Games Workshop Makes Insulting Retcon To ‘Warhammer 40K Lore’, Claims All-Male Adeptus Cadre Faction Has “Always” Featured Female Members
Spencer Baculi
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In a development that can only best be described as ‘massively insulting to the intelligence of their playerbase’, Warhammer 40K developer Games Workshop has taken to claiming that, despite years of official canonical evidence to the contrary, the game’s all-male Adeptus Custodes faction has “always” included female members amongst its ranks.
This retcon to the franchise’s long-standing lore was first revealed to the public on April 13th courtesy of YouTuber Ash Barker’s preview of the upcoming 10th edition of the Warhammer 40K guidebook Codex: Adeptus Custodes.
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Therein, eagle-eye viewers noticed that in the book’s introduction of the actual Adeptus Custodes and their lore, Games Workshop had specifically chosen to highlight a battlefield story concerning a female Custodian by the name of Calladayce Taurovalia Kesh.
“Custodian Calladayce Taurovalia Kesh stood upon the bridge of a Cobra-class destroyer,” begins a paragraph within a section sub-headlined ‘The Solar Fastness‘. “Named Vigilant Flame, the warship belonged to the mighty Battlefleet Solar. She ingered in the shadows at the back of the bridge, positioned at a spot where she could observe the actions of every crew member be they in the instrumentation pits, at the armament shrines or – in the case of Shipmaster Lethwyck – stood ramrod straight before his command throne.”
As noted above, prior to the publication of the Codex: Adeptus Custodes, the concept of a female Custodian did not exist.
A legion of 10,000 elite, genetically-modified warriors who serve as the personal guard to the ruler of the Imperium of Man, the God-Emperor of Mankind, as explained in their initial introduction in 2017’s Codex: Space Marines (8th Edition), all members of the Adeptus Custodes “begin their lives as the infant sons of the noble houses of Terra.”
The Adeptus Custodes are introduced in Warhammer 40K Codex: Space Marines (8th Edition) (2017), Games Workshop (via @Charax on the DakkaDakka forums)
Elaborating on this brief bit of lore three years later in the guidebook’s 9th edition printing, Games Workshop additionally detailed, “Potential custodians are taken in at a very young age to better survive – no older than late infancy – and it is a great honour for those of Terran noble houses to submit a son.”
The Adeptus Custodes’ origins are briefly expanded upon in Warhammer 40K Codex: Space Marines (8th Edition) (2017), Games Workshop (via @Charax on the DakkaDakka forums)
Further, when asked point blank by a fan in 2019 whether “Custodes [can] be female]”, long-time series lore contributor Aaron Dembski-Bowden, even despite his own openness to the idea, admitted that the God-Emperor’s elite had canonically always been presented as male.
“At the time of working on the lore, there was no reason they couldn’t be male or female (and as far as things still stand, there’s still no lore reason they can’t be),” explained the Horus Heresy novelist in a comment posted to the /r/40kLore subreddit. “But there is a non-lore reason, which was the previous IP overlord [Dembski-Bowden did not specify the respective entity or individual] saying ‘There are no female Custodian models, they’re all male, so don’t write any female ones.'”
“There was also a Studio mandate a couple of years after that, saying ‘Don’t do female Custodians,'” he continued. “Again, that seemed to tie in with the release of an all-male mini line. Two very rare moments of direction from on-high.”
“I don’t want to argue about what that may or may not mean, since although I’m ambivalent to the notion of female Space Marines (really, they’d make such little difference at the end result, I couldn’t care less what gender they start out as), several creators actively thought female Custodians would’ve been cool, and there was no lore against it,” Dembski-Bowden concluded. “Hell, we were in the position to make lore for it,). But long story short, no, the answer seems to be ‘There aren’t any’, though the reasons aren’t in-universe (yet?).”
Following the revelation that the Codex: Adeptus Custodes would be running aground of the franchise’s established lore, in response to an April 13th post made to the official Warhammer Twitter account announcing that the guidebook was now available for pre-order, site user @Idk721252 directly inquired with Games Workshop, “Why did you make female custodes?”
In turn blatantly lying to the fans’ face, the official account then shot back, “Since the first of the Ten Thousand were created, there have always been female Custodians.”
As of writing, the Codex: Adeptus Custodes is set to officially stomp all over the series’ lore on April 27th.
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