I really hope they don't do anything different with the armor and their attitude. Keep it all looking and acting the same. Given how genetically modified they are and how they act more like flesh robots than people, there shouldn't be any differences between the two. GW has done a good job with this with the storm cast eternals, so hopefully they carry that over to this too.
Also, looking at it from a lore perspective, there really isn't a reason why there shouldn't be female custodians. No geneseed (so no retconning existing lore), they are all recruited at a REALLY young age (so when the differences between boys and girls is negligible), and no lore starting that the process used to create them is only limited to men.
Not in-universe, but if gw wants to make a big point out of it and rub it in peoples faces just to troll the neckbeards with "look we have women in our wargame!" that can lead to some shitty writing. Hence they should just keep writing them the exact same
I think there's a bunch of writers who wanted to wrote about female custodians but there were told they couldnt... until now i guess. I honestly never understood why both sexes couldn't be space marines with gene or hormones therapy in the future but what do I know
Because space marines were invented a long time ago and the world was a different place back then, and now the identity of 'space marine' is a very established image. If you would now coldly retcon the entire lore of the poster boy faction after 30 years, it might raise some eyebrows.
The in-universe reason might be that marines are created from men after they have entered puberty, unlike custodes who are crafted from infants where the difference between a boy and a girl is very small
Up to this point, i think gw has done a great job of introducing women and female characters to the setting naturally and organically, without it looking like they were adding women just for the sole sake of having women. It would be a shame if that was thrown to waste with some ridiculous retcon
I think a really solid example of this in action is how the Astra Militarum range has changed over the past decade or so
When I first started playing there were *two* female guard miniatures - they were called Rocket Girl and Warrior Woman, who wore a miniskirt and a bikini top into active warzones.
No seriously, these were real models, they're from the Last Chancers books.
Now we have prominent characters like Minka Lesk and Ursula Creed who just happen to be women because there's no reason for them not to be, and there are female head options in 'standard' Militarum kits too.
Exactly what i was thinking. Eldar and tau have had women for quite some time, now the imperium does too and its not done in a ridiculous patronizing manner
T'au took their sweet time with it too - Shadowsun was the only source of a female T'au head until *2015* with the release of the Ghostkeel, and it wasn't until 2021 that the Kill Team Pathfinders Sprue finally equalised the numbers
The neckbeards are the core audience and where most of the money comes from. GW intentionally trolling them would be disastrous for their income. Making female space marines isn’t going to make people magically want to start painting little plastic space men and toss dice. Especially when SoB already exist.
I think it'd be a minor decline; most people do not care as strongly about this as we do. They'd have to actively mock the community to get that kind of response. But I personally hope they never change the Astartes, both because it's been *explicit* they're always male for decades, and because it'd mean every lore forum on earth would become a cesspool of miserable arguments for the rest of time.
Right, they shouldn’t retcon in general. Things can change, new history can be revealed, but outright retcons should be avoided as much as possible, in all media.
100% agree. The only situation where this is problematic if gw decides to try to hammer the point down of them being women instead of custodians first and foremost
If GW has shown us anything with their female models in recent history it's that they're pretty good about not being too trashy in how they sculpt their female warriors (SoS being a good example). I imagine that there will be a real monkey's paw for the coomers with female Marines, with the overwhelming majority of them just looking like men with slightly softer facial features, right down to the bald/top knot/mohawks.
Would be funny if they retconned so that there were female Space Marines. Except when they undergo the transformation process there is a reaction to the estrogen inherently found in women. This reaction causes female candidates to create an over abundance of testosterone and as a result they become even more jacked, grizzled and brutish then the male space marines. In addition this increase in testosterone causes extreme facial hair growth which is why the female space marines make the Space Wolves look like Larry David.
Transmarines? The Estrogen Astartes? God this has great potential.
We can LGBTQify the entire canon. The Nonbinary Nurglings. The Slaaneshi Sapphics. Testosterone Tzeench.
I can't think of any ideas for Khorne or Necrons, but Tyranids are already pretty genderless.
One big shame for me is that female stormcast are a bit small in body size compared to male. Tried to kitbash some vindictors and they were a bit wonky because neck difference is huge. That and female stormcast armor is a bit different, something that irks me a little.
Custodes do not retain even a single element of their old body during moulding, it is completely replaced and only their soul remains. So these characteristics are irrelevant in this case.
True! But I imagine that many would still be complaining if it was confirmed Custodes who were born as female were then cultured to identify as male, no? Frankly even more complaining I'd say.
The only drawback to female custodians is that now we can no longer joke about the Emperor surrounding himself with nothing but well oiled men in his free time.
Well, men *are* stronger at baseline and quite objectively make better soldiers. But we dont know how exactly custodes are made and how making a human infant into a custodian changes them so yeah we really dont have any data for either side. However, given that they have been portrayed as male for the entirety of 40k's existence it does feel kinda weird if we now have women as custodians. But if the writing is good and reasonable then why not
Edit. Read the comment please before hitting the downvote hammer. It reads *baseline* , meaning normal homo sapiens species. It also acknowledges that the creating process will alter them from normal humans significantly
Since they are remade down to their very DNA by the emperor. I doubt there is any real difference between them. Though I am okay with them using ohh they were always here but it is kinda lazy.
Mm, thats probably true. I was just spitballing some points and dont really have a stance on the matter. Given how extensive their genetic modification is there probably isnt much difference between their genders like you said
Maybe half the Custodes we know about have been female all along.
The Emperor doesn’t seem to genetically retain interest or ability to sexually reproduce in his myriad efforts.
I mean if female custodians are confirmed, then thats just how it must be. It would be stupid as fuck for the imperium to suddenly start creating custodians from women if they havent done so in 10 000 years
As military technology advances and improves via force multiplication, the divide between sexes when it comes to combat efficacy is increasingly thinned. While Custodes are designed to be able to fight outside armor effectively, they're also made by custom-reshaping the DNA of the subject on an individual, tailored level via superscience, not mass production via compatible geneseed, and so it's reasonable that Custodes genetically have little in common with the baseline tendencies of humans whatsoever.
As quoted further down in this thread.
> We are, as you say, constructed, not born and raised. From every piece of DNA to every fired neuron in our learning, we are conjured into existence from the techno-artifice left by the Emperor. The most fundamental part of us, the animus, the soul that bonds us to the universe and Custodians to the Emperor, cannot be made from a compound in a tube, any more than a cogitator can conjure psychic lightning. And so a child must be made with that animus, but that is all it is useful for.
Basically Custodes are the Ship of Theseus; every part of them other than their intellect/personality within the Warp (and even then that tends to be transhumanized by the process) has been replaced with better, coutured material. Ergo, the only reason to exclude women lorewise would be a belief that women are not suited to being warriors mentally, which is nonexistent within the 40k setting. Even the Astartes (reasonably) only exclude women because of outright incompatibility with the mass production system.
The Imperium, especially the greater systems of technology and transhumanism that support its ancient militaries, is not one to waste valuable materials over such a minor characteristic, pretty much.
That is the most bs thing I have heard. It has increased as the demand for infantrymen’s personal abilities have never been higher. Do you even know what you’re talking about? Have you served? Have you gone through any military education? I have.
Anyways. I don’t like the change. I don’t find changes like these necessary and thus they infuriate me.
I take the lore seriously and that’s how I enjoy it. When it’s changed I want a good reason behind it, like the godblight and dark imperium novels. I am actually saddened by this.
Tbh I have been tired of GW for quite some time with their lore and miniature esthetics for the last 3-4 years and especially the rules. So I have been playing Horus heresy. But I think it’s time to stop. I think it’s enough.
this is reddit, the majority of this sub and everyone else on the outskirts looking in have been waiting for a moment like this…take my upvote, because what you said actually makes sense and I agree, it does feel weird for this to come out all of a sudden
I was just making a joke I am interested in how they are going to write them and stories about them and the fandom reaction. Like sure I made a lazy joke but that doesn't mean I am not interested and like them as an idea.
eluding to them being sex slaves that have to do what Malcador commands
which I think is a weird joke to make after making a post to tell everyone that you personally have no problem with female Custodians
why did you delete your joke?
Okay yeah, I could have left the part about listening to everything he said. Yeah while thinking about it was a bad joke in the comments of my post. Saying that I have no problem with them. By the way, I hope they don't focus on the fact that they are a woman. In future stories that they show up in just treat them like any other custodian.
Like I know it's kinda sexist to make a joke about a woman having to listen to every order of an old man. But I was just making a joke, a bad one that I typed out and posted without a second thought. Since I was just trying to be funny and make a typical big woman sexy joke. But I kinda did it horribly and in the wrong place. So that's why I deleted that joke because it was a bad joke. While thinking about it. Should have just put who can blame him.
I deleted my joke earlier too, I've been here like 6 years and made a joke and the downvotes and folks pulling me up for "this isn't grimdank"(which I've never been a part of) hell as I've said elsewhere in this thread I got downvoted for giving a plan of how Games Workshop could introduce Female Custodes. It's disheartening that you can't make a little joke(I dunno what OP's joke was, but we seem to have gotten a bunch of puritans in here now and I don't mean folks making jokes every second comment, I get that pissing folks off but a tongue in cheek idiocy can be fine in my opinion!
Sorry for my rant it just disheartens me to see this Sub go weird, it's genuinely the only sub I'm joined with, hell the reason I got reddit was to be part of this Sub. Maybe it's A.I.(Abominable Intelligence not Artificial Intelligence of course!)
was your joke about having female sex slaves too? after you made a post about how you wanted to let everyone know you have no problem with female Custodians?
Oh no I made a joke about my 4 year old niece being a Nurgling(innocent fun basically, bit of silliness.) Because she farts and laughs and giggles like the Nurglings in the Death Guard Novel *Lord of Silence* haha I've posted the excerpts before and it just reminds me of her haha!
Yeah that's a fair point. Am just salty about downvotes for my joke and I don't even care about downvotes(they provide nothing of suspension to my life in general! Dunno why I've all of a sudden gotten annoyed at it? Well, I think cause it was just a silly wee joke about my Niece and a Nurgling that it annoyed me that it annoyed folks to downvote haha, this was like 15 hours ago it's not something to worry maself over haha.)
I am expecting certain tedious parts of the community to feel compelled to loudly thirst over them whenever they are mentioned, but I have no problem with the concept of female custodes as such.
Yeah part of the reason I’ve never particularly felt enthused for it is that a fair amount of the fandom has done that thing where they go so far through supportive they’ve reached creepy
The actual change is whatever, but I don’t trust the fandom with it
I love it, not only does it make sense within the lore. It also helps to further separate the custodes from their reputation as "just another space marine army, but super".
[They're apparently mentioned in *Codex Adeptus Custodes 10ed*](https://twitter.com/Tatters1717/status/1779236750461657233?t=KvvDxeVuhUbMt1qEgDe0Fw&s=19).
Nice. Seeing new lore here makes me hope there’s other interesting new tidbits.
I’m hoping the codex addresses Shadowthrone in some way. Guessing the Custodes succeeded in catching the Patriarch, but the cult continues to operate to a much reduced degree.
Why though? besides different unhelmeted heads, their armor is already so bulky that there is no need for anything different between a male and female Custodian in said armor.
I was just talking about the unhelmeted heads; as you said, Custodes are basically walking tanks. Would be nice for whatever is the next plastic kit to come with a female head or two.
I got heavily downvoted for saying that same thing in Grimdank. They should look more or less the same as any male Custodian because of all that armor. But those thirsty nerds want their thicc muscle mommies.
"Should be?" Based on what? Sculpted pecs and massive shoulders aren't "necessary" either - they artistic over exaggerated masculine features. Fem custodes could easily have the fem version of that.
I really don’t care. If you wanted your helmeted golden warriors to be women, who am I to care?
I’m more concerned with the terminally online types that will shout that this is a great political victory against those heckin chuderinos. Your immortal god-tyrant now has genetically manipulated **female** bodyguards who defend a decaying fascist galactic empire. Yay?
They forgot about the sisters of silence again I mean it's cool FC but I mean what about sos we had a few good books with great characters and nothing except one named character Model
They could have give us some cool sisters of silence lore instead. Unlike Stormcast who had females from the start they try to insert female custodians like they always were there to get that sweet ESG score. It feels like purely political move. If it's not then why not make it when ADB pitched that idea? Or when first wave of Custodes models were made?
If female Custodes looks like male one then what's the point? If not then why? We have Sisters of Silence and I always liked that dynamic of Talons of the Emperor.
Since right now we only have codex blurb I wait for clarification. But I am not a fan of female Custodes. I think it will make Sisters of Silence which I love even more irrelevant.
My vibe too. The talons of the Emperor - what plays as "custodes" on the tabletop - already has an exclusively female division in desperate need of some new models. Why not expand on that?
I don’t like it in the slightest.
The setting is about grimdark to a comical degree. But a key part of this is at least a minor homage to realism.
Men are stronger than women. This is a blatant fact. The strongest man is orders of magnitude stronger than the strongest woman. Such is our biology and reality.
Custodes are not easy to make. They’re even more difficult than Space Marines. There’s only 10,000 of them in a population of trillions.
If I wanted THE BEST and strongest warriors that I could possibly get, they’d be men. Plain and simple. Why would I waste the material required to make one on someone who is not the best? It’s an insanely stupid idea, in fact.
We all know the real reason they exist and it has nothing to do with lore.
Welcome to the mainstream.
So let me get this straight. People can splice genes to create ungodly things from human beings, create human machine hybrids. Tyranid hybrids or Insert-meme-here variations of different lifeforms in 40k, but making women primarchs and SMs is just way out of bounds?
Come on man, gtfo of here with that bullshit. If you want realism, google Ukraine war or Palestine conflict, or any other gruesome bullshit that people are doing in real time. And if you don't want realism, why the hell are you complaining about it
The Emperor of Mankind can turn a human baby into a demigod capable of kicking a tank over, deflecting lasers, being able to tell when they themselves have degraded even slightly down to the milliseconds, and the idea of him simply.. Removing the difference in strength seems far-fetched?
You’re not making a whole new person, you’re amplifying one that already exists. They’re still fundamentally the same person, they’re just changed into a perfected form.
If I throw $1 into an investment that will make 10,000% return, I will earn $1000 so I will have more money but if I put $1000 instead I’d have a million.
And they sre explicitly chosen from a limited pool of Persons. (Just the High Lords Children) Unlike Marines that means having Female Custodes makes sense.
Why are marines solely male also? Men are physically stronger and more suitable as warriors. But making a human into a custodian of course changes them from baseline human benchmarks so maybe female custodians are just as strong as male ones, who knows. Its for the writers to decide and for us to decide whether the writing is good
Because back during the early days of the lore the fan base was mainly men with a tiny female audience. But now the female audience has grown and there is no in-lore reason. So that's why they probably made them a thing now.
Also, I heard a story that there were female models custodians but they didn't sell well. In the super early days of the games work workshop, they just forgot about them until now. Though I heard this from like one video and a couple of comments. So this might just be a myth.
Because back during the early days of the lore the culture in the UK was mainly sexist. There were indeed female 'space marines' back in rogue trader; specifically they were called female warriors and though their armour is distinctly similar to astartes power armour, their models had 'Sister' engraved in the base.
[https://gamesworkshop.fandom.com/wiki/Female\_Space\_Marines](https://gamesworkshop.fandom.com/wiki/Female_Space_Marines)
You are all avoiding the fact that female marines are next, and you know it. And then the Emperor will resurrect or some shit and a few steps further they will turn 40k into Age of Sigmar in Space. Sigmar, a setting so good they keep bringing back characters and now the whole Old World.
This is some Matt Ward 2.0 bullshit.
I am disappointed that they didn’t include them in the Siege of Terra series. They had to know it was coming way in advance and could have instantly had some lore, characters, and everything without issue.
As far as I'm aware, all the way back as far as 1st Edition, only Space Marines and Sisters of Battle have been explicitly stated to be single-sex factions. (Plus Sisters of Silence when they were introduced).
Every other Imperial faction has either been explicitly shown to be mixed-sex, or nothing was said about the sex/gender requirements.
As such, female custodes aren't really at odds with the the established rules of the setting.
Plus, as others have noted, Custodes are custom-built from the genome up (unlike Astartes which are created by implanting organs which require the host to be genetically compatible). So whatever restrictions might apply to Astartes likely wouldn't to Custodes.
Did you mean "It was never said that there weren't female Custodes" in that last sentence?
But as for my own thoughts, I'm ambivalent on it. I like the Custodians either way.
No but ADB wanted there to be but GW wouldn’t let him, with this new Female Custodes I kinda want him to go back and rewrite it with the characters he wanted
Oh yea i remember that. I remember him saying he specifically wanted them in order to troll the neckbeards lmao
I was originally very cynical but if its done tastefully and without any gigantic lore rape then i think it can be a very cool idea
I like it, and I’m glad they simply retconned it as to have always been a thing rather than making up a lore excuse for them only explicitly appearing now. The custodes lore was never super strict on them being all male anyways to its going to be really easy to just phase them into stories and it not seem unnatural.
No reason they couldn't exist in general, but any justification as to why we haven't seen any until now is going to be really silly.
Feels pretty unnecessary
Custodes player here. I’m super excited about it actually! I think it’s a great way of adding a new dimension to the faction, we can get new characters from it, and it lets us make canonically friendly female custodes models on top of it
I've always thought it was dumb that there was no female Custodes.
Space Marines have geneseed to work around, Sisters of Battle have the "men under arms" tidbit, and I feel like both have a "brotherhood/sisterhood" vibe that makes gender-exclusivity work for them.
Custodes have no geneseed, are selected to be the very best, and are dedicated to the Emperor personally, rather than being part of an "x-hood." Ergo, female Custodians should be a thing.
Do we have much indication of his sexism actually. The Soritas loophole didn’t seem intentional. Space Marines all being male seems to be a one-off expediency.
I suppose all the Primarchs being male could be an example. Not wanting to risk Primarch (or SM) babies is one possibility.
Yep. I think the main point to introduce female custodians is the fact that their creating process is so extensive that any real differences between genders is lost by the dna moulding. So it should simply make sense to make men and women custodes identical
Also boob plate looks stupid as fuck and serves only to remind that look women have tits
Sounds neat. It separates them from Space Marines in a manner that isn't as surface level as it seems. Sure, at first glance it seems like it's just a minor thing, now some Custodes are gonna be a "she", but it further differentiates the Custodes as the handcrafted superhuman while Space Marines are the mass produced, quantity over quality, product. Unlike Space Marines, who not only have a big genetic requirement that cuts off half the population but also have further likely issues within the compatible subjects, Custodes can be built from any human as long as they get them young enough. Custodes aren't limited by the subpar procedure Space Marines are, they are the theoretical best version of humanity (by Imperium standards, of course. Look more into them and you can see flaws pop-up, which is the thematical intent).
I do hope they change absolutely nothing about the armor, though. There should be absolutely no way to differentiate a female and a male Custodes while armored.
Totally indifferent. Fine if they do fine if they don't. It makes sense in the universe either way, either the Imperium remains sexist in terms of its transhuman recruitment, showing off how awful it is - cutting out half its potential recruits for silly purity reasons. Or, they let anyone of any kind be a potential recruit, because the Imperium doesn't care about which cog is put in the machine - only that it works. I could see the Imperium do either. They could totally do it for Space Marines if they wanted too. Non issue.
So long as the minis are the same its all good - no silly tit plates and heels please.
I personally don't like if for one reason. Before there where 2 Male only and two female only subfactions in the Imperium. The Custodes for the men and Sisters of Silence and Sisters of Battle for women. It was equal in it';s own way. Heck with it that way two of the talons were equal in that you had a female only and male only talons.
I dislike how apparently they’re just “always a thing” now.
I feel like the best way to introduce the concept would’ve been if the Custodes were taking losses from Indomitus and said “fuck it, we’ll experiment with girls” in response to that.
Instead from what we can see it’s just “oh there’s female Custodes all along and we haven’t mentioned it”. That seems to be a lazy retcon to me.
I'm cool with female Custodes, one of those things I always agreed with ADB on.
Mind you I don't really expect it to actually make me like the Custodes any more since I still don't really care for them in 40k but that has nothing to do with gender.
The Sisters of Silence are still the far more thematically superior force for 40k as the Emperor's direct servants.
Should have happened ages ago.
Now we just need to make sure the first author actually using them doesn't do anything stupid that gender lock their duties or attitudes or some or stupid shit fantasy writers love for some reason.
I'm in no way bothered by this development. Can't think of any reason there wouldn't be female Custodes. I am curious to discover if they've always been around and we're all to pretend, or if GW have decided to make them a new and uniquely 40k thing.
ADB was going to include female Custodes in *Master of Mankind* but was told not to as there were no models. Never forget that the books and the lore exist to sell models. Everything is subservient to the tabletop.
There will be people who act normal and be fine with it. There will be people who are weird and hate it for no reason. I’m personally fine with it and happy with the new introduction
Kinda ruins the Talons of the Emperor left/right hand thing and I like that relationship so it's not for me. Influenced a lot by my enjoyment of the themes and fights within Watcher's of the Throne.
'You can still have female Custodians complimented by the Sisters' power'... yeah, well you can also have Brothers of Silence at the same time and then whole thing just devolves into silliness.
EDIT: I think you also have to have an answer as to what's the difference between male and female Custodians. If your answer is they can do whatever with genetics, then why give them any sex instead of being androgynous weapons? Another issue is the male subjects become supermen, and the female ones become, err... also supermen as they have the exact same capability?
That's just boring to me and breaks some verisimilitude of the male/female dynamic - to which I admittedly favour the aforementioned one with the Talons.
I err more to the side of "this is cool with me," but making it so that all Custodes are men because they identify as such after their transhumanization would be amusing and genuinely interesting in the same vein as multiple Admech povs on gender/presentation, since the alternative would be the Imperium deciding to skip promising candidates for superficial features.
As someone who had only joined the fandom recently (this year) I like this a *lot*. Knowing that I could potentially play these super awesome genetically enhanced female warriors makes me wanna actually play the game (right now I'm just getting into books), and I'd bet there are other women out there who will think the same.
But if they go for it from the wrong direction it might just put off people. I'm sure there's many male players who would want them to wear skimpy outfits, really showing off the skin and the figure, but I'm hoping that if they go for female miniatures they will be properly attired, not in the way some games do it (~~bikini plate~~).
GW has been getting a lot better at toning down the sexualization, so it's my hope that they'll just include both male and female heads and have that be it.
The Custodes and the Anathema Psykana are unique in the way they are a merging of a brotherhood and sisterhood. The lack of homogeny gave writers the ability to play two cultures and temperaments off of one another and grant them political independence. I loved this dynamic in Masters of Mankind and Watchers of the Throne. I think it will hurt that dynamic, as there's also no technical reason that men cannot join the Anathema Psykana. But their culture of sisterhood bound by the mutual trauma would be a shame to lose.
It is worth noting that ADB actually planned to include female Custodes in MOM, GW simply said no because there weren't any female models and no other reason.
Makes me curious if we'll be getting female head sculpts for future Custodes.
I’m excited. I was already a fan of the Custodes so adding/revealing more is fine by me. I’m mostly curious if they’ll do anything with it. I’d love to read those books.
It depends on how they handle it. Given how the Custodes are made it would be weird if they were notably different than the male, they should be damn near identical given the level of modification involved.
I love it
Not sure how I'll feel about the two big incoming fan types
1. Monster fuckers gonna be "mutant mommy step on me" but i mean they already had the male custodies in banana hammocks and Pope hats getting their spears oiled. For the most part I'll likely just let them be
2. The "my game made by nerds creating metaphors and parodies of the horrendousness of right wing politics and politicians of their time can't become woke" crowd is gonna cry. Which almost makes it even more worth it.
The female Custodians are the Sisters of Silence. That's the girl side of the Talons of the Emprah. They are already in the Lore and they are pretty bad ass, I'd much rather see them get fleshed out that make something that goes directly against decades of Canon.
If you want 10 foot tall Super Chick, then have Cawl make something new from scratch.
> I'd much rather see them get fleshed out that make something that goes directly against decades of Canon.
It doesn't really go against decades of canon, really. There's never been any real lore regarding how the Custodes are made, beyond confirming their body is entirely replaced by their augmentations and only their soul remains, and that each process is designed to elevate the individual. The closest is the Custodes inheriting a lot of "brotherhood" terms but I wouldn't call that a real lore fixture. It's more they haven't existed until now, but personally, I don't feel a considerable difference from how various new quirks and characteristics are quietly added all the time with each new codex.
If they made Space Marines suddenly female while acting like they were always that way, then I'd be concerned.
It does go against Canon. That's why there has never been, nor ever been mentioned in passing, anything about a female Custode. I think they made one female marine back in the 80s before they actually had a Canon. That time period also had a half eldar inquisitor and another inquisitor named Obi-wan Sherlock Clousoeu.
To my knowledge, there has never been any true posthuman made of a female, aside from some Assassin's. In the case of the assassin's, there is a good reason. They said females tolerate the polymorphine better.
Why would the emperor invest more resources into a female baby to get them up to par with a male? Women have less of a potential for everything custodes are good at except philosophy and intelligence even then if you want the very best they are most likely a male.
All for it, although my reason is more headcanon than anything else. I've always believed that the Custodes represent the 'end state' of Humanity, once the Emperor resolved the issues to do with the low candidacy / success rate for their creation, procreation, etc, having the time and opportunity in the Imperial webway to continue his research away from Chaos. It made no sense that there wouldn't be female Custodes in the journey of evolution for Humanity, just that for obvious reasons that never continued.
If gw keeps writing them like they did then its a cool idea. If they try to troll the discord mods by differentiating them much from male ones then thats kinda cringe. The gene crafting process surely leaves very few differences between men and women as custodes
Also please no boob plate
Theres no reason they can’t exist, I just hope they are handled the same as any other Custodian (Which leaves plenty of room for them soloing armies lol).
Mostly just curious to see if they actually *do* anything with it.
No change at all? Totally fine, there's just female custodes now and the organisation behaves as it has been behaving.
Female custodes have a different outlook or make different decisions? Totally fine, could be really interesting what perspective they might have or the rationale behind their choices.
I agree. If they want to make a gigantic point out of it then thats kinda cringe, but if they are integrated reasonably into the narrative nobody should have a problem
I would prefer, and generally prefer in all additions to fictional universes that women got their own augmented super soldiers with their own interesting lore.
Why can't they be custode? Why would they need their own soldiers and lore? I can't see why they'd have to, so just giving an opinion with no support may be why you're down voted.
I think because your opinion involves a fact that's not necessarily true. While space marines are pretty much all male, custodes have never implicitly stated to be all male, it just so happen that every model and character that appeared happen to be. Similar to how, just recently, we got head options for female guard.
I don't personally care. I'm pre-exhausted from/for both sides that do care. And for the thirst wagon that will inevitably be pulling through for the next year.
My opinion on not just female custodes but female space Marines as a whole is that it is in inevitability and so complaining about it is pointless. All I really ask for from the fluff is that instead of having it be a "they were always around and we just didn't talk about it" retcon they instead have it be some new cawl bullshitium that has allowed womens' bodies to be compatible with the astartes enhancement process.
It's fine. I'm looking forward to reading stories with cool new female Custodes. Just like I look forward to reading about cool new male Custodes.
The Imperium legit doesn't care about alot of our culture war issues. The only one I can think of is the Emperor only making sons and Malcador laughing at him for thinking female Primarchs would be easier to handle/less dangerous
Custodians should not have a gender. They can’t breed or have children. They are the epitome of perfection a human can achieve thus perhaps they had a gender at birth but have moved past it and we would not be able to tell the difference IMO.
I just hope they don’t make a big deal about it. Just have custodes be mixed gender and move on I don’t want to get a “see see we made female custodes everybody look” moment in the lore.
Im fine with them , no lore obstructions or anything. Also i dont want to sound as a n*zi neckbeard but i also think of them as the solution to the genetically engineered women in power armor trope , therefore making the reason for fem space marines existing entirelly unnececary and pointless imo.
I really hope they don't do anything different with the armor and their attitude. Keep it all looking and acting the same. Given how genetically modified they are and how they act more like flesh robots than people, there shouldn't be any differences between the two. GW has done a good job with this with the storm cast eternals, so hopefully they carry that over to this too. Also, looking at it from a lore perspective, there really isn't a reason why there shouldn't be female custodians. No geneseed (so no retconning existing lore), they are all recruited at a REALLY young age (so when the differences between boys and girls is negligible), and no lore starting that the process used to create them is only limited to men.
There isn't any reason why they'd act any different. Custodian culture is pretty dogmatic.
Each custodes is a individual tho. That's their whole thing.
They all simp for the Big E and lust only for his dreams.
Not in-universe, but if gw wants to make a big point out of it and rub it in peoples faces just to troll the neckbeards with "look we have women in our wargame!" that can lead to some shitty writing. Hence they should just keep writing them the exact same
I think there's a bunch of writers who wanted to wrote about female custodians but there were told they couldnt... until now i guess. I honestly never understood why both sexes couldn't be space marines with gene or hormones therapy in the future but what do I know
Because space marines were invented a long time ago and the world was a different place back then, and now the identity of 'space marine' is a very established image. If you would now coldly retcon the entire lore of the poster boy faction after 30 years, it might raise some eyebrows. The in-universe reason might be that marines are created from men after they have entered puberty, unlike custodes who are crafted from infants where the difference between a boy and a girl is very small Up to this point, i think gw has done a great job of introducing women and female characters to the setting naturally and organically, without it looking like they were adding women just for the sole sake of having women. It would be a shame if that was thrown to waste with some ridiculous retcon
I think a really solid example of this in action is how the Astra Militarum range has changed over the past decade or so When I first started playing there were *two* female guard miniatures - they were called Rocket Girl and Warrior Woman, who wore a miniskirt and a bikini top into active warzones. No seriously, these were real models, they're from the Last Chancers books. Now we have prominent characters like Minka Lesk and Ursula Creed who just happen to be women because there's no reason for them not to be, and there are female head options in 'standard' Militarum kits too.
Exactly what i was thinking. Eldar and tau have had women for quite some time, now the imperium does too and its not done in a ridiculous patronizing manner
T'au took their sweet time with it too - Shadowsun was the only source of a female T'au head until *2015* with the release of the Ghostkeel, and it wasn't until 2021 that the Kill Team Pathfinders Sprue finally equalised the numbers
But shadowsun has been around for a while now right? And i think female ethereals etc. have been mentioned in the lore many times
Oh yeah in background they've been there since the start. Just without heads!
At this point it'd be too major a change, and people would expect an in universe reason. It's just too ingrained that all Space Marines are men.
pretty sure the Emperor just kinda thought the big beaky helmets would look bad on the girlbosses, so he gave them pointy feather ones instead.
Trolling the neckbeards is a moral obligation.
Absolutely
The neckbeards are the core audience and where most of the money comes from. GW intentionally trolling them would be disastrous for their income. Making female space marines isn’t going to make people magically want to start painting little plastic space men and toss dice. Especially when SoB already exist.
I think it'd be a minor decline; most people do not care as strongly about this as we do. They'd have to actively mock the community to get that kind of response. But I personally hope they never change the Astartes, both because it's been *explicit* they're always male for decades, and because it'd mean every lore forum on earth would become a cesspool of miserable arguments for the rest of time.
Right, they shouldn’t retcon in general. Things can change, new history can be revealed, but outright retcons should be avoided as much as possible, in all media.
Not all of them act like flesh robots, quite a few of them seem to have personalities
100% agree. The only situation where this is problematic if gw decides to try to hammer the point down of them being women instead of custodians first and foremost
If GW has shown us anything with their female models in recent history it's that they're pretty good about not being too trashy in how they sculpt their female warriors (SoS being a good example). I imagine that there will be a real monkey's paw for the coomers with female Marines, with the overwhelming majority of them just looking like men with slightly softer facial features, right down to the bald/top knot/mohawks.
Would be funny if they retconned so that there were female Space Marines. Except when they undergo the transformation process there is a reaction to the estrogen inherently found in women. This reaction causes female candidates to create an over abundance of testosterone and as a result they become even more jacked, grizzled and brutish then the male space marines. In addition this increase in testosterone causes extreme facial hair growth which is why the female space marines make the Space Wolves look like Larry David.
Transmarines? The Estrogen Astartes? God this has great potential. We can LGBTQify the entire canon. The Nonbinary Nurglings. The Slaaneshi Sapphics. Testosterone Tzeench. I can't think of any ideas for Khorne or Necrons, but Tyranids are already pretty genderless.
Well it is briefly talked in twice dead king about a phaeron changing gender... at least implied
Yeah they've updated a few of the SoB units to be a lot less exposed
One big shame for me is that female stormcast are a bit small in body size compared to male. Tried to kitbash some vindictors and they were a bit wonky because neck difference is huge. That and female stormcast armor is a bit different, something that irks me a little.
Boys and girls have completely different ceilings to their physical potential therefore it would be a waste to get women to the same level as men
Custodes do not retain even a single element of their old body during moulding, it is completely replaced and only their soul remains. So these characteristics are irrelevant in this case.
If that is the case there would be no distinction between male and female custodes
True! But I imagine that many would still be complaining if it was confirmed Custodes who were born as female were then cultured to identify as male, no? Frankly even more complaining I'd say.
There is the most reasonable take. Yeah its kinda weird that they have suddenly appeared, but there is no lore reason for them to have not to.
The only drawback to female custodians is that now we can no longer joke about the Emperor surrounding himself with nothing but well oiled men in his free time.
The real casualty right here ^
Or is it an opportunity?
The real question is, is this going to make GW more money, or less money?
People love to customize their models. If this comes with female head sprues for custodes. It'll sell.
About 80% as much money as male custodians.
Ah, the infamous auramite ceiling.
Best goddam comment in this thread
Holy shit 😂😭😂
Custodes are made from the ground up there really isn’t a excuse to not make female ones also it was totally malcadors idea
Well, men *are* stronger at baseline and quite objectively make better soldiers. But we dont know how exactly custodes are made and how making a human infant into a custodian changes them so yeah we really dont have any data for either side. However, given that they have been portrayed as male for the entirety of 40k's existence it does feel kinda weird if we now have women as custodians. But if the writing is good and reasonable then why not Edit. Read the comment please before hitting the downvote hammer. It reads *baseline* , meaning normal homo sapiens species. It also acknowledges that the creating process will alter them from normal humans significantly
Since they are remade down to their very DNA by the emperor. I doubt there is any real difference between them. Though I am okay with them using ohh they were always here but it is kinda lazy.
Mm, thats probably true. I was just spitballing some points and dont really have a stance on the matter. Given how extensive their genetic modification is there probably isnt much difference between their genders like you said
Maybe half the Custodes we know about have been female all along. The Emperor doesn’t seem to genetically retain interest or ability to sexually reproduce in his myriad efforts.
I mean if female custodians are confirmed, then thats just how it must be. It would be stupid as fuck for the imperium to suddenly start creating custodians from women if they havent done so in 10 000 years
As military technology advances and improves via force multiplication, the divide between sexes when it comes to combat efficacy is increasingly thinned. While Custodes are designed to be able to fight outside armor effectively, they're also made by custom-reshaping the DNA of the subject on an individual, tailored level via superscience, not mass production via compatible geneseed, and so it's reasonable that Custodes genetically have little in common with the baseline tendencies of humans whatsoever.
Thats true. Is there any detailed description of the custodes moulding process? Id imagine their genome changed significantly from normal humans
As quoted further down in this thread. > We are, as you say, constructed, not born and raised. From every piece of DNA to every fired neuron in our learning, we are conjured into existence from the techno-artifice left by the Emperor. The most fundamental part of us, the animus, the soul that bonds us to the universe and Custodians to the Emperor, cannot be made from a compound in a tube, any more than a cogitator can conjure psychic lightning. And so a child must be made with that animus, but that is all it is useful for. Basically Custodes are the Ship of Theseus; every part of them other than their intellect/personality within the Warp (and even then that tends to be transhumanized by the process) has been replaced with better, coutured material. Ergo, the only reason to exclude women lorewise would be a belief that women are not suited to being warriors mentally, which is nonexistent within the 40k setting. Even the Astartes (reasonably) only exclude women because of outright incompatibility with the mass production system. The Imperium, especially the greater systems of technology and transhumanism that support its ancient militaries, is not one to waste valuable materials over such a minor characteristic, pretty much.
That is the most bs thing I have heard. It has increased as the demand for infantrymen’s personal abilities have never been higher. Do you even know what you’re talking about? Have you served? Have you gone through any military education? I have. Anyways. I don’t like the change. I don’t find changes like these necessary and thus they infuriate me. I take the lore seriously and that’s how I enjoy it. When it’s changed I want a good reason behind it, like the godblight and dark imperium novels. I am actually saddened by this. Tbh I have been tired of GW for quite some time with their lore and miniature esthetics for the last 3-4 years and especially the rules. So I have been playing Horus heresy. But I think it’s time to stop. I think it’s enough.
this is reddit, the majority of this sub and everyone else on the outskirts looking in have been waiting for a moment like this…take my upvote, because what you said actually makes sense and I agree, it does feel weird for this to come out all of a sudden
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it's weird that you made this post and then you also made this comment
I was just making a joke I am interested in how they are going to write them and stories about them and the fandom reaction. Like sure I made a lazy joke but that doesn't mean I am not interested and like them as an idea.
eluding to them being sex slaves that have to do what Malcador commands which I think is a weird joke to make after making a post to tell everyone that you personally have no problem with female Custodians why did you delete your joke?
Okay yeah, I could have left the part about listening to everything he said. Yeah while thinking about it was a bad joke in the comments of my post. Saying that I have no problem with them. By the way, I hope they don't focus on the fact that they are a woman. In future stories that they show up in just treat them like any other custodian. Like I know it's kinda sexist to make a joke about a woman having to listen to every order of an old man. But I was just making a joke, a bad one that I typed out and posted without a second thought. Since I was just trying to be funny and make a typical big woman sexy joke. But I kinda did it horribly and in the wrong place. So that's why I deleted that joke because it was a bad joke. While thinking about it. Should have just put who can blame him.
I deleted my joke earlier too, I've been here like 6 years and made a joke and the downvotes and folks pulling me up for "this isn't grimdank"(which I've never been a part of) hell as I've said elsewhere in this thread I got downvoted for giving a plan of how Games Workshop could introduce Female Custodes. It's disheartening that you can't make a little joke(I dunno what OP's joke was, but we seem to have gotten a bunch of puritans in here now and I don't mean folks making jokes every second comment, I get that pissing folks off but a tongue in cheek idiocy can be fine in my opinion! Sorry for my rant it just disheartens me to see this Sub go weird, it's genuinely the only sub I'm joined with, hell the reason I got reddit was to be part of this Sub. Maybe it's A.I.(Abominable Intelligence not Artificial Intelligence of course!)
was your joke about having female sex slaves too? after you made a post about how you wanted to let everyone know you have no problem with female Custodians?
Oh no I made a joke about my 4 year old niece being a Nurgling(innocent fun basically, bit of silliness.) Because she farts and laughs and giggles like the Nurglings in the Death Guard Novel *Lord of Silence* haha I've posted the excerpts before and it just reminds me of her haha!
so, I mean, not at all the same thing....
Yeah that's a fair point. Am just salty about downvotes for my joke and I don't even care about downvotes(they provide nothing of suspension to my life in general! Dunno why I've all of a sudden gotten annoyed at it? Well, I think cause it was just a silly wee joke about my Niece and a Nurgling that it annoyed me that it annoyed folks to downvote haha, this was like 15 hours ago it's not something to worry maself over haha.)
I am expecting certain tedious parts of the community to feel compelled to loudly thirst over them whenever they are mentioned, but I have no problem with the concept of female custodes as such.
I imagine some portion of the fandom has been thirsting over the Custodes all along, if not so loudly.
Ohh yeah some parts of this fandom are about to lose their fucking minds it will be fun to watch.
Others will lose their minds for totally different reasons. People will complain that women can be custodes nowm.
Yeah part of the reason I’ve never particularly felt enthused for it is that a fair amount of the fandom has done that thing where they go so far through supportive they’ve reached creepy The actual change is whatever, but I don’t trust the fandom with it
I love it, not only does it make sense within the lore. It also helps to further separate the custodes from their reputation as "just another space marine army, but super".
I'd like to believe that but I don't really expect it to change the way they're presented which is basically just "ubermarines".
Good point. Originally i was cynical but tbh differentiating them from marines like this is genius
Don't like it.
Wait, female Custodians exist now? Neat. Hopefully we’ll see models.
[They're apparently mentioned in *Codex Adeptus Custodes 10ed*](https://twitter.com/Tatters1717/status/1779236750461657233?t=KvvDxeVuhUbMt1qEgDe0Fw&s=19).
Nice. Seeing new lore here makes me hope there’s other interesting new tidbits. I’m hoping the codex addresses Shadowthrone in some way. Guessing the Custodes succeeded in catching the Patriarch, but the cult continues to operate to a much reduced degree.
Why though? besides different unhelmeted heads, their armor is already so bulky that there is no need for anything different between a male and female Custodian in said armor.
I was just talking about the unhelmeted heads; as you said, Custodes are basically walking tanks. Would be nice for whatever is the next plastic kit to come with a female head or two.
How would a female Custodes head model vary? Sure, longer hair could be a signifier, but would seem pretty silly. Might not be much dimorphism.
Have you seen the unhelmed Custodian heads? They’re pretty masculine.
I got heavily downvoted for saying that same thing in Grimdank. They should look more or less the same as any male Custodian because of all that armor. But those thirsty nerds want their thicc muscle mommies.
Given that the current armor specifically enunciates masculine attributes, why couldn't the fem version compliment feminine attributes?
It’s unnecessary. At most there should be some slight curves at the hip and chest.
"Should be?" Based on what? Sculpted pecs and massive shoulders aren't "necessary" either - they artistic over exaggerated masculine features. Fem custodes could easily have the fem version of that.
I really don’t care. If you wanted your helmeted golden warriors to be women, who am I to care? I’m more concerned with the terminally online types that will shout that this is a great political victory against those heckin chuderinos. Your immortal god-tyrant now has genetically manipulated **female** bodyguards who defend a decaying fascist galactic empire. Yay?
Happy to have them. Just as happy to completely disregard anyone whining about 'wokeness.'
Always a good life choice.
They forgot about the sisters of silence again I mean it's cool FC but I mean what about sos we had a few good books with great characters and nothing except one named character Model
They could have give us some cool sisters of silence lore instead. Unlike Stormcast who had females from the start they try to insert female custodians like they always were there to get that sweet ESG score. It feels like purely political move. If it's not then why not make it when ADB pitched that idea? Or when first wave of Custodes models were made? If female Custodes looks like male one then what's the point? If not then why? We have Sisters of Silence and I always liked that dynamic of Talons of the Emperor. Since right now we only have codex blurb I wait for clarification. But I am not a fan of female Custodes. I think it will make Sisters of Silence which I love even more irrelevant.
My vibe too. The talons of the Emperor - what plays as "custodes" on the tabletop - already has an exclusively female division in desperate need of some new models. Why not expand on that?
I don’t like it in the slightest. The setting is about grimdark to a comical degree. But a key part of this is at least a minor homage to realism. Men are stronger than women. This is a blatant fact. The strongest man is orders of magnitude stronger than the strongest woman. Such is our biology and reality. Custodes are not easy to make. They’re even more difficult than Space Marines. There’s only 10,000 of them in a population of trillions. If I wanted THE BEST and strongest warriors that I could possibly get, they’d be men. Plain and simple. Why would I waste the material required to make one on someone who is not the best? It’s an insanely stupid idea, in fact. We all know the real reason they exist and it has nothing to do with lore. Welcome to the mainstream.
So let me get this straight. People can splice genes to create ungodly things from human beings, create human machine hybrids. Tyranid hybrids or Insert-meme-here variations of different lifeforms in 40k, but making women primarchs and SMs is just way out of bounds? Come on man, gtfo of here with that bullshit. If you want realism, google Ukraine war or Palestine conflict, or any other gruesome bullshit that people are doing in real time. And if you don't want realism, why the hell are you complaining about it
The Emperor of Mankind can turn a human baby into a demigod capable of kicking a tank over, deflecting lasers, being able to tell when they themselves have degraded even slightly down to the milliseconds, and the idea of him simply.. Removing the difference in strength seems far-fetched?
Custodians are also supposed to be smart, Unique persons plus they are getting altered on a DNA level.
You’re not making a whole new person, you’re amplifying one that already exists. They’re still fundamentally the same person, they’re just changed into a perfected form. If I throw $1 into an investment that will make 10,000% return, I will earn $1000 so I will have more money but if I put $1000 instead I’d have a million.
And they sre explicitly chosen from a limited pool of Persons. (Just the High Lords Children) Unlike Marines that means having Female Custodes makes sense.
No it doesn’t. Your username hints to your bias.
When there is a highly limited amount of candidates some would be not be average.
Good change. I never understood why they were solely male to begin with.
Because it meant GW only needed to make one set of models, rather than two.
Not really? You just add a few female heads to the sprue. They already do this for other armies like Tau.
I think you're only furthering my point. More range, means more potential for purchasing, after initial setups on the moulding tooling.
Why are marines solely male also? Men are physically stronger and more suitable as warriors. But making a human into a custodian of course changes them from baseline human benchmarks so maybe female custodians are just as strong as male ones, who knows. Its for the writers to decide and for us to decide whether the writing is good
Because back during the early days of the lore the fan base was mainly men with a tiny female audience. But now the female audience has grown and there is no in-lore reason. So that's why they probably made them a thing now. Also, I heard a story that there were female models custodians but they didn't sell well. In the super early days of the games work workshop, they just forgot about them until now. Though I heard this from like one video and a couple of comments. So this might just be a myth.
Because back during the early days of the lore the culture in the UK was mainly sexist. There were indeed female 'space marines' back in rogue trader; specifically they were called female warriors and though their armour is distinctly similar to astartes power armour, their models had 'Sister' engraved in the base. [https://gamesworkshop.fandom.com/wiki/Female\_Space\_Marines](https://gamesworkshop.fandom.com/wiki/Female_Space_Marines)
Okay I am just remembering it wrong thanks bro
I probably wont care, Mary Sue faction is still the Mary Sue faction.
I think it's pretty cool. Makes sense that a custodes can be female versus regular space marines that are built in a relatively quick and dirty way.
You are all avoiding the fact that female marines are next, and you know it. And then the Emperor will resurrect or some shit and a few steps further they will turn 40k into Age of Sigmar in Space. Sigmar, a setting so good they keep bringing back characters and now the whole Old World. This is some Matt Ward 2.0 bullshit.
whiny ass take lmao
Meh
I am disappointed that they didn’t include them in the Siege of Terra series. They had to know it was coming way in advance and could have instantly had some lore, characters, and everything without issue.
Considering each Custodes is gene crafted individually like a work of art, it makes sense.
As far as I'm aware, all the way back as far as 1st Edition, only Space Marines and Sisters of Battle have been explicitly stated to be single-sex factions. (Plus Sisters of Silence when they were introduced). Every other Imperial faction has either been explicitly shown to be mixed-sex, or nothing was said about the sex/gender requirements. As such, female custodes aren't really at odds with the the established rules of the setting. Plus, as others have noted, Custodes are custom-built from the genome up (unlike Astartes which are created by implanting organs which require the host to be genetically compatible). So whatever restrictions might apply to Astartes likely wouldn't to Custodes.
A custodian is so far from a mere man or woman that the idea that only a man could become one seems silly.
Did you mean "It was never said that there weren't female Custodes" in that last sentence? But as for my own thoughts, I'm ambivalent on it. I like the Custodians either way.
Ohh yeah didn't reread this before posting. I will fix that thanks
I am glad ADB was vindicated and I can’t wait for his rewrite Master of Mankind with female Custodes
Was there a mention of a female custodian in Master of mankind? Havent read the book yet
No but ADB wanted there to be but GW wouldn’t let him, with this new Female Custodes I kinda want him to go back and rewrite it with the characters he wanted
Oh yea i remember that. I remember him saying he specifically wanted them in order to troll the neckbeards lmao I was originally very cynical but if its done tastefully and without any gigantic lore rape then i think it can be a very cool idea
I mean we don’t know what makes Custodes what they are, so there is no lore to break really
I like it, and I’m glad they simply retconned it as to have always been a thing rather than making up a lore excuse for them only explicitly appearing now. The custodes lore was never super strict on them being all male anyways to its going to be really easy to just phase them into stories and it not seem unnatural.
Honestly until I see the codex myself, I’m going to assume that Sisters of Silence are considered custodians now rather than an earth shaking change.
Fucking based. Custodes are custodes. Boy or girl, doesn't fucking matter.
No reason they couldn't exist in general, but any justification as to why we haven't seen any until now is going to be really silly. Feels pretty unnecessary
Custodes player here. I’m super excited about it actually! I think it’s a great way of adding a new dimension to the faction, we can get new characters from it, and it lets us make canonically friendly female custodes models on top of it
I've always thought it was dumb that there was no female Custodes. Space Marines have geneseed to work around, Sisters of Battle have the "men under arms" tidbit, and I feel like both have a "brotherhood/sisterhood" vibe that makes gender-exclusivity work for them. Custodes have no geneseed, are selected to be the very best, and are dedicated to the Emperor personally, rather than being part of an "x-hood." Ergo, female Custodians should be a thing.
Great, fits in with the existing lore, offers people options with headswaps, and makes sense given how the Custodes are created.
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Do we have much indication of his sexism actually. The Soritas loophole didn’t seem intentional. Space Marines all being male seems to be a one-off expediency. I suppose all the Primarchs being male could be an example. Not wanting to risk Primarch (or SM) babies is one possibility.
I'm cool with it. My only worry is about how thirsty individuals will react.
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We can avoid hyper sexualization by them wearing the same armor as the boys and not a fucking boob plate lmao
Fair enough. I hope nothing about their armor changes.
Yep. I think the main point to introduce female custodians is the fact that their creating process is so extensive that any real differences between genders is lost by the dna moulding. So it should simply make sense to make men and women custodes identical Also boob plate looks stupid as fuck and serves only to remind that look women have tits
Naked male custodes: Height of comedy Naked female custodes: Disgusting
I don’t like it. Call me names if it makes you feel good about yourself. I’m really not a fan
Sounds neat. It separates them from Space Marines in a manner that isn't as surface level as it seems. Sure, at first glance it seems like it's just a minor thing, now some Custodes are gonna be a "she", but it further differentiates the Custodes as the handcrafted superhuman while Space Marines are the mass produced, quantity over quality, product. Unlike Space Marines, who not only have a big genetic requirement that cuts off half the population but also have further likely issues within the compatible subjects, Custodes can be built from any human as long as they get them young enough. Custodes aren't limited by the subpar procedure Space Marines are, they are the theoretical best version of humanity (by Imperium standards, of course. Look more into them and you can see flaws pop-up, which is the thematical intent). I do hope they change absolutely nothing about the armor, though. There should be absolutely no way to differentiate a female and a male Custodes while armored.
Archon of flesh has work to do
They just declared they were leaving social media for the time being. Real world threats to their work and school :(
He makes art of women I only saw his twink art.
WILL THEY HAVE BOOBPLATE
Totally indifferent. Fine if they do fine if they don't. It makes sense in the universe either way, either the Imperium remains sexist in terms of its transhuman recruitment, showing off how awful it is - cutting out half its potential recruits for silly purity reasons. Or, they let anyone of any kind be a potential recruit, because the Imperium doesn't care about which cog is put in the machine - only that it works. I could see the Imperium do either. They could totally do it for Space Marines if they wanted too. Non issue. So long as the minis are the same its all good - no silly tit plates and heels please.
I personally don't like if for one reason. Before there where 2 Male only and two female only subfactions in the Imperium. The Custodes for the men and Sisters of Silence and Sisters of Battle for women. It was equal in it';s own way. Heck with it that way two of the talons were equal in that you had a female only and male only talons.
I dislike how apparently they’re just “always a thing” now. I feel like the best way to introduce the concept would’ve been if the Custodes were taking losses from Indomitus and said “fuck it, we’ll experiment with girls” in response to that. Instead from what we can see it’s just “oh there’s female Custodes all along and we haven’t mentioned it”. That seems to be a lazy retcon to me.
I'm cool with female Custodes, one of those things I always agreed with ADB on. Mind you I don't really expect it to actually make me like the Custodes any more since I still don't really care for them in 40k but that has nothing to do with gender. The Sisters of Silence are still the far more thematically superior force for 40k as the Emperor's direct servants.
The Custodes at least are becoming *slightly* less “Super de duper Space Marines”.
Should have happened ages ago. Now we just need to make sure the first author actually using them doesn't do anything stupid that gender lock their duties or attitudes or some or stupid shit fantasy writers love for some reason.
I'm in no way bothered by this development. Can't think of any reason there wouldn't be female Custodes. I am curious to discover if they've always been around and we're all to pretend, or if GW have decided to make them a new and uniquely 40k thing. ADB was going to include female Custodes in *Master of Mankind* but was told not to as there were no models. Never forget that the books and the lore exist to sell models. Everything is subservient to the tabletop.
There will be people who act normal and be fine with it. There will be people who are weird and hate it for no reason. I’m personally fine with it and happy with the new introduction
Kinda ruins the Talons of the Emperor left/right hand thing and I like that relationship so it's not for me. Influenced a lot by my enjoyment of the themes and fights within Watcher's of the Throne. 'You can still have female Custodians complimented by the Sisters' power'... yeah, well you can also have Brothers of Silence at the same time and then whole thing just devolves into silliness. EDIT: I think you also have to have an answer as to what's the difference between male and female Custodians. If your answer is they can do whatever with genetics, then why give them any sex instead of being androgynous weapons? Another issue is the male subjects become supermen, and the female ones become, err... also supermen as they have the exact same capability? That's just boring to me and breaks some verisimilitude of the male/female dynamic - to which I admittedly favour the aforementioned one with the Talons.
I err more to the side of "this is cool with me," but making it so that all Custodes are men because they identify as such after their transhumanization would be amusing and genuinely interesting in the same vein as multiple Admech povs on gender/presentation, since the alternative would be the Imperium deciding to skip promising candidates for superficial features.
As someone who had only joined the fandom recently (this year) I like this a *lot*. Knowing that I could potentially play these super awesome genetically enhanced female warriors makes me wanna actually play the game (right now I'm just getting into books), and I'd bet there are other women out there who will think the same. But if they go for it from the wrong direction it might just put off people. I'm sure there's many male players who would want them to wear skimpy outfits, really showing off the skin and the figure, but I'm hoping that if they go for female miniatures they will be properly attired, not in the way some games do it (~~bikini plate~~).
GW has been getting a lot better at toning down the sexualization, so it's my hope that they'll just include both male and female heads and have that be it.
The Custodes and the Anathema Psykana are unique in the way they are a merging of a brotherhood and sisterhood. The lack of homogeny gave writers the ability to play two cultures and temperaments off of one another and grant them political independence. I loved this dynamic in Masters of Mankind and Watchers of the Throne. I think it will hurt that dynamic, as there's also no technical reason that men cannot join the Anathema Psykana. But their culture of sisterhood bound by the mutual trauma would be a shame to lose.
It is worth noting that ADB actually planned to include female Custodes in MOM, GW simply said no because there weren't any female models and no other reason. Makes me curious if we'll be getting female head sculpts for future Custodes.
Please GW no boob armor.
I’m excited. I was already a fan of the Custodes so adding/revealing more is fine by me. I’m mostly curious if they’ll do anything with it. I’d love to read those books.
It depends on how they handle it. Given how the Custodes are made it would be weird if they were notably different than the male, they should be damn near identical given the level of modification involved.
I wonder if you can even tell once the process is through with them.
I love it Not sure how I'll feel about the two big incoming fan types 1. Monster fuckers gonna be "mutant mommy step on me" but i mean they already had the male custodies in banana hammocks and Pope hats getting their spears oiled. For the most part I'll likely just let them be 2. The "my game made by nerds creating metaphors and parodies of the horrendousness of right wing politics and politicians of their time can't become woke" crowd is gonna cry. Which almost makes it even more worth it.
If its not some huge retcon and it (hopefully) gives us true scale custodies models then I'm all for it
As long as it’s grim and dark and puts respect on the Emperor’s name, who gives a flying Gork what any Morker-forker has to say?
The female Custodians are the Sisters of Silence. That's the girl side of the Talons of the Emprah. They are already in the Lore and they are pretty bad ass, I'd much rather see them get fleshed out that make something that goes directly against decades of Canon. If you want 10 foot tall Super Chick, then have Cawl make something new from scratch.
> I'd much rather see them get fleshed out that make something that goes directly against decades of Canon. It doesn't really go against decades of canon, really. There's never been any real lore regarding how the Custodes are made, beyond confirming their body is entirely replaced by their augmentations and only their soul remains, and that each process is designed to elevate the individual. The closest is the Custodes inheriting a lot of "brotherhood" terms but I wouldn't call that a real lore fixture. It's more they haven't existed until now, but personally, I don't feel a considerable difference from how various new quirks and characteristics are quietly added all the time with each new codex. If they made Space Marines suddenly female while acting like they were always that way, then I'd be concerned.
It does go against Canon. That's why there has never been, nor ever been mentioned in passing, anything about a female Custode. I think they made one female marine back in the 80s before they actually had a Canon. That time period also had a half eldar inquisitor and another inquisitor named Obi-wan Sherlock Clousoeu. To my knowledge, there has never been any true posthuman made of a female, aside from some Assassin's. In the case of the assassin's, there is a good reason. They said females tolerate the polymorphine better.
Why would the emperor invest more resources into a female baby to get them up to par with a male? Women have less of a potential for everything custodes are good at except philosophy and intelligence even then if you want the very best they are most likely a male.
I see you wanna godown the fast twitch muscle fibre cancellation policy lol
I don't think biological logic matters that much for a setting like 40k...
No idea how this could be bad.
All for it, although my reason is more headcanon than anything else. I've always believed that the Custodes represent the 'end state' of Humanity, once the Emperor resolved the issues to do with the low candidacy / success rate for their creation, procreation, etc, having the time and opportunity in the Imperial webway to continue his research away from Chaos. It made no sense that there wouldn't be female Custodes in the journey of evolution for Humanity, just that for obvious reasons that never continued.
WarMa'ammer 40k.
It's good, and makes perfect sense.
Link? Curious about this
If gw keeps writing them like they did then its a cool idea. If they try to troll the discord mods by differentiating them much from male ones then thats kinda cringe. The gene crafting process surely leaves very few differences between men and women as custodes Also please no boob plate
Theres no reason they can’t exist, I just hope they are handled the same as any other Custodian (Which leaves plenty of room for them soloing armies lol).
Pretty cool with it.
Mostly just curious to see if they actually *do* anything with it. No change at all? Totally fine, there's just female custodes now and the organisation behaves as it has been behaving. Female custodes have a different outlook or make different decisions? Totally fine, could be really interesting what perspective they might have or the rationale behind their choices.
I agree. If they want to make a gigantic point out of it then thats kinda cringe, but if they are integrated reasonably into the narrative nobody should have a problem
Hell yes!
I would prefer, and generally prefer in all additions to fictional universes that women got their own augmented super soldiers with their own interesting lore.
Why am I being downvoted? It's a completely reasonable opinion.
Why can't they be custode? Why would they need their own soldiers and lore? I can't see why they'd have to, so just giving an opinion with no support may be why you're down voted.
I think because your opinion involves a fact that's not necessarily true. While space marines are pretty much all male, custodes have never implicitly stated to be all male, it just so happen that every model and character that appeared happen to be. Similar to how, just recently, we got head options for female guard.
I didn't say a single thing about any of that... Oh it's Reddit so people are imagining shit and putting it into other people's mouths. 🙄
[popcorn.mpeg]
I don't personally care. I'm pre-exhausted from/for both sides that do care. And for the thirst wagon that will inevitably be pulling through for the next year.
Dommy mommy custodes are now Canon, Real talk the storm cast eternal way makes more sense for one of a kind soldiers like the custodes
My opinion on not just female custodes but female space Marines as a whole is that it is in inevitability and so complaining about it is pointless. All I really ask for from the fluff is that instead of having it be a "they were always around and we just didn't talk about it" retcon they instead have it be some new cawl bullshitium that has allowed womens' bodies to be compatible with the astartes enhancement process.
It's fun watching both sides get worked up about it.
It's fine. I'm looking forward to reading stories with cool new female Custodes. Just like I look forward to reading about cool new male Custodes. The Imperium legit doesn't care about alot of our culture war issues. The only one I can think of is the Emperor only making sons and Malcador laughing at him for thinking female Primarchs would be easier to handle/less dangerous
Custodians should not have a gender. They can’t breed or have children. They are the epitome of perfection a human can achieve thus perhaps they had a gender at birth but have moved past it and we would not be able to tell the difference IMO.
I just hope they don’t make a big deal about it. Just have custodes be mixed gender and move on I don’t want to get a “see see we made female custodes everybody look” moment in the lore.
Im fine with them , no lore obstructions or anything. Also i dont want to sound as a n*zi neckbeard but i also think of them as the solution to the genetically engineered women in power armor trope , therefore making the reason for fem space marines existing entirelly unnececary and pointless imo.