Brom's Cover Art For Modiphius' Upcoming CONAN RPG

Voted the 4th most anticipated roleplaying game of 2016, Modiphius' Robert E Howard’s CONAN Roleplaying game - Adventures In An Age Undreamed Of is based on the company's own 2d20 system. Brom is a name you may recognise from Dark Sun and other D&D settings, as well as the covers of novels from the likes of Moorcock. He's a pretty big deal in the world of fantasy art. Apparently, Modiphius had trouble getting Brom for this cover - he was unavailable when they first approached him, but circumstances have brought his schedule in line with the game's 2016 release date, and so we now have a cover to ogle at!

 

[BrockBallingdark]

Perfect!! I am ready for this KS to launch!

 

[moldyderp]

It's Conan people. CONAN! And not "Conan the Barbarian from the world of Hyboria and his buxom partner Red Sonja", but (supposedly) Howard's Conan, which is a rare appearance indeed in the deluge of crappy Conan products we get each year. This is as iconic as it gets in the world of fantasy. To have a game system that does its best to pay homage to the original stories is a huge treat. Anyone who didn't vote for this to be their most anticipated RPG of the year needs to have their meds checked!

(Ok, maybe that's the fanboy in me talking).

 

[marroon69]

Nice!!! I have been involved in the play test and it is looking good.

 

[Weird Dave]

Damn that's a nice looking piece of art!

Did the Conan property enter public domain recently or is the Howard estate (or whomever holds the copyright) just getting that the property might hold value to gamers? Conan adventure board game from Monolith, Conan: Rise of Monsters from Pulposaurus Entertainment (now working with Reaper), this Conan RPG from Modiphius. 2016 is shaping up to be the year of the shirtless barbarian!

 

[gribble]

Good question. Seems the status is ambiguous: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_the_Barbarian#Copyright_and_trademark_dispute

Though in the UK at least, it's been public domain since 2006 apparently.

 

[JeffB]

Ive been tuned out of the playtest for awhile, because the system hasn't floated my boat , but this sure is a helluva lot better than the cover they had posted previously. Nice.

 

[mrm1138]

Did the Conan property enter public domain recently or is the Howard estate (or whomever holds the copyright) just getting that the property might hold value to gamers?

According to the Modiphius site, the game is officially licensed through Paradox Entertainment's subsidiary Conan Properties International. Paradox's claim to ownership seems a bit dubious, but I don't know if anyone is really challenging them on it.

 

[Desh-Rae-Halra]

Maybe its just the angle Conan is at, but his body/head proportions look off to me.
Comparing lengths, it looks like Conan's chin is longer than his bicep.....

 

[Morlock]

Where has Brom been since the TSR days? I'd like to see a lot more like him, and a lot less like Wayne (sorry Wayne, you're probably a great guy, your art's just not my thing), in my art.

That said, Conan's head is way too big there, Brom. He's not 5'1''.

Good to hear they're trying to make an RPG true to Howard's writing. I'll believe it when I see it.

ETA: also, I wouldn't have overlapped the critter-part that Conan's got with the title logo. Creates something at least bordering on what we called a "tangent" in art school. Imagine a foreground character holding a cup, but it accidentally looks like the cup is sitting on a background character's head, even though the background character is supposed to be 30' away or something, leading the viewer's mind to fight with the image of the background character as a really, really small foreground character - that's basically a "tangent." It's not a bad one, but, I dunno. Plus it obscures the logo. On the other hand, it does serve good design in leading the eye from the focal area of the art, up to and along the logo.

Yeah on second thought it's not technically a tangent, it just causes the same problem that tangents do.