HYRKANIA CITY STATES AND POCKET KINGDOMS The Queen Sonja comic series, by Dynamite, fills in some of the details of the lands east of the Vilayet. We know, from the early Marvel comics (and Red Sonja's introduction in those same comics) that one of the City States that lays on the east bank of the ...

SARBOTH NECTAR When prepared, it is a deadly liquid poison. 8-10 ounces, swallowed, will kill a man quickly. Should there be a save? That's up to the GM. The Sarboth plant is only found in Kell, which is a province of the Emorian Empire. That lies east of the Vilayet in what is known in the west as...

SHEMMISH ROOT A root and powerful hallucinogen. Half a root will satisfy an entire room of noblemen. In large amounts, the root can have supernatural qualities. When prepared, Shemmish Root is used for sacrificial rites. The source of this is the Dynamite Queen Sonja comic, volume 3, Coming of Age ...

ISSUE #73: WELL OF SKELOS I've made it to this issue in the original Marvel run. Fantastic story. In it, Conan, Belit, and her Black Corsairs find the Well of Skelos, and from its dark depths comes a monstrous thing from hell--a very Lovecraftian (also reminds me of a Moorecockian) demon that resem...

Spell Idea: From The Shadows It's not exactly clear how this spells works. From the climax of Conan The Invincible, it says... "It is his soul!" a voice boomed, seeming to come from every direction. Among the shadows along the columns on the far side of the chamber, one shadow suddenly split, folde...

Spell Idea: From Vengeance in Asgalun Here's another spell that you can develop for your game. It's from issue #72 of the original Marvel Conan The Barbarian comic series (I read it in The Chronicles of Conan Volume 10). A Stygian named Ptor-Nubis casts this spell on Belit. He is a sorcerer of the ...

The Port of Asgalun Asgalun is usually considered to be Shem's largest port. Some argue that it is the only port of any size in all of Shem. Imagine my surprise when reading the old Marvel Comics series from the 1970's called Conan The Barbarian, I saw, in issue #72 - Vengeance in Asgalan , that th...

Spell Idea: From Conan The Invincible Conan The Invincible is one of my favorite non-Howard Conan yarns. The sorcerer Amanar is the big bad guy in that novel. At the end of the book, we see him cast a spell.... Instead of answering, the cold-eyed man traced a figure in the air, and the figure seeme...

Spell Idea: From Conan The Invincible Conan The Invincible is one of my favorite non-Howard Conan yarns. The sorcerer Amanar is the big bad guy in that novel. At the end of the book, we see him cast a spell.... Instead of answering, the cold-eyed man traced a figure in the air, and the figure seeme...

More Red Sonja and Sorcery A few more random notes... Sometimes, it is unclear whether the gods are real in the Hyborian Age. In Black Colossus , Conan speaks with a god, but it can be debated if that were really a god. At the beginning of Red Sonja , the red haired warrior woman is given the power...

Red Sonja and Sorcery Just a few random notes.... The Children of the Night spell, from the core rulebook, was taken from a Howard story, Hour of the Dragon. In the comic, Red Sonja/Claw: The Devil's Hands , there is a similar version of the spell where a real raven, not a conjured one, spies from ...

Spell Idea: GEAS This spell is actually named in the novel, Conan The Invincible. The geas spell compels a captive to tell the sorcerer if the captive sees or speaks to Conan. I'm sure that the sorcerer can use the spell for different instructions. Amanar, the sorcerer, said that the captive was cr...

Spell IDEA: SPELLCAUGHT In Robert Jordan's excellent Conan book, Conan The Invincible, the sorcerer Amanar uses a spell on his slaves to keep them from escaping. Velita, the dancing girl, explains to Conan that she cannot escape with Conan because of the spell. She says that she had tried to escape...