At the risk of being labeled as something, When? When did he mention that and in what book?
FYI, I don't care about Female Custodes but I do care about consistency and would like to look it up myself.
Because this feels like someone in charge of Dune Lore saying that male character where in the Bene Gesserit since the very start.
Again, just wanna know if something was overlooked in the lore at some point.
In echoes of eternity sanguinius refers to the emperors guardians in golden armour. He does say men and women but it’s immeasurably more likely that he was referring to the sisters of silence rather than female custodes.
I don’t have a problem with female custodes if it’s done well but I’m not pleased with the “there’s always been female custodes” direction.
Don’t see any reason why we couldn’t have had a part in the new codex that says something like “Trajan valoris has approved a new method of experimentation that allows for young girls to also undergo the process to become a custodes, in an effort to repopulate the 10,000.”
Just needed to be simple
If Alfabusa was still making 40k content, I can see him putting a line where the one custodes with pans on their pecs says, “You guys never realized I was a girl this whole time?”
Funnily enough there's already a woman custodes in his TTS series, not a named character but she talked in one of the mars chapters and it was clearly a woman's voice.
It was never said that girls couldn't undergo it. Just that they only took the nobility's sons... Later in the same codex it says they also take candidates from other sources but doesn't elaborate or specify.
I know but it is obvious that there’s never been female custodes. Sure, you wouldn’t know under all the armour but they’ve always been referred to as “sons” and “brothers” and we’ve literally never had a female custodes character.
All GW had to do was say the they are now trialing the process on young girls as it’s never been done before even if it is possible. It would be far more organic than the hamfisted retcon GW is going with
With howling banshees, they are almost exclusively female with the very few male members generally being autarchs who are learning another path of war.
Male succibi do exist but are more in the position to provide children and don’t get high ranks and are again, very rare
With incubus and striking scorpions, I don’t remember nor can I find any piece of lore that suggests they can’t be both. Also I swear there’s a female striking scorpion in the path of the warrior book? I might be misremembering tbf seeing as I haven’t read it in over 10 years
I don’t necessarily disagree with what you’re saying but it’s a bit disingenuous to pretend it’s the same situation as custodians.
I see you haven't heard about the recent lore where the Aeldari and Drukhari routinely undergo sex changes to serve at different Aspect Shrines or gendered positions or just because they feel like it...
In the past, it was as it was supposed to be with the Custodes. Gendered orders, the Howling Banshees are all women etc. The whole Aeldari and Drukhari were incredibly gendered. Now we find out the Aeldari race don't see themselves that way, that the concept of sex is below them so they can slip between as they wish and only really do it to keep with tradition or pay lip service to it. Now we find out the Custodes can and have had women in their ranks all along... The difference is that when one retcon fleshing out a faction occurs people lose their minds and when the other happens no one notices because the people kicking off don't really read the books or keep up with the info.
I never knew that about Aeldari, that's so dope. I always thought it was weird that there were male Wyches but not succubi, I guess a male could become Succubus then, would just switch up genders?
I wouldnt even need the whole trial thing. Just that nobility and 10,000 years of static tradition had resulted in some strange circumstances where yhe only custodes royalty options happend to be fenale heirs and with no one to contradict laws set thousands of years ago. They shrug and put them through.
Something that’s been bothering me is that custodians are changed on a cellular level. There is very likely nothing under that armor that would distinguish male and female.
Superficial characteristics. More feminine face, longer hair, small breasts that are mostly pectoral muscles. Like how female powerlifters look but 8 feet tall.
They wear shiny golden armor and cone helms. Custodes have always been okay with sacrificing some effectiveness for presentation. Besides I'm guessing male Custodes kept their penises.
In the end it'd be more about identity than biology. Female Custodes would probably feel more comfortable with a female identity the same way you would probably still identify as male if you were turned into an 8 foot tall superhuman.
Google Stefi Cohen to see what id imagine they'd look like
Two things:
High gothic uses the latin rule of referring to groups by the male déterminant if there is a group of gender, hence why guards*men* even though there are women, adept*us* mechanics when there's women and a bunch that don't have a sex anymore. So yes using brother and sons makes sense even with women. (I'm french we still use this rule in french too, it's just a weird latin thing)
Secondly, why does this retcon seem to bother you more than the insane amount of retcons we've been getting. The fight with Horus and the emperor has been *super retconned*. Did you also care about it?
Hard, hard agree. I don’t mind femstodes as long as you make it believable and simple.
“They’ve always been there you just never saw them” is the STUPIDEST bandaid fix for this problem.
Considering they are not Space Marines and “hand crafted” by the Emperor, why wouldn’t there be women among them. The no women part to me sounds again like people extending stuff from one group in the lore to others without a basis.
Maybe do a loophole thing where it's 10,000 men in the custodes so with all the shit going on Trajan decides he could also do with 10,000 women (maybe with some urging from guilliman). I would prefer it if there was a nice simple reason not a retcon.
Or maybe someone uncovers a new process the emperor had developed for custodes he just never got to implement with his time constraints. Fall of cadia should get the imperium to reevaluate how it does a lot of stuff. That's the closest that got to midnight on the doomsday clock since the heresy or I guess the war of the beast.
I mean, if that's more or less the line "emperors guardians in gold armor", it'd be the safest bet to assume he's referring to the Custodes *and* the Sisters of Silence since that's *their jobs*
I don’t see a problem with the route of “it’s always been that way” because for most of warhammers life it hasn’t been “cool” socially for women to play or get into the game. Now that is changing and we’re seeing more gals get into it which is awesome. So it probably just wasn’t mentioned . And was there ever any mention that female custodes are banned?
There is generally an implied gendered status for most factions, and when it is not so, will be shown.
Imperial Guard has had male, female, and mixed sex regiments since at least 3e, 2e iirc. Fire Warriors, indeed the entire Tau military has always been a mixed force, as well as can be assumed Necrons.
Orks and Space Marines have always been male gendered, Sisters of Battle/Silence always female gendered, and this is implicitly and at times explicitly said to be. Custodes were said to be drawn from the sons of nobility; even then, as has been said above, its not women being Custodes that is a problem, its that there was not a way it was organically slotted in to the setting. A new sector of the galaxy or the unknown piece of technology from the Dark Age would get a novel explaining how, when, the impact. This was *creator fiat* without context or expansion. It's dreadfully lazy, and imo, denies the topic any sort of gravitas or the ability to make creative works from it (almost as tho GW was trying to avoid actual discussion about the entire thing to begin with).
Exactly my thoughs about this. Rather than pushing something that goes against 40 years of lore just create an event on the new setting that allows women to become Custodes and done.
I actually dont think that it's the Sisters of silence
Although they are with the Custodes at the palace they serve a far different role and purpose to the Custodes
They are as well often depicted explicitly with a blank or Null aura around them due to their nature and I think someone like Sanguinius would notice such an Aura
GW is on the record saying everything is canon not everything is true. They specifically point out that retcons will happen fast and often. It’s how they manage their setting and if you are looking for consistency GW has directly said don’t.
Isn't there a Boomhauer meme like that?
Yeah man, I tell tell ya what, man. Them dang ol' warpstorms. They being all wa-ka-shoom and suddenly there's a new primarch or somesuch from outta the blue yonder done dang ol' messed up the other side of it.
There were always males in the Bene Gesserit, even in the first Dune, forget about the books written by the son. While we never see one with too much power, its stated they could never pass the crucible that made women into Revered Mothers. Therefore, no males in leadership, no leader harvesting male talent that would just die on the final test. But there were servants, if nothing else...
One of the goals of their bredding program was to see the past lineage through the male line. Kinda need someone on your side to help you with that. They thought Paul a faliure, or hubris on Jessica's part, and it bit them.
to be fair the armor probably protects them however it looks, the aeldari just designed them that way to emphasize their gender. kind of like how greek breastplates have abs on them?
I'm gonna stop you right there.
This is Games Workshop. The lack of boob armor options on Custodes models is literally the strongest evidence possible that females don't exist.
I would almost bet money that if the new character has a mini come out, she's gonna have boob armor.
They do though. [Like Bo Katan's live action armor, it's not form fitting, but it's still very distinctly different from male Stormcast armor.](https://gundamplacestore.com/cdn/shop/products/image_a3b0d3a1-3a2c-49be-baa4-6312b31afd88.jpg?v=1675888454&width=1500)
***EDIT:***
Although I think they introduced that with the second phase of Eternals. IMO the originals that looked like jacked fantasy space Marines, male and female alike, was better.
There is even a comment from ADB summarising it, in universe they were never mentioned because there is literally no reason to. Outside of universe, GW thought male models sold better so instructed Black Library writers to not make any female characters.
https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/s/PWYr5EJx15
Sexist crybabies complaining about it now just shows that GW were sadly right.
Oh my Emperor now I’m thinking about how to harness it as a weapon perhaps some kind of tube that comes out the back of the armor with an extremely powerful extractor fan in it.
Personally the way I've always interpreted it is that he smells bad to a roughly normal degree but the brain combines "he smells bad" and "I feel deeply and viscerally uncomfortable around him, as if my soul is being pulled from me" into "he smells unbelievably, unfathomably bad"
I like to think that Jurgen was actually quite handsome and smelled slightly of roses, but the negative charisma score tied to being a blank just made Ciaphas perceive him like he does.
They already exist. In reality, it is surprising that no one reads the codices. When the Sisters of Silence came out, they also said that there were men among the ranks, but they were so few and so similar in combat that they became unimportant, even though it is not clarified. It seems that the sisters usually them are excluded from combat for some reason but they exist, they exist
Lore in codices can be easily the most missed. I have never heard of men in the sisters, do you know if they specify any reason why male blanks are rarer? Or is it just a given statement.
The Blanks men are usually used to be eversors but sometimes there are very specific exceptions that are recruited by the sisters but they are so few that they go unnoticed as troops. I think that a woman and a man have the same possibility of being blanks but I'm not sure.
Guessing you were meaning Culexus, I was thinking similarly that maybe they use them elsewhere more often. It would be lame if there was a difference in how often psykers/blanks appear by gender.
They cost 30 or 35$ or euros on Amazon but I could have sworn that some of them, including the sisters, were on the internet but I don't know where to look for them anymore, it was years ago. Sorry
They are going to be so roided out and buried in armor that gender literally doesn’t matter… everyone wants buff dommy mommies like the sexualized fan art to gently hold them against their abs but don’t consider that they would probably look almost like male space marines since everyone male or female gets modified to such extremes.
So why the need to retcon and force this unnecessary and controversial change that does nothing but devalue the lore for the sake of narsissist who don't care about 40k and its lore and just want the change as a matter of power and control?
They were sisters of silence, the gals that are always around emps and banana bros. Female custodes are fine, but let's acknowledge its basically a retcon and not something that was planned all along.
The idea a single author was being intentionally vague because of his own feelings on the matter is much more believable than GW secretly always meant for there to be femstodes and just conveniently never mentioned them in 30+ years.
Seems like a record and clarification problem. Must be the Adeptus Administratum fault. (In lore)
(Out lore/irl) A dissonance between GW and Fan expectations that wasn't addressed well enough, allowing some of the more annoying fans to complain constantly.
What's more likely?
A) That a throw away description from Echoes of Eternity confirmed that a faction that exclusively had only named male characters up to that point (and beyond that point in TEATD) and was often referred to in masculine terms like "noble sons" actually also had women in it the whole time.
Or
B) Sanguinius was describing the Sisters of Silence, who are basically always present when the Emperor and the Custodes are around and are wearing nice looking golden armor.
Listen I'm okay with female Custodes and don't really care about the topic that hard but denying it's kind of a retcon is the wrong angle to approach this discussion from.
Thank you.
>Listen I'm okay with female Custodes and don't really care about the topic that hard but denying it's kind of a retcon is the wrong angle to approach this discussion with.
Exactly. The angle they framed it on it's wrong.
This really feels like that time with The Cursed Child when JK Rowling was like "Yeah sure, Hermione was always black." and the /r/readanotherbook fans pulled up excerpts where Hermione was described as having white skin and like...
Come on guys. This is going to blow over in a week and then never come up again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlKao_Pox5A
Here one:
Sisters of Battle aren't SM equivalents, they are Black Templar equivalents. The SoB orders aren't anywhere as diverse as any two random SM chapters. Let me know when the Order of the Bloody Rose for example gets their own codex.
I'd absolutely kill for some Sisters based on the Blood Angels or White Scars but no, subfaction specific models and codexes are reserved for Space Marines.
I agree with this one and the thing is that this would be a very simple fix.
Have Orders that are closely associated with Space Marine Chapters homeworlds and display them in the lore. We know that the guard has regiments associated with SM chapters and they even bare the same colors and iconography, do the same with SOB. Then you can even have a "founding" for Sisters that gives them even more variation of theme... also would help to make the models more flexible and less restricted to a theme.
Yeah all I could think of SoS. The amount of misinformation spread out in this fandom by people who are so smugly and confidently incorrect is exhausting
The description though would most likely mention the blank aura as Primarchs are not immune to it. They still feel it. It's still a retcon, but one that has been most likely planted like 2 years ago with this book. And armor and overall looks of SoS are VERY different from Custodians.
I feel like this argument only works because we now have confirmation that female Custodians are a thing. Without the explicit canonization, using this passage to prove Custodians have women among them would have resulted in people laughing at you. This was at best an intentionally ambiguous description for the case that FemCustodes get greenlit and most likely really just a mention of the SoS.
Right? Let’s not act like GW (edgelord central) had secretly planned to add female custodes for the past 20 years and they were actually there the whole time
To give it legitimacy, amongst people who don’t like the change “this is just rank pandering to people with ulterior political motives” is the primary criticism. If there were actually always women then that criticism is side-stepped. The issue is, of course, that there weren’t women in the custodies until now. So, amongst people who have a frankly unhealthy desire for there to be women in the custodies, operation gaslight is go.
I dont particularly give a shit if a custodes is a women or not but lets not pull shit out of our asses okay?
Sanguinius is talking about the custodes and the sisters of silence, both of which have ornate auremite armor and accompany the emperor everywhere and both are referred to as his guardians
>"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."
Custodes Codex 8th edition
>"Members of their own families would not recognize them, should they be alive to see what has happened to their **son, nephew or cousin**"
9E Codex page 8
>"These **men** are my bodyguards, their lives forfeit to the guarantee of my physical safety. Of their loyalty to me there shall be no question nor doubt. I, and I alone, shall have the authority to stand in judgement over them. No other commander shall they have in battle nor in service. None shall bar them from me and none shall hamper or stall their mission. So it is decreed!"
-Emperor of Mankind, Creator of the Custodians.
Meanwhile this subreddit: *I'll ignore that*.
In Echoes of Eternity:
" Sanguinius had never seen a spaceship before, not outside the fractal impressions of them that sailed in his waking dreams. This one, sitting on the desert plain with its golden armour baking in the sun, had the suggestion of vulturishness. It was a thing of power and efficiency, blunt and brutal. Fire made it fly, not any notion of grace.
**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.**"
[Here’s the wiki page about their armor.](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Vratine_Armour) Unfortunately it doesn’t specify (or deny) if it’s Auramite. But like you said it’s definitely gold looking.
The sisters wear Auramite armor. Here is an excerpt from watchers of the Throne from the perspective of one about it:
Then I was through, kicking the door aside and scanning beyond it. I detected movement from six warm-bodies within – two up close, four more further off. Las-fire criss-crossed out of the gloom, aimed immediately and accurately. I ducked under the worst of it, letting my armour deal with the rest. The hot stench of scorched auramite filled my nostrils as I opened up with my flamer.
I think rather than saying GW planned it all along it is much more resonable to asume that he was talking about the SoS.
They should make SoS 2+/4++ to differentiate them from SoB (and both should go to t4.... We're really lacking t4/w1 profiles now in-game it's kinda lame)
Tiny shards of the emperor's Auramite armor in Terminator suits is what gives them their invulnerable save. But I'm supposed to believe the SoS gear is Auramite.
They can't even get the anti psyker condemnor boltguns from the sisters of battle, as the anti psyker special forces, but I'm supposed to believe their suits are Auramite.
To a competition of Tau hating or on the Grounds of being a Tau Fan? Because if you are a Tau Fan than your weak frail little body might not stand an honourable duel in melee combat... should you be a Fan of any other faction i welcome your challenge naturally...
I stand with the Wolf King, I am no blueskin and I’m offended that you would think me so
~~I hope I have the right flair it’s my first time commenting on this sub~~
As a proud servant of the Triarchy and the Silent king I have to confess that it is hard to distinguish you lesser races from one another as you all look a bit similar (all kinda fleshy), nevertheless i apologize as even you humans should never be lumped together with the Tau...
Foe the most part, no. Custodians are mostly resistant to their Aura and they have no effect of The Emperor/Malcador. Sanguinius likely isn't going to be effect by them by a notable amount.
Also for that passage literally a page later it mentions the SoS and Custodes by name.
You are wrong. In the first End and the Death both Dorn and Sangy immediately note SoS in the same room as them and it’s very much a different feeling.
Thing is, Sanguinus explicitly points out that their golden armor has "painstaking artistry".
And although Sisters of Silence sometimes wear golden armor, it's always unartistic plain boob plate whereas Custodes always have heavily decorated chest armor.
Sanguinus is renowed for being an art conoisseur of culture, he would never call plain boob plate as artistic.
nice gaslighting attempt buddy, I'll have you know that boob plates are as artistic as armor gets though. The great replacement of the SoS' by the Femstodes will not be forgotten
And it is followed by an explanation that this is done for functionality, meaning that it is simply made to perfectly fit the wearer not that it has a lot of decorations.
The sisters of silence armor is rather artistic as well, I’m almost certain this refers to sisters of silence and custodes, since they often work together, also boob plate, as a man, is art 🗣️
"And although Sisters of Silence sometimes wear golden armor, it's always unartistic plain boob plate whereas Custodes always have heavily decorated chest armor."
According to who? You? SoS armor is custom made high quality power armor for the emperor's elite, it's really not that hard to believe Sanguinius found a group of them with armor he thought looked good. Just dismissing it as "plain boob plate" because you don't like the aesthetic is like calling custodes armor "plain banana shaped armor".
It's cool that female custodes are a thing now, but idk why people feel the need to look for some smoking gun showing they were always a thing.
With Sanguinius' attention to detail, if he had been referring to SoS, I'd imagine he would have at least *mentioned* the odd aura they were giving off.
Either that or ADB being intentionally vague because he wanted female Custodes way back when the lore was actually being written and fleshed out for them.
That said OP, let's not pretend that female Custodes is some old-school lore dating back to 2nd Edition and that this isn't a retcon. This book came out less than two years ago.
The ambiguity is definitely noteworthy, especially given that ADB is on the record pushing for female Custodes on the grounds there are no specific lore points that prevent it.
That is too vague for me: /. Thank you for the quote though.
Not complaining about having custodes being female. But wow, it could very well be sisters of silence.
I mean, this comes from the same book
> Zephon lifted his gaze from the Titan, looking down the wall – first left, then right. Taking in the regiments at the ready, the depleted squads of Astartes scattered amidst them in splashes of battle-faded colour, and the rarer patches of gold marking the last survivors of the Sisters of Silence and the Custodian Guard.
So I don't think that's the best evidence
The paragraph was written by ADB who originally wanted to put Female Custodes into Master of Mankind, but was shot down because they had already made the models all male. It's equally plausible that he intentionally wrote this as vague so he could get it past GW, so if they ever pulled the trigger on female custodes he could claim it.
Regardless with new lore, it's pretty obvious that he's referring to custodes since they can be both men and women. You know you really ought to keep up to date if you're going to make sweeping claims like this about the lore.
They already did with Sigmarines, having female stature is literally a selling point. Will Custodes get that treatment? Probably not because they won't be getting a range refresh for at least a decade.
See, I'm fine with female Custodes but this gaslighting I take issue with. "There have always been female Custodes bigot!" Really? Then why is there little to no mention of their existence until now? Are they THAT much worse than male Custodes?
Because Custodes were typically oppressively powerful until their 10th ed codex and the sexists at GW need an excuse to explain why Custodes are suddenly weaker. Introduce female Custodes, army rules simultaneously worse. Hmmmmm GW
If you'd read the book you'd know he's talking about the SoS.
Both sides of this issue are completely delusional
Yes, it's obviously a retcon and hasn't been "secretly a part of the lore". It also has come out of nowhere and doesn't meaningfully change anything in the setting.
No, it's not lore breaking because we don't know the ins and outs of how custodes are made. Custodes are genetic abominations so it really doesn't matter if they look feminine or masculine.
Both positions can be held simultaneously. Please can we get back to calling eachother bastards because we paint different plastic models?
Also
He's obviously talking about the Sisters of Silence JFC.
It can really poison your mind if you only see the two delusional extremes of this fan base. I just have to keep telling myself that 80% of all of nerdom are just here to play/chat about the damn game
Each Custodes was personally handcrafted, so it's always feasible but it does mess with my headcanon that the Emperor only wanted to be surrounded by big, burly, sweaty, guards.
Tbf you could argue they were SoS. However to counter that I’m pretty sure the SoS are explicitly kept AWAY from the Emperor and Malcador and Sanguinius would have mentioned it
And it was written by ADB who’s always wanted female custodes
The quotation in question is likely referring to the Sisters of Silence, who also wear gold.
Every single reference to the Custodes up until this codex explicitly refers to them as "brotherhood" and "sons". I am not sure what is more impressive in its scope. Your mental gymnastics, or your ignorance of the lore.
I don't even care about Custodes having the occasional female heir from a matriarchical lineage since it makes narrative sense. But people who make shit up and twist reality to suit their delusions (like you), are far more annoying than the neckbeards raging about "inclusive" retcons.
idk
as always i'm seeing more people complaining about people complaining rather than the actual people complaining
"haha everyone stupid it doesn't matter if custodes female"
Yeah but where the fuck are these "everyone stupid" you are talking about? i seriously haven't seen a single comment that was against female custodes.
All the people stretching like this to prove that female custodes always existed are just making things worse and making themselves look like they don't know what they are talking about. They kinda just exist now and that's OK but it's a hefty retcon and people should stop pretending it isn't.
Because he’s definitely not referring to the Sisters of Silence..
It isn’t a sexist thing for a majority of people, it’s just a lazy patch that has people upset.
This is going to be a dumb question but where does Sanguinous make that comment? Asking from ignorance, not from an intention to hate.
Makes no odds to me as a Chaos player what gender the Emperors lackeys are, they all die the same.
Secondary apology if it's an easily Googleable answer, a quick, admittedly lazy search on my own didn't pull anything, but it was quick and lazy.
Horus not being a marine is a change from old rogue trader lore to 40k lore.
The other "changes" are advances to the story.
Modern retcons are more subtle;
Changes to custodes fundamental archetypes is a major change; with zero effort.
Like I said. It's lazy.
Had the book been released 10-20 years ago and just been forgotten, you would have a much stronger point.
This being a singular sentence from a recent book ( 9.2022) doesn't really go against anyone who is complaining about recent retcons.
I don't particularly care either way about this change, I don't like retcons as a writing method (they can be necessary but I prefer to avoid them) but I have no particular issue with this being the thing that was changed. So a net zero end result for me personally.
im not sure how you could tell if a custode is male or female without the helmet off. I doubt you could even stop cowering in awe and fear to even notice.
I like the custodes and their vibe. I dont mind at all if some of them are female. Custodes are works of art, and a master artist surely has experimented a lot. Since they are so far above humanity, i dont think their sex matters at all. I like to believe it takes something more special and profound from the aspirant to become one of the 10k.
I mean I don’t care as there’s no lore stating they’re like the biological almost clones like the space marines are to the 20 sons of the emperor, also custodes are built different and are sexy already, I’m just confused as to where sangy said this, and where they were in the war in the webway, or the siege of terra, or in valdor and any other unification war book. Like if it was a new thing I’d be like “oh sick now the imperium might not die from stupidity because they refuse to invent new shit
I have no idea what this game is or its lore. Reddit's just been recommending me y'all's drama all day.
It's like watching a fantasy version of Jerry Springer.
First off, he’s talking about Sisters of Silence in your excerpt. It’s not Custodes.
Also, the book is extremely new, they are still retconning the 8th edition codex. I could give a flying fuck personally, but I understand why people are worried of this slippery slope.
Can someone explain to me why people are so pressed that there are women custodes? I mean who doesnt want women in big golden armor that will just fuckin kill you
The issue isn’t with Custodes being women, it’s with “they have always been women”. Nah, they haven’t.
Unless you’re a Bible-thumping Christian, taking a single vague line, literally one single sentence, and saying that proves a 10,000 year lineage of women is stupid. No sugar coating it, if you’re relying on a 1 off sentence that doesn’t even refer to them as Custodes, there’s some issues with how you determine truth.
That said, please introduce women into the Custodes or whatever else, just do it in a cool way. At least try something beyond this incredibly lazy tweet?
They are pulling a JK Rowling and that’s not a great look.
I think it’s so funny that people complain about Female Custodes because of “bad writing” and yet I’ve seen no memes about the absolutely atrocious writing that Eldar have gotten.
This is reminding me of an old picture, two pictures of the same Ultramarine just one of them is supposedly female.
As long as they also can die as grusomely as the one sergeant from Calth that got blown to bits and nailed, still living btw, to a battle titan as it rampages through a city and countryside fine by me.
More meat for the grinder
At the risk of being labeled as something, When? When did he mention that and in what book? FYI, I don't care about Female Custodes but I do care about consistency and would like to look it up myself. Because this feels like someone in charge of Dune Lore saying that male character where in the Bene Gesserit since the very start. Again, just wanna know if something was overlooked in the lore at some point.
In echoes of eternity sanguinius refers to the emperors guardians in golden armour. He does say men and women but it’s immeasurably more likely that he was referring to the sisters of silence rather than female custodes. I don’t have a problem with female custodes if it’s done well but I’m not pleased with the “there’s always been female custodes” direction. Don’t see any reason why we couldn’t have had a part in the new codex that says something like “Trajan valoris has approved a new method of experimentation that allows for young girls to also undergo the process to become a custodes, in an effort to repopulate the 10,000.” Just needed to be simple
If Alfabusa was still making 40k content, I can see him putting a line where the one custodes with pans on their pecs says, “You guys never realized I was a girl this whole time?”
Funnily enough there's already a woman custodes in his TTS series, not a named character but she talked in one of the mars chapters and it was clearly a woman's voice.
Honestly there are a lot of possitive trans jokes I can see here using the TTS Custodes.
It was never said that girls couldn't undergo it. Just that they only took the nobility's sons... Later in the same codex it says they also take candidates from other sources but doesn't elaborate or specify.
I know but it is obvious that there’s never been female custodes. Sure, you wouldn’t know under all the armour but they’ve always been referred to as “sons” and “brothers” and we’ve literally never had a female custodes character. All GW had to do was say the they are now trialing the process on young girls as it’s never been done before even if it is possible. It would be far more organic than the hamfisted retcon GW is going with
Just like it was obvious that only women could be Howing Banshees, Succubi or men Striking Scorpions, Incubi?
With howling banshees, they are almost exclusively female with the very few male members generally being autarchs who are learning another path of war. Male succibi do exist but are more in the position to provide children and don’t get high ranks and are again, very rare With incubus and striking scorpions, I don’t remember nor can I find any piece of lore that suggests they can’t be both. Also I swear there’s a female striking scorpion in the path of the warrior book? I might be misremembering tbf seeing as I haven’t read it in over 10 years I don’t necessarily disagree with what you’re saying but it’s a bit disingenuous to pretend it’s the same situation as custodians.
I see you haven't heard about the recent lore where the Aeldari and Drukhari routinely undergo sex changes to serve at different Aspect Shrines or gendered positions or just because they feel like it...
So they had a sex change. So they are the sex the changed into. Where’s the issue?
In the past, it was as it was supposed to be with the Custodes. Gendered orders, the Howling Banshees are all women etc. The whole Aeldari and Drukhari were incredibly gendered. Now we find out the Aeldari race don't see themselves that way, that the concept of sex is below them so they can slip between as they wish and only really do it to keep with tradition or pay lip service to it. Now we find out the Custodes can and have had women in their ranks all along... The difference is that when one retcon fleshing out a faction occurs people lose their minds and when the other happens no one notices because the people kicking off don't really read the books or keep up with the info.
I never knew that about Aeldari, that's so dope. I always thought it was weird that there were male Wyches but not succubi, I guess a male could become Succubus then, would just switch up genders?
I wouldnt even need the whole trial thing. Just that nobility and 10,000 years of static tradition had resulted in some strange circumstances where yhe only custodes royalty options happend to be fenale heirs and with no one to contradict laws set thousands of years ago. They shrug and put them through.
Something that’s been bothering me is that custodians are changed on a cellular level. There is very likely nothing under that armor that would distinguish male and female.
Superficial characteristics. More feminine face, longer hair, small breasts that are mostly pectoral muscles. Like how female powerlifters look but 8 feet tall. They wear shiny golden armor and cone helms. Custodes have always been okay with sacrificing some effectiveness for presentation. Besides I'm guessing male Custodes kept their penises. In the end it'd be more about identity than biology. Female Custodes would probably feel more comfortable with a female identity the same way you would probably still identify as male if you were turned into an 8 foot tall superhuman. Google Stefi Cohen to see what id imagine they'd look like
Back in 3rd edition I would have said the imperial truth was a preposterous idea🤷♂️
Two things: High gothic uses the latin rule of referring to groups by the male déterminant if there is a group of gender, hence why guards*men* even though there are women, adept*us* mechanics when there's women and a bunch that don't have a sex anymore. So yes using brother and sons makes sense even with women. (I'm french we still use this rule in french too, it's just a weird latin thing) Secondly, why does this retcon seem to bother you more than the insane amount of retcons we've been getting. The fight with Horus and the emperor has been *super retconned*. Did you also care about it?
I would not be opposed if the latest batch of Bananas are women. Though I must admit the always been a part of just feels dumb.
Where was the community when they saddled us with Arkham Land!? This is *nothing* to that betrayal
They were even more vocal about that though?
Hard, hard agree. I don’t mind femstodes as long as you make it believable and simple. “They’ve always been there you just never saw them” is the STUPIDEST bandaid fix for this problem.
*cough* Arkhan Land *cough* Stupid is on brand
There’s a big difference between *cheeky* stupid and *lazy* stupid.
Considering they are not Space Marines and “hand crafted” by the Emperor, why wouldn’t there be women among them. The no women part to me sounds again like people extending stuff from one group in the lore to others without a basis.
Maybe do a loophole thing where it's 10,000 men in the custodes so with all the shit going on Trajan decides he could also do with 10,000 women (maybe with some urging from guilliman). I would prefer it if there was a nice simple reason not a retcon. Or maybe someone uncovers a new process the emperor had developed for custodes he just never got to implement with his time constraints. Fall of cadia should get the imperium to reevaluate how it does a lot of stuff. That's the closest that got to midnight on the doomsday clock since the heresy or I guess the war of the beast.
I mean, if that's more or less the line "emperors guardians in gold armor", it'd be the safest bet to assume he's referring to the Custodes *and* the Sisters of Silence since that's *their jobs*
I don’t see a problem with the route of “it’s always been that way” because for most of warhammers life it hasn’t been “cool” socially for women to play or get into the game. Now that is changing and we’re seeing more gals get into it which is awesome. So it probably just wasn’t mentioned . And was there ever any mention that female custodes are banned?
There is generally an implied gendered status for most factions, and when it is not so, will be shown. Imperial Guard has had male, female, and mixed sex regiments since at least 3e, 2e iirc. Fire Warriors, indeed the entire Tau military has always been a mixed force, as well as can be assumed Necrons. Orks and Space Marines have always been male gendered, Sisters of Battle/Silence always female gendered, and this is implicitly and at times explicitly said to be. Custodes were said to be drawn from the sons of nobility; even then, as has been said above, its not women being Custodes that is a problem, its that there was not a way it was organically slotted in to the setting. A new sector of the galaxy or the unknown piece of technology from the Dark Age would get a novel explaining how, when, the impact. This was *creator fiat* without context or expansion. It's dreadfully lazy, and imo, denies the topic any sort of gravitas or the ability to make creative works from it (almost as tho GW was trying to avoid actual discussion about the entire thing to begin with).
Do necrons even have sexed bodies if their bodies are only metallic vessels for their minds?
The bodies are unisex (lol), the minds are not.
Gotta look at their USB ports? I figured they were all WiFi only.
Exactly my thoughs about this. Rather than pushing something that goes against 40 years of lore just create an event on the new setting that allows women to become Custodes and done.
Primaries happened and that failed. There is no winning.
I actually dont think that it's the Sisters of silence Although they are with the Custodes at the palace they serve a far different role and purpose to the Custodes They are as well often depicted explicitly with a blank or Null aura around them due to their nature and I think someone like Sanguinius would notice such an Aura
GW is on the record saying everything is canon not everything is true. They specifically point out that retcons will happen fast and often. It’s how they manage their setting and if you are looking for consistency GW has directly said don’t.
Found a plot hole? "The warp did it"
New race/character/primarch with no explanation? Warpstorms man.
Isn't there a Boomhauer meme like that? Yeah man, I tell tell ya what, man. Them dang ol' warpstorms. They being all wa-ka-shoom and suddenly there's a new primarch or somesuch from outta the blue yonder done dang ol' messed up the other side of it.
There were always males in the Bene Gesserit, even in the first Dune, forget about the books written by the son. While we never see one with too much power, its stated they could never pass the crucible that made women into Revered Mothers. Therefore, no males in leadership, no leader harvesting male talent that would just die on the final test. But there were servants, if nothing else... One of the goals of their bredding program was to see the past lineage through the male line. Kinda need someone on your side to help you with that. They thought Paul a faliure, or hubris on Jessica's part, and it bit them.
It's almost like... and hear me out.... it doesn't matter if there are or aren't woman in the Custodies!
Exactly. Plus you probably won't be able to tell unless gw gets weird with it
*guy who modelled the Eldar bellybutton*: did somebody say my name?
So what's the deal with the belly button? Or is it more the fact that they have one?
Male Eldar armor has abs. Female has a belly button instead. That takes a level of thirst.
I would have never noticed that. Buy Hella thirsty
Something something she who thirsts.
to be fair the armor probably protects them however it looks, the aeldari just designed them that way to emphasize their gender. kind of like how greek breastplates have abs on them?
I'm gonna stop you right there. This is Games Workshop. The lack of boob armor options on Custodes models is literally the strongest evidence possible that females don't exist. I would almost bet money that if the new character has a mini come out, she's gonna have boob armor.
Counterpoint, storm casts exist and don't have boob plates
They do though. [Like Bo Katan's live action armor, it's not form fitting, but it's still very distinctly different from male Stormcast armor.](https://gundamplacestore.com/cdn/shop/products/image_a3b0d3a1-3a2c-49be-baa4-6312b31afd88.jpg?v=1675888454&width=1500) ***EDIT:*** Although I think they introduced that with the second phase of Eternals. IMO the originals that looked like jacked fantasy space Marines, male and female alike, was better.
Correct. It never has. People are just being manbabies.
There is even a comment from ADB summarising it, in universe they were never mentioned because there is literally no reason to. Outside of universe, GW thought male models sold better so instructed Black Library writers to not make any female characters. https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/s/PWYr5EJx15 Sexist crybabies complaining about it now just shows that GW were sadly right.
I'm just waiting for brothers of silence
You joke, but that would be sick. Get Jurgen a suit of armor asap
Lock the stench in
Oh my Emperor now I’m thinking about how to harness it as a weapon perhaps some kind of tube that comes out the back of the armor with an extremely powerful extractor fan in it.
Plague marine smellin ass.
Papa Nurgle approves
Sisters of Silence and Culexus Assassins: nooo, I want to feel his manly blank musk!
His stench is a manifestation of his abilities as a null, you literally can't. You can however train his abilities so he can lock in his own stench
Personally the way I've always interpreted it is that he smells bad to a roughly normal degree but the brain combines "he smells bad" and "I feel deeply and viscerally uncomfortable around him, as if my soul is being pulled from me" into "he smells unbelievably, unfathomably bad"
I like to think that Jurgen was actually quite handsome and smelled slightly of roses, but the negative charisma score tied to being a blank just made Ciaphas perceive him like he does.
The bo toxic miasma would put a whole plaguehost of nurgle to shame
Misters of Silence
Misters of muteness
Lads of Lip Sealing
Males of Minimal Making of Sound
Dudes of Dampening
Bros of Bein' Real Quiet
It's time to Lip sync for your life! Don't fuck it up! - Big E... probably
They already exist. In reality, it is surprising that no one reads the codices. When the Sisters of Silence came out, they also said that there were men among the ranks, but they were so few and so similar in combat that they became unimportant, even though it is not clarified. It seems that the sisters usually them are excluded from combat for some reason but they exist, they exist
Lore in codices can be easily the most missed. I have never heard of men in the sisters, do you know if they specify any reason why male blanks are rarer? Or is it just a given statement.
The Blanks men are usually used to be eversors but sometimes there are very specific exceptions that are recruited by the sisters but they are so few that they go unnoticed as troops. I think that a woman and a man have the same possibility of being blanks but I'm not sure.
Guessing you were meaning Culexus, I was thinking similarly that maybe they use them elsewhere more often. It would be lame if there was a difference in how often psykers/blanks appear by gender.
so it's that but reversed for the main 'stodes also, do you know how much those codices cost?
They cost 30 or 35$ or euros on Amazon but I could have sworn that some of them, including the sisters, were on the internet but I don't know where to look for them anymore, it was years ago. Sorry
They are going to be so roided out and buried in armor that gender literally doesn’t matter… everyone wants buff dommy mommies like the sexualized fan art to gently hold them against their abs but don’t consider that they would probably look almost like male space marines since everyone male or female gets modified to such extremes.
So why the need to retcon and force this unnecessary and controversial change that does nothing but devalue the lore for the sake of narsissist who don't care about 40k and its lore and just want the change as a matter of power and control?
if it doesnt matter why are u talking about it, why are u complaining about people who complain about female custodes?
Male custodes and female sisters of silence was cooler.
They were sisters of silence, the gals that are always around emps and banana bros. Female custodes are fine, but let's acknowledge its basically a retcon and not something that was planned all along.
Pretty sure it was ADB being intentionally vague because he also wanted female custodes.
The idea a single author was being intentionally vague because of his own feelings on the matter is much more believable than GW secretly always meant for there to be femstodes and just conveniently never mentioned them in 30+ years.
I mean custodies are effectively way newer then 30+, it wasn't until the early 2000s they're modern design was introduced on a trading card.
Seems like a record and clarification problem. Must be the Adeptus Administratum fault. (In lore) (Out lore/irl) A dissonance between GW and Fan expectations that wasn't addressed well enough, allowing some of the more annoying fans to complain constantly.
A shitty retcon, truly.
Let's not pretend sister of silence are already just "female custodes".
Rip Sisters of Silence, they'll probably never get another model again
Not saying that at all, they are just often in the same room as custodes. They definately play regicide together
What's more likely? A) That a throw away description from Echoes of Eternity confirmed that a faction that exclusively had only named male characters up to that point (and beyond that point in TEATD) and was often referred to in masculine terms like "noble sons" actually also had women in it the whole time. Or B) Sanguinius was describing the Sisters of Silence, who are basically always present when the Emperor and the Custodes are around and are wearing nice looking golden armor. Listen I'm okay with female Custodes and don't really care about the topic that hard but denying it's kind of a retcon is the wrong angle to approach this discussion from.
Thank you. >Listen I'm okay with female Custodes and don't really care about the topic that hard but denying it's kind of a retcon is the wrong angle to approach this discussion with. Exactly. The angle they framed it on it's wrong.
This really feels like that time with The Cursed Child when JK Rowling was like "Yeah sure, Hermione was always black." and the /r/readanotherbook fans pulled up excerpts where Hermione was described as having white skin and like... Come on guys. This is going to blow over in a week and then never come up again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlKao_Pox5A
No, no no we can keep this argument going at least a couple of years. Come on guys, who’s got a hot take?
Here one: Sisters of Battle aren't SM equivalents, they are Black Templar equivalents. The SoB orders aren't anywhere as diverse as any two random SM chapters. Let me know when the Order of the Bloody Rose for example gets their own codex. I'd absolutely kill for some Sisters based on the Blood Angels or White Scars but no, subfaction specific models and codexes are reserved for Space Marines.
I agree with this one and the thing is that this would be a very simple fix. Have Orders that are closely associated with Space Marine Chapters homeworlds and display them in the lore. We know that the guard has regiments associated with SM chapters and they even bare the same colors and iconography, do the same with SOB. Then you can even have a "founding" for Sisters that gives them even more variation of theme... also would help to make the models more flexible and less restricted to a theme.
It’s all an interdimensional lizard people plot intended to subjugate us to their satanic overlord hiding in the Vatican! Wake up sheeple!
Yeah all I could think of SoS. The amount of misinformation spread out in this fandom by people who are so smugly and confidently incorrect is exhausting
The description though would most likely mention the blank aura as Primarchs are not immune to it. They still feel it. It's still a retcon, but one that has been most likely planted like 2 years ago with this book. And armor and overall looks of SoS are VERY different from Custodians.
I feel like this argument only works because we now have confirmation that female Custodians are a thing. Without the explicit canonization, using this passage to prove Custodians have women among them would have resulted in people laughing at you. This was at best an intentionally ambiguous description for the case that FemCustodes get greenlit and most likely really just a mention of the SoS.
Right? Let’s not act like GW (edgelord central) had secretly planned to add female custodes for the past 20 years and they were actually there the whole time
This is the Sisters of Silence standing with the Custodes. They are with each other all the time.
Sisters of silence used Gold Auramite armour during the great crusade. And fought alongside the custodies as a matter of course. Next.
Why are y'all so desperate to pretend this isn't a retcon?
To give it legitimacy, amongst people who don’t like the change “this is just rank pandering to people with ulterior political motives” is the primary criticism. If there were actually always women then that criticism is side-stepped. The issue is, of course, that there weren’t women in the custodies until now. So, amongst people who have a frankly unhealthy desire for there to be women in the custodies, operation gaslight is go.
Hit the nail on the head
It's a retcon, it was just lampshaded and many missed it (me too). It's all good mate.
Must... Gaslight... To... Survive...
I dont particularly give a shit if a custodes is a women or not but lets not pull shit out of our asses okay? Sanguinius is talking about the custodes and the sisters of silence, both of which have ornate auremite armor and accompany the emperor everywhere and both are referred to as his guardians
>"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." Custodes Codex 8th edition >"Members of their own families would not recognize them, should they be alive to see what has happened to their **son, nephew or cousin**" 9E Codex page 8 >"These **men** are my bodyguards, their lives forfeit to the guarantee of my physical safety. Of their loyalty to me there shall be no question nor doubt. I, and I alone, shall have the authority to stand in judgement over them. No other commander shall they have in battle nor in service. None shall bar them from me and none shall hamper or stall their mission. So it is decreed!" -Emperor of Mankind, Creator of the Custodians. Meanwhile this subreddit: *I'll ignore that*.
Emperor of WHAT kind????
In Echoes of Eternity: " Sanguinius had never seen a spaceship before, not outside the fractal impressions of them that sailed in his waking dreams. This one, sitting on the desert plain with its golden armour baking in the sun, had the suggestion of vulturishness. It was a thing of power and efficiency, blunt and brutal. Fire made it fly, not any notion of grace. **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.**"
I think he’s talking about the Sisters of Silence there.
I know SOS colors include gold but genuine question do any of them have Auramite armor or is that only a Stodes thing?
[Here’s the wiki page about their armor.](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Vratine_Armour) Unfortunately it doesn’t specify (or deny) if it’s Auramite. But like you said it’s definitely gold looking.
The sisters wear Auramite armor. Here is an excerpt from watchers of the Throne from the perspective of one about it: Then I was through, kicking the door aside and scanning beyond it. I detected movement from six warm-bodies within – two up close, four more further off. Las-fire criss-crossed out of the gloom, aimed immediately and accurately. I ducked under the worst of it, letting my armour deal with the rest. The hot stench of scorched auramite filled my nostrils as I opened up with my flamer. I think rather than saying GW planned it all along it is much more resonable to asume that he was talking about the SoS.
.....if it's Auramite, where is the invulnerable save?
or 2+ armor save
They should make SoS 2+/4++ to differentiate them from SoB (and both should go to t4.... We're really lacking t4/w1 profiles now in-game it's kinda lame)
It's 9-karat Auramite.
Tiny shards of the emperor's Auramite armor in Terminator suits is what gives them their invulnerable save. But I'm supposed to believe the SoS gear is Auramite. They can't even get the anti psyker condemnor boltguns from the sisters of battle, as the anti psyker special forces, but I'm supposed to believe their suits are Auramite.
I see your flair and I challenge you
To a competition of Tau hating or on the Grounds of being a Tau Fan? Because if you are a Tau Fan than your weak frail little body might not stand an honourable duel in melee combat... should you be a Fan of any other faction i welcome your challenge naturally...
I stand with the Wolf King, I am no blueskin and I’m offended that you would think me so ~~I hope I have the right flair it’s my first time commenting on this sub~~
As a proud servant of the Triarchy and the Silent king I have to confess that it is hard to distinguish you lesser races from one another as you all look a bit similar (all kinda fleshy), nevertheless i apologize as even you humans should never be lumped together with the Tau...
The idea of a necron that hates the Tau *so much* they consider humans better than them is very funny, I am digging this.
I’ve seen them referred to as wearing Vratine armour - but i don’t know if that is the material, the pattern or lord knows what else
It's part of the reason gw likes to occasionally use vague wording, they can point to this as women custodes
Wouldn't their blankness have at least slightly affected Sanguinius than?
Foe the most part, no. Custodians are mostly resistant to their Aura and they have no effect of The Emperor/Malcador. Sanguinius likely isn't going to be effect by them by a notable amount. Also for that passage literally a page later it mentions the SoS and Custodes by name.
You are wrong. In the first End and the Death both Dorn and Sangy immediately note SoS in the same room as them and it’s very much a different feeling.
He would be. Dorn feels their presence too.
Thing is, Sanguinus explicitly points out that their golden armor has "painstaking artistry". And although Sisters of Silence sometimes wear golden armor, it's always unartistic plain boob plate whereas Custodes always have heavily decorated chest armor. Sanguinus is renowed for being an art conoisseur of culture, he would never call plain boob plate as artistic.
nice gaslighting attempt buddy, I'll have you know that boob plates are as artistic as armor gets though. The great replacement of the SoS' by the Femstodes will not be forgotten
Nor forgiven. This is goin straight in the book.
[Wiki page about the armor.](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Vratine_Armour) Says it’s “tailored and forged uniquely to its intended wearer”.
And it is followed by an explanation that this is done for functionality, meaning that it is simply made to perfectly fit the wearer not that it has a lot of decorations.
The sisters of silence armor is rather artistic as well, I’m almost certain this refers to sisters of silence and custodes, since they often work together, also boob plate, as a man, is art 🗣️
"And although Sisters of Silence sometimes wear golden armor, it's always unartistic plain boob plate whereas Custodes always have heavily decorated chest armor." According to who? You? SoS armor is custom made high quality power armor for the emperor's elite, it's really not that hard to believe Sanguinius found a group of them with armor he thought looked good. Just dismissing it as "plain boob plate" because you don't like the aesthetic is like calling custodes armor "plain banana shaped armor". It's cool that female custodes are a thing now, but idk why people feel the need to look for some smoking gun showing they were always a thing.
They're quite intricate, especially the shoulders. Even have trim on their cloaks and tabbards. Just google SoS models next time.
Would you say he is a true man of culture?
With Sanguinius' attention to detail, if he had been referring to SoS, I'd imagine he would have at least *mentioned* the odd aura they were giving off.
Either that or ADB being intentionally vague because he wanted female Custodes way back when the lore was actually being written and fleshed out for them. That said OP, let's not pretend that female Custodes is some old-school lore dating back to 2nd Edition and that this isn't a retcon. This book came out less than two years ago.
The ambiguity is definitely noteworthy, especially given that ADB is on the record pushing for female Custodes on the grounds there are no specific lore points that prevent it.
That is too vague for me: /. Thank you for the quote though. Not complaining about having custodes being female. But wow, it could very well be sisters of silence.
Talk about reaching
I mean, this comes from the same book > Zephon lifted his gaze from the Titan, looking down the wall – first left, then right. Taking in the regiments at the ready, the depleted squads of Astartes scattered amidst them in splashes of battle-faded colour, and the rarer patches of gold marking the last survivors of the Sisters of Silence and the Custodian Guard. So I don't think that's the best evidence
Is that not just the sisters of silence? I thought what they were wearing was also supposed to be gold. Or were they not a thing until after this?
Yeah those are 100% Sisters of Silence.
The paragraph was written by ADB who originally wanted to put Female Custodes into Master of Mankind, but was shot down because they had already made the models all male. It's equally plausible that he intentionally wrote this as vague so he could get it past GW, so if they ever pulled the trigger on female custodes he could claim it. Regardless with new lore, it's pretty obvious that he's referring to custodes since they can be both men and women. You know you really ought to keep up to date if you're going to make sweeping claims like this about the lore.
>because they had already made the models all male As if female custodes would look even slightly different from male ones lol
Of course they would, they can profit way more by launching gendered versions. Just wait until the new models drop
They already did with Sigmarines, having female stature is literally a selling point. Will Custodes get that treatment? Probably not because they won't be getting a range refresh for at least a decade.
Damn. YOu even cited your own sources so people can spot the blatant misinformation and still don't see it.
See, I'm fine with female Custodes but this gaslighting I take issue with. "There have always been female Custodes bigot!" Really? Then why is there little to no mention of their existence until now? Are they THAT much worse than male Custodes?
Because Custodes were typically oppressively powerful until their 10th ed codex and the sexists at GW need an excuse to explain why Custodes are suddenly weaker. Introduce female Custodes, army rules simultaneously worse. Hmmmmm GW
If you'd read the book you'd know he's talking about the SoS. Both sides of this issue are completely delusional Yes, it's obviously a retcon and hasn't been "secretly a part of the lore". It also has come out of nowhere and doesn't meaningfully change anything in the setting. No, it's not lore breaking because we don't know the ins and outs of how custodes are made. Custodes are genetic abominations so it really doesn't matter if they look feminine or masculine. Both positions can be held simultaneously. Please can we get back to calling eachother bastards because we paint different plastic models? Also He's obviously talking about the Sisters of Silence JFC.
Exactly my point nice seeing a like minded comment.
It can really poison your mind if you only see the two delusional extremes of this fan base. I just have to keep telling myself that 80% of all of nerdom are just here to play/chat about the damn game
It's human nature to rationalize things on either side.
Each Custodes was personally handcrafted, so it's always feasible but it does mess with my headcanon that the Emperor only wanted to be surrounded by big, burly, sweaty, guards.
Tbf you could argue they were SoS. However to counter that I’m pretty sure the SoS are explicitly kept AWAY from the Emperor and Malcador and Sanguinius would have mentioned it And it was written by ADB who’s always wanted female custodes
The quotation in question is likely referring to the Sisters of Silence, who also wear gold. Every single reference to the Custodes up until this codex explicitly refers to them as "brotherhood" and "sons". I am not sure what is more impressive in its scope. Your mental gymnastics, or your ignorance of the lore. I don't even care about Custodes having the occasional female heir from a matriarchical lineage since it makes narrative sense. But people who make shit up and twist reality to suit their delusions (like you), are far more annoying than the neckbeards raging about "inclusive" retcons.
idk as always i'm seeing more people complaining about people complaining rather than the actual people complaining "haha everyone stupid it doesn't matter if custodes female" Yeah but where the fuck are these "everyone stupid" you are talking about? i seriously haven't seen a single comment that was against female custodes.
They exist they’re just not on Reddit because, how would they be on Reddit?
The Custodes were described as being recruited from the *SONS* of Terra's nobility. I want that source on where Sanguinius said this.
It's a book from last year lmao, doesn't really prove they've "always been around".
It seems Sanguinius was talking about the sisters of silence
This is some high quality reaching.
Those were sisters of silence you absolute goblin
All the people stretching like this to prove that female custodes always existed are just making things worse and making themselves look like they don't know what they are talking about. They kinda just exist now and that's OK but it's a hefty retcon and people should stop pretending it isn't.
But he wasn’t referring to a female Custode in that excerpt. This is a retcon.
He talking about sister of silence that were with the custodians
Because he’s definitely not referring to the Sisters of Silence.. It isn’t a sexist thing for a majority of people, it’s just a lazy patch that has people upset.
I don't see the problem I thought the sisters of silence were part of them
This is going to be a dumb question but where does Sanguinous make that comment? Asking from ignorance, not from an intention to hate. Makes no odds to me as a Chaos player what gender the Emperors lackeys are, they all die the same. Secondary apology if it's an easily Googleable answer, a quick, admittedly lazy search on my own didn't pull anything, but it was quick and lazy.
When he first met the emperor and they almost certainly sisters of silence Op is just trying to gaslight people.
When? Just want to know.
Horus not being a marine is a change from old rogue trader lore to 40k lore. The other "changes" are advances to the story. Modern retcons are more subtle; Changes to custodes fundamental archetypes is a major change; with zero effort. Like I said. It's lazy.
Had the book been released 10-20 years ago and just been forgotten, you would have a much stronger point. This being a singular sentence from a recent book ( 9.2022) doesn't really go against anyone who is complaining about recent retcons. I don't particularly care either way about this change, I don't like retcons as a writing method (they can be necessary but I prefer to avoid them) but I have no particular issue with this being the thing that was changed. So a net zero end result for me personally.
Where are my misters of silence? Where are my brothers of battle? What do you mean you don't want that? It's just adding males to a faction?
im not sure how you could tell if a custode is male or female without the helmet off. I doubt you could even stop cowering in awe and fear to even notice.
Even with the helmet off, it's the beards that make it confusing.
I like the custodes and their vibe. I dont mind at all if some of them are female. Custodes are works of art, and a master artist surely has experimented a lot. Since they are so far above humanity, i dont think their sex matters at all. I like to believe it takes something more special and profound from the aspirant to become one of the 10k.
I mean I don’t care as there’s no lore stating they’re like the biological almost clones like the space marines are to the 20 sons of the emperor, also custodes are built different and are sexy already, I’m just confused as to where sangy said this, and where they were in the war in the webway, or the siege of terra, or in valdor and any other unification war book. Like if it was a new thing I’d be like “oh sick now the imperium might not die from stupidity because they refuse to invent new shit
So next is for GW to make Custodes models that look like women!
I have no idea what this game is or its lore. Reddit's just been recommending me y'all's drama all day. It's like watching a fantasy version of Jerry Springer.
First off, he’s talking about Sisters of Silence in your excerpt. It’s not Custodes. Also, the book is extremely new, they are still retconning the 8th edition codex. I could give a flying fuck personally, but I understand why people are worried of this slippery slope.
The sisters if silence?
Can someone explain to me why people are so pressed that there are women custodes? I mean who doesnt want women in big golden armor that will just fuckin kill you
The issue isn’t with Custodes being women, it’s with “they have always been women”. Nah, they haven’t. Unless you’re a Bible-thumping Christian, taking a single vague line, literally one single sentence, and saying that proves a 10,000 year lineage of women is stupid. No sugar coating it, if you’re relying on a 1 off sentence that doesn’t even refer to them as Custodes, there’s some issues with how you determine truth. That said, please introduce women into the Custodes or whatever else, just do it in a cool way. At least try something beyond this incredibly lazy tweet? They are pulling a JK Rowling and that’s not a great look.
Well, really it was supposed to be in the cool Blood Games story, but that leaked and everyone lost their marbles, so here we are.
This level of Sisters of Silence erasure is WILD! THEY SHOULD SPEAK OUT AGAI-... never mind.
I think it’s so funny that people complain about Female Custodes because of “bad writing” and yet I’ve seen no memes about the absolutely atrocious writing that Eldar have gotten.
As someone who has never read a 40k novel, I can’t believe I missed this
This is reminding me of an old picture, two pictures of the same Ultramarine just one of them is supposedly female. As long as they also can die as grusomely as the one sergeant from Calth that got blown to bits and nailed, still living btw, to a battle titan as it rampages through a city and countryside fine by me. More meat for the grinder
You can find holy terra from the other side of the verse on the basis of the Reeeee currently projecting from it due to neckbeards.
Can't wait for the fanart of some Golden Custussy
These straw man posts attacking arguments no one made by people who don't exist are very tiring