Pride of the Emperor

The Pride of the Emperor was a battleship of the Gloriana class that served as flagship of the III Legion, the Emperor’s Children. One of a small number of such vessels constructed during the Great Crusade era, it was counted among the mightiest warships in the primarch Fulgrim’s fleet and served as his personal seat of command.

The vessel accompanied Fulgrim and the Emperor’s Children throughout the later Great Crusade and into the Horus Heresy, following the Legion’s descent into excess and corruption after the discovery of the daemon weapon on Laer. As the flagship of a Legion increasingly given over to the worship of the Chaos god Slaanesh, the Pride of the Emperor is commonly attested as both a symbol of the Legion’s former glory and a witness to its fall, with the ship’s interior said to have become a place of extravagant and depraved ritual under Fulgrim’s command.

Following the Legion’s turn to Chaos, the Pride of the Emperor continued in service as flagship of the renamed III Legion into the era of the Long War, remaining associated in later accounts with Fulgrim and the Emperor’s Children’s operations against the Imperium.