[CONAN] GM's Closet

[Supplement Four]

-- PIRATE ISLES --



Pirate Isles is one of the official Mongoose Conan RPG supplements. It's a fantastic book, bringing the feel of the salty sea to a Conan game.

What's in it?

1. A discussion of Pirate Cultures: Barachan Pirates, Argosseans, Black Corsairs, Red Brotherhood, and Zingaran Freebooters.

2. Everything you will ever need for implementing, or avoiding, Mutinies in a game.

3. Positions aboard a ship and how they differ among the dominate pirate cultures.

4. System for quick settlements and ports for sacking and raiding.

5. Notes on ports and pirates.

6. Description of cargoes.

7. Rules for implementing Fences and Merchant Sailors.

8. Travel Systems: Chart showing distance in miles at sea. Chart showing distance in days at sea. A Fast Travel system. A Narrative Travel system.

9. Chapter on Pirate Feats.

10. System for creating new ships and adding options to existing vessels.

11. Combat System for ships at sea that focuses on PC skills.

12. Boarding Actions. Mass Combat system. Narrative Combat system.

13. New Combat Maneuvers for Pirates.

14. Chapter of NPCs from Howard's sea-based stories. Amra and Belit from Queen of the Black Coast. Aratus, Olivia, and Sergius from Iron Shadows of the Moon. Black Zarono, Strom, and Valenso from The Black Stranger. Publio from The Hour of the Dragon.

15. Sample NPC Merchant/Pirate Captains and crew, along with other types of characters (like a dock watchman) for quick insertion in a game.

16. A chapter on new beasts and monsters.

17. A chapter on sea-focused sorcery. Includes alchemical and magic items as well as new spells.

18. A chapter on adventure seeds and scenario ideas.

19. Ship charters. Plus a liberal sprinkling of pirate superstitions and customs spread throughout the book.

20. The last chapter focuses on creating pirate covers and havens--safe ports for pirates.

 

[Supplement Four]

I thought Jason Momoa was a pretty good Conan, but if we ever get another Conan film--except for the one supposedly in the works with Arnie returning the role as King Conan--I think Zach McGowan would be an excellent choice. Deep, husky voice. Muscular build, but walk like a panther (as described in the books). He's not too bulky (trying to fit Howard's description not popular culture's expectation of the mighty barbarian). And, unlike Momoa, McGowan has blue eyes.

McGowan plays Captain Charles Vane (an actual historical pirate) on the Starz series Black Sails.

I present to you....Conan, the Barbarian.

 

[The King]

Pirate Isles is one of the official Mongoose Conan RPG supplements. It's a fantastic book, bringing the feel of the salty sea to a Conan game.

I can only agree with you, Pirate Isles is one of the best sourcebook for Conan, on par with his military pendant (The Free Companies).

 

[Supplement Four]

 

[Supplement Four]

PLAYER'S GUIDE TO THE WORLD OF XOTH



There are very few Sword & Sorcery game worlds out there, and it's not always easy to covert an adventure meant for a D&D or Pathfinder game world for use with the Conan Roleplaying game.

Thulsa's The World of Xoth is a game world from which you can steal things for your Conan game. It is a human-only, Sword & Sorcery game universe, and it is based on the Pathfinder RPG (which is a fairly easy conversion to the Conan RPG).

Thulsa provides some pretty cool freebies on his web site, this being one of them: PLAYER'S GUIDE TO THE WORLD OF XOTH.

Just flipping through that Player's Guide will give you a good impression that this, indeed, is stuff that you can easily translate into your Conan campaign.



I'm mentioned them before, but Thulsa has produced several adventure modules that are also very easily transplanted to the Hyborian Age. CLICK HERE TO SEE THE ADVENTURES OF XOTH.

They're all fine S&S adventures, but most notable is the first one, XP1 - THE SPIDER-GOD'S BRIDE AND OTHER TALES OF SWORD AND SORCERY. Originally written for Pathfinder, the adventure has also been published as an adventure for Mongoose's Legend RPG. If you check the free supporting materials for this set of adventures, you will see a conversion booklet for the Conan RPG.

I highly recommend all of Thulsa's adventures, by the way.

 

[Supplement Four]

CLICK HERE TO BE TAKEN TO THE WORLD OF XOTH BLOG.

CLICK HERE TO BE TAKEN TO THULSA'S HYBORIAN AGE WEB SITE.

CLICK HERE TO SEE A LARGE MAP OF THE WORLD OF XOTH.

 

[The King]

There are very few Sword & Sorcery game worlds out there, and it's not always easy to covert an adventure meant for a D&D or Pathfinder game world for use with the Conan Roleplaying game.

Did you never hear about Beasts & Barbarians? It's pure Sword & Sorcery. The system plays with Savage Worlds rules and offers loads of scenarios.

There is also Primeval Thule which is inspired by the tales of Robert E. Howard (Conan), H.P. Lovecraft (Cthulhu), and Clark Ashton Smith and can be played with several systems: DD4, DD5, Pathfinder and 13t Age.

And there is also Barbarians of Lemuria which is quite simple a system but is deprived of adventures (you'll have to create them).

And soon the Conan game by Modiphius (which you don't like).

But if you take a look at the Legend system, you'll see you can play very easily in a Sword & Sorcery setting as well.

 

[Sigulf]

I am currently running a Conan game for my wife and I, using the Barbarians of Lemuria rules.
We are in the process of running several of Thulsa's World of Xoth adventures, converting them to BoL.

We have run the Necromancer's Knife and are in the middle of The Spider God's Wife. After that one we will move onto the Jewel of Khadim Bey.

Barbarians of Lemuria is our go to game nowadays, having replaced the Mongoose d20 Conan and D&D 3.5 as are previous rule sets.
BoL is just sooooo easy to adapt different adventures too, specially Sword and Sorcery adventures.

(We even ran a Lankhmar campaign with the BoL rules; adapting Savage Worlds and D&D adventures for it.)

 

[Supplement Four]

Simple is good. I like simple.

But, for Conan, I love the total feel that Mongoose put into the game. It actually feels like the Hyborian Age. The combat maneuvers, especially, are fantastic and something that hasn't been modeled as well in other games.

Combat in Mongoose Conan is so engaging and interesting--with all the options. It's not unusual to have a guy shove a table, pinning a foe to the back wall, then jumping up on the table and kicking the foe in the face. That happened in one of my games. A man with a blade is having a hard time putting some hurt onto a foe where thick armor. So, he drops his blade, pulls his dagger, screams, and grapples the guy, putting his dagger to his foe's throat.

Swords get locked, and combatants become embroiled in a test of strength, pushing each other back.

A weapon can be broken off.

All of it is so very Conan. I wouldn't like to lose this and go back to a game where combat is just you attack, I attack. You attack, I attack.

 

[The King]

There are hit locations in the former RuneQuest (now Legend) system, so you can easily chop off an arm, or a head if you do enough damages. The armour also takes this hit location into account, which means that a bronze plate will only protect your chest and abdomen, leaving you arms and legs without protection unless you add some specific armours pieces.
Legend also includes many combat manoeuvres which are easier to implement than in the Conan D20 rules.
In fact it is hard to find a grittier system than Legend.

 

[Supplement Four]

Yeah, I dig Legend.

But, it's not just the grittiness. The combat maneuvers in Mongoose's Conan are awesome because they work like feats for combat. You have to qualify for them, and not every fighter has access to each maneuver.

So, in Mongoose Conan, a character can truly specialize with a type of weapon.

And, once you combine all the neat combat rules, the combat maneuvers, and he character's Feats, it's a pretty dynamic combat system unmatched in any other game.

Example of a combat rule: If your attack exactly equals your opponent's Parry AC (not his Dodge), then you are given a free Sunder attack on his weapon, and if that weapon survives, the two of you are considered to have locked blades, pushing and shoving each other back.

Example of a combat maneuver: If your attack is less than half your opponent's Parry AC (not his Dodge), and your opponent qualifies for the maneuver, then your opponent is given a free attack on you in reposte. This is a hidden benefit of the Soldier class in that the class can use it several levels before any other class.

Example of a weapon specializing Feat: If specializing in a spear, there are several Feats that you can use to make you a true expert in using that weapon. For example, Improved Trip is a great Feat to get with a long pole weapon such as a spear, allowing you to specialize in knocking your opponent to the ground, getting the bonuses for having your foe prone, and then finishing him off.

 

[The King]

True, the D20 has lots of feats which add to the ambiance but I generally dislike the constant cumbersome calculation of bonus and malus. Moreover I don't like levels and classes which limit the development of player characters and the multi-class rules are not so streamlined. But I can understand your enthusiasm. If you want to play written (commercial) adventures, then you'll have to use the Vincent's conversion guide and/or ask Thulsa to create more adventures or convert them from former D&D modules.

In my listing above, I forgot to mention the lamentations of the flame princess which is a D&D quasi-clone. Simpler than the d20 but also more limited in scope. If I had to play with a simpler system I'd use Barbarians of Lemuria.

By the way, Sigulf, you're quite lucky to play with your wife.

 

[Supplement Four]

True, the D20 has lots of feats which add to the ambiance but I generally dislike the constant cumbersome calculation of bonus and malus. Moreover I don't like levels and classes which limit the development of player characters and the multi-class rules are not so streamlined. But I can understand your enthusiasm. If you want to play written (commercial) adventures, then you'll have to use the Vincent's conversion guide and/or ask Thulsa to create more adventures or convert them from former D&D modules.

I now Conan's world well enough to convert on my own. I even have some notes about it earlier in this thread. But, I'd welcome looking at Vincent's conversion guide--where is that? You're talking about a guide to covert D&D 3.0/3.5 to Mongoose Conan, right?



And, there are some good adventures out there that are easier to convert than others. The AD&D Al Qadim stuff is actually a pretty good source for converting. So are the four Slaine modules put out by Mongoose (they're good for a Vinair, Aesir, or Cimmerian adventure).

You've got the four or five adventures from Thulsa (and that first one, the Spider God's Bride, has 10 adventures in it).

And, there's several adventures written for Mongoose Conan. There's the adventures that Mongoose put out. There's some in Signs & Portents. There's a couple others on the net and in magazines. Plus, the Hyborian Adventures book.

I've found some Pathfinder adventure paths that make for decent conversion.

I like to stay with low level 3.0 or 3.5 d20 stuff, but other low level adventures are easy--say those from AD&D. I've converted parts of Keep on the Borderlands for my current game set on the border or Argos.

Plus, there's some new, human-only game settings that are rich for conversion. Lankhmar works great, for city adventures. Beasts & Barbarains has some adventures that would be easy to convert. Even games like Primeval Thule, which does have demi-humans, has adventures that can be easily converted to Conan.

So, there's stuff out there if a GM searches for it. Anythig that has to do with Vikings or Celts is usually a good bet for conversion.

Hell, even the new Conan RPG by Modiphius, with that horrible 2d20 system, has adventures where the story can be taken and the rules replaced with d20 Conan.



One of the biggest reservoirs of adventures for d20 Conan are the comics! Chronicles of Conan, Savage Sword of Conan, Red Sonja, Kull, even Dark Horse's ongoing Conan line (Conan The Slayer, right now) is an excellent source for adventure ideas for a GM's Conan game. With these, all you have to do is re-created with the game rules (characters and places) the things you see in the story. You can see the armor they're wearing, the weapons they use. It's not hard at all to create a Conan scenario from most of the Conan comics out there.

And then, there's all those TOR novels from the 80's, plus the short story collections by L. Sprague de Camp.

There's plenty of Conan to keep a good d20 Conan game going for a long, long time.

 

[The King]

No, I was talking about converting d20 Conan into 2d20 but this shouldn't be difficult to do the reverse.

I know about the ADD/pathfinder adventures and opened a thread about it. As to the comics, there an excellent source of inspiration for sure, but there is always the risks that at least one of your players has read them as well.

 

[Sigulf]

By the way, Sigulf, you're quite lucky to play with your wife.

Yes, I am indeed.
In addition to the Thulsa Conan adventures, we have adapted other adventures for BoL. It is by far the easiest system that I have ever used to adapt adventures for.
I converted the Mongoose Conan adventures; The God in the Bowl, The Lurking Tower of Nahab, Vengeance of the Golden Skull (from the Messantia book), and Wine of the Gods (S&P adventure) for BoL. All of course with some modifications...

I have also come up with some "Combat Options" to spice up the fights. Between the combat options and the use of Hero Points, battles are a little more in depth.

I really like the Mongoose d20 Conan RPG - my favorite 3.0/3.5 version; but with time being what it is and trying to make things enjoyable and easy... BoL gets the nod.

 

[Supplement Four]

 

[Supplement Four]

EXCELLENT PIC OF HYBORIAN AGE CULT


CLICK HERE.

 

[Supplement Four]

BRONZE AGE


Most civilized kingdoms during the Hyborian Age have the technology to produce iron or steel weapons. Even some non-civilized areas, such as Cimmeria, are known to make their weapons from iron and steel.

For those areas, like the Pictish Wilderness, the core rulebook provides rules for primitive weapons.

But, there is the forgotten age of bronze where weapons of that quality are widely seen. Stygia is such a place. Their society is so steeped in cultish sorcery that the kingdom has fallen behind on weapon technology. The fact that most of the Stygian border is closed to outsiders doesn't help, either. Iron and Steel weapons are imported and expensive, and most soldiers use bronze weapons.

You can find rules for using bronze weapons in your game on pages 31-32 of the supplement, Stygia - Serpent of the South. Also on those pages are stats for the Khopesh and the Bronze Khopesh, plus the Bronze Scale Hauberk.

 

[The King]

De Camp wrote an excellent article about Hyborian technology in the book The Blade of Conan (Publisher: Ace), an OOP book but still quite easy to find. In this book, there is also an article about ocean trade by John Boardman. You'll also find there many other articles like Weapons of choice and/or necessity as well as other essays. This book is mentioned as a reference in the Gurps Conan sourcebook.

 

[Supplement Four]

De Camp wrote an excellent article about Hyborian technology in the book The Blade of Conan (Publisher: Ace), an OOP book but still quite easy to find. In this book, there is also an article about ocean trade by John Boardman. You'll also find there many other articles like Weapons of choice and/or necessity as well as other essays. This book is mentioned as a reference in the Gurps Conan sourcebook.

Yeah, I read that back in the day. It's been a long time. I sold that one, and it's companion, The Spell of Conan, years ago on eBay.