Southlands Setting

This started over on another thread:Link

If anyone knows of another project already going on, or done in the past let us know!

I suggested a southlands setting. The main requirement seemed to be that Stryofoam King had to like it =P

Unlike most projects I would rather this be a collaborative group instead of just one or two people getting suggestions. I want as many people as are interested to get involved if this is picked up.

I do not know if much fluff is around for Southlands but I know Khemri goes down that way some, Lizardmen (almost all skinks though if I remember correct, and they use bows not blowguns), Orcs, Humans (tribal and Araby explorers/merchants), and Skaven would all be present. I would prefer to keep things fluff-based, but I know some companies have some cool models. Impact miniatures makes some fun ones for their Elf ball ranges that would be fun to use as Beastmen for Southlands settings. Sources of fluff that I know of are some of the old warhammer manuals and I know there is some in the older lizardmen army books and i think skaven has some stuff too. I personally also have no problem with some embelishment or expanding of the fluff, but I would want it to fit the theme.

I personally imagine it similar to Border Town Burning (if they don't mind us using their awesome ideas!). Maybe even using a version of their campaign system. But centered around Old Ones and their ruins instead of chaos. Lots of savannah, jungle, desert and coastal areas. Lots of chances for open field combat, but enough terrain and what-not. I like the idea of a lot of random encounters with tribes or wild animals. Imagine you are hunting rat-men on the open plains at night and you stumble into a lion pride.

As for new potential teams the goal would be to promote modeling and fun things so maybe:
-A tribal people who fight alongside trained war-animals. So a 20 max warband, but most their henchmen are animals. Would be terrible in mordheim, but great on the plains.
-A variant on lizardmen for the southlands of mostly skinks and lots of mobile shooting and stealth
-A variant of skaven, since I would think Eshin would not be around there much unless they are researching poison or animals
- Zulu-style warriors (maybe modify the Mahud models from LOTR or such?) (I am liking the tribe name: Ubuntu, I hope it doesn't mean something in a language i don't know)

Dark Elves explorers/slavers could be around, as could human mercenaries or even high elves as explorers, a varient of the Merchant Warband from BTB could work well with the Cathayan influence traded for southlands.

If this got serious we would need a team to make PDFs, a team of fluff writers, artists, mechanics developers etc.

Ohhh Cm'on man!!! I had just answered on the other thread and you make this!!! It's not fair!!!!

leonemaster wrote:

Eureka! I think I found it!

All right, this is my idea:

A total turnover for mordheim: game will be set in a pre-sigmar/rightwhensigmarwasborn time.
The world is totally uncivilised but for Elves and Dwarfes. Men aren't united yet and there's nothing like the empire or bretonnia: they are all marauder-like. The expansion will be mostly based on different human-type warbands, Orc and Goblin barbarians and Dwarfes and elves. The existent cities have been all destroied by the wars between elves and dwarfs, therefore the settings will be:
-Forests
-Ruined cities (mordheim-like but very old)
-Human rural villages

The warbands:

There will be a wide range of human-like warbands that rappresent both how the few humans present in the old world gather together to survive (or to defend their homes) and the options of gods/civilisations that were starting to rise.
Examples of human warbands:
-Farmers/warriors of a village, lead by the village chief, two strong-men, a 'healer' or something and the chief's son maybe?

-Groups of robbers/pillagers who are actually relatively "good" but have nothing more to loose and therefore pass on the 'bad side? maybe lead by some chief, a good archer, a dog teamer and a skilled robber/assassin?

-The very,very,very first Sigmarites: they saw the comet and feel, no KNOW, that the ONE is born. They are looking for him in every village and HATE orcs more than all. Maybe lead by a Warrior priest-like character and two other cool guys who are filled in by the poewr of some god but with very bad henchmen?

-Humans who leave in forests, in small groups but have learned, through a mixt of taming and magic, to make wolver, bears and other animals do their bad work ;P

-The first Chaos warshippers, who, n the worse desperation beg for help to the sky and get answered from one of the Chaos gods? I'd do specific warbands with quite different styles per god... Another option I thought of is the one of having Demoniac warbands in which a group of easely corruptable humans get approached by some lesser deamons (like Bloodletters, Daemonettes, Plaguebearers or Pink Horrors) sent by a big one to begin his corruption of the old world?

-Orcs and Goblin primitive warbands with fuhrs and all.... And maybe, referring to a passage from the 6th edition rulebook -"They came from the far east, sloughtering and reducing in slavery the human kind..."-, have them be able to enslave their prisoners and use them as very poor free henchmen in they have a particular kind of hero?

-Bands of awful beastmen, which are here Waaaay more powerful than in the original mordheim as other warbands will be worsly equipped and all, makig their natural streanght and toughness just great!

And more if you can think of

I wouldn't include elves nor dwarfes as whole warbands as they have ended their conflict for the old war long ago and plus they would be way too strong... they will be included as hired swords though....
other hired swords will be dark elves, chaos dwarfs, lesser deamons and more....

Hired swords are here crucial as, to represent the rarity of actually good weapons, the fact that the warband includes a hired sword dwarf, for example, will give the player the option of equipping a hero with a powerful hammer or axe etc...
Iron Weapons are rare, to represent this, the streanght of armor is way multiplied but has some better effect (eg you can modfy your d6 throw of +or- 1 when rolling for injuries after battles) other than the normal armor effects. Also weapons such as swords and axes are rare. common weapons will be primitive spears, knives, wood axes, hammers and other kind of maces. Bows are quite rare but not much... I would represent this by letting only heroes be equipped with certain types of rare items.

Tell me what you think and if you like it well, than, let's get working!!

- leonemaster

Anyways, i kinda like your ideas but am a bit more into european looking staff so well... check this out and tell me ;P

PS. I love how you quoted me as a signature ;D

I had posted in the other one first =P by about an hour or two. I just reposted over here. And yeah it was too good a quote to pass up.

All right I read your southlands idea over again and thought about it a little more... I do like it! If we decide to make it than, count me in team!! -I really like the idea of many random encounters!!!!-
I just think, though, that if we gave mordheim a cool TOTAL twist, maybe that it will be more interesting both for us and the future players... Also the idea is quite drastic but the models dont need such huge changes and therefore people can use their old models as well as making new ones and we dont get too far off from the main WH idea...

Ok as I really like the past idea as well I will put up a poll on another thread.

Mods, can we move this back-and-forth over to the new thread I am making so the southlands thread can be for only southlands discussion as to not confuse us all (myself especially)

From http://warhammeronline.wikia.com/wiki/Southlands [As with most wiki pages, not everything is "true"]

The Southlands are lands on the southern continent that correspond to real world Central Africa and Southern Africa. The Southlands are geographically east of the Great Ocean, west of the Sea of Dread, and south of the Badlands and Marshes of Madness. The World's Edge Mountains run down the centre of this region and their southern end is here. In the north-east, the Southlands are separated from the Dark Lands by the Sour Sea and Straits of Nagash.

The Southlands should not be confused with The Southlands - as this same term is also used to describe all lands south of the Border Princes and the Old World, and west of the Eastern Lands (Dark Lands, Cathay etc). When used in this way, Southlands refers to the Southlands themselves (the subject of this article), the Land of the Dead, Araby, the Badlands and the Marshes of Madness.

OverviewEditThe terrain of the Southlands, with the exception of the very southern tip, is dominated by dense tropical jungle and swamplands. It can be assumed that the Southlands are similar to Lustria, though Games Workshop has released little official information of the Southlands, and so the area remains largely a mystery, both to followers of Warhammer and to the inhabitants of the Warhammer World itself. In particular, the jungles of Lustria are described as being extra dense and dark, which may indicate that the Southlands are less dangerous than Lustria. Though much of Warhammer's background is written from the point of view of the people of the Old World, and so they may just be exaggerating Lustria's inhospitability.

The most interesting area of the Southlands for the nations of the Old World is the various colonies and trading posts of the "New Coast" - a valuable source of rubber and other exotic materials for traders sailing by ship from Tilea, Araby, Marienburg, Erengrad and even Norsca. These traders have established semi-permanent settlements on the New Coast and trade with isolated native human tribes, and to a lesser extent Greenskins.

There has been much less exploration of the Southlands by both the High Elves and the human nations of the Old World compared to Lustria, and it is known that far less ships return with treasure from the Southlands than Lustria, though this may be due either to the much smaller amount of treasure hunting and expeditions to the Southlands, or due to the fact that unlike Lustria, the Southlands are not full of Lizardmen temple-cities rich in gold. Regardless, Lizardmen are still the main power in the Southlands, with a single surviving temple-city. It is worthy of note that many more Skinks than usual are spawned in the Southlands, and they have overtaken the much less common Saurus as the main servants and warriors of the Slaan. Similarly, the beasts of Lustria such as Carnosaurs and Stegadons which are sometimes seen in Lizardmen armies from Lustria, are either absent from Southlands armies, or replaced by a creature native to that land.

Though the Lizardmen are the most "civilised" power in the Southlands, Greenskins are much more common, Goblins and Savage Orcs swarm through the jungles fighting each other and the Lizardmen.

Years ago, when the Skaven of Clan Pestilens ravaged Lustria, they were driven out by Sotek, The Old One. After this, Clan Pestilens migrated to the Southlands, but again were defeated by Sotek, who sent swarms of jungle lizards and snakes to besiege the Skaven invaders.

and from wikipedia itself

The Southlands are a mythical location in the Warhammer Fantasy universe, closely corresponding to real world Central Africa. The Southlands lie south of the Land of the Dead and are dominated by dense swamplands and rain forest. The southlands are inhabited by lizardmen, savage orcs and forest goblins, and small tribes of what adventurers call the "Dark Men", who are content to live at peace with nature and seem to have the protection of the Lizardmen.

Lizardmen are the primary power in the Southlands and have a single temple-city. Due to centuries of separation from their Lustrian brothers, the spawnings of saurus have become rare and so skinks dominate in both civil life and warfare. Although similar in climate and culture to Lustria, the Southlands remain much less explored by human or High Elves and thus the Slann of the Southlands are said to have a much more complete set of Old One prophecies as they have not been pillaged by treasure hunters. However, the Slann practice of embalming their dead under pyramids is said to have had a major influence on the early Khemrian civilisation in the Land of the Dead, which suggests they were not always so isolated. They are reported to have come in conflict with the fabled "Lost Hold" of the Dwarfs, Karak Zorn, which is said to be located somewhere in the mountains of the Southlands.

Also, the Southlands is hinted as the original homeland of the Dwarfs, where they began as simple cave dwellers using crude stone tools, before following the chain of mined riches up the mountain chain towards the north.

Interestingly, Karak Zorn is Khazalid for 'Great Hold/Mountain'. Possibly meaning that it is, or was, the original founding hold of the race.

When the skaven Clan Pestilens ravaged Lustria, they were driven out by Sotek and they migrated to the Southlands. Sotek also took action against them here by sending jungle swarms to destroy the clan.


With no offense to the BTB team, my recommendation is that it be modeled a little closer to the Lustria campaign. Given the jungle setting and wild animals, it would seem to make a more logical foundation.

Ways to make it unique from Lustria:

Warbands: I'll tackle that later
Setting: To make it more unique, what if the scenarios were MOSTLY set in the plains... you know, like sweeping African Savanah. About every OTHER scenario would take place in the jungle, giving you two different ways to play: closed-in jungle games, and wide open savanah games.

Animals: to separate it from Lustria, we can argue that most of the animals in the Southlands that are thriving are mammals- massive or twisted versions of the real life african animals. Also look into prehistory- smilodons, quaggas, etc. With this in mind, it might be fun to play up the beast angle, like you said. Every new warband might have an animal unit, and tons of new "beastmaster" skills... if there's a herd of antelope on the board, maybe you can scare/convince them to stampede in the direction of your enemy!

Karak Zorn: It might be fun to draw out the fluff on Karak Zorn. It would make a great objective for the warbands: to find (or defend) the lost Dwarf city of gold. Here's the fluff on that:

Karak Zorn is a legendary lost hold of the Dwarfs located in the southern Worlds Edge Mountains deep within the Southlands.

Almost all tales told of Karak Zorn are about its fantastical wealth; in fact the hold itself is said to be built of a wealth of gold and ivory. Besides these fantastic tales, it is generally believed the hold is surrounded by steaming jungles inhabited by Orcs and other hostile creatures. Maps showing the location of the hold place it at wildly differing locations. The Dwarfs have yet to ascertain that the hold still exists or even if it ever existed.

Contact with this hold was lost several centuries ago and Lizardmen records speak of strife involving Karak Zorn. Nothing else is known.

Hmmm I had thought some Savannah too, but guess it is mostly jungle... We could change that?

Well, we can't change the fluff to make the whole continent "entirely savanah", but we can set it in a small region that is mostly clear. It even describes it as "not as dense as Lustria".

Yeah I just meant some savannah. I guess desert is not really in the region as the south coastal areas would be a focal point.

Amigo, there's been only 3 votes so far. Relax! I hate to say it, but things move at a snails pace on this forum (most likely due to the time zone difference). No need to rush.

And of course, anticipate that some players will be jumping up and down, some will pop their head into the thread every week or so, and some will outright abstain. It's the way of these projects, I'm afraid. I fall into the first category (although, Von Kurst will kill me if I don't get the Sartosa errata out before I jump into another project... eep.)

Ok, taking a breath. Calming down. Editing above post. This is pace I will go.

For the Southlands I had the following as ideas for teams:

Normal Human Mercenaries (new maybe?)
Norse Explorers
Beastmen Raiders (not supported much by fluff but would be cool to convert)
Southlands Lizardmen*
Dark Ones tribes (several versions, at least one beastmaster like, and another proud warriors)
Skaven Clan Pestilens*
Dark Elves*
High Elves*
Dwarfs
Merchants
Restless Dead (maybe searching for some Old One magic to boost his unlife-time)
Forest Goblins*
Savage Orcs*
Snotlings
Others?

Which Lustrian campaign stuff were you talking abotu Styro?

And the environments I would like to see: Jungle, Savannah, Coastal, Mountains.

What about the project title: Southlands: The search for Karak Zorn?

We could have a lot of findable unique artifacts like old runic items or even Old One relics.

Edit: Anyone know of any current lists out there for the ones marked with a *?

Lustria: the fan-submitted, SG (mostly) approved setting based in the New World. Found in Town Cryers 10-15.

Oh, right... I was thinking there was another thing. Haha!

I have started work on two tribes of 'Dark Ones'. The Ubuntu and the Zal-Ula. The Ubuntu are based off Zulu warriors so are tall, big (25mm bases), strong and aggressive melee and short ranged combatants, but a bit limited in their options of gear. The Zal-Ula are a society that lives within the Jungles and has learned to train the various animals of the Jungle to fight alongside them. I am considering having another tribe of islanders or coastal people based off the Mauri. I know Mauri are not from Africa, but their culture and warfare and weapons offer some really interesting possibilities.

I am trying to make some new pieces of gear and even a few new types of defenses for the new warbands.

The Ubuntu heroes can have Poison Spit which they can use the first round of combat they are in each battle. Their foe must pass a Initiative test or suffer from -1A (min 1) and -1 to hit that first round of combat. Things that are immune to poison are immune. And maybe allow Helmets to save vs. this. They also have the knobbed throwing club the Zulu used. It would be a normal club that may be thrown (one use per battle only) in a similar fashion to a crossbow pistol firing before the fight. They have no normal armor, but have a special hide shield which combines a buckler and a shield together (Zulu fighting style was to either block a spear or grab and deflect the thrust if it stuck into the hide sheild).

The Zal-Ula are going to have their animals as gear, even for some of the henchmen. Some may be like a Wardog stat-line (fighting monkey!) while others are different. Their heroes will have access to cloaks that improve their save similar to a Wolf-cloak and access to masks that allow them to cause Fear and have a 6+ helmet save.

The Mauri spin-off will have their traditional Stingray Spine spear. Devastating first strike, then only a fighting staff. Thinking +1 to wound and +1 to injury, but afterwards counts as a club with -1 S. They will have a cannibalism system to grant them a extra bonus exp if they actually KILL another hero and then win the fight.

Once these are more developed I will post more.

Ok, so I'm butting in.

What if Poison spit was a range 4 missile weapon, that always wounded on 4+, but get this, it could only ever stun as an injury, you wont get OOA or knocked down by it, just stunned, which leaves you open for charges from someone else.
If you combine it with a skill, you could do it on a charge, or against a charge with a -1 to hit.

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Also, I have a few ideas for warbands:
Catfolk (if we can find models for this), this special brand of beastmen are all descendants of great cats. Let by a Lion and his two Lionesses, they also boasts the fast Chetaahs, the Agile Leopards, and the sneaky sand cats. Here is the basic sketch I'm thinking:
1 Lion - Leader, Natural Armour save due to his mane, Strong. M5. Causes Fear.
0-2 Lioness - Strong, but without the natural armour of the leader, and they don't cause fear. (Only starting heroes to get shooting skills for their slings)
0-2 Cheetahs - Youngblood Stats, but with movement 6, and the ability to Quadruple their speed on a charge. Should have a low LD so they constantly suffer from all alone when using that ability. Much like Night Runners without Missile attacks.
Henchmen:
0-7 Leopards, Pretty much Swordsman stats, but with Scale Sheer Surfaces as their starting skill instead of expert swordsamn
Any Sand Cats, WS 2 and BS3, opponents halve their Initiative when trying to spot a hidden sand cat.
+ One more henchman type, anything will go here.

One of the dark skin warbands could be using Hoodoo, probably the less beefy feel of the bands.
A pygmy warband (jungle halflings or gnoblars) could be awesome! Perhaps even gnoblars and halflings working together since they are freed from the animosity that exist in the north.
Skink warband. Using the jungle to stealth benefits. They would attempt to dance around you as they use their short range weapons to their advantage. Their skills involve a special skill that allows you to flee directly away from a charge.

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Karak Azgal has savage orcs, which we could blatantly steal from them. But I think their site has gone down, which means there might be some need to use wayback machine, or other tricksy things of getting them back.

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For a story for the setting:

Isn't the Black Pyramid of Nagash somewhere in the southlands? Then how about a setting based around that thing, as far as I know it is pretty bleak and evil, and raises undead spontaneously around it. Such a magical thing must have scattered magic around it, which explorers can pick up and sell, tribes can use for their Hoodoo. And everyone else would have an interest in, just like wyrdstone.
Perhaps an option for the evil warbands to use the black shards (just a name I pulled from my behind, anything better is appreciated), to create new party members, perhaps the cats from above have found out that if they take a normal cat and feed it black shards, it will evolve into a Sand Cat. The undead know that it can raise skeletons from far beneath the ground. Some tribes can use them to get hoodoo zombies, and so on and so forth.
Savage orcs/forest goblins, could get other benefits, perhaps an increase in strength if snuffing it.
Norse would offer them to their dark gods, instead of selling them they could use each shard to add +1 experience to any hero.

And so on and so forth.

Anyway, these are just ideas, tell me what you think.

The poison spit idea could work, I was trying to keep the rules to reflect how historical Zulu warriors used their gear and am trying to allow the warband to play around Zulu "Buffalo" tactics.

There are two 'Southlands' it seems. One is anything south of the border princes, the other is the continent that is analogous to Africa. I was going for the southern part of the 'Africa' idea. I think the black pyramid is way north of there. But I like the idea of a Veldt cat team.

I think the Black Pyramid fits more into a desert and khemri themed setting than the jungles, lizardmen, veldt, and lost dwarf homeland of the Southlands. But that is my opinion. We could try to include both.

Also what about a feral jungle dwarf tribe? And I really like the Pygmie cannibal halflings.

BalrogTheBuff wrote:

There are two 'Southlands' it seems. One is anything south of the border princes, the other is the continent that is analogous to Africa. .

If you look at a map of "the southlands" you will see that your statement describes one area. Everything south of the Border Princes IS the continent analogous to Africa.

Master wrote:

Isn't the Black Pyramid of Nagash somewhere in the southlands?

BalrogTheBuff wrote:

I think the Black Pyramid fits more into a desert and khemri themed setting than the jungles, lizardmen, veldt, and lost dwarf homeland of the Southlands. But that is my opinion. We could try to include both.

Also what about a feral jungle dwarf tribe? And I really like the Pygmy cannibal halflings.

The Black Pyramid of Nagash is part of the necropolis of the city of Khemri.

The Khemri Land of the Dead setting has a warband of undeadish Dwarfs from Karak Zorn.

Back in the day there was a Pygmy warband floating around the web. We used it in Lustria Cities of Gold campaigns since Lustria was were GW decided Pygmies were from.

http://www.gitzmansgallery.com/Warhammer_Maps/index.html

Yeah they are right, Pygmies are Lustria. I think we should shy away from Araby and Khemri and focus starting south of there. The above link has some maps. Although the first southlands one I think is outdated. I'm going to try to do research on all the spots on the second map and use it as the basis for this setting if everyone is ok with that.

Balrog: Love the energy, amigo, but probably best to focus on ONE campaign at a time...

Pygmy: Yeah, Lustria, I do believe.

Southlands: I think the difference was in the space. "South Lands" = anything below Border Princes, "Southlands" = to the fertile, southern half of "Africa".

For some reason I can't slow down on this. It is really odd. Like mental hyper-ness...

Like I mentioned before i need to be focused and to be held in check. My wife even teases me about running off on 8 ideas at once...

Oh, by the way, Styro and I made some rules for savage orcs back when we were trying to start up the Athel Loren setting.

Here they are:
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/sg/forum/index.php?topic=225.0

(the finished warband is at the second page about mid-way down, I really like the feel of it, but it still doesn't have tattoos added.)

I have been working on some southlands stuff. however I have gone more for setting it mostly in sudenheim for after battle, which is on the world map in the warhammer rule book and i am guestimating that it is an imperial colony, and the actual battles happening in the savana and jungle.

I have done:
a new exploration chart
districts within sudenheim (similar to encampments)
some scenarios with a few designed for ships
some new magic lists

all of this needs playtesting and the direction seems quite different to what you are planning but if you want to see anything I can try and put it up.

How about...

Southlands with L.O.T.R. Haradrim models

After reviewing maps that is actually what I was thinking of suggesting we shift direction to. Makes more sense for most things, and allows Styrofoam's Sartosa pirates to feasibly be present!

In addition I noticed my sense of scale was WAY off in my head. What I had thought was 100 miles was 400 miles! I think it would be best to focus on Sudenheim, the plain of tuskers, and then the section around there.