The Quest For Cush by Charles Saunders

The Imaro series, book 2, picks up immediately after the first one. Like the previous book, it's a rip romping sword and sorcery tale of Imaro against the vile sorcerers who haunt the land and his own background. 

Things I enjoyed about Imaro that could be used for the game:

1. Earning Money. Imaro is a big fellow with a natural talent for weapons. Where might such an individual make his funds easiest? Why, the arena of course!

2. Making the Enemy Fierce: Much like animated shows Dragonball Z and others, prior to Imaro's battle in the arena, he gets to see the current champions handled like a chump and knows that his new enemy is someone worthy of respect.

3. No Sea Journey Is Safe: While on board a boat to Cush in the middle of the stormy season, monsters equal to the old deep ones are called up thus proving that no boat journey is safe.

4. The characters draw attention to themselves: The players are probably not the standards of the setting. In that vein, they may draw attention to themselves and that attention may not play out too well for those around them. In this case, because there are forces that want Imaro dead, those around him have a nasty habbit of winding up dead. In a D&D game, the players are often walking treasure troves and bandit attacks and other problems would probably not be a rare occurance.

5. The players go where no one else dares. Here, we start off with Imaro's lady love being taken by Atlantians to the City of Madness. When we come near the end, he's off to a cursed bog. The players are the players because they ignore those old taboos. They go where others won't. It's also why they're such a high paid lot and why they tend to die off so quickly.

6. The players are often barbarians. In this context, I don't necessarily mean like Conan or even Imaro in that they're from a wild and savage land, but rather, they are often on the move so much that other cultures ways and methods may seem strange to them and it'd be easy for players to make enemies in a new city without meaning to.

In the end, the Quest for Cush has Imaro essentially settling down to become a black smith, but since it's not the end of the series, it's rather just a stopping point on towards further adventure.