Games Workshop has published a Warhammer lore explanation for the existence of female Custodes following a new miniature range announcement on Friday.
During a preview livestream, the British company behind tabletop wargames Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40,000 revealed new models for the Adeptus Custodes, a faction made up of genetically-engineered, functionally immortal transhumans who work as the Emperor’s bodyguards on Terra. The Custodes are not Space Marines. Indeed, they are bigger, faster, and more powerful than the average Space Marine. And, as we shall explore, they are created in a very different way.
Games Workshop showed off new, eye-catching Custodes models during the livestream, and alongside the male types are female types. While female Custodes had been mentioned in previous Warhammer 40,000 material, and even starred in an official Warhammer animation, their debut in miniature form was enough to set off complaints online from some who accused Games Workshop of retconning the established lore. These people believe the Custodes should remain male only because, they insist, this is what the lore had set out. Some also accuse Games Workshop of pandering to a "modern audience" with the female Custodes, echoing the so-called “anti-woke” rhetoric.
Perhaps mindful of this reaction, Games Workshop had a lore article ready to go following the reveal. In it, the company explained how female Custodes are made possible and how they differ from Space Marines, which remain male only. The gist, according to this article, is there is no retcon.
“Lore wise, Space Marines are made from human males, willing aspirants or unwilling conscripts on the cusp of adolescence,” Games Workshop explained. “They are subjected to a series of horrific trials, and the strongest emerge as remorseless killers, their humanity stripped away so they can serve as living weapons in the Emperor’s armies. There are no female Adeptus Astartes.
“Custodes are not Space Marines. Other than the obvious point that they are both towering, gene-enhanced warriors, the similarities pretty much stop there. Custodes are taken as infants and recrafted by ancient science.The process is arcane and bespoke to each individual. The Emperor himself retained oversight of the process (at least until that whole Horus Heresy thing went down).”
Games Workshop also addressed the belief that all the Custodes are made from the sons of Terran noble houses, as set out by Custodes lore established for the 8th Edition of Warhammer 40,000. While some Custodes are made this way, that was not the only source of recruitment, Games Workshop explained.
“Other methods might have been equally overt, others far more secretive,” the company said. “Noble daughters could also have been taken, and at some point, you run out of noble houses — even after you’ve conquered all of Terra, the inexorable war machine of the Imperium still requires a constant churn of recruits.”
Games Workshop concluded: “all Custodes, male or female, embody the pinnacle of the genetic and cellular engineering the Emperor employed when creating his armies. They are all flawless creations, pushed beyond the limit of human potential. There is no difference in combat efficacy between a male Custodian and female Custodian.”
It’s safe to say the weekend has been packed with ‘discourse’ following the Custodes reveal. YouTube comments, social media, and subreddits do indeed have many comments from people complaining about the mere existence of these female Custodes models. Some are so upset they’re threatening to leave the hobby behind over it. But it’s important to note that there is a significant pushback on this sentiment from many Warhammer 40,000 fans who have no problem whatsoever with female Custodes and dismiss any retcon concerns.
It’s worth remembering that, for all the complaints about retcons, Warhammer 40,000 “lore,” such as it is, has always been an unreliable thing. Indeed, it is built upon the idea that all we know of what was, what is, and what will be comes from a certain point of view. Crucial events are often delivered from a character’s perspective, and that character may have an agenda of their own. The Imperium itself — a rotting, fascist regime built upon 10,000 years of propaganda — twists the facts, if we can even call them such. There is little in the Warhammer 40,000 universe that can be relied upon. That is kind of the point.
And we’ve been here before. The Necrons — now one of the most popular xenos factions in the setting — were once mindless automatons all. Now, we have novels about individual Necrons with more personality than your average agent of the Inquisition. We don’t call the Imperial Guard the Imperial Guard anymore (well, we’re not meant to!). We are to refer to the Guard as the Astra Militarum and not to say another word on it thank you very much.
From the same 8th Edition Custodes codex that stated all the Custodes are made from the sons of Terran noble houses:
Not even the most knowledgeable of the Imperium’s scholars can say when the Emperor fashioned the Custodians. The truth is hidden in fragments of the past, accounts of figures appearing in crude hieroglyphs and cave etchings, stasis-locked scads of parchment and gene-sealed tomes that no man now can open.
And:
The method by which such remarkable individuals are created has always been known only to those of the Imperial household, and is carried out by the most accomplished chirurgeons and bio-alchemists of Terra within gilded laboratories locked away from the sight of Humanity’s masses. With the Adeptus Custodes fighting only for the Emperor himself, and beholden to the commands and scrutiny of no other, the secrets of their recruitment have never been revealed, for not even the High Lords of Terra have the right to demand them.
Games Workshop had laid the groundwork for the introduction of female Custodes by mentioning Custodes Calladayce Kesh in the latest Custodes codex back in April 2024 (some didn’t like the way this was done, or the tweet Games Workshop put out about it back then, and at the time there were no female Custodes models to go alongside the lore reveal).
Since the first of the Ten Thousand were created, there have always been female Custodians.
— Warhammer Official (@warhammer) April 14, 2024
Then, in September 2024, fans were treated to a Warhammer animation starring a female Custodes called Tyrith Shiva Kyrus, who spent her time ripping tyranids to shreds and staring down Space Marines in the way only a Custodes can.
Tyrith Shiva Kyrus was Games Workshop's first portrayal of a female Custodian since the lore revelation that Custodians could be any gender just a handful of months prior. "This fact came as a real surprise to many, since it wasn’t something previously explored," Games Workshop said at the time. "That, in and of itself, isn’t a particularly unusual thing for Warhammer 40,000 and its lore; there are simply loads of things the Warhammer Studios have never expressly stated, whether that’s ruling them in or out. Since the earliest conversations about bringing the Horus Heresy to the tabletop and Black Library fiction, the exact nature of the Custodians has been under discussion — after all, their origins and means of creation, unlike for example, the Legiones/Adeptus Astartes, are shrouded in mystery.
"A significant advantage to this portrayal is that it helps us to address a common misconception — that the Custodes are just bigger, better Space Marines. They aren’t. Space Marines were made through industrialised ritual to be mass-produced, brute-force weapons of conquest. And even 10,000 years after their creation, draped in self-assigned glory, that’s still true of them at their core. Each Custodian, on the other hand, is unique. Painstakingly made through peerless craft and arcane artifice, their physique, their psyche, their very soul, is a bespoke instrument of the Emperor they unquestioningly serve."
These "gaps" in the Warhammer lore, where things are left unsaid or unexplained, are "quite intentional," Games Workshop said as part of that same September 2024 explanation. "They let you as collectors, players, and fans fill the spaces with your own characters, stories and narratives — making the Warhammer hobby truly yours," the company continued. "They also allow us to revisit factions through miniatures, stories, and animations and offer something new and interesting. (Imagine how sad it would be if we ever said 'And that’s it. That’s everything you’ll ever see in this army. No new models ever.' – that’d be rubbish.)"
Now, we finally have female Custodes minis, which shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise at all. As redditor SchmittVanDean put it over the weekend:
“And it's increasingly embarrassing and weird, like people who still complain bitterly about the Necrons. Tithes Episode 2 is a really fun short story of a female Custodes and her Sister of Silence buddy and the characterisation of their motivations and interactions — especially with Space Marines — are fantastic; their depiction and the way they fight is just cool. The new models are exceptional. The lore rationale — the Custodes are created via a perfected form of the earlier mass production gene editing that could only produce male Space Marines — improves both Marines and Custodes conceptually as factions.”
Or, as redditor tghast said: “I truly truly truly could not think of something I give less of a shit about.”
Image credit: Games Workshop.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
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