Recent content by Ian Sturrock

Live roleplay, medieval re-enactment, that kinda thing. I do medieval re-enactment in 15th century kit: arming doublet, long mail hauberk with full sleeves, visored sallet helmet, Milanese plate gauntlets, bevoir. I'm building up to a suit of full plate -- picking up my plate leg harness next...

Hey, I'd love to write it, if you can find someone to publish it and sort out the licensing side of things...

I found it fascinating reading -- it's almost essential to get the feel of a good swords and sorcery game. Very well-written, too. It's not specifically Conan-based, but Howard's Conan books, along with Lieber's Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser, are clearly big influences.

Yeah, that's very characteristic of primitive warfare, though in primitive warfare very little melee combat happens anyway; most of it is ritualized, so you get hurled missile weapons from just outside of effective range, and warriors showing off by dodging them... serious injuries are rare...

Yeah, I got the impression from Howard's description that the Zhaibar knife was his analogue to the Khyber knife. I suspect he was influenced, in writing of the Himelian tribes, by the various British writers who documented Britain's experiences fighting ferocious Afghan tribes in the...

It's definitely worth reading Howard if you can get your hands on it -- it's always worth it, whether running a Conan game or not. :) To my mind, the writer who best captured the feeling of a barbaric & gritty Norse setting is Henry Treece. I don't think you could go too far wrong...

I think I already did, didn't I? :) Although Vincent certainly helped.

A morion is your standard Spanish Conquistador style of helm. I was a bit curious about the greatswords on horseback too... but Howard describes the Nemedian Adventurer met by Conan as having a greatsword and a horse. I guess you can go for the high fantasy approach, and assume it's possible to...

I originally intended Corruption to be a serious risk only to the most reprehensible of sorcerers, which is why it tends to only happen when characters either deliberately consort with genuine evil, or are corrupted by some other contact with said evil. Of course, if you want a game with...

Well, the first project just got an announcement on ENworld: http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=79216 Bit of work for Guardians of Order converting Uresia, their excellent fantasy-anime setting, to d20. I have some more projects lined up for them too, but the licensed d20 game I...

Well, I wrote Scrolls of Skelos, but other than that nothing has been arranged as yet -- I suppose it's possible though, and I certainly wouldn't be averse to doing more Conan work. I think a fair bit of the material I originally wrote for the main rulebook has been making its way into Signs &...

Thanks! In terms of games, I also co-wrote Skull & Bones (for Green Ronin), and wrote Armageddon 2089 (for Mongoose). I've done a few other Mongoose books, including a big chunk of the Slaine line, plus Quintessential Ranger, Slayer's Guide to Giants, and Blood Magic. Right now I'm writing...

True to a certain extent. As people have mentioned, though, not all the 'official' pastiche material is consistent with Howard. Personally I'll likely incorporate pastiche material into my own games, but only so far as it doesn't contradict either the letter or spirit of Howard's work; I'll aim...

Yeah, my original Designer's Notes mentioned something about this. The idea was to make all combinations of weapon-and-shield, two weapons, and 2-handed weapons viable at one time or another. Shields are very handy for low level combat types for the extra defence; hence, in the books they tend...

Bear in mind that in D&D as written, characters have a stack of chances to increase ability scores at higher levels -- magic tomes and Wish spells for permanent increases, assorted gizmos that give bonuses while worn, buff spells. None of these are available to Conan characters. Conan himself...