Sword Brother Adelard

The users were the easy bit. It's the rest of the job that was impossible...

I did, you have it backwards. The studio had made the models and there were all 'male' so none in the book. That sounds like legal laying down the 'no models, no lore' rule which they've thankfully stepped back from a little.

It was the IP lawyers who said no, not the lore team. This all comes back to the Post-ChapterHouse nothing without a model thing.

This isn't any more mad than top knots on marine helmets to be honest. Is that their hair? Is there a hole in the top of the helmet to let the top knot out? Do they have to let their actual top knots down before donning a helmet decorated with a false top knot?

On a Lore front. I've also been finding it interesting that a lot of people. (Well, men) Keep pointing to this one quote about noble Terrain families sending their SONS off to be custodians as evidence that Custodians could only be men. With respect, that's perhaps looking at it the wrong way around. That's not the quote saying that daughters couldn't be turned into custodians, more that the noble families didn't value their daughters enough to send them. Those noble families aren't sending their sons to be custodians for altruistic reasons, they're sending them to have a seat at the new powerful table the Emperor has made for himself, seeking that power for their own families.

I also really don't get how the clarification that done custodes are female means the silent sisters are threatened. What makes the pairing of a custodian and an Oblivion Knight potent isnt that they were different genders, it's that the Knights are pariahs. They're still exactly as vital as they always should have been, and are again*. *'should' in that the Imperium ignores them until Guilliman returns and asks where the hell they got to and ensures their numbers are boosted.

But this isn't meant to be an introduction, they were always there. They won't look any different with their helmets on. Perhaps that's why the helmets were always so big? They were full of secrets!

Alright then, let's be productive! Now that we know that ADB wanted to write female custodians in The Master of Mankind, but was prevented from doing so for IP/model reasons. (Thanks yet again Chapter House?) A few little subtle hints are now appearing elsewhere. This reference in Echoes of Eternity reads a bit different now for instance: "Sanguinius had never seen a spaceship before, not outside the fractal impressions of them that sailed in his waking dreams. This one, sitting on the desert plain with its golden armour baking in the sun, had the suggestion of vulturishness. It was a thing of power and efficiency, blunt and brutal. Fire made it fly, not any notion of grace. Figures clustered around the craft’s landing legs, where the ship’s great metal claws gripped the radiation-soaked dust of the wasteland. These men and women were plated in the same gold as the ship, rendered upon their bodies with painstaking artistry. My father’s guardians, Sanguinius thought. And what a thought it was, not only that a being such as his father required guardians, but that he had a father at all." presumably, everyone glossed over this when it came out as they presumed the women to be Silent sisters, but it seems more likely now that Sanguineous was describing female Custodians. Which I think is neat.

I always thought the real difference was that the sisters were blanks? Turns out their gender was the important difference? Who knew!?

I for one welcome this clarification of the lore.

I found the ones I was thinking of: https://natfka.blogspot.com/2021/12/updated-rumor-1109-compilation-40k.html?m=1 If you scroll to the very bottom there's a set of leaks from 'Juggernut' which now sound well off. AT being squatted, no chance of (what we now know as Legions Imperialism) happening etc. There's a lot of other leaks on that page though that were spot on at a cursory glance.

That was actually two sets of leaks that got tangled up. One set was spot on about Templars, Squats and other bits. The second set I can't recall the detail of. The two sets were posted here: But now you can't see what the second set was. I remember one of them being Titanicus was being cancelled, so that was off the mark.

But now you need a knife to get into the knife...

Ah, they saw you coming. They now have little clear stickers across the box lids.

They've already started that too. The boxes don't have cellophane wrapping anymore.