Editing Adeptus Custodes (section)

===41st Millenium Onward===
*'''[[Trajann Valoris]]:''' In the novel Watchers of the Throne: The Emperors' Legion Valoris is the Captain General of the Custodian Guard during the time of the 41st millennium, because there are no records of him in the Imperial banks and no details on his conquests or ascent into the order, he could be a 100 years old, or 5000 years old... nobody outside of the Adeptus Custodes know. Rumour has it he also has over 1000 names inscribed on the inside of his armour and before the return of [[Roboute Guilliman|the Primarch]], was the most powerful and deadly individual in all of the Imperium both martial and militarily. Only a handful of the greatest warriors, mightiest Inquisitor Lords, and a few High Lords gained an audience to speak to him. He killed 20 huge vat-grown rampaging combat servitors as large as enraged groxes armed with heavy chainglaives and other assorted heavy weapons in literally seconds, after kicking a really big door inwards within the Imperial Palace. It doesn't really need to be said, but this guy's a fucking badass. He's also the only named HQ in the Custodes' codex.
** After Guilliman returns and fires half the High Lords for being incompetent self-serving twats, Valoris is ordered to ensure that the inevitable backlash doesn’t succeed in reversing Guilliman’s reforms. What follows is a series of frankly incredible manipulations: Valoris plays the traitor and loyal High Lords, Imperial Navy, Imperial Guard, Officio Assassinorum, the ''entire'' [[Minotaurs]] chapter, Imperial Fists, Sisters of Silence and even his own Ten Thousand like damn fiddles all at once! Seriously, he plays everyone so well that the Imperial Chancellor remarks that the Custodes got exactly what they wanted and nobody outside of an extremely select few (like, maybe five individuals at most) would know that they were a relevant factor in quashing the rebellious high lords.
** TL;DR the guy is basically [[Creed]] and [[Kharn]] put together.

*'''[[Valerian]]:''' Protagonist of the ''Watchers of the Throne'' series of novels. An intellectual among the Custodes, he does not consider himself to be a warrior but a philosopher, and spends most of his free time studying the Emperor's acts and motivations. Was originally slated to join the 300 Companions, but he failed the first ritual when his body locked up and froze when the time actually came to visit the Golden Throne in person. Its implied later on that this was because the Emperor had another purpose for him, as he eventually ends up going rogue, leaving Terra with a squad he convinced to come with him, and establishing the precedent for the Custodes to finally get their asses out of the Imperial Palace and join the Indomitus Crusade (deepstriking into an enemy battleship and preventing a battleship full of heretic Astartes from pushing a big red button would do that). Gets rewarded with a laurel wreath by Guilliman for his actions, which some of his brothers are apparently none too happy about since Custodes don’t usually accept rewards, especially not from Astartes.
** Says that if violence could solve the Imperium's problems, it would've started working after trying it for ten thousand years, making him one of the few individuals in the Imperium to have common sense. Admittedly, this is something of a [[Skub|contentious statement]], considering the strength of the Imperium's enemies and the lack of proper military forces beyond poorly-trained and equipped PDF (and maybe a Guard regiment or two) on most worlds. If we’re being charitable, his belief that violence isn’t working for the Imperium might be about keeping the Imperium intact and preventing rebellion instead of a reference to war with invading space monsters.
** Gets completely played by Valoris in the second Watchers novel, ending up rescuing the Grand Master of the Officio Assassinorum (who was pretending to be one of the traitor High Lords) from the Minotaurs. Almost gets into a duel with Asterion Moloc, one which he wasn’t at all sure he’d win due to being unable to detect any weaknesses in Moloc’s gear or technique to exploit. Thankfully, Moloc is little more than an attack dog for the High Lords and with all the traitors dead, he stood down once the loyal High Lords told him to stand down. Is currently pursuing a chaos cult leader who escaped Terra through the galaxy.

*'''Navradaran:''' A member of the Ephroi featured in ''the Carrion Throne'' and ''Watchers of the Throne''. He specialized in covert operations outside the Imperial Palace, which is quite an achievement for a giant in golden armor. His time seeing more of the Imperium than just the Palace led to him appreciating regular humans for their potential and not their weakness (compared to other transhumans). He was a mentor for Valerian. Before Guilliman returned, he spent a lot of his time trying to reunite the Silent Sisterhood.

*'''Maldovar Colquan:''' A Tribune, newly elevated to the position on the death of Italeo during the Second Battle of Terra, he was assigned to be the Custodes to the newly-returned Guilliman. Given a passing mention in ''Watchers of the Throne'', and a cameo in ''Devastation of Baal'', Maldovar gets some focus in ''Dark Imperium'', where it is shown that he's rather pissed at just how much the Imperium has lost over the last ten millennia, including the Ecclesiarchy as Colquan is a hardcore believer in the Imperial Truth (though he does recognise the utility of faith to the masses). Often comments on minor shortcomings of the common humanity under Guilliman's command, which just strengthens Guilliman's opinion that the Custodes' experience as ''actual'' leaders had dulled. He is also known to have been one of the most vocal opponent of the Primarch's back to power, which led Bobby G to keep him around while crusading among the stars. Technically a heretic or even a traitor because he’s openly against a Primarch doing both what he was created to do and what the Emperor personally wants him to do. He is furious about how much the Imperium has lost yet is against the only person able and willing to fix all of that actually acting on that ability to do said fixing. It must be noted though that by the time ''Godblight'' happened, Colquan has learnt to trust Guilliman and believes the Primarch has nothing but the best for the Imperium in mind.

*'''Heraclast Vadrian:''' Mentioned in the 8th Edition Codex, Vadrian watched across centuries as the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] [[Derp|slowly forgot how to maintain and repair the]] [[Golden Throne]], leaving it slowly starting to break down with no one left alive anywhere in the Imperium knowing how to fix it. He decided that the AdMech being stubbornly ignorant (coupled with their stranglehold on Imperial tech) was a direct threat to the Emperor, and got permission from Trajann Valoris to figure out a solution. Vadrian then gathered a Shield Host in the cruiser ''Scion of Argo'' and set off following a lead to a lost forge world named ''Morvane,'' which presumably has knowledge of the technology needed to fix the Golden Throne, created components of it and thus might have blueprints, or might have Hereteks on it that can figure out how to fix it. In a way he and the Companions as a whole have failed their duty by not making sure the Golden Throne can be repaired and maintained with or without the Mechanicus.

*'''Pertinax''': Sheild Captain. Recently delivered Primaris reinforcements to the [[Blood Ravens]] Chapter 7th Company Captain Atanaxis.