During his rise to power, the Founder established an entourage of trusted acolytes. Each member was an individual of intelligence and skill whom the Founder trusted implicitly. They were the first with whom he shared his vision for an enhanced humanity, and his plan to achieve immortality by transferring memories and consciousness to a clone upon death.
The Custodian Brothers acted as his confidants and representatives, and their word is considered second only to the Founder himself. Throughout the civil war, they served as his personal guards and emissaries to the loyalist Detachments.
When the Founder led a fleet to recover his stolen flagship personally, 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, when at the height of the conflict, a wormhole opened and engulfed both fleets. These fleets then emerged in another galaxy, scattered and damaged.
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 recognized, 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 recognize 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 directly, then their authority would collapse.
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, 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, 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 often 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 they are undermining 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.
