Conan came to Glorantha and rode a bison.

[Pentallion]

18 size and 18 str.  Bison rider gets +2 size.  Air rune for +2 str.  Darkness rune for +1 size.  So 20 str 21 size for 2d6 dmg bonus.

He would drive his enemies before him and listen to the lamentations of the women.  Of course, in the Dino De Laurentiis Glorantha the Lunars capture him and put him in the Gladiator pits, eventually sending him to Kralorela to learn.  And he hates Ernaldans cuz, you know, that snake thing.

Edited July 2, 2018 by Pentallion

[Sean_RDP]

Funny. I just started some notes on a RQ Hyboria hack. Not too far yet, but it could get interesting.

[David Scott]

10 hours ago, Pentallion said:

18 size and 18 str.  Bison rider gets +2 size.  Air rune for +2 str.  Darkness rune for +1 size.  So 20 str 21 size for 2d6 dmg bonus.

He would drive his enemies before him and listen to the lamentations of the women.  Of course, in the Dino De Laurentiis Glorantha the Lunars capture him and put him in the Gladiator pits, eventually sending him to Kralorela to learn.  And he hates Ernaldans cuz, you know, that snake thing.

He’d also be a bit cack-handed as bison riders get -2 DEX, so he could have a Dex of 1 at an extreme...

[Ali the Helering]

An inability to dextrously dress himself may explain why he is eternally 'naked, save for a loincloth'. Dex 1 looking good

[PeterPlatter]

Passion: Hate (Camels): 80%

[Pentallion]

Valeria is obviously Vingan.  She has Fearless.  "Do you want to live forever?"

And Akiro is probably a shaman, not a wizard.  "The spirits here exact a heavy price!"

Subatai worships the sky god, so Orlanth, but he's a tiny archer thief.  So I'm going with Impala rider who spent many years in Pavis.

[Akhôrahil]

On 7/4/2018 at 12:47 AM, Pentallion said:

Subatai worships the sky god, so Orlanth, but he's a tiny archer thief.  So I'm going with Impala rider who spent many years in Pavis.

"The Four Winds" say Pentan storm worship to me.

[Yelm's Light]

On 7/6/2018 at 3:29 AM, Akhôrahil said:

"The Four Winds" say Pentan storm worship to me.

He definitely didn't have a problem with riding horses.

[M Helsdon]

On ‎7‎/‎2‎/‎2018 at 5:03 PM, Ali the Helering said:

An inability to dextrously dress himself may explain why he is eternally 'naked, save for a loincloth'. Dex 1 looking good

In the films and comics perhaps; in the original fiction Conan had a sensible approach to armor...

[jeffjerwin]

1 hour ago, M Helsdon said:

In the films and comics perhaps; in the original fiction Conan had a sensible approach to armor...

In the stories themselves, Conan wore armor whenever he could, probably like most penniless adventurers. After becoming more successful - a chieftain and king - he covered himself in it... though no doubt he was a little slower and older by then.

[Ali the Helering]

17 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

In the films and comics perhaps; in the original fiction Conan had a sensible approach to armor...

Sensible, yes. Poetic, no. Combat Styles are interesting not least in the way you can be limited to improving your armour if it hinders an established Style.

[Mankcam]

You are all wrong, Conan could not be an Animal Nomad

In my classic RQ/BRP Gloranthan game (which is canon for a very small troupe who may remember such), our Conan stand-in called 'Rangos' came from the Praxian wastes, but he rode a horse. Given that we figured he must be a PolJoni.

Rangos would probably be happy to drink and fight alongside Bison Riders, and certainly hated Chaos. However Rangos would not be stupid enough to do a pilgrimage to The Block to hunt down Chaos with those Storm Bull Beserkers. 

He respected Waha's ways to an extent, but lived a life more worthy of Orlanth Adventurous. Pillaging The Big Rubble was more his style, and putting the wind up the Lunar garrison in Pavis.

Last known reports of Rangos is that he is a mercenary for Broyan of the Hendriki, and may be in a spot of trouble down in Whitewall...

Edited July 9, 2018 by Mankcam

[Yelm's Light]

My take was that Conan would have been a Pentan captured as a youth in a raid by one of the Praxian tribes (or vice versa, captured by Praxians during a Pentan raid), as stated above likely Bison, since they ranged near enough to that area.  (Strangely, we never had a Conan archetype in a campaign I played in or ran, other than as a bruising barbarian.  Future kings are rare indeed.)

Jaldon would be about as close a Praxian as I can think of that approaches Conan, and he's wrong for the archetype.  Sheng Seleris, maybe.

Edited July 9, 2018 by Yelm's Light

[jeffjerwin]

Jaldon is a dentist, I think.

[Joerg]

34 minutes ago, jeffjerwin said:

Jaldon is a dentist, I think.

IIRC an uncle Jaldon was a dental technician, so: close.

[Pentallion]

The point of this thread being that a Bison Rider can have a 2d6 damage bonus, thus Conan.

[soltakss]

On 7/10/2018 at 5:23 AM, Pentallion said:

The point of this thread being that a Bison Rider can have a 2d6 damage bonus, thus Conan.

So can an ogre.

[Pentallion]

9 hours ago, soltakss said:

So can an ogre.

So can a troll, but a Human before now could never have "Conan strength" in Runequest before.

[M Helsdon]

I should also add, that as a Cimmerian Conan would have been related to the Horse Peoples... The historical Cimmerians/Gimmerians who rampaged through eastern Anatolia were related to the Scythians. 8-)

[DreadDomain]

However Conan would "only" be a SIZ 17 in RQ terms so even with STR 20 he would still have a +1d6 damage bonus.

[Joerg]

48 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

I should also add, that as a Cimmerian Conan would have been related to the Horse Peoples... The historical Cimmerians/Gimmerians who rampaged through eastern Anatolia were related to the Scythians. 8-)

I doubt that Howard's Cimmerians were in any way related to the western Silk Road tribe of that name. Looking at his geography, I see a closer link between Cimmerians and Kimbri. The Cimbric peninsula (which I happen to inhabit) has been the link between the southlands and Thule for living memory. Conan's world lacks a bit of water to the east of Cimmeria, but the general positioning in relation to Aquitaine or however Howard misspelled that land (Aquilonia?) fits. Making these guys dark-haired might be a nod to his idea of pre-migration peoples with dark complexions, like his picts.

At least a quarter of the Vingkotlings (and as a result also the Heortlings) were in part Hyalorings - Beren and Ulanin the riders. According to some myths, Beren and Redaylde's marriage opened the gates for Vingkot's other daughters to find men outside of the normal Orlanthi spectrum. Orgovale chose Ulanin, securing another Horse Folk husband, while the other sisters got Goralf Brown, Porscriptor the Cannibal and Kastwall Five - neither of these sounds even remotely standard Orlanthi. Given some of the less savory Hirenmador emperors of Jenarong "dynasty" Dara Happa (Dagguneri "Eats Women"), Porscriptor might have been one of the chariot people of Saird.

 

[M Helsdon]

8 minutes ago, Joerg said:

I doubt that Howard's Cimmerians were in any way related to the western Silk Road tribe of that name.

Curiously, Howard did...

The Cymric tribes of Britain were a mixed Nordic-Cimmerian race which preceded the purely Nordic Britons into the isles, and thus gave rise to a legend of Gaelic priority. The Cimbri who fought Rome were of the same blood, as well as the Gimmerai of the Assyrians and Grecians, and Gomer of the Hebrews. Other clans of the Cimmerians adventured east of the drying inland sea, and a few centuries later mixed with Hyrkanian blood, returned westward as Scythians. The original ancestors of the Gaels gave their name to modern Crimea.

The Hyborian Age
by Robert Ervin Howard

First published in The Phantagraph, February-November 1936

Howard's Gimmerai are the Cimmerians who lived in the North Caucasus in the 8th and 7th century BC.

Edited July 16, 2018 by M Helsdon

[Joerg]

1 minute ago, M Helsdon said:

Curiously, Howard did...

The Cymric tribes of Britain were a mixed Nordic-Cimmerian race which preceded the purely Nordic Britons into the isles, and thus gave rise to a legend of Gaelic priority. The Cimbri who fought Rome were of the same blood, as well as the Gimmerai of the Assyrians and Grecians, and Gomer of the Hebrews. Other clans of the Cimmerians adventured east of the drying inland sea, and a few centuries later mixed with Hyrkanian blood, returned westward as Scythians. The original ancestors of the Gaels gave their name to modern Crimea.

The Hyborian Age
by Robert Ervin Howard

First published in The Phantagraph, February-November 1936

Ok. Given an unknown amount of centuries to wander there, why not. At least I got the Cimbric peninsula right. My main exposure to Howard was through Cormac McArt, which fit my Vikings in Gaelic islands campaign vibe at the time the Offutt-edited series came out in Germany very well, also the Offutt follow-ups. I remember having read a few Conan stories by Jordan and Anderson, and being underwhelmed. I liked Offutt's contributions to Thieves world, and the main criterion to know where Howard ended and where Offutt began was in the length of the stories. A Howard story would be good for one to three evenings of role-playing games.

The racism in Howard's universe was pretty much in keeping with other fantasy or reinterpretation of myths from the 1920ies and 30ies. Having inherited a small library of books printed in Germany between 1934 and 1942, I had learned early on to read that stuff with somewhat heightened awareness of icky ideology.

[M Helsdon]

22 minutes ago, Joerg said:

The racism in Howard's universe was pretty much in keeping with other fantasy or reinterpretation of myths from the 1920ies and 30ies. Having inherited a small library of books printed in Germany between 1934 and 1942, I had learned early on to read that stuff with somewhat heightened awareness of icky ideology.

Pretty much the standard for the period. The wackiest book I own was printed in 1848, and its perspective on non-Western mythology is very... strange.

Whilst Howard, like Lovecraft, was a man of his time, it's worth recalling that Conan's greatest love was the (Semitic) Shemite Bêlit. Judging Howard by later pastiches by other writers doesn't give an accurate picture of his writing - which, true, could be very variable, but at his best he was very very good.

And Lovecraft is similarly a complex figure, as his views changed radically in his last years.

Edited July 16, 2018 by M Helsdon

[Pentallion]

21 hours ago, DreadDomain said:

However Conan would "only" be a SIZ 17 in RQ terms so even with STR 20 he would still have a +1d6 damage bonus.

Those size eequivalents are only guidelines.  Not every size 17 person is 6'4".  Not every size 20 person is 6'9".  They could be shorter and more massive.  Such as Conan.  So Size 20, Str 21 is definitely within the parameters of Conan.