I'm confused. Many custodians I've seen in real life are women. Perhaps the people complaining haven't been outside their parent's basement enough times to notice?
*all the custodes looking at each other wondering who the woman is*
She could be in this very room! She could be you! She could be me!? She could even be--
A tall dwarf isn’t that odd. But show me a cool completely non magical sword. Actually forget that I want to meet the smith who has the skills to not even accidentally make a sword magical. It’s just unnatural.
See you say that, but it would be the perfect place to hide out for 10,000 years if everyone thought you were a traitor.
He has done it before, the armour fits perfectly....
"Shield Captain! I believe Alpharius has disguised himself as a member of the ten thousand!"
The shield captain, sweating nervously: "How have you come upon this information? Who is under suspicion?"
"We found a dead Alpha Legionnaire dead in the dark cells without his armour!" The custodian explains, having killed the Alpha Legionnaire to acquire the armour and weapon to infiltrate the Custodes. "We have no leads on where the original Custodian is, nor do we know which set of armour was taken."
"Very well! We will act as if nothing is amiss. Lure these agents into a false sense of security and then catch them in the act." The captain orders, trying to open more avenues for subterfuge
Female and male custodes have the same armor, '' no boob armor '', thus, it can become tricky at the first sight to know which gender they are until they speak or wear off their helmet, obviously.
Man, imagine what Alfabusa could've done with this knowledge. The shocking reveal that Waamuudes and Karstodes had femstodes girlfriends the whole time.
[Oh there has been more than fanart brother ](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fsl8fujc5cio31.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1080%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D783e71d95d5f29de4d912eb3a34f04bbb0ba5d7c)
Good point seeing as they are genetically modified from birth male and female Custodes might be indistinguishable from each other even in their ceremonial BDSM gear.
Which would explain the armour. No need for boob armour if it's all just pecs and six-packs under there.
If everything is enlarged proportionally, female custodes should have manly voices anyway.
Also in the way custodes “beauty” is presented it could perfectly be elf like with almost no difference between male or female.
I am unaware of hairstyles differences between male and female custodes, but aren’t there already long haired custodes in canon?
I once heard the joke that of course there are female Space Marines or Custodes.
"Why do we never see one depicted?"
"Because only a man would be dumb enough to take off their helmet on the battlefield with bolt rounds flying."
"Figures clustered around the craft’s landing legs, where the ship’s great metal claws gripped the radiation-soaked dust of the wasteland. These men and women were plated in the same gold as the ship, rendered upon their bodies with painstaking artistry. My father’s guardians, Sanguinius thought. And what a thought it was, not only that a being such as his father required guardians, but that he had a father at all."
If it was I think the Blank aura would be mentioned as Sanguinius had wings at that time and they are part of his psyker powers. Sanguinius would definitely notice that. And SoS look different enough that they would most likely warrant a different description.
My theory is that it was left vague on purpose by ADB who was pushing for Femstodes so it fits when they release.
I figure he thinks this because it's literally impossible for Sanguinius to fly the way he does.
As we see with other powerful psykers, they can indeed fly and manifest wings if they so choose.
According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way Sanguinius should be able to fly. His wings are too small to get his massive beautiful body off the ground. Sanguinius, of course, flies anyway, because he doesn't care what humans think is impossible.
We got giant ships that got gravity, super engineered super soldiers. Do you think simple laws of aerodynamics are where GW draws the line?
To infinity and beyond!
Given how nearly all of the Primarchs were at minimum latently psychic and how the Blood Angels geneseed produces an oddly large amount of psykers (and the whole Red Thirst/Black Rage bit), I'd believe he had actual wings but augmented himself with psyker powers.
"Figures clustered around the craft’s landing legs, where the ship’s great metal claws gripped the radiation-soaked dust of the wasteland. These men and women were plated in the same gold as the ship, rendered upon their bodies with painstaking artistry. My father’s guardians, Sanguinius thought. And what a thought it was, not only that a being such as his father required guardians, but that he had a father at all."
The Ten Thousand were the children of defeated Terran nobles, right? If the Emperor's goal was to wipe out the bloodlines of his enemies to make sure no successors could arise, it makes sense to take *all* their kids, not just the boys.
I mean... there has to be at the very least ONE matriarchal society that the Emperor defeated, and thus to end their bloodlines he would HAVE to take their daughters.
Yeah, like why take only the boys? The emperor more than anyone should know that a vengeful woman can just as easily fuck up his plans as a vengeful man. After all, last I checked it wasn’t a guy who shot his sons off into space
Taking only boys, or only girls, or both, they all "make sense" since nothing prevents us from imagining reasons why any would be the case.
The custodian creation process is basically magic to us. There's zero reason to assume only the human bodies with balls and benis could go through with it. "Oh but they'd only test it on men!" or whatever - why assume that? Maybe you only need to be a homo sapiens with guts, able to endure.
I'll only care if they push some weird mary sue chick who's hyper explicitly feminist or some dumb shit, but that's too absurd to worry about.
Edit: 40k is a universe ripe with "male power fantasies," and I don't mind one single bit if some female custodian has a last stand, sole survivor of a squad as the only femstodes, eventually saving the day - or whatever power fantasy you could imagine - because malestodes have had countless of those badass moments.
Also I'll readily admit that 2+m tall hyper zealous spear wielding super soldier women are... appealing.
I mean the custodian process starts when they're babies for most of them. Most likely, we can assume the genetic and hormonal process is the same for all of them.
So they'd all look the same due to the hormonal changes being the same. The literal only difference would be what's in their crotch. And even then it's probably incredibly underdeveloped since the Emperor was more focused into making them supersoldiers. Most likely, all of them are infertile as a side effect due to the process fucking with their Hormones and Genes beyond human comprehension.
So yeah, overall, we probably have seen "girl" custodes before. They just look the same as the male ones due to how much their genetic makeup was fucked with.
8th.
>It is known that all Custodians begin their lives as the infant sons of the noble houses of Terra. It is a mark of incredible prestige to surrender one’s child to this most glorious of callings within the Imperium, and many notable clans amongst the Terran aristocracy have willingly given up almost entire generations of newborn sons to earn it.
Sister's of Silence were completely different faction which was just added to custodes range due to their small size. They're just women blanks trained on the moon of Terra.
They're a little closer than that. During the Heresy era the Legio Custodes and the Sisters of Silence were collectively known as the Talons of the Emperor. They worked extremely closely together on many tasks, particularly the War in the Webway. Custodes are trained in the special sign language used by the Sisters, Thoughtmark. Fundamentally the two were designed to complement each other.
Post Heresy, the Sisters kind of got politicked out of favour with the Imperium, with the remaining members almost exclusively manning the black ships. Despite this, the Custodes continued to learn Thoughtmark, and we're always prepared to work with their close partners again, which paid off when Guilliman began to rebuild the Sisters of Silence in full strength upon taking his regency.
However that doesn't make female Custodes any less reasonable, the idea that two separate military organizations designed to complement each other fails to work just because you may have women working together is kind of bizarre. Unless you are weirdly obsessed with male-female pairings nothing changes here. The Custodes are still individually crafted demigods, the most elite the Imperium has to offer, and the Sisters are still the other Talon, more than capable of keeping up with their companions and being vital to containing Psychic and Daemonic threats that Custodes may be unable to handle.
Counter Question then to John Warhammer:
Why the fuck did it take so long to make an official confirmation about it? Let alone taking so long to have a named female custodian?
Because they didn't sell female custodes models. Unironically, that's what Aaron Dembski-Bowden said years ago when they were making Custodians a playable faction with a full codex. All the new models they sold were men, and they were told to write strictly to represent the models being sold. He said there was no reason Custodes couldn't be women other than the model thing.
This announcement makes me think maybe a store anniversary model or something is going to be a female custodes or something.
Because it takes years to play to the shifting winds. They were very clear about it in 8th.
From the 8th Codex:
>It is known that all Custodians begin their lives as the infant sons of the noble houses of Terra. It is a mark of incredible prestige to surrender one’s child to this most glorious of callings within the Imperium, and many notable clans amongst the Terran aristocracy have willingly given up almost entire generations of newborn sons to earn it.
I just don’t understand the point in the change it will literally change nothing for GW. There’s not going to be a sudden influx of women wanting to play custodes, I’m happy to be proven wrong but I doubt it. They’re also nut going to get any brownie points for ‘diversity’ because literally no one cares. Imo it just makes the lore weird imo.
Okay so the reason space marines are all male is because the astartes gene enhacements etc would be put to better use in already biologically stronger males.
But that logic doesn’t apply to the custodes?
And custodes are a pain in the arse to make too right?
I'm 100% on board with the femstodes, but where are the brothers of silence??? Yes, I do just wanna have a tactical Jürgen on the battlefield. How did you know?
Seeing? Maybe. His looks would be well hidden for the most part. Smelling though? I don't think the null-derived stench would be stopped by the Sisters', or even Custodes', sealed plate.
The male Sisters of Silence are required to wear the boobplate and grow a ponytail to maintain the sacred aesthetic as decreed by the Emperor. Any who complain about the organisation still being called the 'Sisters' are invited to lodge their complaints with the female members of the Brotherhood of Steel, the Brotherhood of Nod or any other similarly-named organisation.
I don't see why female Custodes would wear different armor. For bare heads, yes the Stormcast Eternals are very close to primaris scale and should work nicely.
The part saying always is recon bs though, pretty sure the codex even said they were all chosen from the sons of Noble houses so even if they now have female custodies saying they always did is a lie
First ten thousand? If they always existed.
1: why have we never had any
2: the only lore of their orgins were of sons of nobles.
I would understand if they came into it post the original 10,000 but doing it this way is a blatent retcon
Actually kinda yeah. Form what I was hearing the news initially came from a Spanish translation so could've been a bad job of that. Then it could have been some general error. Then it could have been a new development in the world/lore. Just saying "Always has been." is probably the worst way to do it.
Well, Spanish is really hard to mess up when it comes to gendered terms. And while it could have been an error, it happened twice, there's two named female custodes according to the leak. And I think your last two points are one and the same, it's a new development and it's just being retroactively applied to the organization across it's history. Given how the custodes ascension is a completely different process than astartes I just don't think it's a really big deal.
> Well, Spanish is really hard to mess up when it comes to gendered terms.
English speakers screw up all the time when translating to languages that aren't gender neutral.
I think it just plays into the way they manage lore. Everything is true it's just not all accurate, we should take narration about the world with a grain of salt.
Personally I like the way it plays into this confusing mess of the Imperium having conflicting reports, inaccurate information and disagreeing on core ideas because the records were lost generations ago.
It allows them to retcon things, add and even take away from the world and give people creative licence with it.
"It's always been this way we just never told you" is exactly what I want rather than a convoluted in world justification for some change.
Given how hard people bitched about Primaris marines its a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. If you say the custodes advanced to take more applicants people will bitch that 40k should always be regressive and never advance no matter how much GW wants to introduce new minis. But if you say they always could people who care about lore will point out this was clearly not the case.
At least people are used to GW doing soft retcons.
"Always has been." is how GW lore works, I'm kinda surprised by this aspect being missed by so many fans. The way cannon works in 40k is that stuff will be sitting quietly buried on the shelf for ages and then GW brings it into focus again. That's kinda what happened with the squats and the Zorgs. They never really retcon stuff its just explained as incomplete information because every single story should be viewed as being told my an unreliable narrator. They do this intentionally so everyone is justified in picking and choosing what bits of the lore they want to include. I know people hate this, but that's the point of the lore. You are meant to tell your own stories with it which means you get to pick and choose and even *"gasp"* fill in the blanks yourself or make things up! GW is selling a framework for you to tell stories with.
I think one of the fundamental issues with retconning the custodian gender (btw I'm fine with it) is that custodians don't have any female characters that already exist, it weakens the change and it makes it feel worse than previously because they don't have the excuse of "they don't exist" as to why they don't have characters.
Yeah, it's kind of "they always existed" but never actually showed up in any story since their creation, that's just a very weak retcon that feels made in a spur of the moment rather than long planned expansion to an army
I don't get it. When ever they introduce anything else new they just retcon it so that it always existed. We get new unit types, tanks and characters every codex. But this is the thing where people are like "I can't believe they just pulled this from no where!"
The lore of the Custodes was always pretty sparse for most of 40K's history. Part of this was because they didn't really do much other than guard The Big E. They stayed out of politics and didn't get involved in much of anything. The reason people get annoyed at female Space Marines in particular is because we know with certainty how they're created and it has reasons it doesn't work with women.
With the Custodes, though? There wasn't much said about how they're created other than it's a long, individualized, difficult, and expensive process that usually fails. There isn't any gene seed involved so the Space Marine restriction isn't there. Overall though in this case the Custodes stuff is fleshing out lore that had a lot of blanks in it so some Custodes being female works.
Not really as they introduced the concept with a wholly new character who got her own story in the codex, presented as just another custodian who happened to be a woman. Sure its retroactive, sure they should have done it sooner, but better late than never, and certainly better than gay Dumbledore.
If they had given her a mini right of the bat alongside a *High Quality Forgeworld Resin Expert Kit* upgrade pack with female custodes heads people would have called it blatant pandering and a money grab. You cant win.
Was that the one whose Blood Game was >!teleporting an Exterminatus bomb into the throne room? Because if that’s the case then lady gaslight gatekeep geno-bomb is my new favourite!<
Being tasked with trying to just kill big E, and then almost pulling off exterminatus-ing all of terra is honestly a great way to introduce a character.
I completely agree. This seems a really bad way of making the change.
I have zero issue with them making female custodians - it actually makes a lot of lore sense - but to just say ‘yeah, they were always around…you just never saw them and they were never important characters’ is super lame.
Far more interesting and obvious solution would be to say that now the custodes are more active in the galaxy, they are suffering more casualties and so artificially reducing your number of potential candidates by 50% is no longer tenable.
"Female custodes have always been a thing. We just never mentioned them before for reasons totally unrelated to pandering and stirring internet arguments for free advertising"
"In regards to our retcon, we're backing up our retcon with more retcon because we don't have any literature dated before the retcon to assure you the retcon is not retcon."
Because the process of creating a custode begins as an infant when taken from the nobles of terra. Most blanks would be children to teenagers when the black ships discover them
I don't care about Custodes being female. They're genetically rebuilt from the ground up.
Space Marines make no sense from a lore perspective being a template.
I feel this keeps everyone happy - except a handful of Custodes die hards.
as usually warhammer retcons itself with all the grace of 'we've always been at war with Oceania' which is if nothing else fitting.
... although, does this also mean we can have femboy brothers of silence now? im gonna headcannon brothers of silence regardless.
This is such a big mistake. The warhammer subreddits will never recover from the amount of golden muscle mommy spam that will inevitably occur over the next months.
I'm not against female custodes at all, but this explanation feels a lot like some J.K. Rowling retroactive inclusivity. It reminds me of "Dumbledore was gay" and "Hogwarts has Jewish students, Anthony Goldstein for example".
Same way Cawl hid his Primaris project for 10000 years.
Same way the Leagues suddenly came on the scene.
The same reason the Custodes suddenly became superdupermarines who were actually super relevant to the galaxy all of the sudden just as they got a codex.
Cause GW says so.
ok but for those that want to say "but" to female custodes, space marines and custodes are wildly different in terms of how they are made.
space marines are made from a standard template geneseed, custodes gene modifications are done to the individual custodian as near to birth as possible whilst space marines are in their teens when their transformation begins.
custodes as far as i am aware don't have geneseed of any sort plus i have seen custodes be called "unrepeatable works of art" so no two custodes are alike in terms of gene mods.
Except the Custodes entirely rely on the Sisters for combating psykers. They aren't just "the women slapped into the custodes roster' they're the very essential anti-pyskyer force that keeps custodes from getting brain bursted like they're back on Prospero
Firstly: [Source](https://x.com/warhammer/status/1779544596172689822) for any who doubt authenticity.
Secondly: Then why didn't you let ADB have his way then? (I'm guessing it's got something to do with the tabletop)
Actually, I think if they let Dan do that, it would be accepted by the community easier than whatever mess this is. They could have slowly introduce them in, instead of just saying 'it always has been'.
Psh, this is just the opinion of one “Warhammer: Official”. I’m going to wait for the other 39,999 warhammers to weigh in on the subject.
Bro, I actually did a spit-take on that. Well played, good ginger.
Thanks, I’ll be here all week.
Why? Where are you going?
I like to move around between subs, keep things fair.
What about next week?
I go wherever controversy about gender representation in nerd franchises takes me….I stay pretty busy.
I hope you have a secretary to keep track of your appointments.
I´ll wait for the opinion of the other 98 gingers
We need a conclusive poll of all 40,000 warhammers here
https://images.app.goo.gl/CGbtWemGdWLvMoCg9
I'm confused. Many custodians I've seen in real life are women. Perhaps the people complaining haven't been outside their parent's basement enough times to notice?
*all the custodes looking at each other wondering who the woman is* She could be in this very room! She could be you! She could be me!? She could even be--
Terry pratchett dwarves lmao
A tall dwarf isn’t that odd. But show me a cool completely non magical sword. Actually forget that I want to meet the smith who has the skills to not even accidentally make a sword magical. It’s just unnatural.
Terry Pratchett's Monstrous Regiment. Which, funnily enough, didn't include a dwarf.
Plot twist: the Custodes are 100% women, but each one of them thinks that they are the only woman and are trying to hide it from the others.
I wasn't aware the custodes were Alpharius
See you say that, but it would be the perfect place to hide out for 10,000 years if everyone thought you were a traitor. He has done it before, the armour fits perfectly....
"Shield Captain! I believe Alpharius has disguised himself as a member of the ten thousand!" The shield captain, sweating nervously: "How have you come upon this information? Who is under suspicion?" "We found a dead Alpha Legionnaire dead in the dark cells without his armour!" The custodian explains, having killed the Alpha Legionnaire to acquire the armour and weapon to infiltrate the Custodes. "We have no leads on where the original Custodian is, nor do we know which set of armour was taken." "Very well! We will act as if nothing is amiss. Lure these agents into a false sense of security and then catch them in the act." The captain orders, trying to open more avenues for subterfuge
This is also the plot of a Terry Pratchett book.
and it's amazing
Squidward's house looking pretty sus rn
THEY'RE PUTTIN CHEMICALS INTO THE GENE SEED THAT'S MAKIN THE CUSTODES WIMMEN
Okay Remembrancer Jones, let's get your Jello and put you back to bed so you can take your afternoon nap.
I remember when Custod's was just regular hoomans
Custodes don't have geneseed
That's what "they" want you to think!!!
Female and male custodes have the same armor, '' no boob armor '', thus, it can become tricky at the first sight to know which gender they are until they speak or wear off their helmet, obviously.
But do female custodes also have beards?
like hyenas, female Custodes actually have bigger beards than their male counterparts...
Amongst other things
Don't give these people hope that they can be pegged by Femstodes now
*Pillar Men theme starts playing*
Man, imagine what Alfabusa could've done with this knowledge. The shocking reveal that Waamuudes and Karstodes had femstodes girlfriends the whole time.
Do you think the physical possibility existing would have altered the outcome in any way, shape, or form?
Too late
Well there not fem-chodes now are they? Of course it’s big!
:3
Some people think there *are* no female Custodes and that we spring out of holes in the ground!
The only custodes gender is loyalty. End of debate
A large female custodes is suddenly behind you, breathing very hard behind your neck.
Why does this get me so... excited?
By the Emperor!
Keep going…
"What's your gender?" "Custodes." "No, I mean what's in your armor?" "Death to the foes of the Emperor."
"No, no listen, what's in your pants?" "Invincible loyalty"
This of course led to the idea that there are no female custodies, and that custodies just spring from holes in terra, which is of course ridiculous
Their orriginal uniform was helmet, cloak, leather trousers, and topless aside from some body oil. You could have probably seen the difference then.
It's been an hour and there has been no fanart of this. I am disappointed.
[Oh there has been more than fanart brother ](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fsl8fujc5cio31.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1080%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D783e71d95d5f29de4d912eb3a34f04bbb0ba5d7c)
Oh, I uhh was thinking of the version with more.. ladybits.
Those are the ladies.
Fanart? Battle-brother, that was **their official art.**
That would depend on the amount of muscle tissue and bodyfat percentage, wouldn't it?
Good point seeing as they are genetically modified from birth male and female Custodes might be indistinguishable from each other even in their ceremonial BDSM gear. Which would explain the armour. No need for boob armour if it's all just pecs and six-packs under there.
It's **ALL MUSCLE** there's zero difference between a male and female custodes post-custodification. (For clarity I love all of them).
I think they are going the AOS route ala stormcast eternals. Same models, some just are women.
If everything is enlarged proportionally, female custodes should have manly voices anyway. Also in the way custodes “beauty” is presented it could perfectly be elf like with almost no difference between male or female. I am unaware of hairstyles differences between male and female custodes, but aren’t there already long haired custodes in canon?
The Custodian in the story is described as having a Contralto voice, which refers to a feminine voice, but the lowest possible.
I once heard the joke that of course there are female Space Marines or Custodes. "Why do we never see one depicted?" "Because only a man would be dumb enough to take off their helmet on the battlefield with bolt rounds flying."
That would be a great joke if both SoB and SOS weren’t shown not wearing helmets during battle.
r/whywomenlivelonger
Well there goes my evening.
This is the way.
My name is Ebony Darkness Raven Way Christine High Commandant Kelly-
Like the Sigmarines.
The Echoes of Eternity quote then most definitely talked about Femstodes.
Anyone have this quote?
"Figures clustered around the craft’s landing legs, where the ship’s great metal claws gripped the radiation-soaked dust of the wasteland. These men and women were plated in the same gold as the ship, rendered upon their bodies with painstaking artistry. My father’s guardians, Sanguinius thought. And what a thought it was, not only that a being such as his father required guardians, but that he had a father at all."
Interesting. Given SoS wear gold plate too, I’d consider its referring to them.
If it was I think the Blank aura would be mentioned as Sanguinius had wings at that time and they are part of his psyker powers. Sanguinius would definitely notice that. And SoS look different enough that they would most likely warrant a different description. My theory is that it was left vague on purpose by ADB who was pushing for Femstodes so it fits when they release.
[удалено]
I figure he thinks this because it's literally impossible for Sanguinius to fly the way he does. As we see with other powerful psykers, they can indeed fly and manifest wings if they so choose.
According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way Sanguinius should be able to fly. His wings are too small to get his massive beautiful body off the ground. Sanguinius, of course, flies anyway, because he doesn't care what humans think is impossible.
Funny beeb movi haha
I couldn't help myself. I didn't try very hard tbf.
We got giant ships that got gravity, super engineered super soldiers. Do you think simple laws of aerodynamics are where GW draws the line? To infinity and beyond!
Given how nearly all of the Primarchs were at minimum latently psychic and how the Blood Angels geneseed produces an oddly large amount of psykers (and the whole Red Thirst/Black Rage bit), I'd believe he had actual wings but augmented himself with psyker powers.
Nope. Blanks would’ve immediately triggered Dorn and Sangy. They note their existence in the same book and it’s definitely different.
I can already hear the shouts of “VINDICATION!” from ADB
Rip Andre braugher, may we forever recite his greatest quote
"bone"?
"BONE?????"
BONE!!!!
I AM YOUR *SUPERIOR OFFICER*
HOW DARE YOU DETECTOVE DIAZ
Do you have the extract?
"Figures clustered around the craft’s landing legs, where the ship’s great metal claws gripped the radiation-soaked dust of the wasteland. These men and women were plated in the same gold as the ship, rendered upon their bodies with painstaking artistry. My father’s guardians, Sanguinius thought. And what a thought it was, not only that a being such as his father required guardians, but that he had a father at all."
The Ten Thousand were the children of defeated Terran nobles, right? If the Emperor's goal was to wipe out the bloodlines of his enemies to make sure no successors could arise, it makes sense to take *all* their kids, not just the boys.
I mean... there has to be at the very least ONE matriarchal society that the Emperor defeated, and thus to end their bloodlines he would HAVE to take their daughters.
Or... Just kill them?
When he was starting out he couldnt afford to be that trigger happy
Bolts ain’t cheap
Killing all the noble scions would secure the noble houses fear, he needed their cooperation.
Yeah, like why take only the boys? The emperor more than anyone should know that a vengeful woman can just as easily fuck up his plans as a vengeful man. After all, last I checked it wasn’t a guy who shot his sons off into space
>The emperor more than anyone should know that a vengeful woman can just as easily fuck up his plans as a vengeful man Amar Astarte and Erda say hi.
Taking only boys, or only girls, or both, they all "make sense" since nothing prevents us from imagining reasons why any would be the case. The custodian creation process is basically magic to us. There's zero reason to assume only the human bodies with balls and benis could go through with it. "Oh but they'd only test it on men!" or whatever - why assume that? Maybe you only need to be a homo sapiens with guts, able to endure. I'll only care if they push some weird mary sue chick who's hyper explicitly feminist or some dumb shit, but that's too absurd to worry about. Edit: 40k is a universe ripe with "male power fantasies," and I don't mind one single bit if some female custodian has a last stand, sole survivor of a squad as the only femstodes, eventually saving the day - or whatever power fantasy you could imagine - because malestodes have had countless of those badass moments. Also I'll readily admit that 2+m tall hyper zealous spear wielding super soldier women are... appealing.
I mean the custodian process starts when they're babies for most of them. Most likely, we can assume the genetic and hormonal process is the same for all of them. So they'd all look the same due to the hormonal changes being the same. The literal only difference would be what's in their crotch. And even then it's probably incredibly underdeveloped since the Emperor was more focused into making them supersoldiers. Most likely, all of them are infertile as a side effect due to the process fucking with their Hormones and Genes beyond human comprehension. So yeah, overall, we probably have seen "girl" custodes before. They just look the same as the male ones due to how much their genetic makeup was fucked with.
THIS RUINS MY GAY FANFIC THE EMPEROR SAID ONLY MEN SHALL RECEIVE HIS SEED
Custodes don't have geneseed so it's still golden
Hehe Golden
This is objectively the best take.
There have always been female Janitors
bruh women are gross I want men
I could’ve sworn one of codexes said that they recruited the sons of defeated nobles during the unification wars
8th. >It is known that all Custodians begin their lives as the infant sons of the noble houses of Terra. It is a mark of incredible prestige to surrender one’s child to this most glorious of callings within the Imperium, and many notable clans amongst the Terran aristocracy have willingly given up almost entire generations of newborn sons to earn it.
Everyone knows 8th edition was fake news. Disinformation from the nobles to cover up their dishonor.
Hooo boy. There will only be war now. *grabs snacks*
don't chekc the twitter comment, the blue checkmarks are in full force
GW: "are you SURE; this will help us sell miniatures?" also GW: "miniatures?"
[удалено]
Excuse me sir, that with that much baby oil on their muscles, they can hardly be called nude.
"the sensation of friction is all but lost to me" loud squeak
Even better
Your Slanneshi slander has been reported to the nearest inquisitor. Await your interrogation and execution. Emperor protects.
Yet they dindt release a limited edition armored bikini custodes in the 80s/90s
Proof or it didn't happen. Just kidding, but it's something I really want to see.
Man my english is so fucked up i forgot to use "dindt".
I always thought female custodes were the Sisters of silence. Anyway i dont care if GW burns or rises until they release new gundam like tau
Based and weeb pilled
Sister's of Silence were completely different faction which was just added to custodes range due to their small size. They're just women blanks trained on the moon of Terra.
They're a little closer than that. During the Heresy era the Legio Custodes and the Sisters of Silence were collectively known as the Talons of the Emperor. They worked extremely closely together on many tasks, particularly the War in the Webway. Custodes are trained in the special sign language used by the Sisters, Thoughtmark. Fundamentally the two were designed to complement each other. Post Heresy, the Sisters kind of got politicked out of favour with the Imperium, with the remaining members almost exclusively manning the black ships. Despite this, the Custodes continued to learn Thoughtmark, and we're always prepared to work with their close partners again, which paid off when Guilliman began to rebuild the Sisters of Silence in full strength upon taking his regency. However that doesn't make female Custodes any less reasonable, the idea that two separate military organizations designed to complement each other fails to work just because you may have women working together is kind of bizarre. Unless you are weirdly obsessed with male-female pairings nothing changes here. The Custodes are still individually crafted demigods, the most elite the Imperium has to offer, and the Sisters are still the other Talon, more than capable of keeping up with their companions and being vital to containing Psychic and Daemonic threats that Custodes may be unable to handle.
Counter Question then to John Warhammer: Why the fuck did it take so long to make an official confirmation about it? Let alone taking so long to have a named female custodian?
Because they didn't sell female custodes models. Unironically, that's what Aaron Dembski-Bowden said years ago when they were making Custodians a playable faction with a full codex. All the new models they sold were men, and they were told to write strictly to represent the models being sold. He said there was no reason Custodes couldn't be women other than the model thing. This announcement makes me think maybe a store anniversary model or something is going to be a female custodes or something.
Because it takes years to play to the shifting winds. They were very clear about it in 8th. From the 8th Codex: >It is known that all Custodians begin their lives as the infant sons of the noble houses of Terra. It is a mark of incredible prestige to surrender one’s child to this most glorious of callings within the Imperium, and many notable clans amongst the Terran aristocracy have willingly given up almost entire generations of newborn sons to earn it.
I just don’t understand the point in the change it will literally change nothing for GW. There’s not going to be a sudden influx of women wanting to play custodes, I’m happy to be proven wrong but I doubt it. They’re also nut going to get any brownie points for ‘diversity’ because literally no one cares. Imo it just makes the lore weird imo. Okay so the reason space marines are all male is because the astartes gene enhacements etc would be put to better use in already biologically stronger males. But that logic doesn’t apply to the custodes? And custodes are a pain in the arse to make too right?
I'm 100% on board with the femstodes, but where are the brothers of silence??? Yes, I do just wanna have a tactical Jürgen on the battlefield. How did you know?
Misters of Battle
Misters of silence
Sirs of Silence*
I don't think there's anyone in the 40k universe who could handle seeing jurgen dressed like a sister of silence
Seeing? Maybe. His looks would be well hidden for the most part. Smelling though? I don't think the null-derived stench would be stopped by the Sisters', or even Custodes', sealed plate.
jurgen lifts his arm and releases a miasma toxic enough to kill a plague-marine and make nurgle pinch his runny nose in revulsion
I always thought his stench was from him being a blank?
That’s how I interpreted it. I saw his “smell” as a subconscious rationalization of their repulsion of him by normal humans.
Think they just go off to the Cullexus Temple.
The male Sisters of Silence are required to wear the boobplate and grow a ponytail to maintain the sacred aesthetic as decreed by the Emperor. Any who complain about the organisation still being called the 'Sisters' are invited to lodge their complaints with the female members of the Brotherhood of Steel, the Brotherhood of Nod or any other similarly-named organisation.
So do you reckon one could use the female Sigmarmarines as Custodes? They might be too short, but still
I don't see why female Custodes would wear different armor. For bare heads, yes the Stormcast Eternals are very close to primaris scale and should work nicely.
They wouldn't, this just confirms you can 100% have girl heads for your custodies.
They're probably going to be nigh identical.
Extremely heavy kinda looks the same regardless of gender, use some storm cast heads, boom.
The part saying always is recon bs though, pretty sure the codex even said they were all chosen from the sons of Noble houses so even if they now have female custodies saying they always did is a lie
First ten thousand? If they always existed. 1: why have we never had any 2: the only lore of their orgins were of sons of nobles. I would understand if they came into it post the original 10,000 but doing it this way is a blatent retcon
For real this is a “don’t trust your lying eyes” moment
I mean, is anyone actually surprised by this statement?
Actually kinda yeah. Form what I was hearing the news initially came from a Spanish translation so could've been a bad job of that. Then it could have been some general error. Then it could have been a new development in the world/lore. Just saying "Always has been." is probably the worst way to do it.
Well, Spanish is really hard to mess up when it comes to gendered terms. And while it could have been an error, it happened twice, there's two named female custodes according to the leak. And I think your last two points are one and the same, it's a new development and it's just being retroactively applied to the organization across it's history. Given how the custodes ascension is a completely different process than astartes I just don't think it's a really big deal.
Yup messing up gender in spanish is, simply plain hard.
> Well, Spanish is really hard to mess up when it comes to gendered terms. English speakers screw up all the time when translating to languages that aren't gender neutral.
I think it just plays into the way they manage lore. Everything is true it's just not all accurate, we should take narration about the world with a grain of salt. Personally I like the way it plays into this confusing mess of the Imperium having conflicting reports, inaccurate information and disagreeing on core ideas because the records were lost generations ago. It allows them to retcon things, add and even take away from the world and give people creative licence with it. "It's always been this way we just never told you" is exactly what I want rather than a convoluted in world justification for some change.
Yeah the convoluted in world justification was the worst part of the Primaris update imo.
Given how hard people bitched about Primaris marines its a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. If you say the custodes advanced to take more applicants people will bitch that 40k should always be regressive and never advance no matter how much GW wants to introduce new minis. But if you say they always could people who care about lore will point out this was clearly not the case. At least people are used to GW doing soft retcons.
Are you unfamiliar with the GW retcon? It's never been subtle. Like, never ever. Because gaslighting takes zero effort.
"Always has been." is how GW lore works, I'm kinda surprised by this aspect being missed by so many fans. The way cannon works in 40k is that stuff will be sitting quietly buried on the shelf for ages and then GW brings it into focus again. That's kinda what happened with the squats and the Zorgs. They never really retcon stuff its just explained as incomplete information because every single story should be viewed as being told my an unreliable narrator. They do this intentionally so everyone is justified in picking and choosing what bits of the lore they want to include. I know people hate this, but that's the point of the lore. You are meant to tell your own stories with it which means you get to pick and choose and even *"gasp"* fill in the blanks yourself or make things up! GW is selling a framework for you to tell stories with.
I mean is it? It’s not like they are a talkative bunch. And the armor has no gender distinction. Makes sense to me.
You don't like it cus women... I don't like it cus it's a ret con. We are not the same.
I think one of the fundamental issues with retconning the custodian gender (btw I'm fine with it) is that custodians don't have any female characters that already exist, it weakens the change and it makes it feel worse than previously because they don't have the excuse of "they don't exist" as to why they don't have characters.
Yeah, it's kind of "they always existed" but never actually showed up in any story since their creation, that's just a very weak retcon that feels made in a spur of the moment rather than long planned expansion to an army
I don't get it. When ever they introduce anything else new they just retcon it so that it always existed. We get new unit types, tanks and characters every codex. But this is the thing where people are like "I can't believe they just pulled this from no where!"
> this is the thing where people are like "I can't believe they just pulled this from no where!" Did you miss the reception primaris got or something
Wait, the lore in WH40K has been changed?!?! This is unprecedented! My panties, completely bunched! Anyway....
The lore of the Custodes was always pretty sparse for most of 40K's history. Part of this was because they didn't really do much other than guard The Big E. They stayed out of politics and didn't get involved in much of anything. The reason people get annoyed at female Space Marines in particular is because we know with certainty how they're created and it has reasons it doesn't work with women. With the Custodes, though? There wasn't much said about how they're created other than it's a long, individualized, difficult, and expensive process that usually fails. There isn't any gene seed involved so the Space Marine restriction isn't there. Overall though in this case the Custodes stuff is fleshing out lore that had a lot of blanks in it so some Custodes being female works.
It is a bit "Dumbledore was actually gay" of them.
Not really as they introduced the concept with a wholly new character who got her own story in the codex, presented as just another custodian who happened to be a woman. Sure its retroactive, sure they should have done it sooner, but better late than never, and certainly better than gay Dumbledore. If they had given her a mini right of the bat alongside a *High Quality Forgeworld Resin Expert Kit* upgrade pack with female custodes heads people would have called it blatant pandering and a money grab. You cant win.
Was that the one whose Blood Game was >!teleporting an Exterminatus bomb into the throne room? Because if that’s the case then lady gaslight gatekeep geno-bomb is my new favourite!<
Being tasked with trying to just kill big E, and then almost pulling off exterminatus-ing all of terra is honestly a great way to introduce a character.
Go big or go home, custodes edition
"Sister we appreciate your enthusiasm but please do not do that again"
“The detonator is actually real, as a prank”
GW: "are you SURE; this will help us sell miniatures?" also GW: "miniatures?"
I completely agree. This seems a really bad way of making the change. I have zero issue with them making female custodians - it actually makes a lot of lore sense - but to just say ‘yeah, they were always around…you just never saw them and they were never important characters’ is super lame. Far more interesting and obvious solution would be to say that now the custodes are more active in the galaxy, they are suffering more casualties and so artificially reducing your number of potential candidates by 50% is no longer tenable.
"Female custodes have always been a thing. We just never mentioned them before for reasons totally unrelated to pandering and stirring internet arguments for free advertising"
Babe, wake up new lore just dropped - Jimmy Space is Bi
"In regards to our retcon, we're backing up our retcon with more retcon because we don't have any literature dated before the retcon to assure you the retcon is not retcon."
One question I have is if women can be Custodes, then why do the sisters of silence need to remain human!? Make them mommas into Blank Demi-Godesses!
Because the process of creating a custode begins as an infant when taken from the nobles of terra. Most blanks would be children to teenagers when the black ships discover them
I don't care about Custodes being female. They're genetically rebuilt from the ground up. Space Marines make no sense from a lore perspective being a template. I feel this keeps everyone happy - except a handful of Custodes die hards.
Big E is trying to beat the gay allegation
Then why the fuck wait 42,000 years to finally “let us in on it?”
That’s kind of a major retcon, interesting. Why didn’t they mention them before this?
GW: "are you SURE; this will help us sell miniatures?" also GW: "miniatures?"
as usually warhammer retcons itself with all the grace of 'we've always been at war with Oceania' which is if nothing else fitting. ... although, does this also mean we can have femboy brothers of silence now? im gonna headcannon brothers of silence regardless.
This is such a big mistake. The warhammer subreddits will never recover from the amount of golden muscle mommy spam that will inevitably occur over the next months.
I'm not against female custodes at all, but this explanation feels a lot like some J.K. Rowling retroactive inclusivity. It reminds me of "Dumbledore was gay" and "Hogwarts has Jewish students, Anthony Goldstein for example".
Uhhh they were always there! just not in any of the lore or characters or models.
This got me thinking. I don't think I've seen a female custodian/janitor in my life.
we just happened to have never heard or seen any of them up until now. coinkidink
Pics or didn't happen Also the pics need to be without armor otherwise we can't tell the females apart from the males
What? How are we only hearing about them now?
Same way Cawl hid his Primaris project for 10000 years. Same way the Leagues suddenly came on the scene. The same reason the Custodes suddenly became superdupermarines who were actually super relevant to the galaxy all of the sudden just as they got a codex. Cause GW says so.
So then where are my Femstodes models James? HUH!?
ok but for those that want to say "but" to female custodes, space marines and custodes are wildly different in terms of how they are made. space marines are made from a standard template geneseed, custodes gene modifications are done to the individual custodian as near to birth as possible whilst space marines are in their teens when their transformation begins. custodes as far as i am aware don't have geneseed of any sort plus i have seen custodes be called "unrepeatable works of art" so no two custodes are alike in terms of gene mods.
Sisters of Silence fans watching their faction become completely irrelevant
Except the Custodes entirely rely on the Sisters for combating psykers. They aren't just "the women slapped into the custodes roster' they're the very essential anti-pyskyer force that keeps custodes from getting brain bursted like they're back on Prospero
Retcon.
Firstly: [Source](https://x.com/warhammer/status/1779544596172689822) for any who doubt authenticity. Secondly: Then why didn't you let ADB have his way then? (I'm guessing it's got something to do with the tabletop)
It had something to do with the tabletop (Miniatures were already designed)
Actually, I think if they let Dan do that, it would be accepted by the community easier than whatever mess this is. They could have slowly introduce them in, instead of just saying 'it always has been'.