Lustria is out!
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Chuck
- Power Behind the Throne
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Hey Lustria just came out today and I was wondering what everyone thought about it. I know it's been teased since what, the Hogshead days? I was responsible for the chapter on Quetza and I know some other contributors who lurk around this place were also involved.
It looks interesting, but I think there's far too much devoted to making Lizardmen PCs and not enough for me to feel like I can run an adventure in Lustria without pulling in a lot of non-WFRP sources.
How I feel about this book depends a lot on whether I'm taking a perspective of WFRP 4e taken on it's own, or the entire WFRP publication history as a whole. With 4e on it's own, I think it's a good book, but there were probably other priorities that should have come out first. Looking at the entirety of WFRP, I think it's fantastic.
How I feel about this book depends a lot on whether I'm taking a perspective of WFRP 4e taken on it's own, or the entire WFRP publication history as a whole. With 4e on it's own, I think it's a good book, but there were probably other priorities that should have come out first. Looking at the entirety of WFRP, I think it's fantastic.
I hold the glaive of Law against the Earth.
I’ve read a fair bit of it and I love it. The new monsters and diseases are really cool, there’s one disease that’s a take off of the cordyceps from TLOU (glad to see Warhammer hasn’t lost it’s sense of humour in this regard). Luthor Harkon is *very very very* cool, especially his *six* different multiple personalities. And we have confirmation that Clan Pestilens became what it is because it was converted by a powerful daemon of Nurgle, who is an Exalted Herald of Nurgle but he is very arrogant and *hates* Nurgle, scheming against him.
There’s so much material for PCs, NPCs, the history & geography of the continent in general, and tonnes of detail on its various inhabitants. It’s great. Teasers for High Elves, Dark Elves, & Cathay.
There’s so much material for PCs, NPCs, the history & geography of the continent in general, and tonnes of detail on its various inhabitants. It’s great. Teasers for High Elves, Dark Elves, & Cathay.
Yeah I like it. It’s enough for playing Skink characters but it’s not overwhelming and it definitely doesn’t detract from the rest of the book.
I’ll say this, it’s not perfect. There are some mistakes in terms of how certain things are written (limited though), that alters lore in a negative way *but* where these things do appear, they can be easily ignored or rewritten.
You wrote the Quetza chapter?! Holy fuck I love it. You wrote some of my favourite stuff in the book! Please tell C7 to do a whole bunch of Lustria adventures equivalent to the Ubersreik Adventures next, that would be perfect.Chuck wrote: ↑Wed Mar 15, 2023 11:51 am Hey Lustria just came out today and I was wondering what everyone thought about it. I know it's been teased since what, the Hogshead days? I was responsible for the chapter on Quetza and I know some other contributors who lurk around this place were also involved.
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Chuck
- Power Behind the Throne
- Posts: 196
- Joined: Sun Jan 06, 2019 11:25 am
- Location: North Lustria
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Wow thank you! It’s rough working really hard on something and then waiting for months and never knowing how it’s going to be received. Much appreciated.
I have zero pull with Cubicle7 but a bunch of Lustria adventures or even a campaign is something I’d love to see as well.
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Knight of the Lady
- Posts: 188
- Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2019 11:04 am
Very cool news. I look forward for me 4th ed GM to get us to Lustria in the future. 
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Pippington
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Tue Mar 21, 2023 10:49 am
As someone who got into WFRP through the wargame, and into the wargame through the 5th edition Lizardmen army book, this is was my most anticipated WFRP publication... maybe ever. Having read through it, it's a real mixed bag - there are some bits I love and some bits I find very disappointing.
The early chapters are pretty good for fleshing out all the footnote-level stuff that you could find by plumbing army books and wiki articles. Some of it is a bit too heavily recycled - the timeline looks copy-pasted straight from the wargame, and the maps, while nicely-presented, are clearly just putting a new coat of paint on maps created for the wargame (right down to reproducing the same errors, like Skeggi - which is a whole chapter of the book! - being omitted). Mostly though it's a nice deep dive into places that previously were just suggestive names. My main constructive criticism is that there's too much of a skew towards visual spectacle and mystery in a lot of the Lustrian locations, as opposed to things for PCs to do. A similar 'gazetteer' section for an Old World sourcebook would probably have more detail of e.g. local politics that gives more handholds for players to engage with it interactively.
The 4 chapters on non-lizard locations are pretty nice, but the choice of those locations is baffling to me. No 'friendly' Old Worlder ports that would provide good jumping-off points for PCs are covered. The closest thing we get to that is Skeggi, where the worship of Chaos is pretty evident and the most prominent named NPC we get is a Tzeentch-worshipping warlord covered with mutant mouths. Then we've got the Citadel of Dusk, the Vampire Coast, and Quetza. The latter two make some sense in that it's good to have non-lizard adversaries to use, but neither chapter comes with any plot hooks, and the absence of real detail on places like Swamp Town or Santa Magritta makes them stick out all the more.
On the Quetza chapter in particular, it comes across as good material for a dungeon-delving sort of adventure, but I find myself a bit skeptical of the Herald of Nurgle, because I don't like the idea of the truth of Clan Pestilens' take on Skaven religion being so literal and easy to discover. If there's a physical daemon that's still there and that you can go down in the tunnels to have a chat with, then clearly Skrolk and the rest of the Clan Pestilens hierarchy should have a pretty good idea of who it is they're actually worshipping. It also makes the whole Sotek-casting-Pestilens-out-of-Lustria history seem a bit of a wild goose chase if the daemon was left there undisturbed (particularly when he's got a statline and your average Saurus hero could probably give him a run for his money). I think if I was using this element for my games I would put it at a few more removes - make the daemon a disembodied voice trapped in a lizardman relic or something like that, buried somewhere that the skaven lost access to after their first defeat, and visibly doing a decent impression of the Horned Rat.
The Lizardman lore content has lots of stuff I like, particularly the stuff detailing their peacetime activities, home-town politics and everyday lives - that's all bread and butter for working them into a campaign. The crunch is less satisfying. There's a lot of page space spent on Slann rules, which feel inappropriate for WFRP and don't come with much useful guidance on how they can be used in a campaign in a more interesting way than 'rocks fall, everyone dies'. Then on the other hand, the advertised playable skinks seem under-detailed mechanically, with little to no unique skills, spells or careers.
The last few chapters are probably my favourite bits of the book, with good mechanics and structural suggestion for how to represent the Lustrian environment + plan a Lustrian adventure. IMO this is where the book comes back to being focused on providing stuff that GMs and players can use, rather than providing raw setting details and letting the reader do the work of figuring out how to incorporate it in their game. There are still some things I don't like - e.g. unavoidable diseases that just burden players with penalties without giving them any interesting decisions - and the 2nd half of the bestiary slips back into providing statlines for super high-powered stuff without much guidance on how to make a fun encounter out of that for Hans the Ubersreik Rat-Catcher who got on a boat to see the New World - but overall there's a lot of juicy stuff, and those bits are still useful with some GM discretion.
Overall this is still probably one of the C7 books I'll get the most mileage out of, and I really appreciate them breaking this new ground. Purely as something to read and immerse myself in the setting, I'd rate it much higher. As a toolkit for playing the game, though, I wish it had a bit more focus.
The early chapters are pretty good for fleshing out all the footnote-level stuff that you could find by plumbing army books and wiki articles. Some of it is a bit too heavily recycled - the timeline looks copy-pasted straight from the wargame, and the maps, while nicely-presented, are clearly just putting a new coat of paint on maps created for the wargame (right down to reproducing the same errors, like Skeggi - which is a whole chapter of the book! - being omitted). Mostly though it's a nice deep dive into places that previously were just suggestive names. My main constructive criticism is that there's too much of a skew towards visual spectacle and mystery in a lot of the Lustrian locations, as opposed to things for PCs to do. A similar 'gazetteer' section for an Old World sourcebook would probably have more detail of e.g. local politics that gives more handholds for players to engage with it interactively.
The 4 chapters on non-lizard locations are pretty nice, but the choice of those locations is baffling to me. No 'friendly' Old Worlder ports that would provide good jumping-off points for PCs are covered. The closest thing we get to that is Skeggi, where the worship of Chaos is pretty evident and the most prominent named NPC we get is a Tzeentch-worshipping warlord covered with mutant mouths. Then we've got the Citadel of Dusk, the Vampire Coast, and Quetza. The latter two make some sense in that it's good to have non-lizard adversaries to use, but neither chapter comes with any plot hooks, and the absence of real detail on places like Swamp Town or Santa Magritta makes them stick out all the more.
On the Quetza chapter in particular, it comes across as good material for a dungeon-delving sort of adventure, but I find myself a bit skeptical of the Herald of Nurgle, because I don't like the idea of the truth of Clan Pestilens' take on Skaven religion being so literal and easy to discover. If there's a physical daemon that's still there and that you can go down in the tunnels to have a chat with, then clearly Skrolk and the rest of the Clan Pestilens hierarchy should have a pretty good idea of who it is they're actually worshipping. It also makes the whole Sotek-casting-Pestilens-out-of-Lustria history seem a bit of a wild goose chase if the daemon was left there undisturbed (particularly when he's got a statline and your average Saurus hero could probably give him a run for his money). I think if I was using this element for my games I would put it at a few more removes - make the daemon a disembodied voice trapped in a lizardman relic or something like that, buried somewhere that the skaven lost access to after their first defeat, and visibly doing a decent impression of the Horned Rat.
The Lizardman lore content has lots of stuff I like, particularly the stuff detailing their peacetime activities, home-town politics and everyday lives - that's all bread and butter for working them into a campaign. The crunch is less satisfying. There's a lot of page space spent on Slann rules, which feel inappropriate for WFRP and don't come with much useful guidance on how they can be used in a campaign in a more interesting way than 'rocks fall, everyone dies'. Then on the other hand, the advertised playable skinks seem under-detailed mechanically, with little to no unique skills, spells or careers.
The last few chapters are probably my favourite bits of the book, with good mechanics and structural suggestion for how to represent the Lustrian environment + plan a Lustrian adventure. IMO this is where the book comes back to being focused on providing stuff that GMs and players can use, rather than providing raw setting details and letting the reader do the work of figuring out how to incorporate it in their game. There are still some things I don't like - e.g. unavoidable diseases that just burden players with penalties without giving them any interesting decisions - and the 2nd half of the bestiary slips back into providing statlines for super high-powered stuff without much guidance on how to make a fun encounter out of that for Hans the Ubersreik Rat-Catcher who got on a boat to see the New World - but overall there's a lot of juicy stuff, and those bits are still useful with some GM discretion.
Overall this is still probably one of the C7 books I'll get the most mileage out of, and I really appreciate them breaking this new ground. Purely as something to read and immerse myself in the setting, I'd rate it much higher. As a toolkit for playing the game, though, I wish it had a bit more focus.
Thanks for this really thorough and detailed review! The 5th edition Lizardmen book was my first ever Warhammer purchase (although I never got round to collecting an army), so Lustria has likewise always been special to me. I watched the changes over the editions of the wargame and there were things I liked and things I didn't about each iteration. Sounds like this will be similar. An inevitable must-buy for me, but I suspect it will only ever be for inspiration - especially given that I don't even play 4th edition WFRP.