Next regional sourcebook: when and what?

[The King]

I think the next regional sourcebook will be on Cimmeria and/or Nordheim. Would it be possible to have any specific info about the countries and the probable date of release ?

[Bjorn the Barbarian]

I'll second the desire for the next source book to be on Nordheim!

[Dpetroc]

I think I'd prefer to see a Brythunia/Border Kingdom book first.

[Trodax]

No, no, no, you guys have it all wrong. Black Kingdoms first, followed by Turan/Hyrkania.
Thus it must be.

[Hervé]

I completly agree with Trodax. Turan is one of the most powerful nation of the hyborian world and information on the Black Kingdoms is way too scarce.
We do need these books. The northern barbarian lands can wait. After all there isn't much to say about them (except maybe for Hyperborea). I tend to think that Cimmeria, Asgard, Vanaheim and even Hyperborea could all be treated in the same book.

[The King]

Just as a reminder: Matt told at the end of last year that the next regional sourcebook would be on the Northern countries. So I guess this schedule is still true.
My question was just to know which countries would be included and when the book shall be expected.

I agree though that Turan/Hyrkania (and Vendhya) should be on the waiting list after that.

[Kyorou]

I'm more interested in Turan/Hyrkania too.

[Seeker]

I would think that the remaining regional sourcebooks should be/ will be combos of countries eg The Northern Lands (combo Cimmeria/Vanirheim/Asgard/Hyperborea), The Middle Kingdoms (Nemedia/Byrthunia/Corinthia/Zamora), The Eastern Lands (Turan/Hyrkania/Khitai/Vendhya)

As someone noted, there is not a lot of information on each of them individually

[Dpetroc]

I would think that the remaining regional sourcebooks should be/ will be combos of countries eg The Northern Lands (combo Cimmeria/Vanirheim/Asgard/Hyperborea), The Middle Kingdoms (Nemedia/Byrthunia/Corinthia/Zamora), The Eastern Lands (Turan/Hyrkania/Khitai/Vendhya)

As someone noted, there is not a lot of information on each of them individually

My only fear with books with too many countries at once is that what we'll get is a text with tons of reprints from RoK and F&F and not enough new material.

[The King]

Besides Vendhya and Khitai are very big countries and could easily have more than 150 pages each.
But I agree on the central (Hyborian) kingdoms that they could be presented in a single 200+ page book.

[Clovenhoof]

I sort of feel reminded of that German RPG "The Dark Eye", which was (is) set on a very small continent (about 3000x1500km). It had a central empire (called the Central Empire) and several kingdoms and other regions around it.
Over the years, the publisher had released detailed sourcebooks on every single region, from the frozen north to the southern rainforests (yes the continent was a bit cramped) -- everything EXCEPT the central empire. Which was a bit... strange. It seemed like they were saving the most important country for last. They ended up not publishing anything at all about that, instead establishing a metaplot that toppled the entire world as we knew it.

[VincentDarlage]

My only fear with books with too many countries at once is that what we'll get is a text with tons of reprints from RoK and F&F and not enough new material.

Oh, I think a writer could come up with plenty of new material. Do you think Aquilonia, Across the Thunder River, or Stygia were largely reprints of ROK?

[Dpetroc]

My only fear with books with too many countries at once is that what we'll get is a text with tons of reprints from RoK and F&F and not enough new material.

Oh, I think a writer could come up with plenty of new material. Do you think Aquilonia, Across the Thunder River, or Stygia were largely reprints of ROK?

No, I don't -- but's that's when Mongoose was producing 200+ page tomes for Conan. YOUR work I'm not in doubt of...

[Trodax]

I sort of feel reminded of that German RPG "The Dark Eye", which was (is) set on a very small continent (about 3000x1500km). It had a central empire (called the Central Empire) and several kingdoms and other regions around it.
Over the years, the publisher had released detailed sourcebooks on every single region, from the frozen north to the southern rainforests (yes the continent was a bit cramped) -- everything EXCEPT the central empire. Which was a bit... strange. It seemed like they were saving the most important country for last. They ended up not publishing anything at all about that, instead establishing a metaplot that toppled the entire world as we knew it.

Yeah, but for me Conan is all about the exotic locations. What makes the Hyborian Age such a cool place to adventure in is not Aquilonia, Nemedia and the other Hyborian kingdoms. It's the dark woodlands of the picts, the ancient sands of Stygia, the savage Black Kingdoms, and the ever encroaching menace posed by the Turanians and Hyrkanians. This is all IMHO of course, but I am definitely more interested in a fleshing out of these locations than more on the central, Hyborian lands.

...a very small continent (about 3000x1500km)...

WTF, that's not much bigger than Sweden!

[VincentDarlage]

Yeah, but for me Conan is all about the exotic locations. What makes the Hyborian Age such a cool place to adventure in is not Aquilonia, Nemedia and the other Hyborian kingdoms. It's the dark woodlands of the picts, the ancient sands of Stygia, the savage Black Kingdoms, and the ever encroaching menace posed by the Turanians and Hyrkanians. This is all IMHO of course, but I am definitely more interested in a fleshing out of these locations than more on the central, Hyborian lands.

I agree. Most of Nemedia, Ophir, etc. would have a society fairly similar to Aquilonia, so that sourcebook can be used for a lot, modified slightly perhaps with information from ROK and the upcoming Return.

[The King]

I sort of feel reminded of that German RPG "The Dark Eye", which was (is) set on a very small continent (about 3000x1500km). It had a central empire (called the Central Empire) and several kingdoms and other regions around it.
Over the years, the publisher had released detailed sourcebooks on every single region, from the frozen north to the southern rainforests (yes the continent was a bit cramped) -- everything EXCEPT the central empire. Which was a bit... strange. It seemed like they were saving the most important country for last. They ended up not publishing anything at all about that, instead establishing a metaplot that toppled the entire world as we knew it.

The German version of the Dark Eye has a boxed set on this central empire which was released years ago (Stolze Schlösser, dunkle Gassen) though I didn't find the time to read it yet, so I can't give any info about the content. Moreover a new book on the subject was recently published for the 4th edition. Truly, I thnk they covered up every region in details.

Anyway there are also many more scenarios in the Dark Eye than in Conan RPG. And the day Mongoose publish maps of the same quality as those found in the dark eye, we will see a great improvement.

[Clovenhoof]

Well, I haven't been up-to-date with TDE since about '98 or so, because I stopped playing it around then, and considering that the whole game/continent is from some time in the eighties, the "Mittelreich" box was lacking for quite a while. Anyway, so they finally published something there, that's fine.

About the continent: 3000km north-south extension, that's about the distance from Norwegian North Cape to Vienna / the Alps. So it's not really big at all. And a I was saying, the north was arctic like Lapland, and in between you had a Viking region, a late-medieval region, a renaissance region (sans firearms), an Arabian region, down to tropical rainforest with aboriginal indians to match.
(They gave some lame explanation about an ice age being responsible for compressing the climate zones so much, so the continent ought to be pretty close to the equator...)

Compared to that, I really prefer a huge Hyborian world where you also get all possible cultures, but at the appropriate distances.

[The King]

Indeed, the dark eye looks much more like a regional setting. That is thus also easier for a great villain to affect the whole continent even if magic in this world is as hard to perform as in Conan's world.