While Games Workshop is introducing their first-ever female Custodian models in the near future, do not expect Space Marines to go mixed-gender. In a post made to Warhammer Community yesterday, Games Workshop attempted to clarify the difference between the superhuman Adeptes Custodes and the prolific Space Marines that serve as the face of the Warhammer 40K franchise. In the post, Games Workshop clarified that within the lore of Warhammer 40K, Space Marines were exclusively male, while the Custodians were created using methods that did not require any gender differences.
"Lore wise, Space Marines are made from human males, willing aspirants or unwilling conscripts on the cusp of adolescence," the post read. "They are subjected to a series of horrific trials, and the strongest emerge as remorseless killers, their humanity stripped away so they can serve as living weapons in the Emperor’s armies. There are no female Adeptus Astartes."
However, the creation of Custodes, the Emperor's functionally immortal bodyguards, are created through a different process. "Custodes are not Space Marines," the post continues. "Other than the obvious point that they are both towering, gene-enhanced warriors, the similarities pretty much stop there. Custodes are taken as infants and recrafted by ancient science.The process is arcane and bespoke to each individual."
One of the highlights of this week's Warhammer Preview event was a line of new Custodes models, several of which feature female head options. Although the lore surrounding Custodes has traditionally stated that recruits are taken from the firstborn sons of certain Imperial houses when they are mere infants, more recent editions have clarified that Custodes are recruited from multiple sources, in part because the failure rate for creating a Custodes is extremely high. "Other methods might have been equally overt, others far more secretive," the post states of female recruits. "Noble daughters could also have been taken, and at some point, you run out of noble houses – even after you’ve conquered all of Terra, the inexorable war machine of the Imperium still requires a constant churn of recruits."
In terms of gameplay, there are no differences between male and female Custodians. And while Space Marines will remain all-male, there are armies that are exclusively female, such as the Sisters of Battle (basically fanatical warrior nuns) and the Sisters of Silence, a group of female mute witch-hunters.
