Emperor's Sword (Weapon)
"This is the Sword of the Emperor, the great foe of Chaos. It has laid low thousands of your kind. You shall be but an addition to the tally."
The Emperor's Sword is a giant flame-covered blade that the Emperor created by using both his mastery of science and Warpcraft.
Due to the nature of its creation, the Sword is anathema to the forces of Chaos and only the most powerful of Daemons can resist being destroyed by its mere touch. The sword is capable of giving a Daemon a True Death rather than simply banishing them to the Warp.[2] Indeed, in the Emperor's skilled hands, the Sword destroyed thousands of daemonic creatures during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy and even ended the life of the traitorous Warmaster Horus himself. However, the Emperor was nearly killed in that final battle with his Son and afterwards he was forced to be interred within the Golden Throne to survive his mortal wounds.[1a]
As for the Sword itself, at some time during The Scouring the Captain General of the Custodes presented the Primarch Roboute Guilliman with the Emperor's Sword[1a] to wield against Fulgrim at the Battle of Thessala.[1b] After Guilliman's defeat, he would be interred in a Stasis Field, with the Emperor's Sword resting on his knees for ten millennia.[4a] Abaddon the Despoiler's latest onslaught against the Imperium saw the rebirth of Roboute Guilliman and the Avenging Son wielded his Father's weapon immediately out of stasis[1c][4b] to aid him in saving the Emperor's empire. It would go on to become the Primarch's primary weapon and, despite no longer being wielded by the Emperor, the Sword still contains an essence of its creator's immense power. Due to this, Guilliman has noted that he feels the presence of his Father whenever he wields the Sword and thinks there are still secrets to the weapon that only the Emperor knows how to unleash.[1a]
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Conflicting Sources
- In the 1st edition of Dark Imperium (Novel) Guilliman is only handed the Emperor's Sword after his Awakening by the Captain General of the era (possibly Trajann Valoris), taken directly from the Emperor's Knee.[3a] He wielded the Gladius Incandor against Fulgrim at the Battle of Thessala.[3b] In the 2nd edition of the novel, it is an unspecified Captain General who presents him with the Emperor's Sword[1a] to use against Fulgrim at the Battle of Thessala[1b] and it was interred with him in stasis.[4]
- Curiously, in Gathering Storm: Rise of the Primarch, the Emperor's Sword was interred with Roboute in stasis.[4a] This was only a few months after Dark Imperium's 1st edition release, in which Roboute did not wield the Emperor's Sword against Fulgrim at Thessala in that edition.[3b] Exactly then, how the Emperor's Sword came to be with Roboute in stasis prior to Dark Imperium's re-write in 2021 is unknown. Especially contradictory was the notion of him wielding the Sword immediately after awakening, but also being presented it later by the Captain-General.
See also
Sources
- 1: Dark Imperium (Novel) (2021 E-Version):
- 2: Warhammer 40,000 8th Edition Rulebook, pgs. 154-158
- 3: Dark Imperium (Novel) (2017 Epub Version):
- 4: Gathering Storm: Rise of the Primarch:
