Discussion The Way GW Prioritized Lizardmen Lore is Backwards...

[CaniusLanium]

The Way GW Prioritized Lizardmen Lore is Backwards...

So we all know what Lustria is: inhospitable, crawling with men-eating bugs and plants, and dominated by titanic dinosauroids, and most important of all, home to the enigmatic Lizardmen.
Due to Lustria's status, it's far removed from the Old World, which was the focal point of the conflicts. Chaos Invasions always end up coming from the northern Chaos Wastes and southwards into the Empire. The Dwarfs are clustered along the Worlds Edge Mountains, which sat between the Old World and the eastern plains. And the Tomb Kings have conflicts with the Greenskins in the Darklands, occasionally expeditions north to Bretonnia and beyond for human slaves, etc.
In essence, a part from the Lizardmen and the Dark Elves, all the main factions in the WHFB were situated reasonably close to one another (even the Chaos Dwarfs and Ogres can be made to attack any factions on the big continent). The Druchii, having the convience of having a large corsair raiding force, are allowed cameos in the Old World as seem with not just the High Elves' timeline, but also Empire, Bretonnia & Wood Elves.
In contrast, the Lizardmen are given the position of the reclusive genius, far isolated from the rest of the world and insulated from the other armies, its army book timeline is almost limited to conflicts with either Daemons, Skavens, the Dark Elves, and very rarely Old Worlders due to the presence of several colonies (Skeggi, Port Reaver etc.).
The Lustria/Conquest of the Old World supplements tried to give cause to make the Lizardmen more engaging, it was nevertheless a limited prospect, seeming how the main setting was back in the late 800s after Loriksson's voyage. Another solution was given in the Dark Shadows campaign and Storm of Magic supplement, whereby the Slanns can utilize ancient portals scattered across the world or other Old One tech to teleport armies at specific times -- but by its nature it must be "rare" and not even the writers use it foten. There is simply not a consistent thread in the WHFB lore that directly connects the Old World to the Lizardmen

Or is there? You see, the Southlands is a far more reasonable focal point for the Lizardmen in WHFB, in my opinion -- it is connected by land, the Chaos Dwarfs and High Elves (one of its outposts) both situated close to it, the Empire can reach it via see and so can Bretonninas, not to mention the Tomb Kings. Even the Dwarfs have a "lost hold" in the Southlands (Karak Zorn).

Had the narrative focus on the southland Zlatlan Lizardmen and its possible ambition to the Dragon Isles, the writers could have created much more interesting and interconnected stories there, and the Lustrian Lizardmen back stories can be shrouded in a slightly more mythical veil.

 

[pyro-dragon]

I think I see what you are saying- the Lustrian continent is too cut-off from the rest of the world to make regular border conficts with other WHF races more common.

The draw of gold, magic and other treasures surely attracts enough attention from the rest of the world to send out expeditions. I suppose they are a bit cut off from sending their own armies into the heart to Bretonia or the Empire, but there are issues with other factions directly attacking eachother due to having to cross significant things like mountain ranges or other factions entirely.

I guess the AoS lore helps by making them live in space and able to teleport wherever they want.

There was the Albion campeign that brought everyone together in one spot. Also there are vampires and undead on the edge of lustria too, and the High Elves are not too far away. At one point in the timeline there was a magical bridge between Lustria and the High Elves.

At the end of the day though. I don't think lore really stops people from pitting whatever army they want agaist eachother.

 

[Sudsinabucket]

I guess the AoS lore helps by making them live in space and able to teleport wherever they want.

Much more than that, they quite literally live within the Realms also as actual living beings.

Had the narrative focus on the southland Zlatlan Lizardmen and its possible ambition to the Dragon Isles, the writers could have created much more interesting and interconnected stories there, and the Lustrian Lizardmen back stories can be shrouded in a slightly more mythical veil.

Absolutely this, I do wish there was more of a focus on the southland Lizardmen and the potential there. Many of my fantasy stories revolved around the Dragon Isles, would be a fun spot for official to explore.

 

[CaniusLanium]

I think I see what you are saying- the Lustrian continent is too cut-off from the rest of the world to make regular border conficts with other WHF races more common.

The draw of gold, magic and other treasures surely attracts enough attention from the rest of the world to send out expeditions. I suppose they are a bit cut off from sending their own armies into the heart to Bretonia or the Empire, but there are issues with other factions directly attacking eachother due to having to cross significant things like mountain ranges or other factions entirely.

I guess the AoS lore helps by making them live in space and able to teleport wherever they want.

There was the Albion campeign that brought everyone together in one spot. Also there are vampires and undead on the edge of lustria too, and the High Elves are not too far away. At one point in the timeline there was a magical bridge between Lustria and the High Elves.

At the end of the day though. I don't think lore really stops people from pitting whatever army they want agaist eachother.

I wrote my post not from the stand point of organizing a game of WHFB, but from the narratives being told through official GW contents. The factions of Warriors & Daemons of Chaos, Beastmen, Orcs & Goblins, Skavens, Empire, Bretonnia, High Elves, and Dark Elves are those I'd consider to be highly connected, as their timelines often interact with each other and events referred to in the others' as well.

The Tomb Kings, Vampire Counts, and Wood Elves are only slightly less connected pre-8th edition, as the entire TK backstory had been the origin stories of the VC, and further even the Border Princes has ruins left over by the Nekheharan civilisations; nevertheless, post the Great Ritual, the TK rarely goes north except for raiding Bretonnia. The VC is mostly limited to actions within the Empire, though by way of the other Bloodlines, they have some cameo with the Dwarfs and elsewhere, while the The WE sees actions with the Dwarfs and Beastmen mostly, and are on-and-off allies of the Bretonnians.

The more reclusive ones are the Ogre Kingdoms and the Chaos Dwarfs -- OK gets some Cameo in the Empire and sees actions with the Dwarfs and the Greenskins mostly, but IIRC there are also a few mentions with the CD. The CD is mostly involved with the GS due to the old army book, but of course they get their cameo in Warriors of Chaos (Hellcannon) and notably the Forgeworld Tamurkhan supplement.

In a way, the Lizardmen are like the TK, their backstory has major ramifications for the rest of the factions, but are no longer actively involved. But, they are much less involved in the story soley because their geographical isolation. Apart from Skavens and Daemons, the majority of their timelines is actually just them dealing with themselves, like the realigment of the continents that led to the Dwarf Time of Woe.

A good, involved story telling would have the Southlands leading the action, having the Tomb Kings, Araby (and other crusader states like that Sudenburg thing and Antoch for Bretonnia) and Karak Zorn form a theater of action that can lead to major multi-faction events in the Old World would have elevated the Lizardmen while still keeping the Lustrian continent as a near mythical place, with Lizardmen armies far greater in strength than their Southland counterparts.

The only mention of Zhlatan being active post the First Invasion is in Tichi-Huichi's Raiders -- which is a shame as it clearly showed the Southland's potential, having regiments of Lizardmen, guided by some divine purpose, travelling across the land and see actions. You can write novels about such things, perhaps small groups of Lizardmen can be encountered in the Border Princes and beyond... Instead, not even Roleplay can justify having Lizardmen outside of the latest Lustria supplement. It's a damn shame.

 

[ASSASSIN_NR_1]

I don't think it has to bee too hard to get the Lustrian lizardmen involved - really you could just make up that there is an ancient plaque that had been forgotten until now, and it has to be retrieved.

I will also quote the 8th edition army book:
"There is no continent upon which Kroq-Gar and Grymloq have not fought, but for the last defender of Xhotl, the battle is not yet over".
Implying that the Lizardmen are perhaps not quite as passive as they seem. Now there is no timeframe on the quote, so it might be early days in wfb, but the possibility is there.

I could also mention Gor-Rok, who has been to the chaos wastes at some point.

 

[CaniusLanium]

I don't think it has to bee too hard to get the Lustrian lizardmen involved - really you could just make up that there is an ancient plaque that had been forgotten until now, and it has to be retrieved.

I will also quote the 8th edition army book:
"There is no continent upon which Kroq-Gar and Grymloq have not fought, but for the last defender of Xhotl, the battle is not yet over".
Implying that the Lizardmen are perhaps not quite as passive as they seem. Now there is no timeframe on the quote, so it might be early days in wfb, but the possibility is there.

I could also mention Gor-Rok, who has been to the chaos wastes at some point.

It's one thing to give an excuse to get them involved, yes, it's another to do so. I specifically do not give a gaff about if the lore has an justification for Lizardmen to interact with another army -- there was never an issue when one can potentially have two Archaon fighting each other.
I am talking about the narrative of the setting - believe it or not, some care about the lore an despite any who degrade it by calling it "fluff"
The issue is the writers of GW do not wish to overuse nonesense like a teleportation portals or just handwave it with "a plaque was there and so they went". They want an interesting cause worth writing about, and it's hard when the whole continent of Lustria is essentially closed off from the rest of the world.
Want an example of an interesting cause? The Dark Conspiracy campaign from WD#206 to 208, in which a major Lizardmen invasion of the Old World occured sometime before the "End Times" (pre both editions). The story goes that Duc d'Lorrain of Bretonnia set for Lustria in 1847 IC for gold and riches. His expedition was destroyed, but not before some of the survivors carried off ancient artefacts from Huatl and mutinied.
Here we have the setup, sure, the plaques are around and the Lizardmen goes off to retrieve them, yes? But NO! Because just that would be lame AF.
Almost 700 years later -- running up to the end times -- Lord Mazdamundi himself decided it was the time to retrieve them. Why? Because the Time of Destruction comes, and he needed the artefact to conduct whatever ritual he wanted in order to shift the balance of power to the side of Order.
In WD#207, Jervis Johnson further developed the idea, where Mazdamundi ordered an expedition to Antoch, a colony set up by one of the ill-fated Bretonnian expedition's survivors -- the Staff of Jade.

See the writers will not just be content to write about some random plaque in some random cornor of the world led to a group of lizardman waging war over it. It's boring; the can't just teleport armies of Lizardmen all over the world all the time, either, because they understand if they do not conserve the awesome powers of the Slann, the Slann loses its power in the eyes of the readers. So there must be a major cause for something so tremdous, to make the Slanns teleport armies all across the globe -- something that may affect the fate of the world itself.

But if you just use the Southland as a stage point, there is no such concern, the factions are as close to one another as any other factions. There need not be mcguffins, and the writers can write Lizardmen warring with the TK, VC, Dwarfs, and the rest of the Old World like they wrote the other factions.

And that, is great because it allows for much more interesting, canon, development of the characters, the culture, and the history of the race as a whole.

 

[- Q -]

believe it or not, some care about the lore an despite any who degrade it by calling it "fluff"

Is the term "fluff" considered derogatory towards the lore?

Even this subforum is called "Fluff and Stories".

 

[CaniusLanium]

Is the term "fluff" considered derogatory towards the lore?

Even this subforum is called "Fluff and Stories".

I know
It was the dumbest thing the community accepted

 

[J.Logan]

I think part of the problem is that GeeDubs absolutely wanted to go for specific cultures as the building blocks for their races/factions, and the moment they settled on Mesoamerican for the lizards, they sort of hamstrung themselves. Mesoamericans, to my knowledge, were always locked to the Americas. Yeah, in Warhammer Fantasy we can give a rationale for the occasional

I had a topic a few months ago about what other cultures could have worked, and my personal thought was Greek-influenced lizardmen would have totally worked (Saurus are Spartans, Skinks are Athenian, etc). I just felt that Greek influence worked with the lizardmen what with the pantheon of the Old Ones, and having an ancient yet still advanced society.

And it would have put them closer to the continent of The Old World. ¬_¬

I will give a big but however... by having the lizardmen mostly relegated to Lustria, it's a world size thing. The world feels smaller if everybody/every-faction is in close proximity to each other. By having a faction on a distant continent that is almost isolated, the world does feel bigger for it. That the issues of the Empire are largely unfelt and irrelevant across the Great Ocean.

That doesn't change that I would have liked more of a prominence of lizards in the Old World, where yes, focusing on the Southlands based lizardmen would give fun times as they get a history of clashing against the Nehekarans when they were building their ancient empire, the Reman Empire, the Arabyans. But that would also strip some of the mysterious intrigue, as they'd be more known and more documented.

In fact, part of me wonders if the Arabyans would have been better served as a lizardman faction, if just to quiet the voices that don't care for more human-centric factions. But I'll confess to not actually knowing much about Araby other than they have a clear 1001 Nights influence.

Sorry if I'm a very middle-of-the-road voice here. I can see arguments for and against.

 

[- Q -]

I know
It was the dumbest thing the community accepted

I don't think people mean anything bad by it.

 

[pyro-dragon]

I think the mesoamerican flavour is what makes them cool tbh. Greek flavoured lizards seems pretty meh. Although for southlands, egyptian flavoured lizards would also be pretty darn cool. Unfortunately it would overlap too much with the Tomb Kings.
I wouldn't get too worked up about it though tbh. Its in the passed now and GW is all about AoS which largely solves the plot complaints you have by making them orbital bombardment cannons reptiles.

 

[J.Logan]

Although for southlands, egyptian flavoured lizards would also be pretty darn cool. Unfortunately it would overlap too much with the Tomb Kings

Alexandria, a mix of Egyptian and Greek. Because why settle for one cultural flavour when we can have two?

Its in the passed now and GW is all about AoS which largely solves the plot complaints you have by making them orbital bombardment cannons reptiles.

Target locked. Saurus loaded. And fire!

*Cue Chaos swine looking up in confusion at the loud hissing sound that's getting ever closer, only to see a flailing lizard flying at high speed toward them*
Saurus: DYNAMIC ENTRY!

 

[pyro-dragon]

Target locked. Saurus loaded. And fire!

*Cue Chaos swine looking up in confusion at the loud hissing sound that's getting ever closer, only to see a flailing lizard flying at high speed toward them*
Saurus: DYNAMIC ENTRY!

Deep Strike rules, lets gooooooo