Another idea is to look at Paizo's (in Dungeon Magazine) Isle of Dread remake. Mostly for the whole journey aspect. It was a very well written AP. I know you mentioned that part being slim, but I think the purpose of the journey is to convey the fact that the PCs are "not in kansas" anymore. Take the island encounters of Odysseus: Each one is a glimpse into the darkness of man. The hedonism and sloth of the Lotus Eaters, The savagery of the cylcopes, etc. A couple of acts like that would foreshadow the darkness they will encounter in Lustria.

Paizo does have some nice jungle stuff:

"When foreigners think of Hell, they think of jagged stone and lakes of fire. But they’re wrong. A sharp rock is a blessing when the other option is quicksand and tangled mangrove roots that try to suck you down beneath the brown sludge. Fire is a blessing when the air is so wet that you drown standing up, its hot soup draining into your lungs with the funk of a thousand rotting plants. Give me the clean kiss of a devil’s lash over the festering rot that eats your toes and eyes, or the flies that burrow through your skin and lay their maggots in your flesh."

Back to working on this, any others' ideas still welcome.

One thing is what effects being so far away from pole/gate/source of winds has on Channelling.

I'm thinking that generally all attempts gain a misfortune die and Failure result reflecting the weak winds.

The hot climate sustains Aqshy, so it gains only the misfortune.

If in jungles with all that plant and animal life, Ghur and Ghyr also only gain a misfortune.

An added effect, applying to all winds, is that having to work harder to draw on winds increases risks in error. Any Chaos Star automatically counts as a failure and a Chaos Star (as if it was a Daunting or Epic test).

On a related point, for Aqshy at sea, the same Chaos star effect and add a failure into all die pools as being surrounded by water poor sympathy for Aqshy.

I am inspired in this in part by the rules in Liber Fantatica IV for 2nd edition and different winds and other 2nd edition rules for "varying the strength of winds".

The difficulty using the winds accounts for reliance on other forms of magic such as Dark Magic (fueled by sacrifices, the Nagash novels seem to suggest this) or Divine Magic that has its own rules (drawing on the power of aethyr beings rather than the winds?)

I don't add difficulty castings spells out of view it's the power to fuel them that is scarce, if you have the power then fine you can cast spells.

Also, partly to balance for PC wizard and also fluff seems consistent,since winds weaker, Miscasts resolve as if there was one fewer Chaos Stars (e.g., you need to roll 2 to get a Miscast), You're less likely to provoke strange magical effects too.

Opinions of that?

I have gone with the "Ebonians" mentioned in passing at times (e.g., in connection with Nekhara and Arabya).

My take on them, some lost-world stuff but an African culture not a spin-off, lost Reman or Nekharan group etc. (those can also exist):

Ebonians

"Ebonian" is the name given to black-skinned humans of the Southlands by northerners. They are actually three tribes who share a common culture and language: the Baalwari, Mehngara and Kai'itano. There were once three other tribes. One did not come south and instead migrated to what is now the southern Arabyan territory and was effectively absorbed into that culture. A second was separated from the others coming south and is lost to memory and a third perished in a great plague (skaven doings).

This human culture has ancient roots, once living south of Nekhara as a client people. They fled south to escape the doom that came to Nekhara from Nagash. This was an arduous journey but they believe it was actually "the journey home" and that their god blessed their path. They live primarily on the west coast, south of the great inlets and bays, in grasslands. They are skilled with metallurgy though have little access to iron and thus work mostly copper and bronze.

They are a cattle-herding, warlike folk who deal harshly with intruders - be they beastmen, greenskins or lizard men. They believe themselves the creations of their god, who lives on a nearby mountain called the Throne of God in their language - Kohl N'gai. The mountain is taboo, no one goes there.

Ebonians are often hired, as troops of mercenaries or individuals, to assist northerners in the Southlands. They are less prone to heat-stroke or falling ill to the sweating sickness . Ebonians are also skilled in the herb and leechcraft of the Southlands, knowing the best remedies to many illnesses or poisonous bites etc., thus highly prized as barber-surgeons.

They have some traces of Nekharan influence, including mummifying their dead, but are not the same culture. The lizard men of the Southlands (whose numbers are affected by low Saurus spawning) sometimes try to raid them for slaves - something they are vigilant against and which fuels great hatred for the scaled humanoids.

Other races:

Some mongrelmen/intelligent apes and some "serpent people" are both bubbling in my head with Lovecraftian imagery.

The Old Ones created Saurus and Skinks manipulating various reptiles, they may have experimented with other "baselines" as well. Paizo's jungle setting has "swarming mad chimp-people", I think that would be sort of like a goblin waaagh. In Paizo they're pretty much that way all the time, which is a bit over the top, something more rare (a flaw that is the reason the Old Ones decide not to "go with that model").

I'm thinking that one particular city, perhaps an unmarked one, was the "testing lab" for these sorts of things and had lots of "samples" preserved. The fall of the Old Ones saw its keepers lost and eventually "some of the samples" got out.

Yes much of this influenced by Dwellers of the Forbidden City (see Emirikols post, one of my earlierst D&D experiences) - that's where yuan-ti first showed up and it's a nice "hidden/sealed city map"....

I know that there are later generation Slann in the Southlands but I really want to minimalize them somehow, perhaps they're all mostly busy maintaining the spell that keeps the south pole from becoming just as much of a mess as the north (it's a mess just not a tainting the whole world mess). I want this because proper Slann (even later generation ones) strike me as just too powerful to have PCs even brush up against in an adventure (at least that's my take - drawn from Burning Shore novel). The Southlands slann had to actually use Ibn Jellaba to get back one of their own mummies - that's not something that the Lustrian crowd would stoop to (in my view of things).

Serpent people could be something else entirely - survivals of the pre-Old One World whose civilization was destroyed when the Old Ones "cleaned house to make way for their grand plan" and of which only the faintest traces remain. They were entombed deep underground but the earthquakes of -1500 IC (dwarf Time of Woes, Slann adjusting planet a tad) released/awoke them. Here again I'm thinking more Lovecraftian in tone.

Biloko are cannibal halflings (imagine a tribe of little hannibal lectors with filed teeth, skin dyed red, and paralysis darts - who like to ride around on giant flying - still working what flying mount they use out). They mark their territory with preserved shrunken heads, and talk with drums (Fear check!). No one who comes back from the Southlands ever looks at a halfling sausage-maker the same again.....

The latest Grotek book had them in Southlands/araby area. Some lizardmen, lots and lots of the tomb kings/vampires.

It had 2 dinosaurs in the area. Cant rememebr the names but one was the one Trex like the other was the one with the shield on neck i think.

We dig those things out of our backyards here in Colorado. When Ray Harryhausen did his movies, he had a kick-butt triceratops flinging people all over. I'd use COLD ONE stats with added armour and increased crit.

As for the T-Rex, it would probably just be "swaller' whole" and again, increased threat. Squig might work well, but add TERROR as well.

Not to get back to D&D too much, but the following would work: Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, Isle of the Ape and Isle of Dread. There were probably some od the "X" series that also took place in that environment "Where Chaos Reigns" rings a bell and I think was done by the Brit writers.

jh

Lost City and Hidden Shrine (the space ship actually makes more sense in Warhammer, though not the name) I have, Isle of the Ape I'm a bit iffy on (anything that would get my players chanting "Kong, Kong" is out) - Paizo actually has a sort of daemonic Kong uber villain in its jungle setting.

Think I have the Dragon Magazon/Paizo, Isle of Dread somwhere

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/map_isledread.jpg

You can decide which of the "mistake due to translator" (you wanted raise dead, i raised dead) or the "only children with longsword proficiency" are funnier.

Oh, I have to add re Dwellers of Forbidden City, Bully Wugs are obviously slann who have been somehow forced to go to the gym regularly. That's why it's forbidden, there's nothing a slann hates more than a millenium long gym membership.

Thinking about the Forbidden City and Karak Zorn (lost hold/first hold of the dwarves) got me thinking a bit more about the idea of the city as being one location the Slann were doing their genetic engineering/gene splicing etc. The mongrelmen of the DND module were the real "kicker" for this train of thought.

Why do you think you came from a Southlands hold Dwarves? Well, in a "spin" on our history, "because all humanoid life came from the Southlands of course". Well, all the Old One/Slann tinkered versions of that life created according to the Great Plan did at least.

I have never read anything about the specific location of the Slann labs etc. for this work, so don't think it contradicts anything.

There are "things to be seen on walls" and otherwise learned here, if you intelligence to understand, that would destroy your sanity!

Throw in some futuristic cybertek with genetic reprogramming etc. and then say the city's machinery was damaged either during the Great Cataclysm or one of the "world shifting" events since - potentially as late as -1500. It can have regressive or unpredictable effects on creatures exposed to the fields it generates. So there are indeed Bullywugs which are regressed versions of Slann, far closer to the creatures they were created from originally. Mongrelmen which mix traits of all the "great plan" humanoid races. Ape-men which are an "alternate version of humans" etc.

The Lizardmen and few Slann of the Southlands avoid the city because of this (it has a genetic sort of biohazard/radioctive hazard label, being a "genetic Chernobyl" to avoid).

Perhaps the Serpent People have been trying to master this science in order to pull off a "genetic coup", one of Lovecraftian overtones, by which all humanoid life on the planet would be genetically reprogrammed to transform into a Serpent Person (as a virtually extinct race their options for a "come back" are limited to something this grandiose). They're some ways from figuring this out (thus you get the yuan ti purebloods, abominations etc.)

Are there "canon" problems with this or points to incorporate?

PS - I picked up that Gotrek and Felix book on way home, thanks for letting me know.

I don't see any canon problems. The difficulty is getting all this across to the players through play without them simplifying it as "just another island of Dr Moreau" or "Prometheus."

It seems like a great way to use mutations (excessively) without having chaos spawn. Imagine a creature with 5-10 mutations (Mongrelman). There is a really scary pic of them in the new pathfinder book.

My kids and I just finished up forbidden city (using Pathfinder). The boy ended up chief of the mongrelmen (per the wrestling match) and they killed the Pan Lung (used Bestiary 3's Ocean Dragon) by luring it to the edge of the lake and dumping boulders on its head from the cliff face..hence scattering the Bullywugs and ending their reign of terror in the Forbidden city. They left with some dragon scale armor, but no weapons because the Mongrelmen had poisoned them, taken their stuff and sold it to the bugbears (who fed everything to the rust monster). They left with sticks, stones and dragon scales

From my many years from reading the older White Dwarves and the books. The impression i got was this.

The elves were taught in the west, the dwarves in the east

The ancestor gods left the Southlands and headed north,seemingly having alot of knowledge, even their children were knowledgeable. They had superior longer lifespans even compared to other dwarves.

Lizardmen were created to destroy anything not following the Great Plan.

Humans were their next experiment but the problem at the warp gates, meant that work was never completed.

Ancestor gods know of the gates, the elves seeming didnt, elves knew of how to contain magic, dwarves didnt.

The northern keep lost touch of the southern keeps just before the War of the Beard. Rumours are Lizardmen were attacking Karak Zorn. A dwarf from Zorn during the start of the war of beard was actually a demonic possession.

Years after the war of the beard, humans came west across the mountain past the dwarven holds. Fighting Orcs for land.

( Orcs took the land after the Elves left?)

The Land of the Dead was still alive with humans at the time of the War of the Beard. At the end of the war, the dark elf sorceress in that war ended up teaching Nagash dark magic.

Which means humans had to have been in two parts of the world, none in lustria though.

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So I guess from this that the Old Ones/ Slann had 3 to 5 bases, plus whatever factories, eg Albion.

Lustria was for Elves, didnt hear of any other races that didnt come from the east living on that continent,

Southlands was for dwarves, could of had humans.

Ind, Catay etc. So many humans on that side of the world. Also halflings came from that side also. Giants and Ogres also were in east.

Then the Poles for the gates.

Who knows where orcs stand in all this.

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I think the ancestor gods were the Slann version of dwarves, if comparing slann to lizardmen.

For some reason they had to leave the southlands and move north carving out all those holds.

Doesnt sound like they were running away, But to make so many holds their had to either be alot of dwarves or took a long time and alot of breeding.

I keep thinking Battlefield Earth, and inside the hold is this device that turns a dwarf into a genius. Picture a skaven steppign into the device hehe.

Thanks for summing that all up (I recall that daemonic dwarf in a novel, very much a loose thread the way it was left).

Untainted mutants was part of what I was going for (though mechanically mutution cards etc. can be used to model results)

It can be left vague. Was this where all came from, was this the "testing lab where things were figured out before the orders to create went to the manufacturing plants", or was this some rival faction/back up plan with its own experiments? As frustrating as it can be at times like these, in the long run the GW aproach of "leaving lots of answers forever behind the curtain" does keep some mystery and freshness.

"In game" PCs would never learn the truth and might in fact get very garbled/distorted versions of it (Players may understand more, the way "in game" in the D&D Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan the PC's never realize "that's a spaceship" but Players do - a bit of fun where Players knowing it doesn't change any PC decision).

Maybe the old ones were crafting chaos immune creatures, and you find the failures?

That's an interesting idea - "baseline human" was too vulnerable so they were tinkering....

On another point, an older Beastman WFB book does expressly reference intelligent great apes using tools and weapons (in southlands), being confused with beastmen at times. There's a huge concentration of beastmen in the south-east section of continent according to that book. It also has the map of Southlands geography I like - showing mountains ending in central Southlands not running like a simple line down the whole continent.

Thinking more about my Serpent people resurgence idea - which is going well beyond established fluff, I've been pondering a reason why they can call forth the serpent in humanoids.

It's unclear if the Old Ones created humanoid races "out of whole cloth" or by engineering pre-existing species. Perhaps when the Old Ones destroyed the Serpent People's civilization, they kept some/samples and used those as the baseline to create the new races. All the warmblooded humanoid races are engineered from this coldblooded source and it still lies within them..... (going for my Lovecraftian stuff again).

Sorry to bring a 40k crossover. Was searching for southlands old ones and apes and came across this Old One creation

Jokaero

Reminds me of the Discworld librarian.

Beastmen were originally a mixture of human and any beast, these days they all seem to be goatmen. I remember seeing khorne beastmen being dog/wolf/hound heads with beastman body. But that was way back in the 80's i think.

So you might have intelligent apes, but also have ape headed beastmen. Humans likely wouldn't care the reason behind the creature and just tar them with same brush.

WHich book was your info in and the southland map?

That's neat, Dr. Zaius - now I've got a whole "gorilla, chimp, orangatang" society spinning in my head alonig with the "help me Dr. Zaius" parody song.

It's the Warhammer Fantasy Battles Beastman book an earlier edition (WFB multiple editions shift their fluff a bit), not sure which edition (could track down year of publication if you like).

I think "domesticated animals" - horses, goats, cattle - tend to figure as some combination of "your worst fear farmer brown" and the idea that humans melded with their animals under the influence of chaos in the Great Catastrophe. Not just with any animal though again at times wolf-headed beastmen seem to pop up etc.

I've noodled about the internet and various sources quite a bit.

The "New Coast" written up at various times appears to be on the eastern coast of the continent, near the Shifting Mangrove Coastline etc (where the Felix and Gortek novel mentioned also takes place).

I'm focusing more on the west coast, where the new Sudenburg would be located. That would also make any work I do less likely to interfere/contradict, if used by others, with anything they have done that used earlier write ups about "the New Coast".

A passing reference suggests humans don't know how many cities are in the jungle - they know there is one, if really well informed called Zlatlan, and have conflicting reports of its location - in part because the few who found or saw from distance any of them thought it was Zlatlan.

I've managed to find the WFB 5th and 6th edition lizard books with their more detailed write ups of visits to Zlatlan and Nekharan-speaking skinks etc. so that is useful for lots of stuff like how lizard folk view things " gold sacred and not for you, but pearls, sure fine take a bushel - though actually we're not really planning on letting you return home alive with word of our existence and where to find us anyway ". And yes, some judicious use of a few dinosaurs seems appropriate now. The skinks fly patrols on terradons (or something) etc. Those books also have much much more detail on the layout of temple cities (e.g., skink spawning pools on edges, saurus pools underneath the temples themselves). They expressly mention the lizard folk abandoning entire cities when the Great Plan calls for shifts in continents that will wreck them or just generally alignments etc. indicate they are no longer favourable.

Zlatan is ruled by the Slann Mage-Priest Xuaxamul (active as recently as 1690 in deciding the fate of a human explorer).

If anyone has more information on cities other than Zlatlan and their condition etc. it would be appreciated.

Finished reading Serpent Queen and also found the reference in Skaven book to Baghrusa (ancient human city in Southlands, no other details).

I think overall this means lots more humans than I originally thought, though numbers much decimated by the period of skaven infestation.

"Baghrusa" flavour wise sounds like something founded by emigrants from Ind, who perhaps founded some settlements along the eastern coast ("mangrove coast") at some time in the ancient past. These would be ruins.

There are also Asur ruins from the time of their greatest expansion. A map of the "maximum extent of Asur settlement at height of their empire" includes showing a small section of the western coast as host to Asur settlement (likely sometime around -4500 - e.g. perhaps pre Great Catastrophe). This is the same peninsula that the most informative Southlands map says is the location of Nahuontl, that bears some thinking.

It's always nice to have multiple sources of ruins/waves of settlements.

It's always nice to have multiple sources of ruins/waves of settlements.

This has always been my favorite genre. Hence, I ran a Conan 3.0/3.55E D&D campaign for several years (back in the glory days). The feeling that there's always something deeper, always something older, always something lurking is a primal need for me. Call of Cthulhu does it right when they have layers of investigation that leads to something really horrible and ancient in the deepest levels of primordial intelligent and alien life.

jh

Indeed, I'm looking at Conan system's ruins etc. too for some ideas.

This is the map I mean:

http://www.gitzmansgallery.com/maps/Map-Warhammer-World-1.jpg

From elf army book.

It has the mountains more where I like them.

The basic regions of coasts (what Old Worlders know):

Since the continent's interior has not been explored, its regions are named by coastal territory and perceptions of explorers from the Old World's nations.

Ivory Coast - the southern portion of the western coast. This territory is primarily grasslands controlled by the Ebonian tribes where there has long been trade (e.g., for ivory). The fiercely protectionist views of the Ebonian tribes prevent settlement.

Gold Coast - the central region of the western coast. This region has colonies attracted by the gold found in rivers flowing from the interior mountains. To date, the name has proven more aspirational than factual.

New Coast - the north portion of eastern coast (shifting mangrove coastline). This is "new" for it is the last to be reached by the nations of the Old World, simply being furthest away. It was reached long ago by those of Nekhara and Ind.

Savage Coast - the southern portion of the eastern coast. It is named for the savage cannibal tribes and other menaces explorers met. That early explorers were looking for slaves did not incline those they met to facilitate it being named the "amiable coast".

(edited to reflect my actual entry to date)

The "cities" on maps.

This is the official-material I can find from various sources

All the cities are supposedly slann/lizardman except Raseta (Nekhara) and of that general latitude and north. Ruins from other cultures would be separate except where they inhabited a lizardman city after it was abandoned (e.g., the Temple of Skulls site).

The Western Cities

Zlatan is ruled by the Slann Mage-Priest Xuaxamul (active as recently as 1690 in deciding the fate of a human explorer). 100 skaven a day are sacrificed here. Founded during the Third Spawning. Its 1st spawning mage priest died expelling daemons during great cataclysm. It's the premier city on the continent.

Nahuontl

Cuexotl

Tlaqua on the Gulf of Medes is ruined.

The Eastern Cities

Temple of Skulls (Gotrek and Felix book), suggests lost to lizard people and inhabited by succession of human tribes and vampires, even Nekhara never knew its natives. This means lizard folk abandoned before the time of Settra the Conquorer (-2500).

Golden Tower of the Gods

Teotiqua

Temple Avenue of Gold (not shown as a city in current Lizardman WFB book), not really a city a monument - meaning a magical site or observatory or similar geomantic/astrological feature (that book divides locations into city and monument, the map of Southlands is lower scale and shows only cities so this is how I arrive at that resolution - all lie on geomantic lines, the WFB 6th edition book map of Southlands shows this most clearly)

How I propose to flesh that out:

The current Lizardman WFB says that at one point Southlands have only a single lone temple-city and a few lizardman structures existed before communications were lost. That would say there was only one lizardman city when communication was cut off around (circa -4000).

This edition of WFB has much much less info on Southlands (one side bar box and a small inset map in main lustrian map, compared to multiple ages and full page maps in earlier ones). I'm tempted to simply ignore all that but like to treat GW's frustrating edition perambulations as intellectual challenges so here goes:

To be consistent with that, all other settlements must have been abandoned by that time (loss of communication with Lustria) or founded since that time. Only Zlatlan would thus have temple plaques of its own etc.

So a number of cities are abandoned and their populations/temple plaques removed to other Zlatlan during the Great Catastrophe (Chiccotta of the First Spawning sacrificing his life in the spell that protects Southlands from the Daemons).

Then after the end of the long unfolding catastrophe (circa -4000) new cities start being founded and the plaques and populations resettled there (along with surviving mage-priests). This keeps the idea of the Southlands having a more intact Plaque sequence.

The new cities would all be ones on geomantic lines with Zlatlan, making the actually inhabited cites, other than Zlatlan: Nahuontl, Cuexotl, Teotiqua. In addition to all being same lines, these establish a "close bundle". All others would be abandoned.

Nahuontl could have been founded after elves left that region (the elves being subtly encouraged to leave) and thus the overlap of the two explained as not being "at same time". Nahuontl is inland, the elf ruins are coastal.

The open question is if any of the lizard man cities other than Zlatlan are still occupied. I've found another reference to "only one city" so wondering about that?

What are preferences, more inhabited cities or fewer?

I am inclined to have fewer with mage-priests (since lizard folk are supposed to be regressing, more animal-instinct), so perhaps only Zlatlan still has a mage priest (too many slann this side of ocean doesn't sit well) and the other 3 are skinks and a few saurus only, lacking "proper guidance" such as one gets from a dozing genius.

Going with fewer mage priests per the above - just one who is still mostly napping after being woken up in the 1600's to decide the fate of that Cathayan.

Definitely adding in Lovecraftian-Conanesque Serpent Men - the Old Ones may in fact have taken their arts of lifeform engineering from the Serpent People who can also create poisons of virulant, nearly disease-like, natures.

I can rest my obsessive-compulsive mind about the original vision of New Coast. I found the 1984 Warhammer Fantasy Battle Bestiary (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_Fantasy_Battle ) reference to New Coast as indeed being along the northern end of western coast (before the bays with Nahuontl etc.), but also being in territory with Jungles to north and Grasslands to south and in a old version of world map. The wiki page says this is the first ever map of the Known World, it also shows a large inland sea/great lake in the Southlands so it's hardly "canon" for the current day by most maps.

This is when there were never Old Ones, just Slann, there are Amazons etc. Lots of things have changed from this version of things so I don't feel obliged to use it for more than ideas to take or leave.

The jungles/grasslands references really don't work unless moving the colony to south end of continent (which is not where that 1984 map has it either) so I'm a bit torn about having the west coast I'm working on be "the New Coast" or as above keeping it more distant on the east coast. Some effort was done by other's earlier on New Coast settlements like Grugni's Rest (Mad Alfred apparently, some years ago).