Characters / If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device - The Emperor

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The Imperial Palace (The Emperor) | The Rest of the Imperium (The Bro Trip Crusade) | The Forces of Chaos | The Eldar

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The Emperor/God-Emperor Of Mankind/Man-Emperor of Mankind/The Motherfucking Emperor/The Lord of Humanity

The usual reaction.

Voiced by: A Text To Speech Device and SpeakerD (Whenever not using the Text To Speech Device, which is mostly flashbacks, Imagine Spots, drifting soul fragments, etc)

The mightiest being in the galaxy, the post-human titan, the saviour of humanity, a living god...^note -like being once. These days, he's stuck on the galaxy's most elaborate life-support machine and nearly powerless physically, which leaves him with a snarky attitude and an awful case of grumpiness. Also an itchy nose for some reason, despite effectively being a skeleton.

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A-M

• Absolute Xenophobe: Extremely Downplayed compared to his canon version, who had alien civilisations exterminated for the mere "crime" of existing (and being a federation of humans and aliens wouldn't save them either, the humans would be exterminated all the same for being "traitors to mankind"). Here, he says he would actually be okay with xenos living side-by-side with humans, so long as they agreed to abide by his laws and not get in the way of humanity's prosperity. It's just that every xeno civilization he's encountered has wanted to either murder or enslave humanity. He even briefly considers making an alliance with the Tau, before learning that they don't fight in melee (the cowards!). He also admits that the main reason he built the Webway was to get access to Eldar prostitutes.
• Abusive Parents: For all of his power, charisma and wisdom, the Emperor is an absolute horrible parental figure. He's gotten slightly better after having spent 10,000 years in perpetual agony as a direct result of his lousy parenting and having little else to do but reflect on that fact... but, considering he's still a verbally and emotionally abusive asshole manipulating his Primarch children like puppets rather than just being honest with them, it's not much of an improvement. Magnus calls him out on this whenever he has the chance, and eventually even Rogal concedes that Magnus has a point and tells the Emperor he had kids 20,000 years too early.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • His xenophobia is severely downplayed compared to his canon version.
  • While he's still a massive dick all around, he does have genuine love for his Primarch sons, which is something that the Black Library has significantly moved away from as the Horus Heresy series has progressed, along with the general developments that came as a result of The Gathering Storm (in which Roboute Guilliman feels that the Big E sees him as little else but a favorite tool to advance the Imperium's goals).
  • In Episode 26, he comments to himself in a monologue that one of his biggest failings is that he has lost touch with his own humanity and empathy, making him more cold and bitter. It is later revealed that this is quite literal. The shard of him that would take over Fyodor is vastly more empathetic and kind, even regarding Fyodor and the throne-bound part of himself as being the same.
• Aesop Amnesia: Played for Laughs in the 7th special, when he tries to reenact the Great Crusade in Stellaris. While he tells Eldad that he will keep control over it this time, he proceeds to demonstrate that he has learned exactly nada since the Horus Heresy, by neglecting his children, causing Boy to come under the influence of an alien power and becoming an Archtraitor.
• A God I Am Not:
  • Despite his immense pride in his godlike power and demanding people to follow his decrees, he has a dim view of worship. Magnus finds this trait tremendously grating — for all that he decries the concept of godhood, he always demands to be treated like one.
    I am like a glorious golden god [Beat] Except I am not.
• And I Must Scream: The Golden Throne is absolutely agonizing, and he can't leave it for even a second or Terra will get eaten by a Warp Rift. As it stands, the Emperor's consciousness is scattered all over Hell's half-acre and slowly but surely being eroded into nothing. He also Name Drops the Trope Namer after hearing the first question of the first Fourth-Wall Mail Slot episode.^note  Also, his "nose" is itchy.
• Angrish: When truly shocked, all he can say is "Wowowowo" for a little bit. Then he delivers a blistering "Reason You Suck" Speech.
• Antagonistic Offspring: FUCKING Horus, Magnus, Fulgrim, Perturabo, Mortarion, Lorgar, Konrad, Angron, Alpharius Omegon, and the two unknown Primarchs had betrayed him 10,000 years ago, but he takes it very personally with FUCKING Horus.
• Audience Surrogate: A rare case of one that also Mr. Exposition, The basic premises involves the Emperor learning about the goings on of the 40K universe since he became a Sealed Good in a Can, he's this to fans not all that knowledgeable about the lore.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: For all his constant unending belittling of Kitten, the Emperor is heartbroken when he thinks Kitten abandoned him.
  • This is shown earlier, in episode 16, Magnus notes that the Emperor shows more trust in Kitten than even the Primarchs and relies on him, and he sarcastically asks Kitten if he's sure he's not the Emperor's wife or something.
• Batman Gambit: He's pretty adept at playing those, turning bland tendencies to his advantage or planning long time ahead using what he knows of people's characters. Then again, he's supposed to be smarter than anyone else. This comes to a head in Episode 26, where it is revealed that he intentionally built up Fyodor since before Dominique became his scribe to be as tremendously self-absorbed, arrogant, and bull-headed as possible so that when the time came the Inquisitor would genuinely believe he was the Emperor reborn, and that he would believe in this so much that a shard of the Emperor could be reincarnated into Karamazov's body. To say nothing about the fact that he knew all along that the Custodi lied to Kitten and purposely ticked Mangus off so that two more Primarchs would reveal themselves.
• Badass Decay: He is a Heavily downplayed In-Universe example. Make no mistake, the Emperor is still one of the most powerful psykers in the galaxy and the pinnacle of human potential. However, his time on the Golden Throne has fractured his memories and his charismatic abilities so, while still potent, they are nowhere near where they were during their height. For example, in the past he was once able to sway a whole army into surrendering while speaking to them in Haiku. Meanwhile, in the present, he ends up losing a theological argument with the spirit of someone he had once bested easily in the past. The fact that Emps refuses to fully admit this frustrates Rogal greatly.
• Berserk Button: Where do we begin?
  • Traitor Legions.
  • Religion.
  • FUCKING Horus.
  • Ultramarines (though he does come to appreciate them, or at least appreciate that he can abuse the hell out of their Plot Armor). As of the Black Templars podcast, this seems to have died off for him somewhat.
  • Stupid Sacrifice, especially when it has to do with sacrificing some of the biggest and most expensive ships in the imperium by smashing them into things or self-destructing them when they are in perfect working order. That said, he'll take back any criticism if the sacrifice wasn't pointless after all, like when the Astral Knights rammed their Battle Barge into the World Engine.
  • The Codex Astartes and all Space Marine Foundings that aren't his original one. ^note Barring a few exceptions like the Astral Knights.
  • General human idiocy.
  • Refusing to fight in melee. (which practically all of the Tau do)
  • Racism between humans, which in itself gets played with when the Custodian claims that the Salamanders are feared because they are literally jet-black, which the Emperor interprets as racism towards any person of color until he finds out that the Custodian himself happens to be black (as more conventionally interpreted). Fortunately he hasn't been told of the fact that some corners of the Imperium have engaged in racism as part of the whole "kill the mutant" part of the Imperial Creed.
  • He also responded poorly to incestual insinuations regarding his children, once retaliating against a question sender for insinuating that he might have had feelings towards Horus. He punts Custodisi out of reality temporarily immediately after he blatantly proposed "wincest" with Magnus.
  • While he doesn't mind and respects anyone willing to commit a Heroic Sacrifice for his life, he shows less respect for anyone attempting to do the same thing. He mentions he'd raise his hands for the Badass Normal soldier who died for him, an Astartes Terminator and a Custodes did the exact same thing, which he finds belittling of the soldier who did so.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: The Emperor was Conan the Barbarian, Moses, Kenshiro, and is strongly implied to have been Chris-Chan, of all people.
• Big Good: General dickery aside, he is on the side of good guys in the world of Warhammer 40,000 where humanity is constantly at war with various Xenos, but at least has some allies on his side that won't betray him (for example, Cegorach, the Eldar Laughing God of all people), and he plans for humanity to reach their ultimate potential just like the Shamans that combined their souls through a ritualistic suicide that created him.
• Blatant Lies: The Astral Knights were totally a secret legion that The Emperor created before the Great Crusade that he never told anyone about, and not a bunch of stupid Second Founding assholes who pointlessly crashed an Emperor Class Battle Barge into a Necron World Engine.
• Blunt "Yes":
  • When discussing Magnus the Red
    Kitten: My Lord... Are you saying this is all Magnus' fault?
    Emperor: Definitely.
  • Gives one in If The Emperor Had A Podcast: Episode to a writer named "Darth Revan (The Real One, The Unique One)" after reading his disjointed, poorly-proofread letter.
• Boldly Coming: His reason for originally building a Webway gate under the Palace? Eldar prostitutes.
• Brought Down to Badass: Can't move from his throne and can barely move his body. But he's still the most powerful psyker in the galaxy and can create warp storms just as the side effect of getting angry.
• Cannot Convey Sarcasm: Happens sometimes, as the text-to-speech device isn't exactly what you may call the most expressive.
• Character Catchphrase: "I'm the motherfucking Emperor."
• Character Development: Surprisingly but yes. He comes to the conclusion that he was wrong to discard his compassion, AKA Star Child, and plans to regain it, as he realizes that he needs it now more than ever.
• Character Tics: A flash around his skull when one of his Berserk Buttons gets pushed. When truly pissed, it's changed to smoke pouring out of his ears and nose, with a kettle's whistle for sound effect.
• The Chessmaster: He's well-known for his complex strategies. His entire plan to disband the Inquisition, for instance, rode on a number of Inquisitors betraying his orders and approaching the Imperial Palace itself, convincing Fyodor that he was an incarnation of the Emperor, and Magnus sending them all to the Warp—simultaneously taking the blame for the Emperor's plan and putting Karamazov in a position that would eventually lead to him so thoroughly and intensely believing that he was the Emperor so that a shard of the Emperor's soul could take over his body. And it completely worked. Even better, the plan isn't over yet.
  • He also deliberately went "AFK" in a sense at one point when Magnus' Space Wolves Berserk Button had been pushed, causing Kitten to resort to handing over his caretaker position to The Fabulous Custodes in exchange for their help (though they were still basically useless and Kitten had to summon Kaldor Draigo anyway to stop Magnus). This resulted in the Custodes lying about Kitten willingly giving up his position to the Emperor (which he obviously knew was a lie) and Magnus manipulating Kitten into going along with his own scheme to go after the Engine of Woes. Magnus was later stunned (and somewhat exasperated) to discover that not only did the Emperor plan for all of this, he also expected Magnus to send Kitten to Mars as well to retrieve the Proteus Protocol, though apparently the Emperor had his own reasons for having Kitten do so, as he has no intention of using it himself due to the side-effects of using the Protocol.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Ten thousand years have taken their toll on the Emperor's sanity. As a result, he is an oddball. Among other things when looking through books on the White Scars, when he sees one from Warhammer 40000's 1st Edition, he readily believes all the details given despite them blatantly flying the face of what he had seen previously and basic information about the galaxy ^note he believes that the Tyranids are Chaos servants
• The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: The Emperor has genius-level analytical skills, and has demonstrated great insight into the flaws of his enemies and allies alike. Most importantly, he has successfully exploited those flaws to his own benefit, and by extension the benefit of Mankind. He is nevertheless totally blind to his own shortcomings.
  • As for his family directly, his "sons" The Twenty Primarchs are a dysfunctional group that have a very strained relationship with their father, if they have one at all. Magnus is constantly bullied by him, Horus fell to Chaos, Russ is stuck in the warp and only makes amends with somebody who believes he's a fragment of the Emperor, Jaghatai Khan is believed to be stuck in the Dark Eldar city of Commorragh, Vulkan is constantly dying, and the only one he never mocks, Sangunius, is dead. Magnus and the Emperor try to make up for lost time but the Emp only drives him away again with Kitten in tow. After Magnus leaves with Kitten, the Emp doesn't try very hard to get close with his other son, Rogal, outside of getting him a spare bike so he can "go fast" like Magnus could. As much as he cares for Mankind, he has little concern over his own "sons".
• Color-Coded Characters: He's surrounded by gold and his subtitles are in gold.
• Compelling Voice: How he can either calm someone down and/or have an army side with him. When he summons Helbrecht for the second podcast, the man was insanely mad and threatened everyone in the room until he managed to calm him down to ask him about his Chapter.
• Cool Old Guy: Can be this at times, especially when telling the history of the world or when actually attempting to bond with his son.
• *Cough* Snark *Cough*: Literally types "cough-snark-cough" into the device once.
• Cultured Badass: He used to amassed his army using senryu by having them join his side.
• Deadpan Snarker: Although it gets lost in translation between his mind and the un-emotive text-to-speech device, he is shown to possess a very dry wit.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: His psychic spirit stabbed Magnus' soul right out of Tzeentch.
  • He's also capable of literally punching out powerful Chaos folk, as Eliphas learned from across the galaxy.
• Disabled Snarker: His level of snark is inversely proportional to his mobility.
• Disappeared Dad: He accidentally became one to the Sensei, to the point he didn't even know he had any traditional biological children. Partially because he didn't think he could have kids the normal way, and partially because he assumed none of his lovers had survived the night with him. It doesn't help that they have super powerful chameleonic psychic abilities, which hide them from the Warp.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: In episode 2, his left eye would glow while he's speaking. The rest of the series loses this effect.
• Everyone Has Standards: He can be a colossal dick, but there are lines he will not cross:
  • Committing war crimes in his name. He grows increasing angry when the Inquisition had be committing such crimes in his name, as well as sterilization camps, or killing off actual decent people. And when Kitten has to tell him about other horrific things they had done, he was so pissed off, he shat warp storms.
  • Racism, whether towards other humans or Xenos. When he misinterpreted that Kitten was being racist towards the Salamanders, he assumed Kitten meant racially and took off his armor to see his skin color.
  • Making a pass or sexual remarks to his sons. He may be a jerkass to Magnus, but he will not allow anyone to make a sexual pass towards him, as Custodisi finds out the hard way. Alternatively, it's the incestuous aspects of it as he views both the Primarchs and the Custodes as his sons, albeit ones he plays favorites with.
  • In the podcast discussing the White Scars, he is disgusted by how Jaghatai Khan's White Scars legion lead by his son's successor having a Head Chaplin (as in a Chaplin for heads) because they keep the flesh and fiber intact, and the fact that they live on a feudal world where an alien virus could kill them.
• Enraged by Idiocy: One of his biggest Berserk Buttons is Mankind's current idiocy.
• Eye Scream: Rogal Dorn accidentally poked his right eye out with his armor spikes.
• Fantastic Racism: Surprisingly subverted. he claims that he doesn't actually hate Xenos themselves, but with seemingly every Xenos species in the galaxy incredibly hostile to Humanity he decided that "kill on sight" was the best policy.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: Only one of his eyes has a visor, to his annoyance. It covers up the eye he lost when Rogal Dorn's Iron Halo stabbed it after Horus struck the Emperor down.
• Fatal Flaw: Arrogance. He adamantly refuses to acknowledge his mistakes and belittles everyone around him incessantly. His failure to treat his children with respect was what caused the Horus Heresy, as well as his currently hostile relationship with Magnus.
  • Apathy is another one he's actually admitted to having, having discarded his empathy and personal sentiments a long time ago deeming it a weakness he could not afford during a time where he had to build the foundations of the Imperium's future very quickly. He now realizes that, in these harsh and cruel times, he needs it back more than ever.
• Fisher King: If he gets particularly angry, Earth is wracked with Warp Storms. When he gets really sad, it rains (indoors even).
• Flat Joy: Courtesy of the text-to-speech device.
• Fourth-Wall Observer: While he has yet to address the audience, he regularly Leans on it and makes references to things that only make sense to the audience. furthermore, after the intro sequence first appeared in episode 12, he responded to it in the usual manner.
• Fridge Logic: In-Universe. he's confused as to why only one of his eye sockets has been covered with a camera/visor lens^note Kitten would later confess this is because he actually only has one eye - the other was accidentally put out by Rogal's giant aquila halo when taking the Emperor to the Throne.. He would also like to know where his right hand is. ^note The image used for the Emperor does in fact have his right hand normally, but it's been edited out for some reason.
  • Once Rogal points it out, he has serious trouble figuring out just where all of Terra's natural water went to.
• The Gadfly: He likes to say absurd stuff and pull people's legs just to see their reaction.
• Girls Have Cooties: His reason for decreeing that that there shall never be any female Space Marines? He thinks girls are "yucky".
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: During the podcast episodes, he has to resort to silly pseudo swears to bypass the profanity filter. This results in phrases like "I am the motherflipping emperor". This goes away once the filter gets broken by an Atomic F-Bomb delivered by the man himself.
• Grumpy Old Man: In flashbacks when he was younger he had a more dignified and stately demeanor. Most of the time in the main series, he's got a scathing critique for everything and rarely gets happy about anything. Magnus even called him "Grumpiness Incarnate".
• Handicapped Badass: He's a corpse hardwired into a life-support system, but not only is he an incredibly powerful psyker, but even his non-reinforced bones are strong enough to withstand the crushing weight of a Space Marine in full Centurion armor without any sign of discomfort.
• He-Man Woman Hater: While he's undoubtedly attracted to women, he displays it in some unhealthy ways (as first evidenced when he said women were "icky" and was glad to hear that there weren't any female Space Marines).
• Her Codename Was Mary Sue: An apparent habit of his, as seen in the Specials.
  • His character for the tabletop RPG, the Celestial Shaman Queen is basically just a gender-swapped and less powerful (despite his attempts) version of himself.
  • Likewise, his avatar in the Stellaris playthrough, the Not-God King Supreme is just him with a pompadour and the ability to actually control the festering shitstorm that is the Imperium.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Malcador was his "bro for life", and learning that said bro's legacy eventually became the Inquisition lead to one of his angriest rants to date.
• Hidden Depths: For all his grumpiness and snarkery, his endgame for humanity is heartwarming. He truly wishes for them to ascend and become better. He also misses Sanguinus a lot.
• Hollywood Atheist: He is an...interesting case, to say the least. True to the trope, he hates and mocks religion with passion, and basically made atheism instead into the Imperium's state belief system. Magnus likes pointing this out, "you told everyone to throw religion out the window and ironically never to question you about it." That being said, he doesn't deny the gods' existence—the Gods of Chaos are very much real, very much a huge threat to humanity, and, at least so he believes, very much needs prayer badly, so he has some some pretty good reasons for not condoning worship of the gods. At the same time, he concedes that the Gods of Chaos are not wholly evil; each has as much domain over positive forces of the universe as they do negative. But given that most if not all human efforts to ally with the Gods tends to end in nasty little incidents such as the Horus Heresy, limiting their influence over humanity is not the worst idea he's ever had.
• Hypocrite:
  • Uriah Olathaire states that the ultimate conclusion of the Imperial Truth is that he's trying to purge humanity of its less-savory aspects (something the Emperor himself hated in Ferrus Manus), even though this boils down to change what it means to be human, going so far as to state that the Emperor HATES humanity... and given that Emps has directly declared his goal is to basically turn humans into more of him, it's a pretty damning accusation. Uriah's also pretty pissed that for all the Emperor's disgust of religion, he took many religious terms and introduced his own bastardized version to the "secular" Imperium.
  • There's also the fact that if he really was Moses, then he was responsible for helping codify Judaism and by extension all Abrahamic religion. It might be that he was misinterpreted by his followers rather than outright deceiving them, but if that's the case it means he really should have expected the Imperial Truth to be warped again millenia later—unless this is all some incredibly long plan still unfolding.
  • The Specials show that the Emperor play games to win and has no qualms about min-maxing if it gets him better odds. Yet when episode 30 shows Cawl's forces holding their own against the Custodes and even succesfully beating them, the Emperor insults them by calling them a META-CHASING CHEESWHEEL.
• I Call Him "Mr. Happy": He calls him "Big-E".
• Insistent Terminology:
  • It's Fucking Horus, never simply Horus or Horus Lupercal. Given his current, agony-filled condition is directly related to said Horus, it's not hard to see why he calls him that.
  • It's not Marneus Calgar, it's Papa Smurf.
• It's All About Me: He manage to turn every conversation into a paean to his greatness. Even his history of the galaxy turns into his own autobiography with his arrival on the scene of events.
• It's Personal: The Emperor had no intention of doing anything to the Imperial Inquisition even after they raided his palace and would had let bygones be bygones. Until Custodes told him what happened to his descendants, the Sensei, that he decided they should be banished to the Warp.
• I Was Quite a Looker: He's quite disgruntled that his physical form has degenerated from a towering Adonis with flowing hair and a magnificent set of abs to a dusty skeleton.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Being a hypoctrical asshole doesn't change that when the Emperor is right, he's right.
  • He's an Abusive Parent to Magnus, but as he points out, Magnus did screw up by falling for Tzeentch's tricks. Likewise he also points out that Magnus keeping secrets from the Thousand Sons is no different from how the Emperor kept secrets from his sons about Chaos.
  • Frequently makes justified complains about how dumb the Imperium is.
  • Among his complaints about his sons, he said Vulkan was "too damn nice." When we do see Vulkan he is definitely too nice for his own good.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Make no mistake, the Emperor is a colossal asshole but he does care for humanity. And if there's any doubt of that consider that he has to care seeing as he's not backing down from fixing the Imperium and bringing back the Imperial Truth, no matter how insurmountable it might seem. He even states that he still cares about humanity because he sees the immense potential in it. Despite all the verbal abuse he heaps on the Custodian; he's genuinely sad and heartbroken when he thinks Kitten quit being his caretaker voluntarily.
• Jock Dad, Nerd Son: The jock dad to Magnus' nerd son, but is an even bigger dick about it by calling him "a fucking nerd".
• Kick the Dog: He regards the time he kidnapped Angron and left all his friends to die in the process hilarious. He doesn't seem to realize how much this fueled his already volatile rage and blames his betrayal on being "unreasonably fuck-ass mad."
• Lack of Empathy: He doesn't care much about anyone, save for the inchoate potential of humanity. His arrogance, Never My Fault and this trope conspired to send his decrepit corpse into the Golden Throne, where he's been rotting for ten millennia as his dreams and hopes are corrupted into a caricature of everything he held dear... and he still refuses to learn his lesson. That being said, he does on several occasions express sincere remorse and compassion for some of the actions that he’s done. Word of God is that is that this is because while he doesn't have any compassion, he is aware of this and is able to use a mix of other emotions to compensate.
  • Thankfully, he seems to have realized that abandoning his compassion was a mistake and launched a plan to retrieve the fragment of his soul containing it that's been in motion as far back as Episode 4, preparing one of the craziest men in the Imperium to be its vessel by convincing him that he is said fragment before having a redeemed Magnus caber-toss him into the Warp.
• Large Ham: This is the Emperor of Mankind afterall. Using a text to speech device has done nothing to diminish his hamminess, or even his ability to raise his voice.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Had he not bailed out to stay away from Magnus' rampage, he'd still have Kitten as his attendant and he wouldn't have to endure the Fab Custodes' ludicrous hyper-macho antics. Also, mocking Magnus one too many times when he just wants to help leads to the Primarch lying to Kitten about the Emperor wanting him back as the attendant and puts him down even further. Although there's the implication that even that is a part of his plan.
• Leitmotif: His throne room is always set to a Rachmaninov piece.
• Love Is a Weakness: The Emperor cast love, compassion, empathy, and sentiment aside while he was building the Imperium, for at the time he felt that progress was more important than anything else. By episode 26, he realizes that he was wrong, and that he needs these things to be truly human.
• Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex: The Emperor had many lovers over his many years when he was corporeal... but when he was a healthy human he was also a superhumanly strong giant who frequently injured his partners. He's genuinely surprised that many of his partners survived to bear his children.
• Medium Awareness: The Emperor seems to be quite aware that he's on a show. It used to be limited to less formal things like answering letters, but slowly crept its way into the series proper. One of the more prominent and recent examples is when he states that Magnus has been absent for two years ^note Which he actually was in real world time. while Magnus confusedly insists he's been gone a month^note In terms of in-universe time which is equally true. at most.
• Mind Hive: His soul is made up of thousands of human shamans, and these days, it's splintered into even more parts thanks to his long interment on the Golden Throne.
• Mr. Exposition: With how backwards the Imperium is in the 40K in terms of knowledge, he often finds himself in this position. He also gives a two-episode long explanation about the general backstory of the setting up to and including the Horus Heresy. That being said, he's often on the receiving end of it as well- given that he's been interned in the Throne for the past ten thousand years and that his mind is splintered across space, there's a lot for him to catch up on.

N-Z

• Narcissist: He's awesome and he'll have you know it.
• Never My Fault: It's always either Chaos or Fucking Horus, never him. Though he does admit at least once to Magnus that they made the same mistakes, quote: "Like fucking father, like fucking son."
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The Emperor's short-sightedness is the reason things get out of control, and his behavior doesn't really help. For starters:
  • His lack of proper parenting skills is what caused the Horus Heresy, since some of the Primarchs fell to chaos.
  • His ban on religion, since to him, religion will turn someone into an asshole. As Magnus tells him, he inadvertently created a new Chaos God based on Unbelief, and could become his champion.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Based on an offhand comment he makes toward Karstodes about his need of Kitten's help, he seems to be fully aware of what Magnus and Kitten are up to and is simply pretending to not know about the current situation, suggesting that it may be a part of his plan. Later confirmed that he did know of Magnus' and Kitten's plan to use the Proteus Protocol, but shot it down on the grounds that it tends to sap people of their sanity, something that Emps is barely clinging to as it is, and so he distracts Magnus by sending him to the Black Library.
• Only Sane Man: Wackiness, Cloud Cuckoolander tendencies, and staggering Jerkass behaviors aside, he's one of the vanishingly few people who realizes how absurd everything around him is. He's very quick to point out why a number of the Imperium's existing policies are stupid and inefficient, and wonders how on Terra it got to the point when his original intentions for his regime were so badly misrepresented by his successors.
• Open-Minded Parent: While he does opposed to Primarchs getting into contact with Chaos, he doesn't seem to mind about their sexual orientation, such as when he gave an example to talk about Lion El'Jonson and if he made a gay nightclub. Given that his own soul is comprised of male and female shamans, he doesn't judge if his sons are attracted to men. But he does take issues if a Custodes tries to hit on a Primarch, since he sees Custodes and Primarchs as his sons. As both Custodisi and Whammudes learn the hard way when The Emperor deletes the former for mentioning wincest and smacks his Prohibition Hammer on the latter for hitting on Rogal Dorn.
• Out with a Bang: The Emperor has killed several women by having sex with them, apparently.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Up until he had his text to speech device, of all the sons that he outlives, he's always voices how he missed Sanguinius even after death. As such, insulting his memory pisses him off, and when he was told Sanguinius could be seen by eating Ork flesh, he wastes no time in telling Whammudes to bring a bunch of them just to see his son.
• Painting the Medium: You may've noticed that Emperor's lines are always written this way. It's the same in series' subtitles and unique to him.
• Pals with Jesus:
  • It's implied that he knows and aware of Cegorach, the Eldar Laughing God. Cegorach is surprisingly content in letting anyone associated with him into the Black Library if they impressed him or just allows them to. This affiliation with the Laughing God may explain why the Custodes are even allowed in the Black Library. In return, Cegorach is plotting rescue of Star Child and the remaining Inquisition from the Dark Eldar with the help of Malays.
  • Subverted with The Deceiver. They both started off planning an ultimate warrior using a C'tan and a human, and the result? Kaldor Draigo. The Deceiver even sees his existence as Gone Horribly Right and as a galactic threat to the galaxy (which helps his case when Kaldor defeats a Primarch, which he notes is next to impossible). The Deceiver even calls The Emperor "that fuck".
• Papa Wolf: One of his redeeming factors is that, despite being an incredibly shitty parent in most ways, he does occasionally show a fiercely protective instinct towards his progeny.
  • He is literally steaming with Tranquil Fury once he learns of the fate of the Sensei^*Powerful and immortal beings that are supposedly the actual biological offspring of the Emperor, left over from the time when he was still living. Further increasing his ire for the Imperial Inquisition to the point that several warp storms begin forming on Terra's skies.
    WELL, I FOUND THE BOTTOM AFTER ALL... I THINK I FEEL A GRUMBLE.
  • Risks his soul splintering into even more parts to confront Tzeentch and take Magnus' soul back.
  • He also shows a little of this towards Kitten, as he offhandedly threatened Karstodes after he threaten Kitten for information to report back to the Emperor with.
  • He psychically slaps the hell out of Custodisi after said Custodes refers to Magnus as "Hot Stuff" while calmly reprimanding him. The siren that goes off in the background however, hints that he's in a state of Tranquil Fury over Custodisi's lusting over his son. Eventually, after one crass pass too many, he loses patience and just outright deletes Custodisi from reality—sending him to the Warhammer Fantasy dimension.
  • He snaps when Kitten appears to have died in battle, showing one of the few times he loses it after losing another son he deeply cares for.
• Parental Favoritism: Doesn't even bother to hide his favoritism of Sanguinius over the rest of his sons.
• The Perfectionist: He's critical of just about everything, but he is especially frustrated that his sons lacking traits that a certain sibling might have in excess. He doesn't like them being too nice, too honest, too straight-laced, too quirky, too strict, too lenient. Just so.
• Pet the Dog: Has a few moments when he genuinely shows appreciation for humanity and his companions.
  • Episode 13 has him talk about what he liked about his sons in spite of their flaws with profuse emotion and kindness...well, according to Kitten's narration, because it's off-screen.
  • He also went through the trouble of recovering Magnus's soul from Tzeentch using one of his own soul fragments, a process which is known to be rather painful for him. All to show that, even if he is a dick, he still cares about his son.
  • He occasionally shows some kindness towards the Custodes even though they freak him out / annoy him constantly. He allowed Karstodes to watch the Slaaneshmas show with Decius and Rogal Dorn when there was no real reason for him to do so, and actually bonded a little with Custodisi over the White Scars.
  • While he snarks regularly throughout the Podcast on the White Scars (including on their performance individually as a legion), in his actual summation at the end he genuinely compliments the Scars on their strengths and offers legitimate criticism and suggestions to improve on their weaknesses instead of mercilessly mocking them like you'd expect him to).
  • In episode 12.5, he talks about how a regular soldier threw himself in front of him and Horus to pull a Heroic Sacrifice, and still praises him for his titanic balls to do so. Less so with an Astartes Terminator and a Custodes did the exact same thing to copy his sacrifice.
  • When he found out why Kitten hates the Tau, he asks in a tone of concern rather than mockingly when he saw Shadowsun break up with him.
  • In Podcast #1, he forgives the entire population of Krieg based solely on the contents of a letter (although he freely admits that he has no idea what it was they did).
  • In Episode 26, the Star Child fragment of the Emperor is vastly more kind and benevolent, even thanking the soul of Dominique for helping him with his grand plan to convert Karamazov into an appropriate vessel.
• Pro-Human Transhuman: He describes himself as a deity (even though he isn't one, by his own admission), but has humanity as his priority. His ideal view for humanity's endgame is, essentially, every human alive being just as advanced and powerful as he is, basking forever in the joys of being human, and wishes to bring them all to this point himself. His gameplay style in Special 7 is to murder all enemy Xenos and label them as the aggressor, though is also seen with Xenos in his circle.
• Psychic Powers: He's got telekinesis and telepathy to some extent. It seems to get stronger the longer the text-to-speech device has been implemented, though it's mostly been used to punch out people, and even then mostly just Kitten.
• Psychopathic Manchild: For all his grumpiness, he can get overly excited with toys of mass destruction. It says a lot that his reaction to the existence of the World Engine was:

  "Holy shit. I want one."

• Rage Breaking Point:
  • When Kitten tells him the fate of the Sensei, his biological descendants, he was fuming with rage.
  • When Kitten seemingly dies in battle, he snaps so hard, it causes a massive Warp Storm above Terra.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: ...Sometimes. He may be a Grumpy Old Man and a Psychopathic Manchild, but often he's the sole voice of reason in the world utterly drowning in grimdark.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Not that he has a lot of choice, being hooked up to a text-to-speech device.
• Serious Business:
  • He and his son Dorn started several civil wars throughout the galaxy because they couldn't agree on what day to eat tacos. He considers it a grievous crime to eat Tacos on a day that isn't an assigned Taco Day, and encourages his subjects to murder their neighbors if they don't eat Tacos on Friday.
  • Also, melee combat. He was literally on the verge of declaring the Imperium make peace with the Tau until he learned that the Tau's combat doctrine revolves around avoiding melee except as a last resort^note the Tau are biologically inferior in melee combat compared even to humans, and they've recognized this weakness and compensated for it as part of their "sensible people who use realistic tactics in combat" characterization—but they do have a tradition of melee-based honor duels and a very well respected martial arts style, so they're not completely against melee. He promptly called off all of those plans, decreeing them to be too cowardly to tolerate as allies.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: He's why this series isn't family friendly (then again this is Warhammer). It's unlikely he has more than one line without some curse thrown in.
• Sociopathic Hero: Sort of. It's eventually revealed that believing it would restrict his ability to make hard choices needed to protect humanity, the Emperor psychically severed his empathy and compassion and left it drifting in the Warp as a Soul Fragment. While this has left him deeply uncaring on a personal level, he still cares strongly for humanity as a whole.
• Sore Loser: One flaw of his is that he's not a fan of things not going his way, which translates to games as being being pretty butt-hurt when losing.
  • Special 1: After Kitten actually defeats his souped-up Winged Dragon of Ra and Golden Castle of Stromberg with Giant Trunade and Wind-Up Kitten, Emps tells Kitten that the spin-off was dumb and never to speak of the episode again when Kitten gloats, before telling him to go and clean the dishes attacking him with a psychic hand.
  • Special 6: He gets upset when his Celestial Shaman Queen is nerfed by Magnus and nobody in the game was obeying him. When he tries and make a roll to help Whammudes, he can only curse Tzeentch's name and rage at Magnus as his roll fails, which causes his Celestial Shaman Queen's spell to backfire.
  • Special 7: He rage quits during the Stellaris game after killing Boy due to his immersion once again being ruined, leaving his in-game empire to tend farms far away from everyone else. When convinced to come back, only to be ditch by his escort fleeing from Vulk-Gon, he decides to just start the End Times and hacks the game to sick all three Crisis at once upon the galaxy to take everyone with him, with only Kitten surviving (and winning) due to playing it smart.
• Stop Worshipping Me: One of his first acts upon regaining ability to speak is disbanding all ways in which people worship him.
• Sophisticated as Hell: He actually manages to sound fairly regal between the bouts of swearing and dick jokes.
• Squee: As close to it as he can get anyway. In Episode 26 Part 2 he announces that "It has Begun" and then erupts into a deluge of "Boy oh Boy"s when He senses that the Star-Child has possessed Fyodor.
• Suddenly Voiced: The entire premise is that this happens to him with the implementation of text-to-speech device.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Part of why he's such a jackass. In his defense, the secular empire devoted to logic and reason has turned into a theocratic hellhole, his bro for life Malcador's work became the Inquisition, the Imperium keeps hiring people that're Obviously Evil, his most trusted warriors have turned into Stripperiffic yes-men. It'd be weird if he didn't feel this way.
• Survivor Guilt: Though he didn't survive very well himself, there's a vein of this in his feelings about Sanguinius. He talks shit about each and every other Primarch, but still sees Sanguinius as his ideal son...because he died for him. In spite of being mostly dead and speaking through a machine, the forlorn hope that the Sanguinor might be even just a fragment of Sanguinius is the only thing to have brought the Emperor to abject sorrow.
• Synthetic Voice Actor: The premise. Kitten had a techpriest install a text-to-speech device in the Golden throne, and the Emperor can communicate with his subjects again.
• Tempting Fate: Twice over in episode 30, part 2.
  • Firstly, when Diomedes makes it into melee range with Cawl, the Emperor is ecstatic, declaring that victory is certain now. Cue Cawl using "Wrath of Mars", and Diomedes is vaporized instantaneously by the retributive strike.
  • Secondly, after Kitten's support successfully Deep Strikes onto the field, the Emperor starts gloating about how he is not only going to win, but is and always has been destined to be victorious. Then Kitten is killed when the Kastellans trigger their retributive suicide. For icing on the cake, the Kastellan's command acknowledgement is a short statement that could almost be tailor-made to rebutt the claim the Emperor was just making.
    The Emperor: Yes. As ultimately ever, the timelines begin and end in my favor. I will always be the victor.
    Kastellan: In the grim darkness of the 42nd millennium, there can be no victor...
• Time Abyss: He's over fifty thousand years old.
• Virtue Is Weakness: He begins Episode 26 with a monologue on the matter, saying that compassion, humanity itself, was something that was hindering him back when he was crafting the Imperium, and so he cast it aside, so it wouldn't hinder him while he was busy ruling humanity and leading it towards the stars. But now he realizes that, in this day and age, he needs it back more than ever, with the implication he's realized that might have been a mistake from the start.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Like it or not, he gets along with Magnus and Kitten a lot better than with anyone else in the Palace. If you've noticed that he constantly insults and belittles them and sometimes psychically punches Kitten... then it's still an improvement.
• The Watson: As he's been stuck on the Golden Throne for millennia, a lot of screentime is spent on explaining the current status of the imperium and its enemies to him.
• Ultimate Lifeform: He is the fusion of multiple Shamans' souls who were Driven to Suicide to create a powerful soul that evolved through their wisdom and power, and he was born through human parents.
• Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Zigzagged - For a given value of "wacky" and "serious," considering that it's not so much that he's wacky and his children are serious, but more that they're wacky and serious in different ways, sometimes. Compare his oddly childish reactions to certain things and nonstop barrage of acerbic, snarky one-liners to some of his children, such as Dorn, Magnus, and even Russ.
  • Magnus: The serious scholarly son trying to talk reason into his dogmatic father....then the topic of space wolves comes up and he's the one acting like a maniac.
  • Dorn: The Emperor treats one of the most powerful sets of armor in the Imperium as a teddy-bear, while Dorn is so blunt that comparing him to a jackhammer is an understatement. Then again, Dorn was the centurion all along...
  • Russ: While the Emperor is a giggling troll that takes audible joy in schadenfreude, Russ is... surprisingly unflappable for somebody who's been in the Warp for several millennia, and prefers to keep a completely straight, serious face when mocking others. Barring the Furry Fandom jokes and love of wolves, he's a lot more composed than the series would lead us to believe.
  • Vulkan: A Love Freak with an Orky Split Personality makes Vulkan much sillier than the Emperor despite the Emperor's many quirks, but Vulkan is also surprisingly insightful because he possesses the empathy that everyone else (including the Emperor himself) lacks.
  • Corvus Corax: An overgrown Emo Teen who always spouts cringy dark poetry and wants to die and/or suffer to "atone for his sins". While still loyal to the Emperor and fatherly towards the Raven Guard, he considers the Imperial Guard to be beneath notice for the Space Marines, calling the Catachan Jungle Fighters a waste of resources and too crazy for their own good. He grows out of the last bit after being saved from death by Sly Marbo.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: While he does love humanity and their potential, he utterly loathes individuals and is intensely irritated by mortal foibles. Everything about the Imperium is an effort to ensure his ideals come to pass and he's ready to go further to better police humanity. He mentions his interest in coopting the concept of a Hive Mind from the Tyranids into humans so he can, basically, directly oversee everyone.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: After enduring horror after horror after finally regaining the ability to converse with his subjects, he's informed that, to his intense joy, he does have living heirs in the Sensei... and then Kitten visibly recoils. Steeling himself for the inevitable disappointment, he instead learns the Inquisition has been getting the Sensei killed as threats to the Imperial Dogma. Cue him shitting out five gigantic Warp Storms from pure rage.

The Star Child (spoilers!)

The Star Child, Excised Compassion of The Emperor

Voiced by: SpeakerD (fragment form), StellarElite (when possessing Fyodor)

A Soul Fragment of the Emperor containing his lost compassion he now seeks to regain, leading him to have Karamazov tossed into the Warp so he can serve as it's vessel.

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• Absurdly Bright Light: After fusing with Fyodor he emits a light so bright that it can be seen throughout the entirety of the Warp, outside the Eye of Terror, and the entire fucking galaxy.
• Actually Pretty Funny: He can't help but chuckle when he realizes the Dark Eldar have left a "Welcome to Commorragh" sign where the only way to see it would be entry through the Gate of Khaine.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Upon learning that all of his companions, not just Draigo, are being set by the Drukhari to fight to the death in the Crucibael Arena, he made a passionate plea for Vect to release them, to no avail.
• All-Loving Hero: He disarms Asdrubael Vect, one of the most evil and sadistic people in the galaxy, with nothing but politeness and genuine compliments. Even when Vect exploits his compassion to hurt him, the Star Child reacts with worry and disappointment rather than anger, continuing to make appeals to the Overlord's better nature.
• Big Damn Heroes: If it weren't for him, Fyodor, Russ and what's left of the Inquisition would have perished by Skarbrand's big daemon axe.
• Big Good: He's the Emperor with a dose of self-awareness and humility, so he qualifies even more than his thronebound counterpart.
• Fatal Flaw: Not just his compassion - though it's hard for it to not be a flaw when it's essentially his entire existence - but pride, just like the Emperor proper. He's so certain he has the upper hand in Commorragh that he doesn't catch on that Vect never actually agreed that only Kaldor Draigo would battle in the Arena, and the resulting reveal abruptly shatters his entire scheme to literally kill the Drukhari with kindness.
• Fusion Dance: After taking over Fyodor, the end result is basically Fyodor with the Emperor's hair, hair color and love for the color gold.
• Good Is Not Nice: While he represents Emps' compassion and maintains a genuinely affable tone with everyone, he still subjects Karamazov to a Death of Personality so he can steal his body and almost wipes out the Dark Eldar with his endless Positivity.
• Heaven: Imperials believe that the souls of the loyal are with the Emperor after death; he's that Emperor.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Asdrubael Vect describes the Star-Fyodperor's soul as this and comments that its suffering could feed and power all of Commorragh. A taste of this is seen after he learns that all of his companions have been sent to fight in the Crucibael Arena.
• Leitmotif: Chairbound Prankster which plays when he and Fyodor become one.
• Light Is Good: Due to being a fragment of the Emperor himself, and supposedly his compassion, he definitely fits both light and good.
• Nice Guy: Considering he's the embodiment of the Emperor's Compassion, he's really pleasant.
• Power Glows: His resurrection into Fyodor's body creates a psychic light so bright it not only utterly destroys the daemon army nearby, but it glows throughout the entire Warp and even out into the material world so far it can be seen outside the galaxy!
• Self-Deprecation: Fully admits that all of Fyodor's faults (self-important, angry, hypocritical, throne-bound) can just as easily be applied to himself as part of the Emperor.
• Strong Family Resemblance: In a way, you can clearly tell that he's a fragment of the Emperor considering he has the same fabulous hair as the latter does.
• Time Stands Still: Uses this ability to stop Skarbrand from killing Fyodor, with Dominque and Celestine being able to move in his stopped time. He makes time resume by possessing Fyodor.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: When meeting with Asdrubael Vect, the Star Child's innate goodness and compassion are so pure that they not only cause Vect to literally start falling to pieces, but the entire city of Commorragh to begging to break down as well from him radiating such genuine kindness. Unfortunately, when he finds out that his companions have been sent to fight to the death in the city arena, this ends up being reversed almost instantly. Lady Malys plans to exploit this by rescuing said companions, which would remove Vect's ability to torment the Star Child, in hopes that Vect and his loyalists will be killed as a result.
• Walking Spoiler: His arrival is the biggest and most important development in the series. His existence changes everything.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Towards Asdrubael Vect, the Evil Overlord of the Dark Eldar. When informed that he will be held captive and tortured as an unlimited power source for the city of Commoragh, the Star Child complements him for espousing, from a certain point of view, a pretty noble goal. The suffering of a Physical God would free the Dark Eldar from their Horror Hunger, invalidating their need to torment other living creatures and making the galaxy a significantly better place. Asdrubael is flabbergasted by the suggestion.

Celestial Shaman Queen (Tabletop Tropes)

Celestial Shaman Queen

Voiced by: FitzieArts

Emperor's tabletop character, a nameless wizard from the world of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, later accidentally summoned to the Imperial Palace. Also appears in the Stellaris special.

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• Amazonian Beauty: The Emperor describes her as a perfectly carved avatar of all mankind, with 40s in every stat (because he cheated with her character sheet), and she's shown as being very muscular woman who towers over most other characters.
• Body Horror: One of her arms becomes long and possibly boneless after a Magic Misfire causes her to mutate.
• Boring, but Practical: Despite the Emperor wanting to play out a power fantasy through her, her most significant contributions to the party come through the very basic spells of an apprentice wizard. She manages to defeat all the ogres in the final fight with harmless magical lights and a bit of mundane deception, and incapacitates the Gorger-Lord with a simple Sleep spell. The only offensive spell she uses (and promptly miscasts) is also a basic projectile called Magic Dart.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: In Special 7, she appears as one of Not-God-King's subordinates. Being a Warhammer Fantasy character transplanted to a sci-fi setting and told to play a grand strategy video game, she finds it hard to adapt.
• Happily Adopted: In Special 7, the Emperor seems to have adopted her as his daughter.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The Emperor cheats with her character sheet to have three casting dice, and while this makes it very easy to cast spells, using all of them at once makes the Shaman Queen vulnerable to Magic Misfires (which are triggered by rolling doubles or triples). Her inflated physical stats also result in the accidental killing of Magnar Buckethead, thanks to a few unfortunate dice rolls enabling her to overwhelm his high damage resistance with an unarmed attack.
• Hopeless with Tech: Being from a medieval fantasy setting, she's understandably out of her depth in the technological far future of the 41st millennium. When she gets roped into playing Stellaris, she spends most of the early game having a panic attack trying to comprehend her computer.
• Magic Knight: Downplayed. She doesn't wear any armor or wield a weapon, but she is very strong, enough to cripple the party's starting questgiver in a single charge.
• No Social Skills: Thanks to the Emperor's apathy and awful luck with dice, the Celestial Shaman Queen spends most of the RPG session completely inept at human interaction, roaring that she intends to destroy people's souls or stiffly blurting out that she and her party are wanted fugitives during a persuasion attempt. While she does successfully trick a tribe of ogres into leaping to their deaths down a pit, Magnus attributes it to the ogres just being that stupid.
• Small Name, Big Ego: The Emperor plays her as his self-insert power-fantasy character, but mechanically she's just an apprentice wizard. As a result she keeps proclaiming herself to be a master of magic throughout Special 6 despite not actually being all that good at it.
• Space Pirates: Though it takes her a while to adjust to Stellaris, once she figures out how to play, she starts a "side job" as a pirate raiding the Tour Guide's empire for resources, and has taken to wearing an eyepatch.
• Unskilled, but Strong: The Emperor cheats with the Shaman Queen's character sheet to make her an Amazonian Beauty with three dice for spellcasting (equivalent to a professional wizard master in the game rules), but she only has the skills and talents of the initial apprentice wizard career rank, and accordingly her only available spells are from the game's list of basic "petty magic".

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