D&D General Reassesing Robert E Howards influence on D&D +

[Yora]

Folks here focus more on Greyhawk, but I think Robert E. Howard's strongest influence on D&D is the Forgotten Realms setting, most specifically the Unapproachable East, and to a much lesser extent the Old Empires region.

Algarond, Rasheman, Thay, Narfell, very big Conan vibes.

Having recently done a deep dive into the region, there certainly are some stylistic similarities. They are not drastically different.
But I never made any connections between the East and Hyborian Age before. Thay and Stygia I can very much see. That could have been an inspiration.
Narfell and Archeron, maybe... But Narfel was originally so little developed that I'd find that to be a bit of a stretch.

What's there about Rashemen, Aglarond, and Thesk that you think feels Conanesque?

 

[pemerton]

Yet every time we see Conan at a disadvantage in a dark dungeon where swords won't avail him, he leans into his strengths -- chiefly, cunning -- and wins the day.

The approach taken by Conan in The Scarlet Citadel would typically be disastrous in classic D&D.

There will never be a 1:1 relationship between literature and gaming, even when discussing specific and intentional adaptations. At the same time,it is blatantly ridiculous for people to propose that Conan doesn't fit the mold of a D&D PC when he was among the most intentionally applicable sort.

I don't think it's that hard to have a RPG that will produce events that emulate REH Conan. I just don't think classic D&D is that RPG: tropes, yes; but events and theme, no.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Having recently done a deep dive into the region, there certainly are some stylistic similarities. They are not drastically different.
But I never made any connections between the East and Hyborian Age before. Thay and Stygia I can very much see. That could have been an inspiration.
Narfell and Archeron, maybe... But Narfel was originally so little developed that I'd find that to be a bit of a stretch.

What's there about Rashemen, Aglarond, and Thesk that you think feels Conanesque?

It's inspired by, but not a rip off of the setting of Conan, so major differences and other influences exist as well.

Rasheman is the Barbarian Kingdom, Aglarond is the mostly civilized state (especially the human parts), although Canada is an influence on Aglarond in its two solitudes, and of course Thay has major Stygia influences. Mulhorand was supposed to have major Stygia influences too, but that went in a different direction thanks to Desert of Desolation.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Agreed. Gotta shout out to the Kurt Busiek interpretation for Dark Horse Comics, too.

The Busiek Dark Horse Conan run was one of the things that got me back into collecting comics again. Still my highwater mark for modern Conan adaptations.

I was going to second this recommendation. Busiek did a great job expanding Conan's supporting cast, and I agree that he found a relatively deft way to deal with chronology - something that stumped a lot of REH pasticheurs from L. Sprague de Camp to Robert Jordan.

Arguably, a huge part of that difficulty was that REH never intended for Conan to have a proper chronology. Other than a few paragraphs in his letter to P. Schuyler Miller, that's just not how REH wrote these tales. De Camp and Carter were the ones to weld them into a story from Conan's youth to old age.

 

[Parmandur]

I was thinking Elric, Moorcock gave us so much with the kin-slayer. Magic, multiverse, Melniboné, rituals, alignment, elementals, chaos.

I thinknthe model is Elric, Conan, Fahfred, the Grey Mouser, Aragon, Merlin, and Saint Joan of Arc ha ging out and being buds who kick ass.

 

[cbwjm]

The Busiek Dark Horse Conan run was one of the things that got me back into collecting comics again. Still my highwater mark for modern Conan adaptations.



Arguably, a huge part of that difficulty was that REH never intended for Conan to have a proper chronology. Other than a few paragraphs in his letter to P. Schuyler Miller, that's just not how REH wrote these tales. De Camp and Carter were the ones to weld them into a story from Conan's youth to old age.

Something that has come from reading the comics again is that they have excerpts from his letters, he did have a chronology but it wasn't necessarily written down. He likened the stories he wrote and the order he wrote then in as if he were being told the stories, and storytellers didn't necessarily tell their stories in chronological order.

I think the articles at the end of some of the volumes talking about Howard are quite fascinating. They talk about his dislike of police who think they can do anything because they have brass buttons and this feeling shows in Conan's attitude to watchmen who try to accost him in the god in the bowl. I should really watch the documentary on him.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think the articles at the end of some of the volumes talking about Howard are quite fascinating. They talk about his dislike of police who think they can do anything because they have brass buttons and this feeling shows in Conan's attitude to watchmen who try to accost him in the god in the bowl. I should really watch the documentary on him.

The Dark Horse version of the God in the Bowl definitely feels very contemporary, for sure.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I think the articles at the end of some of the volumes talking about Howard are quite fascinating. They talk about his dislike of police who think they can do anything because they have brass buttons and this feeling shows in Conan's attitude to watchmen who try to accost him in the god in the bowl. I should really watch the documentary on him.

REH put a whole lot of his worldview, sometimes good and sometimes bad, into his fiction. I've read Price's One Who Walked Alone, but I need to read more of his letters.

 

[Vikingkingq]

Arguably, a huge part of that difficulty was that REH never intended for Conan to have a proper chronology. Other than a few paragraphs in his letter to P. Schuyler Miller, that's just not how REH wrote these tales. De Camp and Carter were the ones to weld them into a story from Conan's youth to old age.

Yes that's true - the whole idea (later borrowed by authors like George MacDonald Fraser and others) is that the stories were supposed to Conan's old war stories, related to his buddies depending on what memory was sparked by a sudden thought. At the same time, there is a rough arc established by "the Phoenix in the Sword" that gives Conan a beginning, middle, and end that can have infinite numbers of stories inserted into them.

This is why I think it's actually a way better solution to serial storytelling in comics than the self-contradictory model of strict continuity plus sliding timescale/reboots.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Yes that's true - the whole idea (later borrowed by authors like George MacDonald Fraser and others) is that the stories were supposed to Conan's old war stories, related to his buddies depending on what memory was sparked by a sudden thought. At the same time, there is a rough arc established by "the Phoenix in the Sword" that gives Conan a beginning, middle, and end that can have infinite numbers of stories inserted into them.

This is why I think it's actually a way better solution to serial storytelling in comics than the self-contradictory model of strict continuity plus sliding timescale/reboots.

Conan has an arc, absolutely. From youthful barbarian to grizzled king, it's part of what has made the character so compelling (combined with, as you said, having room for any number of tales in between).

I think a lot about comics and continuity. It's a medium that wasn't originally intended to have 50-90 years of continuity in storytelling. When you read golden and silver age comics, while you have recurring villains, you don't have necessarily linear tales other than some multi-issue arcs. There'd be callbacks, individual issues were designed to be able to read without context. Now, good luck trying to jump into reading an X-Men issue cold.