Size of the God-Emperor of Man

[Cykeisme]

From what I know, the God-Emperor was born on Holy Terra at the dawn of human civilization in the distant past, and lived among men for millenia before taking his rightful place as its leader.

During this time, he shaped events either incognito or possibly as various political figures, possibly changing his appearance.

He appears to be at least the size of a Primarch or Space Marine by the time of the Great Crusade up to the Horus Heresy. My question is, wouldn't he have stood out all throughout history if he was a massively muscled, hulking eight foot tall superhuman?
Or is his height and size in fact within the normal range for an average human being?

Or is he capable of changing not only his appearance (skin and pigmentation, features etc) but also his build? If this is the case, did he only grow himself to superhuman size and strength when he began his crusade and took control of Terra during the age when the solar system of humanity's birth was isolated by warp storms?

[Teebs]

Are there any direct sources about his size at the time of the Crusade? If they're all from the normal time setting of 40k then it might just be exaggeration for propaganda purposes.

[NecronLord]

Biomancy is a well known psychic discipline, and such a change should be easy for him.

[Ted C]

He appears to be at least the size of a Primarch or Space Marine by the time of the Great Crusade up to the Horus Heresy. My question is, wouldn't he have stood out all throughout history if he was a massively muscled, hulking eight foot tall superhuman? Or is his height and size in fact within the normal range for an average human being?

1) I don't know that he was ever that much bigger than a human being, particularly in his early life.

2) Even if he were, a psychic of his power could almost certainly cast an illusion in the minds of observers to look any way he pleased.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Biomancy is a well known psychic discipline, and such a change should be easy for him.

Didn't you once mention that the Emperor was the size & build of a normal human (Barring the use of illusions or cloaking powers as he did against the primarchs or as a court alchemist for example), and that his superhuman abilities were simply him using his psyker abilities? ("Bulls strength +30" in other words )

[Setzer]

In one comic, a Dark Angels Librarian in Terminator armor is able to use his psychic powers to appear as a harmless local. It would be child's play for the Emperor to appear whatever size he wanted, especially in Earth's prehistory, with so few psychically sensitive people.

[NecronLord]

Biomancy is a well known psychic discipline, and such a change should be easy for him.

Didn't you once mention that the Emperor was the size & build of a normal human (Barring the use of illusions or cloaking powers as he did against the primarchs or as a court alchemist for example), and that his superhuman abilities were simply him using his psyker abilities? ("Bulls strength +30" in other words )

That would be my assumption, yes. I know of no source specifically describing a specific super-build for him (Horus Rising has some stuff about how magnificent he is though) but it is easy to rationalise.

[18-Till-I-Die]

In teh Horus Heresy artbook...

The Primarchs appear to be just simply massive. At least several heads taller than men in power armor. One depiction of the Death Guard primarch (his name escapes me, Mortis or some such) show some helmets by his feet which about the size of his foot!

So if the Emperor was as big or bigger than them, we're talking more than eight feet. The Primarchs are, mostly consistantl too, shown to be between 12-15 feet.

[Tasoth]

Horus Heresy Vol. 2: Visions of Darkness, page 46-48, it's all about the custodes, emperor and the precursor Adeptus Sorroritas. The Emperor is in the middle of a two page panel that shows all of them standing in line. He's maybe a head taller then the average custodes, less of custodes in terminator armor. He is also probably in one mother of a huge suit of power armor. I'm going to wager he's not much taller then the average space marine as he, like them, were normal humans before they received their gene seeds. Now the primarchs, Magnus the Red is shown in combat, knees bent, hunkering down and the space marines only come up to his groin.

[Kuja]

As I recall, Magnus and Mortarian were by far the physically largest primarchs, with Magnus being so large that the others only came up to shoulder-height on him.

[Tasoth]

Thank god I scanned that before I lost my scanner. Obviously, we can look at it two ways: High end, that's a straight on view and Leman Russ is nearly twice as tall as those space marines. Other way is that he is someway on something/flying through the air/subjected to a foreshortened view point and he's taller. Howerver you look at it, Leman is still a damn big dude and much taller then the average marine it would appear. If the Emperor's custodes are on par with Leman for size, then the Emperor is bigger then the Primarches, other wise he's just stupendously big compared to the average man, but not the size of the primarchs big.

[Lost Soal]

In Index Astartes II when the Emperor reveals himself for his fight with Leman he is said to be "Standing far taller than any man present." What it doesn't do is add the qualifier, except for the Wolf King, suggesting he was bigger than Leman Russ, although he is in power armour at this time.

[Cykeisme]

This is purely my personal opinion, but I prefer the idea that he was normal sized and simply willed himself to grow to Primarch size when he revealed himself.. rather than he cast psychic illusions to conceal his size for tens of millenia.

Btw, I didn't know that Primarchs were larger than regular Space Marines until I read this thread.. thanks.
Does anyone have a picture that shows the size of a Primarch (full length) compared to a Space Marine?

[white_rabbit]

The Emperor has enough psychic grunt to appear pretty much as he wishes I think, either through physical morphing, a low end example is shown in the Ravenor books, when Ravenor molds one of his coteries facial features by distending and contracting muscles, righ up to the full physical distortion psykers can perform.

Or hell, he just projects an image.

[Azazal]

Or hell, he just projects an image.

Projects and image? Nah this is the God Emperor of Man, he goes into your brain and tells you what he wants you to see. In reality he is a small shrew like creature

[Shadowtraveler]

This is purely my personal opinion, but I prefer the idea that he was normal sized and simply willed himself to grow to Primarch size when he revealed himself.. rather than he cast psychic illusions to conceal his size for tens of millenia.

I can't help but wonder if he used these size-altering powers for less-than-noble reasons during his early years, if you catch my drift.

[Elheru Aran]

There's a line in Horus Rising-- I don't have the book with me right now but it's something along the lines of Horus kneeling as he speaks to Loken, and Loken still only reaches Horus' shoulder. If we take eight feet as a rough baseline for a Space Marine, then I'd judge Primarchs as being maybe 10, 12 feet tall?

As for the Emperor, I hold with the whole 'he's in a big ass power armour suit' theory regarding his size. He's probably slightly bigger than normal human size, capable of altering that whenever he needs with biomancy or projecting images of himself; he has both options available...

[Ford Prefect]

Seriously guys, he's the God Emperor of Mankind. He's as big as fucking well wants to be.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Bigger than the Primarchs and uses Biomancy or Image Projection to conceal his true size before he became Emperor.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Ghetto Edit: Can anyone make some calcs based on this?

[Rye]

You'd need to post the full picture to have a chance at something scalable.

[Academia Nut]

As a point of size to note, Sanginius, who is lying broken on the floor in the full picture posted above, broke a Bloodthirster over his knee. Now, daemons do have a wide degree of variability in their size what with being incarnations of chaos and all, but seeing as how said Bloodthirster was powerful enough to be implicated in being half the reason behind the Blood Angels gene-curse, I don't exactly see a smallish version of a greater daemon of Khorne here, unless there is some information I'm missing.

[white_rabbit]

He supposedly grabbed Ka'Bhanda by the wrist and ankle, then somehow snapped his spine, and then smashed him into the ground in front fo the chaos legions.

the Visions of the heresy books depict Ka'bhanda as about the scale of the Forgeworld 'Thirster, funnily enough

[Academia Nut]

Daaaaamn, Sanginius would have to be huge just to get his hands around the wrists and ankles of something like that (note the Grey Knights for scale comparison), to say nothing of the size requirements for the simple mechanics of such a feat.

[Kuja]

Well, Sanguinius was a mutant, and at least two of his brothers were psykers...perhaps it is not inconcievable that the Blood Angel was a telekine.