Recurring characters

[Paladyn]

Welcome!

Last Monday I ran Conan adventure. While it was based on Savage Worlds rules, I redesigned them, taking a lot of inspiration from Conan d20. I tried to stuck as close as possible to howardish feel and m players agreed adventure had a strong Conan feeling.
I had also great evening and was barely able to speak loudly


And here are my two questions:

1. Can you remember, if there are recurring characters in stories? I mean people that fight alongside Conan in one story and return in another. Only ones I think of are Trocero and Prospero in brely mentioned in "Scarlet Citadel" and apeparing in "Hour of the Dragon". Are there others? I don't know if NPC my heroes encountered should be left alone or the can come back.

2. In polish editions each story began from short narrative, describing how Conan got into situation. I began session with one and wonder, if it's so in english editions. It appears as follows:
"Having spent all money for wine, women and food, after a week of constant feasting and drinking, Conan finds himself with only a few coins in purse..."

(From "Shadows in Zamoula" in my translation)

 

[Kev]

To answer your first question, REH generally didn't use recurring characters in any of his Conan stories. As you say, The Phoenix on the Sword, The Scarlet Citadel and The Hour of the Dragon do feature a couple of the same characters, mostly in small or "off-screen" roles. Those're the only one's I can think of off the top of my head that do, however.

If you want to have recurring NPCs in your Conan game, though, go for it. Whatever works best for you and your players should be the order of the day. If it helps you create a better story it'll be AOK.

As for your second question, REH's Conan stories didn't originally include such introductions. Others will surely correct me if I'm wrong here but I think they were a product of L. Sprague DeCamp's editorial hand in his attempt to give the stories a chronological structure and presentation when they were being published forty-odd years ago. As such I believe they do appear in older mass-market paperback presentations of the DeCamp-edited tales (which are no longer in print) but in recent years with the publication of REH's works as he wrote them, untouched by any editorial hand, you won't find them in any English-language edition.

 

[Nyarly]

1) Not really, but sometimes Conan meets people who he had encountered before. I.e. in The Hour of the dragon there is the trader Publio in Messantia and shortly thereafter some of the Black Corsairs who served under him (Amra) that were enslaved on the ship whose crew unwisely shanghaied Conan.

Whether or not Howard did it, in my humble opinion it is a good idea since it makes the world more alive. In our group we keep track of important people who we met (and who survived those encounters) and how they are disposed towards us if we should meet again. I.e., we have made some very powerful enemies in Shadizar, we have allies among the Barachan Pirates, in Aquilonia there is one village where we are revered as heroes, there are at lest two demons who we left thirsting for revenge, etc. I expect that we'll encounter most of them again if we visit those places again, or maybe elsewhere ... particularly in the case of influential enemies.

2) I don't think so. I only read Conan in the english original, this edition (borrowed it from a friend but returned it since) and I can't remember such introductory narratives. The original texts of many of Howard's stories are available at Wikisource, like Shadows in Zamboula, and lo, it starts in medias res.

 

[Paladyn]

Thanks a lot. I suspected Camp's hand in those prefaces, as I have suposed they weren't written by polish trnslator (though as a translator too, I must admit he did a wonderful job, but surely was not hred write his own fiction).

As for recurring characters, there wer no worth of mention left alive (apart from Yasmeena, a girl heroes set out to rescue) but to be true to howardian canon, she should be letf alone in nearest city .