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I remember back around the 2000s, part of the mystery of the lore was that many things the Imperium 'knew' to be true weren't quite the case and things weren't so definitive, with it implied they were so caught up in superstition, half-truths, biased accounts and millennia of stagnation and regression that many of their beliefs were implied to be wrong, unfounded or at least something that could go either way. One of these was what the Emperor was and his current state; We didn't know if they were worshiping an entirely dead husk and just seeing what they wanted to see when they attributed events to him, or if he was an ordinary man trapped in eternal torment who had been elevated to god-like levels by the Imperial Cult, if there was actually some veracity to their beliefs and he could do the things they said, or something else entirely. He wasn't established as actually being a God-like being for sure, at least not that I recall.

Eventually the whole "The Imperium views the Emperor as a god-like being who can affect reality and manifest powers throughout the galaxy" thing effectively got answered with quite a simple (and to me, boring) "yes, their beliefs were basically correct all along". The Imperium believed the Emperor was a God, so the lore decided they're right and he pretty much is, rather than leaving the possibility of him just being an important figure distorted by millenia of half-truths, superstition and propaganda and it overall being unanswered and their beliefs may or may not have been true. So I've been wondering, what is the earliest lore instance of that actually being the case? What was the first piece of fluff that made the Emperor actually what the Imperium thought he was? When was the question of the Emperor in 40K actually answered?

Whether he's actually a god or not is a different matter, I just mean "God-like" in the sense of that extremely powerful psyker stuff, the miracles, affecting things throughout the galaxy etc and how he actually is still there alive on the Golden Throne, somewhat.

Edit: Realized I should clarify, I don't mean in-universe first instance, but the first time or piece of lore for us.

Not when his powers first happen in-universe. The first 40k novel/book/codex/whatever that shows he definitely has some sort of powers like the Imperium believes he does.

IIRC, one of the stories he tells the Custodes has him using his powers as a teenager.

He was supercharged after his visit to Molech - needing a spaceship to get there but not to return to Earth.

beast_gts wrote:
IIRC, one of the stories he tells the Custodes has him using his powers as a teenager.

He was supercharged after his visit to Molech - needing a spaceship to get there but not to return to Earth.

I mean the first to us, not in-universe to the Emperor himself; the earliest piece of lore where it's talked about as an actual thing he can definitely do rather than just the speculation and beliefs of the Imperium.

But that's not the case at all? HH books state Emperor is just a man, strong one, but definitely not a god (or he wouldn't need Horus to save him from huge ork warboss or wouldn't run from a single anti-human daemon). The fact Lorgar is an idiot who saw god in a simple psyker (funnily enough, notion contradicted by Lorgar himself who later becomes abnormally strong psyker too, not to mention Magnus) changes nothing, even if said idiot could write convincingly enough to lure a lot of people who didn't know better into sharing this lunacy.

Though to be fair to Lorgar, a lot of humanity has tendency to be really stupid and see gods where there are none - there are ton of RL examples, but people also unironically call stuff we know for a fact is not divine gods too - see Emperor, big chaos four (where 'swollen galactic scale psychic parasite' is much better term), or to give equally dumb example from another franchise, princess Celestia from MLP, a pretty normal horse. You need to ignore labels, and actually look at facts instead of taking someone calling a rose a hedgehog because both are spiky at face value, especially if said person never saw hedgehog but sees one in every rustle and shadow...

In the lore in second edition he was a fairly strong psyker back in his day. It was ambigius if he had any psykick powers or was alive after he became a corpse. It might not have been in first edition, aka rogue trader.

 Irbis wrote:
But that's not the case at all? HH books state Emperor is just a man, strong one, but definitely not a god (or he wouldn't need Horus to save him from huge ork warboss or wouldn't run from a single anti-human daemon). The fact Lorgar is an idiot who saw god in a simple psyker (funnily enough, notion contradicted by Lorgar himself who later becomes abnormally strong psyker too, not to mention Magnus) changes nothing, even if said idiot could write convincingly enough to lure a lot of people who didn't know better into sharing this lunacy.

Though to be fair to Lorgar, a lot of humanity has tendency to be really stupid and see gods where there are none - there are ton of RL examples, but people also unironically call stuff we know for a fact is not divine gods too - see Emperor, big chaos four (where 'swollen galactic scale psychic parasite' is much better term), or to give equally dumb example from another franchise, princess Celestia from MLP, a pretty normal horse. You need to ignore labels, and actually look at facts instead of taking someone calling a rose a hedgehog because both are spiky at face value, especially if said person never saw hedgehog but sees one in every rustle and shadow...

I did explain in the post that whether is or is not a god is besides the point. I'm not asking if he is a god or how powerful he is or anything like that, but at what point the lore actually changed from more of a vague "Maybe the Emperor does have power and influences stuff like the Imperium believes, or maybe Imperial Dogma is just blind faith with nothing actually behind it, could go either way" to him actually being, at the least, an extremely powerful entity/character who is sometimes active and does create miracles and such throughout the galaxy, occasionally.

Unless I'm just misremembering earlier lore, It was fairly ambiguous whether the Emperor while on the Golden Throne had any power or not and the Imperium's belief in him could have just as easily been entirely unjustified with no reason behind it at all, so at what point was that clarified. What's the earliest lore instance we have that backs up the Imperiums beliefs.

Well, no later than the humbling of the Word Bearers on Monarchia.

Forcing an entire Legion, and their Primarch, to kneel is definitely a god-like display of power.

When did SoB get introduced?
Because according to legend their origin has the founder of the Order speak directly with the Emperor when He's in the Big Chair.

For like miracles and stuff, especially more recent ones, what if the opening of the Rift gave the Big E a little power boost alongside all the other Psykers in the Galaxy? In "historical" settings like the War of the Beast, the Emperor doesn't actually do anything and it's only post-Rift that He seems to be able to actually influence reality beyond the Throneroom.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well, no later than the humbling of the Word Bearers on Monarchia.

Forcing an entire Legion, and their Primarch, to kneel is definitely a god-like display of power.

Maybe I've worded something wrong, what I'm asking is what's the first novel or codex or something like that where he definitely has power and it's not a vague thing anymore.

Which Emperor are you talking about though Mentlegen? Crusade Emperor or Corpse-Emperor? Because both are barely featured in much media at all.
First Heretic was released in 2010 and has the Crusade Emperor force the entire Word Bearers Legion to its knees, including Lorgar just with a single command.
Corpse-Emperor has only been doing "God" things since the Rift opened i.e. 8th Edition.

 Gert wrote:
Which Emperor are you talking about though Mentlegen? Crusade Emperor or Corpse-Emperor? Because both are barely featured in much media at all.
First Heretic was released in 2010 and has the Crusade Emperor force the entire Word Bearers Legion to its knees, including Lorgar just with a single command.
Corpse-Emperor has only been doing "God" things since the Rift opened i.e. 8th Edition.

I suppose both, really? I know that he's written in the Horus Heresy series as having very powerful abilities, but I can't recall if there had been any definite examples of that before the series was started. Was it a case of the Heresy series giving him them for sure and then later that being carried over to 40k then? Obviously he wasn't even a character as such in the early 2000s, but I'm just curious as to at what point it became more than just an implied "Maybe, who knows?" regarding if the Imperum's beliefs about him were true or not

The Heresy series doesn't delve into how much power Crusade Emperor has, it's just assumed to be a lot. The one constant is that He has maxed out his Charisma since even before He may or may not have made a deal with the Pantheon, He got people to follow Him all over the place and obey His commands. Post the little trip to Molech, He got stronger and became the being we all know and love. He's got the raw power and smarts to use it but is still strapped to hubris and ego, which ultimately causes his downfall.

In 40k? Nothing. He's there on Terra sitting on the Golden Throne with people just attributing "miracles" and lucky wins to Him intervening. Like I mentioned before, He's only now seemingly able to use His power to do the things seen in the Dark Imperium books.

I'm sorry, but I have to say it:

This isn't even his final form!

Now with that out of the way, surely his first step into "Godhood" was the allowance of the Imperial Cult to exist by whats his Word Bearer name. Lorgar?

The modern lore seems to be indicating that Faith is what creates "God-abilities" So the Imperial cult likely had a big shift in the power levels there.

Also, wasn't he ALWAYS a perpetual, IE unkillable? That's pretty godlike.

Also, wasn't he ALWAYS a perpetual, IE unkillable? That's pretty godlike.

No. That was a weird invention of the later HH novels. The idea that he's somehow 'unkillable' undermines the whole threat of Horus, and by extension, the heresy and makes it kind of joke.

He was un-aging and lived since sometime vaguely BCE, as the gestalt incarnation of all the psychic shaman of the stone age, but beyond a lot more knowledge and experience (and sheer power as a psyker)... eh?
Part of the point of the Emperor is to have 'is he a god?' be an un-answerable question. At least, outside the setting. Inside, the answer is 'yes, or else...'

Irbis wrote:or to give equally dumb example from another franchise, princess Celestia from MLP, a pretty normal horse.

Your definitions for 'normal horse' and divinity are flat-out weird. She's really, actually over 1000 years old and literally makes the bloody sun rise each and every day. Is Apollo just 'some guy?' Random dude-bro you met at a bar?

Now, you can debate 'worthy of worship' if you like, but flying, magical 1000+ years old AND raises the sun is not in any definition of 'normal horse.'

I'm pretty sure in Inquisitor, a book written in 1990, the corpse Emperor stopped time itself to speak with someone, I think the first example of a psyker doing that in the lore. Magnus the Red would show himself capable of the same feat much later on a few occasions in A Thousand Sons.

Voss wrote:

Irbis wrote:or to give equally dumb example from another franchise, princess Celestia from MLP, a pretty normal horse.

Your definitions for 'normal horse' and divinity are flat-out weird. She's really, actually over 1000 years old and literally makes the bloody sun rise each and every day. Is Apollo just 'some guy?' Random dude-bro you met at a bar?

Now, you can debate 'worthy of worship' if you like, but flying, magical 1000+ years old AND raises the sun is not in any definition of 'normal horse.'

Heh, did not expect to discuss MLP here of all places but this is interesting. Basically, what Celestia has is unusually strong magic and a special talent for moving the sun. Something that in-universe was done by ordinary unicorns (although it was a massive effort that drained them of their magic) until she showed up. She also gets her pony butt kicked by most of the bad guys in the show... So I agree she's definitely not a normal horse, but she's also far from what you could reasonably call a god.

Maybe "demi-god" is a better term for someone like that. Definitely not a normal person, but not a god either. Of course the definition of "god" is vague so categorizing things like that is pretty subjective, but it helps a bit. I think in ancient greek mythology, they usually were the mortal children of gods and humans; people with amazing powers for a mortal but not worthy of a spot in the pantheon (unless they completed a dozen of impossible tasks, anyway). So "demi-god" might be the best way to describe the Emperor -at least before all the worshipping might turn him into a full-on god in the warp.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:


Not when his powers first happen in-universe. The first 40k novel/book/codex/whatever that shows he definitely has some sort of powers like the Imperium believes he does.

Realms of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned original book. That was when the first bit about the Emperor as shaman-gestalt, the Sensei, and Star Child first appeared as well as the iconic artwork of the Emperor vs. Horus. Living tens of thousands of years certainly counts as god-like.

Close behind that was the Inquisitor novel by Ian Watson which has already been mentioned. That was when the Emperor was first portrayed with a fragmented mind (done so on purpose to multi-task), something which seems to have been more recently shown in Godblight with Guilliman's memories of his recent audience with the Emperor.

Voss wrote:

Irbis wrote:or to give equally dumb example from another franchise, princess Celestia from MLP, a pretty normal horse.

Your definitions for 'normal horse' and divinity are flat-out weird. She's really, actually over 1000 years old and literally makes the bloody sun rise each and every day. Is Apollo just 'some guy?' Random dude-bro you met at a bar?

Now, you can debate 'worthy of worship' if you like, but flying, magical 1000+ years old AND raises the sun is not in any definition of 'normal horse.'

Let's use this post to dissect how humans look for the divine where there is none. She is old, yes. So are dozen plus other spellcasters we know. In fact, de-aging spell is canon so long life is a pretty normal trait. She makes the sun (which is not like our stars, but small satellite object far smaller than the planet) move. So did hundreds of other spellcasters for thousands of years before she was even born. Hell, there is an artifact that can move the 'sun' again making it completely non-stand out trait. She has wings - so what? We see a pegasus (Cadance), unicorn (Twilight) and earth pony (Sunny) all ascend their body to develop traits of all three races by tapping into the magic of setting. In fact, we know Celestia and Luna were born unicorns. So, again, nothing special there.

Would you proclaim Usain Bolt is a god because 99.999% of humans can't replicate his feats, even though others of his caliber can come close?

Really, when you take a look and all you see is a powerful wizard that is top three of the setting, be it Cadance/Celestia/Luna or Lorgar/Magnus/Emperor, but all of their traits aren't all that special when you examine each in detail, and they are just abnormally strong member of their race by quirk of birth - then you aren't seeing a god or goddess, dude. You still see a powerful wizard. Even if said wizard wears gold bling and is a ruler of the setting. Which again, applies to both of them

Ok, so when does one become a "God"?
The Emperor has immense power ranging from advanced telepathy to touching a ruined Knight suit and instantly repairing it. He rules over the vast majority of Humanity who almost all obey His every command. A fragment of His power is literally the guiding light in the Warp for the vessels of Humanity and now it seems that He is semi-omnipresent.
Is the only thing preventing the Emperor from being a God His mortal body? Or are there some other criteria He must meet?

When I started in mid to late 3rd edition, it was definitely left up in the air where the Emperor was on the scale of "literally 100% dead" to "exactly one cell still alive" to "almost dead, unconscious, but helping out sometimes"

 Gert wrote:
Ok, so when does one become a "God"?

Now that's one impossible question to answer. Just to take real world examples, would you consider the buddha a god? What about the "kami" of japanese shinto? Some Roman emperors were worshipped as gods, but were they actually?

In the end, that's quite subjective. People in the Imperium worshipping the Emperor obviously believe he's a god. Just about everyone else thinks he's not. Who's right? I dunno...

A better question is: does it even matter? He can apparently do "miracles" of some sort. If that's your criteria for divinity then he's a god. If you think that only makes him an incredibly powerful psyker then he's not a god. The fact that he can do miracles doesn't change with the label you apply.

Buddha isn't a God in Buddhism, rather a messiah figure. Sorry had to get that out of the way, didn't get a C in RME for nothing.

I do generally think this whole question is a bit loaded towards a negative spin based on nostalgia and the truth of it is that both in and out of 40k there are reasons for why the Emperor is or is not a God.
The only thing that's changed is we have an atheist Imperial view that has to come to terms with the fact that his atheist Imperial creator might not be just a man after all these years eating Psykers and not really expending His power.

 Gert wrote:
Buddha isn't a God in Buddhism, rather a messiah figure. Sorry had to get that out of the way, didn't get a C in RME for nothing.

And Buddha is believed to have been an avatar of Vishnu by some hindus.

Again, trying to get a definitive yes or no answer is kind of a waste of time in my opinion.

So, this is 40k, not real life, and in 40k there have been countless examples and amorphous definitions of Godhood.

In the clearest sense of the fluff, a god is something that can manifest it's power in the warp, or shift reality. The gods of chaos or the Emperor for example.

A Stricter definition is simply, a being that can alter the exact nature "of what currently is". Or to say it another way, bend the rules.

The emperor can literally take over the body of any of his faithful, and use them to commit acts. This qualifies as godhood. Nurgle, Tzeentch, and Slanesh can all do the same. The only "Gods" who cannot, or do not, to my limited understanding, are the Eldar Gods, which do not involve themselves in matters of non-god stuff. But their ways are seriously confusing and poorly defined.

I remember this becoming less ambiguous toward the middle of 4e, and I really disliked it then too. But it's totally possible I'd just not encountered it back then, as 'lore' (ugh) wikis and stuff were not a thing back then, so most people's ideas were from reading codices or white dwarf articles.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
The only "Gods" who cannot, or do not, to my limited understanding, are the Eldar Gods, which do not involve themselves in matters of non-god stuff. But their ways are seriously confusing and poorly defined.

We're down to two Eldar gods at this point, plus the shattered remains of a third and the embryonic start of a fourth - Isha is Nurgle's captive, Cegorach is lurking in the Webway, Khaine is in shards and Ynnead is under starter's orders at present.

All the others are meant to have been nommed by Slaanesh.

As an aside, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to find the Ynnari characters on GW.com unless you know to search for the Triumvirate box - not very customer-friendly...

I always thought the point was that the Emperor was a "mortal man" but has attained godhood or divinity through power of his own making. He creates his archangels and his angels who are superhuman and therefore themselves divine. He unites Terra and begins his crusade. That to me is the point he becomes a 'God'.

The emperor is the reincarnation in of all of ancient earths most powerful shamans. The committed mass suicide and focused their energy on being reincarnated as a single all powerful being.

So I expect he’s always had these powers.

A psychic gestalt is not an unusual thing in 40k, and doesn't generally get bestowed godhood.

The Eldar Infinity circuits are a merging of the dead Eldar souls. Each exarch and especially the Phoenix Lord - an unknown number of souls have been combined into each.

Even the astronomicon is a Gestalt chorus.

The entire Ork species generates a Gestalt psychic fied.



My point being that the Emperor is both a psychic gestalt of ancient hominid shamans, and also that this isn't a magic Bullet to godhood in 40k.

So it comes down to whether you subscribe to Rick Priestley's original vision of myths and half truths taken as a literal gospel, or you follow the more modern '2nd generation fanboi writing flanderisation and oneupmanship'.

You can guess which one I prefer.

So many times people forget when something isn't meant to be objectively true and it gets canonised, which imo reduces the impact of story.

Iracundus wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:


Not when his powers first happen in-universe. The first 40k novel/book/codex/whatever that shows he definitely has some sort of powers like the Imperium believes he does.

Realms of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned original book. That was when the first bit about the Emperor as shaman-gestalt, the Sensei, and Star Child first appeared as well as the iconic artwork of the Emperor vs. Horus. Living tens of thousands of years certainly counts as god-like.

While I've only read summaries and such of the information from back then, weren't things like the Shaman-gestalt and Star Child presented as theories or in relation to the Imperium's beliefs? Still seems like the same 'problem' of it being framed as from within a biased perspective (rather than being told to us as fact, as it were) if that's the case with those.

The Inquisitor example seems more fitting, though.