Adeptus Custodes

[entendre_entendre]

So aside from being the Great Dusty One's personal bodyguard on Terra, what do these guys actually do all day? I mean you've got like ~10,000* guys sitting around the palace doing supposedly nadda. So what is their purpose in the year 40,000? It's not like the Moldy Old Man going for a stroll through the Eye of Terror any time soon now is he? So what do these guys do all day? How do they stay combat ready after guarding an unbesieged palace for 10,000 years? Anybody know?

* 3rd ed rulebook, seventh page. Although I suppose the number could be 5,000 if they dual wielded.


I've got some ideas:

1. They go on the High Lords' super special awesome black ops missions where they leave no trace by killing everything

2. They work clandestinely through/within the Inquisition, no names, no faces used

3. They loan guys out to the Grey Knights and repaint their armour to match

4. They sit around the palace bored completely out of their minds

5. They sit around the palace playing card games, rolling dice, playing regicide, and trying to find a way of getting piss drunk without dad finding out

6. They are actually entirely or mostly in stasis in case of invasion, so the actual number of guys bored out of their minds are few

7. They are one of the Lost Legions (OMG!!!111!one!). Okay, not exactly on topic, but it was going to come up sooner or later...

8. They are training to defend against the Void Dragon whom they were warned about by teh Emprah in a psychic dream

9. They haven't existed since the Heresy, and their name is simply propaganda generated by the High Lords to make their enemies think Terra is slightly better protected than it is

10. (Last one, I promise) They guard the most important possession in all the Imperium, The Big Red Button with orders not to let anyone push it until the fluff gets so screwed up, that GW has to ret-con the whole thing


So, anyone know anything I don't about these guys? (quite likely) Any other possible uses for the Emperor's corpseguards? Ring bearers at Guilliman's Wedding to himself perhaps?

[pgarfunkle]

I like option no. 10 personally lol, but a more serious answer would be I think that they get dispatched on special missions at the High Lords directive probably. In the same way that when papa bear was still striding the galaxy they would undertake missions at his direction.

[Melissia]

They keep tabs on the Lords of Terra.

Though I'm unsure how much they do nowadays, because supposedly the last time one was seen was when the leader of the Adeptus Custodes contacted Alicia Dominica...

[Faultie]

I don't know how much they actively do in the 41st millennium. I know that, as regards the Imperial Palace, the Adeptus Custodes have absolute dominion in the inner palace, and the Adeptus Arbites have absolute dominion in the outer palace.
They are also above the authority of just about anybody. I believe I read somewhere that they are above even the Inquisition's command or threat because, whereas the =I= can tell most any other imperial subject what their duty to the emperor is at a given moment, the duty of the Adeptus Custodes is clear and obvious: protect the Emperor himself.

[Lord Azaghul]

Not to derail the thread but...

When I first saw the title I thought it was: The Adeptus Custodius.

Then I was thinking the custodians, as in cleaners of the bathrooms of terra.

And then I went to "the emporer protects...this toilet"
muttering incatations of protection as they scrub the bowl, and replace the toilet paper

[entendre_entendre]

Not to derail the thread but...

When I first saw the title I thought it was: The Adeptus Custodius.

Then I was thinking the custodians, as in cleaners of the bathrooms of terra.

And then I went to "the emporer protects...this toilet"
muttering incatations of protection as they scrub the bowl, and replace the toilet paper

LOL the Adeptus Custodius fulfill an important job in the Imperium because, as everyone knows, The Old Man makes quite a mess whenever he uses the bathroom. :D

[Duke]

Lmao! Great stuff. I would assume they still do things similar to hat the did in the tales of heresy. Also remember that the imperial palace covers the entire coninent of Asia, so it would take a lot of custodes to guard it. But they still do death games, go on special missions and apparently clean toilets!

[Nabterayl]

What I want to know is who they fight, and why we don't see them doing it in the fluff. I don't care how good your genes and equipment are - if your organization has spent the last 10,000 years guarding a continent on a planet that never sees rebellion and hasn't been invaded since the Heresy, then the custodes are a paper tiger.

[eldargal]

I would imagine Custodes (I nearly wrote custards:confused:) would be rotated in batches to elite stormtrooper regiments and the like, to keep them combat ready. It makes sense but I'm not sure the issue has ever been addressed in the fluff.

[rkiviman]

They are in the fluff. In Thousand Sons they are part of the Space Wolf strike force that take down Magnus's Legion. They also appear in a couple of the anthologies in the short stories. They also appear in another Horus Heresy book when they are tracking a traitor and have a run in with Rogal Dorn.

[Melissia]

In Thousand Sons
Horus Heresy doesn't count when we're talking about the M.41 era.

[entendre_entendre]

They are in the fluff. In Thousand Sons they are part of the Space Wolf strike force that take down Magnus's Legion. They also appear in a couple of the anthologies in the short stories. They also appear in another Horus Heresy book when they are tracking a traitor and have a run in with Rogal Dorn.

I know they're in the 30k timeline and they had an actual logical purpose (i.e. guarding the shiny person), but in 40k not so much. The shiny thing is now kinda dull and smelly, and who wants to protect something like that when there's pretty gems stuck to the chests of tricksy space elves.

[trjames]

Not to derail the thread but...

When I first saw the title I thought it was: The Adeptus Custodius.

Then I was thinking the custodians, as in cleaners of the bathrooms of terra.

And then I went to "the emporer protects...this toilet"
muttering incatations of protection as they scrub the bowl, and replace the toilet paper

That's it, I'm customizing my Grey Knights to have Nemesis Force Mops. A whole army of Swamp Things.

[Duke]

What I want to know is who they fight, and why we don't see them doing it in the fluff. I don't care how good your genes and equipment are - if your organization has spent the last 10,000 years guarding a continent on a planet that never sees rebellion and hasn't been invaded since the Heresy, then the custodes are a paper tiger.

True enough, but I. Thegrim darkness of the far future there is only war. I'm sure the custodes find some way to pick a fight.

Also in the rule book a custodes or two are standing around reading a scroll. Apparently that is what they do now.

Duke

[Stubber]

The high marshal of the custodes holds one of the permanent positions of the high lords of terra so they (at least one of them anyway) have a strong input into the running of the imperium. And I guess that way they can keep an eye on what the other lords are up to aswell.

[AirHorse]

No rebellion on earth? Totaly not true, in the space wolf novels its made pretty clear that there is constantly stuff going on all over the place on Terra. Terra has so many people and factions on it that there must be LOADS of stuff for the custodes to constantly be watching or dealing with in the name of protecting the throne. The fact that there are so many factions fighting for some power is probaly the only reason that there hasnt been a large scale rebellion on earth tbh :P.

Its also probaly quite likely that they get up to stuff all over the place, right infront of peoples noses too if they use those awesome distortion belts they had in the HH short story :P. Combined with their own wargames and testing of their defenses I would imagine there is actually an awful lot for them to keep themselves busy with really.

[BlackKnight15624]

IIRC, after the heresy the Custodians exchanged their gold and red livery for black, and insulated themselves from the outside world, instead focusing on guarding the Emperor's body and staying with in the palace. I can't substantiate this, though- it's just something I remember reading.

[Duke]

Where have you seen that? I would be curious to know because it's news to me... Could very well be true, but I had always thought they wore the cold as during the heresy