Conan Movie questions for use in RPG

[Anonymous]

Hello all, I am soaking in Conan like a dry sponge,
just ordered the Signs and portents mags to get
additional ideas and am really taking time to
understand the rules, although I must admit some of
the errors are a killer.

I am working on putting together my campaign and after
watching the extended Conan movie over the weekend had
some ideas, however I had a few questions regarding
locals and races.

In the beginning, when they are raided , I am assuming
in Cimmeria, where are the children taken to walk the
wheel? What town is it, I know north but am unsure
otherwise?

Conan, grows up and then he encounters the King in a
throne, where is that? Is that really Crom? Or does he
just say Crom while marvelling at him?

The Pit Fights, where?

When he goes to the witch, where is that?

The Tower of Set? In which they steal the jewel.

The town they enter after that and get Lotused up?

The wizards hut, where is that?

And I assume he ends up in Zamora.

Thanks for your help, I had an idea for some differnet
story ideas and may make an actual module since I am
very into art and story telling. I had an idea
revolving around, no pun intended him meeting up with
other kids that were on the Wheel of doom with him,
maybe they fight in the pits as well as he would
notice the unique necklace. I had some crazy thoughts
surrounding that whole concept, but need clarification
on locales.

Tom

 

[Iron_Chef]

Skaun:---a town of Vanaheim, renowned for it's pit fighting. This is the location of the movie's pit fights.

I found the info online here: HYBORIAN GAZETTEER
http://www.conan.no/modules.php?op=modload&name=pages&file=dummy&filnavn=modules/pages/land/index.php

You could read the novelization of CONAN THE BARBARIAN by L.Sprague DeCamp for the answers you seek. You can find it at used bookstores or try eBay.

 

[Anonymous]

They don't really say, and the movie gives a different "origin" than Howard's stories. If you want to follow canon (somewhat) after the battle of venarium, Conan was captured and held prisoner by the Hyperboreans. He escaped and traveled to Zamora.

So you can say Thulsa Doom's wheel was in Hyperborea. After he was sold into the games he probably didn't travel too far - maybe southern Hyperborea or into Turan or the desert bordering Turan and Zamora. After that it was into Khitai to learn "language and philosophy" then back west after he was freed.

The King on the throne was not Crom - Crom was Conan's god, and he NEVER makes an appearance. The tomb was explained in the commentary as being an Atlantean tomb, and the "Crom" was just an exclamation.

The witch was somewhere between Khitai and Zamora. I'd guess Hyrkania, since he finds Subotai there and he says he's a Hyrkanian "archer and thief" - so why not?

 

[InsomNY]

It was very smart of you to post your questions here; I know of a few sites where the Howard purists would track you down and murder you for trying to mix the movie into the genre. I happen to like the original stories, the older pastiches and the first movie, so you're safe.

Before I start, I should remind you that the Conan of the movie is not the Conan that Howard and his later imitators wrote. Thulsa Doom was an enemy of Kull, and was essentially a lich. Also, the terrain of the movie does not necessarily match the various Hyborian maps; the scenes were written to make a good film, not to be literarily accurate.

Edit: I see that others have answered while I was typing. I was here first though!

In the beginning, when they are raided , I am assuming
in Cimmeria, where are the children taken to walk the
wheel? What town is it, I know north but am unsure
otherwise?

It isn't a town, as such. It's just someplace out in the middle of nowhere where captive children are forced to labor. Conan grew strong and was sold as a gladiator. The place was north of Cimmeria; while the people who took him were Vanir (from Vanaheim), I would say the Wheel of Pain was in Hyperborea. The terrain looks more like Hyperborea to me, and Howard's Conan was briefly a Hyperborean slave before the stories began.

Conan, grows up and then he encounters the King in a
throne, where is that? Is that really Crom? Or does he
just say Crom while marvelling at him?

When he goes to the witch, where is that?

It's hard to say exactly where these are, since we're not sure where he was when he was freed, or what direction he was headed – we know he turned toward Zamora shortly after getting the sword, but that doesn't help without more data. I would guess that he was freed from servitude in Turan, and crossed the mountains into Khauran where he met the witch and then Subotai. The corpse in the tomb is not Crom. Crom is a god, and might not even exist. More likely, he's some ancient Atlantean warlord, and Conan mutters "Crom" in awe, or perhaps thanks for the gift of the blade.

The Pit Fights, where?

Unknown. Could be anywhere that wasn't a major city, really.

The Tower of Set? In which they steal the jewel.

The town they enter after that and get Lotused up?

These are probably the same place. It's some Zamorian city-state or other. I like to think of it as whichever city it was that Howard placed The Tower of the Elephant, but I can't remember which one that was. In the end, it doesn't matter. Make one up.

The wizards hut, where is that?

Many days' ride from Thulsa Doom's stronghold. I would guess that Doom's mountain was in Shem, near the Khorajan border, and the mounds were on the coast, somewhere near Khemi or Asgalun.

I hope this is of some use to you. Whatever you do, have fun with it.

 

[Anonymous]

The Tower of Set? In which they steal the jewel.

The town they enter after that and get Lotused up?

These are probably the same place. It's some Zamorian city-state or other. I like to think of it as whichever city it was that Howard placed The Tower of the Elephant, but I can't remember which one that was. In the end, it doesn't matter. Make one up.

Wasn't it Arenjun?

 

[InsomNY]

Bingo. That sounds right. *grumble* gotta get my damn books outta storage *grumble* At any rate, I'm fairly certain that the thieves did their celebrating in the same city, so Osric was king of Arenjun in my own personal Conan movie chronology.

 

[Iron_Chef]

Wasn't it was Shadizar? Shadizar is the capital of Zamora, where the king lives...

The serpent tower is a rip-off of the "tower of the elephant" story by Howard. You can download a d20 conversion of the howard story as an adventure here: http://hyboria.xoth.net/adventures/index.htm

 

[JamesMishler]

James ::Opens book sitting on shelf::

"In the beginning, when they are raided , I am assuming in Cimmeria, where are the children taken to walk the wheel? What town is it, I know north but am unsure otherwise?"

Vanaheim, a town known as Thrudvang. The master who bought him was named Toghrul, and according to the book he was a red-haired Hyrkanian (!). I'd say he probably was a Hyrkanian/Vanir half-breed.

"The Pit Fights, where?"

A village named Skaun, in Vanaheim. The pits were about 30 feet wide, 15 feet across, and 6 feet deep. From Vanaheim they went to Asgard, and from Asgard to Hyperborea, a town named Valamo on the borders of Hyrkania (it was a two month journey from Asgard to Hyperborea). I'm guessing Valamo would be north of the Vilayet. After training there under Hyrkanian masters (never going to Khitai in the book), Conan is being taken back to Nordheim via Hyperborea when, in a Hyperborean town named Kolari, an earthquake strikes, and swallows up Toghrul (!) Conan then escapes and flees south.

"Conan, grows up and then he encounters the King in a throne, where is that? Is that really Crom? Or does he just say Crom while marvelling at him?"

As has been answered before, no, it is not Crom, merely an ancient warlord of some unknown race (being giant in size, "half again as tall as Conan"). In the book, as in the original story by Howard, the skeleton comes to life and attacks Conan for his hubris. I guess in the movie they didn't have the budget.

"When he goes to the witch, where is that?"

In the book after traveling for two weeks from the witch's hut, Subotai mentions "South lies Zamora... to the west is Brythunia... and... eastward... the territory of Turan." Sound like they followed the Kenzakian Mountains south, on the eastern side of the range (also mentioned is the fact that they cross a river that goes south and then turns east, which would not happen in Brythunia). So I'd say that Kolari was just inside the eastern border of Hyperborea proper, and the witch was on the eastern verge of the Kenzakian Mountains east of Brythunia. Probably east just across the mountains from where the southern border of Brythunia meets the Kenzakians.

"The Tower of Set? In which they steal the jewel. The town they enter after that and get Lotused up?"

The first town they come to is a Zamoran frontier town called Yazdir. They then make their way across Zamora to Shadizar, not even mentioning Arenjun, which should ahve been along their path. There he has an encounter with Princess Yasmina, who is a high priestess of Set and seems to have some hypnotism powers (!) Shortly thereafter Conan and Subotai buy the lotus from the merchant after questioning him about the tower. Note that in the book the merchant mentions that the towers of Set are found throughout Zamora, not everywhere, though King Osric later mentions that the towers were also found in Corinthia and Brythunia (!)

"The wizards hut, where is that?"

In the book, the Mountain of Power and thus the hut of the wizard are located on the western shore of the Vilayet Sea. Of course, in the movie, this is impossible, as the sun is shown setting beyond the sea in the west... but you can jsut take that as a bad call on the part of the director. Of course, as there is no mention of the Mountain of Power being in Turan, the Vilayet doesn't seem appropriate either...

Other interesting notes from the book...

Apparently, Doom was meant to be protrayed as a Stygian, being described as being lithe, with a lean-jawed darkly handsome face. His second in command was Yaro, described as a gigantic black man. Rexor was third in command. Thorgrim was not in the book. I figure when James Earl Jones tried out for the part of Yaro they changed the story a bit. In the book Rexor dies in the battle, but Yaro was away in Zamora, and torn apart by his followers when Thulsa Doom died.

Doom was served by inhuman guards, apparently neanderthals or a race at a similar evolutionary level, though I suspect they are devolved descendents of Set-worshiping Acheronians or devolve Khari (for reasons you can see later). Man-apes would probably be the best term for them. They were filmed for part of the movie, and one makes an appearance while they are escaping with the princess, but they were not used as extensively as originally written (this is from the book and from an old interview I saw with Milius). In the book, the Eye of the serpent has power to command the man-apes, making its importance far greater than the simple gem it was in the movie. Though why such a useful thing would have been so far away from Doom and the man-apes is a mystery to me... and why the activation words are in Russian is even more of a mystery. That bit might be a leftover from the Oliver Stone script, which had the Hyborian Age as post-apocalyptic Earth (!)

In the movie, Doom turns into a snake. In the book, Doom is revealed as one of the Serpent Men (!) He transforms from his human guise to his native serpent man form during the rescue, then disappears in the chaos. Later, when Conan returns to slay him, he again turns into a serpent-man, specifically so, and it is his serpent head that Conan casts into the crowd below.

In the movie, Valeria is hit by random chance by the snake arrow. In the book, she leaps in front of Conan at whom it was aimed and takes the arrow for him.

 

[Badelaire]

JamesMichler wrote:
"In the book, the Mountain of Power and thus the hut of the wizard are located on the western shore of the Vilayet Sea. Of course, in the movie, this is impossible, as the sun is shown setting beyond the sea in the west... but you can jsut take that as a bad call on the part of the director. Of course, as there is no mention of the Mountain of Power being in Turan, the Vilayet doesn't seem appropriate either... "

Just FYI, that shot of the sun setting on the water is from Milius' earlier film "Big Wednesday" and was used to save a little time & money during filming.

 

[Anonymous]

WOW, You guys are the best! I really appreciate the time put into your replies. So helpful indeed. I must say right off that someone mentioned they were glad I posted here. Well I did post in other places like Conan.com and most regretfully a Yahoo group, although no one hammered me , I did get a few Conan the Movie sucks comments. But as all of you I enjoy both , infact I have all the original Ace books about 20 other mixed authors and most Savage Sword mags. However I am now reading the Conan Chronicles by REH and It is different. Well I really appreciate the extensive replies and now I can shape some stuff out in my mind as certain aspects of your replies tie right into my vision for a story.

Thanks so much, Not sure wht it keeps saying this username has been taken, when it was taken by me.

Tom

 

[Badelaire]

Yeah, I'm on the d20 Conan Yahoogroup and saw a couple of those.

Detractors of the movie are usually against it because either A) It's not "REH" Conan, B)It's a crap movie, or both.

To those who fall into A, I say that few literary fans are ever happy with screen adaptations of their pet works (consider how many Tolkien fans out there _still_ hate the new movies, which are probably some of the best adapted screen works ever made), and frankly, it is the filmmaker's prerogative to adapt a work however they want. Milius, however misguided he was about REH's concerns, really enjoyed the Conan stories and I still think the visual representation of the Hyborian world as presented in the first film is quite good, even if it doesn't precisely match each location as REH described it. Milius' work feels _ancient_; it is a world unlike anything we know and can relate to.

To those who fall into B, I say take a look at what there is to compare it with! Krull, Beastmaster, Dragonslayer, Hawk the Slayer <shudder>, and an endless procession of garbage Italian S&S movies? Sword and Sorcery films (as opposed to more whimsical films like Legend or Labyrinth) have been the red-headed stepchild of Hollywood movie genres ever since the Mythic adventure movies (the Sinbads, Jason and the Argonauts, Clash of the Titans, etc.) passed on. I still like some of them (Anchor Bay's release of the Beastmaster DVD is very good), but CtB is leaps and bounds better than anything in its class. The theatrical score alone puts this movie on the top shelf in my opinion.

Personally, I still think it is the old conflict between "pulp fiction" and "literature" carried over into film. No studio would ever green-light about two hundred million dollars for a new Conan trilogy even after the success of LotR, because it's "pulp". Yet make a movie about the Trojan wars, or King Arthur, and suddenly the sky's the limit. And what do we get? "Kull the Conquerer" <gag>.

Having said all that, I am a HUGE fan of the movie. Hell, I just spent over a hundred bucks to get my original theatrical movie poster custom framed. When it screened at the local indie film house as a weekend midnight movie, I saw it both nights. And, if it's possible to wear out a DVD, it'll be my Special Edition Conan the Barbarian that'll suffer this awful fate.

So if you like the film, don't feel that you're alone in that regard.

Wow, that's more than enough, I think. See what film school does to you?

 

[VincentDarlage]

I also love the film, for many of the same reasons.

Another film that I find inspiring for Conan games is The Whole Wide World. That film, about REH, features one of the best descriptions of Conan ever.

 

[Badelaire]

Heh...

"Conan! Why, he's the biggest bastard there ever was!"

Vincent DiNofrio at his finest. It really is a very cool movie, blending the best elements of "guy movie" and "chick flick" into something you'd be equally comfortable watching with both your beer-buddies and your Better Half.

Now I just need to find me one of those sombreros...

 

[Johannixx]

I really liked CtB, despite how far from REH's canon it was. I thought Schwarzenegger portrayed the young, naive-to-civilization Conan quite well, and James Earl Jones is always a superb actor. Poledouris' score is still the gold standard for fantasy music, and has yet to be matched, and I think its similarity to Orff's Carmina Burana helped there. The acting wasn't the best (Valeria, for chrissakes, was horrible), but overall it was an outstanding flick for the time and budget.

CtD, however, was vastly inferior, though still decent in its own way. I find it highly amusing that Wilt "the Stilt" Chamberlain was tasked with guarding the princess' virginity. :lol: I just wish that Subotai had remained in the film. While Malik provides some comic relief, he just doesn't seem like the kind of character that Conan would have tolerated for more than five seconds. Still, it made for good material for a gaming session, since none of my players had seen the movie before. It took them a while to figure out that the horn was the secret, and even then the ranger only got lucky with a high-damage crit on his first Sunder attempt. I should have made him grapple

 

[VincentDarlage]

Although I really adore CtB, Conan the Destroyer has too many plot-holes in it for my taste.

1) Why did Taramis attack Conan and Malik at the outset, when she just wanted to bargain with him to begin with?

2) Why did Taramis need a thief? None of the subsequent events needed any of Conan's particular skills. Bombaata could have done it all just as well.

3) At the battle with the mirrored room, why did he have to make a choice of which window to throw his sword through? Run to each and bash them, thus finding the wizard. No need to throw the sword at all, actually.

4) I doubt Conan would have agreed to work for Queen Taramis so he could have Valeria resurrected. Such magic would probably have bothered Conan, considering his previous personal encounter with magic in the prior film (when he was healed by the wizard) cost him Valeria to begin with.

5) Several of the characters had no discernable purpose in the film (such as Grace Jones' character and Malik) and didn't add to the story-line.

 

[Badelaire]

Oh definitely. Everything that made the first movie good was absent in the sequel. I mean, come on, no nudity, no (really) gratuitous violence...heck, it was rated PG, for cryin' out loud! I've got this two-pack VHS with the two films, and ever since buying it, I have yet to get through a viewing of the second film, even though I've seen it before. I think I need to get a few buddies over with some cold ones so we can support each other through a viewing.

 

[Anonymous]

There is no real mystery as to why a third movie has never been made. The second really poisoned people's perceptions of what Howard's storys and characters were really like.

I'd love to see a good screen adaptation of Red nails.

 

[Badelaire]

Frankly, if someone were to approach me to do any Conan adaptations, I'd prefer to just make an original work based off of the stories. Sci-Fi conversios are particularly effective in this regard. 9/10th of the time the only reason for an adaptation is for the brand-name value of the product, and while WE know Conan is quality, most people don't agree. So, hey, just set it in space and it'll work.

 

[JamesMishler]

I've thought a lot about this over the last couple of weeks, actually. Here's how I would do it...

Conan movies need to be done in a serial manner. Sort of like an expanded version of the old Saturday Morning serials, which would run for 10 to 15 minutes before the feature presentation during the kiddie show.

1) Set up a production company and long-term team to do nothing but Conan movies. Base it in New Zealand, which as LotR has proven, has excellent production capabilities as a lot of really great terrain. Of course, you would actually go around the world to film various scenes, such as North Africa for action in Stygia, Scandinavia for action in Nordheim, and so forth. But most of the Hyborian Kingdom stuff could be filmed in New Zealand.

2) Produce one Conan movie every six months. Each movie would cover one or two of Conan's adventures in chronological order. Also, each movie would feature an adventure of a "lesser" character, such as Valeria, Juma, Subotai, Malik, Red Sonja, or what have you. This way it is a bit more of an ensemble show with a broader appeal. Of course, then there are times when Conan and the various secondary character meet, such as Juma and Conan in Meru, and he and Valeria in Kush, and so forth. Then you could also have one of the secondary characters dealing with the mess that Conan left over, or vice versa... a "near miss," so to speak.

3) Of course, this means that you need to use the Pastiches to add more depth to the world. So what? The neat thing about the extended production method is, with all the work you are doing already, it would be nearly costless to cut both a "standard" version and an "author's" version. The author's version to be made available to rabid fans of REH on DVD at the same time as the standard version (released on DVD when the *next* movie premieres in six months).

4) So you are looking at, at the very least, a ten to twelve year run, with each movie taking up about a year or two of Hyborian time, sometimes there being more in between movies. This cover's the majorioty of Conan's career.

5) Conan himself. Forget a standard casting call. Forget muscle-bound Germans. The way to find the true Conan is to go out to a North Sea oil rig and find a muscular Scots or Irishman with coal-black hair and blazing-blue eyes, and a freaking *Gaelic* accent. Not German! And he shouldn't look like a Mr. Universe. That style of musculature was introduced by Frazetta and expanded upon by Schwarzenegger. Conan, at least in his younger and middle days, while not lean, was not a muscle-bound steroid monstrosity. Look at pictures of heavyweight boxing champions from the 20's to the 40's (Max Schmeling, Jack Dempsey, and Gene Tunney... especially Tunney). That's what Conan is *supposed* to look like, because those guys were Howard's direct influences. Check out this web site: www.genetunney.com. Look at the portraits and the boxing action photos.

6) Ditch the Nietsche. Conan was a wanderer, a pirate, a rogue, a thief, not a fricking philosopher. Conan was a bastard with a personal sense of honor. Nothing more, nothing less. He only gets philosophical when he gets older. Kull was the philospher dammit. The movies waaaay overemphasized the grim melancholy and completely forgot about the mirth. Not zany over the top stupid stuff like in "Hercules: The Adventures" (which was originally going to be a Conan series but they couldn't get the license). Conan *enjoyed* himself a lot. Often times, too much... which is how he often ended up in trouble.

7) Keep magic mysterious and within Howard's vision, as Mongoose did with the RPG. In the movies it's always too over the top or just plain stupid. And show less of the monsters and more of the fear. Conan rarely ever saw the beasties he was fighting; they were often cast in shadow or hidden by darkness, which made them all the more horrific. Conan horror is cosmic horror, not slasher horror.

8) Don't be afraid of a little T&A. Or a lot of T&A, as may be appropriate. Or blood and gore. Film it as it would have been. R ratings will be fine, especially when the "Edited" edition is released on DVD at a PG13 rating.

Anyway, that's how I'd go about it.

 

[Geezer]

Warner is going to release Red Sonja on DVD in a better transfer.

http://www.davisdvd.com/news/daily_news.html#031704

Due on July 6th are sword & sorcery adventure Red Sonja. Red Sonja arrives with a 2.40 anamorphic transfer and Dolby Digital mono tracks. Extras, if any, have yet to be announced. Retail is $14.97. Cover artwork is now available in our cover gallery.

http://www.davisdvd.com/bin/covers57.html

Nice cover. Ok, the movie isn't good, but at least you should have it if you are a collector.