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<blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5967053" data-attributes="member: 54877">Well, undestand that my take is going to be biased by my take on fantasy literature in general--which I know for a fact is not shared by many people today, but that said I have read the complete Howard Conan recently.&nbsp; &nbsp;Crom's gifts to his people are ambiguous, when you start talking game terms--not least of all because it is ambiguous in the story how much of Conan's belief's about Crom's gifts are meant to be taken at face value, versus a statement about Conan himself.&nbsp; That's separate from Conan the character conceived by Howard to get him some ready cash when other stories weren't paying out very well, and he was very much in need of the money. Conan's &quot;destiny&quot; was to pay Howard's expenses. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />&nbsp;But no, Conan very much does not see himself as immortal or invulnerable.&nbsp; Far from it.&nbsp; He's rather fatalistic at times; living in the moment all the time.&nbsp; Crom has given him the gifts of being born a Cimmerian, thus the opportunity to become tough and skilled--to avoid the decandence of civilization in his formative years.&nbsp; Theodoric, the first barbarian to become the Roman Emporer, instead of merely using it for some recreational pillage, might have felt similarly. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"&nbsp; class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing&nbsp; &nbsp; :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" />&nbsp;I think there is more to it on the mental/code of living side, but that's too complicated and ambiguous to delve deep into here. Suffice to say that his background lets Conan will himself to certain things, and daunt others, at crucial moments.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Crazy Jerome, post: 5967053, member: 54877"] Well, undestand that my take is going to be biased by my take on fantasy literature in general--which I know for a fact is not shared by many people today, but that said I have read the complete Howard Conan recently. Crom's gifts to his people are ambiguous, when you start talking game terms--not least of all because it is ambiguous in the story how much of Conan's belief's about Crom's gifts are meant to be taken at face value, versus a statement about Conan himself. That's separate from Conan the character conceived by Howard to get him some ready cash when other stories weren't paying out very well, and he was very much in need of the money. Conan's "destiny" was to pay Howard's expenses. :) But no, Conan very much does not see himself as immortal or invulnerable. Far from it. He's rather fatalistic at times; living in the moment all the time. Crom has given him the gifts of being born a Cimmerian, thus the opportunity to become tough and skilled--to avoid the decandence of civilization in his formative years. Theodoric, the first barbarian to become the Roman Emporer, instead of merely using it for some recreational pillage, might have felt similarly. :lol: I think there is more to it on the mental/code of living side, but that's too complicated and ambiguous to delve deep into here. Suffice to say that his background lets Conan will himself to certain things, and daunt others, at crucial moments. [/QUOTE]

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