Malcador the Sigillite - Unity and the Great Crusade: During the conquest of Terra in the late 30th Millennium, the Emperor gathered about Him trusted lieutenants and gave them tasks and duties befitting men of status. Most of these servants were drawn from the ranks of the Terran nobility and the Space Marine Legions.Malcador was an exception, for he was not a warrior but a man of learning with the bearing of a priest. From the early years of the Wars of Unification he was ever-present at the Emperor's side, and did engage in combat with him often using his prodigious psychic talents. His origins were unknown to all save perhaps the Emperor Himself.Malcador had met the Emperor when He was just another Terran warlord, and was the one who originally recommended He take on the title "Emperor of Mankind."In truth he had been a member, perhaps the last survivor, of the ancient secret organisation known as the Sigillites. They had sought to preserve the greatest and most powerful artefacts of human history from the tumult and destruction of the Age of Strife.The fortress-like headquarters of the Sigillites in the Himalazian (Himalayan) Mountains would provide the foundation for what the Emperor would eventually transform into the Imperial Palace.According to the Primarch Jaghatai Khan, the true identity of Malcador was discovered by his brother Horus. Horus had told the Khan that Malcador's original name was Brahm al-Khadour, a man who was a Perpetual like the Emperor Himself and was known as a cursed wanderer or the last and greatest technomage of Terra.The Khan went on to say that Brahm al-Khadour and the Sigillites had committed great atrocities during the era of Old Night, the memories of which were later erased by the Emperor and Malcador himself.Whatever the truth of his origins, Malcador wore the hooded robes of a simple Terran administrator. Blessed with unnaturally long life there were many rumours about the true nature of this enigmatic figure. Some believed he was the first psyker to have undergone the Soul-Binding ritual. Other rumours whispered that he was a kinsman of the Master of Mankind, distantly related to the Emperor.Whatever the truth, Malcador was always considered to be a man possessed of the greatest wisdom and was held in special regard by the Emperor, for he had earned his place alongside the superhuman Primarchs as an advisor to the Emperor.Malcador was eventually appointed to administer the Emperor's Imperial Palace and through it he managed the administration of the newly conquered Terra. As the Great Crusade progressed, Malcador's power and influence grew as he became overseer of the Imperial Tithe and the chief of the newborn Council of Terra and its related Administratum.As the Primarchs were rediscovered one by one during the course of the Great Crusade, the Emperor found His time increasingly consumed by leading the Imperial forces, leaving Malcador behind on Terra to oversee all the bureaucratic needs of the rapidly-expanding Imperium. During this time, he was accompanied by the Primarch of the Space Wolves Legion Leman Russ, the second of the Primarchs to be found and a native of the pre-industrial world of Fenris. As a result of his upbringing, Russ was finding it difficult at first to adjust to the far more technologically advanced culture of the Imperium. During this period, Malcador acted as a companion and tutor for Russ, and the two bonded to some extent.Malcador's opinions held the force of law for many within the Imperium and his insights aided many of the galaxy's greatest heroes. Malcador had great respect for human history and he had a wide foundation of knowledge on the subject, having literally lived through much of it. He viewed himself as a link to the past glories of humanity's lost golden age during the Age of Technology and his most important role was to remind the Emperor of both why all other human empires had fallen and of all that humanity had been though over the millennia.His most prized possessions were two ancient paintings recovered by the Sigillites from the disasters of the Age of Strife: the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci and Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh. He displayed these treasures of the ancient past in his personal chambers.During the Great Crusade, Malcador served as the Emperor's primary representative when he was unavailable and often acted in his stead, or preceded his arrival, the intent being for the Emperor to make His presence known only in the event of Malcador's failure to conclude a situation satisfactorily.One such event was the humbling of the Word Bearers Legion in the ruins of Monarchia forty solar decades before the start of the Horus Heresy. The Word Bearers had been called to task for their failure to spread the Imperial Truth across the worlds they had conquered in the Emperor's name. Rather than bringing an end to religion and superstition, the Word Bearers and their Primarch Lorgar had been teaching the people of their conquered worlds to worship the Emperor as their god.During the incident, an enraged Lorgar slapped Malcador 20 metres through the air with the back of his hand. The Sigillite, a normal-sized man, survived the assault and even managed to regain his footing, displaying physical resiliency far beyond that of other mortals, though he still suffered several cracked bones. He also demonstrated his potent telekinetic ability, retrieving his fallen staff and bringing it quickly to his hand. The Emperor ultimately intervened and used His psychic might to force the Word Bearers into compliance with His will, though the incident would set Lorgar down upon the path of ultimate corruption by the Ruinous Powers.In a statement Malcador later made to the magister and astropath Sibel Niasta, a dying servant and friend, which he stated was a lie to comfort humanity, he claimed that he and the Emperor had intended to agitate the Primarchs and ultimately turn them against one another. The resulting conflict between them was intended to purge those Primarchs and Astartes who were not worthy of leading humanity once the Great Crusade's objectives had been completed. Their goal, Malcador claimed, was to eliminate the Space Marine Legions just as they had the earlier Thunder Warriors. The result would be that in the wake of the Great Crusade, only mortal humans, not genetically-engineered superhumans would be the true inheritors of the galaxy. But the Chaos Gods intervened to corrupt half of the Primarchs before the plan could come to fruition, leading to the Horus Heresy and the collapse of all the Emperor's carefully laid plans to restore Mankind's golden age.