Hybori:---a tribe of unknown origin led into the Far North at the time of the Cataclysm by a legendary chief, Bori. Displacing the indigenous white apes of the region, they prospered in this unlikely environment. At first, the Hybori were nomads dwelling in horsehide tents. Then some unchronicled genius discovered how to dress stone, and the Hybori built mighty keeps surrounded by curtain walls. Since the keeps would have been useful for defense but damp, cold, and uncomfortable for everyday life, the bailey area probably contained residential buildings, stables, storehouses, and the like. Peasants, traders, and others dependent upon the protection of the castle probably lived in huts clustered outside the walls. Some 1500 years after Bori's time, the Hybori had achieved a fairly high culture. They were a sturdy people with tawny hair and gray eyes. As their population increased, they conquered and absorbed weaker tribes and eventually established the first Hyborian kingdom--Hyperborea the Elder. (At some later date this was destroyed by an invasion of the Æsir.) Hyborian tribes who resisted the lords of Hyperborea the Elder began a great southward movement that continued over hundreds of years. The horde probably migrated through the easy Skull Gate Pass. They encountered Picts scattered throughout the Border Kingdom lands and drove them westward. Then the Hyborians had a choice of marching eastward around the Great Salt Marsh into future Brythunia, or westward into Nemedia--which was then part of the empire of Acheron. We have presumed the latter for the main body of invaders, since scouts would have reported the tempting riches of the southern empire. Brythunia, a virtual wilderness, would keep until later. It is possible the decadent and unsuspecting cities of Acheronian Nemedia fell like sitting ducks before the barbarians, especially if--as we have presumed--the overextended army of Acheron was engaged in pacifying lands newly wrested from Old Stygia far to the south. We believe that both geography and known Hyborian history point to Nemedia as the first of the southern Hyborian kingdoms. Nemedia's wealth and its protected position relative to Acheronian Aquilonia would have permitted it to prosper as the western regions of the older realm decayed. A Hyborian power base in Nemedia would have been quite resistant to Acheronian thrusts. (Note that Nemedia was the only Hyborian kingdom not destroyed in the turbulent era following the Age of Conan.) According to the Saga, at least 2500 years were to pass before the Hyborians were secure in both Nemedia and Aquilonia. Cimmeria was too tough a nut to crack and so it was bypassed. Pictland was similarly given a miss. The conquest of the later Hyborian kingdoms to the south must have proceeded with deliberation as the Hyborian population continued to grow. Argos would have fallen easily, as would western Koth. Mountain-girt Ophir and Corinthia would have been more difficult to subdue. (The latter three had been briefly independent after the withdrawal of Acheronian forces.) The beleaguered army of Old Stygia probably stopped the Hyborian movement near the Koth-Shem frontier. In the centuries that followed, Shem grew from a no-man's-land nominally subject to Koth into a kingdom whose people combined Shemite and Hyborian genes. Border Kingdom barons, suffered to exist because it tended to discourage military adventures on the part of the new Hyperboreans into Nemedia. By Conan's time, the original tribe of the Hybori was thoroughly merged with other races. The purest strain of the original stock was to be found only in remote Gunderland.