so many thousands at once spoke of power beyond measure.
The Emperor’s sword was drawn, and his gaze locked with that of Magnus, as though they engaged in silent communion unheard by any others. Ahriman tore his gaze from the Emperor and saw that Magnus was pinned to his seat, his body rigid and his skin pale. His eye was tightly closed, and Ahriman saw an almost imperceptible tremor in his flesh, as though powerful currents of electricity were tearing through him.
“If I am guilty of anything, it is the pursuit of knowledge,” hissed Magnus through clenched teeth. “I am its master, I swear it.”
Ahriman could hear no more, for Magnus suddenly drew a gasping breath, like a drowning man upon finding the surface of an ocean.
The Emperor is capable of stopping time, allowing him to move while everyone else is frozen. He can also extend this effect to others. ref: The Inquisition War, False Gods
Bonus feat of the Emperor looking into the future!
Then time stopped and a blinding light filled the chamber.
Horus felt warm honey flow through him, and he turned towards the source of the light: a shimmering golden giant of unimaginable majesty and beauty. […]
Horus reached out towards the golden warrior as he turned his sad gaze to the incubation tanks held motionless above him, weighing the consequences of future events in the blink of an eye.
Horus could see the decision in the figure’s wondrous eyes and shouted ‘No!’
The figure turned from him and time snapped back into its prescribed stream.
The Emperor also was able to contain the psychic backlash from Magnus’s message for at least a month, until it finally broke through his defenses. ref: Outcast Dead
The Emperor was able to contact Kai Zulane in his dreams while Kai was hiding on Terra. ref: Outcast Dead
‘Stalemate,’ he said.
The figure spread his hands in an empty gesture of apology. ‘I know some people think me omnipotent, but there is a catch with being all powerful and all knowing.’
‘Which is?’
‘You can’t be both at the same time,’ said the figure with a wry smile.
‘So what happens now?’
‘I finish the game.’
‘This one?’ asked Kai, puzzled.
‘No,’ said the figure. ‘Our game is done, and I thank you for it.’
‘Will I see you again?’
His opponent laughed. ‘Who knows, Kai? If our game has taught me anything, it is all things are possible.’
‘But you’re going to die.’
‘I know,’ said the Emperor.
Kai opened his eyes and saw only blackness.
The Emperor is also capable of transforming his physical body, taking on a more unassuming (and human) appearance.ref: The Last Church, Vulkan’s origin story
The Emperor can repair damaged machines by touching them. ref: Mechanicum
’Machine, heal thyself,’ said the warrior, the purpose and self-belief in his voice passing into Verticorda as though infusing every molecule of his hybrid xistence of flesh and steel with new found purpose and vitality.
[…]
With one step, he could feel as Ares Lictor move as though it had just come off the assembly lines, its stubborn knee joint flexing like new.
The Emperor can heal people, fixing serious injuries, with a touch. ref: Deliverance Lost
"The Emperor reached out a hand and Corax felt hot fingers upon his brow. Energy flowed through the primarch, knitting his shattered bones, stemming his pouring blood, healing wounded muscles and organs. The primarch gasped, filled with love and adoration. ‘Stand.’ Corax did as the Emperor commanded, his strength restored."
The Emperor can grant powers, such as immortality to people. ref: Deliverance Lost
Dalia felt the heat in Semyon's hands spread into her flesh, a golden radiance that filled her with unimaginable well being. She wanted to cry out in ecstasy as she felt every decaying fibre in her body surge with a new lease of life, every withered cell and every portion of her flesh blooming as a power undreamed of filled her. Her body was reborn, filled with a sliver of the power and knowledge of a world's most singular individual, power and knowledge that had been passed down from Guardian to Guardian over the millennia, a burden and an honour in one unasked for gift. With that knowledge, her anger at the Emperor's deception was swept away as she saw the ultimate, horrifying fate of the human race bereft of his guidance. She saw his single-minded, pitiless drive to steer his entire race along a narrow path of survival only he could see, a life that allowed no love, few friends and an eternity of sacrifice. Dalia wanted to scream, feeling the power threaten to consume her, the awesome ferocity of it almost burning away all the things that made her who she was. She fought to hold onto her identity, but she was the last leaf on a dying tree and she felt her memories and sense of self subsumed into the fate the Emperor had decreed for her. At last the roaring power within her was spent, its work to remould her form complete, and she let out a great, shuddering breath as she realised she was still herself. She was still Dalia Cythera, but so much more as well. Semyon released her hands and stepped away from her with a look of contented release upon his face. 'Goodbye, Dalia,' said Semyon. The adept's skin greyed and his entire body dissolved into a fine golden dust, leaving only his aged robes to fall to the rocky floor. Dalia looked over at the hulking servitor that had accompanied the adept and was not surprised when it also disintegrated into dust.
See also the Living Saints, many of whom have otherworldly powered bestowed upon them by the Emperor. The Emperor has even raised some of them from the dead, like Saint Celestine or Saint Sabbat.
The Emperor's presence can blight even Astartes. ref: The First Heretic
The Emperor also blinded every native of Nocturne who looked at him directly when he first arrived, just by the shear power of his glowing aura.
And it wasn't the light of a teleport flare that forced him to avert his eyes. This, too, would have been compensated for by his armour’s internal sensors, dimming his eye lenses immediately. But he was blind. Blinded by gold, burning like molten metal. The vox shrieked with thousands of his brothers voicing the same malady, but the reports from his brethren were dull, half-lost in an assault of noise that shouldn't exist. It wasn't a fault with the vox, it was in his head – a crashing of waves loud enough to throw off his balance. Blind and almost deafened, Argel Tal felt his bolter slip from his grip. It took all his strength to remain standing.
The Emperor can impart knowledge and memories to people via his psychic powers. ref: Deliverance Lost
"'I concur,' the Master of Mankind said eventually. 'It is in your nature to cry havoc and wreak the same upon your foes. Yet there is no need for sacrifice. I am reluctant, but you have my trust, Corvus. I will grant you a gift, a very precious gift.'
Once more the Emperor reached out his hand and laid it upon Corax's head. For an eternity Corax was overwhelmed by the mind of the Emperor. An existence that had spanned more than thirty millennia tried to crowd into the primarch's thoughts, sending pain searing through him. In a moment the pain had ceased, the imprint upon his memories a shard of what had come before, the tiniest fraction of the Emperor's being. Still reeling from the psychic onslaught, Corax wondered if this was how the astrotelepaths felt during the Soul Binding, their minds conjoined with the psychic might of the Emperor. Flashes of new memories coursed through his thoughts, blocking out all other sensation, a succession of images burnt into his psyche. The primarch's body quaked with the sensation, rebelling against the patterns and images thrust into his brain."
Combat Feats:
Fighting the Orks on Gorro ref: The Wolf of Ash and Fire
Ork Description:
A thousand or more greenskins roared to see several hundred armoured warriors appear without warning in the midst of the wide chamber. Every ork was encased in rusted plates of hissing iron, strapped and bolted to their swollen bodies. Horus’s suspicion of a ruling tech class was all but confirmed at the sight of the wheezing pneumatics, cracking power generators and hissing, lightning-edged weapons.
Taking on hundreds of Orks without any trouble:
Then the Emperor was amongst them.
His sword was a bluesteel shimmer, too fast to follow with the naked eye. He moved through the orks without seeming to move at all, simply existing at one point to kill before appearing elsewhere to reap greenskin lives by the score. Each blow struck with the force of an artillery impact, and shattered bodies flew from his sword as though hurled aside by a bomb blast. Nor was his sword the Emperor’s only weapon.
His outstretched gauntlet blazed with white-gold fire, and whatever the flames touched disappeared in explosions of red cinders and ash. He battered orks to bonelessness with bludgeoning blows, he crushed them with invisible coils of force and he repelled their gunfire with thoughts that turned their rounds to smoke.
They came at him in their hundreds, like iron filings to the most powerful magnet, knowing they would never find another foe so deserving of their rage. The Emperor killed them all, unstoppable in his purity of purpose. A crusade of billions distilled in one numinous being.
Horus had fought alongside the Emperor for well over a century, but the sight of his father in battle still had the power to awe him. This was war perfected. Fulgrim could live a thousand lifetimes and never achieve anything so wondrous.
To give context to the strength of these Orks, Custodians and Terminators are having difficulty fighting them.
The Custodians hewed the orks with precisely aimed blows of their guardian spears. They could wield them in lethally inventive ways, but this was not the place for elaborate fighting styles. Here it was kill or be killed. Strikes that would end any other life form thrice over had to be repeated again and again just to put a single beast down.
The orks fought back with all the primal, animalistic fury that made them so dangerous. Even terminator armour could be breached, their legionaries killed. The orks were doing both.
At least a dozen Custodians were dead. Perhaps the same again in Justaerin. Horus saw Ezekyle go down, a colossal spiked mace, twice the height of a mortal, buried in his shoulder. An ork war-captain, ogryn-huge, wrenched the mace clear and swung the weapon around its immense body to deliver the death blow. A shimmering sword sliced in to block the descending mace. Bluesteel, two handed and wreathed in fire.
The Emperor rolled his wrist and the monstrous weight of the spiked head fell from its wire-wound haft. The Master of Mankind spun on his heel and the fire-edged sword licked out in a shimmering figure-of-eight.
The towering greenskin collapsed in four keenly-sliced segments. Its iron-helmed head still bellowed defiance as the Emperor bent to retrieve it from the deck. He waded into the orks, the roaring war-captain’s truncated torso in one fist, sword in the other.
The Emperor then falls into the core of Gorro, but since the story is from Horus’s perspective it happens offpage. Here is Horus following the same path, for comparison.
Horus dropped down through the scrapworld’s interior, a pearl-white angel trailing wings of fire as he fell. He’d jumped without a second’s hesitation, blind to any thought other than following his father.
The quake had ripped the structure of Gorro apart. Its sedimentary levels of agglomerated junk were coming undone. Layers were separating and compacted debris was crumbling as its structural integrity collapsed at an exponential rate.
That meant two things. Firstly, Horus was able to follow roughly the same route his father had fallen. And secondly, the spaces opening up below him were getting wider, meaning his descent was getting faster. He smashed down through warrens of dwelling caves, stinking feeding pits and labyrinthine workshops that blazed with emerald fire.
Horus endured impacts that would have killed even a legionary as the scrapworld’s death throes tossed him around like a leaf in a hurricane.
The Emperor is fighting many Primarch sized Orks:
As blinding and mesmerising as the runaway plasma reaction was at the scrapworld’s heart, it was to a beleaguered golden light that Horus’s eye was drawn. The Emperor was fighting his way through a howling mob of the largest greenskins Horus had ever seen. Most were the equal of a primarch in stature. One even dwarfed the Emperor himself. His father fought to reach a fragmenting ring of iron surrounding the blinding plasma core, but the greenskins had him surrounded.
This was a fight not even the Emperor could win alone. But he was not alone.
To give an idea of how powerful the Orks on Gorro are compared to regular Orks:
In the course of the Great Crusade, Sejanus had seen many examples of the crudely effective greenskin technology, but what lay beneath the surface of the scrapworld were orders of magnitude more advanced and abhorrent
Emperor fighting a huge Ork, almost losing, then cutting it in half and ultra-killing every one of those Primarch sized Orks in that huge chamber.
The Emperor fought an armoured giant twice his height and breadth. Its skull was a vast, iron-helmed boulder with elephantine tusks and chisel-like teeth that gleamed dully. Its eyes were coal-red slits of such vicious intelligence that it stole Horus’s breath.
Horus had never seen its equal. No bestiary would include its description for fear of being ridiculed, no magos of the Mechanicum would accept such a specimen could exist. Six clanking, mechanised limbs bolted through its flesh bore grinding, crackling, sawing, snapping, flame-belching weapons of murder. The Emperor’s armour was burning, the golden wreath now ashes around his neck. Chugging rotor cannons battered the Emperor’s armour even as claws of lightning tore portions of it away. It was taking every screed of the Emperor’s warrior skill and psychic might to keep the mech-warlord’s weaponry from killing him.
‘Father!’ shouted Horus.
The greenskin turned and saw Horus. It saw the desperation in his face and laughed. A fist like a Reductor siege hammer smashed the Emperor’s sword aside and a fist of green flesh lifted him into the air. It crushed the life from him with its inhuman power.
Seizing the chance he had been given, the Emperor bent low and surged upwards with his bluesteel sword extended. The tip ripped into the Mech-Warlord’s belly and burst from its back in a shower of sparks.
‘Now you die,’ said the Emperor, and ripped his blade up.
It was an awful, agonising, mortal wound. Electrical fire vented from hideous metal organs within the wreckage of the greenskin’s body. It was a murderous wound that not even a beast of such unimaginable proportions could take and live.
Yet that was not the worst of it.
Horus felt the build up of colossal psychic energies and shielded his eyes as a furious light built within the Emperor. Power like nothing he had ever seen his father wield, or even suspected he possessed. All consuming, all powerful, it was the power to extinguish life in every sphere of its existence. Physical flesh turned to ash before it and what ancient faiths had once called a soul was burned out of existence, never to cohere again.
Nothing would ever remain of he who suffered such a fate. Their body and soul would pass from the finite energy of the universe, to fade into memory and have all that they were wiped from the canvas of existence. This was as complete a death as it was possible to suffer.
That power blazed along the Emperor’s sword, filling the greenskin with killing light. It erupted in a bellowing golden explosion, and lightning blazed from the coruscating afterimage of its death, arcing from ork to ork as it sought out all those who were kin to the master of Gorro. Unimaginable energies poured from the Emperor, reaching throughout the entirety of the chamber and burning every last shred of alien flesh to a mist of drifting golden ash.
Horus watched as the power of life and death coursed through the Emperor, saw him swell in stature until he was like unto a god. Wreathed in pellucid amber flames, towering and majestic. His father never claimed to be a god, and refuted such notions with a vengeance. He had even castigated a son for believing what Horus now saw before him with his very own eyes…
The Emperor throwing the plasma core into the Warp. The Plasma core is at least a kilometre in diameter, and the after effects of the Emperor opening this rift will destroy the planet of Gorro.
Horus had no knowledge of the insane mechanics behind the greenskin power core, but any fool could see that it was spiralling to destruction. The powerful tremors shaking Gorro apart was evidence enough of that, but to see the bound starfire straining against its bonds was to know it for certain. Had the death of the Mech-Warlord been the final straw in breaking whatever bonds of belief held its monstrous power in check? How long would it be before it exploded? Horus had no idea, but suspected it would be long before any of them could escape the depths of the scrapworld.
‘This can’t be how it ends,’ whispered Horus.
‘No, my son,’ said his father, gathering the golden light within him once again. ‘It is not.’
The Emperor clenched his fists and the air around the seething plasma ball folded. It turned sickeningly inwards, as though reality was merely a backdrop against which the dramas of the galaxy were played out.
And where it folded, the spaces behind were horribly revealed, great abysses of crawling chaos and unlimited potential. Howling voids where the combined lives of this galaxy were but motes reflected in the cosmic dust storm. An empyrean realm of the never-born, where nightmares were birthed in the foetid womb of mortal lust. Things of void-cold form writhed in the darkness, like a million snakes of ebon glass coiled in endless, slithering knots.
Horus stared deep into the abyss, repulsed and fascinated by the secret workings of the universe. Even as he watched, the Emperor drew the fabric of the world together, sealing them around the greenskin plasma core. The effort was costing him dear, the golden light at his heart waning with every passing second.
And then it was done. A thunderous bang of air rushed to fill the void left by the plasma fire, and the backwash blew back into the chamber in a gale of sulphurous wind. The Emperor fell to one knee, his head bowed.
Horus was at his side a heartbeat later.
‘What did you do?’ said Horus, helping his father to his feet. The Emperor looked up, colour already returning to his wondrous features.
‘Sent the plasma core into the aether,’ said the Emperor, ‘but it will not last long. We must withdraw before the warp fold implodes and takes everything with it. The entire mass of this scrapworld will be soon crushed as surely as if it had fallen into the grip of a black hole.’
‘Then let’s get off this damn thing,’ said Horus.
The Emperor fights the Dragon of Mars
The Dragon is heavily implied to be the Void Dragon. The fight occurs off page, but we do have feats for C’Tan (which I will not include here) and some descriptions of the Dragon.** ref Mechanicus.
The Dragon once brought entire civilisations into existence and then snuffed them out on a whim, was worshipped as a god, devoured stars, and its scales were harder than steel, rippling light mercury when struck.
Fighting Horus:
The Emperor held back, and for his trouble got his arm ripped off, eye cut out, and back broken. When Horus killed Ollanius/Terminator/Custodes, the Emperor proceeded to destroy Horus just like he destroyed the Ork above. ref: Collected Visions
The Astronimcan:
A vast psychic beacon powered by 10 000 psykers and the Emperor, the Astronomican covers a great deal of the galaxy. The Astronomican is essentially a giant spiritual lighthouse used by the Navigator clans as a point of reference in the Warp. It also has some… interesting side effects in what is perhaps my favourite feat for Him-On-Terra. ref: Talon of Horus.
We can see that light. Those of us within the Empire of the Eye can actually see it. The Astronomican reaches even to our purgatorial exile, and to us it is no mere mystical radiance illuminating the warp. It is pain, it is fire, and it plunges entire Neverborn worlds into war.
It would be a mistake to believe the Emperor’s power battles the Four Gods’ forces, here. It is not order against chaos, nor anything as crude as ‘good’ against ‘evil’. It is all psychic energy, crashing together in volatile torment.
Most of the Radiant Worlds are uninhabitable, lost in the lethal crash of conflicting psychic energies. Armies of fire angels and flame-wrought projections wage war against everything in their path. We call this region the Firetide. What made the Avernus Breach so valuable was its path, not its destination. It cut through the systems forever bleached bare of life by the Firetide, and into the calmer Radiant Worlds beyond. These are the star systems bathed in psychic light without burning in it.
Entire centuries will pass without a single vessel sailing the region, for it offers little to us beyond yet another example of soul energies manifesting in ways mortals can barely control. On more than one occasion the Mechanicum has sought to use Neverborn spirits bound within arcane flesh-machinery to record the Radiant Worlds in an ever-shifting, evolving map. Such attempts have fared as poorly as you might imagine.
In other words, the Astronomican is actively rendering hundreds of light years of planets uninhabitable, and impassible to Chaos. The Emperor is summoning angels of fire, imperial daemons if you will, that attack and destroy starships passing through the Firetide.Galactic level influence, baby!
Intellect:
Master of genetic engineering and modification. ref: False Gods, Outcast Dead
The Emperor was a genius in many ways. Chief among his specialties is genetics and warp craft. Using his expertise in genetics he designed and pioneered multiple variations of superhumans. He created the Thunder Warriors and was the genius behind the Primarch Project, the latter of which formed the basis of the Space Marine.
Created a human webway gate. ref: A Thousand Sons, Outcast Dead
The Emperor also created a section of the Webway which was linked to the Golden Throne. The Webway was originally constructed by the Old Ones and no other race has been able to make anything like it. However, the Human built Webway section needs a powerful psyker on the Throne to keep it stable and keep the gate closed.
Perpetuality:
A more recent introduction to the 40k lore is the concept of the Perpetuals. Exceedingly rare individuals, Perpetuals are immortal. Ollanius Persson is known to be one, as is John Grammaticus, Damon Prytanis, and Vulkan. The Emperor has never directly stated he is a Perpetual, but he did tell Ollanius that “people like them” are destined to change the world. He is not referencing pykers, because Ollanius is not one. The only connection they share is their immortality. The Emperor also had a similar discussion with Grammaticus. There is also a question of where Vulkan got his immortality from. Suggestions is that immortality is the trait he inherited from the Emperor, like how Magnus inherited the Emperor’s psychic powers. But that is verging on head canon. Point is, the Emperor is immortal. We don’t know if he is the “resurrect upon death” Perpetual (Oll) , or a “Wolverine’s cousin” Perpetual (Vulkan). ref: Mark of Calth, Vulkan Lives, Legion.
Additional feats provided by @sirfizzwhizz
1) Stated Emperor holds back multiversal beings on their home turf.
2) Stated most powerful being in all of life.
3) Disrupts the Nervous system of Horus.
4) Tidal wave of destruction on Daemons throughout a ship.
6) Psychic attack described as a laser, packing the blow of a exploding sun, killing Horus, and destroying his soul.
7) Just like Horus, the Ork Warboss is killed, and his soul is destroyed soul.
8) Warp Storms a sector of the Galaxy called the Emperors Wrath.
9) Battle Horus on Mental, and physical plane at the same time.
10) Various feats of stretching his mind through time and space, and across the galaxy. States should he die, the galaxy would be engulfed by Chaos, only his mind is holding them back.
13) States the blows from Horus and Emperor can level worlds as they fight on a mental, spiritual, and physical plane at the same time.
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