WFRP Book Review: Sea Wardens of Cothique

The High Elves are back in all their luminous glory with the newest Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay release: Sea Wardens of Cothique! Like the Dwarf Player’s Guide and the Lords of Stone and Steel before, this book is the GM’s guide to High Elves. While it focuses heavily on one kingdom of Ulthuan, Cothique, the vast majority of the information here can be used outside of that specific realm. I was rather surprised when Cubicle 7 announced a second High Elf book, and even more so when it was shown that they were focusing on Cothique of all places. This kingdom isn’t as well-known as places like Caledor, Saphery, or Chrace, but the team has really expanded on the region and made it a living-breathing place in the Warhammer World.

*Written by Dave Allen, Michael Duxbury, Jude Hornborg, Naomi Hunter, Steven Lewis, Simon Wileman* and an awesome cover by Álvaro Jiménez, this book is a fine addition to the shelf!

What’s a Cothique With You?

Cothique is one of the Outer Kingdoms of Ulthuan, known for its seafaring elves and coastal cities. It is well protected by the Shifting Isles, but still sees its fair share of raiders from Naggaroth and Norsca. Elves of Cothique are worldly, adventurous, and shockingly, many actually live underground! Cothiqui elves disproportionally represent elves of Ulthuan that leave the island nation and travel the world.

*Cothique’s beautiful cities cling to cliffs and even dig deep into the rock.*

If you’ve been here before, you know how much I LOVE maps… here’s the good news- there are multiple! We’ve got one of the entire Kingdom and surrounding area, and one for the capital city- Tor Korulai (as well as a gorgeous painting of the city). Tor Koulai also gets an entire chapter of detail with NPCs, locations, many plot hooks, and new Intrigues.

*Even the maps look like they were made by elf hands- Wilmar Ballespí, Alessandro Boer, Çağdaş Demiralp, Álvaro Jiménez, Sam Manley, Alejo Ramos, Michael Syrigos* *all did an amazing job with the artwork!*

One of my favorite parts of this book is the dedication to theme and aesthetic. In books focusing on the Old World and the Empire, bullet points are skulls or crosses, here, we have polished gems instead.

*It’s a small thing, but a nice, immersive, touch.*

The history and details of Cothique are great for world building, and with all the story hooks and NPCs, there’s so much for GMs to use. After the High Elf Player’s Guide came out, I was inspired to write a High Elf campaign, and this book makes it so much easier! A nice surprise here is a short event you can fit into just about any campaign that features the infamous Dark Elf assassin Shadowblade. Even if you don’t want to use this classic character, you now have a deadly assassin ready to plug into your game. This section also includes new poisons, and rules for Rending Stars (which I would give to Skaven Assassins, too).

New Rules and Guidelines

A fun addition is rules for charioteering, adding rules for carts, wagons, and chariots including the classic Tiranoc and White Lion chariots. I love this bit, as I can use it to flesh out the chariot races in my Settling the Southlands campaign for those that want to play it.

*Frostheart and Flamespyre Phoenixes, majestic magical birds of Ulthuan.*

A short bestiary, including the above phoenixes, gives more options. Lots of birds here. I find it odd that they made the phoenixes Large, I would change them to Enormous for my games, they’re clearly much bigger than a Great Eagle or Swiftfeather Roc. I do appreciate that they included their Attuned to Magic rules though, I’m sad that their most recent iteration in Warhammer: The Old World miniatures game doesn’t have that. The phoenixes are so connected to the winds of magic that they gain or lose strength depending on the strength of the winds around them. This makes them just a little unpredictable, but is cool as well.

The final section of the book gives more guidance on the concept of Intrigue introduced in the High Elf Player’s Guide. I love the idea of adding rules to this, and I want to include it in some games, so having more guidelines on it is very nice. Again, many ideas, suggestions, and hooks are included here along with more rules. I appreciate how they separated these between Ulthuan as a whole, Cothique specifically, and outside the elven kingdoms.

*Looks gorgeous, as always. Can’t wait to get this in hand!*

Like the dwarf GM book before it, Sea Wardens of Cothique is a great addition to a GM’s library. While I would have liked something that covered High Elves more broadly, we really already have that in the Player’s Guide. Focusing on Cothique was a bold choice, but I feel it paid off. Giving attention to a lesser-known kingdom allowed the writers more freedom and a new sandbox to play in. I know my High Elf campaign is going to start in Tor Korulai now with all of the NPCs, districts, and hooks fleshed out. I’m going to give this one 4.5/5 Gleaming Helmets (0.5 points lost for lack of information on other kingdoms of Ulthuan) due to the amount of usable content for GMs, even if their game isn’t in Cothique.

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Dan is a founding member of the PCN, GM/host of “A Grim Podcast of Perilous Adventure,” “Settling the Southlands,” “Valley of the Doomed,” “How Doomed Are We?,” and “Star Omens,” as well as a player in The Lost Omens Podcast, and The Slithering. Dan is also a novelist and writer of adventures.