House rule, Modifications, Etc...

[Clovenhoof]

I agree. That's why I've banned gothic-style armour from my campaign. And bronze armour is both heavier and offers worse protection than iron/steel, so you can't just take the same stats and say "it's bronze, dude".

If you look at the Romans, for instance, officers wore muscle cuirass just for "style" reasons - and could afford it because they didn't fight in the front ranks anyway. The common trooper's lorica hamata or segmentata was less cumbersome and offered better protection.

 

[kintire]

As far as I know, REH wasn't really a history buff

But both are plate armor, and we do not know which type of armor REH meant as he wrote his stories.

Actually, you are both wrong :wink:

REH was a history buff, in fact his body of historical fiction is larger than his Conan works. And we do know exactly which type of armour REH meant, as he describes it in great detail

At her command they brought harness to replace Conan's chain-mail — gorget, sollerets, cuirass, pauldrons, jambes, cuisses and sallet. When Yasmela again drew the curtains, a Conan in burnished steel stood before his audience. Clad in the plate-armor, vizor lifted and dark face shadowed by the black plumes that nodded above his helmet, there was a grim impressiveness about him that even Thespides grudgingly noted.

This is unquestionably "Gothic" or late middle ages plate armour. The sollerets alone prove that: the flexible plate shoes were technically the most difficult bit to get right and one of the latest pieces of armour to be introduced. You didn't get THOSE on the Dendra panoply!

As for "fitting the setting", no civilised nation in Conan's world is still bronze age. And the Hyborians are high medieval plus: they have all the technology of the late middle ages except gunpowder, and a mercantile economy that seems in some ways more advanced.

 

[Vortigern]

Howard seems to like the idea of the cycles of civilizations and how they progress etc. I think a lot of his stories are really about that in some way, a collision of two that are in different eras. Or Conan coming from one, into another, and then another.

The point, bearing towards this discussion, is whether it is truly realistic or not in the 'Hyborian Age' there are nations/civilizations that are on very differing technological levels.

Which I don't really find so unrealistic. There is a reason for instance that we have the term 'third world country'.

 

[Clovenhoof]

That's true, also in the real world we had industrial nations existing at the same time as stone-age cultures (even have today, if you're willing to count that handful of rainforest aborigines) -- somewhere else on the planet, far away! That's the key point.

In any given geographic entity - defined by "what's within range with little effort" - the techlevels (at least in the martial sector) WILL be comparable or the less-developed side will be simply wiped out or, at best, subjugated.

The long and short of it is that neighbours like Aquilonia and Pictland could never exist side by side; the Aquilonians would simply walk all over the Picts, due to superiority in weapons, armour, and sheer numbers.

 

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

But it is possible, if the tech level of Aquilonia equals the one of the roman empire.

 

[Clovenhoof]

Actually not even then. The point is kinda moot because Aquilonia is clearly not Roman Age by Howard's description, but still: the Romans conquered pretty much everything as far their feet would take them.

The single one exception was right at their doorstep; over all these centuries they did not manage to subjugate most of Germania, and it was not for lack of trying. But the old Germans were far from a stone age tech. They didn't have high-rises and aquaeducts, but these don't win you a war. Their weapons were absolutely on par with the Roman stuff (except siege engines). They had a different military doctrine, favouring unarmoured, agile fighting (shield and helmet being the only protective gear) over armoured and steadfast. But what really made the difference was that they adapted their own strategy to counter the Roman one. The key event certainly being the Varus battle in 9AD, where three full legions were completely wiped out.
But again, the Germans were Barbarians (in the sense of Conan) but not stone-age savages.

Sorry, I got derailed a bit. What I wanted to say was that Rome had conquered pretty much the whole known world, whatever they considered valuable or dangerous (with the aforementioned exception), as far as their supply lines would stretch, which was as far as Mesopotamia, otherwise mainly limited by land barriers (like the Sahara).
So by and large, we don't really have evidence of a stone-age savage culture living next door to the Romans and not getting kicked.

 

[Vortigern]

My view of the Pict and Aquilonia situation was that Aquilonia was more interested in continuing the struggles it had with the other more civilized nations rather than mounting large and expensive campaigns into pictland. Part of the whole drama in Howard's stories was how the fighting men on the pictish border were upset that if the 'just had' X or Y to reinforce Z... they could hold the border easily. But the lords back home had Kothic this or Brythunian that up their arse instead.

Which came off to me being a typical Howardian spiel praising 'The Simplicity of Barbarism'. But basically it blames it all on the decadence and lack of perspective of the Aquilonians.

There doesn't seem to be any doubt that a full Aquilonian army decimates large gatherings of picts. But as far as the pure numbers go, I think the picts have them on that? Especially or at least in the borderlands.

Also a large part of the pictish lands are depicted as being variable types of pretty much undesirable land... swamps and what-not. Which I wouldn't think Aquilonia would think worth the vast expense of conquering and holding vs the damn savages.

But that is just my take.

 

[Clovenhoof]

But as far as the pure numbers go, I think the picts have them on that? Especially or at least in the borderlands.

Also a large part of the pictish lands are depicted as being variable types of pretty much undesirable land... swamps and what-not.

That's where the setup get incongruent. If Pictland is forest at best and worthless swamp at worst, then how in the nine nether-hells would they be able to breed enough Pictlings to seriously bother a highly-developed agricultural country with presumably high population density? Forest don't support many people, and swamps even fewer.
I don't doubt that the Pictish land is undesirable for Aquilonia. But for the same reason, it couldn't possibly support a population sufficient to give a nation like Aquilonia any trouble.

 

[Style]

But as far as the pure numbers go, I think the picts have them on that? Especially or at least in the borderlands.

Also a large part of the pictish lands are depicted as being variable types of pretty much undesirable land... swamps and what-not.

That's where the setup get incongruent. If Pictland is forest at best and worthless swamp at worst, then how in the nine nether-hells would they be able to breed enough Pictlings to seriously bother a highly-developed agricultural country with presumably high population density? Forest don't support many people, and swamps even fewer.
I don't doubt that the Pictish land is undesirable for Aquilonia. But for the same reason, it couldn't possibly support a population sufficient to give a nation like Aquilonia any trouble.

Here's how the Goose explains it:

This vast wilderness is very nearly a hunter’s paradise, with
the jungles swarming with game of every size and kind,
including prehistoric creatures that have long since died out
in the rest of the world. Likewise the rivers are brim-full
of fi sh, so the Picts have no great need of agriculture or
animal husbandry.

** Mods, if this is not ok for me to post the copyrighted material, please take it down, and my apologies.

 

[kintire]

That's where the setup get incongruent. If Pictland is forest at best and worthless swamp at worst, then how in the nine nether-hells would they be able to breed enough Pictlings to seriously bother a highly-developed agricultural country with presumably high population density? Forest don't support many people, and swamps even fewer.
I don't doubt that the Pictish land is undesirable for Aquilonia. But for the same reason, it couldn't possibly support a population sufficient to give a nation like Aquilonia any trouble.

In exactly the same way the Iroquois and the Delawares couldn't give the British any trouble during the Seven Years' War. I mean, its not like we ended up having to bribe them to stop attacking us because we couldn't cope with them is it?

Oh wait...

The Picts survive because their forests and swamps are too large and bad terrain to run a successful supply line through, they don't have a centrally organised state that can be conquered in a quick campaign, and Aquilonia's settlement efforts are underfunded and undersupported because of Aquilonia's commitments elsewhere.

 

[Solmyr]

Also, you have to remember that the Picts have Jhebbal Sag, nature magic, the very nature and its wild animals, etc, on their side. Sure, Aquilonians have priests of Mitra but those don't seem to be much into magic.

 

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

I've compared REH's picts with the historical picts who lived in Scotland. They were never conquered by the Romans although it was possible. Instead of a very costly conquest the build a wall to hinder raids by the picts.