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I haven't read the army book and I was wondering where Lizardmen fell on the good/evil continuum.

lizardmen from another's point of view would probabaly be viewed as evil, as they usualy capture/kill/sacrifice anyone or anything that sets foot into their borders. i see them as neutral, as long as you dont screw with their homeland, there not gonna attack out outright, unless a slann or "message from the old ones" tells the LM that a certain part of the warhammer world needs to be retaken/changed/run over like what happened to albion.

there is a fantasy novel, which i canot for the life of me rememeber the name of, that describes what happens when a group of treasure hunters go into lustria looking for treasure, meet up with the LM, and get picked off by skinks/saurus/stegadon and a slann who redirects the lone mercanaries wizards comet spell back onto the mercenary group. its pretty entertaining. from the book it makes the LM look like the slann didnt even know humans existed, referred to them as "colorful apes" and the slann went into a great discussion to himself about how this "colorful ape" conjured a comet.

There is no good/evil axis in Warhammer. It's all order/chaos.

The Lizards are definitely on the order side.

Well lizardmen are viewed as nuetral because they have never really invaded anyone they only kill to protect their homeland.
And i think it was during the storm of chaos fluff that the lizardmen sided with the empire, high elves etc.

In the sense that the lizardmen are staunchly anti-chaos, and mortal enemies of the Skaven, they would be considered good. But alliances are few and far between...

RZ

If they were in D&D they would be Lawful Neutral.

They have a set code they work to, i.e. maintain order and finish the plans of the old ones.
They don't care who they kill to get the job done but will not side with evil forces as by their nature they are chaotic and sew disorder...

Of course, if the dwarfs only knew of the Slanns' "rearrangement" of their mountain range, they might consider them evil.

The lizards may not invade others outright, but they seem to take highhanded global acts, regardless of the impact of other races.

ZF-

Lizards are with no one.

They happen to be against Chaos at all times.

So if you are the enemy of their enemy, they might help you.

Lizards are therefore closer to Eldar than anything else really.

Lizardmen are a faction unto themselves, and disdain all the younger races. And I quote: "we who were ancient at the dawn of time, will sweep away all that stand before us, etc etc", quote from lord mazdamundi...

Lizardmen believe thier gods created the humans elves and dwarves, and it was they who educated the at the dawn of their races. GW classifies it as good last i checked, the only two neutrals were woodelves and ogres. The slaan taoght elves magic and are completley opposed to dark elves, chaos, skaven.

As the keepers of the Old One's plan, the Lizardmen try to implement it in as an efficient manner as possible. To that end they must close the polar gates and eliminate chaos. Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Ogres have some part in the Old Ones grand plan, so they are generally left alone.

However, everyone wants the Lizardmen's sacred artifacts, and so the Lizards will fight to reclaim them and eliminate threats to their great work.

In the grand scheme of things Lizardmen could be the greatest ally of the forces of Order, but due to greed and ignorance they are mostly isolated and wage a lonely war on chaos.

The rule book says that the good guys are the High Elves, Dwarfs, Wood Elves, Empire, Bretonnia, and Lizardmen. The bad guys are Warriors of Chaos, Beastmen, Daemons of Chaos, Vampire Counts, Orcs &Goblins, Dark Elves, and Skaven. Then the neutral are the Ogre Kingdoms and the Tomb Kings.

green_oni wrote:The rule book says that the good guys are the High Elves, Dwarfs, Wood Elves, Empire, Bretonnia, and Lizardmen. The bad guys are Warriors of Chaos, Beastmen, Daemons of Chaos, Vampire Counts, Orcs &Goblins, Dark Elves, and Skaven.

It says no such things.
The distinction is:
Forces of order – High Elves, Dwarfs, Wood Elves, Empire, Bretonnia, and Lizardmen.
Forces of destruction – Warriors of Chaos, Beastmen, Daemons of Chaos, Vampire Counts, Orcs &Goblins, Dark Elves, and Skaven.

Being in order does not make you good, lizardmen are in many places shown as indifferent towards the other races.

GW went to great lengths to make it possible for all races to fight each other. Because it would be lame if you bought HE and your friend bought Dwarfs and you had no conceivable reason to fight. Set up on the battlefield and wave at each other.

Lizardmen have often waged war against other races. There was a line that stated you used to see great lines of Saurus Warriors marching across the planet, ruthlessly exterminating in the name of the Great Plan.

Lizardmen are one of the easiest races to claim they have a reason to attack anyone (at least on the order side). Because they can just say there's a prophesy that requires it, or they think you have one of their artifacts, or whatever.

OH, but to let you know how anti-chaos they are, no Slann has set foot/touched the ground since the Chaos portals were opened at the poles thousands of years ago. Because they feel the world/ground is tainted, so they are either carried or ride on their floating palanquins.

Only being able to cause destruction and death without building anything for the good of the world seems evil to me.

green_oni wrote:Only being able to cause destruction and death without building anything for the good of the world seems evil to me.

Cep't the slaan help keep chaos away by using geomantic web power and maintain the Elve's vortex thingie. What theyre really busy doing now tho is rebuilding their empire altho the army book hints "the age of isolation" is near it's end.

HoverBoy wrote:

green_oni wrote:Only being able to cause destruction and death without building anything for the good of the world seems evil to me.

Cep't the slaan help keep chaos away by using geomantic web power and maintain the Elve's vortex thingie. What theyre really busy doing now tho is rebuilding their empire altho the army book hints "the age of isolation" is near it's end.

no i was talking to the guy that said the evil guys aren't evil.

LM aren't evil. The Slann are just so ancient they have a super long view of history & what is needed for the future. This detached attitude is often confused with simple maliciousness.

E.g. I was reading a book about the ancient Vikings living in Greenland. At the start of winter the farmer would need to make a educated guess about using the information of (1) how much hay he had, (2) how many animals he had, and then guess how long winter would go. Then they would kill X amount that they didn't have food for. If they guessed one way (1) killed too many animals, the other way (2) not enough food to make it & everyone starves.

This is the kind of decisions the Slann are making- how do we beat back Chaos (& hopefully get the Old Ones to come back)? Because otherwise everything is lost.

In a world of good and evil, black and white...Lizardmen are teal


kidding aside, they are order-based, but they only side with others to face down chaos, and they aren't friendly at all.

I agree that they have such a wide perspective that they make the elves look short sighted by comparison. They are staunchly opposed to chaos but at the same time are well and truly out for themselves. Trying to enact what they think is the "Great plan" of the old ones. Anything that gets in their way will be opposed and likely destroyed.

Well, there is an old addage from D&D that states "A wizard did it." In Warhammer, that wizard happens to be a 600 lbs floating toad.

That aside, they seriously are the ultimate victor of the game of "whodunnit." They have fallen from grace, and can now only vaguely understand the great plan set for them by the old ones. They have taken to mediating on this and generally ignoring the world, only arising when chaos needs to be slapped and/or an artifact relating to the old one's plans is at stake. So they are order based, but can only vaugely be called "good." If you play 40k, think of them as if eldar believed in the greater good, and tada, you have lizzies.

Hey Studderingdave- is the book possibly The Burning Shore?
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/e/robert-earl/burning-shore.htm

The Dinomen have some intersting and intriguing stuff going on for them...


On the one had, the Slann are the most powerful wizards (and the most ancient for that matter) in all the warhammer world, fluff-wise. They sleep and meditate upon the plans of the 'Old Ones' (i.e.-the gods which created the warhammer world) whom they believe will return once again to end the taint of chaos once and for all. They are described as being wise beyond belief yet constantly display flashes of ignorance (such as when they had clue of the existence of vampires until they were on their coasts). They have played a vital role in almost all major conflicts with chaos. The High Elves like to claim that they closed that portal and saved the world but they really have no idea that the slann contributed a significant amount of magical aid for that act to happen. They were also ignorant to the rise of their own god Sotek, the snake god. It was up to Tehenauin (a skink) to be his prophet. Now they have backtracked and claimed that Sotek is an Old One that has just recently revealed himself to the Lizardmen. There is a great turning point right now in Lizardmen lore which shows the leadership of the lizzies shifting towards more skink-priests rather than Slann, as the Skink-priests are constantly active in the administration and machinations of Lizardmen religious and social life.

They may come off as snobbish or maliscious but they (the slann at least) work on such a higher plane of existence that they really can't be bothered with the squabbles of 'lesser' races unless it a.) was predicted on the ancient plaques or b.) directly opposes the spread of chaos. The prologue to Temple of the Serpent describes what a Slann dreams about. It's basically some crazy quantam physics type of crap where each race and individual is assigned some crazy mathematical fraction. The slann basically are super intelligent physics professors. If they existed in the real world they would win the Noble Prize like every year with no end in sight.

When they go to war they do so because a.) someone is trying to jack all their sweet bling (and really, who wouldn't want all that sweet bling?) or b.) some epic chaos crap is about to go down and they are there to layeth the smacketh down on its candyass.

They only serve the Old Ones. Anyone in direct opposition to the Old Ones plans is deemed a threat and it is therefore justifiable to elimante them. Basically, you could be the most honorable, selfless, noble knight. But if it was predicted that you must die, then the Lizzies will make it their mission to kill you. And they don't care either. Because they are cold-blooded and have no emotion. Pretty sweet when you think about it.

They are the ultimate 'utilitarians'. Constantly serving the "greater good" of the old ones plans.

IIRC the BRB says that the LM and WE are in a neutral area, working more to further their individual plans and perserve what is left of their race. But LM are also staunch defenders against Chaos...just don't try and find their golden cities or look like a rat either.