Jb — Roleplayer Guild

The Nemedian Chronicles

'Know, o prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars – Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyberborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet.'

- Robert E. Howard, The Nemedian Chronicles (from The Phoenix on the Sword)

Introduction

"Welcome to the Hyborian Age, a time of mighty-hewed barbarians, evil sorcerers, corrupt priests, tyrannical kings, and unnatural monsters. 

This is the first and most famous of all sword-and-sorcery worlds, the time of Conan the Cimmerian, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, yet destined one day to rule the most powerful nation of the age. The stories of Conan, as chronicled by the writer Robert E. Howard, form the basis and inspiration for the game..

The Hyborian Age is named for the Hyborian kingdoms, the pre-eminent powers of the age, which are the most culturally and technologically advanced lands on Earth, their kings’ thrones maintained through longbows, plate armour, and feudalism. These kingdoms more commonly make war against one another than against the real threats all around them, such as the wild Picts, raiding northmen, avaricious Hyrkanian nomads and the dread sorceries of Stygia to the south. Beyond Stygia and the plains of Shem lies the continent of Kush, black and unknown, a land of jungles and deserts. Far to the east are more kingdoms, perhaps almost as advanced as the Hyborian lands but little more than legend, with Vendhya and Khitai being the most prominent." 

- from Conan the Roleplaying Game, Atlantian Edition

The Setting and Beginning

Welcome, one and all, to this RP run by myself and any co-GM that might volunteer to assist me! Please allow me, if you will, to set out for you where exactly we shall be starting our adventure...

Slaves. All are slaves. It does not, and should not, matter how you got here or even where you are from, all that now matters is that the Turanian Slavers have got you in their clutches and are unsurprisingly not looking too kindly upon you. Not yet have the professional torturers of Turan had time to ply their mind-bending trade, breaking your spirit and shattering what little resistance you may have yet had after the floggings and beatings, but it would not be long now before your slave galley was destined to reach the port of Shapur and the slave markets therein.

Fortune smiles on you though- or so you believe -as sails appear on the horizon of the Central Vilayet Sea, sails unmatched by those of the Turanian or Hyrkanian navies...alas, they are the sails of the Red Brotherhood!

Many of those around you begin to bemoan the situation, seeing it as their certain deaths either way, half of the flotilla of Turanian vessels sweeping about to engage the pirates while the others- the majority of them slave galleys, filled to the brim with all manner of meat for the sale block -head in the direction of the Turanian coast with the utmost speed.

Yet each must make their own decision! There are some among the slaves, Cimmerians, Picts and other savages, that would gladly rise up from their rowing benches or from their prone positions on the decks and bash the skulls of their overseers and deck crews. Others, Stygians, Shemites and those with the skills of the thieves, may be able to make escape from the manacles and chains of the slavers a reality. Others- broad and beautiful women from varied lands perhaps -are always a fine distraction to men at sea, even those in the middle of a crisis.

So, what will it be? Will you sit and do nothing, perhaps wait for the correct moment to strike? Maybe use the arcane powers you possess, but have been too afraid to use, to free yourself? Are you a strong enough savage to wrench free from the links of that slightly rusted chain, using it to strangle the yelling Turanian dogs?

Welcome, one and all, welcome to the Hyborian Age!

Addendum: You can be either slaves or free persons I.E. A non-slave travelling along with the Turanians, for whatever reason of their own. If you do chose a free person, please try to make up a good reason why they'd be on a Turanian slave galley in the first place.

Lore

"The Hyborian Age is the scant few hundred years in which the kingdoms descended from the old Hyborian tribes have become civilised and powerful, dominating the lands all about them both economically and militarily. This is a mythical time, thousands of years before recorded history, when even the continents had a different shape from their modern contours.

Aquilonia, a richly fertile land, dominates the Hyborian kingdoms themselves. It includes within its capacious borders some of the doughtiest soldiers in the world, including the fierce pikemen of Gunderland, the stalwart archers of the Bossonian Marches and the superb knights of Poitain. These, along with the strong plate armour manufactured by Aquilonia’s highly skilled armourers, have ensured that this nation is virtually unassailable from without and have allowed Aquilonia to get thebest of the raiding in its sporadic wars with its traditional enemy, Nemedia.

Despite this, Aquilonia can sometimes be a victim of its ownsuccess. It is landlocked and has no direction into which its surplus population may expand, without going to full-scale war with Nemedia. Various attempts to settle in Cimmeria and the Pictish Wilderness have been repulsed by the barbarians of those lands. Aquilonia’s ordinary farmers and craftsmen look longingly upon the vast forested estates claimed by its nobles for their hunting. A strong leader who offered to cut down the forests and let the people settle there might one day gain the popular support to wrest control from Aquilonia’s ancient monarchy. Indeed, this is exactly how Conan eventually becomes King here.

Aquilonia’s Hyborian neighbours are its old rival Nemedia, almost as powerful and perhaps a more ancient civilisation; Brythunia and Corinthia with their city-states; Argos, the great maritime trading nation; and Ophir and Koth, two kingdoms somewhat weakened morally by the influence of the pleasure-oriented culture of the east. Like Aquilonia, most of these countries revere Mitra, an enlightened, civilised god, though Koth and perhaps Ophir have allowed the Shemite pantheon to displace Mitra in their reverence.

The lands to the north and west of Aquilonia are beyond civilization. The Pictish Wilderness extends up much of the continent’s western coast and only the heavily fortified strip of land known as the Bossonian Marches prevents the Picts from surging into Aquilonia on constant raids. South of the Wilderness is Zingara, the lifelong rival of Argos for maritime trade and influence, a land of expert swordsmen, chivalry and frequent civil war. Just off its coast are the Barachan Isles. These are pirate strongholds largely settled by Argossean sailors, who regularly plunder Zingaran ports and do battle with Zingara’s own buccaneers.

North of the Aquilonian province of Gunderland is Cimmeria. This misty, barbaric hill country is the original home of Conan himself. Beyond Cimmeria are the two nations of the Nordheimir: Asgard and Vanaheim; grim, icy lands populated by warriors who are grimmer still. Also to the north is Hyperborea, whose culture mingles that of Nordheim and the Hyborians. The sparsely populated Border Kingdoms form a bulwark between Cimmeria and the Hyborian countries of Brythunia and Nemedia.

South of the Hyborian kingdoms is the vast expanse of Shem, with a pastoral meadowland of city-states to the west and desert populated by nomad tribes to the east. 

Shem has almost no maritime trade but Shemite merchants send caravans far to the north, east and south, across trackless desert, through jungle and to almost every nation of the world. South of Shem is the ancient sorcerous theocracy of Stygia. Beyond that lies the unexplored, savage continent of Kush.

East of the Shemite desert is similarly unknown territory for most Hyborians. It is said the kingdoms of Turan, Khitai and Vendhya control the lands beyond the desert and steppe and caravans do sometimes come out of these mysterious lands with exotic goods and strange artifacts for trade.

Also to the east of the Hyborian kingdoms but far better known to them is the ancient civilisation of Zamora. Bordering on Brythunia, Corinthia and Koth to the west and the trackless steppes between Shem and Turan to the east, Zamora is famed for its complex religion of spider-worship, its unequalled thieves and its superb Bhalkhana warhorses.

Adventuring within the Hyborian kingdoms is well suited to more martial characters who are happy enough to join a mercenary company and fight where they are ordered. For those thieves content to rob the occasional merchant caravan or rich household, the Hyborian lands can also provide a good living, if perhaps a short one when they are caught.

Beyond the civilized Hyborian lands lies adventure: lost cities still populated with mysterious civilizations, ancient tombs filled with sorcerous artifacts, unexplored jungles, weird kingdoms whose customs and even language are utterly unlike anything known in Aquilonia. For those who are not afraid of the unknown and are prepared to risk everything on a wild venture, untold wealth awaits – riches from before the dawn of time, hidden pirate treasure-caches, the war chests of defeated kingdoms.

The folk of these lands are often strange to Hyborian eyes. The nomads of Shem are fierce and primal, travelling from Turan to Zamora with only their mounts, a few herd animals, white robes to ward off the harsh sun, lances and bows for hunting and war. Then there are the Kshatriya warrior nobles of Vendhya, whose heavily stratified society has endured and prospered for centuries. The upstart Shahs and warriors of Turan, so recently no more than Hyrkanian horsemen, now control much of the east and its wealth. The cat-footed men of Khitai, sorcerers and priests, chime brass bells in their lost jungles. The savage warriors of Kush and beyond, clad only in feathered headdresses, are as ready to bash in an enemy’s skull as to breathe.

Here, too, can be found monsters – the legendary man-apes, the dragons of Kush, the primeval forest beasts of the Pictish Wilderness, the enormous serpents of Stygia and many a strange, unique creature, created or summoned by sorcery in past aeons. All these foes are terrifying to behold but it is said that most can be slain by a man with a stout heart, strong arm and sharp blade. The demons of the Outer Dark, called up by sorcery or trapped on Earth by bad luck, can be quite another matter.

The open seas provide another set of challenges. Pirates abound on every stretch of water, in the Western Sea, up and down the Black Coast and far to the east in the Vilayet Sea. So successful are these raiders that most are as confi dent about attacking a fortified port town as they are when simply taking merchant ships. Whether hired to guard against pirate attacks, engaged in a spot of buccaneering themselves, or exploring the seas for mysterious islands and new continents, adventurers can get into a lot of trouble – and gain a lot of coin – sailing these blood-drenched waters.

On a more spiritual note, most nations have a religion of some kind. Few have any proof that their religions provide anything more than comfort for the soul but this does not stop them believing. The only folk who know of such matters with certainty are the sorcerers, who are for the most part assured of damnation.

Many of the movers and shakers of society, particularly in the sorcerous land of Stygia, are either sorcerers themselves or regularly employ sorcerers to get what they want. Occasionally a genuinely pious priest will learn a little sorcery, the better to fox the wizards of his enemies; but even for these good-hearted folk there is a risk of corruption, for sorcery is power. Those scholars driven to the study of magic purely by a quest for knowledge are often the first to abandon their lofty ideals when they get a taste for the pure power of wizardry.

The sorcerers speak of other realms beyond the Earth of the Hyborian Age. The Outer Dark is home to demons; hell itself is home to more diabolic creatures and to lost souls. Beyond the Outer Dark are more planets, often cold and accursed, the source of many a weird monster travelling through the void under its own power or blown as spores by cosmic forces."

- Robert E. Howard, The Nemedian Chronicles (from The Phoenix on the Sword)

"Emphatically not. Most of the Conan stories, even those that focus predominantly on battling armies or conflicts between individual warriors, feature at least one evil sorcerer – often whole societies, priesthoods or covens of them.

Magical items abound too, though not the benefi cial swords of power and useful wands of typical fantasy games. Almost any sorcerous object is unique, and comes with its own price and risks. Likewise, strange creatures are relatively frequent in the lands beyond civilisation – whether created by foul magic, left over from an earlier age or somehow degenerated from savage humans over the centuries. Though an ordinary citizen of Aquilonia may never encounter a sorcerer, weird ghoul or alchemical preparation in his life, the adventurer will have to become used to such things being commonplace.

However, Conan, as originally visualised by Robert E. Howard, is not ‘high fantasy’ either, but sword-and-sorcery. It has much the same relationship to the works of Tolkien as the hard-boiled crime fiction of Raymond Chandler to the more distinctive detective tales of Agatha Christie. This is visceral, dark, weird fantasy.

There are no elves, gnomes and dwarves to befriend, and if you do meet a monster, it will be a figure of terror, not a convenient way to garner a few experience points. Furthermore, your character will not begin the game with some great destiny to fulfill, as the descendant of a legendary kingdom or the inheritor of some great artifact – whatever destiny you have is what you can wrest from life with your own calloused hands or hewn from it with your great sword.

It should also be noted that despite the apparently common presence of the supernatural, it is always mysterious and terrifying. The supernatural element is deftly woven into the main plot, but it is often scheming human foes whose plots provide Conan with his most dangerous adventures. The weird non-human creatures encountered must often be fled from, rather than simply battled. On several occasions Conan elects to abandon any chance at the staggering wealth on offer rather than be destroyed by its dreadful guardians and the wise adventurer should consider doing the same."

- Robert E. Howard, The Nemedian Chronicles (from The Phoenix on the Sword)

Character Creation/Profiles

Here is the character profile/registration format, which needs to followed exactly.

When created, one must post the profile to me, via PM, for approval; once accepted, feel free to post it in the main tab and character tab.

Username:
Name:
Age:
Origin:
Appearance
Abilities/Special Training:
Weapon(s):
Personality:
History:
Other:

It appeared that quite an eclectic group had gathered in the Archives, each correctly assuming that it was one place that would draw many of their ilk to it; of course, it was within the interior of the Temple, reasonably defensible, and contained all the extant knowledge of millennia of Jedi and information of their existence, although inwardly the Kel Dor gave a long sigh as he realised that the next few hours would see the destruction of the majority of this information and, if they did not get the Force out of here soon, their own deaths as well.

With his hilt held leisurely but readily in one hand, his concealed eyes moving from one presence in the Force to another beneath his goggles, he listened in silence to the multiple voices. Some were worried, as they well should be, while others put forward their own plans of action...and one of them even seemed to be projecting a rather more violent attitude than was really suitable for a Jedi of any standing.

"Master T'ish, could you please lead the way. Wynn old friend, take the middle to ensure our young friends are safe. I shall ensure that nobody sneaks up on his."

He gave a curt nod, letting a shallow breath escape his body as he watched the Ithorian Master – now the highest standing member of their small group of survivors – lend some comfort to the recently revealed Initiates. Taking a short glance at his own Padawan, he realised that he had never really been that sort of mentor to her - one who was both father and teacher, an idol who was easily capable of shifting between soothing words and strict instruction – perhaps, if they survived this, he should try to thaw away some of his frigid manner. If they survived.

In the same posture of silent observation he watched at the Catuman, Wynn, who he realised with some concern had been projecting the more angry emotions all along, gave out instructions to the lower Jedi – Jasma being one of them. Somehow he could not help but feel a small twang of annoyance, possibly even possessiveness, rise to the surface as he watched the group; she was his Padawan, and his responsibility, he did not need some feline giving his apprentice orders! 

Then again, it could just as easily have been an innate vexation with the cocksure attitude, the way that this former General took command of those below him in knowledge, essentially being the complete opposite of the Jedi Knight that had by now turned back toward the tunnels.

“If you will all follow me,” came his baritone voice, a hint of vibration added by the mask he wore, “I intend to get to the tunnels with all speed, so keep focused and keep up. May the Force be with us all.”

The next second he was off, his saber deactivated but his senses open and stretched to the fullest, his long strides carrying him swiftly through the aisles of the Archives and back toward the secreted entrance to the equally concealed tunnels – but for just how long would they remain so, and what would happen if and when they were discovered?

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