publication croisée depuis : https://lemmy.world/post/1892386
Behold, envision a figure of unparalleled greatness, a majestic legend whose name echoes through the ag- Ok I’m doing too much. So, Imagine the king is an absolute legend of a hero, and people think he’s ruling over the land but he’s been dead for 50 years and no one knows, and people create a Mythos about him, saying things he never actually did to want to look cool and say they saw him
Warhammer 40K does a really good job of this exact trope, actually. If you’re interested, check it out!
Wait are you telling me the Emperor is actually dead (I only read lore about the Tau because they were the one I was interested in)
The Emperor’s body is physically about as dead as you can get, but he is such a powerful Psyker (read: magic user) that they keep his body alive on life support in order to harness the powers of his brain. The life support system (Called the Golden Throne) is so demanding that they literally need to provide him ~1000 human sacrifices per day, specifically people with psionic/Psyker capabilities.
However, a huge amount of the Empire’s logistical infrastructure depends on him, since his mind provides a beacon (called the astronomicon) that allows ships to navigate the Warp (another dimension, full of Eldritch horrors, useful for FTL travel, similar to D&D’s astral plane).
Most of the empire has become convinced that the Emperor himself is a living God, that he is omniscient and can enact his will around the galaxy. They are somewhat justified in this as well, since praising the Emperor is an effective way of repelling demons (IIRC this is just because believing in anything with enough zeal will repel demons).
Also, as soon as someone begins to doubt the divinity of the emperor, the chaos gods are able to start influencing/corrupting them, so it’s generally considered a dick move not to praise the emperor. Agnosticism, atheism, and even just having your own interpretation about the imperial cult literally represent a threat in the same way a terrorist might.
I especially like the theory that the people known as Living Saints are, in effect, the Emperor’s Greater Daemons.
The canon keeps it pretty ambiguous whether or not he’s actually alive IIRC. Several of the alien races refer to him as a “corpse emperor”, and obviously human sources in-world are unreliable. Either way, since he hasn’t actually been seen for 10,000 years, the effect is the same as OP describes.
Dammit, the idea is so good
Like I said to the other person, don’t hesitate to use it just because someone else has done it first. As the quote goes: “Good writers borrow, great writers steal”.
As I understand it - Basically it’s assumed he is kept barely alive to keep the astronomicon (the beacon for warp travel) working. Some people think he is a perpetual (someone who can revive after death) but if he leaves the throne the warp in Terra won’t be kept in check anymore and will be lost. Most likely they’d lose the ability to travel the warp as well.
Damn I got really excited about this idea and then your comment made me realize all the players at my table know Warhammer better than I do and would get it immediately
When you put one existing thing in your game, it’s stealing. When you mix two existing things together and put the resulting mixture in your game, it’s called being creative.
God emperor + 3 kobolds in a trench coat. It practically RPs itself.
Don’t be discouraged! As a player, the only thing better than an entirely new fantasy concept is one that I’m familiar enough with to recognize and role play my spin on it! I’m sure your players will enjoy spotting the similarities and a appreciate whatever you do.
There’s an in-world story in the Stormlight Archive about exactly this. The emperor of an island nation is so fearful that no one dares enter his tower. They are generally totally peaceful, but brutally murder anyone that makes a mistake, because their “Emperor won’t suffer failure.”
The characters in the story go to confront the emperor because they can’t stand for these murders, and find that the emperor is just a desicated corpse because no one has been into the tower for like 50 years. The island is thrown into chaos as the people are forced to come to terms with the fact that they’ve been killing each other for decades for no reason.
It’s pretty cool
My setting has a kingdom whose last king died and their heir went missing; the last king had become a bit of a mad tyrant when they were alive, so the people are in no hurry to have another one. The country is ruled by a Regent’s Council with the elected Regent as a sort of chairperson. Every session of the Council starts with a statement that the King can’t be present and that the council will make decisions in his stead. It’s been so long that the king’s heir, who was a toddler when the king died, would be middle-aged by now, but they’re in no hurry to find him and the heir himself has no intention of coming forward, if he even knows that he’s technically king. They’ve basically become a democratic republic while still being a kingdom on paper - which is deliberate, because there would be political consequences to not being a kingdom any more. For years everyone’s just politely pretended not to notice.
I absolutely love it, the idea is incredible! And I love the fact there is a reason behind it
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