To the Styx and Beyond

D

Darkstorm

Mongoose
You guys always seem to like to see what I'm currently up to regarding
my essays about Howard's Hyborian Age. My newest one deconstructs and redraws the map on the lands south of Shem. You can find it online at:
http://www.dodgenet.com/~moonblossom/Cmuse15.html

I promised that this would be out in April, but a hospitalization from viral pnuemonia delayed it a bit. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

Dale Rippke
*************
 
Darkstorm,
As always a very well researched and detail work. Thanks for the time andf effort you put into your essays. :D
 
Thanks for taking a look at the map. I really appreciate your responses!

I've known for a long, long time that the "official" maps showing Stygia and the black kingdoms were wrong. I guess i just got fired up enough to see if it were possible to reasonably plot it all out.

Using Howard and only Howard as the basis of the map is actually liberating in a way. You don't need to try to fit the pastiche stuff into what in reality is a fairly well-defined area. I really don't know how you could go about incorporating that stuff into an actual Howard-specific map.

I think that I'm a couple of years late as far as Mongoose Publishing using my maps as the basis of the "official" map. Oh, well....
 
Darkstorm said:
Using Howard and only Howard as the basis of the map is actually liberating in a way. You don't need to try to fit the pastiche stuff into what in reality is a fairly well-defined area.
Click to expand...
Using Howard-only information is what makes your work so great, in my opinion.

Darkstorm said:
I think that I'm a couple of years late as far as Mongoose Publishing using my maps as the basis of the "official" map. Oh, well....
Click to expand...
Still, its a damn shame if you ask me...

BTW, what will your next project be?
 
Joe Marek has requested that I write an article for his Howard zine; I'll probably do that.

After that, I'll either work on "The Blue East", part three of Cartographic Curiosities or something else that I've been mulling over for quite some time. It deals with the perception of Conan that most people have and how it doesn't always reflect the reality of what Howard wrote. I don't really want to change peoples opinion of the character, but I would like to take people a bit outside of their comfort zone. If it ever happens really depends on whether I can come up with a plan of attack on the essay that I feel get my points across concisely.

Or, it could be something else completely different...
 
Darkstorm said:
... something else that I've been mulling over for quite some time. It deals with the perception of Conan that most people have and how it doesn't always reflect the reality of what Howard wrote. I don't really want to change peoples opinion of the character, but I would like to take people a bit outside of their comfort zone.
Click to expand...
If your taking requests, I vote for this one.
 
Bravo! More on the East, on Conan, bring it on.

I'd still like to see a good simple one-page, black and white, Howard-only map of the region his own maps covered, with enough extrapolation and estimation to fit the key geographical features and settlements; which any future prettier, more expansive or more inclusive map could take as a base.
 
I still use the map out of the Sphere printing, although its not in colour and I haven't yet succeeded in redrawing it to my own taste. It puts (IMHO) Zamboula and Kuthchemes further to the south towards Iranistan, I know Mongoose have the licence to produce the official map ( and it is a work of art, make no mistake), but I just don't agree with Zamboula being on the Road of Kings where it is. The Sphere map puts it further south, approximately where modern-day Damascus is. This, I think, ties in better with it being a city in the middle of the desert surrounded by oases and being on the main caravan route linking Stygia and Shem with the eastern lands.
 
Howard's 1936 map sent to Miller and Clark shows Zamboula as arrow pointing into the desert east of the southward bend of the RIver Styx. Since Stygia's northern border (the east to west part of the Styx) is at the extreme bottom of the map, Zamboula would have to be placed in the Kharamun Desert south of the river's bend and off of the map.

It should be nowhere near the Road of Kings if you can trust Howard as your source...
 
The Sphere map adds in the Black Kingdoms; this puts Zamboula about where you say Howard put it and mirrors what my map shows.
Does a copy of Howard's original map exist? I would love to see it; he must have worked from one as I can't see how he kept all of this in his head. Just goes to show what an exceptional person he was to have created all of this.
 
Actually, there are three Hyborian maps that Howard drew; two in 1932 (found in Del Rey's THE COMING OF CONAN) and the one in 1936 that he sent to P.S. Miller and Dr Clark (found in the upcoming Del Rey book, THE CONQUERING SWORD OF CONAN).

And yes, I do trust Howard as the primary source of all things Conan. I was being a bit of a smart-ass.
 
The map I use is based on the 1936 map. I haven't seen the 1932 ones.
Your map is excellent and I'll be using that as a reference from now on. Where's your earlier stuff?
 
Brass Jester said:
The map I use is based on the 1936 map. I haven't seen the 1932 ones.
Your map is excellent and I'll be using that as a reference from now on. Where's your earlier stuff?
Click to expand...
Hope Darkstorm doesn't mind my jumping in like this. You can find his earlier works at;

http://www.lulu.com/browse/search.php?fSubmitSearch=1&fSearch=Hyborian%20heresies&fSearchFamily=2&fSort=title

Well worth the price! :D
 
Darkstorm said:
After that, I'll either work on "The Blue East", part three of Cartographic Curiosities or something else that I've been mulling over for quite some time. It deals with the perception of Conan that most people have and how it doesn't always reflect the reality of what Howard wrote. I don't really want to change peoples opinion of the character, but I would like to take people a bit outside of their comfort zone. If it ever happens really depends on whether I can come up with a plan of attack on the essay that I feel get my points across concisely.
Click to expand...

This sounds very interesting! Thanks for all your essays as they are very insightful and great reading for all of us interested in Howard and Conan. I wish we could get your map in the size and color of the one I got from Mongoose with the GM screen! Let us know when your next work comes out!
 
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