Has anyone considered using FR Serpent Kingdoms with Conan?
- Thread starter UncleBear
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XcomSquaddie
Mongoose
One of the SoC goodies was an article about converting other materials to Conan. It was published in Signs and Portents, I think issue 9.
The article was "Roleplaying in the Hyborian Age" by Shannon Kalvar.
To summarize, the article suggests a 6 item rating system for determining a books value in a Conan campaign. The article is well written and gives you a good idea of what to look for when using outside material in a Conan game.
The article encourages you to think about whether you SHOULD add something, rather than CAN you do it, in regards to keeping the Conan-esque flavor to the game.
If you can find it, you should check it out.
The article was "Roleplaying in the Hyborian Age" by Shannon Kalvar.
To summarize, the article suggests a 6 item rating system for determining a books value in a Conan campaign. The article is well written and gives you a good idea of what to look for when using outside material in a Conan game.
The article encourages you to think about whether you SHOULD add something, rather than CAN you do it, in regards to keeping the Conan-esque flavor to the game.
If you can find it, you should check it out.
The King
Cosmic Mongoose
The Serpent Kingdoms sourcebook is probably good; however as a high fantasy setting I doubt very much it coulp be suitable to a sword and sorcery campaign.
Kull eradicates all the serpent men in his quest after discovering them trying to usurp his throne (in "the shadow kingdom"). Chances are he probably succeed at this task.
In the age of Conan, serpent men should be very scarce. Howard doesn't even speak of them in his lenghly novel "Hour of the Dragon". Granted, de Camp and Lin Carter extended this kingdom in the southern end of the Black Kingdoms (in 4 stories published as Conan of Aquilonia) but this novel is very badly written (in my opinion) and doesn't follow up the Howard canon. All the scenes are settled one after each other and resolved as rapidly without any true meaning or feeling.
This is the reason why I will make up something from the stories of Howard and Clark-Ashton Smith (seven geases) rather than used a DD setting if I ever use serpent men in my campaign.
Kull eradicates all the serpent men in his quest after discovering them trying to usurp his throne (in "the shadow kingdom"). Chances are he probably succeed at this task.
In the age of Conan, serpent men should be very scarce. Howard doesn't even speak of them in his lenghly novel "Hour of the Dragon". Granted, de Camp and Lin Carter extended this kingdom in the southern end of the Black Kingdoms (in 4 stories published as Conan of Aquilonia) but this novel is very badly written (in my opinion) and doesn't follow up the Howard canon. All the scenes are settled one after each other and resolved as rapidly without any true meaning or feeling.
This is the reason why I will make up something from the stories of Howard and Clark-Ashton Smith (seven geases) rather than used a DD setting if I ever use serpent men in my campaign.
The Realms is assuredly sword and sorcery and not high fantasy: its main mode is brawling picaresque adventure and intrigue, not heightened-tone Quests to Save All. But it's different enough from the Hyborian Age, in terms of amount of magic and monsters as well as subtler nuances, that using substantial amounts of Serpent Kingdoms would take heavy adapting, though if you definitely want to do serpent stuff it would work well enough to spark ideas for creatures and plots. I can't recommend it so strongly for your purposes that you should order it sight unseen.
(Spoken as someone with a thorough knowledge of the Realms, a moderate knowledge of the Hyborian Age, who has read about half the book.)
(Spoken as someone with a thorough knowledge of the Realms, a moderate knowledge of the Hyborian Age, who has read about half the book.)
The King
Cosmic Mongoose
Then 3.5 DD has completely changed in comparison to 2nd ADD. I can remember Netheril; At the beginning of the FR campaign, the gods walked the earth, hum Faerun. Elves and dwarfs and orcs are everywhere and the underground is swarming with dark elves and beholders and mind-flayers, whereas wizards and clerics can be encountered in all cities, towns and villages. If that's not high fantasy, it doesn't belong to the sword & sorcery genre.Faraer said:
The King
Cosmic Mongoose
I'am sorry to contradict you but I have another definition that illustrates well high fantasy:Faraer said:
"… the world of magic, wizards, princes and princesses, dragons, goblins and talismans, jewels, duels and enchantments, the battle between good and evil fought by heroic warriors, common folk and dark monsters."
Here another more precise definition:
"High fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy fiction that is set in invented or parallel worlds. These stories are serious in tone, often epic in scope, dealing with themes of grand struggle against supernatural evil forces.
Other typical characteristics of high fantasy include fantastical races (such as elves and dwarves), magic, wizards, invented languages, coming-of-age themes, and multi-volume narratives.
In some high fantasy, a contemporary, "real-world" character is placed in the invented world. Purists might not consider this to be "true" high fantasy".
On the other hand, Sword and Sorcery is:
"a fantasy sub-genre featuring muscular heroes in violent conflict with a variety of villains, chiefly wizards, witches, evil spirits, and other creatures whose powers are—unlike the hero’s—supernatural in origin. The term was suggested by Fritz Leiber to Michael Moorcock in 1961."
sources:
- http://www.elmhurst.lib.il.us/kids/highfantasy.html
- http://www.wordiq.com/definition/High_fantasy
- http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Sword_and_sorcery
slaughterj
Mongoose
High fantasy can be subject to several varying, but overlapping definitions. FR in general may have a different tone, but it can still readily be played with an elevated tone where the PCs strive to overcome some great menace threatening the west, e.g. The Red Wizards of Thay or the other evil nation in the north or its related secret society/religion. As someone with some knowledge of FR and Hyboria, but not of the Serpent Kingdoms book, I doubt anything of FR would carry over well to Hyboria - FR is still a D&D setting where mages sling fireballs readily.
I don't think much of The King's first quoted definition, which applies pretty much to both secondary-world fantasy's main branches. The latter two are more accurate, the sword and sorcery one partly verbatim from the authoritative Encyclopedia of Fantasy, and the Realms falls mainly, though not perfectly, in that camp.
Dragonlance is high fantasy. The Realms was designed not for single main narratives but massively parallel stories that don't affect the fate of the world or fit into a theological scheme. It's strongly humanocentric, and doesn't have much in the way of invented languages or coming-of-age themes. When Ed Greenwood created it in the late 1960s his influences were mostly sword and sorcery, as the flood of sub-Tolkien high fantasy hadn't yet come.
Dragonlance is high fantasy. The Realms was designed not for single main narratives but massively parallel stories that don't affect the fate of the world or fit into a theological scheme. It's strongly humanocentric, and doesn't have much in the way of invented languages or coming-of-age themes. When Ed Greenwood created it in the late 1960s his influences were mostly sword and sorcery, as the flood of sub-Tolkien high fantasy hadn't yet come.
There is no doubt in my mind that Serpent Kingdoms, if taken as is, would not be suitable for a Conan campaign that is attempting to stay close to Howard's canon.
Now with that being said, I've gotten great use of the SK book. I used the "fluff" to create the society that my serpent men devolved from, and used both monsters and items from the book as the base template which I then tweaed to be more Conan-esque before introducing them.
Despite the fact that the book itself was created for Forgetten Realms, and as such is very "high magic", it still has a number of crunchy bits in it that are a great help to a GM who wants to include yuan-ti (or other serpent-men) in their games.
Now with that being said, I've gotten great use of the SK book. I used the "fluff" to create the society that my serpent men devolved from, and used both monsters and items from the book as the base template which I then tweaed to be more Conan-esque before introducing them.
Despite the fact that the book itself was created for Forgetten Realms, and as such is very "high magic", it still has a number of crunchy bits in it that are a great help to a GM who wants to include yuan-ti (or other serpent-men) in their games.
Taurren said:
Which is my intention.
I have a few ideas on using serpent races without egregiously violating canon. One is to use a Red Nails-like lost city (possibly on an island off the Black Kingdoms, or between Vendhya and Nu) with forgotten survivors of serpent people.
Another uses the vibe I get from "The Phoenix on the Sword", having the characters enter an ancient ruin, then find themselves in what looks like brand new building, defeat a bad guy, and end up back in ruins again. The object is to leave them at the end going "I thought serpent people were extinct! Was that a dream? Did we go back in time? What the hell was THAT?"
Third idea comes right from Hour of the Dragon: have someone resurrect an ancient serpentman sorcerer (dead and buried before Kull) for any of the usual reasons people resurrect dead sorcerers.
Final idea is to use assorted reptilian races as lesser demons rather than a mortal race. I can see Setites conjuring such creatures to perform assorted tasks.
I'm also running my own "Shadow over Devil Reef" in the near future, which adapts Lovecraft's Innsmouth to Hyborea (as a fishing village in Argos that has taken up the worship of the Zembabwean Dagon, brought back by a merchant trader) and I'm working on somehow connecting serpent people to Deep Ones and the Zembabwean Dagon to Lovecraft's Dagon. Reptilian ideas can't hurt here, either.
