Adeptus Custodes: The Golden Boys | Warhammer 40k Lore

fun fact: in early editions of wh40k, the custodes had abandoned their armor and weapons in their mourning of the emperor. this is where the stripper custodes imagery comes from!

custodes in the lore: ultra-stoic demi god warriors Custodes to the fandom: ultra-𝓯𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓵𝓸𝓾𝓼 demi god strippers

“The become KGB spies” sees 12ft tall demigod working in a hive city “Oh that’s Rick, he’s new here, pay him no mind”

My Dark Heresy character is a Krieg guardsman defended by the Aquilan shields. He is very sad.

"Is there someone who ever died of old age?" I think Ciaphas Cain is noted as having died of just that, despite still being listed as active duty (because the administratum got tired of undoing his death paperwork every time he survived something impossible)

I can just imagine a Shadow Keeper standing guard for like 72 years and outta nowhere a blip of purple light pops and he just inhales and says "Shit."

Guilliman is my favorite facet about the Ultramarines. In the “Armor of Fate” short story he was in a meeting room, going over reports and shit, and he drops a thin plastic folder. However, the suit Cawl made for him was pretty encumbering, and his hands being covered in so much armor plating and other mechanics he couldn’t make a fist or even bend over to pick it up and he yells loudly about it, essentially saying ”I’ve been alive for thousands of years, handcrafted by the master of mankind, but I can’t pick up a plastic flimsy. My greatest enemy.” I was laughing my ass off, but also Cato Sicarius, the captain of the second company, was there and he was pissing himself in fear over his primarch yelling and asks him in the most timidly way possible if he was joking. Guilliman sighed and said yes he was joking, and it all ties into the story about the Imperium of Man size amount of pressure on his shoulders. Just having that bit of humility and telling the most minor of a joke can make your followers so fucking scared, is amazing.

I like the Aquillan Shield because it's a blanket justification for any random Imperial army to have a squad of Custodians in it. Why does your random Imperial Guard detachment have five giant dudes in gold armor, that normally only guard the Emperor? Because they're guarding the commander, for nebulous reasons. It's perfect.

custode: what is this? guardsmen: thats a bed custode: whats a bed? guardsmen: its where u sleep custode: what is sleep? guardsmen:are u really human?

7:31 “MY MOM WAS A TUBE!” “What?” “A TUBE IN MOUNT EVEREST!” “What?” “F-CK” “What?” “MOM EVEREST!”

The Custodes can see every move their enemy will make before they make it, memorize the slightest detail of their guard station in a decades long watch, and find every weakness that could be exploited on Holy Terra to do the Emperor harm, but can they see why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch?

My favorite bit of Custodes lore is this paragraph from Valerian "We were never soldiers. Whenever we are seen outside the walls of this place, as rare as that is, it is in our martial aspect. We are clad in gold, just as it was in the earliest days when He was our living captain, and mortals fall on their faces as if before gods. To them, it must seem as if we are wrath incarnate. To them, it must seem as if we were created for destruction and nothing else. But we were His companions, once. We were the ones in whom He confided. We were His counsellors, we were His artisans. We were the first glimpse of what the species could become, if shepherded aright and unshackled from its vicious weaknesses. Of course, we were taught to fight. He knew that war would come. It was a necessary part of the ascension, though it was never destined to last for eternity. We were the guardians of a new age, and had to be strong enough to keep it secure. We failed in that, and now wear the mark of that failure in the black robes that cover our auramite. It is a permanent reminder, replacing the cloaks of blood-red that once adorned our battle-plate. It weighs heavy with every one of us, for we know more of the nature of the fall than most. We still recite the old stories, and we study in the lost archives where we alone are suffered to tread, and so do not have the comforting illusions of ignorance to salve the wound. In a galaxy defined by ignorance, we remember. We cultivate the shards of the thing that was broken, and remain aware of what would have been. I think sometimes that this knowledge is the most severe of our many burdens. Any brutal soul may fight if he has the goal ahead of him. We fight knowing that our truest purpose lies behind us, and all that remains is faithfulness to an extinguished vision. But still we preserve. We tend the things of value that have survived. We seek to embody His will in all things. We cleave to His light as the darkness gathers. We interpret, we study, we delve into the philosophy of the ages. We have many duties. But that is just as it should be, for we are not simple creations. The aeons have changed us in so many ways, but not in that. We were a thousand things to a thousand souls, but we were never soldiers." It's sad that them being perfect warriors was only meant to be temporary, they're suppose to be the stalwarth representations of humanity, more than all the Primarchs would be, but in the end they're just gonna live in a world that is WAYY far from the one they're meant to inhabit.

Can we all agree that the Custodians and the Sisters of Silence are the closest thing to Pillar Men and Women in 40K?

Twist, one of these guard custodes finds a Krieg to protect for the annoyance of the kriegsman who would constantly try to die in battle but would be unable to.

The reason why the Custodes in TTS are Pillar Men is slightly more nuanced. Back in the wilder older editions of 40K around the 80s/90s, the Custodes apparently went around the Imperial Palace wearing pretty much only a thong, for reasons. There are images of this floating about online.

I just can't wait for Bricky to have to awkwardly explain alpha legion eventually.

Imo, the Custodes get done the dirtiest when it comes to power scaling, in one book they are done right, basically the best, and in another they can be bodied.

Adeptus Custodes are basically kit bashed humans, but the kitbashing was done by a powergamer.

At least to my knowledge there has been one death of old age in 40k in the books, and that death Sparked an almost two decade long siege of an imperial world by the death korps

"No one in warhammer dies of old age" Doesn't Ciaphas Cain die of old age, eventually. Survived 100 ridiculous battles and retired to teach where he died of old age and was buried and given a monument but is still on active duty because he came back from KIA so many times the administratum locked his wages as active duty to save the hassle.