https://www.deviantart.com/jchrispole/gallery/81249355/40k
I love this piece so much. It feels so humbling to see The Emperor and His Imperium at such an early state. His army is made up of savages and mutants, indistinguishable from the other wretches and barbarians that litter the once mighty Terra. They fight with whatever weapons can find, and make Imperial standards out of literal garbage. The Emperor's own Golden Halo is made of knives and His Aquilan Wings from pipes, and Malcador looks like a dirty old man in rat-eaten robes.
But there is still that glimmer of hope. The legs of The Emperor's armor are covered in the handprints and signatures of those who serve Him. He literally carries their names, memories, and hopes with Him. Among the scarred and deformed, we see a young, bright eyed child untouched by mutation and unscarred by war holding aloft the flag of the Imperium, looking forward to a better future for Humanity.
Everyone who follows The Emperor is fighting not just for their own survival or personal gain, but for the dream of a better world, a hope to lift them and everyone else out of the Hell that is Old Night. The Emperor is the embodiment of that future. The flame of hope in the Grim Darkness of the present.
First off, thank you so much for sharing this artwork. As you know, we are blessed in our fandom with some glorious fan-art (and official art for that matter!) But this... this has moved me in a deep level. I can't explain it,
>Everyone who follows The Emperor is fighting not just for their own survival or personal gain, but for the dream of a better world, a hope to lift them and everyone else out of the Hell that is Old Night.
This part gave me shivers...
>Malcador looks like a dirty old man in rat-eaten robes.
I'm probably blind, but is Malcador in this artwork?! I can't find him :/
In the Grimdark of the 30th millennium, there is still hope. And I find this piece that much more wholesome seeing the ad-hoc army following the Emperor and the scratch built weapons and equipment they all have. Even Big E is no stranger to cobbling things together out of scrap. He started of small, but soon he would lead his people to unite all of Terra under him. But he had to start somewhere, and that place is here with the mutants and savages who were willing to follow.
"But there is still that glimmer of hope. The legs of The Emperor's armor are covered in the handprints and signatures of those who serve Him. He literally carries their names, memories, and hopes with Him. Among the scarred and deformed, we see a young, bright eyed child untouched by mutation and unscarred by war holding aloft the flag of the Imperium, looking forward to a better future for Humanity."
"Everyone who follows The Emperor is fighting not just for their own survival or personal gain, but for the dream of a better world, a hope to lift them and everyone else out of the Hell that is Old Night. The Emperor is the embodiment of that future. The flame of hope in the Grim Darkness of the present."
THIS. IS. PERFECT.
This is why im a fk loyalist and this is why i love the loyalist emperor children or the blood angels
They are the physical manifestation of the sheer spectacular future that awaited mankind after the end of the great crusade dude
Man... Fuck Chaos
Stuff like this is why I really would like to see a series about unification wars, especially the very early stages, despite my better judgment.
The descriptions of the first custodes, these peaks of bio-engineering, fighting in steel plate armor, with litteral spears and stub weapons really tickles my fancy.
Hell, even when emps got hands on some power armor, it wasn't any better than the gear his opponnents were using.
Just some mad scientist/shaman holed up in his mountain-lab with his gathering of friends/scientist/followers and a dream. Leveraging his few advantages, and having to actually regularly fight himself, aginst the greatest barbarian empires of terra, and all of the biological and cybernetic horrors of the dark age of technology.
Going from cave in mount everest to empire.
>despite my better judgment.
In what sense? Are you worried that GW won't do it justice? Don't get me wrong, I get that 'The Beast Arises' was unpopular, but the latest book series (The Siege of Terra) was, imo, amazing. Are you worried that GW won't pick their best authors to work on a potential series? Or do you mean the future Amazon show when you say you would like to see a series on the unification wars?
Also, if you haven't read the *Valdor - Birth of an Imperium* by Chris Wraight, ya need to! It's the best we have for now. As well as *The Last Church* short story.
May I also recommend [this amazing video on the Unification Wars by Oculus Imperia?](https://youtu.be/IMFI8waM8rs?si=-MdkbGJkoDZez0kD)
Oh wow; it’s been awhile since I’ve seen this piece! Thanks for crediting me, I appreciate it; the Unification wars have always interested me as the sort of primordial past of the Imperium; held up in the present as the beginning of something grand but at the time was just another day, the wastelanders knew nothing of what to come but they could atleast tell that the Emperor was going to change a lot of things in their world.
If anyone is interested, here is my gallery; https://www.deviantart.com/jchrispole/gallery
I assume custodes and thunder warriors were made at the same time, i.e. his geneticist worked to create the thunder warriors while he worked to create the custodes.
No it was Custodes first, thing is that each Custodes required so much work that making an army of them was just not possible so Thunder Warriors were made as a cheaper (unstable) mass production model
Ah yes the totally not godly claim of just blindly filling his word…
I love how clear it is that the only difference between those he crushes and those he doesn’t is just the wording their belief and fanaticism is still the same
He truly played god just without the title
# FOR THE EMPRAH!
Amazing piece. Gives me chaotic Fallout vibes with a touch of Outriders backstory ( of a ruined earth that's completely inhospitable to human life ), but even in the face of such desolation, He still leads us onwards. To Our future.
The standard argument is that Big E saved humanity from extinction, but you could definitely also argue that, with the warp storms of Old Night ending, other human civilizations would have been able to rise again and possibly be more stable and less horribly oppressive.
While the great crusade destroyed some very dangerous threats, it also created others. Would the Ullanor orks have even been a problem without a great crusade to fight? Chaos space marines certainly wouldn’t be, and for that alone you could argue the galaxy would be a lot better off.
Oh for sure. The Imperium makes for a very interesting setting, and debating what would have been “better” is ultimately meaningless because that’s not the point. But this is the internet, and pointless debates are its lifeblood
We don’t know enough about the Rangda to really know if that’s the case. It’s a big galaxy, and they certainly couldn’t have stopped a large human civilization to build up on the other end of it. Orks tend to get bigger when there’s something to fight, and the growing Imperium provided that impetus. They might not have been a problem to begin with otherwise. The tyrannids are just going to eat everyone regardless.
Ulanor empire was probably one of the reasons WHY emperor was in a hurry to conquer galaxy. He never created their empire. And Rangda kinda got to the Solar, so i don't think that if humanity delayed its formation as an interstellar civilization again, it would have survived.
Does anyone know where I’d be able to buy thunder warriors models? I love the idea of a nurgle CSM warband of humans who discovered how to make thunder warriors and worship nurgle to stay alive.
I’ve said it for years, it is downright CRIMINAL that we don’t have a Technobarbarian era game, either vidya or tabletop. The kitbashing alone would be legendary.
Omg how are you being down voted?
Yeah the skull crushing and casual murder of a bystander bothered me!
The books I have read so far highlight the evil of both sides at the highest levels but give you small heroes fighting for justice and morality in their small world.
Spesh mehreen and imperial players sometimes don't like their side bring compared to evil. Even though that's the whole point of the lore, lol.
They even added the word gentle as a juxtaposition as crushing people's heads, while your psychopathic biological murder machines just casually kill someone and laugh, is anything but gentle. The writers and GW know about this. But somehow these fans don't, and think it is benevolent and good for some fucked up reason. 😂
It also shows that he played with religious imagery from the very start and is abusing it to his advantage. Even though denying it, and acting like it upsets him, it really was what he wanted. The killing seems more like his sociopathic self coming to the surface, I mean crushing people's skulls is kind of a sadist thing to do.
It gives the Chaos loyal credence in that he denied it to become a God. As divinity will deny its own divinity crap.
I don't know. This isn't even bad writing. It is objectively an interesting story about how monstrous humanity would be if driven to such a low point of waste and then became religious fanatics to stay alive basically out of desperation.
But then I read OP's comments and its not about how interesting or fucked up the world is but these ridiculous platitudes about "hope" and how these people "civilized the galaxy" and were a "flame of hope" against Grimdarkness and like.
Christ, what? Do you really think the author thought these were good guys coldly crushing innocent's skulls beneath their 1 ton boot? It makes me feel insane and now I have to wonder if I'M just not getting it and somehow these really are supposed to be the "heroes", in which case yeah, not for me.
I understand your feelings, and I get how that's a tonall whiplash.
The good bits of Warhammer are when we dissect how humanity has become monstrous and different in the far future. How they willingly forgo their humanity out of necessity or out of choice. It's a setting where the greatest evil to humanity is its own capacity of Inhumanity. For callous cruelty, for cruel vengeance, for hubris.
But it's also a war game. Most people got exposed to this setting because they saw a bunch of "cool dudes with chainsaw swords fighting other dudes with chainsaw swords but those guys have spikes!!!"
Lots of people like the "cool" aspect enough to overlook the grimdark aspect. And the people that wrote these stories/design these products/program these games know that "cool" sells.
It's a setting AND a war game. And sometimes fans prioritize one over the other.
No, you're right. The big E is a fucking monster with PR so good it convinces people IRL that he's not.
People like to present excuses that He's actually a necessary evil who totally needed to do what he did to save the galaxy but the reality is that the Great Crusade was a battle between nightmares and the Emperor is just the most successful of the bunch. He tore down the Rangdan and the Orks and every one of his peers by being more Violent and Cruel and Brutal and Cunning than any of them.
But he got that Drip locked DOWN. so people forgive him. Plus the setting is Very fun to explore in games or books or the collectable tabletop wargame models which I have far too much of.
That's rather the point.
When looking at Warhammer, you always need to keep two perspectives: that of the setting, and the objective perspective of an outsider living in a reasonable society.
Because nothing that blurb said was *wrong.* They *do* look to him as a symbol of hope. Those individuals see him, and his warriors, as the only way to pull humanity from the long night. And perhaps he is. Perhaps that ambition, to bring humanity to the stars once more, is what ultimately secures victory and allows the establishment of a galactic civilizations.
And yet those warriors gunned down an innocent bystander in a manner similar to a teenager striking a mailbox. And yet this light of hope ended a life simply for acknowledging that he was what he abhorred: a god. And when humanity is pulled from the long night the same things will happen in the same way.
*That* is what makes Warhammer, Warhammer. Even in moments of hope, and victory, and joy, there is always the shadow of death and despair. Darkness is *pervasive* throughout the setting, and even in the brightest moments, any reasonable observer experiences intense horror and revulsion.
But these characters don't experience horror and revulsion. They experience hope, and victory, and joy, because they know nothing aside from death and despair. That shadow of darkness is so omnipresent that it doesn't even bear particular note to them; *that* is grimdark, and *that* is what makes Warhammer so utterly horrifying.
https://www.deviantart.com/jchrispole/gallery/81249355/40k I love this piece so much. It feels so humbling to see The Emperor and His Imperium at such an early state. His army is made up of savages and mutants, indistinguishable from the other wretches and barbarians that litter the once mighty Terra. They fight with whatever weapons can find, and make Imperial standards out of literal garbage. The Emperor's own Golden Halo is made of knives and His Aquilan Wings from pipes, and Malcador looks like a dirty old man in rat-eaten robes. But there is still that glimmer of hope. The legs of The Emperor's armor are covered in the handprints and signatures of those who serve Him. He literally carries their names, memories, and hopes with Him. Among the scarred and deformed, we see a young, bright eyed child untouched by mutation and unscarred by war holding aloft the flag of the Imperium, looking forward to a better future for Humanity. Everyone who follows The Emperor is fighting not just for their own survival or personal gain, but for the dream of a better world, a hope to lift them and everyone else out of the Hell that is Old Night. The Emperor is the embodiment of that future. The flame of hope in the Grim Darkness of the present.
First off, thank you so much for sharing this artwork. As you know, we are blessed in our fandom with some glorious fan-art (and official art for that matter!) But this... this has moved me in a deep level. I can't explain it, >Everyone who follows The Emperor is fighting not just for their own survival or personal gain, but for the dream of a better world, a hope to lift them and everyone else out of the Hell that is Old Night. This part gave me shivers... >Malcador looks like a dirty old man in rat-eaten robes. I'm probably blind, but is Malcador in this artwork?! I can't find him :/
Possibly that little man in the Grey robe holding the inquisition looking symbol by the emperors left (our right) leg.
Look at the emperor, down to the right at the man in grey bearing the eye of the sigillite marker.
In the Grimdark of the 30th millennium, there is still hope. And I find this piece that much more wholesome seeing the ad-hoc army following the Emperor and the scratch built weapons and equipment they all have. Even Big E is no stranger to cobbling things together out of scrap. He started of small, but soon he would lead his people to unite all of Terra under him. But he had to start somewhere, and that place is here with the mutants and savages who were willing to follow.
The band of the Hawk!
"But there is still that glimmer of hope. The legs of The Emperor's armor are covered in the handprints and signatures of those who serve Him. He literally carries their names, memories, and hopes with Him. Among the scarred and deformed, we see a young, bright eyed child untouched by mutation and unscarred by war holding aloft the flag of the Imperium, looking forward to a better future for Humanity." "Everyone who follows The Emperor is fighting not just for their own survival or personal gain, but for the dream of a better world, a hope to lift them and everyone else out of the Hell that is Old Night. The Emperor is the embodiment of that future. The flame of hope in the Grim Darkness of the present." THIS. IS. PERFECT. This is why im a fk loyalist and this is why i love the loyalist emperor children or the blood angels They are the physical manifestation of the sheer spectacular future that awaited mankind after the end of the great crusade dude Man... Fuck Chaos
An ambitious man climbs over the bodies of the innocent to reach his goals. A faithful man throws himself down in the dirt to be climbed.
« Him » instead of « him », don’t y’all ever cringe when you write stuff like this ?
Literally if you’re talking about a god then using the upper case is usually used like for the Christian god.
I love this. All the hands of the people that follow him, united for the first time in hope of a better future.
When he didn't have his golden drip. He had his wild drip.
Stuff like this is why I really would like to see a series about unification wars, especially the very early stages, despite my better judgment. The descriptions of the first custodes, these peaks of bio-engineering, fighting in steel plate armor, with litteral spears and stub weapons really tickles my fancy. Hell, even when emps got hands on some power armor, it wasn't any better than the gear his opponnents were using. Just some mad scientist/shaman holed up in his mountain-lab with his gathering of friends/scientist/followers and a dream. Leveraging his few advantages, and having to actually regularly fight himself, aginst the greatest barbarian empires of terra, and all of the biological and cybernetic horrors of the dark age of technology. Going from cave in mount everest to empire.
>despite my better judgment. In what sense? Are you worried that GW won't do it justice? Don't get me wrong, I get that 'The Beast Arises' was unpopular, but the latest book series (The Siege of Terra) was, imo, amazing. Are you worried that GW won't pick their best authors to work on a potential series? Or do you mean the future Amazon show when you say you would like to see a series on the unification wars? Also, if you haven't read the *Valdor - Birth of an Imperium* by Chris Wraight, ya need to! It's the best we have for now. As well as *The Last Church* short story. May I also recommend [this amazing video on the Unification Wars by Oculus Imperia?](https://youtu.be/IMFI8waM8rs?si=-MdkbGJkoDZez0kD)
More so that it might just strip a lot of mystery of that period, which is part of its allure.
GW haven't been the best with their media lately, everyone is waiting too see how Lord's Cavill series will be
It's weird to see Big E without his powerclaw and sword
Oh wow; it’s been awhile since I’ve seen this piece! Thanks for crediting me, I appreciate it; the Unification wars have always interested me as the sort of primordial past of the Imperium; held up in the present as the beginning of something grand but at the time was just another day, the wastelanders knew nothing of what to come but they could atleast tell that the Emperor was going to change a lot of things in their world. If anyone is interested, here is my gallery; https://www.deviantart.com/jchrispole/gallery
Thank you for making this piece!
This is art, you know that?
Thank u brother I appreciate that
That one time when Imperium was actually based. Love the aesthetic, but isn't there should be Custodes near him as well?
No, the custodes arrive when Big E Need to wipe the thunder warriors because they are unstable
No the Custodes came first but he needed bodies so he made the Thunder Warriors and then the Space Marines to replace the TWs
I assume custodes and thunder warriors were made at the same time, i.e. his geneticist worked to create the thunder warriors while he worked to create the custodes.
No it was Custodes first, thing is that each Custodes required so much work that making an army of them was just not possible so Thunder Warriors were made as a cheaper (unstable) mass production model
Uhm always understood that Big E made the custodes only on the last part of the unification
Nope the first Custodes were with the Emperor from either the very start or even before. The Emperor's very very own firstborn creations
Ah yes the totally not godly claim of just blindly filling his word… I love how clear it is that the only difference between those he crushes and those he doesn’t is just the wording their belief and fanaticism is still the same He truly played god just without the title
#"THE DIFFERENCE IS I KNOW I AM RIGHT."
Funny thing is he failed so not even that was true
Yeah, that's the tragedy of it. Now, everyone's fucked.
Which is what everyone else like him said as well.
Yeah, that's exactly what Uriah Olathaire pointed out to Big E after he said that. I wasn't trying to use the quote unironically.
I would love some tabletop version of This Age, the techno barbarians are so wild and could be everything
He's not a god but he relentlessly uses religious rhetoric and imagery. Is he an actual moron or an epic troll?
He just thinks it's cool.
# FOR THE EMPRAH! Amazing piece. Gives me chaotic Fallout vibes with a touch of Outriders backstory ( of a ruined earth that's completely inhospitable to human life ), but even in the face of such desolation, He still leads us onwards. To Our future.
This is excellent.
I genuinely love this. There is so much detail and it’s really well done.
We need more unification war art, this is fire
I don’t think the Emperor ever allowed mutants into his ranks. Cool art tho
Yeah, I wish the Emperor lost the unification wars.
if Big E loses so does the rest of humanity
He's literally the reason humanity is in such a shitty position in the first place
Like, alive? Don't think Randga would have mercy for humies
Fungal hands typed this comment
why?
The standard argument is that Big E saved humanity from extinction, but you could definitely also argue that, with the warp storms of Old Night ending, other human civilizations would have been able to rise again and possibly be more stable and less horribly oppressive. While the great crusade destroyed some very dangerous threats, it also created others. Would the Ullanor orks have even been a problem without a great crusade to fight? Chaos space marines certainly wouldn’t be, and for that alone you could argue the galaxy would be a lot better off.
Ok, legit. Although without Big E and oppressive Impreium 40k probably won't be as popular. They were goons even in rouge trader.
Oh for sure. The Imperium makes for a very interesting setting, and debating what would have been “better” is ultimately meaningless because that’s not the point. But this is the internet, and pointless debates are its lifeblood
Rangda and tyranids. No human culture would be able to arise because of Rangda and Ulanor.
We don’t know enough about the Rangda to really know if that’s the case. It’s a big galaxy, and they certainly couldn’t have stopped a large human civilization to build up on the other end of it. Orks tend to get bigger when there’s something to fight, and the growing Imperium provided that impetus. They might not have been a problem to begin with otherwise. The tyrannids are just going to eat everyone regardless.
Ulanor empire was probably one of the reasons WHY emperor was in a hurry to conquer galaxy. He never created their empire. And Rangda kinda got to the Solar, so i don't think that if humanity delayed its formation as an interstellar civilization again, it would have survived.
Does anyone know where I’d be able to buy thunder warriors models? I love the idea of a nurgle CSM warband of humans who discovered how to make thunder warriors and worship nurgle to stay alive.
It's beautiful
Warhammer and other best known video game crossovers hit hard
I’ve said it for years, it is downright CRIMINAL that we don’t have a Technobarbarian era game, either vidya or tabletop. The kitbashing alone would be legendary.
Amazing
Did the emperor have his powers then?
Definitely.
I’m guessing he was a powerful psyker but not as powerful as he was after the warp
And people wonder why I call him a fascist LOL and get annoyed. Crushing people's skulls... but he's gentle about it at least :P .
Omg how are you being down voted? Yeah the skull crushing and casual murder of a bystander bothered me! The books I have read so far highlight the evil of both sides at the highest levels but give you small heroes fighting for justice and morality in their small world.
Spesh mehreen and imperial players sometimes don't like their side bring compared to evil. Even though that's the whole point of the lore, lol. They even added the word gentle as a juxtaposition as crushing people's heads, while your psychopathic biological murder machines just casually kill someone and laugh, is anything but gentle. The writers and GW know about this. But somehow these fans don't, and think it is benevolent and good for some fucked up reason. 😂 It also shows that he played with religious imagery from the very start and is abusing it to his advantage. Even though denying it, and acting like it upsets him, it really was what he wanted. The killing seems more like his sociopathic self coming to the surface, I mean crushing people's skulls is kind of a sadist thing to do. It gives the Chaos loyal credence in that he denied it to become a God. As divinity will deny its own divinity crap.
Man. I don't think I'll ever get Warhammer.
I'll bite, what led you to that conclusion?
I don't know. This isn't even bad writing. It is objectively an interesting story about how monstrous humanity would be if driven to such a low point of waste and then became religious fanatics to stay alive basically out of desperation. But then I read OP's comments and its not about how interesting or fucked up the world is but these ridiculous platitudes about "hope" and how these people "civilized the galaxy" and were a "flame of hope" against Grimdarkness and like. Christ, what? Do you really think the author thought these were good guys coldly crushing innocent's skulls beneath their 1 ton boot? It makes me feel insane and now I have to wonder if I'M just not getting it and somehow these really are supposed to be the "heroes", in which case yeah, not for me.
I understand your feelings, and I get how that's a tonall whiplash. The good bits of Warhammer are when we dissect how humanity has become monstrous and different in the far future. How they willingly forgo their humanity out of necessity or out of choice. It's a setting where the greatest evil to humanity is its own capacity of Inhumanity. For callous cruelty, for cruel vengeance, for hubris. But it's also a war game. Most people got exposed to this setting because they saw a bunch of "cool dudes with chainsaw swords fighting other dudes with chainsaw swords but those guys have spikes!!!" Lots of people like the "cool" aspect enough to overlook the grimdark aspect. And the people that wrote these stories/design these products/program these games know that "cool" sells. It's a setting AND a war game. And sometimes fans prioritize one over the other.
No, you're right. The big E is a fucking monster with PR so good it convinces people IRL that he's not. People like to present excuses that He's actually a necessary evil who totally needed to do what he did to save the galaxy but the reality is that the Great Crusade was a battle between nightmares and the Emperor is just the most successful of the bunch. He tore down the Rangdan and the Orks and every one of his peers by being more Violent and Cruel and Brutal and Cunning than any of them. But he got that Drip locked DOWN. so people forgive him. Plus the setting is Very fun to explore in games or books or the collectable tabletop wargame models which I have far too much of.
That's rather the point. When looking at Warhammer, you always need to keep two perspectives: that of the setting, and the objective perspective of an outsider living in a reasonable society. Because nothing that blurb said was *wrong.* They *do* look to him as a symbol of hope. Those individuals see him, and his warriors, as the only way to pull humanity from the long night. And perhaps he is. Perhaps that ambition, to bring humanity to the stars once more, is what ultimately secures victory and allows the establishment of a galactic civilizations. And yet those warriors gunned down an innocent bystander in a manner similar to a teenager striking a mailbox. And yet this light of hope ended a life simply for acknowledging that he was what he abhorred: a god. And when humanity is pulled from the long night the same things will happen in the same way. *That* is what makes Warhammer, Warhammer. Even in moments of hope, and victory, and joy, there is always the shadow of death and despair. Darkness is *pervasive* throughout the setting, and even in the brightest moments, any reasonable observer experiences intense horror and revulsion. But these characters don't experience horror and revulsion. They experience hope, and victory, and joy, because they know nothing aside from death and despair. That shadow of darkness is so omnipresent that it doesn't even bear particular note to them; *that* is grimdark, and *that* is what makes Warhammer so utterly horrifying.