Warhammer 40K fans were shocked by the reveal of a female Custodes codex

In the galaxy of Warhammer 40,000, the empire of humanity is built on the backs of transhuman soldiers. There are the legendary Space Marines, genetically engineered and mass-produced by the Emperor of Mankind. However, if you need something more specialized, you can contact the Adeptus Custodes. This group consists of 10,000 people and everyone is a work of art. These philosophical warriors serve as the Emperor’s personal guards and agents, even in his current skeletal state.

These warriors are super strong, incredibly fast, and incorruptible to chaos. But one question remained: could they be women? Accordingly a current X post According to the official Warhammer account, the answer is yes, meaning the Custodes are now the subject of debate on social media.

The custodes have existed ever since Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, the original version of the game released in 1987. The Custodes are 10-foot-tall transhuman super-warriors created from an infant, genetic engineering, and warp magic to serve the Emperor on Terra. They literally can’t contradict the Emperor, which is pretty funny since the faction brags about their intellectual prowess so often.

It was only in 2017, with the seventh edition, parallel to the start of the current lore era, that they became their own field-capable army that players can lead alongside Tyranids, Necrons or Astra Militarum. The Bananas, as they are often affectionately called by the fan base, are popular because they are an inexpensive way for new players to get started in the game. If someone isn’t up to the task of painting dozens or hundreds of little guys, painting just a few golden custodes is a much less daunting and much more affordable task. That’s what they are Henry Cavill’s preferred armywho is currently working on a 40K adaptation with Amazon.

If you’re a Custodes fan, you probably like how powerful and wise these soldiers are. Meanwhile, the haters tend to dislike how overpowered the Custodes are.Excellent-Soldiers in an environment already so heavily dominated by Space Marines. In the arms race for ever-bigger boys, the Custodes are the absolute pinnacle of the Empire’s power scale.

The faction was originally portrayed as exclusively male. After uniting Earth’s warring factions under the banner of the Empire over 10,000 years ago, the Emperor began a tradition in which noble houses gave up their firstborn infant sons to become material for the making of Custodes. But the latest 10th edition codex includes a point-of-view lore from Calladayce Taurovalia Kesh that uses “she/her” pronouns. Some fans wondered if this was a Sister of Silence (Custodes works hand-in-hand with this mysterious order of silent women with strong immunity to the Warp), but the official Warhammer report confirmed that it was in fact a female Custodes .

Fans weren’t thrilled with the reveal. “Not even a whisper in lore or novels or a single miniature since 1987,” one fan wrote in response to X. “Now, suddenly BOOM, ‘they were always a thing.'” No world building or development. So disappointing and pathetic.” The revelation was also discussed on 40K fan forums and subreddits like this Meme board r/Grimdank, which maintains the “no female Space Marines” rule because it is such a heated and controversial topic in the fanbase. Given the revelation, the mods are Allow posts on this topic for one week. The post pinned by the mods reads in part: “Until then, I will consider the proverbial horse dead and well and truly beaten, since realistically both topics have the exact same arguments, meaning they have already been answered by and from all POVs.” “

Space Marines and Custodes have previously both been portrayed exclusively as men. For Space Marines, this is explained in-universe by the fact that their male biology is exclusively compatible with the complex biological processes used to create enough of them on a large scale. But custodes are not mass-produced; These noble infants are handcrafted using an extremely specific process.

For a while it seemed as if Custodes would remain exclusively male. Aaron Dembski-Bowden, writer at Black Library, the publishing arm of Games Workshop, wrote a corresponding post on Reddit five years ago about his experiences writing Custodes for the Horus Heresy novels:

At the time of working on the lore, there was no reason why they couldn’t be male or female (and as far as it goes, there is still no reason in the lore why they couldn’t be). But there is an unrecorded reason, and that is the former IP overlord’s statement: “There are no female custodian models, they are all male, so don’t write female ones.”

There was also a studio brief a few years later that said, “Don’t make female custodians.” This also seemed to be related to the release of an all-male mini-line.

Two very rare directing moments from above.

This raises the question of whether this is a retcon – one that conflicts with the Custodes’ long-standing identity – or whether it’s just a matter of reconciling the lore with the ideas of creatives working on the franchise involved. Warhammer is no stranger to retcons; A core concept of the setting is that players piece together a subjective truth from biased documents and historical events.

The social media uproar currently unfolding might suggest that female custodes are a big deal, but it’s actually a relatively small change, especially compared to the other changes custodes have experienced recently. For example, they are now leaving Terra and migrating into real space alongside Roboute Guilliman and the armies of the Empire. Games Workshop also regularly doles out retcons, such as the switch to the Necrons, which turned them from mysterious Terminators into fully fleshed-out characters dealing with politics and power struggles.

Change can be a good thing, and the Custodes still retain all of the moral ambiguity and lore from their previous iterations. Some fans will simply rejoice at the possibility of a 10-foot-tall woman who could destroy the enemies of humanity – and I think that’s beautiful.

And to hear some old-timers say, this kind of flexibility has always been the goal of the larger 40K canon. Nick Davis, a former Games Workshop employee, shared a thoughtful post on X about his efforts to make Warhammer a more inclusive hobby during his time at the company. “I am overjoyed to see that the hobby that once gave me a way to make a living is so inclusive,” he wrote. “It’s pure joy to see LGBTQ+ female gamers and see them represented at the highest level of GW Toy Soldiers.”