The Americas in the Hyborian Age

F

Fearguis

Mongoose
Has anyone attempted to create the "North and South American" continents for Conan? This was hinted at in the D20 book as a decent campaign setting for those who wanted to shy away from the "usual" Conan-dominated setting. Sounds like it might be a good dodge sometime.

I was thinking of creating South America for my campaign, and I imagine the countries would have the flavor of the Incas and Mayans. What would be a good name for such countries? What do you think the people would be like?
 
Well... in REH-style, the southern Americas would be weird amalgums of the civilized and the savage. Places with terrible cults to strange, colorful, and bloodthirsty gods. Mass sacrifices, nubile brown-skined slave girls, and step-pyramids topped with blood-soaked sacfificial stones. Jungles thick and swarming with terrible beasts in which the legendery Rainbow Lotus grows beneath thick canopies of interwoven branches heavy with birds of a thousand colors. Deep in the jungles, the ruins of ancient empires are slowly swollowed up by the vines and the trees, while their deadly secrets wait the foolish or the brave to uncover them. The Sorcerer-Priests rule empires to rival Stygia for their corruption and evil, drenching temples and streets in anual festivals of mass sacrifice consecrated to their serpentine and beplumed gods. A land which has never known horse, in which the wheel is a child's toy only, and yet in which the sciences of astronomy, astrology, mathmatics, and sorcery are awesome in their scope...

-B
 
I'm sure somebody (probably De Campe) wrote a story about King Cona, now in his sixties but still going strong, handing over the kingdom to his son and heading off to somewhere not unlike South America circa the time of the Aztecs.
 
On current archaeological/anthropological evidence you can even have 'white' and 'black' tribes in the Americas, and cultures going back tens of thousands of years before Conan's time. You could have a conflict between older, possibly decadent (or just peaceful) civilisations in the Americans, and the new waves of migrant barbarian hordes moving south from the Bering land bridge, displacing the weaker native populations. This could be an interesting conflict for Hyborean PCs to choose sides in, especially if the natives are relatively likeable but the force of history is clearly on the side of the invaders...

And don't forget all the giant land animals doomed to extinction, not just giant sloths - eg there certainly were horses in the Americas, although they weren't used for riding and were hunted to extinction.
 
Fearguis said:
Has anyone attempted to create the "North and South American" continents for Conan? This was hinted at in the D20 book as a decent campaign setting for those who wanted to shy away from the "usual" Conan-dominated setting. Sounds like it might be a good dodge sometime.

I was thinking of creating South America for my campaign, and I imagine the countries would have the flavor of the Incas and Mayans. What would be a good name for such countries? What do you think the people would be like?
Click to expand...

Aren't they Antillia and Zothique (Mayapan)? Worshippers of Xotli, Lord of Terror? Covered in the pastiche novel Conan of the Isles?
 
Bailywolf said:
A land which has never known horse, in which the wheel is a child's toy only, and yet in which the sciences of astronomy, astrology, mathmatics, and sorcery are awesome in their scope...
-B
Click to expand...

Actually, considering the time frame, the native cultures of the Hyborian Americas might very well be using horses, as horses did not die out in the Americas until 11,000 to 8,000 BC or thereabouts, coinciding with what is regarded as the "Amerind Migration" over the Bering Straits (which, as someone else here mentioned, might not be the only migration by far).

So that could certainly well throw players off, especially if they were planning on doing some sort of "conquistador" thing... heh heh heh... Imagine an "Aztec" Hyborian culture with mounted cavalry. "Mayans" wouldn't have much to do with horses or cavalry, but those Aztecs certainly would. Antilla of the Conan of the Isles novel was not the actual mainland, IIRC, so even if you are using that as a source, it is not definitive for the entire region.
 
I must admit, I'm not all that familiar with the ancient history of South America. Does anyone know if the Aztecs, for example, had a name for their lands? That would be a nice phonetic base to use for a Hyborian nation.
 
Don't get over-familiar with the actual real history/cultures... it's not like Howard did that himself. Just get an idea about the highlights:

How did they dress?

How did they fight (and with what weapons)?

What kind of sorcery/religion do they have?

What do their names sound like?

What do they have, and how can I take it away from them?

You are going for flavor rather than fact.




An personally I'd go for the horseless society... it make a nice break from much Hyborea proper, and a way of explicitly dividing some esential elements of the two lands... the concept of distance would be different in a land without horse or cart, as would warefare and trade.



-B
 
I'd also go into the lack of most workable metals, other than gold/silver. The historical Aztecs and Mayans used obsidian and wood for their weapons, which were pretty damn sharp, but easily broken. Perhaps create clubs that dealt B/S damage with high crit ranges, but very low hardness/HP. No metal armor, either, just padded or leather.
 
Didn't some cultures in the region use stone armor? Cut disks or plates of stone sewn into a vest or harness? I swear I heard this somewhere...


anhow, hwere is a good weapons link:

http://history.smsu.edu/jchuchiak/HST%20350--Aztec_weapons.htm

-B
 
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CIVAMRCA/AZTECS.HTM

Here's a decent history lesson.

Looks like if one were to create an Aztec nation for Hyboria, its name would probably be a variation of Tenochca.

Tenotha, maybe?
 
A name along the lines of "Aztlan" would be in an Aztec-style setting as well. Likely as some sort of holy (or unholy!) mountain or city? Aztlan wasn't quite the name of the Aztec homeland, I believe it was reputed to be where Quetzalcoatl came from, an island to the east...possibly a remnant of Atlantis.

As for the Maya regions, one could make use of the (possibly apocryphal) stories of tunnels - too small for humans - underneath the ruins of Monte Alban. Some sort of Cthulhuoid "Crawlers In The Dark" under Mayan cities...after all, Conan stories can never get enough Outer Dark beasties that go squishy.

Ooh, I have a weird hankering to do some Conan in a Mesoamerican setting. ;)

While we're speaking of Hyborian Age America, why not do something with Fusang? There's these legends that the Chinese (read Khitani) got to America, landing and settling in California...
 
http://www.wsu.edu:8000/~dee/CIVAMRCA/OLMECS.HTM

Ah, here we are. Looks like the Olmecs would be characteristic of the folks one would run into in Conan's time. Their civilization thrived back in 1200 BC, and then they mysteriously disappeared later on. That's pretty cool. I'll need to read up some more on these people.
 
I would tend to suggest avoiding a straight copy of pre-Columbian Americas, although elements can certainly be used just as REH did for Europe/Hyborea. Eg Howard had Stygia worship the 'enemy' god Set, so why not have a mesoAmerican empire revering the benevolent Quetzalcoatl, with the Aztec's evil gods like Teztcatlipoca and Tlaloc as underground cults. BTW Tlaloc is a rain god often associated with Cthulu, which ought to fit a Lovecraftian feel. I think having a Kihitaian colonial state of Fusang on the west coast is quite a good idea, if you want to go with Khitai=China. I would defiitely make it a turbulent time, barbarian invasions from the north by the ancestors of modern Amerindians seems much better to me than making it a static 1492-style setting disrupted by Hyborean 'conquistadors'.
 
I think it's generally bad to try to make mini versions of cultures based on the large empires. Perhaps downgrade a little and think mound-builders instead of pyramids ...

Not like you can't add Aztec or Mayan flavor, but the scale is wrong.
 
A theory that I have seen recently in the search for Atlantis is that some believe that it's really South America. Could be another way to tie it in with Howards books. *shrug*

Maybe all of Atlantis didn't sink but the cataclysm moved it's location a thousand leagues.
 
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