Let’s address the Telemon in the room, shall we?
Yes. Some of those awesome new Custodes miniatures are female.
Is this a new thing?
Well, yes and no.
Up until this point, those few Legio and Adeptus Custodes miniatures we’ve seen without helmets have been obviously male, and the rest have been so armoured that it’s hard to tell. The new range has a mix of both male and female Custodes.
Have you changed the lore? I thought all Space Marines and Custodes were male?
Space Marines, yes.
Lore wise, Space Marines are made from human males, willing aspirants or unwilling conscripts on the cusp of adolescence. They are subjected to a series of horrific trials, and the strongest emerge as remorseless killers, their humanity stripped away so they can serve as living weapons in the Emperor’s armies. There are no female Adeptus Astartes.
Custodes are not Space Marines. Other than the obvious point that they are both towering, gene-enhanced warriors, the similarities pretty much stop there.
Custodes are taken as infants and recrafted by ancient science.The process is arcane and bespoke to each individual. The Emperor himself retained oversight of the process (at least until that whole “Horus Heresy” thing went down).
But aren’t the Custodes made from the sons of Terran noble houses?
Some of them are, yes. The Emperor is all about symbolism and authority, so those pre-Unification patriarchal houses that passed their kingdoms down to first-born sons had those sons taken, and remade as guardians of the Emperor. That is still true.
But that was not the only source of recruitment. Other methods might have been equally overt, others far more secretive. Noble daughters could also have been taken, and at some point, you run out of noble houses – even after you’ve conquered all of Terra, the inexorable war machine of the Imperium still requires a constant churn of recruits.
How different are the male and female Custodes?
All Custodes, male or female, embody the pinnacle of the genetic and cellular engineering the Emperor employed when creating his armies. They are all flawless creations, pushed beyond the limit of human potential. There is no difference in combat efficacy between a male Custodian and female Custodian.
Can I be a Custodes when I grow up?
No, if you can read this you’re already too old. Sorry.
