The Dragon Emperor
"I am Emperor, my descendants will be numerous. From the second generation to the ten thousandth, my line will not end."
- – Qin Shi Huang
The Dragon Emperor, also called Xen Yang is the one and only ruler of Grand Cathay (unless you ask his wife, the Moon Empress) and is one of if not the most powerful non-deity in the Warhammer Fantasy World. He seems to be heavily based upon The Jade Emperor from Chinese Mythology and, though perhaps not intentionally, another giant golden deadbeat dad with godlike powers.
Big D was created by CA and GW for their new respective games; pre-2021 Cathay lore had multiple Dragon Emperors in different periods of time (handwaved in current lore as an erroneous interpretation of the Dragon family by Old Worlders), with multiple theories about their nature (e.g. were they actually humans or one Dragon reincarnating every now and then?).
Backstory[edit]
The Dragon Emperor was around before, well, anything was around on the planet really. Back when the world was further away from the sun and was a frozen shithole, he was one of the most powerful creatures on the planet living alongside other Eastern Dragons, the Dragons that would eventually join forces with the Elves of Ulthuan and the Dragon Ogres. Then the Old Ones came, terraformed the planet, populated it with all kinds of different races and if you asked Big D, was the reason Chaos got released upon the world. While most of the other primordial beings at this point decided to take a nap until things got better, The Dragon Emperor and his wife The Moon Empress decided to stick around and see if there were any opportunities in this new world.
The race that interested the Dragons the most was humanity, and when Big D learned to shapeshift himself into a human he gathered numerous human tribes in the area that would later become Cathay under his banner. Together along with his children who were being born around this time and some implied help from the Ogres, they were able to hold off the Chaos advance in Cathay until the Elves were able to use the Vortex to flush the Daemons away like the aftermath of a bad Taco Bell dinner. Once the hordes were handled construction began on the Great Bastion, a massive wall with a portion of the Dragon Emperor's will in it to keep the Chaos Wastes away. The wall was powered greatly from the Emperor's power, but if it were to ever be completely destroyed he would die along with it.
Once the wall was complete he sent his five remaining children (the other four died and/or got corrupted by Chaos and/or fucked off somewhere) to manage the various realms of his new empire and aside from one incident where he decided to nuke the Ogres with a giant meteor for the crime of eating children, became the ruler of Cathay and began to teach it's populace the way of Harmony. Harmony is basically how they view the Wings of Magic, and shows how seemingly opposite forces (represented by the concepts of Yin ang Yang) are often time complimentary to and dependent on each other and how one should find their natural place to maintain equal Harmony. He used this as a substitute for standard religion as he and his family believed themselves to be separate from and higher than any god in the Fantasy World.
As time went on however, Big D and his wife became much more hands off when it came to ruling and eventually retired to the Celestial City above the capitol of Wei-Jin, giving even more duties and powers to their children. They aren't eating peeled grapes and partying non stop up there however, as the Emperor has a secret plan he is working on with his Astromancers that he claims will finally defeat Chaos (Whether or not humanity will benefit from this plan is not a question he has answered.) In his absence, Chaos Cults under Tzeentch began to spread and gain influence within his empire and neighboring nations such as Nippon and the Kingdoms of Ind started making raids and attacks into Cathayan territory. He also started to become blind to the growing tension and animosity between his children (not helping is the fact that he's pretty open about liking some more than others) who by the way, don't know why the fuck daddy decided to stay home all day instead of helping them with their chores of "stopping the Empire from falling apart."
This bit him right on the scaly butt when he and his wife decided to leave for four centuries without telling anybody to work on his mysterious plan. When the Dragon Emperor came back he saw his empire both literally and figuratively on fire. Chaos armies had breached the Bastion and started rampaging, his kids had all started warring with each other to see who would be the one to claim the throne, a throne that by the way got occupied by a god damn ape. That ape being the Monkey King who had taken power in his absence. At this point a rightfully pissed off Dragon Emperor rallied his armies, kicked the Chaos armies and Monkey King out of his lands then presumably turned to his kids and said something along the lines of "That's it, no more personal autonomy for the next thousand years! Go to your rooms!" This leads us to modern Cathay where he seemed to have learned absolutely nothing, and continues to keep his kids in the dark about his project while letting old bitterness fester.
Similarities with another Bad Daddy[edit]
- Both were born in the distant past of the setting;
- Both are more than an average human;
- Both helped humans rise and shaped them into a formidable force against Chaos (although D had a much smaller area to work with, and he didn't wait until the worst shit happened);
- Both are linked to an object that, if destroyed, would kill them too (although E's tragic fate that binded him to his golden seat is more similar to Lord Kroak's one; plus, it is implied that after the failure of the Throne Emps would simply reincarnate);
- Both despise religion and gods, both are worshipped anyway and both have to tolerate at least some aspects of religion (Omnissiah cult, Chanting Monks in Fu-Hung and general ancestor worshipping/veneration);
- Both have grown distant from their subjects and started working on their mysterious and convoluted plans, which they definitely won't share with anyone;
- Both aren't good at parenting, which had created very complicated relationship between his children, some of which dissappeared.
Overall, Dragon Emperor can be seen as one of the finest examples of difference between Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy Battle - while Emprah can be seen as borderline villainous due to his bad treatment of tools Primarchs, creation of USSR-style genocidal totalitarian state and his inability to be flexible and overcome his flaws, Big D is implied to care about his wife and at least Miao Ying, is shown to be more friendly to non-Human races and more benevolent towards his subjects, and is overall can be seen as a more heroic being, if VERY flawed, which nicely fits WFB lore.
Speculations[edit]
As with a lot of things in the Warhammer settings, the Dragon Emperor is a classic case of GW using their classic "leave large chunks of the lore a mystery so people can get invested and we're allowed to be lazy with our writing" strategy when it comes to worldbuilding. We know that he is an ancient dragon from before the Old Ones who created Cathay and has a plan to push back Chaos. One of the most popular theories as to his plan is that he's trying to move the planet back to its original place in the solar system before the Old Ones came. It makes sense, as it would kill off all of the species created by the Old Ones and only leave him and his family behind to inherit the earth. Plus due to the massive drop in sentient beings on the planet, the Chaos Gods would have significantly less emotions to feed off of and grow weaker. We already know his family can survive in these icy conditions, and it would make sense why he wouldn't tell his children about since at this point they're so accustomed to being with their human pets (Hell, Zhao Ming actually likes them).
However, there are some issues with this theory if you think about it. First off, why would the Astromancers be on board with this plan? Does The Emperor have some way to keep them alive, or are they so dedicated to him they're willing to freeze to death just so his family can live in peace? Also what about the polar gates, those probably aren't just going to freeze over, and with the Elves and Lizardmen dead the Vortex and Geomantic Web will crumble allowing Daemons to pour into the world. How are they going to hold off the Daemons when 99% of their armies have just froze to death? Plus Dragon Ogres can survive in this environment and will still serve Chaos, and I doubt the Caledorian Dragons will be happy that their eastern cousins froze all their Elven friends to death. Seems like if this plan goes off all the Dragon Emperor would do is give the world to Chaos on a silver platter.