Signs & Portents #29 Roleplaying Download for Free!

Looks thorough, but the map of Xuthal on p. 9 could have been designed more competently. My biggest (well, one of my biggest) gripes with RPG in general is the lack of credible, realistic mapping. DnD is extremely guilty of this, & that's why I will have nothing to do with the "Littoral Mages" any longer! :evil:
Can't wait to throw Thog at the PCs. Mwa-ha-ha-HAAA! :twisted:
 
An article like that is very helpful - thanks to the author! Is he here on the forum?

One thing I'd change: make the standard Xuthalan a Commoner instead of Noble. If you have only nobles in a city the whole concept doesn't make sense, or in game terms: if all characters have a Title, have Wealth and Rank has its privileges, these features lose their worth. Since the lotus-dreaming Xuthalans never learned very much in their life, I think it not so appropriate to give them an heroic class like Noble, but the downgraded Commoner.
Although some nobles like the Xuthalan king and his relatives are Nobles.
 
Two more annotations:

1. On p.16 it is said that the entire race is sterile. This is wrong according to Thalis who prophesies that in few generations they will be extinct. The context implies that Xuthalan generations are meant, not generation in the sense of "a few decades".

2. Thog is IMO overpowered. This guy has not only DR 8, but 6 good devastating attacks, too. I can't imagine how even a 15th level Conan should have brought him down with just a sword in hand, a loincloth as armour and weakened from wandering in the desert and fighting a bunch of Xuthalans.
Maybe I'm too critical or the author wanted a Thog who is a challenging opponent to a whole PC group.
 
Hello All,

Just thought I'd pop in and say hello. Thanks to everyone here who had such nice things to say regarding my Xuthal article. Really glad you guys liked it. Rereading it myself, I began to wonder... Just jitters I guess.

Anyway, let's see

Rene wrote:
1. On p.16 it is said that the entire race is sterile. This is wrong according to Thalis who prophesies that in few generations they will be extinct. The context implies that Xuthalan generations are meant, not generation in the sense of "a few decades".


Well, I kinda disagree here. My understanding was that Thalis meant that it would take generations for the present 'generation' of Xuthalans to die out -- this because they prolong their life via the lotus wine. Since this is the case, and they are slowly being killed off by Thog, eventually they will be extinct. Of course, this will take longer than would ordinarily be the case for those unable to produce, because they prolong their lives unnaturally.

Rene wrote:
2. Thog is IMO overpowered. This guy has not only DR 8, but 6 good devastating attacks, too. I can't imagine how even a 15th level Conan should have brought him down with just a sword in hand, a loincloth as armour and weakened from wandering in the desert and fighting a bunch of Xuthalans.
Maybe I'm too critical or the author wanted a Thog who is a challenging opponent to a whole PC group.


This could be true, but I think it is a bit amusing. I was actually a tad worried that Thog was underpowered. I mean if you compare him to the other Demon Lords in the core books, he is not quite in their league. Take Khosatral Khel for example, and in the Devil in Iron, Conan puts him down much quicker than Thog. True, he had the knife, put it still seemed kinda quick once he had it. It's a tough thing really, to translate into game stats, but i was pretty pleased all in all.
 
Yogah of Yag, sorry you did not like the map. I thought it came out pretty well considering the primitive one I sent. I must admit I have no actual archetetual skill and I grew up on D&D and its artificial maps (which I love by the way). Still, there's only so much we can do in a format like this -- an article like this really only has space for a general map.

Cheers.
 
Kazzigum said:
1.Well, I kinda disagree here. My understanding was that Thalis meant that it would take generations for the present 'generation' of Xuthalans to die out -- this because they prolong their life via the lotus wine. Since this is the case, and they are slowly being killed off by Thog, eventually they will be extinct. Of course, this will take longer than would ordinarily be the case for those unable to produce, because they prolong their lives unnaturally.
Click to expand...

Well, I don't want to split hairs (doing this often enough at university), but I think if the Xuthalans were indeed sterile Thalis would have mentioned it. So I come to read the passage in another than you.

But nonetheless: cool article!
 
Rene,

True, Thalis makes no mention of it. Still, there are certain things in an article like this that require a bit of creative license -- I did create a few 'facts' from whole cloth. This was one of them. Not everything that an article of this kind requires was present in the source material, so I did my best to add to the cannon but stay true to what I believe Howard would have approved of. Anyhow, that the great thing about gaming material -- if you don't agree or don't like it, you are free (even encouraged) to change the 'facts' to suit you. You are the GM after all, and thus wield awesome cosmic power.

And thanks again for the props. I've happy you liked it.


--Jason
 
Kazzigum said:
Well, I kinda disagree here. My understanding was that Thalis meant that it would take generations for the present 'generation' of Xuthalans to die out -- this because they prolong their life via the lotus wine. Since this is the case, and they are slowly being killed off by Thog, eventually they will be extinct. Of course, this will take longer than would ordinarily be the case for those unable to produce, because they prolong their lives unnaturally.
Click to expand...

I always understood that to mean that with Thog and continual warfare Thalis was seeing the number of 'Xuthalans' decline slowly, Many do appear to be of differing ages with young warriors and older leaders which would definitly not imply sterility.

The question is a bit moot unless you want to settle down and raise a family there..... Stranger things have happened.
 
I´ve read the article and i must say "great work", i only don´t agree with the xuthalans being steril... but thats a way to see their decline as reported by thalis... but as said before, unless you want to make an adventure several hundred years after Conan, or have a xuthalan son, that is irrelevant.

I really liked the city description, very interesting info, and the city plant is kind of what we espected, a non-usual city.

About Thog... probably it is a little bit too powerfull, but then again i don´t think that Conan won without dificulties...

Keep up the good work...
 
At the weekend I'm going to be guest-GM for the group which I already GMed in the Black Kingdoms scenarios 1 & 2. I decided to make them a gang of Darfari raiders who thought to prey on a Ghanata tribe, but were themselves slaughtered by the intented prey. They fled into the desert and before dying of thirst the last survivors see a mirage. Maybe it's Xuthal... :wink:

I'm not sure what events I'll let happen, maybe staying close to REH's story will work. Since it is a one-shot adventure, it'll be no problem if the PCs don't make it out alive.
 
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