Custodian Brothers

The Custodians moved quickly to rally the remaining Detachments of Battle Brothers and to enact the Founder’s contingency plan: the Conduit Program. The Founder’s foresight and knowledge were proven, as his consciousness and memories were preserved in a clone. Thus, the Conduit became a symbol of the Founder’s vision and victory over death, which united the disparate Detachments in Sirius, while the Custodians continued to serve as the Conduit’s right hand in the sector. 

The Custodians continue to serve a vital role as the right hand and voice of the Conduit to the followers of the Founder. As a result, Custodians value themselves and others according to the reputations they build, both within the Brotherhood and outside of it, above all else. To ensure their honour is recognised, each Custodian takes great pains to display signs of their achievements, keeping trophies and engraving their armour with titles. 

While some might dismiss the Custodians as vainglorious, most acknowledge that it is only through their tireless dedication and diplomacy that unity is maintained. The Custodians stand as symbols of the Founder’s singular vision and reflections of human perfection that exist at the edge of genetic modification. 

How will you defend humanity’s unity and honour in Sirius?

History

Formation

The Founder himself chose the Custodian Brothers to serve as his entourage. Acting as representatives, they deliver his commands to detachments, and their word is considered second only to the Founder himself. Throughout the civil war, they served as his bodyguards and emissaries.

Fall of the Founder

When the Founder led a fleet to recover his stolen flagship, the Custodians were at his side. They met the stolen ship at the edge of known space, and a desperate battle ensued where the Founder himself was slain. Devastated by their loss, the Custodians fought with renewed fury.

Sirius

At the height of the conflict, a wormhole opened and engulfed both fleets. Both fleets would emerge in another galaxy, scattered and damaged.

The Conduit

The Custodians moved quickly to rally the remaining Detachments of Battle Brothers and to enact the Founder’s contingency plan: the Conduit Program. The Founder’s consciousness and memories were preserved in a clone. The revived Founder embraced this identity, beginning to refer to himself as the Conduit.

Unity

The Conduit united the disparate Detachments in Sirius, while the Custodians continued to serve as the Conduit’s right hand in the sector. The Custodian Brothers represent the Conduit or carry his direct orders. For this reason, the Custodians must act with a unified voice and goal: if other Detachments ever doubted that the Custodians were directly serving the Conduit’s will, then their authority would collapse.

Timeline

• 40 BRC - Development of Gene-mods
• 20 BRC - Founder's Coup
• 17 BRC - Custodian Brothers Formed
• 0 - Humanity Arrives in Sirius
• 5 ARC - Coronation of Conduit
• 109 ARC - Creation of Prime Brothers

Society

The Custodian Brothers are the Conduit’s personal guards and representatives. Each one is an extremely powerful warrior, with the highest level of genetic enhancements and the best armour and weapons that their technology can produce. They constitute the ruling class of the Protectorates.

New Custodian Brothers are recruited from the ranks of the most promising Battle Brothers. These Custodians are inducted while they are still new enough that they have not developed much loyalty to their particular detachment.

Diplomats

While the Custodian Brothers are fantastic fighters, their main role is political. They act as diplomats, travelling across the Sirius Sector to meet, convince or threaten other factions. While their official ideology asserts humanity’s superiority over all, the Custodians remain pragmatic and won’t hesitate to make pacts with aliens, even at the expense of human rivals.

The Protectorate has been able to endure and grow for two reasons: the unflinching resolve of the Battle Brothers and the cunning plans of the Custodians. But these two powers also engender a growing divide within their society: a tension between honour and power, between warriors and schemers, and between martyrs and high priests. The Battle Brothers might see them as corrupt, and the Custodians might see most Brothers as gunslingers unable to understand strategic necessities. Still, many from both sides respect each other and believe in the same ideals.

The Custodian Brothers generally view the human worlds outside the Protectorates as illegitimate upstarts. Even if they might occasionally work together for specific purposes, most Custodians despise the Human Alliance, which they see as a complete anathema to the Founders’ vision, as well as the primary culprit for his death.

Courtly Intrigue

The Custodian Brothers are the only ones who know the secrets and problems of the Conduit Protocol; they are the ones who lead the protectorates, dispatching Battle Brothers and Prime Brothers according to century-spanning plans. They have cultivated an image of infallible demigods, but their court is full of intrigue and rivalries, little secret wars based on ideological disagreements or personal grudges. There is constant competition within their caste, with many of them vying for power and influence within the Protectorate, believing that they are the best suited to fulfilling the will of the Conduit.

While Custodians can be devious and scheming, most sincerely believe that they are serving a higher purpose, fighting for the Founder’s vision to come true. This belief makes them lie and betray, but they are also ready to die for it if necessary.

The Dagger of the Conduit

When the Custodian Brothers themselves go into battle, it is often because they are performing operations that the Conduit believes are vital to be performed quickly and subtly. This might be a timely intervention when organising Battle Brother reinforcements may take too long or assist with defending a vital Protectorate asset.

Alternatively, they act in order in situations where secrecy is vital. Perhaps they may need to eliminate a leader from a neutral faction, exchange favours with a supposed enemy, or even undermine a Battle Brother detachment for political reasons. The Custodians believe that they alone can be trusted to get their hands dirty to protect the interests of the Protectorate.

When Custodian Brothers fight, they usually deploy only a handful of soldiers. But they have access to technology far more powerful than even the Battle Brothers, and each Custodian can take down many fighters and resist direct hits from anti-tank weapons; as such, they are a fearsome force, especially doubled with their superhuman intelligence and centuries of experience.

The Radiance

The Conduit styles himself as the pinnacle of Human knowledge and scientific advancement, and as such, he maintains a number of research missions in and around the Radiance Exclusion Zone to understand more about the strange phenomenon which brought humanity to Sirius. As his envoys and representatives, the Custodian Brothers serve as the forefront of this; those who are considered sufficiently knowledgeable will participate in research directly, while others serve to ensure that no discoveries from these programmes are leaked to even the highest-ranking members of the Battle Brothers without the explicit consent of the Conduit. Such secrecy has given rise to countless rumours of strange and unethical research carried out in these research bases, though so far, no hard evidence has emerged to corroborate this.

Language

Chosen from among the most promising Battle Brother recruits, the Custodian Brothers share a similar diversity of cultures and origins. The Conduit expects such prodigies to not only demonstrate physical prowess but mental acumen as well, favouring those who demonstrate aptitude with many languages to serve as his personal envoys and representatives.

Similar to the Battle Brothers, they are expected to adopt a code name upon ascension into the exclusive ranks of the Custodian Brothers. Where Battle Brothers are expected to draw their names from ancient protectors such as angels, the Custodian Brothers instead draw their names from the celestial bodies of the Milky Way. This is to serve as a reminder of their origins as well as to symbolise their role as guides to all of humanity. The Battle Brothers Detachments drew recruits from many cultures, with Detachments often adopting the most common language of the world they were assigned to.

Most Custodian Brothers also claim a number of titles, typically related to how they serve the Conduit. They expect others to address them by these titles in formal situations or if they are of lower status. Individuals of lower status, in their eyes, include just about everyone outside of their ranks.

Example Names

[Scorpius] [Acolyte] of the Conduit's [Word] - [Name], [Title] of the Conduit's [Role]

Custodian Brother Names

• Scorpius, Acolyte of the Conduit's Word
• Draco, Inquisitor of the Conduit's Temple
• Indus, Judge of the Conduit's Vengeance

Note that characters are usually referred to by their personal name (in italics).

Trivia

‍Proverbs

• We are the hands of the Conduit.
• The Conduit’s will is beyond your grasp. Do not question it.
• Serve the Conduit without doubt or question.
• To doubt a Custodian is to doubt the Conduit.
• A Custodian can enter any palace and meet any leader in the sector. As a guest or as a conqueror.