CONAN a VIKING?

Mikeydanuke

Mongoose
I have been talking to a friend about doing another RPG. He's very Viking orientated, and I'm sure that there are D&D rules that could be esily adapted to a D&D Viking RPG Campaign, but I couldn't help noticing the rules for CONAN have been published, and even through I don't have a copy of them, it seems to me that Vikings and Conan's would go together fine.

So. a question for anyone that has played the Conan rules: Do you think they could be easily transferred to a Historic/mythical/fantasy northern european setting?

(from reading the write up about the Conan rules, it seems they do allow for thieves, magic, and hacking-and-slashing....so I assume they are pretty standard rules, just adapted for a by-gone era...))

........and since it's the day before Halloween:

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MDN
 
You should have posted this thread is the Conan forum where you might receive more answers. :wink:

IMO Conan is no viking. Nordheim (the 2 nations above Cimmeria) are Viking-like but Conan is harder to define because the land has no sea and Cimmerians are mountainers.
His name is Celtic and to find an equivalent on earth I would say his people are mountainers and the region is more like Switzerland (the Swiss repelled all invasions since they exist).
 
Mikeydanuke said:
So. a question for anyone that has played the Conan rules: Do you think they could be easily transferred to a Historic/mythical/fantasy northern european setting?

IMHO the Conan RPG rules would work well for a mythical Viking era game.

The rules are based on D20 but adapted to a world where magic is less common and death more likely. Many of the standard races would translate into a Viking campaign, most equipment and some monsters.

--
Lane
 
The King said:
You should have posted this thread is the Conan forum where you might receive more answers. :wink:

IMO Conan is no viking. Nordheim (the 2 nations above Cimmeria) are Viking-like but Conan is harder to define because the land has no sea and Cimmerians are mountainers.
His name is Celtic and to find an equivalent on earth I would say his people are mountainers and the region is more like Switzerland (the Swiss repelled all invasions since they exist).

Now if you've got the papervback reprints of the Conan stories they've all got the map of Hyperborea (the Conan world) in the front superimposed over a map of our current world (because Hyperborea is supposed to be an ancient age of our own earth).

Going by that Cimmeria is somewhere in the british channel between holland and the east midlands of Britain whilst Aquillonia is in France and all sorts of other countries suddenly start to fall into place.

So. a question for anyone that has played the Conan rules: Do you think they could be easily transferred to a Historic/mythical/fantasy northern european setting?

I'm not sure about the rules as given but a lot of the Conan stories translate very well into a historical setting especialy since the magic of the Conan tales is generaly mind affecting or poisons, drugs etc and not so much actual spells. There are, of course exeptions when big transformational magic takes place but that's usualy walking stattues which could be explained as mechanical.

Nordheim (the 2 nations above Cimmeria) are Viking-like but Conan is harder to define because the land has no sea and Cimmerians are mountainers.

The country that shares an east/west border with Nordhiem is also a Viking country (I believe Howard even blatantly called them the Aesir and the Vanir incase anyone didn't get the point :p).
 
In fact Nordheim include the Vanir and Aesir nations. They share the same pantheons and approximately the same culture. Only difference is that one is red-haired folk while the other is blond-haired. They are aso fierce ennemy to each other.
 
Mikeydanuke said:
So. a question for anyone that has played the Conan rules: Do you think they could be easily transferred to a Historic/mythical/fantasy northern european setting?
I notice I oversaw your question and my answer was a little off-topic (but that's my speciality :wink: ).
To answer directly I would say there are better Mongoose games to play in such a setting as you want:
- Slaine D20 is about Celtic myth (and included some Vikings - even in some "Signs & portents" issues) and the magic system is the base which was taken for Conan's.
- OGL ancients is about Greek and Egyptian myths (with some info on the Middle-east).

Considering however that Howard used indirecly many references to semi-historical settings (all nations he created more or less truly existed - Kush, Turan, etc. - or were quite inspired from earth mythology), you can use some Conan material
 
To answer directly I would say there are better Mongoose games to play in such a setting as you want:
- Slaine D20 is about Celtic myth (and included some Vikings - even in some "Signs & portents" issues) and the magic system is the base which was taken for Conan's.

Oaky, I went back and read the Mongoose section about Slaine, and it looks interesting also. I guess I naturally pictured any rulebook dealing with big, heavily muscled, axe wielding fighters as being appropriate for any campaign dealing with big heavily muscled axe weilding fighters, and the only one I readily identified with that was Conan. Slaine looks worth taking a look at too, maybe I can convince my firend to buy Conan or Slaine and I'll buy the other one. In the meantime, thanks for everyone's help and observations.

MDN
 
The good point Slaine is that there is a campaign in 4 books (the horned god) for characters of levels 1 to 8.
Slaine is quite based on fighters (some can even use earth power from the goddess) but there is some druids too.
Much of the celtic myth is included with the formorians sea-devils.
 
buy slaine 8) any game were you go into battle naked and spend heaps of time insulting friend and foe has got to be worth a try :wink: :lol:
 
toothill man said:
buy slaine 8) any game were you go into battle naked and spend heaps of time insulting friend and foe has got to be worth a try :wink: :lol:

Oh I don't know, there's some quite nasty insults in the Norse and Icelandic Saga's, for instance, Njall is incapable of growing a beard. Enemies of his family spy his sons down in a field guarding a herd of animals and taunt them, claiming that these boys, fearing that they be as unsuitable for manhood as their father, daub their chins with the excrement of the animals so as to cover their beardless jaws and look like men. It actualy comes out in a little rhyming ditty which translates roughly as:

The Sons of Njall
on manhood bent
and fearing less they be unfit
bedaub their chins with excrement
and that is why they reek of s**t


There's also others such as Egil's saga when the hoast asks Egil what he thinks of the feat and Egil walks over, pulls him close and vomits all over him.

There are some less extreme insults in the Icelandic and Norse saga's but insulting the foe is certainly not exclusive to the celtic culture. Mind you, Mongoose haven't done a Nrse setting yet (well, there was a two book thing, was that by Mongoose? My local players never really got into it but I was ready to roll).
 
..............(Sorry to take so long to get a reply back, computers been in the shop, and looks like I'm going to have to take it back again).........

Okay, I will admit up front that I am more familiar with Conan (as a General Background) that I am with Slaine. From what I remember of the old Marvel Comics (and some of Howards stories), Conan was big muscled, usually went around nearly naked*, and slew hordes of enemies. IF my friend and I do ever get this Viking game going, I would tentatively set it in a "Viking" era ~ 800 - 900 AD. When Chaimail would be considered the height of protective fashion, and most cannon-fodder would be lucky to wear leather armor.

So, from what little investigation I had done, and meagre knowledge acquired, I thought that the Conan rules might be easily adapted for my/our purposes.

I am not sure, personnally, if I would really want to charge into a horde of enemies nearly naked and screaming insults. I spent a few years in the SCA, and I like the idea of wearing armor when charging into a shieldwall.**

Toodles

MDN





* or at least usually lightly armored comapred to the plate armored knights of the 15th/16th centuries.

** which, being 6'6" 's, and weighing ~275, I was actually pretty good at.
 
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