Conan vs Barbarianism

 One of the themes that Robert E. Howard returns to again and again in his Conan tales, is the idea that civilization is a temporary thing that must be wiped out by barbarianism.

That's nonsense, even in his own writing.

Conan on the other hand?

Well, as the protagonist, even when he should be dead multiple times over from a wide variety of sources, he changes the tide and sets the course.

If barbarianism had been the superior way, Conan would've died multiple times over because as often as he's written in the bowels of deep civilization, he's also against those with whom he shares more in common.

And because he's the protagonist, he's better at almost every single thing they do than they are.

Conan is a Cimmerian. It's hill country.

Try telling that to the dozens if not hundreds of Picts Conan has killed. Doesn't matter if he's ambushing them in the woods, his own hunting and woodcraft far outstripping 'barbarians' whose lifestyle Conan is emulating, or just outrunning them over open terrain and avoiding them shooting at him as he's climbing up a ledge and casually pulling arrows out of his legs.

It doesn't matter if he's on the frozen plains fighting against the Vanir. He's better than the Vanir at everything they do.

It doesn't matter if he's a Pirate off the coast and raiding countries that no civilized people even know about when he's fighting with and for the Kushites.

Barbarianism isn't the answer to civilization.

It's Conan.

Conan Is Not A Hero

 One of the things that I've debated with others about is the difference between Conan being the protagonist and Conan being a hero.

Sometimes herosim can be a difficult thing to define.

For example, Conan often has a sense of honor and a sense of fair play. It's rare for him to betray someone even if he knows that person is going to try to do him in.

And Conan meets a lot of fellow rogues and slayers and he trusts them because of the whole honor among thieves.

Because Conan is the protagonist, this works well for him. Things don't even well for the Prince of Thieves here.

But here's the thing.

Conan is here breaking into someone else's place. Mind you, those who try to cast Conan as a hero often note, rightfully so mind you, that those Conan steals from, are often the worst of the worst. In this case a wizard necromancer who tortures and enslaves others.  Whose wealth and power give him full domination over the city and its rulers.

But we have to be clear.

Conan isn't doing it to rid the city of the necromancer. He'd rather not even meet the necromancer if possible.

This doesn't count other times where due perhaps to his nature, Conan repays those wrongs done to him even if those wrongs were done while helping Conan. For example, in A Witch Shall Be Born, ther'es a scene where Conan is nailed to a tree. It was made popular in the movie, but it took place in this story first.

This is another one of those things where Conan should've been dead but he gets saved by an outside force. But when he's saved, his savior does not do it gently and Conan suffers a bit for it. As soon as he's well, he repays that saving by crushing the dude 's wrist and banishing his savior from his own band of rogues.

There's another story where Conan drags himself out of the Sea into a boat, ingrains himself into the crew, follows the Captain ashore, and literally murders him. And note, since we're talking Cimmerian September, I'm just sticking with Robert E. Howard stories.

Again folks, Conan is no hero.

One could argue that in the world of Hyborea, where Conan is an adventurer, there are no real heroes, and today's allies may become tomorrow's enemies. 

These things are true.

But those elements don't fit into D&D and its nine alignment systems. Conan commits great acts of savagery and also acts as a savior. He's almost never a casual murderer and does not go after women and children.

When looking at the idea of inspiration for your TRPG games, try to remember, games like GURPS and Hero, where one can take disadvantages that indicate one's personality, like 'Honorable Strong' or 'Fears Magic' etc... are more likely to be useful than D&D where it boils down to "What's your alignment?"

Conan is the Choosen One

 So I've mentioned it before, but Conan, the barbarian, is saved through all sorts of things or just doesn't die when he should.

He falls further than he should be able to survive but hits something that saves him.

He's overcome but his enemies leave him for dead.

He's about to be killed, but unexpected allies show up.

He's about to be killed, but unexpected enemies show up.

He's about to be hunted down, but his enemies realize he's on sacred ground or something similar and leave him alive.

One could argue those are all just bad writing plot devices. They are and these examples all happen under Robert E. Howard's pen. If you were going to add other writers the list would be nearly endless. The list of Conan being a chosen one would be near endless too,

But for Howard himself? Yeah, Conan is still the chosen one.

Here's a princess literally being told by the servants of Mitra in Black Colossus, available in The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian https://amzn.to/4dYywVh, to place the kingdom in the hands of the first man she meets.

It's Conan.

And that's fine.

But it's another showcase that Conan, even under the hand of his original author, is a chosen one.

He'd kinda have to be since the very first story of Conan is him as a king.

There's no worry that he's going to be killed ahead of that eh?

So when you see the Bro OSR chest thumpers talking about how the old school is the best school because it's sword ad sorcery origins give it a more fatal scenario of how characters live and die, know that they either haven't read the original Appendix N books or they're ignoring the heroes of those books to utilize the old school rules as a club to kill characters.

Conan, Dungeons and Dragons, and Surviability

The difference between Inspiration from a source of material, even one found in Appendix N, and game play itself, can be vast.

One of the things that cracks me about personally about some of the 'Bro OSR' or the hardcore OSR players, is that it's too hard to die in 5th edition and the character death is needed to make the stakes real.

Those folks either ignore all of Appendix N or decide it's inspiration was in the monsters and dangerous bits.

Even the blood soaked savage Conan is saved often through sheer nonsense.

In the first tale of Conan ever penned, The Scarlett Citadel, available in this collection, The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian (Conan the Barbarian Book 1) https://amzn.to/3TfFPzI , Conan is saved from certain death by some dude we as the readers have never heard of before.

It's literally the first time this sort of hand waving to save Conan occurs, but it's far from the last time it happens. There are times when Conan is left for dead, as happens in The Hours of the Dragon (available The Bloody Crown of Conan (Conan the Barbarian Book 2) https://amzn.to/3X5GdBX ). Heck, a re-read of Hour of the Dragon shows it happens several times including once when he's left in a field where ghouls try to eat him and he awakens 'luckily' enough in time.

If you've ever seen some of that 'hardcore OSR talk', you'll know what I'm talking about. Stabbing downed enemies and mounting their heads on pikes and that sort of stuff. and other times when some other unlikely circumstance saves him.

Elric, Corum, and others in the original Appendix N all have similar moments.

When deciding what the fatality levels of your campaign are, don't feel too bad if you push them to not be as strict as the original 1st ed AD&D where death at -10 is something mentioned in the DMG but not the Player's Handbook. You're staying true to the source material that inspired the game.

Corum and the art of killing Gods

 

In Michael Moorcock's first Corum Series, the Swords trilogy, Corum must save his 15 planes from the powers of Chaos.

These powers are represented by the Kight, Queen, and King of the Swords.  For those who are more familiar with Michael Moorcock's Elric series, the Knight of the swords should be very familiar as it's Arioch, Elric's patron demon god.

Over the course of three novels, Corum dos manages to banish these gods.

Depending on the edition of Dungeons and Dragons you've run or played in, this might not seem that odd. Early editions of the god featured stats that, while powerful, were not so out of line that a group of players couldn't kill them.

Third party companies like Wizards of the Coast, when they were producing TRPG content, even made a series of books to augment gods with Primal forces which cut through mortal defenses. That was The Primal order series of books. Fun stuff. Find it if you can. Greatart.

But back to Corum.

Corum, at this point, has two artifacts, the Hand of Kwll and the Eye of Rhynn. They are described in detail. The hand is physically powerful and Kwll, unknown to Corum, controls the hand directly in several cases to save Corum's life.

So how does one go about killing the gods?

The Knight of Swords notes that Gods have to keep their heart separate from themselves so that the other rules know their whereabouts. Corum has to destroy it. Arioch leads him around, and Corum deduces where it is.

But it was a game because Arioch was unable to remove his own heart and Corum, taking it from it's chambers, has done Arioch a service.

Oh no!

So Corum's hand does the logical thing and crushes it. This banishes Arioch.

So no actual fight. No big battle. No clash of swords. 

The Queen of Swords is enraged at her brother's banishment. But she cannot go to Corum's five planes. There are rules of balance after all. The Eternal Balance must be maintained.

But Corum angers the Goddess so much she decides she is more powerful than the balance itself! She enters Corum's plane and... the Cosmic Balance Banishes her.

The King of Swords gets to meet the lost god Kwll directly. Corum, after finding Tanelorn, the city of refuge, the city of peace, a city with as many incarnations as there are champions, discovers that this Tanelorn is being used to imprison Kwll.

Kwll wants his hand back. Corum asks him to fight Chaos. Some back and forth and we get Kwll kind of agreeing but not really.

But then when it comes time to fight, Corum is shocked at the raw forces of chaos arrayed against them and tells Kwll to retreat and not honor the bargain.

Kwll gives a great line. "I made no bargain." And proceeds to destroy all the gods of chaos reamining.

Oh, and all the gods of law.

I don't point these out to indicate that it's lame or a cop-out. But to indicate that sometimes the way characters win, especially in older tales where the heroes have no direct manner of winning, no sword strength or sorcery powerful enough to win, there are often other ways to win.

Many of Corum's adventurers could be done with skill checks and investigation. Rare is it when Corum solely wins through strength of arms, and many times when he does, it is in a situation where he did not wish to do so, but Kwll controlled the hand and forced him to violence.

Think about how things can be accomplished in your own games that don't involve swinging a sword. Are there multiple paths that will get the players to the same place? Some are easier than others. Some provide a greater reward with risk than others.

Corum is an interesting read in that when Gods die, they don't die but are merely banished and have a host of early ideas that others have built upon. Go check them out.

Corum by Michael Moorcock

As a preteen, I read a lot. My father lived by Diversy and where Clark and Broadway merged. There were several bookstores and used bookstores in the area.  Mind you, this was before Barnes and Noble and even Borders. We had Crown, Waldenbooks, Barbarba's Books, and the bookstores that were used, among others.

So I was always buying books and back in those days at least, reading them.

The above picture is the one I picked up for Corum. I was a fan of Michael Moorcoc, via Elric like many before me.

Corum, though, is a bit different. 

I've reread the original a few times and read the First Comics adaptation, now available via Titan in the Michael Moorcock library. We readers didn't know how lucky we were to have Mike Mignola, famous for his creation Hellboy, on hand for those earlier volumes.

I'm lucky enough to have an hour lunch and I've been listening to audio books so I figured it was a good time to revisit Corum.

What's the old saying?

No man steps in the same river twice for the river has changed and so has he?

Some themes were far more obvious to me this time around, and I was just scratching my head at how dumb Corum appeared to be. 

The writing is evocative and I recommend anyone interested in the history of fantasy read it as it was written in 1971 so in and of itself stands as a historical artifact. It's also not by an American author and while we can argue a man of England isn't that far off, the author has always brought his own viewpoint to things.

As a youth, when I first started in TRPGs, when playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st ed, one of the things that was fascinating about Corum, was the hand and eye he bore in the first trilogy. In AD&D, we had the hand and eye of Vecna. Clearly Gary had been reading Moorcock as well eh?

Corum even had a one book TRPG products that was licensed from Chaosium who had the rights at the time. I do not recall it with any fondness as I remember reading it and it didn't have details on the  Eye of Rhynn and the six-fingered Hand of Kwll. It would be like buying the Stormbringer TRPG and it not having states on Stormbringer. 

Like some of the works of Robert E Howard, the author famous for Conan, but also the creator of Kull, Solomon Kane, and others, these books fall in and out of publications with some frequency.

The last hardcover I have is of the White Wolf edition when they were doing a 'library' collection, and they did Moorcock's worst as well as Fritz Leiber, known for his tales of 'the Twain'.

Corum has a new collection out, though, with a cover that's cropped from an older cover. I love the design on the original cover. It reminds me of the Ace versions of the Elric paperbacks I had, with the design and art style. Strangely enough, there's no e-version so if you read things in e-version like I do these days, to say on space mostly, you're out of luck.

I'll try to return to some actual gaming throughs on Corum. Having listened to all six of the novels recently and back to back, a lot of things really stand out in terms of how the author handles quests and whats expected of the hero. Some of it might be useful for gaming both in terms of what not to do and what to take inspiration from.

Monkey Man for TRPGs

 

Monkey Man is a modern action film (2024) that brings a different perspective to the screen in that the action takes place in India.

It engages in action scenes and sequences worthy of films like The Killer (2023 version), the Equalizer, the Beekeeper, and others, but I'd put it more in the sequence of John Wick.

While all of the main characters mentioned above are greats, the first three are often untouchable by their foes.

John Wick? Not so much.

And in Monkey Man, we are introduced to 'the Kid', who like John Wick, takes the abuse and keeps coming back for more.

But how can you use a movie set in India for your own games?

Sadly, many of the themes that run through Monkey Man are fairly universal.

Corruption: Here we see a system of corruption that runs through the whole of society. This includes the political, police, and religious figures. All have their fingers deep in the pie and all embetter themselves at the cost of everyone around them.

The Police: Having corrupt officers is a common theme in many countries. The opportunity to self-enrich while promoting the public good is all too often taken. This may result in the police literally stealing from people when they come across something the police think that the other people shouldn't have. "Where would you get this much money legally?" to acting as enforcers to other bad elements.

For an American take on corruption of the police, the movie Training Day or the television series the Shield should both be viewed.

The Priest: In a fantasy campaign, it can be more difficult to have a 'false' priest due to the nature of how, in many games that say use a pantheon, are directly powered by their gods. The gods are often a known factor it can be a little more tricky unless something takes out the actual god and then instructs those willing to follow it under the new mask root out all of those who are not 'heretics'.

In a modern game, a corrupt priest is far easier to see. America has many mega-churches whose teaches indicate a lot of worship of wealth. 

But what if in addition to the accumulation of wealth, they went out of their way to do other things? What if the church needed more land and a group of squatters needed to be removed?  Why then you call you good friends in the Police...

Tiers of Society: While officially the caste system is no more, much of its ramifications in Inda are still felt. So how does that work in other countries? In America, at least, anyone who thinks that there aren't different 'castes' of society isn't paying attention. These range from merely places to eat to places to be seen. 

If trying to use those elements in a campaign, the question is how the characters fit. In modern games like super-hero games, it's one thing for Tony Stark to be allowed access to someplace like The Hellfire Club, but it's quite another for someone like Peter Parker, the down-on-his-luck Spider-Man, to have the same access.

In such an instance, merely getting access TO those places is if not an outright adventure, a plot point. In Monkey Man, the Kid uses his network of overlooked poor people to first steal the purse of a powerful CEO and then personally return it to her, getting him a job on the inside. 

Not all entrances are through the front doors.

Drugs: While not a center point of the movie and further used to drive home the corruption and opulence of the upper class, drugs are a common sight in such situations and can be used as a reference point for many different elements. For example, disregard of the law. Illegal drugs were handed out like candy in special vials.  On the other hand, alcohol being served had a different purpose. It showcased that certain wines with certain meals and into certain glasses. Not knowing those things by default is seen as a mark of a lower classed person and for anyone trying to infiltrate such an organization, a dead giveaway.

Undesirables: Part of the tiers of Society is the haves. Those who dwell in the upper reaches of society, but then there are the have-nots. The undesirables if you will. And there are always more of them then there are of the upper crust.

In Monkey Man, we see this contrasted in many ways. From where the Kid sleeps amongst multiple others to the church he winds up taking refuge in after he's a wanted man. In that church, because the people dwelling there are 'undesirables', no one even thinks to look for the Kid there.

These unknown by greater society locations can act as a getaway from higher powers but that usually comes with a cost.

For example, in the comic the X-Men, one of their summer events was the Mutant Massacre where the Marauders went into 'the Tunnels' to take out the Morlocks. These 'Tunnels' were often underused and acted as a 'forbidden' place for normal people to go. If there are a few places like that known to the characters, allow them to take advantage of them to evade pursuers.

The Action: No discussion of Monkey Man and the Kid would be complete without discussing the action. While its a common theme, try to encourage players to have their characters take advantage of their local surroundings. Several of the fight sequences here take place where day to day activities have items that aren't used as weapons, but could be.

The Kitchen: The kitchen is the biggest example of this. Between a variety of heavy boards for cutting, dishes for plating, and well, silverware, including knives for cutting, the kitchen is a place where many things can be used as improv weapons.

Need to set something on fire in the kitchen? Between the various oils and fats and open flames, that shouldn't be a problem.  Need to set up an explosion? Are these gas stoves being used?

Dining Room: While not as dramatic as the kitchen perhaps, there are still plates and glasses. Breaking open a bottle of wine on an enemy's skull and then stabbing him in the throat with it are great examples of on hand weapons. This doesn't count things like jumping from table to table or bashing someone's brains out with a heavy chair. And if there's a bar in the dining room? Another place to jump atop and dual wield heavy bottles.

Monkey Man has a lot going for it and if you're running a modern campaign, fairly easy to lift wholesale into your own campaign in terms of ideas and characters.