CONAN STYLE

[parejf63]

Decided to adapt magic world to Conan, using loosely Mongooses D20 conan.  

What changes:  Relatively nothing.   Sorcery is used by all the gods, as well as the other types of magic listed.  I have added Blood Magic for a type of sorcery also.   A sorcerer must choose to follow a god (gaining those spells the god teaches), be a solitaire sorcery (accessing Shadow, Light, Balance, Necromancy, Blood Magic, or Rune Magic.)   Blood Magic brings corruption, and requires a sacrifice to gain the MP of the victim.   These can only be used for blood magic, and blood magic is quite devastating.

 

In Conan, spells take longer to cast, so the casting time is 2 rounds per spell.    When a sorcerer choose which type of sorcery above, they can only cast that type.  

 

 

 

[Mankcam]

Mythos Magic from Call of Cthulhu can be easily retrapped as Hyborian Sorcery, given its dark and often ritualistic nature - a much better fit for the setting than MagicWorld Sorcery IMO

Legend rpg has cool Blood Magic rules which you could also use. Also MRQ2 Lhankmar had rules for spellcasting that almost directly port to Hyboria, complete with Corruption mechanics. 

With a little work you could probably rework the Mongoose Conan spell lists to MW if necessary; they do use evocative names quite well.

MW mechanics should be fine for the base BRP engine although I think that the BGB or RQ may have been even better, considering they have a focus on hit locations etc . Having said that, the SB/ MW engine certainly can portray Conan quite well. You gotta love those Major Wounds results!

Not much else to add. Any of the BRP games suit the Hyborian setting quite well.

Edited May 3, 2017 by Mankcam

[Vexthug]

http://ageofshadow.freehostia.com/

Here is a game I love called Age of shadows. It's built on the Openquest rules, and has rules for corruption when using sorcery. The battle magic should be restricted to Shamans,priests and hedge mages. The game uses a tolkien like world as its default but it's easly adaptable for a sword and sorcery world.

Miles

[Mankcam]

If using MW, then the Allegiance system should work fine, although the concepts may need to be slightly retrapped for The Hyborian Age. The ones in the MW rulebook would work well for a high fantasy setting like Middle Earth. Obviously they were originally used for The Young Kingdoms, although the titles were named slightly different for that setting. That would work just as well here, as in essence the concepts are fairly universal and should port across fine.

Use titles like 'Benevolence' instead of Light; 'Corruption' instead of Shadow; and possibly 'Concordance'  or 'Instinct' instead of Balance. 

I think most of the Hyborian Deities probably fit into 'Concordance' or 'Instinct'. Most are either self-serving and egocentric, or they are objective expressions of nature and reality. They are often petitioned for what services they offer their worshipers: generally skills, knowledge, protections. Not really highly moralistic at all; very much a consumerism model to it. Some of them aren't petitioned, but may be simply respected and acknowledged.

Off the top of my head I would only place Mitra and Ibis in the 'Benevolence' allegiance, although this is a far cry from the moralistic 'Light' that Tolkienesque fantasy would eschew. Both deities are often identified with civilisation, academia, healing, and asylum. So this is perhaps as close to 'Benevolence' as Howard's writing ever got.

Of course there would be numerous dark deities and such to place under 'Corruption', ranging from those indifferent to human suffering through to intrinsically malevolent beings. Some of these may be worshiped for appeasement, while others are negotiated with for whatever dark pacts they can grant.

Mongoose Conan (D20 OGL) really captured the setting and atmosphere very well. Most of the narrative content is excellent, and the pantheon rules have good guidelines for cults etc which can be easily converted to BRP games like BGB, MW, RQ, or Mythras.

I have been toying with porting The Hyborian Age into the Mythras rules, using the Mongoose Conan rpg as a guideline. However I can see the setting playing equally well in a version of MW.

Edited May 3, 2017 by Mankcam

[Jason D]

 

[Mankcam]

Cool - saved! Lots of goodies here to pillage. Considering your involvement with CONAN over the years, and more recently, then these downloads certainly  have quite some weight behind them!

Edited May 6, 2017 by Mankcam

[Sunwolfe]

Thanks Jason! Much appreciated :-)

[Questbird]

Those are great for any Sword and Sorcery backgrounds. I use Elric! in Fritz Leiber's Nehwon, but I've easily mixed in dashes of Legend's Xoth and OpenQuest's The Savage North. Fantastic thanks!

[parejf63]

Love it.  Thanks Jason.   Savage North, I use the Corruption and blood magic.  Having The Conan D20 books is a big plus.  Especially Road of Kings and Faith & Fervor

 

 

 

 

Edited May 6, 2017 by parejf63

[Mankcam]

I especially bought Road Of Kings and Faith & Fervour  at the time particularly so I could port them into RQ/BGB. I remember the gazetteer was not in any game mechanics, it was primarily pure content. The cults book was  also very content-heavy, but it also had a particularly 'RuneQuesty' feel to it, enough to port over to RQ/BGB with relative ease. 

I have backed the new Hyborian rpg (by Modiphius) - it's called CONAN: Adventures In An Age Undreamed Of - it's very well done; its a pity the core mechanic isn't a D100%, but everything else about it looks great. Truly beautiful artwork, and the game mechanics look like they are going to emulate the setting very well. It quite easily will become the definitive rpg for Hyborian gaming I think.

Edited May 6, 2017 by Mankcam

[pachristian]

Here is a link to a discussion from the Design Mechanism bulletin boards:

http://designmechanism.freeforums.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1382

We discussed how magic was used in the Conan stories, and casting time and so on.

 

[Jason D]

On 5/6/2017 at 2:51 PM, Mankcam said:

I have backed the new Hyborian rpg (by Modiphius) - it's called CONAN: Adventures In An Age Undreamed Of - it's very well done; its a pity the core mechanic isn't a D100%, but everything else about it looks great. Truly beautiful artwork, and the game mechanics look like they are going to emulate the setting very well. It quite easily will become the definitive rpg for Hyborian gaming I think.

Thanks! 

Just to be clear, I made the pitch for doing a BRP/RQ version of Conan, as Modiphius has done dual-stat versions of games before, but they're moving away from that, as dual-stat books don't sell that much better and also require a lot more work. 

[Mankcam]

That is truly a shame Jason. The skill mechanic of D100% is the most logical there is, it really is the ace up BRP's sleeve. Most other skill roll dice feel very gamist to me.

Absolutely everything else about the new CONAN rpg looks brilliant. Exceptional artwork, and a big emphasis on cultures etc, and with all the consultation involved it really does capture Howard's setting and perhaps elevates it - its going to be a truly great product line, you all must be very proud!

Of course a grognard like myself may end up hybridising it with BRP, just for the sake of it!

 

 

Edited May 7, 2017 by Mankcam

[Jason D]

18 hours ago, Mankcam said:

Of course a grognard like myself may end up hybridising it with BRP, just for the sake of it!

 

 

Two great tastes... together! 

[Y Mab Darogan]

Love the look of the Conan game and definitely in the list to run in the future 

[Raleel]

Also in on the Kickstarter, though I backed at a relatively low level, largely for the tile set. Still, I'll take the lore as I can get it. 

 

I ran ran a Hyborian Age game using RQ6/Mythras. You can read much about what I did with it here https://sites.google.com/site/raleel/campaign-ideas/rq6-hyborian-age still a work in progress.