Adeptus Custodes: A Comprehensive History

The Adeptus Custodes: A Comprehensive History

The Legio Custodes Magna Imperator – Chamber Militant of the Imperial Household

Bearers of the Magisterium: Lex Ultima

The Custodian Guard, The Ten Thousand, Auric Mortalis (The Golden Death)

“Only in death does Duty End.”

-First maxim of the Legio Custodes.

Origins of the Emperor's Firstborn Sons

It is widely believed by those with a marginal understanding of the existence and nature of the Adeptus Custodes to presume they are a more advanced version of the Adeptus Astartes, an improvement and evolution of the Emperor's genetic-engineering capabilities in much the same way as the Adeptus Astartes were themselves evolved from the Thunder Warrior prototypes. In reality the Custodian Guard are creatures as far apart form the Space Marines as the Space Marines are to unaugmented baseline humans. Everything about the Custodes origins and creation differs from the mass produced warriors of the Legiones Astartes. More than their differences the Custodes are by no means a later evolution of the Emperor's gene-science. In fact, the Custodians were the Emperor's first, and arguably, greatest creations. While the Primarchs may have exceeded the Custodes in corporeal power and intellect the betrayal of half their number reveals a fatal flaw in the Primarch project totally absent from the unswerving loyalty of the Custodes.

Even the most learned of Imperial historians and remembrancers at the height of the Great Crusade could never discern the exact origins and beginnings of the Legio Custodes. Shrouded in the brutal and chaotic Unification Wars the details of the Custodes founding have either been lost or purposefully obscured, none can truly say. What is known is that from the earliest accounts of the Unity Wars the Emperor was depicted surrounded by massive figures in golden plate armor and bearing powered spears. At first these guardians numbered a mere handful but their numbers slowly grew as the accounts advanced through the years of the Unification Wars from two to four to ten to twenty and so forth. By the end of the Unification Wars the Custodians numbered in their hundreds and were thus capable of spearheading the massacre of the surviving Thunder Warriors whose time of usefulness had passed, making way for the rise of the Space Marine Legions.

As the Great Crusade spread like a wildfire across the galaxy the Custodes were at the very tip of the spear, surrounding the Emperor in a tide of golden armor and powered blades, storming the most formidable bastions and cutting down the most monstrous and terrifying of foes. As the Great Crusade reached the era that would become it's midway point the Custodes had reached their relative maximum size of around Ten Thousand warriors strong and achieved their greatest victory of arms, the Victory at Ullanor. This achievement would mark the withdrawal of the Emperor from the front lines of the Great Crusade and the appointment of the Primarch Horus as Warmaster of the Imperium. Believing the Great Crusade entrusted to able and loyal hands the Emperor and his Custodians returned to Terra to begin work on the Emperor's greatest endeavor yet, to unlock mastery of the webway. For some time the growing psychic potential of the human race was proving both an incredible weapon and the most dire threat to mankind's continued existence.

The need to rely on the warp for travel and the psyker for communication and guidance limited the future growth of the species. The Emperor had deemed the best course of action was to unlock the means to access and successfully navigate the ancient webway still used by the Eldar xenos as a means of rapidly traveling across the galaxy without having to risk a voyage through the warp. Such an advancement would not only greatly improve the speed and safety of human travel it would also completely erase the need for psykers as the mainstay methods of communication and travel, freeing humanity from the shackles of necessity represented by the Navigator and the Astropath. So free of these limitations the Emperor could shepherd mankind safely into a psychic apotheosis and a new golden age of technological and psychic advancement. Sadly this future would not come to pass.

Ignorant of the Emperor's designs the quarrelsome and prideful Primarchs began to grow bitter, believing themselves spurned and misused. Long-festering bitterness and resentments were fanned by long-hidden chaos worshipers within the Word Bearers who used their Legion's humbling at Monarchia to corrupt the Primarch Lorgar and through him the Warmaster Horus himself. Other Primarchs like Angron, Mortarion and Perturabo were easier converts, each harboring deep-seated anger and frustration with the Emperor as a distant and neglectful father-figure. Fulgrim's pride and fraternity with Horus was his undoing while Kurze was already bordering on open rebellion. The true nature of Alpharius' betrayal remains a mystery. The final Primarch who would come to be listed alongside the traitors was Magnus the Red and his fall was perhaps the most tragic of all.

The growing prominence of psykers in the Legiones Astartes, and the Thousand Sons in particular, had become a problem the Emperor was forced to address. Temporarily setting aside his great endeavor the Emperor called the Council of Nikaea where the fate of the Librarius programs of the Legiones Astartes would be decided. Though impassioned defenses were presented from a number of Legions the Emperor ultimately chose to forbid the use of psychic powers by the warriors of the Legiones Astartes. This decision was a crushing blow to Magnus the Red who had long placed great importance in the Librarius project and had made mastery of the empyric arts his life's work. Returning to Prospero the Primarch of the Thousand Sons spent long periods of isolation debating his course of action and it was during this time that the Primarch of the Thousand Sons learned, through psychic means, of the fall of Horus.

Desperate to bring warning of the corruption of the Warmaster to the Emperor the Primarch Magnus conducted a ritual of enormous power that projected his psychic spectral form across the vast distances of space and time to reach the Golden Throne. To aid his journey Magnus was tricked into tearing his way into the webway and reaching the Emperor's Palace through that sub-realm of the warp. Unknown to Magnus this act provided a ready means of access to the otherwise largely sealed realm of the webway to the daemons of the warp and in particular his psychic avatar's sudden breach of the Imperial Dungeon shattered the warding protecting the palace from the webway and irreparably damaged the irreplaceable archaeotech equipment the Emperor had gathered for his endeavor. In one fell swoop Magnus had utterly destroyed any hope of the completion of the Emperor's great work. Magnus' warning vanished into irrelevancy at the sudden realization of his terrible crime and his projection returned to his body on Prospero with the bitter knowledge of his complete failure and worse, the impending judgment that the Emperor would be forced to send.

The Horus Heresy

For the first time since their return from the Victory at Ullanor the Ten Thousand was hurled into not one but two dire conflicts. The first was the necessary sanction of Magnus the Red. Not only had he violated the Edict of Nikaea he had undone the Emperor's greatest work and imperiled the very future of the Imperium. The Emperor was forced to dispatch the Primarch Leman Russ and the VI Legion, who had served as the Emperor's chosen executioners since their formation and a task to which the legion was particularly well suited. To supplement the VI Legion the Emperor also sent his greatest Custodian, the Captain-General Constantin Valdor, and a combined task force of the armies known informally as the Talons of the Emperor, the Custodian Guard and Sisters of Silence. Together these forces represented the very apex of Imperial might and authority, the most terrible executors of the Emperor's judgment in existence. Ostensibly Russ and Valdor were charged with arresting Magnus and returning him to Terra to face the Emperor's judgment in person but the powers of chaos had other plans. In transit to Prospero the Warmaster Horus contacted Russ and convinced him of the dire threat and terrible crimes of Magnus and convinced Russ that the Primarch of the Thousand Sons could never be captured and should instead be destroyed before he could cause further harm. Enraged beyond sense Russ led his Legion in a sudden and brutal assault on Prospero, sweeping aside the defenses in a storm of total transhuman war.

Constantin Valdor was initially reluctant to commit his forces to this cause as he still believed Magnus could be brought back to Terra. As the Space Wolves assault ground into the Thousand Sons however the true extent of the Thousand Sons corruption became undeniable. Unleashing horrific psychic powers in unbelievable numbers the massed psykers of the Thousand Sons revealed their true and long-shrouded nature. It did not take long for Valdor to grimly determine the necessity of the purge and order his warriors to make planetfall and join the battle. Once reinforced by the incredible martial might of the Custodian Guard and the null-maidens of the Silent Sisterhood the fate of the Thousand Sons was sealed. Street by street, through pyramids and across great plazas the ranks of the Thousand Sons were pushed back and slaughtered. At last before the Pyramid of Photep in the capitol of Tizca the two Primarchs met in mortal combat. After a terrible battle between two of the mightiest human warriors ever created, veritable demigods of war, the Primarch of the Thousand Sons was cast down, his back broken and his flesh ruined. Before Russ could deliver the final blow Magnus and his surviving Thousand Sons were torn from the planet in a monstrous storm of psychic energy of incredible magnitude. The battered Space Wolves, Custodes and Sisters withdrew quickly from the shattered surface of the world and in their separate ways made to return to Terra with all possible speed.

As terrible as the conflict against the Thousand Sons had been the Captain-General had another war to fight that was already raging. Deep beneath the Emperor's Palace the Imperial Dungeon was breached and daemons were pouring into the mortal realm. Ranks of gold armored Custodians and Null-Maidens fought to push back the tide, paying steeply in blood as they desperately tried to hold on to the Emperor's great vision. Some distance into the webway the assembled might of the Emperor's Custodians, the Silent Sisterhood and a sizable contingent of loyal Mechanicus forces assisting with the Emperor's great work established a fortress and attempted to hold the line.

For five bitter years as the ultimate treachery of Horus emerged, as three loyalist legions were butchered on Istvaan V and the betrayal of four further legions was revealed, as the forces of Horus closed on the Sol system and the armies of the loyalists struggled to hold them back and reinforce the Throneworld, as all of these terrible events unfolded the Ten Thousand were ground down fighting the greatest horrors imaginable in a realm impossible for a mortal mind to comprehend.

When at last the foothold in the webway became impossible to hold and all possible sources of effective reinforcements had been exhausted the Emperor at last ordered his warriors to withdraw. A thousand psykers were sacrificed to keep the Astronomicon lit and the man-made corridor between the Imperial Dungeon and the primary arteries of the webway intact long enough to permit the Emperor to leave the Golden Throne and assist his Custodians and Sisters in their final retreat.

The ultimate cost of the Secret War in the webway was catastrophic beyond belief. No conflict in the history of the Legio Custodes had cost more than a few dozen warriors at a stroke, yet after five years of the most savage fighting against an unstoppable tide of daemons and traitor legionaries the Legio Custodes was reduced to one tenth it's former size. Some nine thousand Custodians lost their lives in the webway and a commensurate cost had also been suffered among the Sisters of Silence. Many thousands of Mechanicus warriors and battle-servitors had also been lost along with a full maniple of Titans including a mighty Warlord-class engine. Where once the Ten Thousand had stood as the greatest army in the Imperium with a vast armory of the very finest weapons, wargear and machines the great empire of mankind could provide the five years of the Secret War had nearly depleted those once great armories and reduced the Ten Thousand to a shadow of their former strength. Even providing blades for the surviving Custodians was a near impossible effort as the entire Sol system girded itself for the Warmaster's inevitable invasion.

A cynical mind might believe that certain nefarious powers in the universe had conspired to bleed the Emperor's greatest warriors of their strength before Horus' invasion. What would have happened had the traitors met the full strength of the Ten Thousand and the Silent Sisterhood on the walls of the Emperor's Palace in those final hours can only be imagined but it is likely that the results would have been far different from the terrible tragedy that actually occurred.

As those learned in the events of the Horus Heresy will well know the Siege of Terra was finally ended when the shields of the Warmaster's flagship the Vengeful Spirit were lowered allowing the Emperor to launch a teleport assault against the traitor. Malcador the Sigillite volunteered for the suicidal task of manning the Golden Throne while the Emperor took the fight to Horus, well knowing that the incredible effort would be his undoing yet it was a sacrifice he made willingly. Even as Malcador, the greatest mortal psyker in the history of the Imperium, sacrificed himself to give the Emperor his chance the Master of Mankind gathered together an elite strike force. The Primarchs Rogal Dorn and Sanguinius along with elite retinues from both of their legions and a bodyguard of Custodians teleported aboard the flagship of the traitor fleet alongside their Emperor. Whether naturally or through enemy artifice the teleport assault was scattered across the vast battleship. Engaged in brutal fighting the Imperial Fists Terminators, Blood Angels Sanguinary Guard, their Primarchs, the Custodians and the Emperor all made their separate ways towards the bridge of the Vengeful Spirit and a confrontation with the architect of the great heresy. The Primarch Sanguinius was the first to reach Horus and though considered among the mightiest of the Primarchs in skill at arms the lord of the Blood Angels was already much wounded and exhausted from days of the most savage fighting against traitors and daemons alike. Against the warp infused might of Horus the lord of angels stood little chance. Gifted with foresight it is likely that Sanguinius had seen his death and yet he went to it willingly, loyal to the last.

When the Emperor and his guard at last reached the bridge they discovered the broken sword and murdered body of Sanguinius at the feet of the traitor Warmaster Horus. The fight that followed was of a scale unimaginable to mortals, a contest for the very fate of mankind fought between the two most powerful human beings who have ever lived. In the end the Warmaster Horus was cut down, his warp-gifted strength no match for the incredible psychic power of the Emperor but the Master of Mankind was himself mortally wounded. Rogal Dorn discovered the Emperor amid the bodies of his sons and though stricken with grief was quick to lift up his father and carry him swiftly back to Terra where the scorched husk of Malcador was swiftly replaced with the Emperor's dying body. Interred within the arcane machineries and life-support systems of the Golden Throne the Emperor would live on, though he would forevermore be trapped on the Golden Throne, his salvation and his prison, doomed to a half-life preserved and tortured by the device that was meant to free mankind but would now merely prolong it's demise.

To the Custodes the Emperor's fall was a blow more bitter and grievous even than all the losses suffered in recent years. When the stakes had been the highest and the need the most dire the Custodes had failed in their most important duty, they had failed to protect the Emperor. All hope of leading the armies of the Imperium in a golden age of expansion and enlightenment were forever shattered. From that day onward the Custodes replaced their crimson robes with black shrouds of mourning and consigned themselves to an eternal guard duty on the Throneworld, only ever leaving the domains of the Solar system to destroy an impending threat or eliminate potential assassins. For the next ten thousand years the Custodes would venture from the Throneworld only rarely and in limited numbers, their missions secret and their role a largely hidden one. The appointment of the Primarch Roboute Guilliman as the Lord Commander of the Imperium and the introduction of the Codex Astartes saw a vast restructuring of all of the Imperium's military branches. The Custodes were no exception to this though ultimately the Lord Guilliman's authority over the Custodes was very limited. Functionally little changed in the military structure or duties of the Custodes but to the outside world they were no longer a Legio but rather one of a number of new Adeptus of the Imperium.

The Custodes' long-standing comrades-in-arms, the Sisters of Silence, would suffer an even worse fate. Blamed for the fall of the Emperor even more than the Custodes the Silent Sisterhood would slowly fade from existence, exiled and reviled, driven from the known reaches of the Imperium. By the thirty-second millennium only a single isolated stronghold of the Null-Maidens remained. Though they survived that terrible time their return to the Imperial fold was a temporary one and slowly they would fade into obscurity again. Only in recent years has the Captain-General of the Custodes begun to gather together the scattered bands of surviving Sisters and organize them into a cohesive and well-equipped fighting force once more. Exactly when or why this move was begun remains a mystery but it is likely that the dire portents foreseen in the Imperial Tarot convinced the commander of the Custodian Guard that Terra would have need of the Null-Maidens once more, the anathema psykana being the Imperium's most powerful weapon against the threat of the daemon and the psyker.

The Return of a Primarch

For thousands of years the Imperium slowly slid into decay and ignorance. Over the centuries of the Scouring that followed the defeat of Horus the remaining loyalist Primarchs vanished one by one. Without those guiding lights what little hope and enlightenment remained in the Imperium finally guttered away to nothing. Long centuries of war, neglect, decay and bloated accretion would transform the once magnificent glory of the Throneworld into a decrepit and monstrous mega-industrial sprawl. The wider Imperium would fare little better with whole sectors lost without notice, reclaimed at great cost only to fall into anarchy once more. Repeated sorties from the Eye of Terror would sow death and destruction across the galaxy in the periodic Black Crusades launched by Abaddon the Despoiler. New xenos threats would emerge and the Imperium would prove horribly slow, inefficient and indecisive in its response. Through all that time the golden warriors of the Adeptus Custodes watched and waited, maintaining their eternal vigil in defense of the Emperor on his Golden Throne.

All of that would change with the Fall of Cadia. Unknown to the wider galaxy the 13^th Black Crusade would set off a chain of events thousands of years in the making. The systematic destruction of Necron pillar networks across the galaxy by the forces of chaos had slowly weakened the veil between reality and the warp. The sudden loss of the Cadian pylons in the apocalyptic destruction of the world finally unraveled what remained of that network of ancient xenos technology that had long held the worst of the warp at bay. In one terrible act the galaxy was torn asunder. The borders of the Eye of Terror and other wap storms across the Imperium exploded in a sudden and terrible storm of empyric energy that split the galaxy in two. The light of the astronomicon went out in the face of that hellish storm. The Imperium was suddenly not only split in two but cast into darkness. Ships could no longer find their way in the nightmare ocean of the warp and the forces of the Imperium found themselves utterly cut off from each other and facing unprecedented levels of assault and incursion from the forces of xenos and traitor alike across the length and breadth of the Imperium. Countless apocalyptic battles were waged in this period of time, too many to accurately count and impossible to accurately plot even if the attempt were to be made. The Tyranid invasion of the Baal system was split and disrupted by the eruption of the Great Rift but what was a matter of months to the Chapters of the Blood fighting for their very futures against the dread xenos was decades to the rest of the Imperium.

Into this cauldron of horror and war an old hero would return. Led by Saint Celestine an unusual delegation of Eldar mystics and Adeptus Mechanicus magi journeyed to Macragge and went before the stasis-shrouded form of the Primarch Roboute Guilliman. For ten thousand years the Archmagos Belisarius Cawl had labored on a life-supporting suit of armor for the fallen Primarch and combined with the strange psychic powers of the newly formed Ynnari faction of the Eldar the mortally wounded lord of the Ultramarines was returned to the living. Freed of the stasis field and saved from the deadly poisons of Fulgrim the mighty Avenging Son at last took up his sword and set about cleansing his world of the chaos worshiping invaders that had dared try to despoil the homeworld of the XIII Legion. Shortly after his return to the world of the living Roboute Guilliman set about organizing a Terran Crusade. The Primarch of the Ultramarines would reach the Throneworld and his father or die trying. Hundreds of space marines from dozens of chapters rallied to Guilliman's banner. Further assisted by Grey Knights led by Grand Master Voldus, the mysterious Cypher, Belisarius Cawl, Saint Celestine and Inquisitor Grayfax the forces of the Lord Guilliman rose to an incredible level. Few armies of the Imperium had ever counted so many heroes or such a large number of Space Marines since the dark days of the Horus Heresy but even so their task was near suicidal. With the absence of the astronomicon and the warp raging the prospect of such a long voyage across the Imperium was near suicidal. Yet that was the mission set forth by Guilliman and the Terran Crusade would either succeed or perish, there was no other option.

The many battles fought and heroic tales of the Terran Crusade are recorded elsewhere and unnecessary for this account. Suffice it to say that through long trial and bitter struggle the Terran Crusade ultimately emerged on the surface of Luna, engaged in a terrible battle with forces of the traitor Thousand Sons and daemons of chaos led by none other than the Daemon Primarch Magnus the Red. As soon as anomalous sensor readings were detected on the surface of the moon the forces of the Custodes and the secretly gathered Sisters of Silence rushed to investigate. No sooner had the Terran Crusade become engaged with the ambushing forces of the god of change than they were reinforced by the forces of the Talons of the Emperor.

Though the cost to the forces of the Imperium was high Magnus and his Thousand Sons were defeated and the surface of Luna purged. The battered and bloodied but victorious survivors of the Terran Crusade were shuttled to Terra where after Guilliman demanded an audience with his father. Before that eventful meeting could occur the Emperor's Palace came under sudden assault by a vast army of daemons of Khorn, summoned by long-hidden cults within a stones throw of the Lion's Gate. Within a matter of minutes an army of Custodians some four thousand strong strode from the gates of the Emperor's Palace to meet the chaos assault. The battle that followed was the greatest and most terrible to come to the Throneworld for thousands of years. Not since the Age of Apostasy had such armies done battle on the surface of Terra. Hundreds of Custodian Guard were cut down by the hellforged iron of the blood god's servants but for every Custodian who fell many more daemons were banished back to the warp. No less than eight mighty Bloodthirsters of Khorn led the daemon army and it was they who proved the most dangerous to the armies of the Emperor. Even the awesome might of the Custodes struggled to overcome such terrible champions of chaos. At the height of the battle one of the Bloodthirsters shattered the Lion's Gate and led a vanguard of daemons into the breach.

While it is uncertain whether even this terrible assault could have made it far into the palace, fought every inch by hardened warriors of the many elite Imperial Guard regiments garrisoning the Emperor's Palace or the hundreds more Custodians and Sisters flooding to the breach but as it transpired those forces were unnecessary. Leading the war-weary survivors of the Terran Crusade the Lord Guilliman met the daemons head-on. The Bloodthirster that had so easily torn down the gates of the Emperor's Palace was in turn broken, throttled and cast down by the might of the Avenging Son. The Space Marines, Grey Knights, Mechanicus soldiers and Imperial Saints fighting at Guilliman's side met the daemon with the holy wrath of the Emperor and cast them back to the hell-realm from whence they came.

With the daemon army finally banished the Terran Crusade had at last fought it's final battle. The survivors were taken aside and permitted to rest and receive medical care while Guilliman went to meet his father. Precious few heroes of the Imperium have been granted the honor of an audience with the Emperor in the long-centuries since the Horus Heresy. Only the Custodes can grant permission to enter that most holy of sanctums but even they would not stand between the Lord Guilliman and his father. Alone the Primarch of the Ultramarines was allowed to go before his creator, the Emperor of Mankind. For many long hours Guilliman remained alone in the Sanctum Imperialis, deep in thought and consultation with the raw and unfiltered psychic intelligence of the Emperor. What composure and subtlety the Emperor had once possessed had long been eroded by his torturous existence. No friendly greetings or attempt at paternal care passed between the Emperor and his son. Guilliman was a weapon returned to its creator and now tasked with a dire mission. When the Lord Guilliman finally emerged it was with a renewed determination to reclaim his mantle as Lord Commander of the Imperium and lead the Emperor's realm back from the brink of destruction. At his side would march the Talons of the Emperor.

After ten thousand years of inaction the Adeptus Custodes would be unleashed on the galaxy once more, without restraint, without secrecy, the Custodes would march at the forefront of the armies of the Imperium and bring the Emperor's wrath against the enemies of mankind. The black robes of mourning were finally cast aside and the rich red of the Emperor's servants restored to prominence. Led by the aggressive and proactive Captain-General Trajann Valoris the Custodes would no longer rely on others to protect the Imperium, the Golden Throne could not be protected from behind the walls of the Emperor's Palace anymore, it was time to take up the mantle of the Crusader once more and seek out threats to the Master of Mankind wherever they may hide.

Recruitment and Transformation

From the earliest days of the Custodes existence aspirants to their order were recruited from the infant sons of the Terran nobility. To be selected as an aspirant to the ranks of the Emperor's Custodian Guard is an honor of the highest order, many clans of the Terran nobility have willingly given over the better part of entire generations to the care of the Imperial household. Intakes of aspirants are conducted at regular intervals and are marked by parade-like processions down the Avenue of Sacrifice outside of the Ascensor's Gate, events viewed by massed crowds of cheering onlookers.

Recruits have to be taken as young as possible for the transformation process used to create a Custodian is far more dramatic and complete than the crude implantation of cultivated organs that creates the Adeptus Astartes. This process begins in infancy with the use of the Vitafurtam machines. The exact nature of this first stage of transformation is unclear for it has only ever been mentioned in passing and with little detail and outside the oathbound servants of the Imperial households the secrets of such technologies are unknown and forbidden. What is known, or can be deduced, is that starting with the Vitafurtam the Custodian aspirant is molded at the cellular level. Every aspect of an aspirant's mind and body are rebuilt in the most painstaking and exacting way in a process that takes many decades to complete and that only one in many thousands of aspirants will survive to completion. The result are warriors larger, stronger, tougher and faster than any Space Marine or even the doomed Thunder Warriors. The warriors that emerge after many decades of painstaking work are utterly unrecognizable to the babes who were handed into the care of the Imperial Household. To mark the completion of an aspirant's apotheosis and helm the families of Terra save face each warrior takes on the first of their new names, titles taken from the myths and legends of Terra, the names of ancient heroes and Gods, fitting names for the veritable demigods of the Emperor's Guard. Between their new appearance and name there is no way to tell which of the many aspirants survived their transformation and thus all the noble families of Terra can claim to have sired a Custodian and none can truthfully gainsay them.

Over their incredibly long lives each Custodian will add many more names, each one granted after accomplishing a great deed, exhibiting peerless mastery of a combat form of philosophical endeavor or otherwise achieved something remarkable. Older Custodians may have many dozens, if not hundreds of names, each one inscribed on the inner surfaces of his armor, or even into his very bones. Constantin Valdor was reputed to have earned so many names he had run out of space inside his armor to inscribe them and been forced to begin covering the outer surface of his armor with new names.

Yet it is not just the bodies of the aspirants that are reforged. Through psycho-indoctrination and mnemic conditioning the mind of the aspirant is rebuilt from the ground up. The very mental architecture of the young aspirant is reshaped to fortify it against corruption, psychic manipulation, against fear and doubt. In addition to the extensive psycho-conditioning that is conducted over thousands of hours the mind of each aspirant is further filled with ancient and all-but-lost knowledge from the golden age of the Great Crusade. The education of a Custodian is not solely reduced to warfare, espionage and assassination but also includes the very finest schooling in diplomacy, art, history and philosophy. The Custodes were not just the bodyguards of the Emperor they were originally his closest companions and advisers and were designed to excel in those capacities as well as in the roles of warriors and generals. No secrets are kept from the Custodes in their education, for to protect the Emperor from all threats the Custodians must know and understand the nature and weaknesses of those threats.

Every Custodian is educated in at least fifty complete martial arts and will likely add many more over his long lifetime. These skills are further enhanced with a technique known as numerology, a combat-doctrine that takes the form of mental warfare. Even as the warriors of the Custodian Guard fight their minds analyze everything about their surroundings, their enemies, themselves and makes informed predictions based on collected data and experience to predict the next few seconds of every moment of the fight, allowing the Custodes a virtual precognition of the future of the battle and predict and counter enemy strikes before they have even been launched. As a result every member of the Custodes is an individual warrior of superlative skill, capable of fighting effectively alone or in groups but ultimately the squad cohesion expected of other branches of the Imperium's fighting forces is absent in the Custodes. Squads in the Custodes, known as sodalities, are temporary and frequently changing rough groupings, the tight-knit warrior brotherhoods found in the Adeptus Astartes are all but absent in the ranks of the Custodian Guard. Sodalities are brought together as needed for specific tasks and then dispersed to other assignments just as quickly. That is not to say that the Custodes share no general bond of fraternity, they most certainly do, it is just not the defining nature of squad level tactics for the Emperor's guard.

It is an unfortunate consequence of the extensive knowledge imparted to each Custodian that they are all fully aware of just how far the Imperium has fallen since the fall of the Emperor, the promised age of enlightenment and progress begun with the Great Crusade so cruelly and brutally ended in the fires of the Horus Heresy. Nor can the Custodes take comfort in ignorance to the true nature and extent of the threats facing mankind. Surrounded by stagnation and facing an ever increasing array of dire threats the Custodes stand as the last guardians of hope for mankind in an otherwise dark and brutal galaxy.

Of all the secrets behind the creation of the Custodes the most unsettling may be that the Custodian Guard was always intended as a potential executioner for the emperor's later transhuman soldiers. From the very beginning the possibility of treachery, failure or obsolescence of his legions of gene-forged warriors had been considered by the Emperor and the Custodes were his answer. The first to fall prey to this nature were those surviving Thunder Warriors who had outlived their usefulness during the final years of the Unification Wars. Though the first legion that would later become the Dark Angels was primarily responsible for the purge, the Custodes were also committed to the work and many a Thunder Warrior fell to the guardian spears and sentinel blades of the Custodians. Later the Custodes would prove their fearsome superiority in battle against the traitor legions in the tortuous labyrinth of the webway during the Secret War and the Siege of the Emperor's Palace. It may well be that the War Within the Webway was orchestrated precisely because of the fearsome threat the Custodes posed to the traitor legions and the powers of chaos sought to weaken this force before the final confrontation.

Organization of the Custodian Guard

“By His will alone.”

-The clossest thing the Adeptus Custodes have to a battle-cry.

To the outside observer the organization of the Custodian Guard appears labyrinthine, complex and highly ritualistic. While it is true that a dizzying array of traditions, titles and responsibilities exist within the structure of the Emperor's guard the reality is that the structure of the Custodes is functionally remarkably flat with a mere four general ranks and an extraordinary level of mobility between the disciplines.

Members of the Custodes fall into three broad categories, Custodian, Shield-Captain and Tribune, with a single overall commander bearing the rank of Captain-General. Any Custodian serving as a standard power-armored warrior, a Terminator armored assault soldier or a jetbike mounted outrider all hold the same rank and may swap between roles almost at will and indeed are expected to shift through the different disciplines repeatedly during their lifetime of service. As many as one in five Custodians may hold the rank of Shield-Captain and serve as everything from squad leaders to supreme commanders of multi-faction task forces. The titles and roles of the Shield-Captains vary greatly and include Prefects, Lictors, Proconsuls and Lockwardens but all are functionally equal in rank and responsibility. At most ten warriors will hold the rank of Tribune and act as an overall council of command, advising the Captain-General and coordinating the efforts of their brothers among the Shield Companies. A single warrior at a time holds the rank of Captain-General, the supreme commander of the Adeptus Custodes and one of the highest ranking and most powerful beings in the entire Imperium answering to none but the Emperor and occasionally even serving as a member of the High Twelve, the greatest of the High Lords.

During the Great Crusade the forces of the Custodes were divided into a number of distinct categories representing the variable specializations and battlefield roles of Custodians within those groupings. Broadly these organizations were known as the Hykanatoi, comprising the majority of the Custodian Guardians including the Sentinel and Sagitarrum sodalities, the Moritoi containing the Dreadnoughts of the Legio, the Tharanatoi who were made up of Custodians armored in Aquilon Terminator plate, and the Kataphraktoi jetbike riders and also probably vehicle crews and aircraft pilots. The last order of the Legio Custodes were the Ephoroi, a designation containing counter-intelligence and espionage specialists whose activities are more subtle and secret than those of their brothers. In the modern Imperium the Ephoroi seem to contain those Custodians who spend more time beyond the Emperor's Palace than the majority of Custodians, gathering intelligence and hunting down targets.

Instead of cohesive squads the warriors of the Custodes are generally organized into fairly informal groupings known as sodalities, small warrior brotherhoods that split and reform, disperse and come together as and when needed. Very few sodalities consist of the same handful of warriors for any great length of time with the Gilded Fist sodality of Allarus Custodians being a rare exception to this rule. During the Great Crusade the Hykanatoi were formed into Guardian sodalities, squads equipped with the iconic Guardian Spears and Sentinel sodalities, squads equipped with Sentinel warblades and Praesidium shields. The Moritoi consisted of Achillus and Galatus-pattern Contemptor Dreadnoughts and the mighty Telemon Heavy Dreadnoughts. The bulk of the Tharanatoi were Aquilon Terminator sodalities and the Kataphraktoi were mostly comprised of Agamatus sodalities mounted on Gyrfalcon-pattern jetbikes. In addition to these groups the greatest heroes of the Custodes not otherwise given a role of command were formed into the Hetaeron Guard, the mightiest of which were the three hundred closest bodyguards of the Emperor known as the Companions. Unlike their brethren the Hetaeron Guard could comprise any combination of wargear and had access to archaeotech pistols, paragon blades and a host of specialized Guardian Spears equipped with compact meltaguns or adrathic destructors.

More esoteric sub-groupings within the Legio Custodes existed but were little known outside the ranks of the Emperor's guard. Only the extraordinary circumstances of the Scouring of Prospero drew some of these rarer formations from deep within the Imperial Palace where they could be seen and recorded by outsiders. These included Custodian Warder Arascid Nassau, a member of an order known as the Warders of the Vaults of Rython. Custodian Arascid's armor was colored a midnight black edged in silver and adorned with golden ornamentation instead of the usual uniform lustrous gold of a Custodian's armor. It is possible that the Warders of the Vaults of Rython were a sodality or Shield Company serving with the Shadowkeepers as wardens of the Black Cells but it is ultimately unknown if the ancient and modern formations have anything to do with each other or if other sub-orders existed in the ancient Legio Custodes.

In the millennia since the Horus Heresy the organization of the Adeptus Custodes appears to have lost some of it's more ritualistic trappings. The old designations of the Hykanatoi and others seem to have lost some of their rigidity and it is more common to see mixed sodalities bearing a variety of weaponry. The bulk of the Ten Thousand are standard power armored Custodian Guardians armed with Guardian Spears or Sentinel Warblades and Storm Shields. The most belligerent Custodians may be drawn into the sodalities of the Allarus Terminators while the most aggressive warriors may be driven to take to the battlefield mounted upon Dawneagle Jetbikes as Vertus Praetors. Veterans of five centuries of service may take the oaths of a Custodian Warden, donning the robes and alternate helmet of the elite of the Custodian Guard and granted the right to bear the deadly Castellan axe instead of the more common Guardian Spear. Many Custodian Wardens will have served as Companions, standing as one of the three hundred silent and immobile guardians around the Golden Throne.

The ancient roles of Shield-Captain and Tribune still exist though during the Fall of Cadia there were but a couple Tribunes actively serving in the ranks of the Ten Thousand instead of the full ten. The role of the Captain-General also remains much unchanged and since the formation of the Custodian Guard a mere seventeen individuals have held the rank. Most of those have fallen in combat while a handful have given up the role to become Eyes of the Emperor and a mere three have mysteriously vanished without a trace including the legendary Constantin Valdor and the ill-fated Galahoth.

The sheer size of the Imperial Palace makes it impossible to effectively patrol and defend with the mere ten thousand warriors of the Custodian Guard alone, as such the palace defenses are bolstered by many thousands of psycho-conditioned soldiers who serve under the command of the Custodes. Drawn from a number of Imperial Guard regiments these defenders include the remnants of the Lucifer Blacks, renowned far and wide, and others like the white-robed Palatine Sentinels whose existence is unknown to most outside the walls of the palace itself. Others like the 156^th Tramman Standards defended the open ground beyond part of the walls, a line of grey uniforms standing firm against gathering riots. The Katanda 143^rd Stalwarts served under the command of Shield-Captain Valerian.

Within the general organization of the Adeptus Custodes a handful of sub-orders are in evidence. The most well known of these are the Shadowkeepers, the Aquilan Shield, the Dread Host, the Solar Watch and the Emissaries Imperatus. Each of these sub-orders maintains a modified uniform and a particular set of responsibilities and specializations distinct from the wider ranks of the Ten Thousand.

The Shadowkeepers – Warders of the Dark Cells

-The Shadowkeepers and the Lockwarden who leads them are charged with protecting the Black Cells deep beneath the Emperor's Palace. The beings and artifacts locked away in the Black Cells are the most dire and terrible threats to the realm of man that cannot simply or easily be destroyed. Horrific relics of the dark age of technology, monsters of old night, daemon possessed demagogues of fearsome power and indestructible xenos psyker lords to name but a few. Locked away by the most powerful of technologies and psychic wards and guarded by scores of the most powerful warriors ever created by the Emperor the threats contained in the Black Cells are of the highest magnitude and should they escape the danger they pose to the Imperium is incalculable. The opening of the Great Rift also mysteriously emptied a number of cells of their contents and as a result the Lockwarden of the Shadowkeepers has been leading hunts almost constantly, urgently seeking to contain and return the escaped and newly discovered threats before they can bring untold harm to the Imperium. The Shadowkeepers are marked out by their black armor, edged in gold and adorned with deep red robes.

The Aquilan Shield – The Gilded Guardians

-The purple robed Aquilan Shield often act as bodyguards to Imperial heroes and those exceptional individuals predicted by prognostication to have an important role to fulfill in protecting the Sol system. Unfortunately the protection afforded by the Aquilan Shield is contingent on the fulfilling of an individuals purpose and once their work has been achieved that protection is withdrawn immediately. The result is usually a quick and brutal death for the formerly protected individual but to the Custodians of the Aquilan Shield such an outcome is irrelevant, whatever desired outcome has already been achieved and the further utility of that individual has become negligible. Indeed sometimes the very purpose for which a subject is being protected is an eventual martyrdom as was the case for a bewildered battlefield preacher named Lorrin on the ar torn world of Phinalium. The martyrdom of Lorrin led to his sainthood and inspired a turning of the tide of war across an entire sector in the favor of the Imperium.

The Dread Host – Instrument of the Emperor's Wrath

-By far the most aggressive and pro-active of the Shield Hosts of the Adeptus Custodes the Dread Host are the principle and most devastating weapon deployed by the Custodian Guard to deliver the Emperor's Wrath to targets outside the bounds of the Sol system. Transported aboard a trio of mighty pre-heresy battleships known as the Moiraides the Dread Host is ever ready to sail forth to deliver the Emperor's Judgment to any and all threats to the Golden Throne. Psyker cabals, traitor cults and xenos armies have all fallen to the guns and blades of the Dread Host. Within the walls of the Imperial Palace the stronghold of the Drad Host is known as the Sanctum of a Thousand Eyes, a great fortress tower surrounded by a thousand giant eagle sculptures whose unblinking gaze stares both skywards and towards the ground. The eyes of each eagle statue incorporate powerful arrays of long-range augurs, servitor cogitation banks and multi-spectral listening devices that feed the Dread Host a constant flood of data ever vigilant for any sign of a threat to the Throneworld. Members of the Dread Host typically paint the inset of their shoulder plates black and wear white pteruges to symbolize their membership of this particular organization within the greater whole of the Custodian Guard.

The Solar Watch – Castellans of the Blessed Worlds

-In many ways the Solar Watch stand as the first line of defense for the Throneworld, acting as garrisons for the many star-forts and orbital weapons batteries throughout the Sol system and ever vigilant watchmen patrolling the dark reaches between worlds. Though relatively few in number the Shield Companies of the Solar Watch are ever on the move, ever vigilant and ever hunting, always ready to punish the slightest laxity in the crews of fortresses, gun platforms and warships charged with defending the Sol system, ever ready to purge hidden cults, or intercept incoming threats. Of all the formations of the Custodian Guard the Solar Watch maintain perhaps the largest number of armored transports, the better to swiftly charge into battle at a moment's notice. Whenever the Custodes have been led by a particularly aggressive Captain-General the Solar Watch have been known to be charged with launching Talon Sorties, Shield-Company strength deployments against identified threats in the systems clossest to the Sol system. As a uniform the Custodians of the Solar Watch recolor their auramite armor marble-white edged in gold and with shoulder-plate insets and pteruges of rich red.

The Emissaries Imperatus – Heralds of the Golden Throne

-Though sightings of Custodian Guard are quite rare even on Terra and vanishingly rare elsewhere in the Imperium, at least before the Fall of Cadia, it is likely that whenever scattered Custodians were sighted in the centuries before the opening of the Great Rift that they were members of the Emissaries Imperatus. Sodalities of the Emissaries Imperatus come together as a gathering of like-minded scholarly Custodians who meditate on the will of the Emperor. Whenever a revelation or prognostication is made the Emissaries Imperatus will endeavor carry out the Emperor's will, traveling far and wide to deliver his message or accomplish whatever task has been set forth. Sometimes the Emissaries Imperatus carry words of counsel to Imperial commanders while at other time their visions lead to the removal of some mysterious and powerful artifact from the vaults of the Imperial Palace and the entrusting of it to some notable hero of the Imperium. Since the return of Guilliman the Emissaries Imperatus have acted as the earliest and most outspoken supporters of the Indomitus Crusade and the Primaris Space Marines and it was members of the Emissaries Imperatus who were responsible for carrying the secrets of the Primaris Marines to many chapters across the Imperium and ensuring even the most stubborn and reticent chapters agreed to adopt the new marines. After all precious few loyal servants of the Emperor could refuse a gift delivered by the Emperor's own Custodian Guard.

The Eyes of the Emperor

The first Occuli Imperator were twenty Custodians charged with watching the Word Bearers for signs of religiosity following their humbling at Monarchia. The failure and deaths of the Occuli Imperator proved that visible watchers were vulnerable and ineffective. Over time the Custodes began to observe a tradition whereby Custodians who feel they are aging to the point of their abilities degrading, even fractionally, will surrender their mantle and depart the Throneworld. When a Custodian chooses to become an Eye of the Emperor he will surrender his arms and armor to the Hall of Armaments and will don a simple robe of black cloth. Where the Eyes of the Emperor go and what they do after that point is a closely guarded secret, likely unknown even to the Custodes themselves. In essence each Eye of the Emperor is a completely independent intelligence operative functioning on his own with no official support from the Custodes or any other agency of the Imperium. Each Eye of the Emperor will establish his own network of informants and spies, agents and assassins, establish bases and safe-houses, acquire transportation and weapons and conduct an operation of eternal vigilance, searching out and identifying threats to the Emperor and the Imperium. Should an Eye of the Emperor discover such a threat that he is unable to eliminate himself the Custodes will be informed through the use of prearranged and hardened lines of communication. In this way the Eyes of the Emperor are truly the Master of Mankind's first line of defense, hidden agents that could be anywhere, ever hunting for those who would seek to do the Emperor harm.

The Doomscryers

The Adeptus Custodes maintain many networks of intelligence sources scattered across the Imperium but purely physical sources of information are hardly sufficient to protect the Emperor's Palace from all threats. Some enemies operate on a more psychic plane or may not exist in the material realm at all. To better identify potential threats and eliminate them the Custodes maintain cabals of sanctioned psykers known as the Doomscryers who are perpetually engaged in the act of prognostication. Similar to the psykers of the Grey Knights the Doomscryers spend their lives casting their psychic senses into the warp and the web of the future, searching for any sign of hidden foes or disastrous potential futures and alerting their Custodian masters to their discoveries. While maintaining the necessary number and strength of psykers for such a task would normally be quite difficult the constant flow of Black Ships bringing psykers to Terra allows the Custodes to skim the most promising prisoners for their own purposes.

Despite the intense screening and extraordinary security of the Doomscryers a sub-sect became corrupted and possessed without the Custodes knowledge in the century before the opening of the Great Rift. The false visions of these possessed Doomscryers led to the death of Captain-General Launceddre in the Battle of the Gilded Pyre.

The Blood Games

The defense of the Emperor's Palace is a task that cannot be accomplished through walls and guns alone. The Emperor's enemies are tireless and cunning, ever adapting and ever probing for any sign of weakness. From the psyker thieves of radical Thorians to renegade Imperial Assassins and xenos killers-for-hire the threats the Custodes must be eternally vigilant against are too numerous and too devious to be easily enumerated or described.

To protect the Emperor then requires similar effort and ingenuity combined with intelligence and preparation. The first and foremost method by which the Custodes gather information, identify weaknesses and fortify them is the Blood Games. Individual Custodians will leave behind their weapons and wargear and will travel out into the Imperium, scattering throughout the Sol system and beyond. Once far enough away the Custodians participating in the Blood Games will then attempt to reach the Sanctum Imperialis without being detected or stopped. Some Blood Games can last a mere few weeks while some may last years or decades. Through espionage, bribery, assassination and infiltration each participant will work their way towards the Golden Throne and in doing so identify weaknesses. Trade-guilds whose overseers are too easily bribed for access to restricted shuttles may be replaced. Abandoned infrastructure long-forgotten by the Imperium may be discovered and thus sealed or watched. Security procedures, technological weaknesses, gaps in patrols and all manner of other holes in the palaces defenses will all be sought out and thus identified and sealed through the use of the Blood Games.

Most notably it was the discovery of once such route of ingress by Custodian Leotydus Dat-Hastael that led to the capture of the Dark Eldar assassin the Blade of Ptesh. Captain-General Trajann Valoris currently holds the record for running not one but two successful Blood Games in his first few decades of service to the Custodes.

Domains of the Adeptus Custodes

“Ours is the duty absolute. Ours is the vigil that must never end. Ours is the timeless honor, the willing sacrifice, the penitence enduring. We stand a watch that will never be relieved, and we stand it gladly out of adoration for he who gave us life, and whose life we must, in turn, preserve. We will never earn absolution, for we do not deserve it, but those who believe that would give us pause are fools.”

-Shield-Captain Tybalus Maxin.

Officially the Imperial Household, the organization of agents sworn directly to the Emperor's personal service, and it's militant arm in the form of the Custodian Guard, hold authority over much of the Imperial Palace, as well as the greater domain of the Sol system itself. This means that almost every space station, vessel, hive spire, gun platform and manufactorum throughout the Sol system may be requisitioned by the agents of the Imperial Household for whatever purpose is deemed necessary. In reality the Custodes are relatively distant wardens allowing business to continue as normal throughout the Sol system and only intervening directly when a threat to the throne is identified. To better perform their role the Custodes maintain a number of facilities, fortresses, space stations and outposts crewed by servants of the Imperial Household and garrisoned by the Custodian Guard themselves. What follows is a list of the most important and well known of these facilities and outposts though undoubtedly there are many more that are unknown outside of the Imperial Household.

The Sanctum Imperialis

-The innermost-sanctum of the Emperor's Palace the Sanctum Imperialis is held as the most holy location in the Imperium for it houses the Emperor forever consigned to the embrace of the Golden Throne. The machineries of the Golden Throne also control and power the Astronomicon, the great beacon that enables safe-travel through the warp and is the very thing that allows the empire of man to even exist.

The Tower of Hegemon

-The first and greatest of the Custodes fortresses this mighty spire rises from the heart of the Emperor's Palace itself. Containing a vast array of communications and command centers, armories, vehicle bays and aircraft hangars, training facilities, dormitories, dining halls and anything and everything else necessary to keep the Custodes and their mortal servants operating at peak capability. The most important part of the Tower of Hegemon is the Watch Chamber, where the vast network of surveillance, communications and data-gathering apparatus available to the Custodians is brought together and analyzed by a small army of bonded servants. The mortals who serve in the Watch Chamber are hereditary servants who wear talismans made from the bones of their ancestors over their duty robes. It was from the Watch Chamber of the Tower of Hegemon that Captain-General Constantin Valdor coordinated the forces fighting in the webway and led the Custodes in the defense of the palace during the Siege of Terra.

The Sanctum of a Thousand Eyes

-Towering over the bulk of the Imperial Palace the Sanctum of a Thousand Eyes is a towering fortress surrounded by a thousand massive eagle sculptures each the size of a super-heavy tank. Home to the Custodians of the Dread Host the statues of the sanctum incorporate complex arrays of long-range augurs, servitor-manned cogitation banks and multi-spectral listening devices that provide the Custodians with a constant stream of intelligence and observation data, ever vigilant for the slightest sign of a threat to the Golden Throne.

The Black Cells

-Located deep beneath the Emperor's Palace in the Imperial Dungeon the Black Cells are likely the most heavily protected, psychically warded and stasis-locked prisons in the Imperium. The Black Cells are guarded eternally by an entire Shield Host of the Custodian Guard known as the Shadowkeepers and commanded by the Lockwarden along with a sizable army of hardened combat servitors. All of these measures are of the greatest necessity for the contents of the Black Cells are no less than the worst nightmares of old night, xenos abominations that cannot be killed, daemonhosts, sentient archaeotech weapons, artifacts of corruption and monstrous technologies. Should any of the prisoners escape their cells the threat they would pose to humanity would be incalculable. That a number of cells were discovered suddenly empty following the opening of the Great Rift is an event of dire portents.

The Echovault

-This mysterious artifact of xenos origin was nearly captured by a warband of Black Legion chaos space marines following the opening of the Great Rift. The forces of chaos were intercepted and annihilated by the Adeptus Custodes of the Dread Host who posted a permanent garrison of Custodians to guard the Echovault from future attack. What dark technologies or artifacts the Echovault may contain and what threat they pose to the Imperium is a secret closely guarded by the Custodians.

Star Keep Ferrum Raptoris

-Located in the near orbit of Mars the Ferrum Raptoris serves as the first of a number of star fortresses circling the Throneworld and the Sol system itself. The proximity of the Ferrum Raptoris to Mars is perhaps suggestive of a general distrust for the secretive and often self-serving servants of the Machine God.

Star Keep Talon Aegis

-This star fortress sits along the warp route between the Sol system and the world of Armageddon and from there on to Elysia or Fenris.

Star Keep Prescience

-The Prescience star keep lays along the warp route to Hydraphur.

Star Keep Oracle Maximus

-The Oracle Maximus sits on the warp route between Sol and the Vordrast system.

Star Keep Eyrie Prime

-The Eyrie Prime lays along the warp route to Gathalamor and beyond that Necromunda.

The Talons of the Emperor

Among the more learned members of the Imperium's elite it is known that the Adeptus Custodes and the Sisters of Silence can be collectively referred to as the Talons of the Emperor. Some justify this title as representative of the left and right clawed feet of the palatine aquila, the most important and prevalent symbol of the Imperium, a symbol of the elite status of these organizations and their closeness to the Golden Throne as well as their right to bear the palatine aquila as their primary heraldry. In reality the Custodes and Sisters of Silence are but two of five organizations that comprised the wider group known as the Talons of the Emperor during the Great Crusade.

The first of the talons is obviously the Custodian Guard whose existence may well predate the Unity Wars themselves. During the early years of the Great Crusade the Silent Sisterhood was founded, though the circumstances were mysterious and secretive then and completely lost to the mists of time now. What few know is that the third Talon of the Emperor is the Officio Assassinorum. The Assassin Temples actually predate the Imperium and were ancient orders existing on Terra during the Dark Age of Technology. Highly secretive and unaffiliated with any one ruler or empire the Assassins had largely stayed out of the wars of Unification. Towards the end of that period when the Emperor's ascendance was undeniable the Grand Masters of the Assassin Temples came together and chose to voluntarily join the Emperor and his grand quest to unit mankind. The Officio Assassinorum was initially sworn to the service of the Emperor alone and even now the temples are only theoretically under the command of the High Lords of Terra. Containing the berserk killing machines of the Eversor Temple, the shape-shifting infiltrators of the Callidus Temple, the patient snipers of the Vindicare Temple, the pariah witch hunters of the Culexus Temple, the infocytes of the Vanus Temple and the poisoners of the Venenum Temple the Officio Assassinorum serve as among the most deadly and exacting deliverers of the Emperor's judgment on the traitor, the heretic and the xenos. It is unclear whether the old traditions of cooperation still exist between the Custodes and the Assassins or whether even the Assassins still know of their old status as one of the Talons of the Emperor and what that may or may not mean now that the Custodes and Sisters of Silence are mounting campaigns into the wider galaxy once more.

The fourth of the ancient talons is perhaps the most sinister in both name and nature; the Psy-Titans of the Ordo Sinister. During the Great Crusade the Emperor demanded the Mechanicus provide more than twenty Warlord-class Battle-Titans and all the necessary parts and equipment to maintain them to Terra, no questions asked. Despite concerns about the request the Mechanicus ultimately delivered the Titans and in doing so laid the foundations for the formation of the Ordo Sinister. Instead of the usual crew of Titan Princeps and Moderati the engines of the Ordo Sinister were crewed by slaved psykers and piloted by a pariah. Capable of manifesting psychic powers on a scale far greater than any single mortal psyker could hope to match the ominous and deadly Psy-Titans were only rarely deployed in the years before the Horus Heresy and the total secrecy of their creation and use ensured that few details about the order reached beyond the Imperial Household itself. It is believed that the Ordo Sinister maintained four hidden fortresses across Terra, each housing five Psy-Titans each and that these engines were armed with an esoteric warp-powered weapon known as the Left Hand of Darkness in place of the Warlord Titan's usual left weapon arm.

The last of the old Talons of the Emperor is the most mysterious. Known as the Templi-Chronos it is possible that this secret order was charged with gathering, studying and protecting some of the most deadly archaeotech recovered during the Great Crusade, those weapons and technologies capable of damaging and manipulating time itself. Ultimately virtually nothing is known of this order and certainly not if it still exists to this day.

Wargear of the Custodian Guard

Achillus Dreadspear

-The ancient and powerful Contemptor Dreadnoughts of the Legio Custodes possess weapons far more advanced and powerful than anything their Legiones Astartes counterparts possess. Custodian Contemptor Dreadnoughts possess considerably greater agility and dexterity than any space marine dreadnought and as such are equipped with up-sized versions of the iconic weaponry of the Custodian Guard. First and foremost among these dreadnought-scale weapons is the Achillus Dreadspear, a massively over-sized Guardian Spear far larger than any mortal could possibly wield. In the metal hands of a Custodian Contemptor Dreadnought the Achillus Dreadspear is a remarkable weapon capable of delivering blows of awesome power that can split apart whole squads of power armored foes in a single strike. When delivering a thrust at the end of a charge the penetrating power of the dreadspear is capable of impaling even the mightiest of warmachines on the crackling power blade of the spear, itself larger than most men are tall. Yet the blade is not the only feature of the dreadspear for like it's smaller counterparts the Achillus also features an inbuilt firearm, a Corvae Las-Pulser. These powerful las weapons are unique to the Legio Custodes and are capable of delivering a devastating volley of laser fire with the force of a lascannon but a considerably greater rate of fire, all from a far more compact package.

Adrasite Spear

-The combination of the signature Guardian Spear of the Legio Custodes with forbidden Adrathic weaponry produced the Adrasite Spear. Swapping out the typical bolter of the Guardian Spear for an Adrathic Destructor produces a truly astounding weapon of dark age technological might.

Adrastus Bolt Caliver

-Created for the use of the Sagittarum Guard the Adrastus Bolt Caliver combined an extraordinarily large bolter roughly equivalent to a heavy bolter in size and caliber, with an under-slung Adrathic Destructor. Any normal mortal could only operate such a weapon from a fixed emplacement while even space marines would likely struggle to handle the Adrastus Bolt Caliver, to the Custodian Guard however this weapon was merely a combat rifle of considerable potency. The Sagittarum Guard were capable of carrying and firing the Adrastus Bolt Caliver from the move, laying down punishing volleys of fire interspersed with searing blasts of esoteric energy. Few foes could withstand the firepower of the Adrastus Bolt Caliver. It is unknown whether any formations of Sagittarum Guard still exist in the ranks of the Adeptus Custodes of the current day.

Adrathic Weaponry

-Truely horrific relics of the dark age of technology the broad category of firearms known as Adrathic weapons were zealously hunted down by the Emperor's forces during the Unification Wars. Submission to compliance required the turnover of all Adrathic weapons in the possession of the new vassal and failure to reveal or relinquish so much as a single example of Adrathic technology was punishable by extermination. Once acquired Adrathic weaponry was taken to the armories of the Imperial Palace and granted to the sole stewardship of the Legio Custodes. The Emperor's Custodian Guard would forevermore be the only Imperial force permitted to bear the devastating might of Adrathic weaponry into battle. During the later Great Crusade and early Horus Heresy the Custodian Guard would make extensive use of Adrathic weaponry, utilizing compact Adrathic Destructors dual mounted as the primary firearms of Aquilon Terminators, built singly into the shafts of Adrasite Guardian Spears, undermounted in the Adrastus Bolt Calivers of the Sagittarum Guard, dual mounted on the wrists of Contemptor Achilles Dreadnoughts and heavier Adrathic Devastators mounted in the forward hull of Gyrfalcon-pattern Jetbikes. It is unknown whether the Adeptus Custodes is still able to maintain or use Adrathic weaponry or whether the secrets of their repair and use has been lost to time and war. It is possible that dark armories of forbidden weaponry still exist within the Imperial Palace that house the hundreds of Adrathic weapons once used by the Ten Thousand and one day these armories might be thrown open and emptied once more.

Allarus Terminator Armor

-In the millennia since the Horus Heresy the armorers of the Adeptus Custodes have further improved on the design of the Aquilon-pattern Terminator Armor. Still featuring some of the design elements of the Cataphractii Terminator Armor the Allarus Terminator Armor shares much more in common with the standard Custodian power armor than it's predecessors, allowing for even more flexibility and agility while retaining an incredible level of protection. Instead of the twin-mounted firearms and power gauntlets of the Aquilon armor the wearers of Allarus Terminator Armor are able to wield Guardian Spears and Castellan Axes with the same skill as their power armored brethren and are further outfitted with Balistus Grenade Launchers.

Arachnus Blaze Cannon

-Underneath the superior materials and enhancements the Arachnus Blaze Cannon and Heavy Arachnus Blaze Cannons of the Legio Custodes were recognizable as Multi-Lasers. Rapid-firing laser weapons that could put out a devastating volley of medium powered laser blasts. The Arachnus Blaze Cannon takes that basic technology and improves on it considerably, delivering a similar rate of fire but with greater power and better penetrating power than standard multi-lasers and with an optional alternate fire mode that could concentrate the multiple shots onto a single point to deliver a devastating armor-piercing blaze of power capable of destroying all but the heaviest of enemy armored units.

Arae-Shrike

-Remarkable and borderline heretical relics of the dark age of tecnology the Arae-Shrikes exist exclusively in the armories of the Legio Custodes. The Arae-Shrike is capable of twisting and distorting electromagnetic signals through the use of malifica-djinn and hostile blight-code. Unshielded cogitators and targeting systems are bombarded with false signals, corrupting and obfuscating the results while shielded systems are simply overwhelmed in a storm of incoherent data. Priceless as counter-intelligence tools the Legio Custodes maintained a considerable number of these devices during the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy.

Archaeotech Pistol

-Despite the seeming specificity of the term the designation of Archaeotech Pistol in truth refers to a truly dizzying array of unique, priceless and irreplaceable artifacts of the dark age of technology. No two archaeotech pistols are likely to ever be the same and they include everything from esoteric energy weapons to mysterious and powerful ballistic weapons. Some Primarchs carry examples of such weapons into battle while others have come into the possession of renowned Space Marine champions, lords of the Imperium and high commanders of the Solar Auxilia and Imperial Army. Even the most humble weapon of this category likely commands a world's ransom in value and no effort is too great to recover or protect such artifacts. It is little surprise that the armories of the Legio Custodes include a number of powerful archaeotech pistols that are sometimes carried as sidearms by senior officers of the Custodian Guard.

Aquilon Terminator Armor

-The predominant pattern of Terminator Armor used by the Legio Custodes during the latter Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy the Aquilon pattern took the Cataphractii armor of the Legiones Astartes and upgraded and enhanced it to a considerable degree. The greater size and strength of the Custodian wearers allowed the Aquilon pattern to incorporate even more motive-actuators and fibre-bundle muscles and more powerful shield generators. The result was an armor system that allowed the Custodian wearer agility comparable to his power armored brethren but protection equal to the finest Cataphractii armor of the Legiones Astartes. The combination of durability and mobility made the Aquilon an invaluable asset to the Legio Custodes and sodalities of Aquilon Terminators were ever at the forefront of the fiercest fighting. After the development of the Allarus-pattern of Terminator Armor it is unknown whether the Custodes still retain any examples of Aquilon Terminator Armor or use them in the current era.

Balistus Grenade Launcher

-These compact, rapid-firing assault grenade launchers are utilized exclusively by the Allarus Custodians. Mounted on the left forearm of each suit of Allarus Terminator Armor the Balistus Grenade Launchers can be fired in conjunction with the Guardian Spear or Castellan Axe bolters of the bearer and are capable of hurling armor-piercing grenades at a considerable rate of fire, supplementing the firepower of the elite Allarus strike sodalities.

Castellan Axe

-A less-common variant of the signature Guardian Spears of the Custodians, the Castellan Axe replaces the power blade of the spear with a heavy single-edged axe head. The resulting weapon is an extraordinarily deadly executioner axe capable of cutting through a fully armored Space Marine in a single stroke or tearing through the armor of the heaviest of battle-tanks. Castellan Axes are generally reserved for veteran Custodians serving as Wardens, Allarus Terminators or as Shield-Captains.

Corvae Las-Pulser

-While las weaponry is extraordinarily common in the armed forces of the Imperium, from the humble lasgun to the fearsome lascannon the Corvae Las-Pulsers of the Legio Custodes are exemplars of the technology. Compact enough to be built into the haft of the Achilles Dreadspears or mounted in the hull of a Gyrfalcon-pattern Jetbike the corvae nevertheless manages a fearsome rate of fire, each weapon putting out the firepower of no less than three standard lascannons in a much smaller package. Once common in the forces of the Custodes the Corvae Las-Pulsers have not been seen in number since the Horus Heresy and it is unclear whether the technology remains in use with the modern Adeptus Custodes.

Custodian Armor

-The personal armor of the Custodian Guard are each hand-crafted masterpieces of the armorsmith's art possessing a similar form to the power armor of the space marines but far more sophisticated in design and far superior in both construction and material. Each suit is unique and hand-crafted to the exact dimensions of the Custodian who will wear it. Forged from the rare and priceless Auramite alloy the natural color of the metal is a lustrous gold that the bulk of the Custodian Guard choose to retain as the primary color. Certain specializations and duties within the Custodian Guard choose to recolor the armor but instead of covering the auramite in paint the metal is dyed a different color on the molecular level, an extraordinarily expensive and time consuming process that is nevertheless deemed appropriate for the Emperor's elite guard. In addition to the extraordinary materials that make up the armor and provide peerless protection to the wearer each suit of Custodian Armor is fitted with a powerful refractor field generator. These potent energy shields are rare artifacts usually reserved for senior officers, wealthy diplomats and Mechanicus magi. Officers of the Legio Custodes further enhance their protection with Iron Halos or even Auramite Halos, each of which boosts the defensive power of the inbuilt force field to astonishing degrees. Ultimately the standard armor of the Custodian Guard provides protection equal to or greater than the very finest armor of the Legiones Astartes or the Mechanicus typically reserved for only the greatest heroes of those orders.

Galatus Warblade

-Like the Achillus Dreadspear the Galatus Warblade is a massively oversized version of the Sentinel Warblade scaled up for use by the Contemptor Dreadnoughts of the Legio Custodes. Featuring a truly massive broadsword blade and a hilt-mounted twin-Infernus Incinerator the Galatus Warblade is a fearsome weapon. When combined with a Dreadnought Praesidium Shield the result is a warmachine that is both extraordinarily deadly and unbelievably hard-to-kill.

Guardian Spear

-The signature weapon of the Custodian Guard these fearsome weapons are so large it would take several strong mortal men to lift and taller even than the Custodians who wield them. The Guardian Spears feature master-crafted single-edged power blades mounted on the end of a solid and heavy spear shaft that itself incorporates a built in bolter of remarkable quality. The inbuilt bolters of the Guardian Spear fire hand-crafted ammunition created for the exclusive use of the Custodians and far superior to the ammunition used by the Adeptus Astartes or other Imperial forces. Apart from the extraordinary technologies and materials used in the construction of the Guardian Spear they are as much symbolic as they are practical weapons, symbols of office and deliverers of judgment. Only the Custodians are permitted to carry the Guardian Spear, with the sole exception of the Watch Masters of the Deathwatch.

Iliastus Accelerator Cannon

-Unlike many of the Legio Custodes other weapons and wargear the Iliastus Accelerator Cannon was not developed or re-purposed from archaeotech relics of the dark age of technology, rather it was developed as a result of cutting edge technological advancements developed from recovered fragments of long-lost lore and tested on the front lines of the Great Crusade. In this case the Accelerator Autocannons used by the Sicaran Battle Tanks. Deployed primarily on the Caladius Grav-Tank the Iliastus Accelerator Cannon employed an even more advanced form of accelerator autocannon technology than on the Sicaran used by the Legiones Astartes combined with heliothermic warheads. The resulting weapon possessed a slower rate of fire than the standard accelerator autocannon but delivered a far more deadly payload from far superior platforms.

Infernus Incinerator and Firepikes

-Much like the bolt weaponry of the Custodes the flamers employed by the Emperor's elite guard were of far superior craftsmanship and utilized the most potent of fuels than any other example of their kind in the armed forces of the Imperium. Twin-Infernus Incinerators were a common armament on the Contemptor Dreadnoughts of the Custodes while the long-barreled Infernus Firepike carried by the Aquilon Terminators could deploy devastating plumes of killing flame at considerably greater range than conventional flamers.

Interceptor Lance

-These extremely large and heavy lances are carried exclusively by the Vertus Praetors. Longer than the Dawneagle Jetbikes upon which the Vertus Praetors ride these powered lances are capable of delivering incredibly powerful blows delivered with all the strength of the rider combined with the stunning speed of the jetbike. The resulting impact is capable of driving the blade of the Interceptor Lance through the armor of super-heavy battle-tanks and the chitinous exoskeleton of the most monstrous of Tyranid bio-weapons with ease.

Lastrum Storm Bolters and Bolt Cannon

-Like all elements of the Custodes weapons and wargear their bolt weaponry are master-crafted examples of their kind. Named after the weaponsmiths of the Lastrum Core Clan of the Appolyne workshops of Terra the Lastrum Storm Bolters and Bolt Cannons used by the Legio Custodes during the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy were not only masterwork weapons in terms of their craftsmanship but they were further bulked out and reinforced so as to handle the firing of the unique and powerful heliothermic ammunition. Instead of the usual kraken bolt ammunition the Lastrum bolt weapons of the Custodes fired mass-reactives fitted with heliothermic warheads that upon penetrating their target explode in sun-hot bursts of incendiary brilliance, incinerating the target from within. The heavy and dense heliothermic bolt rounds would shatter a normal bolter upon firing and thus it is only the extraordinarily robust construction of the Lastrum Bolt weapons that enables them to survive firing these deadly munitions.

Meridian Swords

-Typically paired and worn as secondary weapons these deadly power blades were favored by the elite Dynastes sodality led by Tribune Ra Endymion during the Secret War in the webway. Whether the Meridian sword was a common armament among the wider ranks of the Legio Custodes or is still in service in the modern Adeptus Custodes is unknown.

Misericordia

-These deadly powered daggers are far more than weapons to the Adeptus Custodes. From the earliest days of the Unification Wars these weapons signified the wielder as a bearer of the Magisterium Lex Ultima, the arbiters of the ultimate law of the Imperium and representatives of the absolute authority of the Emperor of Mankind. No-one, from the most powerful Inquisitor Lord to the High Lords of Terra is exempt from the deadly authority of the Magisterium. Each Custodian is awarded a Misericordia dagger upon his ascension and it is rare indeed for a Custodian to go into battle without his Misericordia at his side.

Paragon Blade

-A precious few examples of exceptional and unique archaeotech swords are carried by the greatest champions of the Legiones Astartes, Praetors and Champions of only the most exceptional skill and greatest renown. As the finest warriors in the Imperium it is no surprise that the armories of the Legio Custodes possess a number of these incredible artifacts. Should a veteran Custodian decide to eschew the typical Guardian Spear or Sentinel Blades of his order there are a handful of other options in the armories of Terra suitable for the Emperor's Guard including Solarite Power Gauntlets and Talons and Paragon Blades.

Paragon Spear

-While each and every Guardian Spear carried by the Legio Custodes is a remarkable masterwork created by the finest weaponsmiths in the galaxy there are examples of the form that surpass even the exceptional standard to which all of the Custodes armaments are held. These weapons are known as Paragon Spears, weapons that incorporate ancient and powerful disruptor field generators to give their blades superior cutting power over their lesser kin and paragon bolters of superior craft and loaded with priceless munitions that deliver more deadly and better penetrating bolt munitions than any other weapon of their kind. Such truly breathtaking masterpieces of the weaponsmith's art are entrusted only to the highest-ranking members of the Legio Custodes.

Plasma Grenades

-Even the grenades carried by the Custodian Guard are exceptional examples of their kind. Instead of the typical and ubiquitous frag grenades so common to the armies of mankind the Custodian Guard carry rare and powerful plasma grenades, weapons of considerably greater destructive potential than anything common to the armories of the Legiones Astartes or Imperial Army.

Praesidium Shield

-The Praesidium Shields of the Custodian Guard were one of a number of precursors to the later Storm Shield. Instead of the compact and high-powered force-field generators of the later design the Praesidium Shield of the Legio Custodes relied on superior materials to provide enhanced protection to the wearer. When combined with the refractor field generators built into the armor of the Custodians the Praesidium Shield enhances the protection of the power field to an even greater degree, enabling the bearer to turn aside the most devastating of blows and the most powerful of anti-armor weapons fire.

Proteus Plasma Projector

-Remarkable examples of plasma weaponry these plasma flamers were built into the power fist gauntlets of the Telemon Heavy Dreadnoughts. Whatever managed to survive the blazing weapons and crushing fists of the Telemon was unlikely to survive the billowing wall of plasma fire these devastating weapons could project.

Pyrithite Spear

-These rare alterations on the base design of the Guardian Spear replace the typical inbuilt bolter with a compact meltagun. This modification significantly increases the anti-armor firepower of the bearer and is a deadly threat to even the most heavily armored warmachine.

Salvo Launcher

-One of the weapons that can be mounted in the armored hull of the Dawneagle Jetbikes the Salvo Launcher is a marvelous example of its kind, a multi-missile launcher capable of hurling out deadly ordnance at phenomenal speeds. Equipped with rare and valuable melta missiles and flakkburst missiles the salvo launchers are capable of eliminating the heaviest of armor and the fastest of aerial targets with impunity.

Sentinel Warblade

-Less well known than the signature Guardian Spear the Sentinel Blade is nevertheless a remarkable weapon unique to the armories of the Custodians. Far heavier than even a Space Marine could practically wield the Sentinel Blade features a massive double-edged broadsword blade and a built-in bolt-caster fashioned into the hilt of the blade. Wielded one-handed by the Custodians the Sentinel Blade can put out considerable short-ranged pistol fire from its bolters before the wielders reach close quarters and set about slaughtering the foe with powerful sweeps of the crackling blade. Sentinel Blades are typically paired with Storm Shields or Praesidium Shields to create a formidable defensive focused armament.

Solarite Power Gauntlet

-Precursors to the Power Fists later used by the Legiones Astartes and other armed forces of the Imperium the Solarite Power Gauntlets were first forged for the Thunder Warriors and saw service in the Unification Wars. Crafted by master artisans from precious and ancient technology and materials the Solarite Power Gauntlets were exceptional examples of their craft, after the fall of the Thunder Warriors these weapons fell into the near exclusive use of the Legio Custodes though a handful were entrusted to the Imperial Fists in recognition of the Legion's service as the Sentinels of Terra. The Solarite Power Gauntlets served as one of the signature weapons of the Aquilon Terminator Sodalities.

Solarite Power Talon

-Like the Solarite Power Gauntlets the Solarite Power Talons were precursor examples of later Imperium weapons technology, in this case the deadly Lightning Claw. First carried into battle by the Thunder Warriors these master-crafted weapons were later consigned to the exclusive use of the Legio Custodes and would serve as one of the signature weapons of the Aquilon Terminator Sodalities.

Telemon Caestus

-The enormous dreadnought power fists of the Telemon Heavy Dreadnought incorporated fiercely powerful energy fields and piston driven digits capable of crushing and rending the heaviest and thickest of armor. No foe is immune to the crushing might of the Telemon Caestus and whatever does manage to crawl away from the blows of these mighty fists only faced a scorching death in the waves of plasma flames spewed from the Proteus Plasma Projectors built into each Caestus.

Spiculus Bolt Launcher

-Typically mounted on the back of the Telemon Heavy Dreadnought and under the wings of the Orion Gunships the Spiculus Bolt Launcer was a rapid-fire rocket launcher unique to the arsenal of the Legio Custodes. Already possessed of a considerable rate of fire the Spiculus was able to unleash it's rockets at double the normal rate in a volley fire mode if the mounted platform slowed enough to safely engage it.

Warmachines of the Custodian Guard

Caladius Grav-Tank

-Of all the many advanced and powerful warmachines used by the armies of the Emperor during the Great Crusade, from the Falchion super-heavy to the Sicaran Battle Tanks the greatest and most sophisticated of all these advancements in weapons technology was the Caladius Grav-Tank. Developed from technology recovered by Arkhan Land from the ancient and labyrinthine vaults of Mars the Caladius combined extremely powerful anti-grav engines with heavy auramite reinforced armor and the most powerful of weapons, all piloted by the awesome skill of a Custodes Guardian the Caladius Grav-Tank was a truly exceptional engine of destruction capable of engaging the heaviest of enemy armored threats and destroying them with childish ease. Despite these capabilities the Caladius Grav-Tank formations of the Custodes suffered terrible losses in the war in the webway and the Siege of Terra. How many Caladius survived those conflicts and whether any were built afterwards or still exist in the armories of the Imperial Palace is a secret known only to the Custodes themselves.

Coronus Grav-Carrier

-The first of a new generation of anti-gravitic warmachines developed for the exclusive use of the Legio Custodes from technology recovered by Arkhan Land from the labyrinthine vaults of Mars. The Coronus Grav-Carrier was developed to replace the limited number of aging Jocasta-pattern grav-craft previously serving as the mainstay transports of the Legio Custodes and would serve as the basis and inspiration for both the Caladius Grav-Tank and the Pallas Grav-Attack Craft. Capable of transporting a squad of Custodian Guard into battle within a heavily armored hull reinforced with layered auramite and ceramite alloys, protected by refractor field generators and armed with devastating twin-Arachnus blaze cannons the Coronus was a fearsome battlefield warmachine and an exceptional transport vehicle trusted to safely deploy sodalities of Custodians into the heart of the most terrible battlefields of the Great Crusade. The Coronus would only be superceded by the development and deployment of the Grav-Raider as the principle armored transport of the Legio Custodes but like those mythical warmachines the losses of the Horus Heresy seem to have ended the age of the Imperial grav-tank and whether any Coronus or other patterns of Grav-Tanks still exist in the Custodes armories is unknown.

Dawneagle-pattern Jetbikes

-Developed after the Horus Heresy the Dawneagle-pattern took the technology of the Gyrfalcon and other Imperial jetbikes and compacted and streamlined it. The result was a smaller, sleeker, more agile machine than anything seen on the battlefields of the Great Crusade. Armed with inbuilt Hurricane Bolters or Salvo Launchers the Dawneagle provides the Vertus Praetor riders firepower considerably greater than anything available to their unmounted brothers. Few foes can withstand the withering storm of firepower the Dawneagle can unleash, the Vertus Praetors providing their comrades with considerable support fire otherwise somewhat lacking in the armory of the Custodes, and that's before the riders crash into the foe with Interceptor lances leading.

Gravitic Land Raider

-Known in short as Grav-Raiders these near mythical battle tanks were the epitome of Imperium anti-grav technology during the Great Crusade and were reserved for the sole use of the Legio Custodes. Modified from the more widespread Proteus and MKIIb Land Raider platforms the Grav-Raiders of the Custodes combined the speed and maneuverability of a gravitic craft with the exceptional armor and weaponry of the Land Raider battle tanks. The ability for the Grav-Raider to swiftly transport whole squads of Custodian Guard into or out of the thickest of fighting only added to the value of these vehicles. During the secret war in the webway the Custodes utilized a sizable number of these vehicles and they proved themselves invaluable in that bitter and devastating conflict but it is also likely the case that most of the Custodes complement of these remarkable warmachines was lost in that conflict along with an enormous portion of the Ten Thousand's other war material. By the Siege of the Emperor's Palace the Custodian Guard were forced to rely on standard Land Raiders to fulfill the role of battlefield transport and battle tank to make up for the lost Grav-Raiders. It is unclear whether the Custodes' complement of Grav-Raiders was ever replaced or if any still remain in the armories of the Imperial Palace, it is likely that the secrets of their creation was lost during the Horus Heresy.

Gravitic Rhino

-Also known as the Grav-Rhino. Much like the larger Grav-Raiders used by the Custodes the Grav-Rhino is an upgraded variant of the standard and almost ubiquitous Rhino Armored Personnel Carriers used by the forces of the Imperium across the galaxy. With the usual tracks and engines replaced with powerful gravitic repulsor plates and lift engines the Grav-Rhino served as a favored transport for the Legio Custodes and the Sisters of Silence. The last known deployment of a Grav-Rhino was by the surviving Sisters of Silence during the War of the Beast in M32. It is not known if any of these legendary warmachines still exist in the armories of either branch of the Talons of the Emperor.

Gyrfalcon-pattern Jetbikes

-The principle jetbike used by the Legio Custodes during the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy the Gyrfalcon was a large and powerful machine capable of mounting a considerable array of heavy weapons. Lastrum Bolt Cannons, Adrathic Devastators and twin-Corvae Las-Pulsers were all optional armaments for the Gyrfalcon and provided armies of the Custodes with considerable mobile firepower. When combined with fast-moving squadrons of Pallas Grav-Attack Craft, Coronus Grav-Carriers and Caladius Grav-Tanks the armies of the Legio Custodes were some of the swiftest and hardest hitting forces in the galaxy. Even the anti-grav mounted forces of the Eldar would struggle to match the speed and firepower of the Custodian Guard of that era. After the Horus Heresy the Custodes developed the Dawneagle-pattern Jetbike which would come to replace the Gyrfalcon as the standard mount of the Vertus Praetor sodalities.

Orion Assault Dropship

-Similar in appearance and armament to the grav-tanks of the Legio Custodes the Orion Assault Dropship utilized many of the same anti-gravitic, armor and weapons technologies but scaled up for the design of a super-heavy insertion craft. Fast, durable, heavily armed and capable of transporting whole strike forces of Custodians including Dreadnoughts the Orion Assault Dropship was a true marvel of the Great Crusade. The Orion quickly became the principle orbital insertion craft of the Legio Custodes and would continue to serve in that capacity through the end of the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy. While the current status of the Orion remains unknown it is possible a number still exist in use by the modern Adeptus Custodes but like much of the ancient and mysterious fleet of the Ten Thousand little is known to outsiders and even less willingly shared by the Custodes themselves.

Pallas Grav-Attack Craft

-Developed from the technology of the Caladius and Coronus grav-tanks the Pallas downsized the concept and produced an extraordinarily fast, durable and heavily armed grav-attack craft capable of speeding ahead of a Custodes assault force, screening the flanks or rapidly reinforcing the worst of the fighting and deploying it's fearsome armament of twin-mounted Arachnus Blaze Cannons. Used heavily during the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy it is unknown whether any Pallas Attack Craft remain in use by the Custodes of the current day.

Talion Grav-Lander

-Uniquely designed for the exclusive use of the Adeptus Custodes these insertion craft appear to be primarily design to deploy small numbers of Custodians and are equipped with secondary holding cells for the extraction of valuable Imperial servants or select captured enemies. In place of the much larger and more heavily armed Orion Assault Dropship designed for the wars of the Great Crusade the Talion Grav-Lander is a sleek, cut-down and nimble craft capable of being remotely operated and supporting a single Custodian in the field. Whether the Adeptus Custodes will continue to rely on such vehicles or will return to larger assault craft in this age of aggressive expansion and warfare remains to be seen.

Telemon-Pattern Heavy Dreadnought

-Among the incredible warmachines of the Legio Custodes the Telemon was a truly remarkable and awe inspiring engine of destruction. Significantly larger than a Contemptor Dreadnought, larger even than a Leviathan Dreadnought the Telemon was truly enormous, a towering engine of violence armed with weapons normally mounted as the primary armaments of battle-tanks. Iliastus Accelerator cannons and Arachnus Blaze cannons served as the primary arm weapons of the Telemon and these were often paired with the huge Telemon Caestus power fists that each featured inbuilt Proteus Plasma Projectors, devastating plasma weapons capable of unleashing a burning flame spout of sun-hot plasma. If these weapons were not already a fearsome armament the back of each Telemon featured a Spiculus Bolt Launcher, a rapid-firing rocket launcher unique to the arsenal of the Custodian Guard. Each Telemon Heavy Dreadnought possessed the firepower and lethality of a heavy battle tank combined with the agility of a Custodian warrior and the armor and over-lapping refractor shielding more powerful than that of even the heaviest of Dreadnoughts. The result was a devastatingly powerful warmachine that proved the bane of xenos, traitors and daemons alike. As with many of the oldest and most powerful of the weapons and warmachines of the Custodian Guard it is unknown whether any examples of the Telemon still exist and may one day march forth to bring their wrath to the enemies of the Emperor once more.

Venerable Contemptor Dreadnoughts

-From the very beginning the Legio Custodes featured a number of mighty Dreadnoughts. Initially these were modified Ur-Gholem pattern Dreadnoughts but later recovered STC data and technological advancements led to the construction of the first Contemptor Dreadnoughts. Many would serve as a mainstay warmachine in the Legiones Astartes but the finest examples were reserved for the Legio Custodes. These mighty machines were capable of an agility and dexterity mirroring the incredible skills of flesh-and-blood Custodians and as such were armed with up-scaled weaponry reflective of the presonal arms of the Custodian Guard. Achillus Dreadspears and Galatus Warblades, even great Dreadnought scaled Praesidium Shields. With additional infernus flamers, adrathic destructors, lastrum storm bolters and corvae las-pulsers the Achillus and Galatus Contemptor Dreadnoughts of the Legio Custodes were phenomenally deadly, far superior to anything the Legiones Astartes possessed. A pair of such machines guard the secondary doors into the Sanctum Imperialis even as two Warhound Titans guard the main portal and continue to stand that duty to this day. In modern times the presence of the ornate and uniquely armed Contemptors of the Custodian Guard is little felt, instead the mainstay of the Custodes Dreadnoughts are Venerable Contemptors armed with Kheres-pattern assault cannons, multi-meltas and storm bolters. It is likely that the technology, materials or knowledge necessary to create or maintain the more ancient patterns of Custodes Dreadnoughts has been lost but at least a few such machines still appear to exist in the ranks of the Ten Thousand and perhaps more yet remain, waiting to be unleashed against the enemies of the Emperor.

Venerable Land Raider

-After the loss of most of the Custodes Grav-Raiders the Emperor's guardians were forced to rely on more mundane armored transports in the Siege of the Emperor's Palace and the many battles that would follow. In the current era the Venerable Land Raiders of the Custodian Guard are truly exceptional and ancient examples of their kind, machines that incorporate the most advanced and irreplaceable of technologies, Magos-class machine spirits, extraordinary auto-repair devices and networked targeting systems. Some of these astounding machines even feature power field generators similar to those of the Contemptor Dreadnoughts and the Custodian Guard themselves. In extreme cases the hardened and warded hulls of the Custodes Venerable Land Raiders can even be teleported directly onto the battlefield thanks to the incredibly powerful and enormous Godstrike-pattern teleportariums maintained aboard the Custodes remarkable vessels and their largest facilities.

Fleet of the Ten Thousand

Very little is known of the remarkable and incredibly powerful warships of the Adeptus Custodes. It is not even known how many ships the Custodes possess let alone what classes or patterns they take or even the capabilities of those classes of vessel. Many of the ships of the Custodes fleet are ancient and unbelievably powerful artifacts of the dark age of technology whose creation predates the foundation of the Imperium. Equipped with incredible Godstrike-pattern teleportariums, superior void-shields, engines, targeting systems, communications systems and archaeotech weaponry far more powerful than anything possessed by the fleets of the Imperial Navy, the Adeptus Astartes or even some of the most ancient and powerful weapons of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Every system on the warships of the Adeptus Custodes are incredible and priceless examples of their form, unique and irreplaceable artifacts of the dark age of technology preserved through the fires of Old Night and recovered during the Emperor's Great Crusade. From the smallest destroyer to the mightiest battleships every vessel of the Ten Thousand is a warship that is faster, more durable and considerably more heavily armed than any human vessel of comparable size in the galaxy. It is likely that no two vessels in the Custodes fleet are alike, each is likely a totally unique and individual amalgamation of ancient technology paired with the finest Imperial craftsmanship utilizing the rarest and most precious of materials.

Even the crews of the Custodian fleet far surpass those of other Imperial forces. Trained from birth to the highest of standards, fiercely loyal and indoctrinated into the sworn service of the Custodian Guard the menials of the Custodes fleet are honored to wear golden eagle marked tabards and shave their heads bare. Like the armory-thralls each of the indentured menials is likely the equal to the most veteran and hardened elite of the other fighting forces of the Imperium that can be relied upon to remain stoic and firmly loyal in the face of the most horrific of foes both xenos and daemonic and fight to the death in the face of impossible odds without fear.

If the existing assets of the Custodes fleet are insufficient to the task at hand the authority of the Magisterium carried by each and every member of the Custodes entitles them to requisition any military or civilian assets required to accomplish their mission. Whole armies and fleets of warships can be called upon at a moment's notice to serve the Custodes, transporting anything from a single warrior to an entire Shield Host wherever and whenever they demand.

Imperator Somnium

-The flagship of the Emperor during the Great Crusade the Imperator Somnium was a battleship of truly massive size and of a unique and ancient design. Sleek and golden with the profile of a mighty eagle the Imperator Somnium was greater in scale than even the largest of Imperial Navy Battleships and likely even surpassed the mighty Gloriana-Class Flagships of the Legiones Astartes. From the bridge of this incredible vessel the Emperor commanded the early expansions of the Great Crusade, spearheading a number of Expeditionary Fleets and taking direct command of the most critical and brutal warzones and campaigns of that early and glorious period of rapid expansion. Great frescoes, paintings, mosaics and tapestries created by the first Remembrancers recorded the Imperator Somnium, it's great halls and stunning bridge in exacting detail, recording the glorious achievements of the Emperor's flagship. The Imperator Somnium reaped a fearsome toll against the traitors during the Siege of Terra but it's ultimate fate remains unknown. Given that precious little is known about the fleet assets of the Adeptus Custodes it is entirely possible this mighty flagship still exists as the pride of the fleet of the Ten Thousand.

The Moiraides

-These three pre-heresy warships are the principle transports of the Dread Host, the most aggressive and devastating concentrated military formation within the ranks of the Adeptus Custodes. Hundreds of Custodians organized into multiple shield hosts serve aboard these mighty ships, ever ready to deliver the Emperor's wrath against any threat to the Throneworld. Usually a single ship and it's complement of warriors is necessary to destroy even the greatest of foe, sometimes assisted by other requisitioned Imperial forces. Occasionally two ships are required to accomplish the task but only a handful of times in the entire history of the Imperium have all three of the Moiraides and the entire strength of the Dread Host been unleashed against a single foe.

Falchion-class Battleship Starfire

-Served as primary transport for the Solar Furies Shield Host. While the Solar Furies utilized a number of seconded Imperial Navy ships the flagship of the force was the Custodian Battleship Starfire, an ancient and extremely powerful warship that may well predate the Imperium itself.

Cruiser Scion of Argo

-The Scion of Argo would serve as the primary transport of the task force of Shield-Captain Heraclast Vadrian during his quest to recover the lost knowledge necessary to restore the Golden Throne.

Frigate Sol's Arrow

-This swift vessel was assigned to transport the hunters of Shield-Captain Daryth on their mission to track down the escaped Fallen Angel Cypher. A mission that has taken the ship and it's crew beyond the Great Rift into Imperium Nihilus.

Destroyer Chelandion

-This monstrously baroque and powerful warship for its size was replete with ancient systems and weapons of design and potency all but unknown to the wider Imperium and certainly of impossibly ancient provenance. Despite it's incredible firepower the Chelandion was nevertheless among the least of the fleet assets available to the Adeptus Custodes at the time of the Fall of Cadia. Despite it's humble size the fate of the Imperium would rely on the success of the Chelandion's mission to the Vorlese system shortly after the Fall of Cadia. Carrying a force of ten Custodians and thirty-two null maidens under the command of Shield-Captain Valerian the Talons of the Emperor needed to hold the system against an insidious chaos assault long enough for Guilliman and his burgeoning Indomitus Crusade to arrive. The task was not just suicidal it verged on the impossible. Though the exact size and class of the Chelandion goes unrecorded it is likely no larger than a destroyer and easily out-massed and out-gunned by any capitol ship. Though horribly outmassed and outgunned by the chaos fleet attacking the Vorlese system the extraordinary durability and firepower of the Chelandion enabled the ship to close on the flagship cruiser of the chaos fleet and disable it's shields long enough to teleport the Talons strike force onboard where they succeeded in preventing the traitor attempt to disrupt the warp in the system and thus cut off the last stable warp-route from Terra to the wider Imperium.

Relics of the Custodian Guard

Apollonian Spear

-Believed to have been forged by the Emperor of Mankind himself in the early years of the Unification Wars the Apollonian Spear was gifted to Constantin Valdor on his ascension to the role of Captain-General of the Legio Custodes. A paragon of it's form the Apollonian Spear incorporated astonishing technological marvels in its construction. The powered blade of the spear was capable of cutting through its foes at the molecular level. The hyper-velocity bolter incorporated into the spear's shaft fires specialized bolt shells at a significantly greater speed than any conventional munition, providing far superior armor penetration and concussive impact than even the masterwork weapons of the Custodes usual armament can manage.

Auric Aquilas

-The Auric Aquilas is an awe-inspiring relic of dark age technology. A Dawneagle Jetbike of truly peerless craftsmanship and capability, outfitted with lost and forbidden technologies and protected by a potent golden force field this jetbike grants it's rider swiftness and protection surpassing even that of his brothers.

Auric Shackles

-Forged during the dark age of technology the Auric Shackles are capable of shutting down the neural network of any sentient being upon which they are locked. The shackles are an invaluable tool of the Shadowkeepers in their mission to capture the most dangerous sentient threats to humanity and return them safely to the isolation of the Black Cells.

Castellan's Mark

-Whichever Custodian holds the honor of the most victories during the Blood Games is granted the honor of wearing the Castellan's Mark, a finely worked pauldron that possesses no remarkable technological artifact

Castellan Plate

-The personal armor of the Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes the Castellan Plate is a profoundly masterful example of it's kind, affording the wearer unsurpassed protection including a potent auramite halo, eagle-headed tilting shield and a cloak of adamantine thread.

Eagle's Eye

-This relic helmet incorporates sophisticated sensorium-gheists, trapped within micro-reliquaries and forced to shriek their technomantic warnings whenever a threat is perceived. This gives the wearer split-second forewarning of incoming danger and the capability to react accordingly faster than even the supernatural reflexes of a Custodian could normally manage.

Emperor's Light

-Reputed to have been forged from a crystallized shard of the Emperor's glorious light, the Emperor's Light is a misericordia of sublime craftsmanship that has been entrusted to the care of no less than three Captain-Generals. Enemies of the Emperor are filled with dread at the sight of this shining blade, filled with the purging flame of the Emperor's holy radiance.

Faith Absolute

-Of all the potent technologies incorporated in the Vexilla of the Custodes the Faith Absolute is arguably the most potent and esoteric of them all. Created for the infamous Witching Wars the Faith Absolute is capable of discharging a pulse of disruptive contra-empyric energies that dissipate and and unmake the most terrible of onrushing psychic manifestations in a heartbeat, leaving the golden figures of the Custodians protected by the Vexilla unharmed. Against the forces of the psyker and the daemon few artifacts are as powerful as the Faith Absolute.

Fulminaris Aggressor

-Of all the Vexilla used by the Adeptus Custodes the Fulminaris Aggressor is easily the most inspiring and remarkable to the forces of the wider Imperium. Based on the design of a Vexilla Defensor the Fulminaris Aggressor features a micro-thundercoil generatum within it's gilded form capable of hurling deadly lightning-bolts into the foe at range and striking them down in a blaze of thunder should a foe dare to enter close combat range. The Fulminaris Aggressor was crafted after the fall of Goge Vandire to honor the wrath of the Emperor unleashed in punishment against the traitor and the tyrant.

Gatekeeper

-A Guardian Spear of truly unique craftsmanship the Gatekeeper incorporates incredible archaeotech machine-spirits capable of near-prescient predictive targeting. This allows the truly one-of-a-kind relic bolter built into the haft of the spear to unleash salvos of incredibly accurate and lethal firepower at a rate three times greater than a normal weapon of it's type and do so against the swiftest and most agile of enemies.

Godstrike-pattern Teleportariums

-The Adeptus Custodes facilities and warships are equipped with the most potent, priceless and irreplaceable of teleportarium technologies. Masterworks of pre-dark age technology the Godstrike-pattern Teleportariums are archaeotech machines capable of transporting whole strike forces and even vehicles into the heart of the most chaotic battlefields in a blaze of golden light.

Moment Shackle

-This artifact from the dark age of technology is an extraordinarily potent and mysterious device capable of trapping fragments of temporal energy and allowing the user to manipulate that energy to their own purpose. The exact extent and nature of the Moment Shackle's capabilities are not entirely known, nor even why it was released from the armory vaults of the Adeptus Custodes and entrusted to the care of Trajann Valoris.

Obliteratum

-One of the most deadly and incredible weapons in the arsenal of the Adeptus Custodes the unique grenade launcher known as Obliteratum incorporates a number of technologies forbidden on pain of death for any but the Custodes to even possess let alone use. Obliteratum fires concenetrated balls of antimatter compressed within canisters of splinterglass that shatter on impact, annihilating the target at the molecular level in a blast of night-black energy.

Praetorian Plate

-The Praetorian plate was already a remarkable relic before this suit of Allarus Terminator Armor was further enhanced with an ancient empyric beacon and archaeotech teleport-shunter, these technological marvels of the dark age of technology allow the wearer to lock onto a single individual across great distance and teleport instantly to that person's side. This remarkable capability allows a sworn bodyguard to appear at the side of their ward at a moment's notice in a blaze of golden light.

Raiment of Sorrows

-The Raiment of Sorrows was handwoven by the sisters of the Order of Lamentations and permitted to rest in state at the foot of the Golden Throne for a hundred years. Since that time the Raiment of Sorrows has served as a potent reminder of the Custodes greatest failure and it's mere presence fills the warriors of the Ten Thousand with a cold and fearsome determination.

Veiled Blade

-Unlike some of the other relics of the Adeptus Custodes, golden marvels that inspire awe in all who lay eyes upon them the Veiled Blade is a much darker artifact. The Veiled Blade serves those who wear the mantle of the Shadowkeepers, those Custodians sworn to recover that which must remain forever hidden from humanity and return it to the safekeeping of the Black Cells.

Watcher's Axe

-This mighty relic-weapon was forged to serve as the personal weapon of the appointed Captain-General after the disappearance of Constantin Valdor and his wargear. Incredibly potent power fields built into the head of this axe grant it unparalleled cutting power, capable of shearing through the armor of dreadnoughts and battle-tanks with ease. Instead of a normal masterwork bolter the Watcher's Axe incorporates a relic bolter known as the Eagle's Scream which fires adamantium-tipped penetrator bolts at an astonishing rate of fire.

Wrath Angelis

-The Wrath Angelis is a Vexilla Magnifica of unique design. Forged in preparation for the battle against the orks on Ullanor the Wrath Angelis incorporates a sophisticated multi-spectral targeting shrine capable of linking with orbiting warships and calling down pinpoint accurate lance fire to burn the foe in a storm of atmosphere scorching fire.

Known Heroes of the Custodes

“We are vigilance unending. We are duty unstinting. We are punishment inescapable. We are the Adeptus Custodes, and all must fear our wrath.”

-Shield-Captain Rothrian Ganyth.

Captain-General Aesoth Koumadra

-Against the wishes of the Imperial Navy and the Adeptus Mechanicus the Captain-General Aesoth Koumadra used his position as a High Lord to conduct the destruction of the space hulk the Ominous Gift without the involvement of any other Imperial forces. The Adeptus Custodes crippled, purged and destroyed the space hulk without the aid of any other Imperial forces. Though most observers would not have recognized the significance the Adeptus Custodes forces were led by the Lockwarden of the Shadowkeepers. The wider Imperium would remain blissfully ignorant of the nature of whatever threat was captured or destroyed by the Shadowkeepers aboard the space hulk.

Captain-General Beyreuth

-Senior commander of the Adeptus Custodes during the invasion of the Beast. Despite the imminent threat of the invasion of the Beast the cautious Captain-General Beyreuth was reluctant to commit to any cause or get involved in the dangerous political situation of the era. With the High Lords divided on how to act a select cadre of actors involved with the High Lords sought the assignment of the Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes to the empty seat of the High Twelve. Eventually Beyreuth consented to the appointment and broke the political deadlock but ultimately the era was marked more by political and bureaucratic incompetence and inefficiency than anything else.

Captain-General Constantin Valdor

-The first, and perhaps the greatest, warrior to hold the title of Captain-General the legendary hero known as Constantin Valdor stands as among the greatest heroes of the Imperium to have ever lived. Even among such storied warriors as the Custodian Guard the renowned Constantin Valdor stood out as first among equals. It is believed that Constantin Valdor had earned so many deed-names that he had run out of space on the inside of his armor and had been forced to begin to inscribe his new names on the outside of his auramite power armor, a record likely never broken by any other Custodian. Bearer of the Apollonian Spear the first Captain-General of the Custodian Guard was speculated to have been nearly the equal of a Primarch in skill-at-arms. The ultimate fate of Constantin Valdor is unknown, he survived the assault on the Vengeful Spirit and continued to command the Legio Custodes for some time afterwards but by the end of the Scouring he had vanished without a trace, taking his legendary arms and armor with him. A new weapon and suit of armor would have to be made to serve as the symbols of office for later Captain-Generals.

Captain-General Galahoth

-A remarkably conservative and restrained leader the rule of Captain-General Galahoth was one that led the Adeptus Custodes into stagnation and inaction. The situation was made worse when Galahoth mysteriously disappeared and his successor, Captain-General Launceddre was forced to deal with an increasingly chaotic and unstable series of events and disasters afflicting the throneworld that would ultimately lead to his untimely death. This period under the rule of Galahoth and Launceddre would come to be known as the Years of Madness and would only be brought to an end by the rise of Captain-General Trajann Valoris.

Captain-General Launceddre

-Successor to the ill-fated Captain-General Galahoth the reign of Captain-General Launceddre would be cut short by his death during the Battle of the Gilded Pyre, a result of following the false predictions of fallen psykers.

Captain-General Trajann Valoris

-Trajann Valoris is the current and arguably one of the most aggressive and proactive Captain-General to have served since the Great Crusade. In his first few decades of service Trajann managed two successful blood games, a remarkable feat and a record that remains unbroken. Trajann went on to serve as an Allarus Custodian and earned many honors in that role including renown for his role in destroying the space hulk the Mournful Siren, the defeat of the Genestealer Cult of the Emperor's Writhing Shadow, and his pre-emptive strike on the Waaagh Krushfist. Valoris served a mere twenty-two years as a Custodian Warden, his impatience and eagerness for battle leading him to be reassigned from that duty. Shortly after his service with the Wardens Valoris attained the role of Shield-Captain and served in that role for several centuries. Valoris was appointed to the position of Captain-General after the death of his predecessor at the Battle of the Black Pyre.

Tribune Colquan

-Elevated in rank to replace the fallen Tribune Italeo the newly promoted Colquan was assigned as liaison to the Primarch Roboute Guilliman as the official representative of the Custodian Guard to the individual who would almost certainly assume the mantle of leadership of the Imperium as the Lord Commander Presumptive.

Tribune Helios

-A veteran of the Great Crusade Helios was one of the handful of surviving Tribunes of the Legio Custodes after five years of hard fighting in the webway.

Tribune Heracleon

-Master of the Hataeron Guard, the Companions of the Emperor. Heracleon's ritual duties tending to the Emperor kept him indisposed to even the highest level requests from the High Lords of Terra.

Tribune Italeo

-While his counterpart Heracleon was kept busy with his duties to the Emperor the second of the Custodes serving Tribunes was engaged in holy war during the Fall of Cadia and equally unable to respond to the inquiries of the chancellor of the High Lords. When Captain-General Valoris led some four thousand Custodians through the Lion's Gate to face the horde of khornate daemons that had spawned on the great expanse of the space port Tribune Italeo fought alongside him, leading a second thrust down the flank of Valoris' main counter-strike. Alongside some two thousand of his brothers Italeo fell in that battle, cut down even as he slew one of the eight Bloodthirsters that had been summoned from the warp to lead the daemon army.

Tribune Jasac

-One of the veteran commanders in charge of the war in the webway Tribune Jasac was killed in battle two weeks before Tribune Kadai's failed advance.

Tribune Kadai

-After five years of fighting within the webway following Magnus' Folly the forces of the Unifiers seemed to be gaining ground and pushing the endless hordes of the daemons back. The Impossible City was successfully captured and many tunnels beyond were being secured. Under the leadership of Tribune Kadai a major vanguard force pushed out from the established strongholds to strike further into the webway tunnels than the Unifiers had been in half a decade. Unknown to the loyalists the forces of the traitor legions had recently managed to gain entry to the webway and reinforced the daemon hordes. Massively outnumbered and facing an entirely new and fresh foe the vanguard was all but annihilated, pushing the Unifiers onto the back foot and driving the Emperor's forces back to the Impossible City.

Tribune Ra Endymion

-Senior commander of the Hykanatoi and leader of Dynastes Squad, the Lords of Terra. After five years of brutal fighting within the webway Ra was left as the last surviving Tribune and likely second only in command authority to the absent Constantin Valdor. In the weeks before the total abandonment of the Great Work Ra Endymion was summoned into psychic communion with the Emperor multiple times, each time the Emperor sought to enlighten and inform the Tribune, teaching him about the Emperor's cause and objectives in more detail and depth than the master of Mankind had revealed to any other. All of this was to prepare Ra for his final task in the Emperor's service, to become the living prison for the daemon of the first murder, Drach'nyen. Sacrificing a thousand harvested psykers to power the Golden Throne in his absence the Emperor marched out to face the daemon hordes and prevent a breach of the Imperial Dungeon. In that brutal battle the Emperor of Mankind came face-to-face with Drach'nyen but was unable to slay the incredibly powerful daemon of chaos undivided. Instead he bound the daemon first within his flesh and then drawing it forth in the form of a twisted sword he transferred the daemon into the flesh and soul of one of his most loyal Custodian Guard. Understanding his task Ra Endymion fled into the webway, taking the daemon, the End of Empires, with him. The last order Ra received was to take the daemon away and return only when all was ash and fire in the darkest days of the future Imperium, until then he would keep the daemon bound within his flesh and as far from the Emperor as humanly possible.

Lockwarden Borsa Thursk

-Borsa Thursk has served as Lockwarden for a century in a half. Before the breaking of the storm Thursk had left Terra on reclamation missions only twice, yet since the opening of the Great Rift he has barely set foot on the throneworld.

Prefect Diocletian Coros Exemplar

-Holding the equivalent rank of Shield-Captain of the Hykanatoi during the Horus Heresy the veteran officer Diocletian Coros was dispatched to the surface of Terra to gather reinforcements for a final effort to maintain a foothold in the webway. Despite bringing fresh mechanicus troops and a force of Imperial Knights among other assets the reinforcements were much too little to make a difference and the Imperium was forced to withdraw. With so many officers dead there was speculation among the survivors that Diocletian would soon be elevated to Tribune. In his later life Diocletian would write the Master of Mankind, one of the Custodes most important and revered works.

Prefect Tem Lanais

-One of the officers assigned to the Prosperine Censure Host the Prefect Tem Lanais was charged with commanding the Terran forces assaulting the pyramid of Lhis'Ta on the northern edge of Tizca.

Prefect Zhanmadao Navenar

-Officer of the Tharanatoi during the Horus Heresy.

Shield-Captain Aadilus

-It was the swift-moving Vertus Praetors of Shield-Captain Aadilus' Shield Company that reduced the might of the renegade Vostokh 7^th Armored companies to piles of burning wreckage on the Plains of Pallus.

Shield-Captain Adronitus

-One of the senior Custodian Guard present on Luna when the returned Primarch Roboute Guilliman arrived from the webway and straight into battle against an army of daemons and Thousand Sons.

Shield-Captain Anatolyn Ganorth

-Member of Shield Host Fury of Terra during the Defense of Elysia.

Shield-Captain Arcatus Vindix Centurio

-Commander of the escorts assigned to protect Corax and the Emperor's gene-lore gifted to him to aid in the rebuilding of the Raven Guard Legion.

Shield-Captain Archturus Paliades

-Commander of the Gilded Talons Shield Company.

Shield-Captain Aquillon Marithamus

-One of the first Occuli Imperator assigned to keep watch on the Primarch Lorgar after his humbling at Monarchia. Though an incredibly skilled warrior Aquillon was taken by surprise at the power of the possessed Gal Vorbak legionaries and was cut down along with the other four members of his sodality.

Shield-Captain Daryth

-Charged with apprehending the mysterious Fallen Angel Cypher who somehow managed to escape a high security cell deep within the Imperial palace without a trace, Shield-Captain Daryth has taken his warriors and a band of Sisters of Silence out into the void in search of the escaped space marine. Transported aboard the swift moving Custodes Frigate the Sol's Arrow the Custodes and Sisters managed to pass through the Great Rift into Imperium Nihilus without incident but failed to notice the night-black space marine cruiser following in their wake.

Shield-Captain Heraclast Vadrian

-Long has it been believed that the Adeptus Mechanicus was slowly failing in their task to maintain the Golden Throne, a problem that the proud and secretive Lords of Mars had long sought to keep hidden. When the Astronomicon failed during the opening of the Great Rift the ignorance of the Mechanicus was made painfully obvious. Shield-Captain Heraclast Vadrian decided it was time to act and, after consulting with Captain-General Constantin Valdor, gathered together a cadre of the Custodian's greatest heroes and embarked on a quest to recover the lost technological secrets necessary to restore the Golden Throne. Journeying aboard the Custodes Cruiser the Scion of Argo the task force of Shield-Captain Vadrian made for the lost Forge World of Morvane, following their first promising lead.

Shield-Captain Nathadian Steale

-Member of Shield Host Fury of Terra during the Defense of Elysia.

Shield-Captain Navradaran

-Before the opening of the Great Rift the Custodian Navradaran served as part of the Ephoroi, one of the groups of Custodians charged with ranging beyond the Emperor's Palace. As part of the response to the rising disaster of the Cadian Gate the High Lords passed Mandatum 786734-56, a recall order to all surviving convents of the Sisters of Silence. To enact this order Navradaran and a number of other members of the Adeptus Custodes took passage on ancient and powerful black ships of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. Far more powerful and sophisticated than any normal void-ship and crewed by the best of the best the black ships were some of the only vessels that stood any chance of safely and accurately navigating the raging and tumultuous warp, especially after the light of the astronomicon failed. It was the ship transporting Shield-Captain Navradaran that discovered the Cadamara and the last surviving Null Maiden from the Arraissa convent.

Shield-Captain Oldorian Mefistal

-Officer of the Dread Host.

Shield-Captain Rothrian Ganyth

-Formerly a Custodian Warden now elevated to the role of Shield-Captain.

Shield-Captain Thetus

-Member of the Solar Watch, Shield-Captain Thetus commanded a mission to the world of Yorlos to destroy a cabal of xenos flesh-witches that posed a risk to the Throneworld were they to be left to fester and grow.

Shield-Captain Tybalus Maxin

-Veteran officer of the Custodian Guard.

Shield-Captain Tybanus Lencilius

-After twenty years of investigation Tybanus discovered a conclave of radical Thorian Inquisitors were involved in a scheme to steal psykers destined for the Golden Throne in an attempt to starve the Emperor of sustenance. Instead of acting immediately Tybanus chose to continue his investigation until he discovered the Thorians were being assisted by High Lord Sennaca who was aiding the Inquisitors purely for personal gain. With this knowledge in hand Tybanus led a strike that eliminated the radical Inquisitors and the High Lord in one fell stroke.

Shield-Captain Valerian

-Member of the Palaiologian Chamber of the Kykanatoi the Custodian Valerian was refferred to as the philologus, or scholar, by his brothers. Shield-Captain Valerian was the first of the Custodes to discover a daemon weapon hidden within sight of the palace walls. Somehow hidden from detection for centuries, if not millennia and venerated by generations of Ecclessiarchy priests the relic sword had been held in a crystal casket above the alter of a hive cathedral not far from the section of outer wall that Valerian guarded. While the discovery of a chaos artifact on Terra was horrifying enough, that it had been hidden within a Cathedral and in sight of the palace walls no less was worse than disastrous. If such a fell corrupted object had been so carefully hidden then there was no telling how many thousands of similar objects had been secreted across the surface of the Throneworld, slowly accumulated and hidden over ten thousand years. Such a discovery warranted nothing but the most extreme of responses and Valerian immediately recommended to Tribune Italeo that the Custodes request assistance from Titan, the secret homeworld of the Grey Knights chapter of the Adeptus Astartes. Following the Sack of the Lion's Gate the proactive Valerian chose to undertake an almost unprecedented act of insubordination and embark on a mission to the nearby Vorlese system with his sodality of Custodes and a little more than thirty Sisters of Silence. Though potentially reckless this decision prevented the forces of chaos from disrupting the last stable warp-route from the Sol system to the wider galaxy and ensured the successful launch of the Indomitus Crusade. Valerian's favored personal weapon was a relic Guardian Spear named Gnosis.

Shield-Captain Yorta'karin Desmodages

-Desmodages was the chief interrogator of the traitor Varsidious the Whisperer.

Vexilus Praetor Aetheus Urdanesh

-Veteran standard bearer of the Custodian Guard.

Vexilus Praetor Caltor Tasolian

-Member of Shield Host Fury of Terra during the Defense of Elysia.

Vexilus Praetor Erasmian Alhoris Cassabar Lychansis

-Custodian Erasmian earned the honor to bear his shield company's Vexilla after his remarkable feats of heroism and skill during the Defense of Gathalamor. Fighting in the ruins of the Sanctic Citadel on Gathalamor Prime Custodian Erasmian defeated a trio of chaos champions and then went on to fight for a further six hours, slaying dozens of lesser traitor astartes before the end of the battle.

Vexilus Praetor Toxvyrd Basillaeus

-Member of Shield Host Fury of Terra during the Defense of Elysia.

Allarus Custodian Dalat Hap-Uramedes

-Member of the Gilded Fist sodality of the Allarus Custodians.

Allarus Custodian Ganestus Talorn

-A veteran Custodian granted the right to wear the mighty Allarus Terminator Armor. Ganestus Talorn is deeply aware of the importance of the Emperor to the continued survival of mankind and stands ever ready to preserve the master of the Imperium.

Allarus Custodian Harkhas Bastoris

-Custodian Harkhas serves as one of the more bellicose and aggressive Allarus Custodians.

Allarus Custodian Manastus Chaem

-Member of the Gilded Fist sodality of the Allarus Custodians.

Allarus Custodian Parradon Helastes

-Member of the Gilded Fist sodality of the Allarus Custodians.

Allarus Custodian Vanius Arcturon-Tybus

-Leader of the renowned Gilded Fist sodality of Allarus Custodians. Unlike most squads of the Custodes who rotate regularly and form no particular warrior brotherhood the members of the Gilded Fist have served together for decades and place great emphasis on the effect of shared experience and long-familiarity in the construction of a fearsome battlefield unit. Given that the Gilded Fist were responsible for beheading the Ulgwyrm Cult of the Pan-Siberic Cluster, ended the machinations of the insane Inquisitor D'anloxtos and purged the traitor-held space hulk the Leviathan of Agonies before it could breach the borders fo the Sol system Vanius' reasoning is certainly provided ample evidence.

Custodian Warden Archimalus Tychor

-Archimalus Tychor has served as an Emissary Imperatus for over a thousand years and fights as a Custodian Warden of the Veritas Proclamation sodality. Archimalus' Emperor given insights led the Explorator Crusade Gamma-Hades to the archaeotech treasures of Heng's World and his blade ended dozens of the monstrous orks that had already laid claim to the prize. Shortly after the Veritas Proclamation returned to Terra the Great Rift opened and Archimalus was among the first to speak out in favor of the Indomitus Crusade.

Custodian Warden Astoran Kalos

-The longest serving Companion in the history of the Adeptus Custodian. Astoran Kalos stood his vigil around the Golden Throne for a full century before at last surrendering his post to another.

Custodian Warden Jaeharl Feldorus Ghau

-Custodian Jaeharl has stood watch in the Black Cells for seventeen years in which time he has left the surface of Terra on a reclamation mission only three times. Jaeharl personally slew the Slithering Dreamer on Tarnus IV, an achievement that earned him a new name to be inscribed within his armor.

Custodian Warden Tauramacchis Ossian

-Tauramacchis is a Custodian Warden who has served with the Aquilan Shield for over four centuries. Ossian has protected such figures as the Arch-Cardinal Mumbres from daemonic assassins, High Lord Veynd during the Red Razor Uprisings, and a bewildered young preacher known as Lorrin from the war on Phinalium until his martyrdom earned him sainthood and inspired a turning in the tide of war across an entire sector.

Custodian Warden Tybaris Constor

-Like the renowned Astoran Kalos the Custodian arden Tybaris Constor stood guard as a companion for nearly a century, a remarkable achievement of endurance, discipline, patience and vigilance.

Custodian Warder Arascid Nassau

-Member of the Vedias-Alpeh Sodality of the Kykanatoi serving with the Prosperine Censure Host. Arascid Nassau was a member of a sub-group of the Custodes known as the Warders of the Vaults of Rython. As a uniform the warders altered the coloration of their auramite armor to a charcoal black edged in silver and with the ornamentations picked out in gold. This color-scheme variant appears very similar to the later Shadowkeepers and may imply a link between the two orders, the Warders of the Vaults of Rython may have been a precursor to the later Shadowkeepers or perhaps a still extant sub-group of that larger Shield Host organization.

Custodian Amon Tauromachian

-After the Istvaan V Dropsite Massacre and the revelation of the full extent of the treachery of Warmaster Horus the Legio Custodes needed to shore up the defenses of the Emperor's Palace more than ever. Amon Tauromachian was one of a number of Custodians assigned to run Blood Games to test the defenses of the palace.

Custodian Artoris

-Artoris fought in defense of the Emperor's Palace during the Siege of Terra.

Custodian Gathas

-Member of Dynastes Squad of the Hykanatoi. Gathas fell fighting in the Impossible City within the webway.

Custodian Haedo Emankon

-Alongside Amon Tauromachian the Custodian Haedo Emankon was charged with discovering the potential treachery of Pherom Sichar, the lord of Hy Brasil. It turned out that Sichar was actually a triple agent sending false information to Horus and under the protection of the Primarch Rogal Dorn. Before the Custodians and Dorn could extract him Sichar was killed by an assassin who was in turn run down and killed by Amon and Haedo.

Custodian Heracal

-Heracal fought in defense of the Emperor's Palace during the Siege of Terra.

Custodian Hyaric Ostianus

-Warrior of the Kataphraktoi the Agamatus Custodian Hyaric Ostianus fought against the forces of chaos in the webway for five years before he was slain by the daemon Drach'nyen.

Custodian Jodarion

-Member of Dynastes Squad of the Hykanatoi.

Custodian Juhaza

-Member of Dynastes Squad of the Hykanatoi. Juhaza was in the thickest of the fighting for the Impossible City and suffered grievous injuries as a result. Half of his entire face was carved or burned away by some enemy blow and a significant chunk of the back of his head and brain were torn away with his broken helmet. Despite suffering an injury that would have felled even a Space Marine twice over Juhaza continued to stand and fight and even managed to withdraw with his fellow squad members.

Custodian Kalanemi Velt

-Custodian Kalanemi served as part of the Ehophorus-Sigma Sodality of the Kykanatio of the Prosperine Censure Force. A veteran of over a century of service Kalanemi fought alongside the Emperor in the Urak Incursion and the Sencari Crisis. Kalanemi also served a detached duty assigned to the 38^th Expeditionary Fleet as an Imperial Emissary Militant and fought in the Ullanor Crusade.

Custodian Kalhin

-One of the first Occuli Imperator assigned to watch the Primarch Lorgar. Kalhin was killed by the possessed Gal Vorbak legionaries.

Custodian Kallisarian Tristraen Desh

-Kallisarian joined the Dread Host a mere six months earlier and in that time has already served in two seperate military campaigns, the Purge on Chormium and the Battle for the Corvinium Mines of Triton. The first saw fighting against Imperial Guard renegades and the second against a dread infestation of genestealer cultists. Kallisarian personally slew the patriarch of the genestealer cult on Triton, a deed that earned him considerable glory and respect among his peers.

Custodian Leotydus Dat-Hastael

-Leotydus ran a successful blood game that remarkably coincided with the infiltration of a dread Drukhari assassin known as the Blade of Ptesh. The Dark Eldar assassin was captured and interrogated but no matter what methods were employed he would not reveal the identity of his mysterious and incredibly persuasive employer.

Custodian Lytanus

-Lytanus fought in defense of the Emperor's Palace during the Siege of Terra.

Custodian Mycorian

-Member of Dynastes Squad of the Hykanatoi. Mycorian fell with a trio of daemon blades rammed through his back just prior to the withdrawal from the Impossible City.

Custodian Nirllus

-One of the first Occuli Imperator assigned to watch the Primarch Lorgar. Nirllus was killed by the possessed Gal Vorbak legionaries.

Custodian Pydanoris Calligus

-Member of the Solar Watch, Pydanoris is the oldest and most respected warrior of his sodality. Pydanoris served under Shield-Captain Thetus during a mission to cut the head from a cabal of xenos flesh-witches on the world of Yorlos before they could become a threat to Terra.

Custodian Sanash Gallimedan

-Member of the Emissary Imperatus charged with bringing the secrets of the Primaris Space Marines to the Hammers of Dorn chapter.

Custodian Saturnalia Princeps Carthagina

-Custodian Saturnalia was assigned to hunt down the escaped traitor legion space marines from the imprisoned Crusader Host alongside agent Yasu Nagasena. Saturnalia fell in battle against a berserker of the World Eaters during that mission.

Custodian Solon

-Member of Dynastes Squad of the Hykanatoi.

Custodian Sumant Giri Phalguni Tirtha

-Assigned to the garrison of the infamous Khangba Marwu prison on Terra. Rumors suggest that Custodian Sumant's assignment was the result of a demotion following insubordination against Captain-General Constantin Valdor, an act that earned considerable physical scars as well as the Khangba Marwu posting which was essentially a form of exile. Sumant was killed by the Thousand Sons Sorcerer Atharva in the breakout of the Crusader Host legionaries known as the Outcast Dead.

Custodian Sythran

-Member of Dynastes Squad of the Hykanatoi. Sythran was dispatched with Aquillon to serve as the Occuli Imperator, the eyes of the Emperor watching the sanctioned Word Bearers. Along with his commander Sythran was killed by the chaos tainted Word Bearers half the galaxy away from his fellow squad brothers.

Custodian Tagiomalchian

-Tagiomalchian served the Legio Custodes during the later years of the Great Crusade and through the Horus Heresy. Tagiomalchian favored a Sentinel Blade and Praesidium Shield as his personal arms instead of the more common Guardian Spear.

Custodian Telchor

-Like all members of the Custodian Guard Telchor possesses a wealth of lost knowledge from the golden age of the Great Crusade and is aware of just how far the Imperium has fallen since those halcyon days. Despite his contempt for the current state of the Imperium Telchor remains committed to protecting the Emperor and his Imperium.

Custodian Thanassar

-One of the greatest of the Custodes, spoken of in the same breath as Constantin Valdor himself.

Custodian Uttam Luna Hesh Udar

-Consigned to the garrison of the infamous Khangba Marwu prison after he was horribly injured by ork biological weapons Custodian Uttam was killed by a World Eaters berseker during the breakout of the Crusader Host inmates known as the Outcast Dead.

Custodian Vendatha

-One of the first Occuli Imperator assigned to watch the Primarch Lorgar. Vendatha was killed by the possessed Gal Vorbak legionaries.

Venerable Ancient Calaxor

-Custodian Hasturias Calaxor first earned the mantle of Shield-Captain during the Siege of Terra where he held the Enlightener's Stair single-handed against traitors of the 9^th Terran Wardens. Calaxor went on to rally the Gospodor Heavy Infantry and lead them in retaking the Dome of the Architects from Dortha Kol's warband of Sons of Horus traitor legionaries. With the assistance of a sodality of his fellow Custodians the loyalists led by Calaxor ran down and slaughtered the forces of Dortha Kol and even managed to bring down the traitor Warhound Titan the Warp Jackal. Calaxor would later defeat the daemon Thogralathrax to prevent the Suppurant Scourge from being released on Terra, he fought blade to blade against the heretical Singer of Miseries during the battle for the star keep Magnificence and it was Calaxor who ended the threat of the rogue assassin Shae before she made it within a hundred mile radius of the Golden Throne. Shield-Captain Calaxor was finally laid-low in battle on the dead world of Palathrix after which he was interred within the armored sarcophagus of a venerable contemptor dreadnought. According to all available information Calaxor continues to serve with the Ten Thousand to this day making him easily the equal in age of Bjorn the Fell-Handed, oldest dreadnought of the Adeptus Astartes.

Venerable Ancient Darian

-Member of Shield Host Fury of Terra during the Defense of Elysia.

Venerable Ancient Eratorius

-Member of Shield Host Fury of Terra during the Defense of Elysia.

Venerable Ancient Euramedes

-Member of the Gilded Talons Shield Company.

Venerable Ancient Excelsis Abram Hasrubal

-Member of the Orestian Chamber of the Moritoi and serving as a Contemptor-Achillus in the ranks of the Prosperine Censure Host. Ancient Hasrubal was deployed as part of the first wave, fighting under the command of Prefect Tem Lanais to secure the pyramid of Lhis'Ta on the northern edge of Tizca.

Venerable Ancient Prefectus Vettranio Shapura

-Member of the Æranshahr Chamber of the Moritoi serving with the Prosperine Censure Host. Shapura was formerly a Prefect in the Legio Custodes and holds a legendary reputation even among the storied ranks of the Custodian Guard. One of the earliest Custodians to fall in battle and be interred in a Dreadnought, the third or fourth depending on the varying records, Shapura's fall was remarkable in that it came as a result of intercepting an attack meant for the Master of the Mankind when the xenos Rykogene boarded the Imperial flagship the Bucephalus and attacked the Emperor. This act earned the Rykogene extinction and Shapura the honor of the Ferrum Aquila to be emblazoned on the shield of his Contemptor-Galatus Dreadnought.

Venerable Ancient Sagittarus Malacque

-One of the first of the Custodes who fought alongside the Emperor during the early days of the Unification Wars this venerable warrior suffered the dishonor of being the first of the Custodes to fall in battle during the Battle of Maulland Sen. Instead of a dignified death however he was the first to be interred within the armored life-support sarcophagi of a Dreadnought and charged to fight on beyond mortal limits in the name of his Emperor.

Venerable Ancienet Talorian

-Member of the Gilded Talons Shield Company.

Venerable Ancient Uriaxes

-Custodian Uriaxes fought against the Invasion of the Beast in M32 and fell in battle fighting the monstrous greenskins of that terrible era. Interred within the sarcophagus of a venerable contemptor dreadnought Uriaxes continued to serve, fighting on the battlefields of Ghosaris during the Moirae Schism against the Dark Mechanicus, against the Blood Cults of Tsydon and many more.

Venerable Ancient Ynnades

-Ancient Ynnades participated in the battle for the Lion's Gate, dropped deep into the lines of the daemon army to link-up with the isolated pocket of resistance formed around Shield-Captain Valerian, Sister Aleya and Justicar Alcuin. It is uncertain what configuration the ancient Ynnades' dreadnought is configured in, Galatus, Achillus or standard.

Coronus Grav-Carrier The Ire of Mithradates

-Assigned to the Rasia-Incal Sentinel Guard sodality of the Hykanatoi serving with the Prosperine Censure Host. Despite suffering considerable damage in some of the heaviest fighting on Prospero the Ire of Mithradates was able to return to it's orbital conveyor under it's own power and would go on to serve the Legio Custodes through the rest of the Horus Heresy.

Pallas Grav Attack Reshep-Alpha

-The Reshep-Alpha served as part of the Lead Element of the XII Lotan Squadron serving with the Prosperine Censure Host. To mark the prominence of the Reshep-Alpha in it's squadron it's hull was marked with the misericordia, a symbol used in this case to denote authority.

Venerable Land Raider Justice Delivered

-Served the Gilded Talons Shield Company.

Venerable Land Raider Glorious Wrath

-Served the Gilded Talons Shield Company.

Venerable Land Raider Glory to the Throne

-Glory to the Throne saw it's first service in battle during the Siege of Terra. Despite suffering severe damage the Glory to the Throne was painstakingly and reverently restored and returned to service and has continued to serve the Adeptus Custodes loyally for ten thousand years.

Venerable Land Raider Wrath of Ages

-Served with Shield Host Fury of Terra during the Defense of Elysia.

Eye of the Emperor Phemus

-Assisted the Gilded Talons Shield Company.

Master Artificer Nurthias Drund

-Master Artificer of the Forge Aquilan.

Known Battles of the Custodian Guard

“Let them come, insidious monsters that they are. Let them flow like a tide into the killing zone. Await my signal to activate the teleportariums, and then let us unleash the Emperor's fury upon these abominations from every direction at once.”

-Oldorian Mefistal, Shield-Captain of the Dread Host.

The Unity Wars – Late M29-798.M30

-Hundreds of the most brutal conflicts to have ever raged across the surface of Terra marked this early period of the Emperor's rise before the Great Crusade. Spearheaded by the early Legio Custodes and the Thunder Warriors the forces of the Emperor cast down gene-Tyrants, sorcerer cabals, techno-barbarian lords and horrors of old night. The mighty tales, the feats of heroism and the epic tragedies of this period would take a lifetime to enumerate, even if the knowledge of most of the events of this age hadn't been lost to the mists of time and the fires of war. What is known is that the Custodes were there from the very beginning. Inscriptions on the pillars of the Black Manse of Nas'sau, the former capitol of one of the first techno-barbarian tribes to submit to the Emperor, record the coming of the “Lord of Lightning” and his “four giants of crimson and gold” who demanded the surrender of Nas'sau's warrior-king. Fragmentary records record the fall of the powerful Maulland Sen Confederacy decades later to an armory led by the Emperor and a companion bodyguard of thirty “Custodians” bearing powered spears and wearing golden augment-armor. The Trans-Nordyc Akashic archives detail how the Emperor and his guard led an army of the newly formed Thunder Warriors and of how one of the golden Custodians as responsible for cutting the head from the tyrant-prophet of the Confederacy in the climactic final Battle of the Red Frost. Decades after the fall of the Confederacy the Custodian Guard in their hundreds, armed and armored in a manner recognizable as their modern incarnation, would lead the cull of the rebellious Thunder Warriors at the head of an army of newly forged Adeptus Astartes of the first legion. From the first early skirmishes to the final bitter campaigns the Custodian Guard marched at the Emperor's side and delivered his will and judgment at the end of their Guardian Spears.

The Great Crusade – 798.M30-005.M31

-Carried aboard a growing fleet of golden warships the Custodes fought at the bleeding edge of the Great Crusade, ever at the Emperor's side, ever against the most terrible of foes in the most savage of battles. Armored in gold and robed in red the Custodian Guard proved all but unstoppable. As the decades passed and more of the lost Primarchs were found the Emperor finally decided to retire from the crusade and return to Terra to begin work on his great and secret endeavor in earnest. The Victory at Ullanor over the massed hordes of the Orks would mark the end of the Emperor's role as the commander of the Great Crusade. Instead the mantle of field command would fall to the Primarch Horus who was elevated above his brothers and granted the title of Warmaster. At the time the Victory at Ullanor was celebrated as one of the greatest victories of the Great Crusade, a mighty war in which the Emperor had led thousands of his Custodian Guard, tens of thousands of Adeptus Astartes and millions of Imperial Army soldiers. In time Ullanor would come to be known as the beginning of the end of the glorious age of the Great Crusade. The elevation of Horus put him on the road that would eventually bring him back to Terra at the head of an invading army of traitors and daemons.

The Humbling at Monarchia and The Occuli Imperator – 964.M30

-The increasingly slow pace of conquests orchestrated by the XVII Legion and their unsanctioned deification of the Emperor as a god eventually forced a response from the Master of Mankind. The Word Bearers were summoned to the sight of one of their earliest and most important compliance campaigns, Monarchia, and were forced to watch as the Ultramarines of the XIII Legion evacuated the city by force and burned it to ash from orbit. Before the ranks of the Ultramarines the Emperor stood in judgment surrounded by his Custodian Guard. To ensure that the Word Bearers complied with the Emperor's orders following their humbling censure the Emperor dispatched a number of sodalities of his Custodes as Occuli Imperator, the Eyes of the Emperor. These warriors were scattered among the ranks of the Word Bearers watching for signs of regression into religiosity and a whole sodality was assigned to watch the Primarch Lorgar Aurelian. By the time the festering corruption of chaos growing within the ranks of the Word Bearers became apparent the majority of the Occuli Imperator had already fallen conveniently in battle, the few remaining Custodians watching Lorgar were cut down by the warp-infused strength of the nightmarish Gal Vorbak Possessed Legionaries of the Chapter of the Serrated Sun.

The Scouring of Prospero – 005.M31

-Many scholars record the scouring of Prospero as the first battle of the Horus Heresy. While it is true that the event generally coincided with the beginning of that brutal period the Thousand Sons and Magnus the Red were not at the time avowed traitors or servants of the Warmaster Horus. The events of Prospero would force the Thousand Sons into the arms of the very traitors Magnus had sought to warn the Emperor of and, inadvertently, ruined the great endeavor on which the Master of Mankind had placed all his hopes for the future of mankind. Constantin Valdor and Leman Russ were dispatched to arrest Magnus and return him to Terra but it is debatable whether this would ever have been possible. The matter was rendered irrelevant when the poisoned words of the Warmaster Horus turned Leman Russ murderous and the VI Legion chose to bring fire and death to Prospero. While Constantin Valdor was initially reluctant to join in the slaughter the blatant use of massed psychic powers in the defense of Prospero revealed the depth of the corruption in the Thousand Sons and forced Valdor to commit his warriors. The battle that followed would cost a considerable number of lives, bleeding the Space Wolves and their allies of a considerable number of warriors even as the surviving Thousand Sons and the broken body of Magnus escaped into the warp. Though bloodied and much diminished the Talons of the Emperor quickly took ship and returned to Terra, the War Within the Webway still needed to be fought.

The Horus Heresy – 005-010 M31

-Even as the fires of the heresy spread across the galaxy like a wildfire, scorching everything they touched and casting whole sectors into anarchy and treachery the Legio Custodes were engaged in the most terrible and costly conflict their order has ever fought before or since. In the depths of the Imperial Dungeon and the twisting arteries of the webway the Custodes and their allies fought a Secret War against the unstoppable and unending tides of daemons and traitors seeking to breach the gates of the Emperor's Palace from below. By the time the War Within the Webway was declared lost and the Emperor strode forth to extract his surviving warriors the cost in blood had risen to an astonishing level. Fully nine out of every ten Custodians had fallen in battle, alongside a similar proportion of the Silent Sisterhood and an entire maniple of Titans of the Legio Ignatum that included the Warlord Titan Vigilant Light. Not only had the most elite warriors of the Imperium failed in their assigned task the effort had bled them of their greatest strength. When the traitors finally came to assail the walls of the Emperor's Palace a mere one in ten of the original strength of the Custodes would stand against them. What would have happened had the Ten Thousand manned the walls at full strength and met the traitors head-on in a battle that could actually be one is now a matter of speculation only. A depleted and weakened Custodian Guard could only stand by and do their part while the bulk of the fighting fell to the Adeptus Astartes and the Imperial Army and even then they failed, the Emperor was mortally wounded in his final confrontation with the traitor Warmaster Horus and his dying body was permanently interred within the arcane mechanisms of the Golden Throne. Not once but twice in a short span of time had the Custodes failed their master and this would be a shame the order would carry, robed in black, for the next Ten Thousand years.

Secrets Shared – 005.M31

-Following the horrors of the Istvaan V Dropsite Massacre two loyalist legions were left reduced to less than a tenth their starting strength and a third was left bereft of it's most veteran warriors and Primarch. Even as the leaderless Iron Hands struck out at random and the Salamanders withdrew to Nocturne the recently rescued Primarch Corax immediately began a desperate search for the means to rebuild his Legion and return to the war. His search would lead him to Terra and a hidden vault built by the Emperor to house knowledge and technology linked to the creation of the Space Marine Legions. Such secrets were only entrusted to Corax on the condition that a bodyguard of Custodians went back to Kiavahr with him to safeguard the Emperor's secrets. Initially the gene-lore recovered by Corax enabled him to rapidly produce thousands of new space marines but Alpha Legion infiltrators hidden among the ranks of the Raven Guard survivors during the withdrawal from Istvaan V sabotaged the gene-labs, producing the twisted and malformed ranks of corrupted space marines the Space Wolves would call Weregeld. Horrified by the mutations Corax immediately halted the new recruitment operation. Before long the infiltrators were discovered and eliminated but the damage had already been done, the gene-seed of the Raven Guard was permanently damaged and the Emperor's secrets stolen by the Alpha Legion. Some of those secrets would find their way to Fabius Bile and certainly contributed greatly to the traitor legions war efforts while other secrets were withheld for the sole use of the Alpha Legion, which was likely why of all the legions in the war only the Alpha Legion seemed to end the Horus Heresy with more legionaries than they began with.

The Last Thunder Warrior – ~009.M31

-Not long before the Siege of Terra Custodian Tagiomalchian was charged with hunting down and eradicating a potential traitor legion threat in the shanty-town known as the Swathe that surrounded the lower slopes of the Imperial Palace. The threat turned out to be a possessed legionary from the Alpha Legion, inserted somehow to the surface of Terra alongside a cadre of XX Legion cultists. Tagiomalchian was trained as an Ephroi hunter. Tagiomalchian was lured into a ruin beneath the Swathe where the possessed legionary and his cultists intended to sacrifice the Custodian and use his blood to power their ritual. Alone against the possessed alpha legionary Tagiomalchian likely would have fallen but an unexpected intervention came in the form of a surviving Thunder Warrior who charged into the fight and cut down the cultists before seriously wounding the possessed space marine while receiving a mortal injury in return. Tagiomalchian was able to finish off the possessed legionary before granting the Thunder Warrior's request for the Emperor's Mercy, or as he called it, the honored death. Despite the betrayal the Thunder Warriors suffered and their degrading minds and bodies a handful had persisted and remained loyal and one of their number had been in the right place at the right time to aid the Emperor's chosen at a critical moment. It is unknown how Tagiomalchian processed this encounter and his life being saved by a warrior who should have been dead and who in other circumstances Tagiomalchian would have had to eliminate himself.

The Scouring – 014-021.M31

-After the disaster of the Siege of Terra the Custodian Guard would take little part in the battles that would follow. The grief stricken Rogal Dorn would ultimately lose the mantle of commander of the Imperium to the more level-headed Roboute Guilliman. The vengeful forces of the loyalists hounded the scattered traitors into the dark reaches of the galaxy and the nightmare realms of warp storms, mainly the Eye of Terror and the Maelstrom. Towards the end of this period the Captain-General Constantin Valdor would depart the ranks of the Ten Thousand mysteriously and without word, taking his weapons and wargear with him. Where he has gone or why remains a complete mystery but it is entirely possible given the near immortal lifespans of the Custodes that he still lives.

The War of the Beast – 544.M32

-The sudden and apocalyptic mass invasion of hundreds of vast armies of greenskins of unprecedented size, advanced technology and terrible power sent the Imperium into a state of total panic and near collapse. Whole sectors were ravaged by the invader, worlds destroyed and fleets shattered. Only the rapid and decisive intervention of the scattered forces of the Adeptus Astartes maintained anything like order or presented any coordinated military response. The Sons of Dorn in particular had long maintained a near heretical emergency protocol, known as the Last Wall, that summoned the strengths of the scattered successor chapters to band together under a single unified command in response to the most dire of threats. Despite concerns as to the consolidation of power under a single command the paralyzed and incompetent High Lords could do little to countermand the Sons of Dorn and ultimately first one than a second of their number would take up the mantle of Lord Commander of the Imperium. To better meet the threat of the greenskins the Inquisition was finally split into separate Ordos charged with different areas of responsibility and to aid them the Death Watch was founded from the battered survivors of Lord Commander Koorland's initial multi-chapter crusade force. These adaptations proved highly successful and after a long and brutal century of warfare Lord Commander Maximus Thane finally defeated the greenskisn and restored something resembling order and safety to the Imperium. Behind Thane's back the Grand Master of the Officio Assassinorum had secretly assassinated and replaced many of the High Twelve of the High Lords and had spent the last century ruling Terra with an increasingly monstrous and tyrannical iron fist. In a final nightmarish battle a hundred Eversor Assassins met some two hundred Space Marines in battle and were defeated and the Grand Master Drakan Vangorich finally slain. Throughout this entire period of anarchy and war the Adeptus Custodes stood back and mostly watched, refusing to commit forces on any battlefield outside of the Emperor's Palace. Captain-General Beyreuth likely knew of the assassination of the High Lords and the manipulations of Vangorich but similarly stood by and remained passive as the political engine of Terra ground on, uninterested in the particulars or the intrigue. Why the Custodes did not take a more direct hand in the defense of Terra, even as an enormous and deadly battle-moon hung in orbit over the Throneworld itself none can now say. Perhaps Beyreuth foresaw a greater threat or merely had confidence that the situation would ultimately be rectified without the involvement of the Custodes.

Siege of the Eternity Gate – Between M33-M39

-In a shocking turn of events the Cult of the Hedonic Lord managed to seize control of much of the Eternity Gate space port through it's infiltration of the Fartrader's Guild of the Yndonesic Hives. Repeated attempts by the Imperial Guard and the Adeptus Arbites to reclaim the captured spaceport met failure as the heavily armed cultists fought back every assault. When it became clear the Hedonic Lord cultists were gathering together hundreds of shuttles for an attack on the Emperor's Palace the Custodes were finally roused to action. Spearheads of Land Raiders and Allarus Terminators flanked by the speeding forms of Vertus Praetors on jetbikes and backed up by Shield Companies of spear and sword wielding Custodians stormed through the Eternity Gate like a golden tempest annihilating anything that dared stand against them. Before the cult could launch a single shuttle their strength was slaughtered and their murderous ambitions ground to dust.

Capture of the Blade of Ptesh – Between M33-M39

-In a remarkable and fortuitous turn of events a successful Blood Game run by the Custodian Leotydus Dat-Hastael revealed a weakness in the security of the Emperor's Palace shortly before the infamous Dark Eldar Assassin known as the Blade of Ptesh attempted to use that very weakness to infiltrate the Sanctum Imperialis. The forewarned Custodes succeeded in capturing the assassin but no matter what methods of interrogation were used the assassin refused to give up the identity of his employer.

The Purge of the Ominous Gift – Between M33-M39

-When halo-belt augurs detected the incoming bulk of a space hulk identified as the Ominous Gift approaching the Sol system the current Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes, Aesoth Koumadra, used his position as a High Lord to deny the deployment of any other branches of the Imperium's military in securing or destroying the hulk. A strike force of pure Custodes boarded and crippled the hulk before it was blown to fragments. Though the significance would have been a mystery to most observers the Custodes strike force was commanded by the Lockwarden of the Shadowkeepers. Thankfully the wider Imperium will forever remain blissfully ignorant of whatever dire threat had been aboard the Ominous Gift.

The Crusade of Warmaster Nathasian – Between M33-M39

-Led by prognostications a sodality of Custodians from the Aquilan Shield prevented the execution of Lieutenant Nathasian of the Cadian 86^th for insubordination. Under the protection of the Custodes the young lieutenant rose through the ranks to become Warmaster of an Imperial Crusade and would ultimately lead the campaign that would cleanse the Shuddering Stars from the plague of ork tribes infesting the region and halt the advance of Waaagh Dakskrag before it could threaten the Sol system. Following his victories the Custodes deemed Nathasian's usefulness in the defense of the Throneworld exhausted and they departed without warning. Given that the original order of execution had never been officially rescinded and the Commissariat is hardly an organization prized for original thinking the order of execution was carried out before the day was done.

The Eighth Black Crusade – 999.M37

-During the eighth Black Crusade of Abaddon the Despoiler a force of Night Lords and Iron Warriors captured the Andromax system in the near vicinity of the Sol system. Judged an imminent threat to the Throneworld the Custodes dispatched emissaries to the Fabricator-General Uixot and the Adeptus Astartes of the Minotaurs Chapter to gather allies for a strike against the traitor legion forces. Within months a combined army of Custodes, space marines and Skitarii storm the Andromax system and slaughter the traitors in their captured fortresses.

The Treason of Lord Sennaca – Between M40-M41

-After twenty years of careful investigation Shield-Captain Tybanus Lencilius uncovered an insidious plot by a conclave of radical Thorian Inquisitors to steal psykers destined for the Golden Throne in an attempt to starve the Emperor of sustenance. Instead of acting right away Tybanus chose to continue his observations and track down the wider network of allies enabling the Thorian's thefts. Eventually Tybanus' investigation led him to High Lord Sennaca who he discovered was selling the stolen psykers to private buyers for extraordinary sums of money. With the chief conspirators finally revealed Shield-Captain Tybanus led a strike against the thieves, delivering the Emperor's merciless judgment to the Inquisitors and the High Lord Sennaca.

The Battle of the Gilded Pyre - ~899.M41

-The sudden disappearance of the notoriously conservative Captain-General Galahoth marked the beginning of a period known as the Years of Madness. The long period of stagnation under Galahoth's rule left Terra ripe for attack. Cult activity of both heretical and xenos origin rose dramatically alongside an explosion of queue-wars triggered by Doomsday sects, disturbances in the Black Cells beneath the Emperor's Palace and even unprecedented cases of possession among a sub-sect of the Doomscryer psykers that serve the Custodes. The situation became the most dire when the undetected corruption in the Doomscryers led to Captain-General Launceddre falling into a trap and perishing in the Battle of the Gilded Pyre. It took the rise of the exceptional Captain-General Trajann Valoris, claimed by many to be the greatest bearer of the title since the legendary Constantin Valdor himself, to stabilize the situation and regain an ironclad control of the Throneworld and it's defenses.

The Battle of Luna – ~999.M41

-The unexpected emergence of Roboute Guilliman and his Terran Crusade through a webway portal on the surface of Luna was easily the greatest disruption to occur in the Solar system since the reign of Goge Vandire. Somehow an army of Thousand Sons and Daemons of Tzeentch led by Magnus the Red had anticipated the arrival of Guilliman and ambushed the Terran Crusade on a barren stretch of the surface of Luna. Forewarned by their prognosticars a force of Grey Knights had been waiting nearby and were quick to respond, closely followed by detachments of Adeptus Custodes and the secretly gathered survivors of the Sisters of Silence. Together these armies crushed the Thousand Sons and banished them and their master back into the warp. No sooner had that battle been fought however than another daemon army would appear on the surface of Terra and the survivors would be hurled into yet another apocalyptic battle.

The Sack of the Lion's Gate – ~999.M41

-Following the arrival of Roboute Guilliman on the surface of Luna a series of long-hidden cults secreted within the hives surrounding the Emperor's Palace leaped into action. Long-made plans were finally put into action and within a matter of hours thousands of sacrifices had been made to the Blood God and before the Custodes or the Grey Knights could stop them a great warp portal was opened just outside the walls of the Lion's Gate. A vast army of Daemons of Khorn led by no fewer than eight mighty Bloodthirsters tore their way into reality and stormed towards the walls of the Emperor's Palace. From the Lion's Gate issued an army of golden warriors to meet them. Nearly four thousand Custodian Guard met the charge of the Blood God's servants, a larger host than had fought in once place since the Horus Heresy. Supported by talons of Dreadnoughts, squadrons of Land Raiders, and Shield Companies of elite Terminators the Custodes tore into the daemons with fury unbound. Supported by squads of Sisters of Silence and a small detachment of Grey Knights the Custodian Guard met the daemons blade for blade, slowly but surely banishing the army back into the warp. Despite the merciless power of their attack the Custodes took many casualties in return and the battle stood on a knife's edge. It seemed like the daemons might breach the palace when a Bloodthirster managed to reach the Lion's Gate and tore down the gilded portal with great blows of it's brazen axes. Before the daemons could storm the breach however they were met by a storm of disciplined bolter-fire, the survivors of the Terran Crusade had deployed, led by Roboute Guilliman himself. Squads of Space Marines and Skitarii rained precise and controlled fire into the daemon army even as the mighty Avenging Son cast down the Bloodthirster leading them. In a matter of hours the daemon army was completely annihilated and the Emperor's Palace made secure once more, though the victory had cost the lives of over half the Custodians that had participated in the battle, a higher butcher's bill than the Custodes had paid since the War Within the Webway.

The Battle for the Vorlese System – ~999.M41

-While the bulk of the Emperor's servants on Terra reeled from the sudden arrival of Roboute Guilliman and debated what to do a small band of Custodians and Sisters of Silence had identified a growing threat to the future of the Imperium. Even as the loyalists fought to purge daemons from the surface of Terra a number of small fleets of traitor legion warships had moved to cut off all of the stable warp routes from the Sol system. Had they succeeded the Avenging Son would have been trapped on Terra, unable to take his forces out into the wider galaxy. Identifying the nearby Vorlese systems as one of the traitor's targets a band of ten Custodians and thirty two null maidens took ship to the system even as Guilliman was meeting with the Emperor and the High Lords. Upon their arrival in the system the Talons of the Emperor discovered a traitor fleet preparing to drop a corrupted Necron pylon recovered from the corpse of Cadia onto the surface of the primary planet of the system. The tainted pylons were being used to disrupt the warp and collapse the stable warp route linking the Solar system with Vorlese and through it the wider Imperium. Determined to stop this act the Talons managed to disable a section of the traitor cruiser's shields long enough to teleport aboard whereafter they attacked and disabled the release mechanisms that would have dropped the pylon like a bomb onto the planetary surface. Though most of the Talons of the Emperor lost their lives they succeeded in stopping the traitor plan long enough for the first fleet of the Indomitus Crusade to arrive with Guilliman and the Primaris Marines. Guilliman stormed the traitor ship and recovered the survivors, even though it would have been safer and easier to have destroyed the chaos cruiser from a distance.

The Indomitus Crusade – 999.M41-126.M42

-The return of the Primarch Roboute Guilliman and his reclamation of the mantle of Lord Commander of the Imperium would mark a change in the Custodian Guard. The black cloaks of mourning were cast off and the rich red of the Emperor's guard returned, a symbolic gesture signifying the Custodes determination to take the fight to the enemies of the Emperor once more. The time of static defense was over, from that day on the Adeptus Custodes would not be content to man walls while others did the fighting. It was time to seek out and destroy the enemies of the Master of Mankind wherever they may hide. When the Indomitus Crusade was launched with the Avenging Son at it's head and the vast ranks of the newly revealed Primaris Space Marines at his back the crusade would also include hundreds of gold armored Custodians and Sisters of Silence. For the first time in ten thousand years the warriors of the Adeptus Custodes departed the Throneworld in force, thousands of their number taking ship and journeying out into the void in search of foes to slay. For the next one hundred and twenty seven years the Custodes would march alongside the Indomitus Crusade, serving as bodyguards and advisers to Roboute Guilliman and spearheading countless assaults against traitors, daemons and xenos alike.

The Battle of Gathalamor

-Taking advantage of the chaos caused by the opening of the Great Rift a sizable warband of Word Bearers invaded the holy world of Gathalamor Prime and laid siege to it's great macro-cathedrals. The soldiers of the Mordian 84^th and the Sisters of the Order of the Argent Shroud fought fiercely but were simply outmatched. Even as the traitors gathered for the last assault the desperate prayers of the loyalists were answered, in flashes of golden light the warriors of the Adeptus Custodes and space marines of the Grey Knights chapter appeared in the midst of the traitor hordes. For the next three days the Imperial forces, now led by Captain-General Trajann Valoris and Grand Master Voldus, fought a tireless campaign of annihilation against the invaders that culminated in the Battle for the Statue Steps. With fresh Imperial troops arriving the Custodes chose to depart and leave the surviving Mordians and Sisters of Battle to the mercy of the Grey Knights.

The Purge of Trynnect

-Supported by the lances of Imperial Knight Titans from House Krast a Shield Company of the Custodes stormed through the Necron lines on Trynnect and destroyed the Cryptek cabal attempting to awake the star god Zul'channec in the northern region of the Segmentum Solar.

The Siege of the Echovault

-Commanded by the ambitious Chaos Lord Hadrexus a force of Black Legionaries conducted an assault on the world of Dakhorth with the intention of seizing the ancient and mysterious Echovault, an artifact of xenos origins and unknown purpose. Before the chaos space marines could slaughter their way through the defenders and reach the vault two of the Moiraides appeared and deployed their cargo of Custodians of the Dread Host. The Shield Companies of the Dread Host assembled around the Echovault and prepared for a siege. Though the battles that followed were costly for the Custodians the Black Legion warband was all but obliterated and Lord Hadrexus and his elite chosen were cut down to the last. After the battle a permanent garrison of Custodians was assigned to stand guard over the Echovault.

The Voyage of the Scion of Argo

-Though the Adeptus Mechanicus had long concealed the growing problem of their inability to maintain the Golden Throne the secret was finally revealed when the opening of the Great Rift caused the light of the Astronomicon to fail. Determined that the ignorance of the Mechanicus was an unacceptable risk to the Emperor's continued safety Shield-Captain Heraclast Vadrian received permission from Captain-General Trajann Valoris to gather a strike force and embark on a quest to recover the lost knowledge necessary to repair and maintain the Golden Throne. Journeying aboard the Custodes Cruiser the Scion of Argo the strike force made for the lost Forge World of Morvane which intelligence had determined was the most promising first lead.

Battle of the Plains of Pallus

-Following the collapse of Lord Commander Ustrin's Victorium Crusade a system-wide breakthrough of traitor forces threatened spreading the chaos incursion even further into Imperial space. Spearheaded by the renegade Vostokh 7^th armored companies the traitor forces smashed through every Imperial force that tried to stop them. That was until they were met by the Vertus Praetors of Shield-Captain Aadilus on the rocky plains of Pallus. Caught out in the open with no cover and no way to box in the incredibly agile Dawneagle Jetbikes of the Custodes the columns of traitor armor were utterly unable to effectively engage the fast-moving Vertus Praetors whose Salvo Launchers poured an endless stream of melta-missiles into the enemy formations. Combined with devastating lance charges that pierced weak armor, cut through tracks, engines and weapons, the Custodes assault was unstoppable and devastating. Though a few Vertus Praetors were shot down the majority remained unharmed even as they reduced the awesome might of the Vostokh 7^th to a graveyard of smoldering wreckage in a matter of minutes.

The Hunt for Cypher

-Despite his role in ensuring the returned Primarch Roboute Guilliman reached Terra the deal that the Fallen Angel Cypher had struck with Guilliman was not honored, instead of allowing this mysterious figure to come before the Golden Throne he was detained and placed in a cell until the Lord Guilliman and the Custodes could decide what to do with him. Though he went without a fight it was not long before Cypher vanished from his cell without a trace, a feat that should have been all but impossible in the high-security dungeons of the Imperial Palace. Determined to rectify their error the Custodians charged with guarding Cypher, led by Shield-Captain Daryth, immediately began a hunt for the Fallen Angel that quickly determined he was no longer on Terra. Undeterred the Custodes requested the assistance of a team of Null-Maidens from the Silent Sisterhood and took ship aboard a rapid-strike frigate to continue the hunt out into the dark of space. The journey of the Sol's Arrow took the strike force through the Great Rift and into Imperium Nihilus following the trail of Cypher. Unknown to the hunters the silent-shadow of a night-black space marine cruiser has followed in their wake, it's purpose and allegiance as yet unknown.

The Fall of the Osseous Tower

-One of the more ominous battles fought by the Custodes in recent years was the destruction of the Dark Eldar fortress orbiting Othana V. Constructed from bone and placed in low orbit over the gas giant of Othana V the Osseous Tower served as a base from which the Dark Eldar launched raids against nearby Imperial gas-mining platforms. Given that these platforms serve the Custodes star keep Prescience their attack was a direct threat to the operations of the Adeptus Custodes and thus warranted a swift and brutal response. Several Shield Companies launched an all out assault on the tower, spearheaded by the Allarus Custodians of the Gilded Fist the Custodes teleported aboard the tower and slaughtered anything and everything they found. The twisted abominations of the Haemonculi lords of the towers barely slowed the Custodians as they fought their way to the gravitic membranes keeping the tower aloft and tore them apart, sending the tower on a long-slow fall into the crushing depths of the gas giant. A small number of Dark Eldar escape on swift craft and vanish while the Custodes withdraw in good order. It is only afterwards that it is discovered that several Custodians are missing. What the Dark Eldar might accomplish with so much as a corpse of a Custodian is too horrible to contemplate but worse is the possibility of living Custodians being captured by the twisted xenos. A retribution strike or rescue mission may be required to keep the Emperor's secrets out of xenos hands.

The Purge of the Wyrms

-The discovery of a Genestealer Cult calling itself the Wyrms of the Ur-tendril growing in the Nordafrik under-archives leads to a conflict of jurisdictions between the Ordo Xenos and the Adeptus Custodes. Captian-General Trajann Valoris refused a request by the Death Watch to dispatch a Kill Team, choosing instead to lead the purge of the cult personally at the head of an enormous shield host. The sheer size and ferocity of the cult led to a brutal battle that cost the lives of many Custodians but for every one Custodian who fell many hundreds of mutant abominations were slaughtered. At the height of the battle Trajann Valoris struck the head from the Broodlord leading the cult. After the last of the cultists were slaughtered the Captain-General ordered their nests purged by flame, scouring clean any last sign of the xenos taint, ignoring complaints from agents of the Ordo Xenos who wished to study the remains of the cult.

The Doom of Waaagh Zagstomp

-In a three-year long siege the Orks of Waaagh Zagstromp managed to successfully overrun the Iron Warriors Citadel of Miseries. Grown large and powerful from the hard fighting and with armories bloated with the vast quantity of weapons and material looted from the Iron Warriors the Orks of Waaagh Zagstomp took to their ships, ready to bring war and death to other human worlds. Before they could leave the system however strike foces of Custodians of the Solar Watch teleported aboard the ork vessels, fought their way into the engine decks and mek bays and planted vortex implosion detonators. With this task accomplished the surviving Custodes withdrew the same way they arrived and stood back to watch their handiwork. When the orks fired up their warp engines to depart the system they activated the undetected vortex devices and their vast fleet is torn apart in a storm of ravenous energy. Imperial Doomscryers had predicted the Waaagh would appear on the edges of the Solar system if left unchecked, a threat to the Golden Throne the Solar Watch eliminated before it could even become a reality.

Last Stand on Loqe II

-Transporting a cargo of Primaris gene-tech through the Imperium Nihilus an Imperial fleet is attacked by a pair of wayward Hive Ships of the Tyranid xenos menace. Overwhelmed the Custodian Wardens guarding the gene-seed choose to abandon the flagship, the Terra Nostra, before it is consumed and make planetfall on the nearby death world of Loqe II. The Tyranids pursue the Custodians to the surface where a ferocious battle ensues in the volcanic highlands where the Wardens chose to make their stand. A month later a relief force of Marines Malevolent arrives in orbit and drives off the Hive Ships before dispatching ground forces to investigate the battle. The space marines discover a sole surviving Custodian Warden still carrying the gene-tech and surrounded by a fortress of piled xenos corpses.

The Mission to the Corpse of Cadia

-Following the direct orders of the Captain-General a strike force of Custodians speeds off to the ruined remains of Cadia under the strictest secrecy, their mission and it's aim concealed even from the wider ranks of the Custodian Guard. Ominously this strike force included a number of Custodians drawn from the Shadowkeepers.

Sources

Watchers of the Throne: The Emperor's Legion

Horus Heresy: Blood Games Short Story

Horus Heresy: Magisterium Short Story

Horus Heresy: Outcast Dead

Horus Heresy: First Heretic

Horus Heresy: Corax

Horus Heresy: Master of Mankind

The Beast Arises Book 5: Throneworld

Horus Heresy Book Seven: Inferno

Codex: Adeptus Custodes 7^th Edition

Codex: Adeptus Custodes 8^th Edition