Emperor’s Children army rules, detachment abilities, stratagems and lore for Warhammer 40k, with links to the full unit datasheet table.
The Emperor's Children, also sometimes known after their fall as the Lords of Profligacy, are a Traitor Legion of Chaos Space Marines who devote themselves solely to the service of the Chaos God Slaanesh, the Prince of Pleasure, though they were originally the Imperium of Man's proud III Space Marine Legion.
The Emperor's Children was the only one of the original First Founding Legiones Astartes to bear the Emperor's own name and His own icon -- the Palatine Aquila -- granted to them by His hand as a symbol of the Legion's martial perfection. Few were ever so honoured amongst the ancient Space Marine Legions and given less cause to betray the Master of Mankind than the Emperor's Children.
Given the plaudits and accolades accorded them, few could doubt that they were the embodiment of what the Emperor had intended the Legiones Astartes to be: noble in action and aspect, excelling in all matters, strong, civilised, firm of purpose and loyal to the core.
From this height they descended in treachery to the lowest and vilest of creatures, enslaved to pride and consumed by hedonistic desires that no natural power could fulfill. The Emperor's Children are now a scattered Legion much like their counterparts the World Eaters, their unity devoured by their allegiance to Chaos.
The Emperor's Children Legion now exists only as scattered, autonomous warbands of Heretic Astartes located in the Eye of Terror who are dedicated to their own pursuit of corrupt, hedonistic and usually murderous pleasures. The Chaos Space Marines of the Emperor's Children are known for possessing outlandish mutations and surgical alterations as "gifts" from Slaanesh which are designed to make them more "perfect" in the eyes of their twisted patron.
The Heretic Astartes of the Emperor's Children Legion possess no other purpose but to exceed every extreme and to know every possible sensation. Its warriors are entirely in the thrall of Slaanesh, the Dark Prince of Chaos, but once, the Legion of the primarch Fulgrim strived for perfection in all they did, and were counted as one of the most dedicated of all of the Emperor's followers.
The infant primarch of the Emperor's Children grew up upon the bleak, dying world of Chemos, a Human mining colony long fallen to decay and decline as Old Night claimed the domains of Mankind. Isolated from surrounding systems, the industry of Chemos had fallen silent, the mines replaced by the reclamation plants and vapour extraction facilities that kept the dwindling population from vanishing entirely.
Within fifty standard years of his arrival on Chemos, Fulgrim had risen to become its leader, and it was his dream that the wonders of long-lost ages might be rediscovered and rebuilt. However, it was only when the Emperor came to his world that the primarch could begin to fully realise his vision. By that time, it was not simply his homeworld that Fulgrim desired to see elevated to glory, but the entirety of Humanity. When Fulgrim was introduced to the Space Marine Legion that shared his genetic inheritance, he found not a resplendent host as did so many of his brothers, but a mere two hundred battle-brothers.
A terrible accident had befallen the nascent III Legion early in the development of its gene-seed, setting it far behind its fellows in growth and numbers. Thus, it was necessary that Fulgrim and his transhuman warriors be integrated into the ranks of another Legion until such time as their numbers were sufficiently restored for them to take to battle on their own. The Legion to which Fulgrim and his warriors were assigned was the Luna Wolves, the Legion of Horus Lupercal, and Fulgrim could not have had a better companion at whose side to master the arts of warfare.
The IIIrd Legion was created alongside its brother Space Marine Legions during the latter phases of the Unification Wars on Terra, with many of its finest warriors drawn from the courts and blood vassal populations of the continent of Europa. The nobles of Europa selected the finest of their youth and offered them up to the Emperor of Mankind as tribute and penance for their previous defiance of His rule after their systematic humiliation in battle at the hands of the Imperial Thunder Regiments.
Among them were sons drawn from each noble family, a fact apocryphally said by some Imperial scholars of the time to have given the Legion its lasting name, reaffirmed in later years by its primarch after his rediscovery by the expeditionary fleets of the Great Crusade. Of this tithe of flesh some Europan noble familes gave in grudging tribute, and thought of these young men as little more than hostages, while others cooperated with the zeal of true converts to the Imperial cause.
House Loculus of Komarg is said, for example, to have sent all of its sons to be transformed into Astartes at the time of their capitulation to Imperial rule, and to have given the firstborn son of each generation thereafter to the IIIrd Legion willingly.
In later solar decades, other Terran dynasties followed the example of the nobles of Europa, filling the ranks of the IIIrd Legion with the flower of Terran youth who seemed well-matched with the aristocratic blood of its initiates, forming a martial brotherhood whose ancestry in war stretched back into the lost ages of Human history.
In these early wars the IIIrd Legion was used to support some of the more notable actions of the nascent Imperial Army, and in many instances to directly lead its troops in battle. This differed notably from many of the First Founding Space Marine Legion forces at this time, who were often deployed as unified commands en masse to serve as shock troops supported by heavy war machinery only.
Coordinating and leading such "lesser" troops seemed a natural fit for the former aristocrats of the IIIrd Legion. They had a profound ability to understand the strengths and manifold weaknesses of the diverse armies in service to the Emperor and drew on the long traditions of Terra's military aristocracies to command with surety and purpose.
The Antarctic Clearance campaign during the Unification Wars is, for example, marked in history as a victory for Army Group Antilles, but in truth any detailed analysis of the ancient conflict reveals that it was the IIIrd Legion which sculpted the tactics and strategy of the campaign, and led it to successful completion.
Likewise, when the Bronze Host took Nadarin it was under the eye and with the aid of the IIIrd Legion, and the Fifth Raising of Jove-Sat II was done principally by their hand, though other names than theirs throng the honour rolls of the Unification. The examples are numerous, and through them all the IIIrd Legion proved their superb ability to execute and exceed the intent and expectations of their Emperor in war.
It was after the Proximan Betrayal early in the Great Crusade that the IIIrd Legion was granted the exclusive right to bear the Palatine Aquila, the Emperor's personal standard, in its own heraldry, the only Space Marine Legion allowed to display the Aquila on its arms and armour until after the Horus Heresy, when the practice spread to all the Legions that had remained loyal to the Imperium.
The Emperor's Children were organised in a manner that suited the ideals of Fulgrim and their own exacting and perfectionist nature. As with every other aspect of the IIIrd Legion, nothing was left to whim or chance; every action within the Legion's purview was deliberate and assessed for its aesthetic and functional value.
Fulgrim was fond of remarking that if one was to excel then no detail was too small to consider, and that the quality of the whole lay in the quality of its constituents. In ordering his Legion it is not surprising then that Fulgrim favoured formality, conformity and order. The Emperor's Children took much from the structures of the other Space Marine Legions when they were first created, though it also added its own layers of terminology, emphasis and balance while remaining largely true to the long-established Terran patterns for the Legiones Astartes.
A hierarchy of authority and ability existed in every part of the Emperor's Children. Every warrior, piece of equipment or officer was placed in the function best suited to their strengths and proven ability, and in that sphere they were expected to excel. Fulgrim also maintained rigid order amongst the divisions of his Legion and command hierarchy. The fluid variations in size and nature common in certain other Legions like the Luna Wolves played no part in the Emperor's Children's way of war.
Any change or variation was deliberate and the outcome of careful consideration. Likewise, the appointment and rank of every warrior of the Emperor's Children was carefully delineated. Honours, symbolic representations of achievements and marks of renown abounded, but were solely gifted by a superior rather than assumed by an individual, with those honours directly granted by the hand of the primarch held in higher esteem.
Every warrior of the Legion knew his place and value in the sight of the primarch and the Emperor, and this translated into a level of personal commitment and bravery that was the equal of any found among the ranks of the Space Marines, fuelled in no small part by an unshakable faith in their own superiority.
The Emperor's Children were ordered and precise; formation sizes and structure were largely uniform and where they were not it was either a temporary aberration or a deliberate variation for a particular purpose. Within this careful order the squad was the base unit that showed most variations in both size and function.
Comprising a handful of Emperor's Children each squad had a particular purpose and specialisation. Squad members were expected to excel in their allotted tactical roles and would train exhaustively to achieve the pinnacle of efficiency and unit cohesion. Notably all of the variations in squad type and equipment found in other Legions were present within the Emperor's Children, as they believed there was no sphere of warfare they could not or should not excel in.
There were, however, certain beliefs held within the Legion's culture about the superiority of certain martial virtues over others. These were beliefs that had originated as the opinions and inclinations of Fulgrim and had filtered down through the ranks as ironclad doctrine that was not to be questioned.
One such virtue was the importance of speed, whether in manoeuvre, action or attack, as being of cardinal importance over strength, endurance or even firepower. The Emperor's Children believed that the decisive warrior who struck first was the most likely to be victorious, just as the moving target was harder to strike. This doctrine was made manifest on many levels, from the selection of battle plans to the choice of wargear the Legion favoured.
In the days before the Horus Heresy and the Emperor's Children corruption, the IIIrd Legion accepted nothing less than perfection in all their endeavours, and worked ceaselessly to perfect their military operations. Each and every Space Marine trained every waking hour for his assigned task, whether it be as a foot soldier, driver, gunner, scout or sniper.
Every aspect of battle was analysed and used to their advantage, from terrain and weather to deployment or reserves. Nothing was left to chance. In combat the Emperor's Children were as brave as any Space Marines who ever lived, sustained not merely by the example of their peers but by a deep individual belief in their duty.
They fought to the best of their abilities in all conditions, whether the battle was a massive planetary assault or a simple patrol. It was widely believed that no Space Marine of the Emperor's Children had ever been routed in battle. Similarly, the IIIrd Legion was highly demanding of the forces allied with it.
Any signs of hesitation or inefficiency in the Imperial Army units serving alongside the Legion or even amongst their brother Astartes, was not tolerated. The main guiding principle of the Legion was to lead by example, which was ingrained into every fibre of the Emperor's Children. They had little patience for any other regimen.
To the Emperor's Children, before their fall from grace, war was a matter of perfection incarnated in violence, intent and action. The IIIrd Legion took great pride both in its excellence on any battlefield, and its ability to systematically replicate any tactic or strategic deployment it needed, and execute them flawlessly on command.
Of the innumerable such formations and tactics the Emperor's Children operated, one that found favour with the Legion's Praetors looking to achieve faultless victory -- and thereby glory in the eyes of their peers and Primarch -- was the Marus Skara or "Killing Cut".
Named after one of the most difficult strikes in the lore of the Pan-Europic duelling cults before Terran Unification, it called for a precisely timed, rapid-moving feint designed to engage an opponent's guard so that a second, invariably fatal, blow could be dealt against it which there could be no defence from.
Chemos was once the homeworld of the Emperor's Children before their corruption by the Chaos God Slaanesh and betrayal of the Emperor of Mankind during the Horus Heresy. Chemos was the planet where the Emperor's Children's primarch Fulgrim was discovered by the Emperor during the Great Crusade.
In ancient days Chemos was classified by the Imperium as both a Civilised World and a Mining World. Following the conclusion of the Horus Heresy, Chemos had an edict of Exterminatus declared against it by the Imperium and was destroyed, as happened to all of the hopelessly corrupted homeworlds of the Traitor Legions. Since that time, Chemos has been a Dead World.
In the 41st Millennium, the IIIrd Legion now exists only as small, fragmented warbands, each adopting their own base within the Eye of Terror from which to strike out at the demesnes of the False Emperor. Rumours also persist of a Daemon World in the Eye of Terror dedicated to pleasure ruled over by the Daemon Primarch Fulgrim, although how substantial a detachment of Emperor's Children Chaos Space Marines he retains, if indeed such a planet exists, is unknown.
According to the surviving IIIrd Legion monuments seized by the Inquisition, the Emperor's Children did not literally deify the Emperor, but the strength and passion of their belief in Him was equal to that of any later adherent of the Imperial Cult. Following Fulgrim's lead, the IIIrd Legion believed that the Emperor represented the pinnacle of humanity, and that only by following His example was it possible to attain one's full potential as a human being.
Any person or group who resisted this goal was below contempt, not worthy even of consideration as a fellow human. However, the IIIrd Legion's near-worship of the Emperor was extremely hierarchical. The Emperor's perfection was thought to be embodied first by the Primarchs, then the officers of the Astartes Legions, and finally the squad sergeants and the line Space Marines themselves.
Lore excerpt from Warhammer 40k Wiki on Fandom, available under CC BY-SA 3.0.
23 Emperor’s Children datasheets on the current roster, each with its points, model statistics, keywords and abilities.