Armour, Weapons tech/aesthetics in Conan

[Caz]

Here's something I've been wondering about for a while.

In the REH Conan books, he describes the weapons and armours (though vaguely) as basically historical medieval/renaissance, with steel helmets, shirts of mail, even full plate armours, swords, greatswords, shields, longbows and pikes. The evidence asserts that he viewed them as such.

Hyborian nations use knights in full plate armour with stirrups and lances, while Stygians still use bronze weapons and chariots, accoriding to some game books.

In most Conan games, artwork, etc. the armour runs the gamut from classical-esque to fantasy, to medieval, as do the swords, even having bronze weapons and armours in use at the same time by competing nations. Most depictions of armours nun along the lines of classical-esque.

All this kind of takes away some consistency and suspension of disbelief when the arms race of competing, neighboring nations is completely ignored.
It also forces the prudent GM to basically pick rough general technology levels for consistency within his game. Different nations, severely geographically seperated in the Hyborian age have more excuse for disparate tech level than they did in recorded history (such as the stone age picts by the near renaissance aquilonians, due to great rivers, dense wilderness, and lack of expansion).

Aesthetics are another issue. So, where REH says Conan was wearing full plate armour, but he doesn't actually describe any effective details, you could visualise it as either straight forward medieval/ren. full plate armour, or you could visualise it as very well covering, non-articulated classicalesque style armour, sort of.

Some game systems don't bring up any need for deciding these things. In OGL, for example, real coverage, design, aesthetics have no mechanical effect for the most part. A certain generalised piece, whether it covers a certain spot or not, or any of a myriad designs of steel cap will command the same modifier.

So, what I'm really getting at is; how do you guys picture these weapon and armour aesthetics and tech level in Conan's world? Like REH probably did? Like popular culture now does? Have your gaming groups discussed or decided on where it will stand in your game?

 

[VincentDarlage]

Here's something I've been wondering about for a while.

So, where REH says Conan was wearing full plate armour, but he doesn't actually describe any effective details, you could visualise it as either straight forward medieval/ren. full plate armour, or you could visualise it as very well covering, non-articulated classicalesque style armour, sort of.

He was very specific at times. In Hour of the Dragon, Valannus is described with a mail shirt, burganet, and leg-pieces; Conan's armor is described as black plate-mail, with a vizored salade. In Black Colossus, he is described in a gorget, sollerets, cuirass, pauldrons, jambes, cuisses, and sallet. Scale mail and Ring Mail are described in Queen of the Black Coast. A bronze helmet and a basinet are described in Hour of the Dragon. Pool of the Black One mentions a morion. Black Colossus describes the bronze helmets and the "sea of bronze" seen when viewing the Stygian army.

 

[Caz]

Thanks. I'd say that's pretty vague, for the most part (with exceptions). Very generic terms that could cover a wide range of equipments. REH himself was also rather inconsistent, sometimes in once sentence saying (can't quote from memory, might've been in hour of dragon) a man was wearing a morion, and then saying it was a sallet or barbute or something, so that can throw you off a bit.

Also, those terms are kind of specific to us now, but in the old days they were often synonimous with helmet.

Another thing is, that it's rather silly to say Conan's sallet happened to be the same as a fifteenth century AD sallet. There had, at least, to be stylistic varyations for a sallet 12,000 years older. REH, with what little description he gives of these equipments, says next to nothing of stylistic varyation, etc.

 

[Clovenhoof]

All this kind of takes away some consistency and suspension of disbelief when the arms race of competing, neighboring nations is completely ignored.
It also forces the prudent GM to basically pick rough general technology levels for consistency within his game. Different nations, severely geographically seperated in the Hyborian age have more excuse for disparate tech level than they did in recorded history (such as the stone age picts by the near renaissance aquilonians, due to great rivers, dense wilderness, and lack of expansion).

That's a very interesting topic (for me), as exactly this was the main reason why I set our Conan campaign to a modified ("homebrew") campaign world. This habit of mixing every conceivable historical period and technology (which in English is called "kitchen sink scenario" and in German "Fäntelalter", a blend of "fantasy" and the word for "middle ages"), is something I have always frowned upon. Suspension of disbelief is one of the points.

So essentially I streamlined techlevels and narrowed down the selection considerably. The low end would be comparable to the Classical Greek period, and the _very_ high end the european migration period / Late Antiquity (i.e. until about 6th century), but gear of that quality would be very scarce. The main focus is definitely on the pre-christian era, like Rome before the Marianic reforms.

To come to a consistent picture, I made the following decisions:
- while iron is available in most parts of the world, only few smiths have the resources and knowledge to _make_ high-quality steel.
- even fewer have the knowledge to forge it into long blades.
- craftsman also aren't able to make large metal plates.

This has the following consequences:
- no crossbows. They simply don't fit in Sword and Sorcery imho.
- no Plate Armour. These came a lot later.
- the best body armour available, but very regionally limited, would be comparable to an Imperial Roman segmented armour ("lorica segmentata").
- "Real" steel breastplates can only be found as relics of previous civilizations.
- the most common weapons are those that are cheap in the Conan lists: spears and axes.
- swords in general are scarce, but the short sword is somewhat readily available
- broadswords, arming swords and war swords are _extremely_ rare and _very_ expensive.
- while I didn't have to decide yet, I have half a mind to ban Greatswords, too.

As for how I depict existing equipment:
- shortswords usually like celtic or roman types,
- Broadswords are more or less like migration-era Germanic Spathae; Warswords being a bit longer and heavier,
- most metal armour encountered is either chainmail or Scale, the latter similar to Sarmatian/Eastern scale armour types
- helmets are an important status symbol, so wealthy persons / bigjobs will have more ornate, decorated headgears than the average warrior.
- for similar reasons, wolfskins such as historically worn by roman Velarii (with head and fur) and similar animal hides are very popular.

So much for now, let me know if you have additional questions. ^^

 

[Caz]

Do you include classical armour, such as the bronze cuirasses and greaves of the greeks?

 

[Clovenhoof]

Yes, although in most regions it's more or less ceremonial, i.e. it is inferior to iron armour, but it may still be used in battle by people who are more worried about status and appearance than actual protection.
Some regions may still use bronze as standard armour, though.

(So far our campaign is taking place mostly in the steppes and plains, and the armours typically encountered there are leather or scale and I haven't had to worry about other types yet.)