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 Flinty wrote:
I disagree. The point behind the Grey Knights is to combat daemons. As is pointed out at length in the Cain books amongst others, the most effective way to combat daemons is by blocking their link to the warp, rather than trying to fight fire with fire.

The original compilation text doesn’t go so far as to mention blanks, but it’s pretty clear that not all GKs are psykers. The squad as a gestalt is, but not necessarily each individual.

3rd edition Daemonhunters Codex:
"Its recruits are emergent psykers"
"The Grey Knights are screened to exclude all but the most potent psykers"

5th edition Grey Knights Codex:
"To this end, each Grey Knight is an accomplished psyker"

7th edition Grey Knights Codex:
"To combat Daemonkind all Grey Knights are trained to bend the powers of the Warp to their will, and each one is a powerful psyker."

8th edition Grey Knights Codex:
"To this end, each Grey Knight is an accomplished psyker"

9th edition Grey Knights Codex:
"Every Grey Knight is a psyker"

10th edition Grey Knights Codex:
"Every last aspirant who does endure to take up the knightly mantle is a psychically empowered daemon-hunting champion"

Any ambiguity in any of those statements? A single iota of wiggle room to sneak in a cheeky blank? No.
Every single codex they've had for the past twenty-two years has explicitly said Every. Single. Grey. Knight. Is. A. Psyker.

Fair points all

It’s fascinating to see how the descriptions escalate between editions

 Tawnis wrote:
Canonically, I can only thing of Jurgen from the Cain books and potentially Jason Macabee from Dark Crusade, (though I'm not sure if he's still cannon or not since the Necron Pariah's got removed) as male blanks from cannon.

I'm pretty sure that one of Ravenor's retinue in his trilogy is a male blank with a collar that can suppress his blank-ness when required.

Weren't E's bio children blanks and they didn't seem to have a problem being around people as leaders, and heros?

 Adeptekon wrote:
Weren't E's bio children blanks and they didn't seem to have a problem being around people as leaders, and heros?

The sensei weren't blanks, they had a natural relationship with the warp that was harmonious. They were like warp hippies, hugging the spirit trees.

They didn't suffer from extreme emotions so we invisible to and immune from chaos powers but we're still highly powerful psykers.

Blanks as they currently exist are very different. They basically have negative souls, black holes that pull on everyone around them. The sensei actually seem a lot more like the old ones, being calm and one with the universe allowing them to draw on the warp with impunity. They are like Neo moving through the matrix.

If they had used the sensei concept in 40k instead of the perpetual i'd have less issues because although they're immortal, they can be killed and their immortality comes from their relationship with the emperor rather than just randomly humans can be unkillable gods. Healing back from atoms is such a stupid idea.

 Hellebore wrote:

 Adeptekon wrote:
Weren't E's bio children blanks and they didn't seem to have a problem being around people as leaders, and heros?

The sensei weren't blanks, they had a natural relationship with the warp that was harmonious. They were like warp hippies, hugging the spirit trees.

They didn't suffer from extreme emotions so we invisible to and immune from chaos powers but we're still highly powerful psykers.

Blanks as they currently exist are very different. They basically have negative souls, black holes that pull on everyone around them. The sensei actually seem a lot more like the old ones, being calm and one with the universe allowing them to draw on the warp with impunity. They are like Neo moving through the matrix.

If they had used the sensei concept in 40k instead of the perpetual i'd have less issues because although they're immortal, they can be killed and their immortality comes from their relationship with the emperor rather than just randomly humans can be unkillable gods. Healing back from atoms is such a stupid idea.

Couldn't recall where I heard it, but I did recall something about kids that didn't inherrit his pyschic powers so I ran the question through AI:

Sensei: These are the Emperor's most well-known biological descendants, who are psychic blanks. They are immune to psychic influence, cannot be detected by other psykers, and are infertile. They are described as immortal, with abilities tied to the Star Child (the Emperor’s soul), and are considered champions against Chaos. This lore originates from the Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness and is supported by sources like Bell of Lost Souls and Lexicanum. However, there is conflicting lore from The Lost and the Damned, which portrays them as powerful psykers, but the blank version is more widely accepted in current canon.

Asking ai is like asking the idiot on the side of the road a question.

The problem is that the usage of the term blank in that book is not the same as the modern usage.

Because slaves to darkness still says the sensei draw on warp energy to manipulate and get power from. The blank component is that they can't be seen or sensed by psykers. But they sense warp energy , demons and the flow of warpspace.

Lost and the damned simply refined this concept. But the term blank doesn't mean what a modern blank is - modern blanks are blind to the warp, they can't feel or sense it or be affected by it. The sensei are blanked to psykers, but not Blanks.

There is no contradiction, unless we consider the slaves to darkness book to contradict itself. And there is no widely accepted in current canon it is referring to. 40k works on what ever.is the most current is correct, which means that if there was a contradiction, lost and the damned would have retconned slaves to darkness, as it was the most recent publication concerning sensei.

But given that both books describe sensei as warp energy wielders, which modern blanks are not, I don't really see a contradiction

 Adeptekon wrote:
Couldn't recall where I heard it, but I did recall something about kids that didn't inherrit his pyschic powers so I ran the question through AI:

For the love of Khorne, don't ask AI. It's prone to just making stuff up because it does not understand what it's telling you. It knows what others have said in similar situations but does not comprehend context or connection.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Adeptekon wrote:
Couldn't recall where I heard it, but I did recall something about kids that didn't inherrit his pyschic powers so I ran the question through AI:

For the love of Khorne, don't ask AI. It's prone to just making stuff up because it does not understand what it's telling you. It knows what others have said in similar situations but does not comprehend context or connection.

Indeed. And the fact that it cites a rumours website and a wiki as ‘sources’ on par with the Realms of Chaos books should have been the giveaway there…

Listing BOLS as a narrative source feels like it would be at home in a satire-written meta piece about Warhammer.

I was going to buy Realm of Chaos, but it's over $100

Going back to the original question I think most blanks are written as women because most blacklibrary authors aren’t very good at writing women so they can “flavour” by making them blanks and things, or ignore their gender altogether.

 Adeptekon wrote:
I was going to buy Realm of Chaos, but it's over $100

Try the Loot Group. Both US Cafes carry the reprints.

Andykp wrote:
Going back to the original question I think most blanks are written as women because most blacklibrary authors aren’t very good at writing women so they can “flavour” by making them blanks and things, or ignore their gender altogether.

I think it's more down to the much broader writing trope of "women are specific, men are general".

It's all over media, but very common in Warhammer historically. Going back to old WHFB for example, you can see that most units were men (or at least masculinely coded, for races where human gender doesn't really apply), with women concentrated in specific "girl squads" where them being women was emphasised as the point of the unit. Sisters of Avelorn and Witch Elves are prime examples. 40k did the same with Sisters of Battle where, again, them being women was the whole point of the faction, whereas factions like Guard were on paper mixed but in practice received near exclusively male miniatures until very recently. Even the most mixed factions, like Eldar, had their designated girl squads (Banshees) to contrast with the more general boy squads (basically all the other Aspect Warriors).

A lot of people became very attached to this status quo. It's part of where the outrage over the female Custodes came from, I figure. People really had this mental idea rooted that the Sisters of Silence are women (specific) whereas the Custodes are male (general) - the retcon disrupts that dichotomy, which I think is a very good thing and long overdue, but makes some people very uncomfortable as they had been emotionally invested in it.

So SoS are ultimately a relic of that format. The faction was devised what, 20 years ago? More?

Not saying no authors make use of it in the way you describe. But I think many don't need to, and as soon as we step away from SoS, male blanks seem decently common. In fact I can name more male ones than female.

I think you have hit the nail on the head here, much more succinctly than I ever could. The books I’ve read don’t jagged that many blanks in outside of the eisenhorn ones, but I don’t read the Horus heresy stuff so probably miss a lot from there.

I’ve been reading a lot of guard books and gender in this just seems ignored mostly, which may be an accurate reflection the guards mentality to it. Like the minka lesk series, that I’ve enjoyed, her gender is pretty much irrelevant.


I agree whole heartedly that the custodes outrage is not needed and the change is overdue and works fine, the new models look amazing as well so that should help reduce some of the nerd rage.

All I hear regarding said "outage" which I believe has been mischaracterized is a lot of people talking over eachother, calling each other names, and some false pretense.

I’ve only glanced and Reddit and YouTube but the rage seems pretty real on there. But that’s not the topic.