New to the Hyborian Age: Where to start?

[Zuoken]

I just ordered a copy of the Conan Roleplaying Game (The Atlantean Edition thankfully, I heard some of the editing horror stories) and am impressed with the reviews it has gotten. The fast and brutal combat rules should be perfect for the upcoming game that I am planning. However, I am no familiar with the world at all.

I am also a fan of H.P. Lovecraft's and I had heard of Robert E. Howard's work before I began researching Conan. I was intrigued to find out about the inferences to each others work that they use in their stories and I instantly knew that this setting would be perfect for me.

A quick search on Amazon did not yield the results that I was hoping for. If one were to start reading books to familiarize themselves with the Hyborian Age, where would you recommend that they start?

 

[Pozatronic]

Robert E. Howard's "The Coming Of Conan The Cimmerian"
It's only a year or so old, in quality paperback and pretty cheap...$14.95 SRP.
It's the original Conan stories in sequence of them being published. It's true classic Sword & Sorcery and it's great.

ISBN #0-345-46151-7

 

[Pozatronic]

A bunch of other people have written Conan stories (Robert Jordan among them), but most failed to capture the feel of the early Howard stories. I believe Dark Horse is making a new Conan comic book. Marvel made one for the longest time, several actually: Conan the Barbarian, Savage Sword of Conan, and Conan Saga(i think). The latter two were magazine sized. I don't know what there availablity is, but if a few of them were pretty snazzy (the Heku Trilogy and the Devourer of Souls fueled soooo much of my early D&D days). There's also a web site that a fan made, stating Conan and various other things for d20, that was done well before the new Conan D20 rule book. I cannot remember the URL, but maybe somebody else here can produce a link for ya. Welcome to the Hyborian age, hope you enjoy your stay!

 

[Prince of Happiness]

I second "The Coming of Conan the Barbarian." There are other collections in the series that are not out yet.

My second suggestion would be to scour used book vendors and find the old Ace (or was it DAW?) paperback series. A word of note on those: These books contain most of the original Howard stories, but they were re-arranged in a chronological order by L. Sprague deCamp and Lin Carter. In addition, those two, plus some other writers also re-wrote stories that Howard wrote for other characters into Conan stories, extrapolated from Howard's timelines and wrote other stories for Conan, and turned Howard story fragments and outlines into full stories that may or may not have reflected Howard's intentions with the character. Some are good, others are not, your mileage may vary.

Things to bear in mind about the Hyborian Age: It is a more romantic, more violent, and more overall magical funhouse mirror of our own history. Cossacks, knights, Arab nomads, India straight from the Vedas mingle with ancient Egyptians, Vikings, Romans, Celtic tribesmen, Assyrians, and so on. What most of them have going for them to bind them all together is steel and the copious spilling of blood. It's realistic and larger-than-life at the same time.

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

Marvel also did King Conan, don't forget. Conan in his latter days, of "Hour of the Dragon" and such.

And seconded about Hyboria's atmosphere. Picture every classic 1e DnD stereotype of the different lands, and that's Hyboria. It's an awesome setting.

 

[The_lurkeR]

I third "The coming of Conan the Cimmerian"

amazon link

Here are a couple of sites that Pozatronic may have been thinking of...

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/hosted/adilbrand/conan.htm

http://hyboria.xoth.net/

 

[Swoop109]

In addition to the books and sites already mentioned, here are a couple more sites for people interested in the Hyborian Age, Conan, and Howard;

www.conan.com
www.conan.no *
http://www.dodgenet.com/~moonblossom/hyborian.htm
http://www.dodgenet.com/~moonblossom/kull.htm

In addition, you may want to look into purchasing a copy of The Hyborian Heresies, IMO, one of the best works dealing with the fictional background of Howard's setting. Ordering info can be found here;

http://my.lulu.com/content/51571


*currently having problems with its server.

 

[Swoop109]

Here's a couple of sites that may be good for creating NPC's, or generating adventure plots;

http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/appconan.htm
http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/appkull.htm

 

[Krieg]

Staying within the Mongoose Conan D20 line, your next purchase should definitely be The Road of Kings. It was written by Vincent Darlage who also happens to be the creator of the excellent Conan page hosted here on ENWorld and already mentioned by The_lurkeR.

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/hosted/adilbrand/conan.htm

The Road of Kings is essentially a Hyborean Gazeteer for Conan D20.

There is a review up on RPGNet:

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10447.phtml

The book lists for $34.95 but Overstock.com is currently selling it for $20.29 (+ $1.40 shipping).

 

[your father is]

Check out Kings of the Night, too. Lots o' Conan info, plus an article about the influences Lovecraft had on Howard (and vice-versa).