Discussion Other Lizardmen Populations

The 5th edition Lizardmen book treated the Southlands as almost as important as Lustria. One of the longer fluff stories involved an Araby expedition allying with some Southlands Lizardmen against the Tomb Kings (who at the time were not a separate army from the Vampire Counts, they were "the Undead").

There was also a story of a very unlucky Cathayan soldier who was never the less very good at not dying who ended up getting shipwrecked in the Southlands and Lustria and escaping both Lizardmen groups.

6th edition created two army lists. Lustrian Lizardmen and Southlands Lizardmen. The Lustrian list was far more competitive, but Southlands were still used periodically for casual games.

6th edition had two army features that were not continued onto 7th and 8th edition.

First, Slann were either of the 5th, 4th, 3rd, or 2nd generations. You pay more points for an older Slann and older Slann are more powerful. In my opinion I prefer the 8th edition motiff were you buy the Slann powers ala carte instead of buying one of four packages, but hey it was neat fluff wise.

Second, there was something called Sacred Spawning. Sacred Spawnings would give a unit things like +1Ld, Frenzy, Aquatic, etc. You basically pay extra to make a unit of Core infantry slightly better. Lustrian lists could give Saurus Warriors sacred spawnings and Southlands lists could give Cohort Skinks sacred spawnings. Giving a unit a sacred spawning boosts them from Core to Special. Giving a unit TWO sacred spawnings boosts them from Core to Rare.

On the Southlands list, normal Saurus Warriors were Special, not Core and Temple Guard were Rare, not special. Southlands Slann were not able to be second generation. Southlands lists could not take Saurus Oldbloods so this meant no Carnosaurs (Scar Veterans could not ride Carnosaurs in sixth edition) The main thing Southlands army lists had that Lustrian army lists did not was Skink Cavalry.

(I just wish we could give ALL Lizardmen lists Skink Fast Cavalry but that's me)

7th edition, the Southlands was a foot note. 8th edition the Southland was a tiny map blurb. So essentially from 5th edition through 8th edition, the Southlands became less important with each passing edition.

Assuming you don't take the cue from GW that Zlatan no longer exists but officially these things are true.

1-Zlatan and the Southlands Lizardmen have proportionally more Skinks and fewer Sauri compared to Lustria

2-Zlatan and the Southlands Lizardmen have fewer Slann per capita than compared to Lustria.

3-Zlatan and the Southlands Lizardmen have far fewer looters to deal with. This has the secondary consequences in that are slightly less hostile to outsiders like when they worked with Ibn Jallaba. More importantly, far fewer golden plaques were stolen. When the Lustrian Lizardmen were debating whether the Plaque of Chaqua telling about the Coming of Sotek was real, the Southlands Lizardmen just accepted it as fact as captured and sacrificed Skaven whenever they could.

4-Either the Slann of the Southlands and Lustria cannot communicate with each other or they choose to not communicate wtih each other.


@Valvorik created extensive lore for the Lizardmen of the Southlands (and the dwarves of the Southlands and the elves of the Southlands and the humans of the Southlands). This was done for the Warhammer Fantasy RPG because he used the Southlands as his primary setting. This lore is unofficial but very detailed and well-thought out.

I wrote a little bit of Southlands fluff myself. One ongoing aspect to my stories is that after great effort, the Slann of the Southlands and Lustria were able to recently reestablish telepathic contact after a long hiatus rocking the status quo of Slann-dom.

This is not official, but I am making the educated guess that the Cult of Sotek is not that big of a deal in the Southlands despite the fact that there was never a period where any Southlanders doubted Sotek's coming. Sotek's cult did not have to fight through resistance in the Southlands. The Skaven were an existential threat to the Lizardmen of the Lustria and they were merely an annoyance to the Lizardmen of the Southlands.

In Lustria, Sotek is the deity that slithered in to save them all at their time of greatest need. In the Southlands, Sotek is the noveau riche that the Old Ones let in to their country club recently.

Because I always resented that the Southlands list in 6th had fewer options than the Lustrian list, I added the notion that the Southlands beast handlers have tamed some creatures that Lustrians did not. Specifically giant crocodile creatures called Lurkerdons that Skinks tamed as heavy cavalry.

I also really took some liberties with the general notion that the Southlands Lizardmen are less distrustful of outsiders. In my fluff, Zlatan have officially allied with the dwarves of Karak Zorn to keep the Southlands Skaven and Daemons in check.

Beyond the military aid they provided, the Lizardmen have shown the dwarves the best plants to grow for food and aided their agriculture while also sending them shipments of food. In return the dwarves are supplying the Lizardmen with steel and iron weapons and armor. The dwarves of Karak Zorn have been isolated from their northern kin a VERY long time, so I assumed they would not have gunpowder, but now they have skinkish poison on their crossbow bolts and bolt throwers so it balances out.

They set up a joint base/trading post called Fort Stroln to handle their trade and I was going to post about it but it's no fun if no enemies don't try to attack Fort Stroln so I put a pin in it. I have world building disease and the soul of an accountant so while I did not think of a fun adventure story I did figure out that the proto-currency the dwarf-skink alliances uses and various price levels if any one is interested.

I'm not the only one who wrote stories about Southlands Lizardmen. @Kcibrihp-Esurc wrote a fair bit about the Southlands. A few others write about the Southlands occasionally and they periodically creep into the Short Story Contests.

The Dragon Isles

As far as I know, all, or almost all unofficial fluff about the Dragon Isles is written by @Warden. That is by no means the ONLY thing he writes about but it seems to be his favorite thing. You can check out Warden's collective work here.

Officially, the Dragon Isles are an area where the Saurus and Skinks rebuilt society in a savage way after all their Slann left or died. There was a White Dwarf article featuring Samurai conversions of Lizardmen set in the Dragon Isles and they looked awesome. That is the direction Warden went with it developing extensive lore for his own take on Samurai Lizardmen.

 

I wish i could like this more than once...

 

You can always go through my back catalog and like some of my taticas or fluff pieces created BEFORE Lustria-online had a like function.

 

Sometimes Games Workshop makes fluff they are not proud of. Warhammer 40K has millions of planets. If GW writes something they want fans to forget about it all they have to do is never have anyone write about that planet ever again. Warhammer Fantasy is more of a closed setting so that is harder to do. GW has to deemphasize places they want to avoid so it withers on the vine.

The Southlands used to have some human pygmies whose illustrations were pretty racist so GW swept them under the rug. I don't think that's why GW demphasized the Southlands. I think it was commercially driven. They couldn't sell many models regarding the Southlands so they swept the region under the rug. Same thing with Cathay and Ind.