Warhammer: Vermintide - Southlands

Fatshark Lounge
1

I will be making a series of posts (unless reception is bad) about a potential standalone expansion for Vermintide 2. It will take place in the Southlands and have its own story, unconnected to the main game. It only shares the same name because of the shared engine, mechanics, and (for the most part) enemies. This post will be a general overview, and I will go into greater detail for specific areas (i.e. characters) at a later date.

Vermintide - Southlands is a game about a band of mercenaries and vagabonds, more or less forcefully united together by the Slann to eradicate the forces of chaos from an undecided area in the Southlands. Four out of the five characters were just passing through, looking for treasure or what have you, untill they got bribed, threatened, or manipulated into the situation they find themselves in. The main antagonists will be Skaven, local chaos cults (not Norscans), with maybe some Beastmen here and there if it fits.

Each character will follow the same model as their Vermintide 2 counterparts, having unique talent trees and weapons. However, they will each only have two careers since there isnā€™t as much to go on. The characters are:

  • List item

A skink, sent there by the Slann to keep the other members of the party in-line. It will be the ā€œSaltzpyreā€ equivalent of Vermintide - Southlands, focusing on direct damage and ā€œleadingā€ the team. Careers are Chameleon and Chief.

  • List item

A Vampire, originally searching for artifacts in the land of the dead but ran out by a vengeful Tom Kingā€™s army. She will be this gameā€™s ā€œSiennaā€, focusing on ranged damage and the most likely to betray the party. Careers are Necrarch and Von Carstein.

  • List item

A random Savage Orc, being mind-controlled into submission by the Slann. He will be the ā€œBardinā€ of thje crew, focusing on heavy weapons and durability. Careers are Bigā€™un and Arrer.

  • List item

An Arabyan Treasure Hunter, promised wealth beyond measure and not being executed at the hands of the Lizardmen. She would be the Kruber equivalent of the team, focusing on general versatility and guns. Careers are Pirate and Vagabond.

  • List item

A Dark Elf Noble with a high price on his head, reduced to fighting amongst savages to survive. I have the hardest time justifying this one, so it you have any better ideas for this slot let me know. He would be the ā€œKerillianā€ equivalent of the team, focusing on speed over damage. Careers are Slaver and Corsair.

As far as enemies go, it would be Skaven as we know it, and a re-hashed version of the Rotbloods. I wonā€™t go much into the Skaven as they would be largely unchanged, but there will be key differences for the human savages.

First of all, they donā€™t have any Chaos Warriors, for obvious reasons. They will have an archer type and hounds, though. The aesthetic differences will be the biggest. They worship Chaos Undivided, and will just look like ā€œEvil Neanderthalsā€ rather than the gross rotbloods we see in Vermintide 2. I would like to see a new mechanic where enemies from different factions can sometimes attack each other instead of the players, but that might be too much to ask for.

Beastmen might make apperances in some levels, but not very much. If Daemons are a thing by then, they would make sense as a standard enemy faction, but Iā€™m not expecting Fatshark to make a whole new faction just for this game.

The levels will be similar to those in Vermintide 1/2, focusing on guerilla warfare and taking out key locations and leaders rather than facing an army head on. The primary objective is to stop the Skaven and Savages from opening up a portal to the realm of chaos. Iā€™m getting tired so Iā€™m going to wrap this up now. Levels include, but are not limited too:

Jungle wilds
Savage Camps
Skaven Nests
Abandoned Temple Cities
Ruined Coastal Towns
Fallen Dwarf Holds
Swampy Ritual Sites
Scary Caves
Southern Nehekara

4 Likes
2

Maybe an up until the start of the story funtioning elven colony? Wouldnā€™t be to far stretched that one of the trade-island-citadels of the elfs would have an enclave on the main land or (sudden inspiriation) maybe one of the citadels could be the player keep, that would be frickinā€™ awesome. Also, another good location could be the southern chaos wastes, not really much lore (if at all) coming from there, so free creative hand.

Map_Southlands_1
Map_Southlands_1931Ɨ671 209 KB

One other good character could be a Cathayan, they send several expeditions to the southlands, he could be an old survivor from a long lost great expedition, and could function as an Olesya, sailing them everywhere.
There could even be a newer ā€˜The River Reikā€™ mission on the high seas, or through the canals of a Temple Cityā€¦ Oh man, so many possibiltiesā€¦

3

Well, there is a wood elf settlement in the forest almost all the way to the south, near that dawven hold that Bardin is looking for. And there is a high elf port on that island to the west of the mainland.

1 Like
4

Yeah that was just a gimmick by CA for all the WE players, the heart of jungle with oreonā€™s camp should not be taken as a ā€˜realā€™ Athelā€¦ -something. They also put dwarfs into the mountains in araby (greybeardā€™s prospectors) and even further into lustria (spine of sotek dwarfs), and thats just utter nonsense. :smile:
And which high lef port do you mean? From the vortex campaign? If yes, that would be the fortress of dawn, like in the map above, they just floated it from the southern tip of the southlands just inbetween the southernmost parts of the southlands and lustria, to form a province with the citadel of dusk.

5

Afaik Oreon and the Spine of Sotek Dwarfs were based on obscure bits of old lore (Oreon and Mine of the Bearded Skulls on the 8th ed Lustria map). As for Greybeardā€™s Prospectors, the dwarves could have easily gone at any point with the Bretonnian and Imperial crusades, or later, I mean the Empire has an enclave in the Southlands in the form of Sudenberg after all. ā€˜Prospectorsā€™ to me implies miners and/or mercs-turn-miners, not a longstanding hold.

Anyway GW were so happy with how total war warhammer turned out they gave CA permission to invent new lore (eg Cylostra Direfin), but a lot of the more wacky things they did before were based on old obscure warhammer books etc.

1 Like
6

Iā€™d just love to see the Southlands and Lizardmen in any way shape or form. 8) Aside from killing them, thatā€™d be awful. I approve of this idea.

Thereā€™s a lot of options for interesting locales, even just within the jungles; mountainside jungles, riverside ones, swampy ones, burned or corrupted ones.

1 Like
7

Yes the Lizardmen would have to be the good guys in this, almost the ā€œLohnerā€ of the game - organizing missions from a safe distance while the ā€œheroesā€ put their life on the line. Only instead of Lohnerā€™s sass, the humor from the Slann would arise from their blatant lack of care for the gameā€™s main characters.

The Lizardmen tend to be underrepresented in Warhammer video games due to their cold, aloof nature, but I feel like they would work really well with this kind of role.

2 Likes
8

I doubt a Slann would deign to directly talk to the characters, probably just a Skink Priest - though maybe thereā€™d be a Slann in the background who seems to be sleeping and a Skink Priest just interprets his snoring sounds and grumbles. XD

A Skink in general could at least have some personality and emotions; like how Saltzpyre is all about that Sigmar life, but does have other thoughts, too, a Skink could pull that off with Sotek or the Great Plan. Especially some kind of Blessed Spawning Skink who maybe has a bit more freedom of will than most - a kind of ā€œproblem solverā€, if you will, one who can think outside the box a bit, while still being all for the Great Plan.

Given that Slann have spy networks that include humans in the Old World, I still think that getting a Lizardman connection to Lohner would be conceivable.