-- Hyborian Age Details --
GM's, I encourage you to create! Add-on and grow your version of the Hyborian Age. Don't just rely on what you see in the game supplements or have read in Conan books and comics. Make the world your own. Robert E. Howard gave use a fairly good look at the Hyborian Age, but there is a lot of room for your own creations. For example, during my first Conan campaign, I had a picture in my head of these large, inter-twined trees that grew close together so that their large limbs would grow into each other. I called these
Thicket Trees, and I wanted to eventually develop (though I never did) a clan of Cimmerians who lived among these trees. They would live in tree houses, in these thicket groves that would wind around Cimmeria's rugged terrain, filling in some valleys. I thought about going a step further and giving these Cimmerians a reason for living in the tops of these trees by putting some beastie way down at the bottom in the valley. I did use the Thicket Trees in my game, but I never did develop the idea fully. Some Conan purists might balk at this idea, but who cares! It's my game (mine and my players'), and wanted to put a tad bit of fantasy into my dark and grim Hyborian Age. Why do all Cimmerians clans have to be like Conan, anyway? Can't there be a bit of variation--something different about a different clan? I thought so.
Now, with my new game, I'm setting it in Argos. I keyed in on the word "Shaipur" that was used in the 2011 film a couple of times (the Shaipur Monastery, the Shaipur Outpost, and the Shaipur Ravine). Using nothing but my own creative juices, I've decided that, in my campaign world, Shaipur is a region in southeastern Argos on its border with Shem. This area has been conquered in the past by the Shemites, but Argos has since reclaimed the land. This, in my game, is the reason the abandoned Shaipur Outpost exists.
I also noticed, in that movie, that both Khalar Zym and his daughter, Marique, have very high foreheads. And, this made me consider the different ethnic groups of Argos.
In a game set during the Hyborian Age, you don't have various flavors of elves and dwarves and halflings to interest your players. What you can do, though, is create some different flavors of human for your game. And, you can get quite creative with this. Robert E. Howard has set a precedent for this. There isn't just one flavor of Aquilonian. There are several different peoples from that expansive kingdom. There's Gundermen and Bossonians and those from the southern region of Pointain. And, this isn't the only example that you'll find in Howard's works and the pastiches. In Howard's story,
The Devil In Iron, a Yuetshi fisherman is featured. The Zuagir are a Shemitish Nomadic tribe roaming the Great Desert. The Asshuri are another Shemitish tribe of people. There are more examples if you dig deep into the various Conan stories.
So, instead of just going with the macro races in your game, why not invent some separate ethnic groups for your players to discover as they get to know a location?
In my Shaipur region of Argos, I've think back to the high foreheads of Khalar Zym and Marique in the picture above, and I've decided that these people are called the Laden. Not all ethnic groups are discernible physically, but the Laden certainly are (just look at those pics!) Today, the Laden are a gypsy like folk inhabiting the Shaipur region. They're a mixed-race lot, combining both native Argossean and Shemitish blood. They are the result of Shem's control over the region. This makes Khalar Zym a man who rose up from one of the poorer Argossean peoples to become a powerful warlord.
The interior of Argos is really a union of Dukes and Barons who have banded together under for mutual protection. Technically, the King is lord over all, but practically, the nobles of the kingdom's interior are quite powerful. In some respects, each Duchy or Barony is ruled as if it were its own small kingdom within the larger agreed upon kingdom of Argos. One of these lands that meshes against the Shaipur (the Shaipur is not like the rest of the Argossean interior--it's not a region ruled over by one lord) is the Falcon Barony (whose nobles were sympathetic to Khalar Zym after his rise to power in Shaipur). The serfs in the Falcon Barony are hard working, honest people called Croats.
The nobility in Argos is generally of another race (the smallest in population) called the Wailser. This bloodline is usually jealousy guarded against mixed-breeding, and the trueblood Wailsers are dying out.
The Griko are a people of poor fishermen of the coasts, but they are regarded as a step above the Croats. And, then, there are the Mojh. These are a Shemitish people who conquered Shaipur.
If you are at a loss for names or ideas for different peoples, you can always use the net. That's what I did to come up with some of these names. Though my versions have nothing in common with the real ethnic groups, many of the names I used above are real Italian ethnic peoples. I just went and found a wiki on this.
I was thinking, too, that adding touches like this to the part of the world where my campaign will be set not only makes the place more believeable as a real region of a kingdom for my players, but it also helps when converting standard D&D adventures for use in my Conan game. I can make every bugbear I find, for example, a Mojh. When I see goblins, I'll make them Croats.
And so on.
To anybody else, a Croat or a Griko or a Wailser are all Argosseans, but to an Argossean, a Croat is a Croat. A Griko is a Grikio. And a Wailser is a Wailser.