Tyrith Shiva Kyrus in The Tithes Episode 2 (2024), Games Workshop

Numerous Warhammer hobbyists have taken to mocking Games Workshop for scrapping its Warhammer 40k lore, making Female Adeptus Custodes, and claiming they always existed.

Adeptus Custodes via Warhammer YouTube

Games Workshop introduced female Adeptus Custodes in the most recent Codex: Adeptus Custodes with an excerpt stating, ““Custodian Calladayce Taorvalia Kesh stood upon the bridge of a Cobra-class destroyer. Named Vigilant Flame, the warship belonged to the mighty Battlefleet Solar. She lingered 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.”

An excerpt from a Codex: Adeptus Custodes (2024), Black Library

The official Warhammer account on X confirmed the authenticity of the excerpt and declared that female Custodes always existed.

The account wrote, “Since the first of the Ten Thousand were created, there have always been female Custodians.”

Warhammer on X

This is patently untrue. Former World of Warcraft Team Lead Mark Kern aka Grummz shared an excerpt from the Rogue Trader rules in 1987.

It states, “The Adeptus Custodes is the Emperor’s inner guard, the members of which are privileged in being permitted to serve upon the Emperor, attending to his needs, receiving and recording his directions. These men never leave Earth and only rarely leave the Imperial Palace – an endless, black hive of forbidden technology and subterranean passages delving deep within the bowels of the planet.”

He also shared excerpts from the 2017 and 2018 Adeptus Custodes Codexes that refer to them as the Brotherhood of Demigods and make it clear they were recruited from the sons of nobles.

One excerpt reads, “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.”

Despite the lie, Games Workshop has since doubled and tripled down on it. First, the company doubled down in a blog post on their Warhammer Community website.

Instead of noting that Adeptus Custodes are recruited from the sons of nobles, the blog post states, “Potential Custodians are taken in at a very young age to better survive the rigours of their transformation – no older than late infancy – for the fundamental changes that will be wrought upon their flesh, minds and souls are tantamount to apotheosis. It is considered a great honour for those of Terran noble houses to submit a child.”

Combat Patrol: Adeptus Custodes

More recently, the company has tripled down introducing a female Custodian in the Warhammer+ animated series The Tithes and claimed that Custodes can be “any gender.”

On the official Warhammer Community website, Games Workshop revealed, “Tyrith Shiva Kyrus (the first three of a long list of honorific names earned fighting for the Emperor) has the privilege of being our first portrayal of a female Custodian Guard since the recent revelation that Custodians can be any gender.”

The company added, “This fact came as a real surprise to many, since it wasn’t something previously explored. That, in and of itself, isn’t a particularly unusual thing for Warhammer 40,000 and its lore; there are simply loads of things the Warhammer Studios have never expressly stated, whether that’s ruling them in or out.”

Tyrith Shiva Kyrus in The Tithes Episode 2 (2024), Games Workshop

rom there, Warhammer continued to justify this massive retcon and gaslit its enthusiasts and hobbyists, “Since the earliest conversations about bringing the Horus Heresy to the tabletop and Black Library fiction, the exact nature of the Custodians has been under discussion – after all, their origins and means of creation, unlike for example, the Legiones/Adeptus Astartes, are shrouded in mystery.”

“A significant advantage to this portrayal is that it helps us to address a common misconception – that the Custodes are just bigger, better Space Marines. They aren’t. Space Marines were made through industrialised ritual to be mass-produced, brute-force weapons of conquest. And even 10,000 years after their creation, draped in self-assigned glory, that’s still true of them at their core,” Games Workshop stated. “Each Custodian, on the other hand, is unique. Painstakingly made through peerless craft and arcane artifice, their physique, their psyche, their very soul, is a bespoke instrument of the Emperor they unquestioningly serve.”

Tyrith Shiva Kyrus in The Tithes Episode 2 (2024), Games Workshop

“We know a lot about Space Marines, relatively speaking,” the company declared. “But there is still so much we don’t know about the Custodians, particularly in Warhammer 40,000, and their recruitment process is the least of these mysteries.”

The company then listed a number of questions, “What exactly are they up to in the 41st Millennium? What was their motive for joining the Indomitus Crusade? What do they REALLY think of Gulliman? What secret weapons do they have sequestered away in their armoury vaults on Terra? What does “loyalty” mean in a galaxy where the master you failed is silent, and you despise what his empire has become?”

Tyrith Shiva Kyrus in The Tithes Episode 2 (2024), Games Workshop

Finally, Games Workshop declared, “We sometimes call these ‘gaps’ and they are quite intentional. They let you as collectors, players, and fans fill the spaces with your own characters, stories and narratives – making the Warhammer hobby truly yours.”

“They also allow us to revisit factions through miniatures, stories, and animations and offer something new and interesting. (Imagine how sad it would be if we ever said “And that’s it. That’s everything you’ll ever see in this army. No new models ever.” – that’d be rubbish.),” the company concluded.

Tyrith Shiva Kyrus in The Tithes Episode 2 (2024), Games Workshop

READ: Games Workshop Confirms Rumor That Henry Cavill’s Warhammer 40k Production At Amazon Could Be Scrapped

Warhammer enthusiasts are not having any part of it and have taken to mocking Games Workshop and their lies and simultaneously proving J.R.R. Tolkien’s comments in his essay On Fairy Stories true.

Tolkien detailed that a story-maker proves himself a successful sub-creator when he “makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is ‘true’: it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside.”

However, Tolkien adds, “The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed. You are then out in the Primary World again, looking at the little abortive Secondary World from outside. If you are obliged, by kindliness or circumstance, to stay, then disbelief must be suspended (or stifled), otherwise listening and looking would become intolerable. But this suspension of disbelief is a substitute for the genuine thing, a subterfuge we use when condescending to games or make-believe, or when trying (more or less willingly) to find what virtue we can in the work of an art that has for us failed.”

Warhammer 40,000: Codex: Adeptus Custodes (2024), Games Workshop

Warhammer enthusiasts now see the Warhammer 40k world as an abortive Secondary World given they are taking Games Workshop’s idiotic and insulting logic to its conclusion and that Orks can now be Custodes as well.

On the Horus Galaxy subreddit, user PanHiszpan shared an image of an Ork Custodian and mocked, “‘Books never stated that ORKS can’t be Custodes.’”

READ: Warhammer 40K Novelist James Swallow Confirms He Included “Gender Transition” Propaganda Into His ‘Iron & Bone’ Story

The ensuing comments took up the cause. One person wrote, “PFFFTTT, Pretty sure there has ALWAYS been Orky custodes, they just havent been mentioned in any of the lore, books codex,models, films, animation, design discussions or illustrations ya orkphobe”

Another posted, “In reality all Custodes are orks. It’s a translation mistake on the part of the books. They read: ‘All Custodes begin their lives as the infant sons of the noble houses of Terra.’”

He added, “The correct translation is: ‘All Custodes begin their lives as the infant boyz of the noble houses of Terra.’ If you are not familiar with the setting and the language it could be an easy mistake.”

Still another wrote, “It’s in the same book that says that Khorne is the God of cakes and that he always made cakes but we don’t show his kitchen.”

Comments on the Horus Galaxy subreddit mocking female Adeptus Custodes

What do you make of these Warhammer enthusiasts mocking Games Workshop?