Why has no one here read Conan?

>clearly wearing cloths
>"Naked"
Really makes you think

Dude, Conan wore loincloths all the time
Rogues in the house
>In the shadows of the prison walls, Conan paused to decide his next course of action. It occurred to him that since he had escaped through his own actions, he owed nothing to Murilo; yet it had been the young nobleman who had removed his chains and had the food sent to him, without either of which his escape would have been impossible. Conan decided that he was indebted to Murilo and, since he was a man who discharged his obligations eventually, he determined to carry out his promise to the young aristocrat. But first he had some business of his own to attend to.

>He discarded his ragged tunic and moved off through the night naked but for a loincloth. As he went he fingered the poniard he had captured—a murderous weapon with a broad, double-edged blade nineteen inches long. He slunk along alleys and shadowed plazas until he came to the district which was his destination—the Maze. Along its labyrinthian ways he went with the certainty of familiarity. It was indeed a maze of black alleys and enclosed courts and devious ways; of furtive sounds, and stenches. There was no paving on the streets; mud and filth mingled in an unsavory mess. Sewers were unknown; refuse was dumped into the alleys to form reeking heaps and puddles. Unless a man walked with care he was likely to lose his footing and plunge waist-deep into nauseous pools. Nor was it uncommon to stumble over a corpse lying with its throat cut or its head knocked in, in the mud. Honest folk shunned the Maze with good reason.

>THE lurid lights and drunken revelry fell away behind the Cimmerian. He had discarded his torn tunic, and walked through the night naked except for a loin-cloth and his high-strapped sandals. He moved with the supple ease of a great tiger, his steely muscles rippling under his brown skin.

Tower of the Elephant, Chapter 2

I read the old comic books.

Been meaning to get Howards books but so lazy.

well now I have a boner

So did Howard.

So does anyone who beholds the majestic chiseled gains of the Barbarian.

Such a tiny image could never do the Cimmerian justice

Why he is shaved here.

Dunno why he was shaved there, but this one is getting saved.

Have sauce. roncobb.net/09-Conan.html

Well, subtle compared to his contemporary writers

It is a good sauce. Definitely using that "neanderthal warrior" pic for my orcs.

I mean he seems to love the Mediterranean Picts.

Nor does Arnold sadly.

Picts were Mediterranean peoples, he was quite fond of them.

Race was very different back in the day.

>almost strongfat Conan
Didn't quite realize how well this works until now.

Ya those pictures where Conan has no body fat to muscle ratio looks weird and out of place in my opinion.

Conan's canonically a big guy

I remember those covers. Interior artwork was inferior after Tomas Giorello left as a penciler, but those covers were really a beast.

if someone is interested here is a link to his blog.

tomasgiorello.blogspot

I wish they didn't colorize the comics with his pencils because they are fucking amazing.

>Northern and eastern scotland
>mediterranean

Read some Howard sometime. He details their history and says they migrated from there.

Better question, has anyone here read Solomon Kane?

I've read a few conans, specifically Conan, Conan the Buccaneer and Conan the something or other I don't remember. I'm just saying, historical picts were proto scots, desended from other proto scots, and were the ancestors of more proto scots. They migrated from and to nowhere, and can not be considered mediterranean in real life. I'll trust you're right about what howard said and how he felt though.

I guess it's easy to get caught up in Howard constantly mentioning Conan's muscles, and also Arnie.

I think it was conan the usurper

I also guess none of those were written by howard

I got the Complete Chronicles, brought so much back for me from when I was a kid.

Barbarians of Lemuria is one of my most played systems

This page of stories includes a whole gigantic infodump essay about the history of Hyborea and its people.

gutenberg.net.au/ebooks13/1303751h.html#intro

I think it's more that Conan isn't simple heroic indulgence: he's a thief, afraid to return to his homeland, etc. There's a lot of nuances to his character that aren't simply escapist fantasy.

I don't recall him begging, but he spends a fair time imprisoned, with virtually every story opening with a contextual defeat. He's stranded in the desert, his mercenary forces lost, etc. He runs from a fair portion as well, like the tall vampire-esque things from The Pool of the Black One.

I mean, the first piece of Conan literature comes in the form of something awfully close to defeat (phsyically and philosophically); and it was an attempt at insurrection. I don't know about the grand mythos of modern conan, but classic conan and the early marvel comics were grounded in a sense of frailty. Conan's strapped to a crucifix, left to die in the desert. He's rescued. He doesn't break free and walk on foot to claim the head of his foe; he chances upon survivor.

Even the epitome of his manly aspects, chasing the frost giants daughter, opens with complete defeat and has a comical sense of delirium to it.

tldr: Conan always loses, and thereafter gains some victory.

Ya Aleksi Briclot did some fantastic covers. Personally I want to see a Conan comic drawn by Mark Schultz.

The detailed descriptions of them muscles gave me the gay boner.

Read the collections that Del Ray did (The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, The Bloody Crown of Conan, The Conquering Sword of Conan) they give a pretty in depth explanation into Howard's thinking and even give some of his original world building notes.

That are some good points user.

Conan is simply Howard's excuse to write any genre and setting he wanted. A gritty Theif one story, a swashbuckling pirate the next, and a cossack after that. Though he is a character that that can lose and has lost many people he cared about.

>Conan always loses, and thereafter gains some victory
I also like that because it means he's not always weighed down by responsibilities of leadership. We can get more stories of burly barbarian antics this way.

>The detailed descriptions of them muscles gave me the gay boner.
It makes me feel slightly gay, but no boner. Even though I'm more interested in those dusky sorceresses, I do have a sort of appreciation for that kind of physique.

It's like, those constant on-point descriptions of the way Conan moves and carries himself, it makes him feel so strong and fast even when he's doing something mundane like walking down the street or sitting at a campfire. I almost feel like superhero stories and such could benefit from that. I never feel like captain america or superman are strong until they do something stupid like lifting a car, but Howard makes it crystal clear that Conan could cave a dude's skull in, even when he's just shaking the guy's hand.

Does anybody else find that Conan, himself, is the least compelling part of the Conan stories?

This is baseline How To Pro-Wrestling Effectively.

I have literally never seen anything on here about either of those things until this post.

Bryan Alvarez would call Conan a geek and yell at Howard for his 50/50 booking.

To be fair a coup against Conan lasting more than an hour is a feat.

He acts very much like he's being roleplayed by That Guy. Even though his stats are brokenly overpowered, he always acts like he's barely paying attention to the world around him. He takes nothing seriously, acts on impulse, contradicts himself constantly, acts smug when he acts in-character at all, is openly contemptuous of everyone not exactly like himself, and manages to ruin every plot hook that comes his way. He becomes king more-or-less by accident while "doing a dungeon" and proceeds to do nothing with the crown but set a new speed record for inciting an insurrection. Then a god (i.e. the GM) tries to give him a quest hook which he proceeds to make a total mess of.

I like that idea.

Same. The shredded six pack is a bit eh and I feel like someone who grew up in the northern regions would have a bit more fat on em.

Man I wish I could still find the Howard stories that I had. I had two of the paperback short story collections from Barnes & Noble.

>You are muggle because you read Conan.

>Magic users read berserk.

Gotta love that 'Craft user

Be fair now, that's young Lovecraft when he lived in New York. He wasn't like that later on.

You're right. His poetry got better.

You joke, but the guy stopped all the racist shit, and treated it as a bit embarrassing. Guy even wrote good, sympathetic black characters later on. (Asa and his wife Hannah in The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward)

Picked this up last week. 530 pages of beautiful art.

>I'm a massive contrrian faggot with no idea what I'm talking about: the post
Seriously man, you are exactly what this thread is about.
>e always acts like he's barely paying attention to the world around him.
...no, he doesn't
>He takes nothing seriously
Oh yeah, remember how he took NOTHING seriously in "Queen of the Black Coast"? Jesus Christ man, be a bit more discrete about your ignorance
>contradicts himself constantly
never contradicted himself once, frienderino. please be less retarded.
>is openly contemptuous of everyone not exactly like himself
Again, you made that up, nothing in the text supports that
>and manages to ruin every plot hook that comes his way
Why are you so retarded? How are you so retarded?
>He becomes king more-or-less by accident
Strangling the previous king and putting his crown on your head is an accident now?
>proceeds to do nothing with the crown but set a new speed record for inciting an insurrection.
Now your just TRYING to piss me off!
"I found Aquilonia in the grip of a pig like you—one who traced his genealogy for a thousand years. The land was torn with the wars of the barons, and the people cried out under oppression and taxation. Today no Aquilonian noble dares maltreat the humblest of my subjects, and the taxes of the people are lighter than anywhere else in the world."
Read even a little Howard before talking out of your ass
>Then a god (i.e. the GM) tries to give him a quest hook which he proceeds to make a total mess of.
Are you trolling?

Too little too late, lovecraft needs to fall into the forgoten bin of racist literature. All of it is othering shit that reinforces narrative of hating people for their linage or circumstance.

>mfw people trolling in the Conan thread

I'm sure you're trolling now, so have a (You) for your collection.

You've clearly never actually read any of his works, then.

Here's a politely saged (you) for your time, though, friend.

I watched the two cartoons and saw a few of the movies, even read a few of the the comics... wait you are not talking about Conan the Barbarian?

You should read Sword Woman, it's Conan but set in the real world so there's actual Jews and Arabs and Chinamans, and they all conform flamboyantly to stereotype.

>a coup lasting for a few days does not count as getting overthrown

Yes it does.

You can say "briefly overthrown" if that makes you feel better.

"Overthrown" implies they put somebody else on the throne. A coup is an attempt to overthrow a ruler; ergo if it's unsuccessful (because Conan casually murdered all the conspirators) then no overthrowing actually took place. It was a failed attempt.

Do you think Conan minces words like you do, child of civilization?

Alright then, you fucking pedant. He was deposed.

He then forcefully reinstated himself.

>implies they put somebody else on the throne

No it doesn't. The conspirators held power for a few days, whether or not they figured out among themselves who the new king would be. Conan was defeated in battle and everyone thought he was dead and gone, it didn't last long but he was overthrown.

Conan got overthrown, (You).
Then he overthrew them back.
Not hard. Perhaps you should sharpen your wits.

Exactly.

An "unsuccessful coup" would be if Conan dealt with the uprising and never lost power, wasn't defeated in battle and captured, and wasn't left in a rape dungeon with a wizard making him cry by promising to make parchment out of all his favorite bitches.

Even if Conan had a section of loyalists who fought off the conspirators until he got back, you could arguably call that an "unsuccessful coup", but that isn't what happened.

People shouldn't be semantic cunts unless they're good at semantics.

ITT: OP is a big dummy.

Hush now, Satan.

>People shouldn't be semantic cunts unless they're good at semantics.
kek
But user! Then no one here would ever say anything...

>But user! Then no one here would ever say anything...
I'm fine with this.

There ARE some good ones here. Some. A rare few. You seem like you can read with comprehension. We need more like you here.

Cimmerians and Picts in Howards world are cousins.

Cimmerians later go in, in Howards world, to be a Mediterranean-Balkan people

He wrote about a fictional age, of course

I mean personally I never bothered engaging the topic as I really just looking for an excuse to talk about Conan and post my favorite art.

Sounds feminist as fuck

His letters at the time tell a different story.

Howard is the indisputable GOAT when it comes to writing single combat.

Part of the issue may be the "canon" of Howard's original stories, the later imitators, and the Marvel comics series from the 70's.

Conan is fucking rad.

I think he just quit covering with his "I'm racist" act and started admitting he simply hated people. Just hated everyone. But racism was socially acceptable at the time so that was what he started with until he had a fan club and could admit he hated everyone with no social backlash.

>the differing standards from differing times meme

Bet your hair is a purple fauxhawk too.

This thread makes me realize again how much I'd want to run a Hyborian Age Quest, just filled with all the crazy weird stuff in Howard's world and filled with ultra-macho heroism and scantily clad temptresses and the straining of mighty thews as steel blades and iron will are pitted against supernatural terrors from the outer dark of the universe.

I once heard someone ask why Lovecraft's characters are so different in their reaction to otherworldly horrors compared to Conan's despite them tradings notes back and forth.

I summed it up thusly;
>"Lovecraft was a frail man. He wasn't a good swimmer, was afraid of the ocean, and when he was younger when he went outside when it was too cold he'd get very ill, once even passing out. Howard was a bit above six feet tall and boxed and wrestled in high school and collage."

What a coincidence, I just decided to start Conan yesterday (having read a few Dark Horse comics before), finished reading The Phoenix on the Sword, was going to start The Scarlet Citadel now but decided to browse Veeky Forums a little bit before starting and found this thread.
Looking at the pics here, I find it funny how much they differ from his description in that story, although it could be because he is a king there and therefore older. I mean, his body is supposed to be hairy, his face is supposed to have scars, and while English is not my primary language, I'm pretty sure "square-cut black mane" means his hair couldn't look like this:
or this:
And in fact I imagined him with short hair after reading that. But I will see if his description is more in line with those illustrations in later stories though.

>more interested in those dusky sorceresses
The Hyborian Age has some fine-ass women in it.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almuric

I Thik his planet Almuric would make for a orld for gaming. especially the Koth barbarian males and healslut females

Planetary Romance is all kinda samey anyway.
Difference is more in the writer's personalities then in it the stories.

Almuric was like no other planetary Romance I have ever read.
First of all, the planet had a wide swath of diverse cultures, many of which were only alluded too.
second, it was a consistently low-tech world, with primitive firearms the most advanced thing any faction had

>Conan wasnt overthrown
fuck you and your semantics

Sometimes Conan don't give a fuck tho.

...

>Conan walks in
>Stripper-prostitute offers to literally give him a free night of fucking
>"Nah, you looked better onstage"
>Offers to have two more girls brought over for more free fucking just to stick around
>Doesn't give a shit

It's not a proper sword and sorcery world if it's not populated by the following:

>incredibly hot women
>musclebound barbarians treading the jeweled thrones under their sandaled feet
>the decadent civilised folk who get their jeweled thrones trod under said sandals
>serpent people
>ape people
>bald evil wizards

>"...one well worth riding twice."
Holy shit what an epic diss.

How would a Hyborian Age Quest work anyway?