Octavia

Octavia
(circa "The Devil in Iron")

Medium Female Human
2nd Level
1st Aristocrat/1st Commoner

Hit Dice: 1d4 +1d8+6 (15 Hit Points)
Initiative: +2 (dex)
Speed: 30 ft
AC: 13 (+2 Dex, +1 Dodge)
Attacks: Dagger -1 melee
Damage: Dagger 1d4 -1 melee
Face/Reach: 5 ft by 5 ft/5ft
Saves: Fort +3, Ref +2, Will +1
Abilities: Str 8, Dex 15, Con 16, Int 10, Wis 9, Cha 12
Skills: Move Silently +4, Hide +5, Listen +4, Sense Motive +6, Perform (Dance) +6
Feats: Dodge, Mobility

Climate/Terrain: Nemedia, Hyrkania
Challenge Rating: 1
Treasure: None
Alignment: Lawful Good
Advancement: by Character class

...a tall handsome girl, whose yellow hair, clear eyes and fair skin identified her as a pure-blooded member of her race. Her scanty clad silk tunic, girded at the waist, displayed the marvelous contours of her magnificent figure. Her fine eyes flashed with resentment and her red lips were sulky, but submission had been taught her during her captivity.
~The Devil in Iron, Robert E. Howard

Octavia is the daughter of a Nemedian noble (giving her a level in Aristocrat), captured by Jehungir's riders and forced into serving as his slave (giving her a level in Commoner). She was given to a degenerate lord and escaped from his castle, making her way to Xapur. She had earlier pretended to like Conan so that Jehungir could trap the Cimmerian. Didn't matter to Conan. He kept her anyway at the end of the story, promising to set a city on fire to light her way to his tent.

Combat
Octavia really wasn't one for a lot of combat against supernatural critters, but since she had the gumption to escape from her slavery to the vile lord she had been given to, one could well imagine her killing someone if necessary. She would probably prefer a dagger or a stilleto than a sword.

below is the original cover of Weird Tales, August 1934, featuring Conan fighting a snake in Xapur. Art is by Margaret Brundage.

Robert E. Howard's story, "The Devil in Iron" was first published in Weird Tales in August of 1934. The story can also be found in the Ace/Lancer paperback "Conan the Wanderer"; the Donald M. Grant Limited Edition "The Devil in Iron", and the Gnome Press collection "Conan the Barbarian". It can also be found in the Berkley/Putnam collection "The People of the Black Circle". Currently in print is the British volume "The Conan Chronicles Volume I : The People of the Black Circle" which is part of Millennium's "Fantasy Masterworks" series. ISBN: 1-85798-996-1. It is available off of Amazon.com. "The Devil in Iron" can also be found in the Sci Fi Book Club "The Essential Conan."

One weakness of this story is the incredible coincidence upon which it hangs. Jehungir Agha was lying when he told Conan Octavia had run away to Xapur. She had been handed into the loathsome clutches of Jelal Khan. Escaping, she somehow finds her way to Xapur, a supposed tiny island with unscalable cliffs; the likelihood of her finding her way there purely by chance seems a little difficult to accept. Then again, ERB wrote dozens of Tarzan novels that depended on even more unlikely coincidences.

There isn't a lot in the way of characterization. Conan spends more time running than thinking. I suspect this may be partly because Howard wasn't sure how Conan should react to something so clearly inexplicable as a city appearing magically overnight. To REH the Conan stories were inherently realistic, he favoured gorillas and snakes, and the magic is often explained either as a sort of super-science, or as hypnosis. In this case, there can be no such realist explanation, and so Howard himself may have found it a little hard to accept.

Conan
Khosatral Khel
Jehungir Agha
Magic Dagger