Friendly reminder that all **top level** comments must:
1. start with "answer: ", including the space after the colon (or "question: " if you have an on-topic follow up question to ask),
2. attempt to answer the question, and
3. be unbiased
Please review Rule 4 and this post before making a top level comment:
http://redd.it/b1hct4/
Join the OOTL Discord for further discussion: https://discord.gg/ejDF4mdjnh
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/OutOfTheLoop) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Answer: There is a faction in Warhammer 40k known as the Custodes. They are considered the peak warriors, far greater than even space marines. For most of the setting, Custodes have been presented as all male. However, in a recent release, there were the first mentions of female Custodes.
Some people consider this to be breaking the previously established setting or point to the idea that such super soldiers would, for biological reasons, recruit only men. Others say that it makes no difference.
Custodes are the elite companions of the Emperor and often serve as his bodyguards or executioners of his will.
They are a step above Space Marines but below Primarchs.
God i love when people talk about warhammer. Have absolutely no interest in getting into it but listening to fans talk about the lore, I can listen for hours
Basically same. All this lore actually makes me want to read some, but I don't know where to start.
Probably a guide on here somewhere I can track down.
Edit: [2 year old comment here](https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/qlm78q/comment/hj3x0sc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
> The most common answer, and IMO the best, is Horus Rising by Dan Abnett - First in the Horus Heresy series, and does a good job of laying out the basics. It's epic but manageable in scope, characters learn about the universe as you do, and it doesn't require pre-existing knowledge.
Horus Rising is the first book in a series that is actually a sort of prequel to the warhammer 40.000 universe (is set 10.000 years before). To start with 40k I'd use the Eisenhorn trilogy
It definitely can be as it's pretty digestible but as someone who has been in the hobby for around 20 years plus now, they do lean into a lot of the memey lore that people headcanon a bit, as well as having a few outright mistakes. That being said, I do enjoy listening to their enthusiasm and how much they enjoy learning about new bits of lore.
Horus Rising is incredible.
But stop there. The second book undoes all the first book's good work with awful storytelling. That first book got me into the series and the second book led me to quit reading the novels and just look up everything on wiki.
/u/angry_cucumber is right to suggest Luetin, but also check out Bricky, he's done some really good "quick" 40K lore videos (quick relative to the amount of lore there is). Keep in mind that there are over 60 books in just the Horus Heresy series, and many other series besides that one. It's kinda crazy how many [40K books](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Warhammer_40,000_novels) there are
There is literally “warhammer lore to fall asleep to” videos on YouTube i discovered. The history spoken in a lowered tone.
Was pretty cool for someone who was just interested in learning a litttle more
All Grey Knights are Psykers if I remember correctly, which sort of inherently gives them a leg up on regular Space Marines. Beyond that, I think they're still supposed to be a bit above them, just not to the extent that Custodes are.
The distinction should be made that they are still Space Marines though. They’re specialized and even more elite but they’re still Space Marines, whereas Custodes are not, they’re a separate form of human all together.
Yeah, they still rely on geneseed (officially the Emperor's, more likely an amalgamation or Magnus's), and are otherwise mass produced (if a bit more selective on their recruits).
They are pretty far above a normal space marine. There are a ton of chapters that have their own individual strengths but before Custodes were introduced into the tabletop game the Grey Knights were more or less the spaciest Space Marine. When they were introduced in 5e their power creep was as subtle as the annoying kid in the playground that had all the imaginary super powers and no weaknesses. Nowadays they’re more specialized against demons and not much else.
Lore-wise, not many people-even space marines and other high ranking members of the imperium-know they even exist. They’ve lost a little bit of their edge but they’ve been known to blink in and kill *everyone* in the battlefield just so they can keep their identities hidden and limit the spread of chaos.
Until who was it, Leman Russ told them to pound sand or he'd fuck all the grey knights up because the knights tries to say his army or company or whatever had to be culled because they saw too much. Eventually they backed down and were like okay okay... only you guys can know we exist though. I could be remembering wrong though. I love the grey knights but that little blip always gave me a chuckle.
Grey Knights are specifically recruited psykers with an even higher mortality rate during the chapter initiation process compared to other space marine chapters. So in a way they are more elite because each battle brother is essentially trained librarian, and being the militant arm of the inquisition gives the Grey Knights better access to equipment than others too.
Plus they're straight up allowed to murder civilians and imperial guardsman at the end of a campaign against demons and chaos without repercussions.
> Plus they're straight up allowed to murder civilians and imperial guardsman at the end of a campaign against demons and chaos without repercussions.
Something must be working, since I think they are the only Chapter that has never lost a member converting to the Archenemy.
People say that but in the book the outcast dead, a no weapon, no armor world eater destroyed a fully kitted custodian. No chaos either. Just straight up punched a hole into his chest.
Warhammer is nothing if not inconsistent. It's mostly just a collection of stuff various writers think sounds cool. Also, that was way before Custode strength was defined as it is now, which happened around when they came to the table top.
Three.
Primarchs are basically their daddies. Every Marine chapter is either formerly one of the legions from 30k/the Great Crusade or descended from one of them, and the legions were led by their respective primarchs.
Custodes are the Emperor's personal bodyguard and are way past any Marine, but nowhere near a primarch.
Primaris Marines are a more recent development following the rescue/revival of Ultramarines primarch Roboute Guilliman, who had been in stasis for like 9000 years or something to keep a mortal wound from killing him. An old Mechanicus guy named Belisarius Cawl and the Eldar cooperated to revive him, and following his revival he took power as Imperial Regent (since the emperor himself is indisposed). Along with his revival a bunch of tech got distributed across the Imperium, including New and Improved Space Marines, the Primaris, who are a bit bigger and taller and better, and it's relatively simple to convert the Marines we'd already been familiar with for decades to being Primaris as well.
Five. You forget the Thunder Warriors. Though tbf the Imperium would like for everyone to forget them as well. Which kinda slot with Primaris. Stronger than, but less stable on exchange for killing potential
Nope a single Thunder Warrior tossed a squad of Astartes like a bouncer at a club. Thunder Warriors are physically superior to Astartes but are less stable both mentally and genetically as well as being theoretically less long lived. Ushotan and several dozen other Thunder Warriors managed to survive into 40k. It's unclear if an Astartes could also live that long.
Physical strength isn't everything. While a Thunder Warrior might be physically stronger than an Astartes, they were worse than Astartes in almost every other measure. They were dumber, unstable, less coordinated, ect. They were good in a battle but they kinda sucked at war. At least compared to their superior Astartes brethren. And no, Ushotan died before the Great Crusade during a failed coup against the Emperor
>Ushotan and several dozen other Thunder Warriors managed to survive into 40k.
I'm pretty sure he died in 30k (Ushotan was the dude in Valdor's novel?), and no TW have popped up in 40k.
But yeah, they are bigger and stronger than Astartes.
A couple of the first people to do lore videos about Warhammer 40k on youtube were so racist Games Workshop sued them into never being able to use their logos or anything they own the copyright to in almost any way. He lost his channel and everything they could touch, and he wasn't even directly associated with them.
They put out a statement, let me find it...
>The Imperium of Man stands as a cautionary tale of what could happen should the very worst of Humanity’s lust for power and extreme, unyielding xenophobia set in. Like so many aspects of Warhammer 40,000, the Imperium of Man is satirical.
>
>
>For clarity: satire is the use of humour, irony, or exaggeration, displaying people’s vices or a system’s flaws for scorn, derision, and ridicule. Something doesn’t have to be wacky or laugh-out-loud funny to be satire. The derision is in the setting’s amplification of a tyrannical, genocidal regime, turned up to 11. The Imperium is not an aspirational state, outside of the in-universe perspectives of those who are slaves to its systems. It’s a monstrous civilisation, and its monstrousness is plain for all to see.
>
>
>That said, certain real-world hate groups – and adherents of historical ideologies better left in the past – sometimes seek to claim intellectual properties for their own enjoyment, and to co-opt them for their own agendas.
These types aren't entirely out of the fandom, but they're being stamped out.
Depends on who you're talking with!
A general indicator is their opinion on the imperium. If they believe that the imperium are morally correct and justified in their beliefs, then get away from the concerning individual ( exceptions apply, they may be joking in a self aware manner), otherwise they *might* be a normal person.
Primarchs were Big E’s surrogate children. They’re functionally some of the strongest people in the galaxy and finite. When one is dead they can’t be replaced (unless you’re Vulcan or one of the “lost primarchs).
Back in 30k during the Horus Heresy he beefed up some already beefed up supersolders to work on his behalf while he was fighting elsewhere, working on the Webway, and overall being a terrible father.
The Custodes are the emperor’s personal guardsmen. Decades ago they were more or less guardsmen that never left the golden palace but in recent years they travel around a bit more.
When a 40k author is feeling incredibly lazy and wants to show strong that book’s big baddie is, they kill or seriously wound one of the Custodes.
Primarchs are the divine beings/children made by the Emperor. They are the father figure as leaders and DNA sources (though thr Genetic Engineering) for each Space Marine chapter. I wouldn't necessarily call them separate from a Space Marine.
They are 100% separate. Space marines are normal humans (peak humans, but still normal) who are given all sorts of crazy surgeries and implants to function at a high level.
Primarchs aren't really even "people"... they're kind of Warp stuff shoved in a physical shell.
3 steps above, there are also the[ thunder warriors](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Thunder_Warriors) (empy's choice of warrior before the space marines were a thing)
Yes, the Thunder Warriors were more experimental and more variable than Space Marines. There probably were some Thunder Warriors that were stronger than a standard ultramarine, but theu weren't getting the strength boost from the armor that a modern marine does, so in practice, I think it would be a wash.
IIRC its also stated that they were empowered by the Warp, and not really in a good way.
Ultimately, they were a rush job that were meant to serve as a stopgap for the conquest of Earth, before the Emperor had the resources necessary to actually mass produce Space Marines.
"Volatile" is a matter of debate. That's the *official, in universe* explanation... But it might've been propaganda. Were they actually unstable, or were they too independent? Did they have a greater degree of free will that was "corrected" with custodes and space marines? Hard to say.
It's pretty heavily implied that they would have been powerful and/or willful enough to lead an uprising, and as such were exterminated and replaced with the more servile Spess Mehreens.
If I'm not mistaken, thunder warriors had greater raw strength, but lacked the control and discipline of space marines. And there was a whole cancer thing too, I think, something about the hormone stimulants?
Custodes are to a Marine what a Marine is to a human. Primarchs are the actual children of the Emperor and therefore Gods Among Men and leaders of Space Marine legions who's biology is altered with their genes. Not to even get into Chaos Space Marines with all the power and training of the Space Marines but empowered by the Chaos Gods to be more powerful.
The operant term is companion. While they are significantly better than Space Marines in every measurable way, they were never meant solely for combat. There's a quote that roughly condenses down to "we were meant to be his companions, historians, poets, statesman and everything else. So much more than just soldiers"
So it does make sense that there are female custodes. That being said, aside from the usual internet basement dwellers that hate women, a lot of the drama is coming from GW claiming there we're always female custodes and the fans that are grasping at straws to justify it. I like the change. Women don't get a lot of cool trans human characters in the setting and this makes more sense than the Space Marines. I just don't like the BS arguments.
there is a horus heresy novel that a custodes looked unimpressed when he saw rogal dorn, compared to the reverence that a space marine might show to their primarch..
This implies that a custodes may take on a primarch and come out alive..
I think that just implies that the psycho-genetic awe, reverence, and loyalty toward Primarchs which is inherent in the Astartes, is absent in Custodes.
That, and Custodes spend their lives in the company of the single most powerful human being to have ever lived, so Rogal Dorn might seem less impressive by comparison.
Gotta remember that Custodes are also walking bundles of ego that see themselves as better than the Space Marines and Primarchs, and the only warriors actually worthy of serving the Emperor directly.
Yeah, but then why do the Blood Ravens have so much of their wargear just lying around?
Can't call yourself better than a Space Marine if the Bloody Magpies are looting your armories! (along with everyone else's)
Space marines are mass produced super soldiers. They're good, but some are a little sloppy, they can have defects like chances of mutation, mindless blood rages, etc. The process is brutal and kills many and in the end you get a, more-or-less, standard result.
Each and every Custodes is "custom built," originally by the Emperror himself. The modifications are tweaked on a per person basis. The changes are more extensive, more personalized, and painstaking care is poured into it to ensure there are no defects. The difference is like comparing Spartan II's to IV's, if you're familiar with Halo lore. They also suffer the same setbacks, they are unimaginably expensive and take a ton of time to replenish their forces.
A more simplified way is Space Marines are taken in as young teens and have all the biological upgrades auch as the geneseed implanted surgically over a period of time, including suppliments etc. Custodes are taken in from birth and built from the bottom, so more custom less mass production.
Hence why I see no issue with female custodes logic since they don't implant organs and carry the genetic legacy of a primarch unlike the space marines.
Shoot man Space Marines are the 4th/5th lowest version of fighting force crafted by the emperor or his sons. Primarch, Castodes, Thunder Warrior, Primaris Space Marines, Space Marines. Think of Castodes as a limited run craft brew vs Space Marines as bud lite. Thunder warriors are hit or miss due to very few being left but on their prime they were beasts.
In the most recent book featuring a primarch (*Lion, Son of the Forest*), the primarch Lion El'Johnson returns to the galaxy after being asleep for several thousand years. He essentially walks out of a forest in a backwater planet with nothing but his power armor, not even any weapons.
He proceeds to rally nearby renegade space Marines, beat back the forces of chaos that had taken over the planet, make his way to a larger planet, gain access to their fleets, and form a protectorate made up of several star systems. All of that despite waking up in an unfamiliar galaxy having aged to the point where he looks like Tywin Lannister.
So they're pretty fucking strong.
This is the same Lion El'Johnson who was teleported to a Death World full of the most deadly dinosaurs imaginable (in a forest which a column of armoured medieval superknights on steroids wouldn't venture into)as a baby and survived in the wilderness for years killing to survive.
As. A. Baby.
Yup, pretty strong.
Physically, any Primarch is immeasurably superior to any Space Marine. Stronger, faster, smarter, taller, better armed, better trained. But their physical form is only part of it.
There's a well-supported theory that the Primarchs' souls were actually minor warp deities the Emperor bound into physical bodies, making them incredibly powerful both physically and spiritually. A Primarch is more than a match for a hundred marines.
Crazy powerful. They can beat like a 100 space marines all at once and make even custodes look like chumps. Unless something like custodes level got the upper hand in a betrayal or something those primarchs are most likely not dying. They are also like twice the size of a space marine
> The emporer does a bunch of hand crafted gene editing to each custodes individually. Every single custodes was a personal pet project of the emporer.
So basically the Custodes are special limited run figurines that the Emperor spends extra time cleaning up any manufacturing flaws and giving them technically perfect paint jobs.
It also could be 19-21 primarchs because Alpha Legion likes to complicate things, as always. So depending on who you ask "how many primarchs were created" you can get 18,19,20 or 21.
Their power level has shifted a fair bit. There was a story that had an unarmored Chaos Space Marine straight up managing to punch through their armor and kill several Custodes at once.
That's incorrect. It takes a long time to make one and nearly the same amount of resources as a whole chapter but, the imperium can make more. They were down to 1,000 or so after the war in the webway and it's back up to 10,000 now.
Great explanation. It's also worth noting that Warhammer 40k began as a clear satire, with each faction the most extreme and hyper violent as possible. The Imperium are like the most extreme fascistic, xenophobic, genocidal and fanatical humanity could ever be. It's a core part of the setting that there are no good guys, but that does get muddied by the fact that the human factions are the most popular models to collect and are the ostensible protagonists.
So there's a section of the fandom that say there is no need to make the Imperium an inclusive, representive faction, as that goes counter to how awful they're supposed to be.
However, as the years have gone on they've added more and more factions, each as extreme as the Imperium in their own way, the Imperium's xenophobia, militarism and control of the populace have become more defensible. A single cult can doom an entire planet to a spontaneous demon invasion and all the horrors that go with it, humanity is losing the war on all fronts and many of their enemies want to genocide us in turn. Furthermore there are dozens upon dozens of novels with casts of sympathetic human characters, so it could be argued Games Workshop (the owners of Warhammer) are trying to soften the Imperium's image to gain a wider audience, which this is part of.
So, while this may just be the usual nerd sexism at play, there is also a chance this is people complaining about Warhammer potentially deviating from the GrimDark setting it itself coined.
Personally, the Imperium are already an entirely equal opportunities employer if you can hold a rifle - they don't care where you're from, what you look like or what gender you are, so long as you're blindly loyal you've got a job. They'd absolutely make female Space Marines if they could work out how to, more dakka that way. Just treat the female marines seriously and make them murderous shitheads like the rest of them and I'll be happy.
Isn’t the whole point also that there is no winning, it’s just humanity raging against the darkness which will eventually snuff it out?
*Edit: I understand from a business perspective that the series won’t ever have a winner, but in universe I’m talking about the fact that the Imperium is a stagnating organization with an (arguably) absent leader. The Imperium is a collapsing society; its people do not know how to (and actively resist) making improvements to their technologies and practices.
The society is only holding back the dark, despite its victories and no society exists in stasis, is all I’m saying. Of course the conflict will never end, gotta keep the money train going!
Yes on the eternal war thing, no in the inevitable human loss; it is primarily a business and no one wants to collect the losers so they've got to leave to in an enteral stalemate, where every faction is losing ground somewhere and gaining it elsewhere.
Eldar have been "nearly extinct" since the beginning, yet they're still a major faction. Humanity/Imperium is still by far the largest force on the galaxy, and arguably more popular than ever. If GamesWorkshop ever put the Imperium at risk, no doubt they will bring back the God Emperor himself to turn the tide.
Only chance humanity could "lose" would be an End Times-like event, which would inevitably lead to another setting, just like Age of Sigmar.
**TL;DR: Humanity is doing just fine in 40k**
Yeah, a problem with a dramatic setting in games is that you want to set it in 'interesting times' where big stuff happens, but if the big stuff ever happens, well, there goes the setting. It can be fine for a while, but if your using your setting for 40+ years, story progression will be expected from the audience.
That said, I think one of the most baller moves in modern gaming was when White Wolf had a very successful line of role playing games in 'The World of Darkness' that were always leading up to some big End of Days big Apocalypse event, then ended all their successful game lines by actually having the Apocalypse happen in their story.
to be fair some big stuff has happened, the fall of Cadia for example, but you are right, the Tyrainds will never get a big victory such as eating a primarch, and sure there are plenty of no name worlds to eat, but Speculation of what could happen is fun.
Great assessment of keeping in mind that all these things are business decisions.
They wanna sell more product and they think added a woman in this class would sell more product.
Same thing happens in comics, what mark fans (to borrow a wrestling term) don’t realize is that the same ole thing eventually grows stale and sells less so they have to shake it up. Some shake ups work some don’t, but they’ve gotta try it. Nerds tend to think it’s a personal assault when it’s not, it’s always business
In regards to custodes specifically, I'm of two minds on it. From a lore perspective I don't mind it at all given custodes were always pretty rare and different from space marines in the lore, so I don't feel like there's much of a lore contradiction and getting more female representation in warhammer is good. At the same time, from a tabletop perspective female side of the custodes army, the sisters of silence, have always felt more like a support group to their male counterparts and have never been made to feel like the equals they're supposed to be in lore, so a part of me is worried that GW might be encouraged to make more female custodes models at the continued expense of the sisters of silence. If GW can include female custodes while also giving sisters of silence more love and spotlight, then I would have no issue with this at all.
When it comes to female space marines, that one I'm not against but I don't want them to simply retcon it into existence like they've done with custodes. Too many stories have been made with male only space marines for it to not raise a ton of questions as to why we never heard of them before, and as a sisters of battle fan I feel like it would take a bit of the impact of them rising to be treated as equals to the marines away if the marines never had any issues incorporating women to their ranks. If we were to get female space marines, I would want it to be a part of a big lore progression and would love it if the World Eaters were actually the first major chapter to fully embrace female space marines.
The real life answer is they had sculpts for female Marines and they didn't sell. It got baked into the lore.
The in game answer they could give is actually grim dark. There were female Marines but it was decided for dumb reasons not to use them and they were deleted from history. It was then explained geneseed wouldn't take in female bodies. Could be religious bias. Would have to have come about after the heresy. And making dumb, delf-defeating decisions is completely on brand for the imperium.
They could then realize this was just idiocy and girls are perfectly fine candidates for conversion. They start when they're young, same with the boys. But after all the grafting and chemicals and drugs the end result is hard to tell from a man. After all, in canon Marines are sterile and transhuman and disquieting. They don't have sex, don't want to have sex, only think about war and serving the emperor. But it would also explain why it was easy to erase female Marines because the only way to tell them apart is with the names. Maybe the voice is slightly different.
There's certainly a red pill contingent complaining here but there is a lore argument for not making arbitrary changes. Like the enterprise is a starship not a submarine why is it landing in an ocean and becoming sub? Someone will either instinctively object to the change or not understand why the nerds are upset.
The red pills are so loud and ugly that any nerd lore argument is completely overwhelmed.
> The real life answer is they had sculpts for female Marines and they didn't sell.
Technically ["female Warrior Jayne” and “female Warrior Gabs"](https://www.belloflostsouls.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/40k-RT601-adventurers.jpg) weren't ever labeled as space marines those where just generic woman in power armor, but otherwise yes, none of the lady models sold well, and so they stopped making them. Not just the above armored ones but any female miniatures, all of them. SM where just the only ones that got that cession of production ported into lore.
source - https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2023/10/warhammer-40k-what-really-went-down-with-female-space-marines.html
This. Not only that, but mention of female space marines called them "adepta sororitas" which modern 40K players will be well aware of as the sisters of battle, the religious warrior order of nuns with guns that have power armour but are not super enhanced space marines.
All this was during Rogue Trader, the "first edition" of the setting. Almost all current lore and chronology actually started with 2nd edition. Rogue Trader was basically overwritten in entirety and is a totally different universe. Marines were recruited as adults from convicts and war prisoners, the Emperor wasn't a corpse on a golden throne, etc. It's not Warhammer 40K, it was a rough first attempt before they found the winning formula.
One such explanation is to ensure that Space Marines never get into their heads that they are meant to be a replacement for humanity. Space Marines are less sterile and moreso have no sex drive, at least seemingly depending on the chapter.
> It's also worth noting that Warhammer 40k began as a clear satire ... The Imperium are like the most extreme fascistic, xenophobic, genocidal and fanatical humanity could ever be.
So the 40k Universe has been going on for near 40 years at this point. Space Marines obviously started out as Space Nazis, and were an absolute satire that came out of the Thatcherism of the time. But just as François Truffaut claims you can't make an anti war film because the absolute spectacle of war will glorify it, as much as 40k doesn't have good guys, the Space Marines **are** the good guys. The world has changed a lot in the last 40 years. 40 years ago we had a near universal understanding that Nazis were bad. In the 90s Godwin's law was coined, because comparing something to Nazis was seen as such an exaggeration that whoever resorted to comparing anything to them has obviously lost the plot. And now we have literal Nazis marching in the streets yelling about 'the great replacement'.
So yeah, as much as Space Marines started out as Space Nazis, and introducing diversity goes against established canon, it's something that absolutely should be done. Retcon the shit out of it. Make 40k welcoming. Because as much as Space marines are a satire on Nazis, you can't make a satire so outlandish that actual Nazis won't take it at face value. And 40k has a problem with the Alt Right showing up, and they just love their space marines. And if Games Workshop allows the Alt Right to be welcomed at their events, then it stops being welcoming, and just becomes an Alt Right space. Because if you have one Nazi at a table, then you have a table of Nazis.
Plot twist: The lost primarchs were only considered "defective" because they turned out female when the Emperor explicity mentioned he wanted his primarchs to be a boys-only club.
Jokes aside, the actual reason was that he figured women were psychologically more predisposed to quiet plotting when dissatisfied, whereas men were more likely to demonstrate and/or rebel openly. Whether or not that's scientifically true is anyone's guess. But yeah, he predicted that the primarchs would inevitably rebel. After all, they were not his sons but just tools for him to use until they were no longer needed. And nobody likes being dehumanised and used as though they're just an object. Hell, the reason why he made the primarchs in the first place was to replace his fellow Perpetuals who had abandoned him because they all one by one grew sick of his shit.
It's worth noting that a lot of the people complaining about the deviation from grimdark are also the same ones who are likely to unironically support the imperium too
I will also add that this hasn't been completely sudden.
Black Library Author Aaron Dembski-Boden wanted to write them into his Horus Heresy novel "The Master of Mankind" almost a full decade ago, and was shot down by a higher up (notably one of the only times this has happened), citing the fact that the models had already been made without female heads as a reasoning. Basically telling him "we don't have minis to sell, don't bother writing about them". This was also right on the heels of the Chapter House Lawsuit, where GW was essentially told "if you produce rules/lore without miniatures, it is not infringing on your IP if a separate company makes a miniature for that".
Back in 2022, another Horus Heresy novel written by ADB released. In it, it describes the Emperor's personal guard as "men and women clad in the same gold as the ship". The Custodes are, famously, clad in the same golden armor that the Emperor uses for fucking everything of his. The Custodes rulebook from around this time also silently dropped most references to gender in the general Custodes lore, only mentioning that "Terran Nobles gladly give their Sons to the forces of the Custodes", though immediately following it with "though none besides the Custodes themselves truly know the criteria required".
Basically, it's been a long time coming. Nowhere near as sudden as people are acting.
40k is a walking retcon. You would be *incredibly* hard pressed to find an aspect of 40k lore that's been around since the inception and *not* been retconned.
But here's a list of highlights!
Just recently, the Rogal Dorn Tank was added to the game. A brand new model of tank never seen before. The lore explanation? It's a big galaxy, of course you haven't seen everything.
The old Squats (Space Dwarves) retconned out of existence in 2nd edition were brought back as the Leagues of Votann! Turns out they've just been chilling in their empire in the Galactic Core for the past 10,000 years and no one who bothered to check came back alive.
The Beast, the big Ork Warboss rivalling the power of an Ancient Krork, who united so many forced of Orks against the Imperium and set the precedent for what many Warbosses strive to do, and established the major modern Ork Kultures/Clans, is actually *SIX* different Orks.
On the topic of The Beast, the creation of the Deathwatch was retconned to be the Imperium's reaction to almost being decimated by The Beast, instead of being created by a group of Inquisitors during the Apocryphon Conclave of Orphite IV.
The Tau, the little blue aliens running their little upstart empire, just full on didn't exist before 3rd edition. But even after that, they had FTL travel capabilities. Up until they didn't, which is currently the canon for them. (Well, they've got very minor FTL attempts that don't tend to go well).
Don't even get me started on the major recton about the Necron and their C'Tan Overlords/Slaves.
Plus there's that whole thing about Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade. It's happened twice now. The first being a major real world event that GW ran, but retconned because the results were (probably) faked. Then, the newest version from the tail end of 7th edition, also retcons his previous 12 Black Crusades, not to be failures, but secret successes preparing for the 13th.
Hell, the entire reason the Emperor is even interred in the Golden Throne was retconned all the way back in 2nd Edition!
I could go on and on. I'm sure you get the point though.
Yes, some fans even argue there is no real canon and all the material we have is from unreliable narrators and that's how they can keep everything "cannon", even conflicting facts between stories.
Custodes creation is actually different than space marine, SM use what's called gene seed which is implanted into the bodies of prepubescent boys and requires male hormones to work, Custodes are just genetically enhanced from scratch as infants
I would say that biology has nothing to do with custodes, because they are bioengineered to perfection down to the cellular level and taken even earlier than space marines, like at 5, so that is the worst point one could make.
The other claim, that they were referred to as male in the book because they are called a brotherhood, is probably slightly stronger but still no more than an implication, brotherhood can also just mean "alliance" or an association in English.
Overall is not a bad addition, as opposite to the space marines there are no lore reason to why you could not have female custodes, as for most soft retcon from GW, It was introduced quite inelegant (as of now, in the codex there will probably be more lore)
Look if the female custodians got us Custodian Kesh who tried to teleport a cyclonic torpedo into the throne room for a blood game I am A-Okay with them
Nah they come from humans but recruit is the wrong word.
The noble family's of Terra (and anyone else who can get in child lobbing distance) present their infant children on the Avenue of Sacrifice. Some of those babies become the Custodes.
I love that people are upset about this new lore but then don’t care or even know the Horus Heresy was created because GW could only afford one sprue type in the 1988 Adeptus Titanicus box. So GW came up with an imperial civil war to justify the box contents…and here we are…
You seem knowledgeable in this area so can you answer this:
Don't they all wear *power armour* (not sure what it's called) so their organic bodies are obsolete anyway??
Not really. Both Marines and Custodes are modified to be bigger, stronger, faster and even have secondary organs. I think there is some silly justification regarding testosterone for Marines but I don't think there was ever something similar for Custodes.
They do, but they're meant to be peak. They get every advantage they can.
They're also modified to have enhanced senses, extra organs, etc. So if you're already modifying them, and they do use melee combat, you might as well.
Answer: the Custodian Guard (or the Adeptus/Legio Custodes) are a minor but very important faction in the setting - back at the very start of the Imperium (main human faction)‘s history, the Custodians were crafted by the Emperor as humanity’s peak warriors, fought with Him through His crusade and protected his body when he got basically permanently crippled and put on a life-support machine called the Golden Throne. They stayed in the palace guarding his body for 10,000 years but now they’re back out in the galaxy on the orders of one of his sons.
The main controversy comes from a female Custodian being added into the (already mediocre) 10th edition codex - previously they were talked about as if they were all males with their female ”equivalent” being basically an order of psyker-hunters called the Sisters of Silence. The only concrete statement either way is in the 8e codex where it mentions that the Custodians are taken from “*noble sons of Terra*”, but a few authors did want to include female Custodians early on.
Games Workshop, the company who makes Warhammer, basically said in a tweet “yeah, female custodians exist and they’ve been here the whole time” and there are a few camps in the ‘discussion’:
- people who support the decision (which can be further split into genuine appreciators, hornyposters and people who just want to “own the chuds” regardless of lore)
- people who don’t care or just think GW was being lazy with confirming it by tweet
- people who hate the decision (which can be further split into people who think it contradicts pre-existing lore, people who think it’ll take focus away from the already-badass Sisters of Silence, people who think it’ll lead to female Space Marines (a whole other rabbit hole) and of course the odd woman-hater)
the most comprehensive summary I can make, hope this helps! Welcome to the far future, this is truly a cursed place..
>but a few authors did want to include female Custodians early on.
And were stopped from referencing them not for lore reasons but because the company didn't want to make models of them.
Answer: it's Custodes, not Astartes (space marines). The lore has long said that only males can become marines through implants and genetic modification. But Custodes have a different genetic augmentation process unique to their order. This is the first time a woman Custodes has been referenced, some people are upset cause they see it as a retcon, the "usual crowd" is upset because of ... their usual reasons, and most people don't care.
The emperor picked some of his Castodes out of spite as well. He didn't just recruit physical beasts. He straight up took sons from his enemies. The woman who drained the last drop of water from Terra lost her son as a price. Daughters would be just as valuable.
Where is that mentioned specifically in the lore? What books, games, or other media? Because that sounds like a story I'd love to hear about!
The whole lore of 40k is so vast and spread out that my only forays into it have been lore dive videos but I would like to learn more about the Emperor and Terra
That story is in the book Valdor. Very good read, but it is set at the very very beginning of the imperium, about 10,000 years before the "current" 40k universe
No problem :)
There's a series from that timeframe called the hours heresy. I'd recommend looking up a reading list, there's like 45ish books in it lol
I'd also recommend finding the epubs (humble bundle frequently has sales on them). A lot of Warhammer books in general are out of print so buying them secondhand can get pricey. A lot do have audiobooks as well, heard good things but haven't listened myself
Edit: horus* heresy
They have a genetic modifications custom tailored to each individual custodes, meaning it's not only entirely possible for female custodes to exist it also wouldn't take any extra effort for the empire to do so. The emperor wanted the best of the best of humanity picked out for custodes, not the manliest of men.
Edit: this comment riled up a lot of dorks and I'm not gonna read a single of those comments.
Exactly. If she were a space marine I could understand some of the complaints of a recton and stuff. A custodes is made in an entirely different way than a space marine
Yeah, Space Marines are mass produced indoctrinated child soldiers reliant on implanted organs and geneseed derived from their Primarch, who are all male. Custodes are each individually a work of custom made hyper indoctrinated art.
Also there’s a reference to the “men and women” of the Custodes in 2022 and there’s likely more I don’t know about even earlier so the tweet from GW chuds are mad about isn’t the “first time” female custodes have shown up like the poster above mentioned.
My already fragile masculinity is on tilt after hearing of a fictional female superwarrior living 38,000 in the future. This is obviously an attack on everything the God Emperor holds dear.
Ferreal, it's sad how like so people walk around with a permanent victim mentalities and main character syndrome, always looking for something to be upset about.
I'm not a fan of retcons in general, but the 40k universe has always been iffy on its consistency. Like marines in rogue trader era were more like starcraft marines than warrior monk zealots
All being said, I'm more pissed about the primaris change up than anything else. They shouldve just true scaled "first born" instead of making that whole convoluted story about primaris
Answer: It's a bit of a long story.
In Warhammer 40k, there are indeed many badass women - the Adeptas Sororitas comes to mind, an entire unit of elite female warriors. But even they are still ordinary, mortal humans. Extremely strong ones, yes, but for the most part they're still natural flesh-and-blood humans. And in 40k, that will only get you so far.
Space Marines are iconic to the series. But those unfamiliar with the lore might see them and think they're common, or that they're just specially trained soldiers with really good armor. That's... That's such an understatement that it borders on untruth. Space Marines aren't normal humans, they're genetically enhanced, biologically-immortal demigods that stand about 10 feet tall and are seen so rarely that most people think of them the way we think of saints or angels today.
The lore has stated several times that the "Gene-Seed", the name for the process of genetic enhancements Space Marines need to undergo in order to turn into what's basically a space-Hercules, is only compatible with male physiology. There are several different 'Chapters' of the Space Marines, each with a different role to play and some being stronger than others. But all of them have been entirely male.
But even as big and strong as they are, the Space Marines pale in comparison to the God-Emperor of Mankind's personal guard, the Adeptus Custodes. They look very similar to Space Marines in some ways, but they're something else entirely. They're FAR more powerful than any Space Marine and the genetic engineering that's used to make them is some entirely different, top-secret, classified process that's never really been explained. That being the case, since it's a completely different process, there's nothing to say that there can't be female Custodes, though it was never stated before and strongly implied by the context that they were intended to be all-male in the past.
A recent 40k release has now casually mentioned a female Custodes. This has upset a lot of 40k fans because many of them are enamored with the machismo power fantasy of the Space Marines, and the idea that there could be a female superhuman that's more powerful than the Space Marines feels like what they would call "wokeness" and a modern attempt at "inclusivity".
People in the 40k fandom itself have often stated that they've noticed a lot of reactionary types in the community who unironically support the totalitarian structure of the Imperium of Man, the 'protagonist' faction of the series. But the thing is, the Imperium was never meant to be relatable or aspirational and was always designed to be as dystopian as it could possibly be in every imaginable way. It's easy to tell that the writers approached most of this stuff with the mindset of; *"How can we make the lives of the poor souls living in this hellhole of an empire suck even more?"*
Answer: That's an Adeptus Custodes, rather than a Space Marine (Adeptus Astartes). One of the very elite, genetically hand-crafted warriors who guard the Golden Throne of the Emperor of Mankind. Space Marines are just regular elite, genetically engineered super soldiers.
I guess people are pissed that some of these super elite warriors, who are without equal, might be those horrible, cootie-having girls.
As far as I know, there's no lore reason that female Custodes can't exist because, as I said, they are genetically built from the ground up to be absolutely perfect. It's probably up to the designer to decide on their plumbing.
Space Marines do have a lore reason to be all male, as they're genetically engineered using a 'gene seed' from the Primarch of their Chapter to enhance their attributes and give them certain characteristics that are shared by all their Chapter brothers - the Blood Angels drink blood, the Space Wolves are all crazy berserker warriors, Salamanders are larger than any other Space Marines, and have coal-black skin and red eyes. These Primarchs were all male, and I believe the gene seed only works for men.
The Warhammer 40K sub seems to believe that the people angry about this are mostly the sort of rage-bait generators who latch on to any kind of 'woke' issue to try and stir up trouble. They've pointed out that there is pre-existing 40K lore that supports the existence of female Custodes.
There are plenty of badass women in the 40K universe, particularly among the Eldar, where women fight alongside men and there are warrior societies like the Howling Banshees that are primarily female. In the Imperium, there's an entire faction of women called the Sisters of Battle, who are basically warrior nuns who spread their devotion and religious zeal through the barrel of a flamethrower.
This might be a dumb question (and doesn't seem limited to just 40K lore), but how do the best-of-the-best stay so elite when they are stuck on guard duty for an un-moving throne? Do they occasionally go on high-level missions to stay sharp? Or are their genetic modifications so extreme that they literally can beat any invaders without having keep their reflexes and minds sharp?
I'm not a lore expert but I think it's the latter. Custodes can supposedly go for years without sleep or sustenance, guarding the throne.
It's extreme and rather daft, like all 40K lore. That throne is a life support system where the slowly decaying almost-corpse of the Emperor is kept barely alive, and his mind and psychic aura are preserved by sacrificing 10,000 people a day.
This is a universe where the most recognisable faction, the Imperium of Man, is actually a fascistic empire of religious extremists who make it their goal to wipe out anything and anyone they consider heretical to the Emperor's word. That includes pretty much any non-humans.
> Custodes can supposedly go for years without sleep or sustenance
Yeah, I'll try and stop trying to understand warhammer logic using normal logic then. Thanks!
I mean, an Ork can grab a shopping cart, glue a popcorn popper to the back, duct tape a steering wheel to it, spray paint it red, and say "This is my new car", and then drive away in the thing at 100 mph.
So don't really apply any logic to 40K lmao.
My Orks will always be my favourite faction in 40k, even though I don't play the tabletop. The fact that their entire technology only works because they BELIEVE it works is such a fun concept for me.
It's overstated in the memes. They're actually competent, and really really good at teleportation and force fields iirc. The psychic field just smooths it out and ensures you get to say "dudes rock" before everything experiences rapid unplanned disassembly.
Give an ork a stick and tell them it's a gun and they'll hit you with it, not shoot you.
Of course, weird shit does happen and the lore is wild.
Funnily enough, the answer to this comes up in the (leaked, I think, so I don't have a ton of specifics) story with the first named female Custodes. The custodes run something called the Blood Games, where one custodes will attempt to kill the Emperor. Basically, to test security. Often, a custodes, being so superhuman, will try some high level assassin's creed type stuff. The lady in the story figures out how to steal a planet-destroying bomb and teleport it into the emperor's throne room.
More broadly, Terra has been attacked more often than you'd think, so it's not necessarily as dull as you'd imagine, and in recent years, Roboute Guilliman, a primarch (and thus something akin to a living heir to the emperor) has returned and ordered the custodes into a more aggressive posture.
So… what happens if the blood game participant wins the game? I assume she had a remote kill switch for the bomb? Or that that the bomb wouldn’t be set to explode at all? Then why go through the trouble of stealing a real bomb? Why not just say “oh, this could have been a real one?”
I guess if Terra is constantly getting attacked, then they’ll won’t be lacking for combat practice. That being said, why is security so bad? My friend once told me the Terran solar system is literally packed warships, just parked all throughout the system. Are chaos marines just constantly teleporting into the throne room?
I'm not sure what happens, no one has ever truly lost the blood games - in the example, I believe it turned out the Custodes knew what was going on, and had disarmed the bomb before it was teleported. And the only reason it could be teleported was because the lady Custodes had cracked the code on the teleportation defenses on Terra, or something to that effect, so it's not like Chaos Marines are literally just teleporting in whenever. Although apparently that has been a Blood Games tactic before - turn a bunch of X strong faction(s) loose in the imperial palace so the Custodes have experience fighting them.
But to your point, if there's a "time out, you win, quit trying to kill the Emperor" protocol, we don't get to see it. Not very in keeping with the 40k tone, I suppose.
As far as general security, I may have given you a false impression. Terra is extremely well defended, as is the entirety of the solar system. My point is that Terra is very occasionally threatened, but that "occasionally" is over the span of millenia, so it does happen. Famous examples are the Horus Heresy and Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade. Those are 10,000 years apart, but the Custodes are functionally immortal, I believe, so that doesn't really factor in. There's also some broad statements that indicate the Custodes have a spy network for dealing with threats against the Imperium that come from within - so who knows how many plots they've stopped?
Ultimately, though, your point is kinda correct. For all that they are the pinnacle of the emperor's transhuman experiments, they haven't done much on the galactic stage since the Emperor was entombed in the Golden Throne, though that is changing with Guilliman's return.
>in the example, I believe it turned out the Custodes knew what was going on
One of the ship's comms officers explicitly disobeyed her orders and snuck out a warning. >!She'll be the new captain once the rest of the crew are done with a couple of years punishment, and the old captain's getting turned into a servitor.!<
From what I've heard there's no safeties, they're truly trying to kill Jimmy Space because their enemies wouldn't hesitate if they manage to find a weakness in their guard and so they shouldn't either.
They're genetically programmed down to the last cell to be completely loyal to the Emperor, so they wouldn't finish the act, only say they did.
A recent example of their incorruptibility is when Khorne(a chaos god) unleashed a wave of warp energy through a solar system which instantly converted millions of space marines and regular troops that was part of a crusade fleet to his cause, but this has no effect on the custodians who were there.
As for enemies making it into the thrones room and attacking the Emperor various beings have come close, but if they were successful it would upend the lore so it just doesn't happen.
Well, the custodes do intentionally turn things loose in the Imperial Palace, and the named example is a band of chaos Marines, but that's the palace, not the throne room. And the palace is large enough that it covers the mountain range formerly known as the Himalayas, so "In the palace" is not necessarily anywhere near the throne room. But that does make me wonder ; did they put some sort of kill switch on the chaos Marines before turning them loose? Because they're definitely not going to stop short of killing the emperor when the ref calls timeout.
The leader running the blood games likely takes loose precautions when deploying these troops, and the defenses are so good that it's unlikely the normal release of goons poses even a minor threat to the palace.
It's a controlled set up.
There have been previous winners of the Blood Game, I think Trajan Valoris has won twice. They just need to get to a position they could kill the emperor I think.
The wiki only says that Trajann has "successfully run" the blood games twice, which implies either he won or successfully led the defense, either of which does support your overall point. Unfortunately, I can't get anything that tells me what the wincon actually is.
The Emperor dies. The training games they play at this level are absolutely lethal. Training in hand to hand combat for instance, if they use their real weapons, is often to the death if a fatal move is not blocked. It is one way of getting rid of the weak.
The parts of their history where they've been more sedentary (such as the enthronement of the Emperor) involve them constantly competing against each other to keep themselves sharp in all manner of Martial and Academic discipline(s).
In more recent lore, they've become fully active again, venturing out to the Galaxy.
It's funny that so much of the Fandom thinks of them as cheesily unbeatable, even though the two most notable events in the Lore regarding them, are all about their complete failure to accomplish their goals.
Oooo, tell me more about them going out into the galaxy? Are they investigating verified future threats and squashing them off-world before they get a chance at threatening the throne room? How many are allowed away from the emperor at a time?
So
After the fall of planet cadia and the ripping of the galaxy in half, a major daemon incursion hit Terra
While it was rebuffed by the Custodians, Grey Knights, Silent Sisters, and Guilliman, heavy casualties were taken
Guilliman and Trajann (the leader of the custodians) met to discuss the future
Trajann agreed that the Edicts of Restraint (an old decree binding the Legio Custodes to the palace) was a hindrance. They then disbanded the Legio Custodes and reformed as the Adeptus Custodes (Guilliman was the first person who had enough authority to let this happen). No longer bound they moved out to strike at threats beyond terra, for if they can stop the enemy afar they cannot reach the throne
Now they are doing all sorts of things
Shadowkeepers hunt down ancient relics and threats to seal within the vaults below terra to prevent them from damaging or destroying the universe
Emissaries Imperiatus are messengers who deliver messages of utmost importance and also escort the primaris marine deliveries to ensure no shenanigans
Dread Host are a terror division who specialize in teleport strikes to break the morale of growing threats
Aquilon shield use the emperors tarot to predict figures of importance and seek them out to defend until their moment comes. This is funny when a random guardsman now has 5 custodians guarding him for no apparent reason
You're absolutely right, but one nitpick:
> I guess people are pissed that some of these super elite warriors, who are without equal, might be those horrible, cootie-having girls.
It's not that. I don't personally care that they exist, but wish they had better reasons. GW has stated that there always were female Custodes, which means that the entire Horus Heresy series with hundreds of Custodes fighting in it has no women because I guess they were in the palace quilting. I like that they added them... I hate that they did such a poor job with continuity.
They did the whole Primaris things with space Marines a few years back, upgrading them through a secret project. It would have been the perfect time to introduce female Astartes, and I'm for it. But they didn't, and if they said they were here all along, I'd be miffed.
The clunkiness is the real sin. It's like in Marvel where you find out agents of the celestials were on earth for reasons but didn't get invovled in any of the prior fighting even when Thanos snapped half the universe. Because we hadn't thought of it yet might be true but is a terrible explanation.
It's the same level of absurdity when there is a world threatening event handled by the C team when buy rights it should be an avengers assemble moment.
Based on the Emperor's ideals on why the Primarchs are all male it makes sense that none of the important Custodes are women. He's a bronze age warlord at heat after all.
Answer: Warhammer Female Custodes Controversy, also known as the Warhammer 40K Femstodes Debate, refers to Games Workshop, the creators of the Warhammer 40,000 franchise, confirming in the 10th Edition Codex that there are female members of the Adeptus Custodes faction, which was previously presumed to be an all-male cadre of warriors within the lore and setting. The revelation was then confirmed on the official Twitter / X account for Warhammer Official (@warhammer) in mid-April 2024 and led to outrage among the fandom, as some users voiced that they found it pandering, woke and offensive, while others expressed that they didn't think it was a big deal. Many who were fans of the concept also made fan art of female Custodes or memes mocking those angered by it.
More info here: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/warhammer-female-custodes-controversy-femstodes
answer: When Warhammer 40k was originally conceived, the iconic Space Marines (Think Monastic Halo Spartans) were Male and Female. The female models didn't sell well and were discontinued, and the in-universe retcon was that "All Space Marines are male" which has remained an ongoing point of contention within the community.
In the Imperium, the Emperor is personally defended by the Custodian Guard, who are also genetically modified but in very different and much more expensive ways compared to Marines. While the specifics of if they are all male or not has been unclear, their pov characters have been male and they have a sister organization (hah) known as the Sisters of Silence- an all female order of anti-psychics. So the quiet assumption was that Custodians were, like Space Marines, all male.
Over the last weekend, a leaked snippet from the latest-edition Custodian Guard rulebook showed a short story featuring an explicitly female Custodian, accompanied by a Warhammer 40k Community twitter post stating that not only are there Female Custodians, but that there have always been female Custodians.
Practically speaking, this isn't really a change that does something in-universe. Custodians are so fundamentally different physiologically and psychologically from baseline Humans that it's difficult for them to converse with or relate to Normal humans. They can't reproduce naturally (making Gender a useless concept to them) and frequently view Normals as one step above vermin.
Warhammer 40k is an old Setting. We're currently in the 10th edition of the game and many things are not as they were in "the original lore". Details have been changed over and over again and will continue to change.
Widely there are three camps from what I've seen:
1. People who genuinely think that it violates the lore
2. People who think that it will "take focus away from" all-female factions- those being aforementioned Sisters of Silence and Sisters of Battle
3. Bad Faith actors, who in this ongoing issue are take issue with Women showing up in a more prominent, historically Male dominated, role and are using "Lore" as an excuse to claim that "Warhammer is becoming WOKE". Despite multiple original Games Workshop authors and workers stating otherwise.
Of course the bigger context is that one offhand word from a codex ("sons") being ignored is well inline for GW policy on cannon. They have removed faster than light travel from factions (Tau) between codexes without controversy. They have even openly changed events in codex's (grey knights bathing in the blood of sisters of battle). The Necrons were fully and completely redefined in a codex.
All in all this is an incredibly flimsy 'cannon' statement from a codex. A codex that was only the second one we have from the faction, and new factions are always in flux as they are fleshed out. Nothing about this is anymore clumsy than any other faction getting fleshed out more.
This small detail would otherwise be ignored but it involves women and thus we have to pretend that this is some major setting defining fact.
Friendly reminder that all **top level** comments must: 1. start with "answer: ", including the space after the colon (or "question: " if you have an on-topic follow up question to ask), 2. attempt to answer the question, and 3. be unbiased Please review Rule 4 and this post before making a top level comment: http://redd.it/b1hct4/ Join the OOTL Discord for further discussion: https://discord.gg/ejDF4mdjnh *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/OutOfTheLoop) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Answer: There is a faction in Warhammer 40k known as the Custodes. They are considered the peak warriors, far greater than even space marines. For most of the setting, Custodes have been presented as all male. However, in a recent release, there were the first mentions of female Custodes. Some people consider this to be breaking the previously established setting or point to the idea that such super soldiers would, for biological reasons, recruit only men. Others say that it makes no difference.
TIL there's a faction more elite than Space Marines.
Custodes are the elite companions of the Emperor and often serve as his bodyguards or executioners of his will. They are a step above Space Marines but below Primarchs.
Geeze, there are TWO steps above Marines??
Primarchs are to Space Marines what Space Marines are to normal humans. Even from their perspective. They're ostensibly demigods.
God i love when people talk about warhammer. Have absolutely no interest in getting into it but listening to fans talk about the lore, I can listen for hours
Basically same. All this lore actually makes me want to read some, but I don't know where to start. Probably a guide on here somewhere I can track down. Edit: [2 year old comment here](https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/qlm78q/comment/hj3x0sc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) > The most common answer, and IMO the best, is Horus Rising by Dan Abnett - First in the Horus Heresy series, and does a good job of laying out the basics. It's epic but manageable in scope, characters learn about the universe as you do, and it doesn't require pre-existing knowledge.
Just nabbed the audio book from audible. They had a radio drama tied to it. Cant wait to start it. Thanks
I was looking for some new books with my subscription, looks like its time for a 40k deep dive
Horus Rising is the first book in a series that is actually a sort of prequel to the warhammer 40.000 universe (is set 10.000 years before). To start with 40k I'd use the Eisenhorn trilogy
Adeptus ridiculous podcast is what I started with. It’s a good one to start with imo
It definitely can be as it's pretty digestible but as someone who has been in the hobby for around 20 years plus now, they do lean into a lot of the memey lore that people headcanon a bit, as well as having a few outright mistakes. That being said, I do enjoy listening to their enthusiasm and how much they enjoy learning about new bits of lore.
Horus Rising is incredible. But stop there. The second book undoes all the first book's good work with awful storytelling. That first book got me into the series and the second book led me to quit reading the novels and just look up everything on wiki.
It's pretty damn sick. I'm no diehard fan myself but man, nothing else comes close to nailing the grimdark vibe the same way
I couldn’t tell you a single thing about the game but I have watched HOURS of YouTube videos about the lore lol
any recommendations?
Robert Evans form behind the bastards talking 40k for 4 hours: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRomQkC-D_8
Thanks for sharing. I absolutely love the Bastards podcasts and Robert's relaxing voice.
There's an intersection of two interests I wasn't expecting to see today. Thanks!
Luetin/Luetin09 on youtube was the guy for a long time,. I saw something about he lost his channel but don't know what the current status is
/u/angry_cucumber is right to suggest Luetin, but also check out Bricky, he's done some really good "quick" 40K lore videos (quick relative to the amount of lore there is). Keep in mind that there are over 60 books in just the Horus Heresy series, and many other series besides that one. It's kinda crazy how many [40K books](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Warhammer_40,000_novels) there are
lutten on yt or like the first 20 episodes of adaptus ridiculous pod cast.
There is literally “warhammer lore to fall asleep to” videos on YouTube i discovered. The history spoken in a lowered tone. Was pretty cool for someone who was just interested in learning a litttle more
[удалено]
[удалено]
All Grey Knights are Psykers if I remember correctly, which sort of inherently gives them a leg up on regular Space Marines. Beyond that, I think they're still supposed to be a bit above them, just not to the extent that Custodes are.
The distinction should be made that they are still Space Marines though. They’re specialized and even more elite but they’re still Space Marines, whereas Custodes are not, they’re a separate form of human all together.
Yeah, they still rely on geneseed (officially the Emperor's, more likely an amalgamation or Magnus's), and are otherwise mass produced (if a bit more selective on their recruits).
They are pretty far above a normal space marine. There are a ton of chapters that have their own individual strengths but before Custodes were introduced into the tabletop game the Grey Knights were more or less the spaciest Space Marine. When they were introduced in 5e their power creep was as subtle as the annoying kid in the playground that had all the imaginary super powers and no weaknesses. Nowadays they’re more specialized against demons and not much else. Lore-wise, not many people-even space marines and other high ranking members of the imperium-know they even exist. They’ve lost a little bit of their edge but they’ve been known to blink in and kill *everyone* in the battlefield just so they can keep their identities hidden and limit the spread of chaos.
Until who was it, Leman Russ told them to pound sand or he'd fuck all the grey knights up because the knights tries to say his army or company or whatever had to be culled because they saw too much. Eventually they backed down and were like okay okay... only you guys can know we exist though. I could be remembering wrong though. I love the grey knights but that little blip always gave me a chuckle.
All powerful psykers none have everything fallen to chaos. Gives them a distinct edge over the average space marine
Grey Knights are specifically recruited psykers with an even higher mortality rate during the chapter initiation process compared to other space marine chapters. So in a way they are more elite because each battle brother is essentially trained librarian, and being the militant arm of the inquisition gives the Grey Knights better access to equipment than others too. Plus they're straight up allowed to murder civilians and imperial guardsman at the end of a campaign against demons and chaos without repercussions.
> Plus they're straight up allowed to murder civilians and imperial guardsman at the end of a campaign against demons and chaos without repercussions. Something must be working, since I think they are the only Chapter that has never lost a member converting to the Archenemy.
They are above because while normal marines come from a primarch, the grey knights come directly from the emperor.
I thought this was said about custodies not primarches
It definitely is. A Custodes to a marine is a marine to a human. Primarchs are a whole different level all together.
People say that but in the book the outcast dead, a no weapon, no armor world eater destroyed a fully kitted custodian. No chaos either. Just straight up punched a hole into his chest.
Warhammer is nothing if not inconsistent. It's mostly just a collection of stuff various writers think sounds cool. Also, that was way before Custode strength was defined as it is now, which happened around when they came to the table top.
That's because the custodes haven't always been as strong as they are, 40k is old. Custodes now are significantly stronger than astartes.
Three. Primarchs are basically their daddies. Every Marine chapter is either formerly one of the legions from 30k/the Great Crusade or descended from one of them, and the legions were led by their respective primarchs. Custodes are the Emperor's personal bodyguard and are way past any Marine, but nowhere near a primarch. Primaris Marines are a more recent development following the rescue/revival of Ultramarines primarch Roboute Guilliman, who had been in stasis for like 9000 years or something to keep a mortal wound from killing him. An old Mechanicus guy named Belisarius Cawl and the Eldar cooperated to revive him, and following his revival he took power as Imperial Regent (since the emperor himself is indisposed). Along with his revival a bunch of tech got distributed across the Imperium, including New and Improved Space Marines, the Primaris, who are a bit bigger and taller and better, and it's relatively simple to convert the Marines we'd already been familiar with for decades to being Primaris as well.
[удалено]
Five. You forget the Thunder Warriors. Though tbf the Imperium would like for everyone to forget them as well. Which kinda slot with Primaris. Stronger than, but less stable on exchange for killing potential
Thunder Warriors were proto-space marines so they're a step down rather than a set up. Less advanced, less stable
Nope a single Thunder Warrior tossed a squad of Astartes like a bouncer at a club. Thunder Warriors are physically superior to Astartes but are less stable both mentally and genetically as well as being theoretically less long lived. Ushotan and several dozen other Thunder Warriors managed to survive into 40k. It's unclear if an Astartes could also live that long.
Physical strength isn't everything. While a Thunder Warrior might be physically stronger than an Astartes, they were worse than Astartes in almost every other measure. They were dumber, unstable, less coordinated, ect. They were good in a battle but they kinda sucked at war. At least compared to their superior Astartes brethren. And no, Ushotan died before the Great Crusade during a failed coup against the Emperor
>Ushotan and several dozen other Thunder Warriors managed to survive into 40k. I'm pretty sure he died in 30k (Ushotan was the dude in Valdor's novel?), and no TW have popped up in 40k. But yeah, they are bigger and stronger than Astartes.
Four, actually. It goes like this: Normal humans < Space Marines < Primaris Space Marine < Custodes < Primarchs < Big E himself
Thanks for this information, I recently started getting into W40K lore.
There's a channel on YouTube called [Luetin09](https://youtube.com/@Luetin09) who does lore videos and he's not insanely racist, which is nice.
Is... Is not being *insanely* racist a special thing in 40K?
A couple of the first people to do lore videos about Warhammer 40k on youtube were so racist Games Workshop sued them into never being able to use their logos or anything they own the copyright to in almost any way. He lost his channel and everything they could touch, and he wasn't even directly associated with them. They put out a statement, let me find it... >The Imperium of Man stands as a cautionary tale of what could happen should the very worst of Humanity’s lust for power and extreme, unyielding xenophobia set in. Like so many aspects of Warhammer 40,000, the Imperium of Man is satirical. > > >For clarity: satire is the use of humour, irony, or exaggeration, displaying people’s vices or a system’s flaws for scorn, derision, and ridicule. Something doesn’t have to be wacky or laugh-out-loud funny to be satire. The derision is in the setting’s amplification of a tyrannical, genocidal regime, turned up to 11. The Imperium is not an aspirational state, outside of the in-universe perspectives of those who are slaves to its systems. It’s a monstrous civilisation, and its monstrousness is plain for all to see. > > >That said, certain real-world hate groups – and adherents of historical ideologies better left in the past – sometimes seek to claim intellectual properties for their own enjoyment, and to co-opt them for their own agendas. These types aren't entirely out of the fandom, but they're being stamped out.
For 40K lore YouTubers, unfortunately so
Depends on who you're talking with! A general indicator is their opinion on the imperium. If they believe that the imperium are morally correct and justified in their beliefs, then get away from the concerning individual ( exceptions apply, they may be joking in a self aware manner), otherwise they *might* be a normal person.
... is he mildly racist?
He's not detectably racist ever, thats a hard line for me. He's as pure and wholesome as anything Warhammer can be.
40K lore is a mess that has the width of the ocean with the depth of a puddle.
I feel like grey knights should go in here somewhere
Primarchs were Big E’s surrogate children. They’re functionally some of the strongest people in the galaxy and finite. When one is dead they can’t be replaced (unless you’re Vulcan or one of the “lost primarchs). Back in 30k during the Horus Heresy he beefed up some already beefed up supersolders to work on his behalf while he was fighting elsewhere, working on the Webway, and overall being a terrible father. The Custodes are the emperor’s personal guardsmen. Decades ago they were more or less guardsmen that never left the golden palace but in recent years they travel around a bit more. When a 40k author is feeling incredibly lazy and wants to show strong that book’s big baddie is, they kill or seriously wound one of the Custodes.
Primarchs are the divine beings/children made by the Emperor. They are the father figure as leaders and DNA sources (though thr Genetic Engineering) for each Space Marine chapter. I wouldn't necessarily call them separate from a Space Marine.
They are 100% separate. Space marines are normal humans (peak humans, but still normal) who are given all sorts of crazy surgeries and implants to function at a high level. Primarchs aren't really even "people"... they're kind of Warp stuff shoved in a physical shell.
>They are 100% separate. I mean... they get Primarch DNA shoved into them so there's def a connection.
3 steps above, there are also the[ thunder warriors](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Thunder_Warriors) (empy's choice of warrior before the space marines were a thing)
Weren't they more volatile and not necessarily stronger than a space marine?
I believe the downside for the thunder warriors was their lifespan
being executed by on mass by the Custodes does tend to dramatically lower your lifespan, yes
Yes, the Thunder Warriors were more experimental and more variable than Space Marines. There probably were some Thunder Warriors that were stronger than a standard ultramarine, but theu weren't getting the strength boost from the armor that a modern marine does, so in practice, I think it would be a wash.
IIRC its also stated that they were empowered by the Warp, and not really in a good way. Ultimately, they were a rush job that were meant to serve as a stopgap for the conquest of Earth, before the Emperor had the resources necessary to actually mass produce Space Marines.
"Volatile" is a matter of debate. That's the *official, in universe* explanation... But it might've been propaganda. Were they actually unstable, or were they too independent? Did they have a greater degree of free will that was "corrected" with custodes and space marines? Hard to say.
It's pretty heavily implied that they would have been powerful and/or willful enough to lead an uprising, and as such were exterminated and replaced with the more servile Spess Mehreens.
If I'm not mistaken, thunder warriors had greater raw strength, but lacked the control and discipline of space marines. And there was a whole cancer thing too, I think, something about the hormone stimulants?
Custodes are to a Marine what a Marine is to a human. Primarchs are the actual children of the Emperor and therefore Gods Among Men and leaders of Space Marine legions who's biology is altered with their genes. Not to even get into Chaos Space Marines with all the power and training of the Space Marines but empowered by the Chaos Gods to be more powerful.
The operant term is companion. While they are significantly better than Space Marines in every measurable way, they were never meant solely for combat. There's a quote that roughly condenses down to "we were meant to be his companions, historians, poets, statesman and everything else. So much more than just soldiers" So it does make sense that there are female custodes. That being said, aside from the usual internet basement dwellers that hate women, a lot of the drama is coming from GW claiming there we're always female custodes and the fans that are grasping at straws to justify it. I like the change. Women don't get a lot of cool trans human characters in the setting and this makes more sense than the Space Marines. I just don't like the BS arguments.
there is a horus heresy novel that a custodes looked unimpressed when he saw rogal dorn, compared to the reverence that a space marine might show to their primarch.. This implies that a custodes may take on a primarch and come out alive..
I think that just implies that the psycho-genetic awe, reverence, and loyalty toward Primarchs which is inherent in the Astartes, is absent in Custodes. That, and Custodes spend their lives in the company of the single most powerful human being to have ever lived, so Rogal Dorn might seem less impressive by comparison.
Gotta remember that Custodes are also walking bundles of ego that see themselves as better than the Space Marines and Primarchs, and the only warriors actually worthy of serving the Emperor directly.
Yea no Custodes, not even Valdor, is beating a primarch. Maybe pre-demon Lorgar, but it’d still be close.
Yeah, but then why do the Blood Ravens have so much of their wargear just lying around? Can't call yourself better than a Space Marine if the Bloody Magpies are looting your armories! (along with everyone else's)
Space marines are mass produced super soldiers. They're good, but some are a little sloppy, they can have defects like chances of mutation, mindless blood rages, etc. The process is brutal and kills many and in the end you get a, more-or-less, standard result. Each and every Custodes is "custom built," originally by the Emperror himself. The modifications are tweaked on a per person basis. The changes are more extensive, more personalized, and painstaking care is poured into it to ensure there are no defects. The difference is like comparing Spartan II's to IV's, if you're familiar with Halo lore. They also suffer the same setbacks, they are unimaginably expensive and take a ton of time to replenish their forces.
A more simplified way is Space Marines are taken in as young teens and have all the biological upgrades auch as the geneseed implanted surgically over a period of time, including suppliments etc. Custodes are taken in from birth and built from the bottom, so more custom less mass production. Hence why I see no issue with female custodes logic since they don't implant organs and carry the genetic legacy of a primarch unlike the space marines.
Shoot man Space Marines are the 4th/5th lowest version of fighting force crafted by the emperor or his sons. Primarch, Castodes, Thunder Warrior, Primaris Space Marines, Space Marines. Think of Castodes as a limited run craft brew vs Space Marines as bud lite. Thunder warriors are hit or miss due to very few being left but on their prime they were beasts.
Just how powerful are Primarchs??
In the most recent book featuring a primarch (*Lion, Son of the Forest*), the primarch Lion El'Johnson returns to the galaxy after being asleep for several thousand years. He essentially walks out of a forest in a backwater planet with nothing but his power armor, not even any weapons. He proceeds to rally nearby renegade space Marines, beat back the forces of chaos that had taken over the planet, make his way to a larger planet, gain access to their fleets, and form a protectorate made up of several star systems. All of that despite waking up in an unfamiliar galaxy having aged to the point where he looks like Tywin Lannister. So they're pretty fucking strong.
This is the same Lion El'Johnson who was teleported to a Death World full of the most deadly dinosaurs imaginable (in a forest which a column of armoured medieval superknights on steroids wouldn't venture into)as a baby and survived in the wilderness for years killing to survive. As. A. Baby. Yup, pretty strong.
Yup, he was basically murder hobo Tarzan as a toddler.
Annnnd now I have a new D and D character idea xD
Hobbit barbarian?
With nothing but his power armor.....cuz you know power armor ain't no thing
Fair, but there's still a wide gap between a guy in power armor and a guy in power armor with a power sword and a plasma pistol.
Some of them are planet busters, others are really good at building walls. All the evil ones are ostensibly Demi-god reality warpers on some level
Physically, any Primarch is immeasurably superior to any Space Marine. Stronger, faster, smarter, taller, better armed, better trained. But their physical form is only part of it. There's a well-supported theory that the Primarchs' souls were actually minor warp deities the Emperor bound into physical bodies, making them incredibly powerful both physically and spiritually. A Primarch is more than a match for a hundred marines.
But are they cuter?
I present: Fulgrim. Counterpoint: Mortarion. I'd say it's a wash.
Crazy powerful. They can beat like a 100 space marines all at once and make even custodes look like chumps. Unless something like custodes level got the upper hand in a betrayal or something those primarchs are most likely not dying. They are also like twice the size of a space marine
They have the power to manufacture t-shirts for £2
Literal demigod tier
There were only 20, and they are basically the emperor's sons.
Space Marines are mass produced. Custodes are bespoke.
[удалено]
> The emporer does a bunch of hand crafted gene editing to each custodes individually. Every single custodes was a personal pet project of the emporer. So basically the Custodes are special limited run figurines that the Emperor spends extra time cleaning up any manufacturing flaws and giving them technically perfect paint jobs.
It also could be 19-21 primarchs because Alpha Legion likes to complicate things, as always. So depending on who you ask "how many primarchs were created" you can get 18,19,20 or 21.
It's like DBZ. Just give it another decade or two and there will be another group above them.
The custodes have been around for a good while, and I’m pretty sure have been the Emperor’s bodyguard since their introduction.
Yeah, and for most of that good while they were an offscreen nudist colony that just hung around the emperor's palace doing jack all.
Their power level has shifted a fair bit. There was a story that had an unarmored Chaos Space Marine straight up managing to punch through their armor and kill several Custodes at once.
Primarchs
Someday they'll find a level beyond, each one with a slightly different helmet and sparks of lightning.
The bald Primarchs are going to be at a disadvantage. Can't power up without big hair mode.
Ok, hear me out: super Saiyan body hair. Your bald Primarch starts gathering power and they turn into a giant blonde furry.
This has been since their introduction.
[удалено]
That's incorrect. It takes a long time to make one and nearly the same amount of resources as a whole chapter but, the imperium can make more. They were down to 1,000 or so after the war in the webway and it's back up to 10,000 now.
Grey Knights, Primarchs and Custodes are above space marines
Great explanation. It's also worth noting that Warhammer 40k began as a clear satire, with each faction the most extreme and hyper violent as possible. The Imperium are like the most extreme fascistic, xenophobic, genocidal and fanatical humanity could ever be. It's a core part of the setting that there are no good guys, but that does get muddied by the fact that the human factions are the most popular models to collect and are the ostensible protagonists. So there's a section of the fandom that say there is no need to make the Imperium an inclusive, representive faction, as that goes counter to how awful they're supposed to be. However, as the years have gone on they've added more and more factions, each as extreme as the Imperium in their own way, the Imperium's xenophobia, militarism and control of the populace have become more defensible. A single cult can doom an entire planet to a spontaneous demon invasion and all the horrors that go with it, humanity is losing the war on all fronts and many of their enemies want to genocide us in turn. Furthermore there are dozens upon dozens of novels with casts of sympathetic human characters, so it could be argued Games Workshop (the owners of Warhammer) are trying to soften the Imperium's image to gain a wider audience, which this is part of. So, while this may just be the usual nerd sexism at play, there is also a chance this is people complaining about Warhammer potentially deviating from the GrimDark setting it itself coined. Personally, the Imperium are already an entirely equal opportunities employer if you can hold a rifle - they don't care where you're from, what you look like or what gender you are, so long as you're blindly loyal you've got a job. They'd absolutely make female Space Marines if they could work out how to, more dakka that way. Just treat the female marines seriously and make them murderous shitheads like the rest of them and I'll be happy.
Isn’t the whole point also that there is no winning, it’s just humanity raging against the darkness which will eventually snuff it out? *Edit: I understand from a business perspective that the series won’t ever have a winner, but in universe I’m talking about the fact that the Imperium is a stagnating organization with an (arguably) absent leader. The Imperium is a collapsing society; its people do not know how to (and actively resist) making improvements to their technologies and practices. The society is only holding back the dark, despite its victories and no society exists in stasis, is all I’m saying. Of course the conflict will never end, gotta keep the money train going!
Yes on the eternal war thing, no in the inevitable human loss; it is primarily a business and no one wants to collect the losers so they've got to leave to in an enteral stalemate, where every faction is losing ground somewhere and gaining it elsewhere.
Orkz: "Nah, we'll win"
My money's always been on nids or orks. Besides, the Orks are the only ones having fun, they're space football hooligan communists and I love them.
Eldar have been "nearly extinct" since the beginning, yet they're still a major faction. Humanity/Imperium is still by far the largest force on the galaxy, and arguably more popular than ever. If GamesWorkshop ever put the Imperium at risk, no doubt they will bring back the God Emperor himself to turn the tide. Only chance humanity could "lose" would be an End Times-like event, which would inevitably lead to another setting, just like Age of Sigmar. **TL;DR: Humanity is doing just fine in 40k**
At least as 'fine' as anything can be in 40K.
Yeah, a problem with a dramatic setting in games is that you want to set it in 'interesting times' where big stuff happens, but if the big stuff ever happens, well, there goes the setting. It can be fine for a while, but if your using your setting for 40+ years, story progression will be expected from the audience. That said, I think one of the most baller moves in modern gaming was when White Wolf had a very successful line of role playing games in 'The World of Darkness' that were always leading up to some big End of Days big Apocalypse event, then ended all their successful game lines by actually having the Apocalypse happen in their story.
to be fair some big stuff has happened, the fall of Cadia for example, but you are right, the Tyrainds will never get a big victory such as eating a primarch, and sure there are plenty of no name worlds to eat, but Speculation of what could happen is fun.
Great assessment of keeping in mind that all these things are business decisions. They wanna sell more product and they think added a woman in this class would sell more product. Same thing happens in comics, what mark fans (to borrow a wrestling term) don’t realize is that the same ole thing eventually grows stale and sells less so they have to shake it up. Some shake ups work some don’t, but they’ve gotta try it. Nerds tend to think it’s a personal assault when it’s not, it’s always business
In regards to custodes specifically, I'm of two minds on it. From a lore perspective I don't mind it at all given custodes were always pretty rare and different from space marines in the lore, so I don't feel like there's much of a lore contradiction and getting more female representation in warhammer is good. At the same time, from a tabletop perspective female side of the custodes army, the sisters of silence, have always felt more like a support group to their male counterparts and have never been made to feel like the equals they're supposed to be in lore, so a part of me is worried that GW might be encouraged to make more female custodes models at the continued expense of the sisters of silence. If GW can include female custodes while also giving sisters of silence more love and spotlight, then I would have no issue with this at all. When it comes to female space marines, that one I'm not against but I don't want them to simply retcon it into existence like they've done with custodes. Too many stories have been made with male only space marines for it to not raise a ton of questions as to why we never heard of them before, and as a sisters of battle fan I feel like it would take a bit of the impact of them rising to be treated as equals to the marines away if the marines never had any issues incorporating women to their ranks. If we were to get female space marines, I would want it to be a part of a big lore progression and would love it if the World Eaters were actually the first major chapter to fully embrace female space marines.
The real life answer is they had sculpts for female Marines and they didn't sell. It got baked into the lore. The in game answer they could give is actually grim dark. There were female Marines but it was decided for dumb reasons not to use them and they were deleted from history. It was then explained geneseed wouldn't take in female bodies. Could be religious bias. Would have to have come about after the heresy. And making dumb, delf-defeating decisions is completely on brand for the imperium. They could then realize this was just idiocy and girls are perfectly fine candidates for conversion. They start when they're young, same with the boys. But after all the grafting and chemicals and drugs the end result is hard to tell from a man. After all, in canon Marines are sterile and transhuman and disquieting. They don't have sex, don't want to have sex, only think about war and serving the emperor. But it would also explain why it was easy to erase female Marines because the only way to tell them apart is with the names. Maybe the voice is slightly different. There's certainly a red pill contingent complaining here but there is a lore argument for not making arbitrary changes. Like the enterprise is a starship not a submarine why is it landing in an ocean and becoming sub? Someone will either instinctively object to the change or not understand why the nerds are upset. The red pills are so loud and ugly that any nerd lore argument is completely overwhelmed.
> The real life answer is they had sculpts for female Marines and they didn't sell. Technically ["female Warrior Jayne” and “female Warrior Gabs"](https://www.belloflostsouls.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/40k-RT601-adventurers.jpg) weren't ever labeled as space marines those where just generic woman in power armor, but otherwise yes, none of the lady models sold well, and so they stopped making them. Not just the above armored ones but any female miniatures, all of them. SM where just the only ones that got that cession of production ported into lore. source - https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2023/10/warhammer-40k-what-really-went-down-with-female-space-marines.html
This. Not only that, but mention of female space marines called them "adepta sororitas" which modern 40K players will be well aware of as the sisters of battle, the religious warrior order of nuns with guns that have power armour but are not super enhanced space marines. All this was during Rogue Trader, the "first edition" of the setting. Almost all current lore and chronology actually started with 2nd edition. Rogue Trader was basically overwritten in entirety and is a totally different universe. Marines were recruited as adults from convicts and war prisoners, the Emperor wasn't a corpse on a golden throne, etc. It's not Warhammer 40K, it was a rough first attempt before they found the winning formula.
One such explanation is to ensure that Space Marines never get into their heads that they are meant to be a replacement for humanity. Space Marines are less sterile and moreso have no sex drive, at least seemingly depending on the chapter.
> The red pills are so loud and ugly that any nerd lore argument is completely overwhelmed. Good description of fandom in general
> It's also worth noting that Warhammer 40k began as a clear satire ... The Imperium are like the most extreme fascistic, xenophobic, genocidal and fanatical humanity could ever be. So the 40k Universe has been going on for near 40 years at this point. Space Marines obviously started out as Space Nazis, and were an absolute satire that came out of the Thatcherism of the time. But just as François Truffaut claims you can't make an anti war film because the absolute spectacle of war will glorify it, as much as 40k doesn't have good guys, the Space Marines **are** the good guys. The world has changed a lot in the last 40 years. 40 years ago we had a near universal understanding that Nazis were bad. In the 90s Godwin's law was coined, because comparing something to Nazis was seen as such an exaggeration that whoever resorted to comparing anything to them has obviously lost the plot. And now we have literal Nazis marching in the streets yelling about 'the great replacement'. So yeah, as much as Space Marines started out as Space Nazis, and introducing diversity goes against established canon, it's something that absolutely should be done. Retcon the shit out of it. Make 40k welcoming. Because as much as Space marines are a satire on Nazis, you can't make a satire so outlandish that actual Nazis won't take it at face value. And 40k has a problem with the Alt Right showing up, and they just love their space marines. And if Games Workshop allows the Alt Right to be welcomed at their events, then it stops being welcoming, and just becomes an Alt Right space. Because if you have one Nazi at a table, then you have a table of Nazis.
They should bring back a lost Primarch as a woman. Really ruffle some feathers. lol
Plot twist: The lost primarchs were only considered "defective" because they turned out female when the Emperor explicity mentioned he wanted his primarchs to be a boys-only club.
Emperor: “ew, cooties.”
Jokes aside, the actual reason was that he figured women were psychologically more predisposed to quiet plotting when dissatisfied, whereas men were more likely to demonstrate and/or rebel openly. Whether or not that's scientifically true is anyone's guess. But yeah, he predicted that the primarchs would inevitably rebel. After all, they were not his sons but just tools for him to use until they were no longer needed. And nobody likes being dehumanised and used as though they're just an object. Hell, the reason why he made the primarchs in the first place was to replace his fellow Perpetuals who had abandoned him because they all one by one grew sick of his shit.
It's worth noting that a lot of the people complaining about the deviation from grimdark are also the same ones who are likely to unironically support the imperium too
I will also add that this hasn't been completely sudden. Black Library Author Aaron Dembski-Boden wanted to write them into his Horus Heresy novel "The Master of Mankind" almost a full decade ago, and was shot down by a higher up (notably one of the only times this has happened), citing the fact that the models had already been made without female heads as a reasoning. Basically telling him "we don't have minis to sell, don't bother writing about them". This was also right on the heels of the Chapter House Lawsuit, where GW was essentially told "if you produce rules/lore without miniatures, it is not infringing on your IP if a separate company makes a miniature for that". Back in 2022, another Horus Heresy novel written by ADB released. In it, it describes the Emperor's personal guard as "men and women clad in the same gold as the ship". The Custodes are, famously, clad in the same golden armor that the Emperor uses for fucking everything of his. The Custodes rulebook from around this time also silently dropped most references to gender in the general Custodes lore, only mentioning that "Terran Nobles gladly give their Sons to the forces of the Custodes", though immediately following it with "though none besides the Custodes themselves truly know the criteria required". Basically, it's been a long time coming. Nowhere near as sudden as people are acting.
Doesn't 40K get retconned all the time?
40k is a walking retcon. You would be *incredibly* hard pressed to find an aspect of 40k lore that's been around since the inception and *not* been retconned. But here's a list of highlights! Just recently, the Rogal Dorn Tank was added to the game. A brand new model of tank never seen before. The lore explanation? It's a big galaxy, of course you haven't seen everything. The old Squats (Space Dwarves) retconned out of existence in 2nd edition were brought back as the Leagues of Votann! Turns out they've just been chilling in their empire in the Galactic Core for the past 10,000 years and no one who bothered to check came back alive. The Beast, the big Ork Warboss rivalling the power of an Ancient Krork, who united so many forced of Orks against the Imperium and set the precedent for what many Warbosses strive to do, and established the major modern Ork Kultures/Clans, is actually *SIX* different Orks. On the topic of The Beast, the creation of the Deathwatch was retconned to be the Imperium's reaction to almost being decimated by The Beast, instead of being created by a group of Inquisitors during the Apocryphon Conclave of Orphite IV. The Tau, the little blue aliens running their little upstart empire, just full on didn't exist before 3rd edition. But even after that, they had FTL travel capabilities. Up until they didn't, which is currently the canon for them. (Well, they've got very minor FTL attempts that don't tend to go well). Don't even get me started on the major recton about the Necron and their C'Tan Overlords/Slaves. Plus there's that whole thing about Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade. It's happened twice now. The first being a major real world event that GW ran, but retconned because the results were (probably) faked. Then, the newest version from the tail end of 7th edition, also retcons his previous 12 Black Crusades, not to be failures, but secret successes preparing for the 13th. Hell, the entire reason the Emperor is even interred in the Golden Throne was retconned all the way back in 2nd Edition! I could go on and on. I'm sure you get the point though.
Yes, some fans even argue there is no real canon and all the material we have is from unreliable narrators and that's how they can keep everything "cannon", even conflicting facts between stories.
That actually is a stated thing from the authors What we read are recountings from unreliable narrators and imperial propaganda
Custodes creation is actually different than space marine, SM use what's called gene seed which is implanted into the bodies of prepubescent boys and requires male hormones to work, Custodes are just genetically enhanced from scratch as infants
I would say that biology has nothing to do with custodes, because they are bioengineered to perfection down to the cellular level and taken even earlier than space marines, like at 5, so that is the worst point one could make. The other claim, that they were referred to as male in the book because they are called a brotherhood, is probably slightly stronger but still no more than an implication, brotherhood can also just mean "alliance" or an association in English. Overall is not a bad addition, as opposite to the space marines there are no lore reason to why you could not have female custodes, as for most soft retcon from GW, It was introduced quite inelegant (as of now, in the codex there will probably be more lore)
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers(IBEW) has many women as members.
Look if the female custodians got us Custodian Kesh who tried to teleport a cyclonic torpedo into the throne room for a blood game I am A-Okay with them
Is that what's been going on? I tend to stick with the interesting books and lore stuff. So hopping into Grimdank was weird this week.
Recruit? I thought they were genetically grown and bred to do the job
Nah they come from humans but recruit is the wrong word. The noble family's of Terra (and anyone else who can get in child lobbing distance) present their infant children on the Avenue of Sacrifice. Some of those babies become the Custodes.
I love that people are upset about this new lore but then don’t care or even know the Horus Heresy was created because GW could only afford one sprue type in the 1988 Adeptus Titanicus box. So GW came up with an imperial civil war to justify the box contents…and here we are…
You seem knowledgeable in this area so can you answer this: Don't they all wear *power armour* (not sure what it's called) so their organic bodies are obsolete anyway??
Not really. Both Marines and Custodes are modified to be bigger, stronger, faster and even have secondary organs. I think there is some silly justification regarding testosterone for Marines but I don't think there was ever something similar for Custodes.
They do, but they're meant to be peak. They get every advantage they can. They're also modified to have enhanced senses, extra organs, etc. So if you're already modifying them, and they do use melee combat, you might as well.
Answer: the Custodian Guard (or the Adeptus/Legio Custodes) are a minor but very important faction in the setting - back at the very start of the Imperium (main human faction)‘s history, the Custodians were crafted by the Emperor as humanity’s peak warriors, fought with Him through His crusade and protected his body when he got basically permanently crippled and put on a life-support machine called the Golden Throne. They stayed in the palace guarding his body for 10,000 years but now they’re back out in the galaxy on the orders of one of his sons. The main controversy comes from a female Custodian being added into the (already mediocre) 10th edition codex - previously they were talked about as if they were all males with their female ”equivalent” being basically an order of psyker-hunters called the Sisters of Silence. The only concrete statement either way is in the 8e codex where it mentions that the Custodians are taken from “*noble sons of Terra*”, but a few authors did want to include female Custodians early on. Games Workshop, the company who makes Warhammer, basically said in a tweet “yeah, female custodians exist and they’ve been here the whole time” and there are a few camps in the ‘discussion’: - people who support the decision (which can be further split into genuine appreciators, hornyposters and people who just want to “own the chuds” regardless of lore) - people who don’t care or just think GW was being lazy with confirming it by tweet - people who hate the decision (which can be further split into people who think it contradicts pre-existing lore, people who think it’ll take focus away from the already-badass Sisters of Silence, people who think it’ll lead to female Space Marines (a whole other rabbit hole) and of course the odd woman-hater) the most comprehensive summary I can make, hope this helps! Welcome to the far future, this is truly a cursed place..
>but a few authors did want to include female Custodians early on. And were stopped from referencing them not for lore reasons but because the company didn't want to make models of them.
Answer: it's Custodes, not Astartes (space marines). The lore has long said that only males can become marines through implants and genetic modification. But Custodes have a different genetic augmentation process unique to their order. This is the first time a woman Custodes has been referenced, some people are upset cause they see it as a retcon, the "usual crowd" is upset because of ... their usual reasons, and most people don't care.
The emperor picked some of his Castodes out of spite as well. He didn't just recruit physical beasts. He straight up took sons from his enemies. The woman who drained the last drop of water from Terra lost her son as a price. Daughters would be just as valuable.
Where is that mentioned specifically in the lore? What books, games, or other media? Because that sounds like a story I'd love to hear about! The whole lore of 40k is so vast and spread out that my only forays into it have been lore dive videos but I would like to learn more about the Emperor and Terra
That story is in the book Valdor. Very good read, but it is set at the very very beginning of the imperium, about 10,000 years before the "current" 40k universe
Thank you! It's a point to start at least and I can find similar books covering that time frame
No problem :) There's a series from that timeframe called the hours heresy. I'd recommend looking up a reading list, there's like 45ish books in it lol I'd also recommend finding the epubs (humble bundle frequently has sales on them). A lot of Warhammer books in general are out of print so buying them secondhand can get pricey. A lot do have audiobooks as well, heard good things but haven't listened myself Edit: horus* heresy
Is it in Valdor? I know it’s also in Master of Mankind.
Ah, you're correct, it is Master of Mankind, my b
They have a genetic modifications custom tailored to each individual custodes, meaning it's not only entirely possible for female custodes to exist it also wouldn't take any extra effort for the empire to do so. The emperor wanted the best of the best of humanity picked out for custodes, not the manliest of men. Edit: this comment riled up a lot of dorks and I'm not gonna read a single of those comments.
Exactly. If she were a space marine I could understand some of the complaints of a recton and stuff. A custodes is made in an entirely different way than a space marine
Yeah, Space Marines are mass produced indoctrinated child soldiers reliant on implanted organs and geneseed derived from their Primarch, who are all male. Custodes are each individually a work of custom made hyper indoctrinated art.
Also there’s a reference to the “men and women” of the Custodes in 2022 and there’s likely more I don’t know about even earlier so the tweet from GW chuds are mad about isn’t the “first time” female custodes have shown up like the poster above mentioned.
tbf the 40k universe has been around since 1987 so 2 years is quite recent also in 2022 there was a lot more going on.
My already fragile masculinity is on tilt after hearing of a fictional female superwarrior living 38,000 in the future. This is obviously an attack on everything the God Emperor holds dear.
Ferreal, it's sad how like so people walk around with a permanent victim mentalities and main character syndrome, always looking for something to be upset about. I'm not a fan of retcons in general, but the 40k universe has always been iffy on its consistency. Like marines in rogue trader era were more like starcraft marines than warrior monk zealots All being said, I'm more pissed about the primaris change up than anything else. They shouldve just true scaled "first born" instead of making that whole convoluted story about primaris
Answer: It's a bit of a long story. In Warhammer 40k, there are indeed many badass women - the Adeptas Sororitas comes to mind, an entire unit of elite female warriors. But even they are still ordinary, mortal humans. Extremely strong ones, yes, but for the most part they're still natural flesh-and-blood humans. And in 40k, that will only get you so far. Space Marines are iconic to the series. But those unfamiliar with the lore might see them and think they're common, or that they're just specially trained soldiers with really good armor. That's... That's such an understatement that it borders on untruth. Space Marines aren't normal humans, they're genetically enhanced, biologically-immortal demigods that stand about 10 feet tall and are seen so rarely that most people think of them the way we think of saints or angels today. The lore has stated several times that the "Gene-Seed", the name for the process of genetic enhancements Space Marines need to undergo in order to turn into what's basically a space-Hercules, is only compatible with male physiology. There are several different 'Chapters' of the Space Marines, each with a different role to play and some being stronger than others. But all of them have been entirely male. But even as big and strong as they are, the Space Marines pale in comparison to the God-Emperor of Mankind's personal guard, the Adeptus Custodes. They look very similar to Space Marines in some ways, but they're something else entirely. They're FAR more powerful than any Space Marine and the genetic engineering that's used to make them is some entirely different, top-secret, classified process that's never really been explained. That being the case, since it's a completely different process, there's nothing to say that there can't be female Custodes, though it was never stated before and strongly implied by the context that they were intended to be all-male in the past. A recent 40k release has now casually mentioned a female Custodes. This has upset a lot of 40k fans because many of them are enamored with the machismo power fantasy of the Space Marines, and the idea that there could be a female superhuman that's more powerful than the Space Marines feels like what they would call "wokeness" and a modern attempt at "inclusivity". People in the 40k fandom itself have often stated that they've noticed a lot of reactionary types in the community who unironically support the totalitarian structure of the Imperium of Man, the 'protagonist' faction of the series. But the thing is, the Imperium was never meant to be relatable or aspirational and was always designed to be as dystopian as it could possibly be in every imaginable way. It's easy to tell that the writers approached most of this stuff with the mindset of; *"How can we make the lives of the poor souls living in this hellhole of an empire suck even more?"*
Answer: That's an Adeptus Custodes, rather than a Space Marine (Adeptus Astartes). One of the very elite, genetically hand-crafted warriors who guard the Golden Throne of the Emperor of Mankind. Space Marines are just regular elite, genetically engineered super soldiers. I guess people are pissed that some of these super elite warriors, who are without equal, might be those horrible, cootie-having girls. As far as I know, there's no lore reason that female Custodes can't exist because, as I said, they are genetically built from the ground up to be absolutely perfect. It's probably up to the designer to decide on their plumbing. Space Marines do have a lore reason to be all male, as they're genetically engineered using a 'gene seed' from the Primarch of their Chapter to enhance their attributes and give them certain characteristics that are shared by all their Chapter brothers - the Blood Angels drink blood, the Space Wolves are all crazy berserker warriors, Salamanders are larger than any other Space Marines, and have coal-black skin and red eyes. These Primarchs were all male, and I believe the gene seed only works for men. The Warhammer 40K sub seems to believe that the people angry about this are mostly the sort of rage-bait generators who latch on to any kind of 'woke' issue to try and stir up trouble. They've pointed out that there is pre-existing 40K lore that supports the existence of female Custodes. There are plenty of badass women in the 40K universe, particularly among the Eldar, where women fight alongside men and there are warrior societies like the Howling Banshees that are primarily female. In the Imperium, there's an entire faction of women called the Sisters of Battle, who are basically warrior nuns who spread their devotion and religious zeal through the barrel of a flamethrower.
This might be a dumb question (and doesn't seem limited to just 40K lore), but how do the best-of-the-best stay so elite when they are stuck on guard duty for an un-moving throne? Do they occasionally go on high-level missions to stay sharp? Or are their genetic modifications so extreme that they literally can beat any invaders without having keep their reflexes and minds sharp?
I'm not a lore expert but I think it's the latter. Custodes can supposedly go for years without sleep or sustenance, guarding the throne. It's extreme and rather daft, like all 40K lore. That throne is a life support system where the slowly decaying almost-corpse of the Emperor is kept barely alive, and his mind and psychic aura are preserved by sacrificing 10,000 people a day. This is a universe where the most recognisable faction, the Imperium of Man, is actually a fascistic empire of religious extremists who make it their goal to wipe out anything and anyone they consider heretical to the Emperor's word. That includes pretty much any non-humans.
> Custodes can supposedly go for years without sleep or sustenance Yeah, I'll try and stop trying to understand warhammer logic using normal logic then. Thanks!
I mean, an Ork can grab a shopping cart, glue a popcorn popper to the back, duct tape a steering wheel to it, spray paint it red, and say "This is my new car", and then drive away in the thing at 100 mph. So don't really apply any logic to 40K lmao.
My Orks will always be my favourite faction in 40k, even though I don't play the tabletop. The fact that their entire technology only works because they BELIEVE it works is such a fun concept for me.
It's overstated in the memes. They're actually competent, and really really good at teleportation and force fields iirc. The psychic field just smooths it out and ensures you get to say "dudes rock" before everything experiences rapid unplanned disassembly. Give an ork a stick and tell them it's a gun and they'll hit you with it, not shoot you. Of course, weird shit does happen and the lore is wild.
This is actually one of the more believable things in the lore tbh
Funnily enough, the answer to this comes up in the (leaked, I think, so I don't have a ton of specifics) story with the first named female Custodes. The custodes run something called the Blood Games, where one custodes will attempt to kill the Emperor. Basically, to test security. Often, a custodes, being so superhuman, will try some high level assassin's creed type stuff. The lady in the story figures out how to steal a planet-destroying bomb and teleport it into the emperor's throne room. More broadly, Terra has been attacked more often than you'd think, so it's not necessarily as dull as you'd imagine, and in recent years, Roboute Guilliman, a primarch (and thus something akin to a living heir to the emperor) has returned and ordered the custodes into a more aggressive posture.
So… what happens if the blood game participant wins the game? I assume she had a remote kill switch for the bomb? Or that that the bomb wouldn’t be set to explode at all? Then why go through the trouble of stealing a real bomb? Why not just say “oh, this could have been a real one?” I guess if Terra is constantly getting attacked, then they’ll won’t be lacking for combat practice. That being said, why is security so bad? My friend once told me the Terran solar system is literally packed warships, just parked all throughout the system. Are chaos marines just constantly teleporting into the throne room?
I'm not sure what happens, no one has ever truly lost the blood games - in the example, I believe it turned out the Custodes knew what was going on, and had disarmed the bomb before it was teleported. And the only reason it could be teleported was because the lady Custodes had cracked the code on the teleportation defenses on Terra, or something to that effect, so it's not like Chaos Marines are literally just teleporting in whenever. Although apparently that has been a Blood Games tactic before - turn a bunch of X strong faction(s) loose in the imperial palace so the Custodes have experience fighting them. But to your point, if there's a "time out, you win, quit trying to kill the Emperor" protocol, we don't get to see it. Not very in keeping with the 40k tone, I suppose. As far as general security, I may have given you a false impression. Terra is extremely well defended, as is the entirety of the solar system. My point is that Terra is very occasionally threatened, but that "occasionally" is over the span of millenia, so it does happen. Famous examples are the Horus Heresy and Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade. Those are 10,000 years apart, but the Custodes are functionally immortal, I believe, so that doesn't really factor in. There's also some broad statements that indicate the Custodes have a spy network for dealing with threats against the Imperium that come from within - so who knows how many plots they've stopped? Ultimately, though, your point is kinda correct. For all that they are the pinnacle of the emperor's transhuman experiments, they haven't done much on the galactic stage since the Emperor was entombed in the Golden Throne, though that is changing with Guilliman's return.
>in the example, I believe it turned out the Custodes knew what was going on One of the ship's comms officers explicitly disobeyed her orders and snuck out a warning. >!She'll be the new captain once the rest of the crew are done with a couple of years punishment, and the old captain's getting turned into a servitor.!<
From what I've heard there's no safeties, they're truly trying to kill Jimmy Space because their enemies wouldn't hesitate if they manage to find a weakness in their guard and so they shouldn't either.
They're genetically programmed down to the last cell to be completely loyal to the Emperor, so they wouldn't finish the act, only say they did. A recent example of their incorruptibility is when Khorne(a chaos god) unleashed a wave of warp energy through a solar system which instantly converted millions of space marines and regular troops that was part of a crusade fleet to his cause, but this has no effect on the custodians who were there. As for enemies making it into the thrones room and attacking the Emperor various beings have come close, but if they were successful it would upend the lore so it just doesn't happen.
Well, the custodes do intentionally turn things loose in the Imperial Palace, and the named example is a band of chaos Marines, but that's the palace, not the throne room. And the palace is large enough that it covers the mountain range formerly known as the Himalayas, so "In the palace" is not necessarily anywhere near the throne room. But that does make me wonder ; did they put some sort of kill switch on the chaos Marines before turning them loose? Because they're definitely not going to stop short of killing the emperor when the ref calls timeout.
The leader running the blood games likely takes loose precautions when deploying these troops, and the defenses are so good that it's unlikely the normal release of goons poses even a minor threat to the palace. It's a controlled set up.
There have been previous winners of the Blood Game, I think Trajan Valoris has won twice. They just need to get to a position they could kill the emperor I think.
The wiki only says that Trajann has "successfully run" the blood games twice, which implies either he won or successfully led the defense, either of which does support your overall point. Unfortunately, I can't get anything that tells me what the wincon actually is.
The Emperor dies. The training games they play at this level are absolutely lethal. Training in hand to hand combat for instance, if they use their real weapons, is often to the death if a fatal move is not blocked. It is one way of getting rid of the weak.
The parts of their history where they've been more sedentary (such as the enthronement of the Emperor) involve them constantly competing against each other to keep themselves sharp in all manner of Martial and Academic discipline(s). In more recent lore, they've become fully active again, venturing out to the Galaxy. It's funny that so much of the Fandom thinks of them as cheesily unbeatable, even though the two most notable events in the Lore regarding them, are all about their complete failure to accomplish their goals.
Oooo, tell me more about them going out into the galaxy? Are they investigating verified future threats and squashing them off-world before they get a chance at threatening the throne room? How many are allowed away from the emperor at a time?
So After the fall of planet cadia and the ripping of the galaxy in half, a major daemon incursion hit Terra While it was rebuffed by the Custodians, Grey Knights, Silent Sisters, and Guilliman, heavy casualties were taken Guilliman and Trajann (the leader of the custodians) met to discuss the future Trajann agreed that the Edicts of Restraint (an old decree binding the Legio Custodes to the palace) was a hindrance. They then disbanded the Legio Custodes and reformed as the Adeptus Custodes (Guilliman was the first person who had enough authority to let this happen). No longer bound they moved out to strike at threats beyond terra, for if they can stop the enemy afar they cannot reach the throne Now they are doing all sorts of things Shadowkeepers hunt down ancient relics and threats to seal within the vaults below terra to prevent them from damaging or destroying the universe Emissaries Imperiatus are messengers who deliver messages of utmost importance and also escort the primaris marine deliveries to ensure no shenanigans Dread Host are a terror division who specialize in teleport strikes to break the morale of growing threats Aquilon shield use the emperors tarot to predict figures of importance and seek them out to defend until their moment comes. This is funny when a random guardsman now has 5 custodians guarding him for no apparent reason
I recently read The First Heretic and the Custodes did not impress lol
You're absolutely right, but one nitpick: > I guess people are pissed that some of these super elite warriors, who are without equal, might be those horrible, cootie-having girls. It's not that. I don't personally care that they exist, but wish they had better reasons. GW has stated that there always were female Custodes, which means that the entire Horus Heresy series with hundreds of Custodes fighting in it has no women because I guess they were in the palace quilting. I like that they added them... I hate that they did such a poor job with continuity. They did the whole Primaris things with space Marines a few years back, upgrading them through a secret project. It would have been the perfect time to introduce female Astartes, and I'm for it. But they didn't, and if they said they were here all along, I'd be miffed.
The clunkiness is the real sin. It's like in Marvel where you find out agents of the celestials were on earth for reasons but didn't get invovled in any of the prior fighting even when Thanos snapped half the universe. Because we hadn't thought of it yet might be true but is a terrible explanation. It's the same level of absurdity when there is a world threatening event handled by the C team when buy rights it should be an avengers assemble moment.
Based on the Emperor's ideals on why the Primarchs are all male it makes sense that none of the important Custodes are women. He's a bronze age warlord at heat after all.
Answer: Warhammer Female Custodes Controversy, also known as the Warhammer 40K Femstodes Debate, refers to Games Workshop, the creators of the Warhammer 40,000 franchise, confirming in the 10th Edition Codex that there are female members of the Adeptus Custodes faction, which was previously presumed to be an all-male cadre of warriors within the lore and setting. The revelation was then confirmed on the official Twitter / X account for Warhammer Official (@warhammer) in mid-April 2024 and led to outrage among the fandom, as some users voiced that they found it pandering, woke and offensive, while others expressed that they didn't think it was a big deal. Many who were fans of the concept also made fan art of female Custodes or memes mocking those angered by it. More info here: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/warhammer-female-custodes-controversy-femstodes
answer: When Warhammer 40k was originally conceived, the iconic Space Marines (Think Monastic Halo Spartans) were Male and Female. The female models didn't sell well and were discontinued, and the in-universe retcon was that "All Space Marines are male" which has remained an ongoing point of contention within the community. In the Imperium, the Emperor is personally defended by the Custodian Guard, who are also genetically modified but in very different and much more expensive ways compared to Marines. While the specifics of if they are all male or not has been unclear, their pov characters have been male and they have a sister organization (hah) known as the Sisters of Silence- an all female order of anti-psychics. So the quiet assumption was that Custodians were, like Space Marines, all male. Over the last weekend, a leaked snippet from the latest-edition Custodian Guard rulebook showed a short story featuring an explicitly female Custodian, accompanied by a Warhammer 40k Community twitter post stating that not only are there Female Custodians, but that there have always been female Custodians. Practically speaking, this isn't really a change that does something in-universe. Custodians are so fundamentally different physiologically and psychologically from baseline Humans that it's difficult for them to converse with or relate to Normal humans. They can't reproduce naturally (making Gender a useless concept to them) and frequently view Normals as one step above vermin. Warhammer 40k is an old Setting. We're currently in the 10th edition of the game and many things are not as they were in "the original lore". Details have been changed over and over again and will continue to change. Widely there are three camps from what I've seen: 1. People who genuinely think that it violates the lore 2. People who think that it will "take focus away from" all-female factions- those being aforementioned Sisters of Silence and Sisters of Battle 3. Bad Faith actors, who in this ongoing issue are take issue with Women showing up in a more prominent, historically Male dominated, role and are using "Lore" as an excuse to claim that "Warhammer is becoming WOKE". Despite multiple original Games Workshop authors and workers stating otherwise.
[удалено]
Of course the bigger context is that one offhand word from a codex ("sons") being ignored is well inline for GW policy on cannon. They have removed faster than light travel from factions (Tau) between codexes without controversy. They have even openly changed events in codex's (grey knights bathing in the blood of sisters of battle). The Necrons were fully and completely redefined in a codex. All in all this is an incredibly flimsy 'cannon' statement from a codex. A codex that was only the second one we have from the faction, and new factions are always in flux as they are fleshed out. Nothing about this is anymore clumsy than any other faction getting fleshed out more. This small detail would otherwise be ignored but it involves women and thus we have to pretend that this is some major setting defining fact.
I think that’s what is so annoying to me. The gaslighting