NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="cbwjm" data-source="post: 9406351" data-attributes="member: 6788732">More on Conan, when talking with Belit, the Pirate Queen:“What of your own gods? I have never heard you call on them.”“Their chief is Crom. He dwells on a great mountain. What use to call on him? Little he cares if men live or die. Better to be silent than to call his attention to you; he will send you dooms, not fortune! He is grim and loveless, but at birth he breathes power to strive and slay into a man’s soul. What else shall men ask of the gods?”“But what of the worlds beyond the river of death?” she persisted.“There is no hope here or hereafter in the cult of my people,” answered Conan. “In this world men struggle and suffer vainly, finding pleasure only in the bright madness of battle; dying, their souls enter a gray misty realm of clouds and icy winds, to wander cheerlessly throughout eternity.”Belit shuddered. “Life, bad as it is, is better than such a destiny. What do you believe, Conan?”He shrugged his shoulders. “I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom’s realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimer’s Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.”It's interesting, and Howard confirmed this, there are more in Cimmerian pantheon than just Crom. Equally interesting, Conan will swear by the name of any god, I didn't note it here but in the paragraph before this one he mentions how he learned of the Bel, god of thieves from his time as a thief. Imagine having belief in gods and when asked if you pray to your gods your response "Are you crazy? I don't want to call doom down upon me."</blockquote>

Verification