Games Workshop has angered some of its fans after seemingly retconning lore to create room for female Adeptus Custodes.
The Adeptus Custodes (sometimes Legio Custodes) are the God-Emperor’s guards, they’re among the most powerful soldiers in the Imperium and personally see to the safety of the Golden Throne.
This group has been traditionally assumed to be all male, and there’s evidence to back it up. However Games Workshop has decided to announce that there are now female Custodes, contradicting previous mentions in the lore.
Admittedly, many of the references to gender among the Custodes are implicit. Quotes and excerpts floating around which allege to prove the organization is male-only don’t directly say anything like: “women cannot be Custodes”; however they do refer to the Custodes as a “Brotherhood” which recruits “sons” of the Imperium. There’s evidence to support a claim that the Custodes are entirely male.
In the 7th and 8th edition of the official Custodes codexes, they are repeatedly referred to as the BROTHERHOOD of Demigods, recruited from the SONS of nobles.
*2017 and 2018
(Con't) pic.twitter.com/CORWSbjYay
— Grummz (@Grummz) April 15, 2024
On the other side of things, supporters of female Custodes point out that the selection process for becoming one is canonically “secretive”.
While writer of the Horus Heresy novels Aaron Dembski-Bowden claims that the only reason no female Custodes have been written is simply because no models for them existed.
Regardless of opinion, the largest complaint is just how haphazard the inclusion of female Custodes was.
Rather than taking the time to explain the situation to the dedicated Warhammer fanbase, the official Twitter account flippantly responded with: “there have always been female Custodes”.
Since the first of the Ten Thousand were created, there have always been female Custodians.
— Warhammer Official (@warhammer) April 14, 2024
Warhammer is facing criticism from fans with differing opinions over this matter, with some critics claiming they’d be fine with female Custodes if they were given space in the lore to be mentioned without an unceremonious retcon.
However due to the current state of the forever “culture war”, Warhammer is becoming another cultural zeitgeist and this controversy is likely to draw in bad faith actors with no real interest in the franchise beyond scoring political points.
