Sourcebook for Northern Hyboria?????????

[The King]

Which stories are you refering to, de Camp's pastiche "the thing in the crypt"?

 

[Raven Blackwell]

If you were going to merge the new comic material in with the game, it should be pointed out that the 'Hyperborean' people are the entire country's population. The wizard-lords [as I call them] are a very select minority who have removed themselves from the active world 500 years ago. So grandpa of Hyperborea is more likely a fearful primitive who dodges the occasional Gurnakhi patrol when the Hyperboreans need some Tormented Sacrifices than the ones need the sacrifices. Conan just refers to them as 'Hyperboreans' because he doesn't know any better. It's not like he was sticking around to take a census of the country.

If you came down to it there's enough space for wizard-lords, witch-queens and those white masked freaks in Hyperborea as well as the more common Hyperboreans and whatever horrors you can concoct yourself. It's rather big, has the ruins of an ancient civilization and not well travelled.

 

[VincentDarlage]

If you came down to it there's enough space for wizard-lord, witch-queens and those white masked freaks in Hyperborea as well as the more common Hyperboreans and whatever horrors you can concoct yourself. It's rather big, has the ruins of an ancient civilization and not well travelled.

Beautiful answer, Raven; I rather agree here.

 

[Galt Hagar's Son]

SO vincent are you taking up the offer to be chained to the desk again for this book?













Please say "yes"

 

[VincentDarlage]

SO vincent are you taking up the offer to be chained to the desk again for this book?

Please say "yes"

Well, Mongoose hasn't offered yet, but if they did, I would write it, especially Hyperborea and Nordheim (I have SERIOUS reservations about Cimmeria; I believe it should remain dark and mysterious).

 

[The King]

SO vincent are you taking up the offer to be chained to the desk again for this book?

Please say "yes"

Well, Mongoose hasn't offered yet, but if they did, I would write it, especially Hyperborea and Nordheim (I have SERIOUS reservations about Cimmeria; I believe it should remain dark and mysterious).

It wouldn't be serious to cover every one countries of Hyboria excepted Cimmeria. I am sure it is possible to find something on it, digging in his poems and other stories (the grey god, etc.).

 

[MadDog]

LMAO, I'm sorry MadDog, I wasn't slamming Vincent for his writeup of the witchmen, I never liked the sorcerous society or giant slaves that seemed more like Return to Castle Falkenstein 1st person shooter game than Hyberborean transmuted warriors.

Just for the record, I didnt realize Vincent wrote the article, so it wasnt "dog pile on Vincent" day.

I didnt like the article due to making magic items so relatively prevalent and I thought the adventure was insanely lethal.

Mad Dog

 

[Raven Blackwell]

Yes, but the sorcerers depicted in the pastiches are not corpses, they're just long lived sorcerers of an ancient, unknown race who enslave all that they encounter and have the slaves serve them while they sit around wondering what it's like to to die. That was the "authors'" intent to create a creepy visual image. Instead it's just dumb no-noses.

The 'wizard-lords' are indivduals who 500 years ago created a complex set of spells that slowed their individual dying process and thought of it as eternal life. Since no one can cheat the Reaper time still wears away at them- turning them from the vital blond haired Hyborian stock shown in flashback in issue #5 to the 'half-dead' [as Conan puts it] individuals they are at present. Their suicidal tendancies come from a fact JRR Tolkien once pointed out- that eternal life would wear away at a mortal consciousness until they became numb and jaded. Without the threat of Death, Life becomes a long period of boredom and eventually the fear getting on with the next state of things becomes ecclipsed by hearing that knock-knock joke made by your roommate one more damn time.....and jumping off the walls seems like a damn fine alternative. 8)

 

[Bregales]

Maybe thats what would have happened if men ruled in Fafhrd's homeland, instead of their being a matriarchal system ruled by the spellcasting women. Gotta love Fritz Lieber's stories.

 

[Razuur]

I would love a sourcebook on the Cimmeria highlighted in "the Legends of Kern" novels.

But I don't think Mr. Darlage will write it!

:twisted:

Razuur

 

[Turloigh]

I never liked the sorcerous society or giant slaves that seemed more like Return to Castle Falkenstein 1st person shooter game than Hyberborean transmuted warriors.

[nitpicking mode]
I suppose you mean Castle Wolfenstein. Falkenstein is a very different place.
(Neither is to be confused with Frankenstein, by the way.)
[/nitpicking mode off]
Sorry, couldn't resist... :wink:

 

[René]

I have SERIOUS reservations about Cimmeria; I believe it should remain dark and mysterious.

I second that. Detailing this land would - at last for me - rob the mythos CONAN of his mythic quality. I'm totally fine with the degree of detail given by REH's poem about Cimmeria.
But probably I belong to a radical minority since I even house-ruled that there are no Cimmerian PCs are allowed in my game (I haven't even used a Cimmerian NPC - they wander very rarely with CONAN the big exception). Since CONAN is so dominant in our perception of Cimmeria, I fear that Cimmerian characters get very fast into cliche. It would strip away the uniqueness of the big one.

 

[Bjorn the Barbarian]

I do not think that providing a little bit more information on Cimmeria would be all that damaging to the mythos.

A few more geographic features, villages, etc., just what might be encountered should any civilized folk enter this forbidden and gloomy land.

It would not have to be a detailed description. Maybe just a few ideas on what the more outgoing and traveling Cimmerians do, their perspectives, and attitudes toward civilized lands and peoples, etc.

The rest of the book could cover the other northern nations in detail.

 

[Yogah of Yag]

The Witchmen was an attempt by L. Sprague de Camp to show the beginnings of Finnish mythology - as sorcerers sprung up in Hyperborea, a few of them insisted on being worshipped as gods for their powers - and then later were incorporated into Finnish Myth, their true origins forgotten. Louhi of Pohjohla was a Finnish goddess of the underworld (she appeared in DnD as Loviatar).

I had some inkling that Finnish mythos was being referenced! I studied Kalevala and Finnish with two native speakers in early college. (It's a damn tough read in the original! :shock: ) Going to Kalevala for further inspiration for Hyperborea would be logical. Let's introduce the hotly-sought-after, mysterious Sampo, steady old Väinämöinen, Kullervo and the others! The artist Akseli Galen-Kallela (sp?) did some marvelous works inspired by Kalevala that are also good for getting ideas about Hyperborea.

 

[Raven Blackwell]

The Witchmen was an attempt by L. Sprague de Camp to show the beginnings of Finnish mythology - as sorcerers sprung up in Hyperborea, a few of them insisted on being worshipped as gods for their powers - and then later were incorporated into Finnish Myth, their true origins forgotten. Louhi of Pohjohla was a Finnish goddess of the underworld (she appeared in DnD as Loviatar).

Ah, a RL Dark Goddess after my heart- maybe literally....8)