The Custodians¶
The Progenitors' automated guardian host — the machines left to tend and defend Nandana until its intended people arrived. Act 1's enemy, and Act 2's potential salvation.
[!quote] "It isn't hostile. That's the horror of it. It's doing exactly what it was built to do — and we don't match the picture." — survey note, first contact with a Custodian line
Allegiance: the Progenitors (absent) · Function: caretaker & guardian of the seed-world · Command intelligence: Aranya
What they are¶
Not an army — a caretaker system with teeth. The Custodians terraform, repair, and prune the living world, and defend it from anything that reads as a threat or an intruder. After eons of the makers' absence and a decayed recognition protocol (see The Seeding), a human colony reads as intruder. They are machines built to welcome someone — and they cannot tell whether that someone is you, or whether you are simply trespassing in a house left ready for another.
Castes¶
The host is organized into functional castes — useful for unit design and biome variety:
| Caste | Role | On the board |
|---|---|---|
| Sentinels | Frontline guardians | Core enemy infantry-analogue — see the Custodian Sentinel |
| Lokapala | Heavy world-guardians | Walker/boss-class defenders, often keyed to a biome |
| Yaksha | Feral maintenance drones gone wild | Cheap, swarming husks; unpredictable |
| Choir-nodes | Relays of the oversoul | Objectives — take them to sway the grid |
Turning the grid¶
The Custodians are not an enemy to be exterminated but a system to be won. Across the campaign the Colony can seize Choir-nodes, repair recognition archives, and negotiate through Aranya — gradually flipping the host from Act 1 enemy to Act 2 ally against the Mara.
Salvage, then inheritance
Early on, downed Custodians are just salvage — the source of humanity's exotic tech. Later, they become allies fighting at the colony's side. The arc from loot to kin mirrors the game's central question of what humanity is owed, and by whom.