46 Chapter 2 Nevertheless, the average Iranistani takes great pride, at least publicly, in the façade presented to the world. But if one goes into the crooked alleys, past the great public gardens, beyond well-kept statues to the goddess, one sees a civilization in decay and, perhaps, ripe for revolution. Garden Temples of Ishtar One of the great monuments to Ishtar is not in stone but in life. Iranistani gardens are miracles of water-management and public works. They radiate with energy, greenery, and flowers. There is nothing like them in the world. Ishtar is present in many aspects of Iranistani life, from marriage and childbirth to war. The Ishtar worshipped here is a multi-faceted deity who is the mother and protector of her people. Yet, with decay comes also a loss of faith, and strange cults crop up in ugly corners of the shrinking empire. They say they worship gods far older than Ishtar, far older, even, than the planet itself. Authorities deny knowledge of such cults and speaking of them openly is punishable by large fines and even imprisonment. KHITAI To outsiders, Khitai is as mysterious as vanished Acheron. Indeed, a Westerner is likely to know more about that lost culture than extant Khitai. Her mysteries are as deep and many as her jungles. In Khitai, they say, the dead are venerated and the living but aspects of the Emperor’s will. Their temples raise higher than a pale man’s eyes have set upon, and her borders are so distant that the sun never sets upon them. That is what they say about Khitai. The truth is both more banal and more mysterious than the Western mind can imagine. Even the great kingdoms of the East have trouble relating to Khitai, and Khitai, for its part, encourages such opacity. A native saying claims all the machinations of the Khitan are like lotus dust in the wind compared to time, but even time fears the Emperor. Perhaps, to a Khitan, that makes sense. A HISTORY OF KHITAI Khitai is the oldest continuous empire on the Thurian continent besides Vendhya. Both survived the Cataclysm, and are at least 10,000 years old. As the two kingdoms have no common history and do not share a calendar, it is impossible to say with any certainty which is older. Even Astreas acknowledges that Khitai may be the most ancient post-Cataclysmic empire. For all that history, little of it is available to outsiders. Where Stygian records percolate down the ages in scrolls and legends, Khitai’s story is known only to those inside its borders. Long ago, the early peoples of Khitai were divided into tribes much like the Hyrkanians today. However, they formed into larger tribes which became dynasties leading to the Period of Thirteen Kingdoms. This era saw internecine war flare across Khitai from the ocean to the borders of the steppes in the East. Warfare came of age in the East during this period. Innovations in arms and armor, formations, and tactics grew quickly. In the Hyborian lands, such methods of war were lost with the fall of Acheron, but Khitai never fell. Instead, it united over decades of war under the brilliant general Yelu who conquered the opposing twelve kingdoms and made his, then called Kitay, ruler over all. His rule was brutal and harsh, but not without booms in knowledge and philosophy. In fact, Soong — an ancient, semi-mythical philosopher — even then helped unite the newly formed state under a set of common precepts. Yelu — who took the title of Emperor, Magnificent Son of 10,000 Years — established the course of the empire which began to take hold over the former Thirteen Kingdoms. All was not orderly, for the Thirteen Kingdoms had much longer been enemies than allies or purported brothers, but Yelu’s grand strategy, recorded in the Books of the Great Dragon, proved impossible for enemies to defeat. As quickly as a revolt appeared, it was put down. Time and again, smaller provinces strained against the iron binds of empire, only to find them unbreakable. Indeed, the only force that could break Khitai would come from outside the empire: the Hyrkanians. The Invasion of the Hyrkanian Horde Like the Picts in the West, the Hyrkanian hordes raise their head every few dozen centuries and run wild over civilization. In the case of Khitai, a great khan took the lessons of Yelu — for he had read the Book of the Great Dragon — and turned those teachings upon their creators. This khan united the Hyrkanian tribes as Yelu had previously united the Thirteen Kingdoms. The horsem*n crashed into mighty Khitai like a tsunami, and Khitai broke like sand against breakers. The khan instituted a new dynasty and ruled over Khitai, but did not impose new beliefs. In fact, Khitai’s culture was so powerful that it eventually influenced the khan’s heirs for the next two centuries to such a degree that the khanate fell apart in favor of a return to Khitan rule. Still, the remnants of the Great Khan’s conquest are felt in the physiognomy of people in western Khitai, the nomadic nature of some tribes on that frontier, and the mastery of archery for which the Khitan military is now famous. The Slow Return to Empire Khitans are patient, more patient even than the great spiders of Zamora. The chaotic rush and triumph of the khanate could not last. Time erodes all things which refuse to bend in the wind. While the Khitan military did not bend — and thus broke like stiff bamboo in a typhoon — its culture proved more pliable. The Hyrkanians simply had no structure to
Gazetteer 47 contain the entirety of their realm beyond the cult of personality of the great Khan. The empire crumbled and Khitai rose again. This time, the new emperor was determined to keep the Hyrkanians at bay permanently. Border forts were built along the entirety of the frontier, reinforced by mighty castles and hundreds of thousands of troops. Hyrkania has not since ventured far into Khitai. The years intervening between then and now were largely peaceful, or so public history records. The Emperors make habit of writing two histories of their rule: the true history and the public one. It does not do to speak of revolts and revolutions. Indeed, even the period of Hyrkanian rule is unknown to all but the best educated Khitans. The 10,000 Year Empire must exist as a single, congruent entity. So says the wisdom of Soong, a philosopher who died at least two millennia ago but whose works still influence all aspects of Khitan thought and culture. THE HIDDEN KINGDOM The current dynasty has ruled for over 1,000 years, one tenth of the prophesied length of the empire itself. In size, only Turan under King Yezdigerd rivals Khitai, and even his mighty domain is smaller. One can march from great deserts to snowbound permafrost and yet remain in the borders of Khitai. Jungles vaster than any save those in the Black Kingdoms contain lotus of every variety, and silk spun in the empire creates a road of sorts from Paikang to Ayodhya. Religion does not have the same place in Khitan culture as elsewhere. The gods in Khitai are the spirits of the land and the ancestors who came before, more often than not the personifications of mythical beings. The emperor’s divinity is without question, and the rudiments of pure reason begin to guide the kingdom; reason the world will not see again for some 8,000 years. The emperor controls a series of internal highways which make Hyborian roads look like mere forest paths. Vast wealth moves through the country as well as into it. Trade is bountiful, but somehow Khitai remains largely unaffected by other cultures. Where Shemite trade brought Shemite beliefs to Koth, Vendhyan trade into Khitai brings only goods. Ideas seem to stop at the empire’s border. It as if a wall exists between Khitai and all the powers which surround it, inviolable and well-guarded. Khitai will influence the intruder long before the intruder influences Khitai. KHITAN ART, CULTURE, AND RELIGION Khitans consider themselves at the apex of culture, philosophy, spirituality, and sorcery, and in many ways this is true. Khitai’s military is unrivaled from her western border to the Vilayet and possibly beyond. Khitan art has gone through more phases and cycles than all the Hyborian nations combined. It is a huge country with outsized ambitions. Even Khitan snakes are larger than their Western counterparts, wrote Astreas. Truly, Khitai is large and powerful, but it remains unclear whether it matches the great heights of Acheron. Certainly, it never reached the technological advancements of Old Kosala. On the current Thurian continent, though, it ranks with Aquilonia and Turan in power, though never have these mighty empires met in battle. For the foreigner, Khitai is more legend than fact, and there are some ignorant outlanders who claim the place a total myth. It is not, and should one have the mettle and sword-arm, traveling there is possible. Unlocking its secrets remains, alas, a less attainable goal. Unparalleled Craftsmanship Both artist and artisan are venerated in Khitai, for beauty is a part of the celestial whole upon which humankind can reflect in its time on Earth. The bind between art and religion is as strong as in Vendhya, though Khitan religion is less organized. Khitan jade is quite simply the finest in all the Thurian continent. The supply is seemingly endless, each piece being part of, at least symbolically, the Great Dragon, a galaxy of stars around which Khitans plot their calendars and lives. Little wonder, then, that the dragon motif appears in so much Khitan art. From the Emperor’s seal to private symbols over the doors of simple country homes, the dragon is both blessing and warning in Khitai. While it sleeps, it is a beautiful thing, but when it wakes it is a terrible thunder. THE MANDATE OF HEAVEN The ruler of the Celestial Kingdom of Khitai — one of its many honorifics — takes his or her mandate directly from the stars. The cosmos is alive for Khitans, and their leaders hear it speak. This should not be mistaken for deity worship, because the Mandate of Heaven is not like the divine right of kings. Commoners, too, know about the wheeling stars above and even read fortunes in them. They know the teachings of the great books, of filial duty, and duty to kingdom. Should a ruler break with these traditions, said ruler is not automatically correct. More than one emperor has been deposed for placing gold or conquest above traditional values. Reflecting the Mandate of Heaven is the Dragon, the galaxy in which our world floats. It is both symbol of the empire and its destiny.
48 Chapter 2 Aside from jade, gold, silver, and other precious stones hold similar value in Khitai as in Turan or Ophir. As mentioned, silk is plentiful in Khitai and tailors there make the finest garments in the world. The kings of the West all own Khitan silk raiment. As a curious counterpoint to the dragon, the image of the elephant, though only the head, predominates much of Khitan art and many temples in misty jungles of the South, though the culture native to that region has long since left this earth. A third motif, that of the varying forms of lotus flowers, also appears regularly in Khitan art, both contemporary and ancient, festooning all manner of ceramics and cloth, and carved into walls and wooden furniture. Duty and Fealty Khitan culture is deeply codified under the idea of duty and fealty. Every person is born owing duty to another and, in turn, is owed duty as they age. Some castes, though Khitans do not use this term, are born being owed fealty by a great many people. This is simply the way of things. One does not question it any more than one questions the course of a river or the cycle of seasons. Where those in the West often resent their station, those in Khitai rarely have ambitions to move beyond. Even if they did, Khitan culture makes this impossible. The philosopher Soong set the basic rules of ethics and fealty followed today. While periods in Khitai’s history upended this basic set of principles, Khitan history always returns to them as if inexorably tethered together. Age equals veneration in Khitai. Wisdom comes with age and is never dismissed out of hand. The punishments for disrespecting an elder are as draconian as the ones for stealing. Society is a pyramid atop which sits the Emperor. The family is a pyramid upon which sits the eldest male member, though, in some cases, extraordinary women have proven equally or even more capable. The family reflects society. In this way society and filial strength are one. Sorcery is accepted in Khitai where it is rejected elsewhere, though Khitan sorcery relies more on mesmerism than summoning. Every Khitan knows of the power of hypnotism and, in knowing this power, is thus subject to its effects. Those from the West, who hold no such beliefs, do not as easily succumb to such powers. The Outer Dark is not the plentiful source of sorcerous power in Khitai as it is elsewhere. Though black magic finds much use in Khitai, alchemy and hypnotism are more common. However, those Khitan sorcerers who do practice the black arts are as puissant as their counterparts west of the Vilayet. It is said the Emperor keeps a court of such wizards at his disposal. PAIKANG, THE IMPERIAL CITY The purple towers of Paikang loom over the whole of the world, it is said. Built upon a site where a star fell to Earth millennia ago, Paikang is mapped to the stars above it even now. Such is the layout of the city that it resembles the Great Dragon, that milky galaxy in which Earth finds itself. Certain stars are represented by the purple towers and tether the city — and by extension the Empire — to the cosmos above. Streets follow constellations, and places where even dim stars glow in the night are prized territory. In fact, where Western cities have sectors devoted to the aristocracy, Paikang’s elite are spread among the city, each ancestral abode tied to a star of a constellation above. It is thus that Paikang buildings of import seem oddly designed to the Western eye. Would that a man could turn into a bird and view the city through the lazy muslin of cloud, it would become clear that each such building represents a key sigil in the night sky. From the ground, however, they seem chaotic, disconcerting, and even akin to the alien geometries of the Old Ones. That connection, however, has never been proven. Yet there are ever rumors of cults on the streets of Paikang. Of “the true Emperor or Empress” whose name must never be spoken. Politically, the ageing Emperor rules through counsels and governors of varying prefects from the Purple Lotus Palace. Privately, it is said, there is a struggle between the families who once collided in the War of Five and the empire is not so unified as it appears. Some of these would-be usurpers truck with the cults and deal with foreigners to accomplish bloody machinations in which no respectable Khitan would openly participate. The Palace of the Purple Lotus The Palace of the Purple Lotus sits off center in the city of Paikang, again mapped to a certain star. Its pagodas are the titular color, and like-colored banners snap in the wind around the palace. The design of the palace itself is a microcosm of the entire city, if one could see the plans drawn up long ago by a now heralded architect. Even were one to gain access over the outer walls, they would have to know how the city maps to the palace compound in order to get their bearings. By that time, guards or cats from the jungles south would likely have dispatched such intruders. Violating the walls of the palace is forbidden without written request from a high official. There is no bluffing one’s way inside. The palace was not the first of its kind. That dubious honor goes to the Butterfly Demesne, ripped down when the evil Empress Wu was overthrown. Today, her face still looks out over the kingdom from one of the tall peaks
Gazetteer 49 where, it is said, it appeared overnight upon her ascent to the throne. This giant face is more than 100 feet in height, and that does not include the mountain itself. The nose was broken off in attempt to erase her from all memory, but those who defaced the visage died horribly in time, as did their children and their children’s children. That, at least, it what the Khitans say. The Mantle of Heaven This vast square represents a cluster of stars above called the Mantle of Heaven. The brighter stars are mimicked below by huge, open pagodas under which the busiest market in the East bustles with life. Lotus is sold openly here, as are hundreds of spices, silks, and works of art that dwarf the achievements of the Hyborian nations. Merchants are not a class in Khitai, but rather come from the lower end of the aristocracy. One must have royal blood to trade openly. This keeps all commerce tightly controlled by the Emperor. There is, of course, a black market where things are sold without royal seal and sign. This is not a place, but an idea known as the Mantle of Hell. Thieves and scoundrels have the connections needed to point one to a waystation (an inn, a tavern, a lotus house) within this dark network. The Quian River The Quian is the spine of the empire, the longest river on the Thurian continent. It is also the spine of the Dragon in whose body we all live. All astronomical charts kept in the library of the Purple Palace begin with the Quian mapped across the night sky. All other stars are in relation to those whose glow makes up the points along which the river, or constellation, flows. The river is sacred, and befouling it is punishable by slow, public death. Bridges regularly cross the river, but not necessarily at the most advantageous geographical points. Rather, they appear as dictated by the stars above. Trade is vital to any empire and, here in the capital, the Quian is the lifeline by which the imperial city rules the rest of the empire, as the river branches out like the veins of a man splayed open on one of the anatomical tables of Paikang surgeons. The sewer system of the city never intersects with the river. Few other than repair personnel ever see the sewers. The guild of sewer workers does not speak of the sewers below, but rumor says they are vast, cyclopean, and not built by humans. JUNGLES OF KHITAI The title “Jungles of Khitai” is something of a misnomer embraced by outsiders and native Khitans alike. These jungles are in fact kingdoms, fallen or otherwise, under the thumb of the Great Celestial Emperor. The further south one ventures from Khitai proper, the warmer it gets, and temperate land becomes tropical and dense with flora. There
50 Chapter 2 may be one extant kingdom beyond this border or a dozen, only the imperial scribes claim to know for sure, and even they haven’t ventured all the way south to where the jungle breaks upon silver beaches and an unnamed sea awaits. Most of the kingdoms so logged are barely extant. They are controlled by Khitai on the northern fringe as vassal states, and are all but collapsed in the south. The peoples who built these kingdoms were likely Lemurian and, before that, the inhuman masters of the Lemurians whose name and visages have vanished from time. Still, travelers swear of lost cities in these jungles where Lemurians still dwell. They speak of winged terrors and strange gods. They talk of wars between things other than humans which ravaged this part of the world prior to man’s appearance. They speak of the return of such horrors with wide-eyed fright and awe. Whatever lies in the dark jungles is a cipher to man. Clearly, civilizations both human and otherwise dwelled here long, long ago. The time frame itself is like to bend the mind down strange corridors and unhealthy vectors of thought. Just who or what originally inhabited Earth, and is man merely a squatter on someone else’s world? PRIESTS OF YUN The Yellow Priests of Yun, with their saffron robes and ancient traditions, are a semi-outlawed sect in Khitai. What few outside the priesthood knows is that their religion is far older than cosmic theory or the mapping of the Great Dragon. The priests worship the now-vanished exiles of Yag. Such veneration of vanished creatures is a kind of demon worship to the common folk who hear specious tales of the cult. In fact, the exiles of Yag were of flesh, albeit seemingly immortal flesh, and taught early humans in the jungles of Khitai the ways of agriculture, architecture, law, and white magic. Yes, white magic. A phrase not often heard on the scandalous tongues of rumormongers in taverns from Paikang to Tarantia. Yet it is nevertheless true. The exiles knew a form of magic which was not corrupt, did not draw down the Outer Dark upon those who wielded it, and which brought harmony to the world. “He was a magician from far Khitai, returning to his native kingdom after a journey to Stygia. He took me with him to purple-towering Paikang, its minarets rising amid the vine-festooned jungles of bamboo, and there I grew to womanhood under his teaching. Age had steeped him deep in black wisdom, not weakened his powers of evil. Many things he taught me—” — Salome, “A Witch Shall be Born” A sweetish cloying scent lingered in the atmosphere. “They died without a sound!” muttered the Cimmerian. “Taurus, what was that powder?” “It was made from the black lotus, whose blossoms wave in the lost jungles of Khitai, where only the yellow-skulled Priests of Yun dwell. Those blossoms strike dead any who smell of them.” — “The Tower of the Elephant” THE OLD ONES’ WAR In a history so lost that humans were not even upright to see it, the Mi-Go and the barrel-shaped, fan-winged Old Ones warred for this Earth. At the time, this world did not resemble the Hyborian Age, but was covered in jungle, with humid air and sprawling continents whose names man could never pronounce and which leave but tiny isles as testament to their having been. This war raged across the rise and fall of at least one human civilization before it stalled out; these enemies from the Outer Dark retreated to whence they came or hid, here on Earth, until the stars are right for their conflict to resume. In any case, the structures left behind were fawned over, worshipped, and given sacrifice by primitive man. It is not until the Yaggite exiles fell to this world that any meaning could be construed from the mind-blasting sigils and formations left behind. The Yaggites, for their part, remained uninvolved in this war but warned man against the creatures who did. Even today, primitive tribes in the jungles of deep Khitai give offering on the outskirts of these remains and speak of the “once-winged elephants” who warned them of the great danger. Among these ruins — lost, or perhaps purposefully forgotten — there is, one mad Khitan scholar says, a gate. This gate might be turned to the planet Yag, whereupon the Kings of Yag could find this world to which they exiled their kin. Why would they return? The mad scholar only says that the once-green world turns brown and the Kings of Yag seek another home. The scholar is kept in a dungeon beneath the imperial palace in Paikang. Only the current emperor has access to him and his knowledge. The prisoner has seen two score emperors live and die while he sits in a well-appointed cell, screaming between bouts of scribbling things which drive his guards mad upon trying to read them.
Gazetteer 51 Those secrets are sadly gone, and the Priests of Yun now enact rituals which have no effects. Their primary ‘magic’ is a means of distilling and combining yellow lotus to varying effects. The white magic they practice today is largely illusory. Still, there is always some drunk fool in the corner who will tell you the Priests of Yun know the secrets of white magic but hide it from the world. They do, so the legend goes, because one of the Yaggite exiles taught an evil man white magic, and that man captured the Yaggite and tortured him for eons until he also gave up the secrets of black magic. To the Priests of Yun, this is how black magic entered the world. Their name derives not from a locale or priest, but from the name of one of the exiles, Yag-Yun, who first took interest in humanity after being stranded on this blue world. His name is sacred to the sect, and the crumbling statues to him and his fellow exiles are indeed venerated as gods in the deep jungle where wrist-thick vines twine around the lost stone temples of days humankind remembers only as legend. SWAMPS OF THE DEAD They say the dead sleep under these brackish waters, in repose, or perhaps waiting to be carved in effigy. There is a stillness about them, there below the surface in their armor holding their glinting weapons of war. Yet when one tries to snatch up such an ancient prize, the water ripples and in the fading concentric circles the images disappear. Below, naught but bones and mud, and foul-smelling things as found in any swamp. Yet people continue to return, as if the place is a kind of lodestone for sorrow and ambition alike. For here, some long while back, a great battle took place between two armies. In the battle, the waters of the Quian rose and drowned them all. This, at least, is what they say. “The fall of the panels released the clouds of doom,” said the Red Priest with a wild laugh. “The dust of the gray lotus, from the Swamps of the Dead, beyond the land of Khitai.” — “Rogues in the House” What truth is there to any of these legends? You would have to go there yourself to find out. Those who do typically seek the gray lotus, which grows like loam around the trunks of the swamp trees. Few, however, venture too far in, for those who do rarely emerge again, and when they do, they are often mad. Perhaps it is the gray lotus that gives them visions, for the flowers of the plant burst with seedlings so small as to easily be inhaled. Perhaps the dead pull the living down into the muck for company. Perhaps there are things in these swamps catalogued in no bestiary, dreamt of in no nightmare. Perhaps the swamps are older than man and, in their venerability, have secrets humankind was not meant to know. Yet humans are the most curious of all beasts, and the Swamps of the Dead are a requiem some hear when near them. Just beyond the next tree, over that muddy log, beyond that thatch of tangled vines… just a bit further… that’s it… just a few more steps… and then they are gone. KOSALA Kosala was once part of Vendhya, but that was long ago. The two kingdoms now have an uneasy truce, for the Kosalan worship of Yajur taints any peace they may have with their Vendhyan kin. However, the exact relation of Kosala and Vendhya is unknown, for the ages-lost kingdom known as Old Kosala reportedly had mastery of technological wonders which Vendhya did not. Further, Old Kosalans ventured further west than their counterparts, leaving mysterious cities such as Xuthal and Xuchotl in their wake. That, at least, is the theory. A HISTORY OF KOSALA To understand Kosala, one must first understand Old Kosala, the kingdom that preceded it. Old Kosala was not, by all accounts, like anything extant in this era. They were possessed of high science, possibly of ancient, Great Old Oneinflected origin, whose workings have long been forgotten. That culture sustained itself not on agriculture or hunting, but on magical machines which provided sustenance for all their city’s people. Lights came not from the rude flames of today, but from orbs that glowed and dimmed at touch. Luxury was heaped upon Old Kosala to such an extent that it would make the treasure vaults of mighty Hyborian kings and queens seem as the coffers of vagrants by comparison. These, at least, are the stories. Certainly, some evidence of such technology remains in current Kosala, though the citizens have long forgotten its use. Instead, these objects and ruins have a place of reverence in Kosala, wonders of an age gone by. What, then, ended such a mighty people? There are many legends. Some say they warred against themselves with their terrible technology and cast themselves back into apedom. More reasonable scholarly speculation suggests that they became fat and complacent, allowing their machines to attend to their every need while they indulged in drugs now unknown to man. The latter is most likely true, and the Old Kosalans slipped into history as hedonists whose culture degenerated until it was overthrown by its current occupants. Certainly, that is the story Kosalans tell today — Yajur, She of the Black Tongue, roused the common
52 Chapter 2 folk of Old Kosala and parts of Vendhya to cast down this degenerate civilization and again join the ranks of those who carve lives and empires out with a blade and the will to use it, rather than the profane technology of forgotten gods. In any case, the Kosalans that rule now worship Yajur and have little use for the old ways or the stories which vaunt those weaker people. THE GIFT OF YAJUR Perhaps only Stygia, with its ineluctable worship of Set, can understand Kosala. For while the great kingdoms of the age have gods, and give them reverence, only Stygia and Kosala could be called theocracies. Yajur, the Black God of Nine Hells, rules Kosala. Those who are called royals are merely the bloodline of Yajur and carry out her will. There is no Kosala, then, without Yajur, and this explains the possible break between the similar looking people of Vendhya and Kosala. For while Vendhya has its Yajur worshippers, they are not the malignant, oft-crazed zealots found in Kosala. No, Kosala is a land unto itself where all aspects of society revolve around the veneration of Yajur and the sacrifices she demands. Such a single-minded culture creates an incredibly tough people and army. Vendhya, despite its vast wealth and power, has yet to tame Kosala, for who can fight an army unafraid of death? Still, Kosala’s power does not reach beyond its own small borders and, so long as that is the case, the treaty with Vendhya may hold. Kosalans are more than deeply religious; they are a people possessed of destiny. In the stars above, Yajur has mapped out the entirety of her chosen people’s journey, though no Kosalan will give precise detail. It has been gleaned, though, that Kosalans believe themselves the true inheritors of a world older than the Cataclysm, perhaps older than the pre-Cataclysmic age. In fact, Kosalans believe themselves given intellect and faith from degenerate apedom by Yajur, lifted to the status of soldiers in some long-forgotten war. Whether this be true or not is of little consequence, for in Kosala belief is all. Kosala itself is home to rich farmland, branches of the deep jungles found in Vendhya and sacred rivers carved, they say, by Yajur herself to give both water to drink and the means to trade and travel. They make excellent steel — though not of Shemitish quality — and rarely experience drought or flooding. All boons granted, of course, by Yajur. OUTLANDERS IN KOSALA Kosala is not an unwelcoming place, for anyone who crosses their borders may do so at the will of Yajur. Apart from Vendhyans, whom they do not trust, Kosala is rather open to visitors. This can go easily for the outlanders, or horribly, depending upon the will of Yajur. As a rule, however, outlanders passing through are not targets for human sacrifice, though rumors definitely suggest otherwise. Kosala is small and depends on trade. Indeed, some portion of the branching tree that is the ‘Lotus Road’ passes through Kosala. Kosala is a safe country for caravans, with little worry of bandits and raiders. The will of Yajur precedes all, and any who seek to upset the economy of Kosala are enemies of Yajur and dealt with accordingly. If nothing else, the common faith of their fell god binds them in common purpose for the good of the entire nation. Any group traveling through Kosala that keeps out of trouble, can likely enjoy a peaceful travel, though the stranglers of Yota-pong are often reckless with their chosen sacrifices. KOSALAN ART, CULTURE, AND RELIGION Upon a glance by the uneducated outsider, Kosalan culture looks much like that of Vendhya. The stupas which mount their holy places are not unalike, nor are the people in their dark skin color and daily business. They live in similar homes and, in casual conversation, share common ideas. Yet poke at Kosalan culture with the eye of inquiry, and an entire world is revealed. Images of the Black God Kosalan art, like the Kosalans themselves, is obsessed with iconography of Yajur. Bloody tongues, a many-armed god with filed teeth — usually depicted as female — her skull necklace and various curved daggers accent pottery, mantles, carpets, jewelry, and just about everything else. Yajur predominates, as in all things Kosalan, but that does not mean Yajur is the subject of every work of art. Old Kosalan blood still flows through these people, howsoever they would deny it, and the imagery of that era — strange machines, stranger creatures — also appears in their art. It appears almost unconscious, some atavistic prompt calling back through dead centuries to manifest in curious creatures at the edges of frescos, odd machines in the corners of sacred paintings. While the temple of Yajur openly rejects Old Kosala, there is something that prevents them from erasing all traces of it from the collective mind. Perhaps Old Kosala and current Kosala are not so different as they want to believe. Perhaps Yajur was worshipped previously, under another name. Perhaps Yajur once walked the Earth as humans do, in some other aspect.
Gazetteer 53 Dark Destiny As a people believing in a true, singular destiny for their race, Kosalans are generally less quarrelsome amongst each other than those peoples of other kingdoms. ‘Generally’ is a relative term, and Kosalans are still human. Rather than a bonded, unified people, Kosalans view each other based on the amount of blood from Yajur which flows through their veins. How this was or is determined is not known. But, sometime long ago, a ruling class and a serving class was established, very much like the caste system in Vendhya. The two sides mix more socially than in Vendhya, but intermarriage is forbidden, and no one forgets who really holds the power. Apart from the main division between heavy-blooded royals and thin-blooded commoners, various extended families have rank according to books held safe in the Temple’s archives. However, anyone with the blood of Yajur running through them is automatically better than a normal human, and Kosalans do not expect their lower caste to bow in deference to the high born of other kingdoms unless their own royals order so. A king or queen of Vendhya, for example, is not as worthy of life as a low-born carpenter of Yota-pong, for the former has no god’s blood in his veins. On days of Yajur, and there are many of these, the two castes mingle openly. Feasts and celebrations abound, as do human sacrifices — the most famous of which are the stranglings in Yota-pong. The priest class is an exception to the rule of division between high and low blood. Priests come from either caste, entirely determined by visions given by Yajur. However, these visions do not come to only the would-be priest, for what fool would believe those? Instead, several priests have ‘visions’ of who among the populace will ascend their vaunted ranks. Can such visions be conjured by coin? Probably; this is a civilization of humans, after all. Saying so openly is a sure way for your tongue to find its way nailed to an altar of the dark god. All official ceremonies, be it marriage, naming of newborns, and even courtly decrees on property and justice, are mediated, if not outright controlled, by priests of Yajur. As one would expect with any kingdom of the age, the ‘will’ of Yajur can greatly vary based on whose palms are being greased by whom. That said, corruption in Kosala is remarkably low compared to most Hyborian nations, and outright selling of favors by priests is illegal. More than once in the past, the people have risen against a corrupt priest and royal class and demanded Yajur’s true will be heeded. As Yajur is female, women often rule in Kosala. It is very common for women to be priests, aristocrats, and queens. The current ruler is rumored to be a queen, though Kosalans make no distinction between the terms king and queen, priest or priestess. Yajur’s blood, rather than presumed sex at birth, determines a person’s fate in Kosala. All Flows from Yajur As is by now abundantly clear, the worship of Yajur dominates all aspects of Kosalan life. While the common peasant does not know the teleological purpose of their own life in the vast loom that is Yajur’s plan, they have faith that those with more of the god’s blood in their veins do. Ritual and sacrifice are hugely important, and it must be understood that human sacrifice is common, viewed in the East as right and proper. To see the strangler of Yotapong at work in front of throngs of hundreds may shock some outsiders, who prefer their malignant gods hidden away behind polite fronts or in back alleys. Not so in Kosala. Yajur allows the existence of humankind, and humankind has a purpose to Yajur. So long as the purpose is served, Yajur gives life. One may gather, if around Kosalans for long enough, that they are a culture biding their time, waiting for some omen or event which will spur them to full action. What that might be is unknown, but any who have seen the many public altars to Yajur, heaped in human entrails “Tolkemec said they came from the east, long ago, from Old Kosala, when the ancestors of those who now dwell in Kosala came up from the south and drove forth the original inhabitants of the land.” — “Red Nails”
54 Chapter 2 and gore, ought to worry when that time does come. While Vendhyans openly dismiss their cousins as ‘fanatics,’ they do so with a very watchful eye. YOTA-PONG The capital of Kosala, Yota-pong is a thriving cosmopolitan center that rivals some of the lesser cities of Turan. While not among the great cities such as Ayodhya or Aghrapur, Yota-pong is a site few well-experienced travelers want to miss. So long as one keeps their manners about them, they have little fear of becoming the victim of the city’s stranglers. Sitting on one leg of the Lotus Road, Yota-pong sees plenty of trade going through, and stopping, in its markets. It is a vital stopping point for the southern east-west trade which circumvents Hyrkania. There are many guilds and kings who would rather trade through the lengthier southern route than risk the uncertainty of some of the more straightforward routes. The city, therefore, is one of the only places in Kosala which feature neighborhoods of foreigners. While foreigners are accepted in the kingdom, they generally do not stay long, save in Yota-pong. Kosalans find that outlanders, who exist outside the caste system, will take work for coin without arguing over Yajur’s blood. From an economic standpoint, this is a blessing. Of course, the foreign sector of Yota-pong has a reputation for more riotous brawling, crime, and general malfeasance. This is largely tolerated so long as such antics take place behind the walled sections allotted these foreign devils. The Temple District Yota-pong contains a dedicated temple district, where various aspects of Yajur worship are divided between given sects. The complexity of this arrangement of ‘responsibilities’ is such that no outlander has yet to uncover the exact schematic by which aspects of faith are divided. One temple might house oracles for personal consultation as to a single person’s path on Yajur’s Road, while others may conjure visions of the dead who failed, or pleased, Yajur to advise in this life. Regardless, the temple district is a bloody affair. Animal and human sacrifices are displayed openly. Vultures and other carrion pick at the limbs, torsos, and heads of the unclean dead, while those strangled as ‘clean souls’ are burnt in town squares with respect. Teeth and skulls, fingernails and tongues all festoon the grotesqueries that are Yajur’s shrines. Looming over most of them is Yajur herself, a six-armed jet-black god with razor teeth and weapons in three of her hands. Her eyes are often precious or semi-precious gems no thief would dream of stealing. The temple district is not the only area where altars to Yajur rise. In almost any neighborhood, be it a small alcove or a statue in a small square, one finds such idols in all their hideous glory. Merchants are often quite superstitious of Yota-pong and are all too ready to tell horror stories of friends being abducted from their inns only for their eyes and tongue to appear as offerings in a public venue the next day. Such stories are wildly exaggerated, but few foreigners who do not live in Yota-pong are comfortable there for long. SABATEA Southeast of Zamboula in the vast deserts that separate Iranistan, Shem, and Stygia lies the city-state of Sabatea. An independent city, Sabatea is rather unique. The citystate walks a dangerous edge, giving tribute to both Stygia and Iranistan while plotting its own ends. Powerful sorcerers sit behind the throne of Sabatea and have links to the fell Black Circle. How long can the city-state remain independent, when even the Peaco*ck Throne eyes it as a potential conquest? A BRIEF HISTORY OF SABATEA It is unclear whether the city-sate of Sabatea was once part of a larger kingdom or somehow grew and flourished independently. As a trade center, Sabatea predates the arrival of the Hyborians 3,000 years ago. Not unlike Zamboula, Sabatea has seen its share of occupation. In the past, Old Stygia ruled over the Sabateans, thus accounting for their extant worship of Set. Time eroded the old empire and, as Acheron fell, Old Stygia consolidated and withdrew its borders around the Styx. At this time, Sabatea was left to its own devices, though the city had previously been independent. Sabatea, then, was conquered by the Stygians, not founded by them. Possibly, the original settlers of this were Shemites, or at least of Shemitish blood. No one today is certain, and only the Holy Books of the Planets keep such records. The queen and her bloodline alone have access to these. As time moved on, in its relentless pace, Sabatea came under the dominion of the Iranistani Empire. For perhaps one hundred years or longer, Sabatea was part of the vast Iranistani holdings ranging toward the Styx and up along the Vilayet coast. Holding such remote territories proved increasingly problematic and, by the time the empire eroded and Hyrkanians began to conquer the old jewel, Sabatea again found independence. Throughout all these travails, Sabatea never fell under the direct cultural hammer of any occupier, instead was the keeper of its own distinct culture and even stranger religions.
Gazetteer 55 IN THE SHADOW OF IRANISTAN Sometimes named an Iranistani protectorate, Sabatea more accurately had an arrangement with Iranistan. Sabatea grows and supplies the zuqqum tree. From its sap, a sort of mortar-like binding is made, which seals ships against water. More useful than that, though, are the devil-shaped fruits which grow upon the branches of the zuqqum. These, in the hands of an expert, can turn into healing elixir or poison. In mild, distilled form, it also serves as flavoring for all manner of cooking. In both Sabatea and Suidon, a wine made from the plant is very popular. They say if you drink but a flagon of zuqqum wine, the last week of your life blurs like a mirage in the Kharamun desert. Sabatea’s relationship with Iranistan keeps Stygia and Turan at bay, at least for now. Further, the Annulet of Three, a group of sorcerers linked in some way to the Black Ring, reside here. Their power is known from Khemi to Aghrapur. Their presence, too, is proof against casual invasion. Two important travel routes wend through Sabatea, one being a part of the so-called Lotus Road. It would not do to interrupt the flow of lotus, as any fool can tell you. SABATEAN ART, CULTURE, AND RELIGION As noted, while Sabatean history is not without its occupiers, none have significantly altered the course of the city-state’s religion and culture. Sabatea is a place unlike any other in the region, out of time, a peek into the early days of the post-Cataclysm… or so the city’s scholars claim. The Serpent and the Stars Some fragments, atavistic memories perhaps, of the lost Thurian Age run through Sabatean art. While the significance of the motifs and symbols is largely forgotten, similarities in Sabatean pottery, frescoes, and even architecture resemble those surviving artifacts of the southern continent rent asunder by the Cataclysm. Snake and serpent imagery likewise infuse the Sabatean esthetic. Some attribute this to the time of Stygian rule, while others, perhaps more knowingly, ascribe these images to the very near-mythical serpent folk themselves. Some scant rumors and legends hold that the people of Sabatea have some of the blood of those pre-human people in their veins. Serious folk dismiss this as historical heresy. The overwhelming theme of Sabatean art for the last thousand years is that of the seven planets. The seven planets, more than the stars themselves, are guides and gods to the Sabatean people. Even where these planetary images mix with recognizable icons of Set, Ahriman, and Yog, most who are familiar with those three gods know instantly that this art is something else altogether. Governed by the Heavens Sabatean culture centers around the seven planets and the wheels they draw in the night sky. The Sabatean week is seven days, each day named for a planet. They see the cosmos above as a great machine which, if decoded, can spill all the secrets man otherwise grasps at futilely. While trade and business necessitate a work schedule that adheres in part to the outside world, Sabateans break work down by day. Each vocation’s activity is governed by the planet that governs a given day. Blacksmiths, for example, buy ore on the day ruled by Earth. They work the forge most heartily on days of the red planet, for it is made of fire. Blades and tools made on this day fetch a higher price. Currently, Queen Saba rules over her people from the Sun Palace. Her word is law, but her word is also bound to the laws set forth by the cosmos and the gods millennia ago. Behind her lurk the mysterious Annulet of Three — sorcerers and diviners said to hold the true power in Sabatea. Their mix of dark-skinned Iranistani and dusky Stygian blood should mark a Sabatean, yet they are curiously paler than their neighbors. The reasons for this are unknown. Land of the Three Gods Religion in Sabatea is a complex subject. Some Sabateans worship gods, while others look to the planets and cosmos for guidance. Like the precarious edge the city-state walks between Iranistan and Stygia, the city also walks an edge between the divinity of the gods and the divinity of the firmament above. Even the queen herself gives fealty to both sides, while privately keeping her own counsel. Three gods dominate traditional temples — Yog, Set, and Ahriman. All are dark gods, and their portents often connected to the other side of Sabatea’s theological coin — the stars. Conversely, those who give primacy to the planets believe the gods are but beings from those other worlds who, in the dark of night, burn with a sentient fire all their own. To the outsider, even one well-traveled, Sabatean religion is confusing. Seven temples, one for each planet, dot the city in an arrangement that the clergy believes approximates the planet’s actual locations. Each temple contains “Here we abode apart from earthly life. We fought the strange and terrible forms of life which then walked the earth, so that we became feared, and were not molested in the dim jungles of the east, where we had our abode.” — Yag-kosha, “The Tower of the Elephant”
56 Chapter 2 gemstones associated with that planet and glass domes so that the planet can be seen above when the stars are right. In another section of the city are temples to the three gods. These dark, foreboding structures are said to cause the heart to quicken when one scurries past them. Citizens respect them, but rarely openly worship inside. Instead, household shrines to the deities take the place of group service. Only priests and acolytes of the gods are allowed in the temples. For the planetary churches, all citizens are free to enter and worship. While that gives an openness to the mysteries of above, there are sciences the ‘priests’ of the planets know which are forbidden to common folk. In truth, some of this knowledge is advanced astronomy, the kind not properly seen since the demise of Old Kosala. Did the Old Kosalans found Sabatea? Did some refugees from that land stay here long enough to give some semblance of science to the nomadic tribes gathered in a simple fort that would become a great city? Only the archives, deep under the city, hold answers. SABATEAN LOCATIONS Surrounded by white, alabaster walls, Sabatea gleams on the horizon like the rising sun. Her white walls are smooth, prominent against the verdant meadow in which the city lays. Inside, squat, flat-roofed abodes abut taller, domed temples and towers. Were one possessed of the gifts of the bird, they might espy in the city’s design a model of the night sky at a certain point during the year. Citizens take pride in this design, though, of course, few have ever seen it from above. The Palace of the Sun Situated at the center of the city, as the great scholars of Sabatea likewise situate the sun at the center of the planets, this building burns orange against the rest of the city. The central tower, from which the queen can view the simulated cosmos in the city streets, is encased entirely in amber — a mad fortune of amber. It truly belies belief. The glass dome topping the amber tower has seven sections, colored for each planet. Ceremonies take place under these multi-colored panes, many of them steeped in vicious, fevered rumor involving the profane. The queen herself resides off center of the tower in a series of apartments. They are rich in marble, accented in gemstones, and carpeted with the finest textiles of Shem and Iranistan. A zuqqum grove grows on the western edge of the palace compound. From the fruit of the trees, the queen’s servants make their own wine. Patrolling the groves are said to be lions or even gryphons, though none has penetrated the palace walls uninvited and lived to recount their tale. Temples of the Seven Planets Spiraling out from the Sun Palace in the city center, the Seven Temples follow the planets in their correct order. Advanced astronomical knowledge was no doubt required for their placement. Long ago, before a city proper stood on this meadowland, stone stelae represented the planets whirling in orbit above. These stones feature in each temple, or so the priests of the planets claim. How old the stones are that now reside in these temples isn’t provable. Still, priests and lay folk alike report strange sensations and even visions in the presence of the stones. The floor of each temple mimics the layout of the city and, thus, the arrangement of the planets around the sun. That the sun is the center of the Sabatean universe is not something all agree on. In some countries, this belief could be a rejection of the gods. Further east, in far Khitai, the centrality of the sun is accepted as fact. Gates of the Sun and Moon Along the eastern and western walls of Sabatea are the two main gates. The Gate of the Sun is in the eastern wall, where the sun rises precisely in the frame of the gate on the summer solstice. The light then falls onto a pool of water, large and rectangular in shape. On this day, citizens toss dyed leaves of the zuqqum tree into the pool. Each is colored to the citizen’s birth planet. This ritual supposedly grants fortune for the coming year. The western gate frames the moon in certain of its phases against the veil of blackest night. An identical pool catches the silvery light during certain full moons, turning the pool into sparkling quicksilver. Marriages often take place en masse around this pool on such occasions. The children of such unions are supposed to be blessed. THE ANNULET OF THREE Also called the Ring of Three, the group called the Annulet has deep ties to the Black Ring of Stygia. Indeed, some claim
Gazetteer 57 the two are one and the same, only under different names. This is not true. The Annulet of Three worship a tri-faced deity. In its different aspects, it is called Yog, Ahriman, and Set. In reality, the sorcerous priests of this god know they worship Nyarlathotep and, via the powers of the void that abomination imparts unto them, they carry out his will. However, they cloak their worship in the three gods who pervade the city. It is unclear whether the Three believe that these deities are actual avatars of Nyarlathotep or merely use them as convenience. The line between priest and sorcerer blurs in many kingdoms, but none so much as in Sabatea and Stygia. While the Stygians have no doubt that Set is a separate god entirely, they likewise have members of the Black Ring inside the Annulet. The exact nature of the affiliation between the two isn’t known, but logic bears out one reasonable conclusion — Sabatea’s arrangement with Iranistan is not the only reason Stygia makes no move against the city-state. Perhaps the Stygians have some long-ranging plan for both the Annulet and Sabatea. For, as Turan rises along the Vilayet, the Stygians are like to make plans within plans. The Turanian army may be a match for the Stygian army, but Stygian cleverness comes directly from father Set. SABATEAN RUINS Old buildings still stand against new in Sabatea, and a constant stratum of distress and repair marks the ages the city watched pass. Underneath Sabatea, as under many cities, lay the ruins of former iterations, as if each generation, each age, seeks to perfect the very ideal form of the city. The queen holds this is the perfect version, but history and divinations speak otherwise. The Undercity of Sabatea Pick a city, any city in the world, and you find it is but the latest manifestation of an idea — the idea of civilization. Beneath the great walls of purple-towered Python did there not lurk older cities? In the heart of Aquilonia, mighty Tarantia rises over its forebears as grass rises above the newly buried dead. Sabatea is no different. Her underground waterways and sewers lace like a cat’s cradle with older streets, palaces, and the remains of poor hovels baked solid by a younger sun. None have properly mapped this underground, though some have tried. Crypts and catacombs lay even deeper, burial grounds for ages whose names are long forgot. Or course, with such history daily tread upon by the sandaled feet of the citizenry comes also rumors and legends. A golden palace. A sorcerer-king who sleeps unmolested by rot and time. A stone not of this Earth which, having fallen from the heavens, cracked and gave birth to demons. Who can say what secrets lurk beneath the streets? The only known denizens, besides rats and spiders, are lotus smugglers. Those who take some portion of the lotus trade which “fell off the cart”. A profitable business, but the legal traders are likely to cut the throat of any cutting into their profits. Orrery of Kosala Located on a tall hill to the northwest of Sabatea, the Orrery of Kosala lies under the protection of the Annulet of Three… or so it is said. Few try that claim. The Orrery appears made of some bronze material which does not corrode. It whines when the wind blows, and the ten planets turn along varying orbits. Yes, this Orrery depicts ten planets, not seven. The scholarly opinion is that this is a remnant of Old Kosala. It is not. The Orrery’s metal is not of this world, nor were its builders. From whence they came none can say, but the Orrery survived the Cataclysm and probably many such upheavals besides. Mad sorcerers variously claim it is a construct of the serpent people, the Great Race of Yith, and even beings from the dream realms. Those few scholars who do not believe the Old Kosalan theory also wonder — what must have happened to other three planets? Does their fate align with Earth, or are they merely hidden from the eyes of humankind? VENDHYA Vendhya grew as prosperous as a lotus flower when Acheron was young. It has seen the rise and fall of many civilizations. To Vendhya, the Hyborian peoples are stripling, and oft treated as such. Vendhya is old. It is as old as the rivers cutting through the mighty subcontinent, those bleeding trails that yet remind this age of the Great Cataclysm. Her mysteries are largely unknown beyond the Vilayet but, for those whose wanderlust pulls them toward the sunrise, this ancient kingdom offers unparalleled wonders. A HISTORY OF VENDHYA At least as ancient as Khitai and older than even Acheron, Vendhya was among the first kingdoms to rise and thrive in the aftermath of the Cataclysm. Some records even indicate that the people who settled here carry on pre-Cataclysmic traditions, unchanged despite that calamity. Much was of course lost in that tumult, but the survival of Khitai indicates that the eastern expanse of the Thurian continent suffered far less in the Cataclysm as did its west. Post-Cataclysm, the people of the sub-continent had a significant lead on civilization, probably inherited from those who came prior. While the Bori relearned the rudiments of fire, Vendhyans already erected great stupas and established codified laws. Their influence grew, and
58 Chapter 2 they quickly subjugated many of their less technologically advanced neighbors. The early kings of Vendhya assimilated the savages around them and welded the resulting alloy of flesh into a strong empire. This bloodline continued in a straight line until some few centuries ago. Trouble with neighboring Ghanara in the south and the unification of the Hyrkanian horse clans under a single, great khan conspired to alter Vendhya’s isolation from the broader world. The Hyrkanians conquered Vendhya, at first imposing their own ways upon the culture, but eventually assimilating. In the end, this new Hyrkanian blood became one and the same with Vendhyan royalty, and the powerful, enigmatic culture of the Vendhyans converted the invaders to their ways and their religions. THE SLEEPING GIANT Outside of the great libraries of Ayodhya, little thought is given to this mixed ancestry. The king is divine, the royal bloodline intact. Besides, Asura says that all beings reincarnate so, in the end, there is little difference in the mortal coil one wears. Some few Hyrkanian traditions remain, but have been syncretized into the Asuran faith. Vendhya is among the strongest empires on the Thurian Continent and nearly the strongest in the East, rivaled only by Khitai. The kingdom’s distance from the West leaves it a near-myth in the minds of many Hyborian peoples, though southern traders know better. It is rare that Vendhyan goods make it beyond Koth, though it does happen. Prior to the Hyrkanian invasion, a ‘spice road’ existed between great Acheron, Stygia, and Vendhya. Now, that route is all but lost. Vendhya still controls the major trade routes between East and West. Traveling through Hyrkanian territory is inadvisable, and mountains block almost all other paths. Between its fertile land, control of trade, and powerful military, Vendhya presents a mighty foe indeed. Many the fabled Turanian cavalry charge have been stopped dead by Vendhyan war elephants. It is that self-same nation of Turan — and the eager, avaricious eye of Yezdigerd — which preoccupies the bulk of Vendhya’s defensive postures. The expanding empire cannot help but confront Vendhya in time. For its part, Vendhyan wazams in the royal court advise both caution and pre-emptive expansion of its own. Vendhya’s secondary defensive concerns are the wild tribes of Afghulistan. So long as they remain locked in their own petty feuds, they have no hope of threatening such a powerful empire. But, should some singular leader appear and conciliate the tribes, the resulting army would be formidable indeed. OUTLANDERS IN VENDHYA Vendhyans are perhaps among the most welcome of Western ‘barbarians’. Secure in the superiority of their own culture, the people also believe in the reincarnation of beings as taught by Asura. Who can say if one might return as one of these self-same barbarians in the next life? Still, Vendhyan’s are not overly welcoming, for the path through the beads of one’s life is purposefully fraught with obstacles; such is Asura’s design. Outlanders must conform to Vendhyan culture if they are to be taken seriously. The Vendhyan caste system often poses an enigma to foreigners, and Vendhyan haggling harbors rituals more complex than any found outside of Shem. To those willing to travel Vendhya, a range of possibilities and worldviews unknown in the West await… but so too does danger. VENDHYAN ART, CULTURE, AND RELIGION Vendhyan civilization is nigh unrivaled in the entire world. The Hyborian nations are but children compared to Vendhyan sophistication and codified law, custom, and religion. From great Ayodhya to the lost temples of the great jungles, this kingdom’s age and culture is evident. The Sensual World To almost any outlander, the sexual explicitness of Vendhyan art immediately stands out. From bas-reliefs, to friezes, to illuminated texts, the sexual acts of mankind are on full display. Due in part to Asura, who preaches that sex is the path to rebirth, Vendhyans are not shamed or secret about their lovemaking. In fact, a ritual quality accompanies their investment in the arts of love. The gods, too, partake of the same pleasures of the flesh as their mortal subjects. The coupling of great deities often depicts the past kings and queens of Vendhya intertwined with them, brown limbs locked with those hued blue and black. This is one reminder among any that the rulers of Vendhya are not merely royals but also divine. Households keep fertility idols over hearths or on kitchen mantles. Ornate tapestries in high caste homes tell the story of that bloodline for those who can read them. Stupas dominate much of Vendhyan architecture, capping nearly every building of importance and all temples to Asura. Knowing One’s Place Vendhyan culture predicates itself on an intricate web of subtle cues, customs, and deep tradition. To the outsider, this web would take a lifetime to unravel. To a native, it is as easily understood as their language.
Gazetteer 59 Marriages are arranged, and Vendhyan brides come with dowries irrespective of caste. Kshatriyas of the ruling warrior caste, male or female, also include soldiers in such arrangements. Thus, a captain of the guard in one royal house may find himself serving a new house as a matter of course. Normally, the male’s name is attached to the newly joined house, though females of certain rank hold their own names and houses. This caste system is as ingrained in every Vendhyan as their fingerprints. There is no way to move beyond your caste, up or down. Kshatriyan rulers without a gold coin left to their name still have their name. The richest of the merchant caste can never hope for equal stature next to a royal. The underclass never rises above the toil of their parents and their parent’s parents. Among each caste are further divisions, some so stratified that scholars spend laborious hours recording the way these sub-castes must interact. Each caste also has their own funeral rites, as dictated by Asura, for each caste corresponds to one’s progress on the World Wheel. The Turn of the Wheel Asura is the primary deity of Vendhya, dedicated to seeing beyond the illusory veil of the flesh to the truth. Asura is the embodiment of time and space who takes the form of a man, at least in idols, to guide Vendhyans along the World Wheel. The World Wheel is a two-fold cosmology representing both the journey of the singular, eternal human soul, and the ebbs and tides of human history at large. Viewed through this lens, the Cataclysm is like the death of a body — the spirit persists and takes new forms. So it is until the soul is purified, joining Asura as an aspect of the great truth of the cosmos. Asura himself is also known as “He Who Parts the Veil”, and nearly all Vendhyans strive to replicate that in their own lives. Priests of Asura devote themselves entirely to this pursuit. Since the body is but a temporary way station for the wandering soul, Asurans believe it must be destroyed and returned to the cycle of nature just as the spirit returns to the World Wheel. The most customary means by which this is done are cremation pyres lit along the ghats of Vendhya’s great rivers. Ashes are spread into sacred waters where they join the sea, thus symbolizing a reunion with Asura. In some Asuran sects, mostly located in the Himelias, excarnation or ‘sky burials’ are common. Priests lay the naked body out on a flat rock, usually one at a great height, and proceed to cut long slits into the corpse to expose muscles and organs. Carrion-eaters do the rest, taking everything from the victuals to sinew. All that remains are bones, which the priests then grind to a powder and scatter to the four winds. In this way do bodies also return to the cycles of time, nature, and space. One cannot overstate the importance of Asura and his cosmology on Vendhyan people. Where Western folk see death as the end, or at least the end of walking this world, Asurans see it as a wheel ever turning. They do not give their lives cheaply or easily, but death carries different connotations here than almost anywhere in the known world.
60 Chapter 2 In opposition to Asura is Yajur, a god whose worship is long forbidden in Vendhya. Yajur is seen variously as the embodiment of all obstacles on the World Wheel, the incarnation of the illusory and the flesh, and the single force which could sunder the Wheel and end time. Cults to the god practice secretly in Ayodhya, Peshkhauri, and remote jungle agras. Asurans practice openly in Vendhya, but most form cults in the West where they are distrusted and accused of hideous crimes and rituals. AYODHYA The capital city of Vendhya is also its oldest. Both the economic and spiritual center of Vendhya, the city is built upon the spot where Asura first appeared in a form man could recognize. Further back, another pantheon of gods held a great battle upon this spot, wielding weapons of such terrible power that survivors saw hair and fingernails fall out as their bodies later withered away under great, red sores. So sacred is the city that — rather than see it sacked when the Hyrkanian horde arrived more than three centuries ago — the king surrendered the city, and himself. Ayodhya thus lacks the marks of conquest which scar many of the great cities. The population of Ayodhya is densely packed, and walls serve to separate castes. One cannot dwell in a place above their caste and may only visit with proper authorization from royal-serving bureaucrats. The slums of Ayodhya are legendary in the East, and the poorest folk literally live among the waste of the upper castes. Begging is considered a profession in much of Vendhya and is immensely present in Ayodhya. A beggar may have been a king in a past life, and it bodes poor for one’s path along the World Wheel to treat them badly. Begging is limited to the hour after dawn until dusk, and any mendicants violating this prohibition are imprisoned or publicly shamed. The King’s Palace In one incarnation or another, the royal palace always existed in the place one finds it today. From simple beginnings, the palace grew to dominate, the city spires having thirteen stupas and housing more than 1,000 soldiers on the premises. The current palace is built of white marble inlaid with gold. Towers cap mighty walls which have never been breached by any army. Kings and queens alike take more than one spouse, should they wish, though only the highest royal caste may do this. Again, being partly divine, the king of Vendhya’s children form one of the outer rings of the World Wheel, beyond which lies unity with all. The king himself is but a step away, at least according to courtly priests. Something of a conflict results between the royal position on Asura and that of the priests themselves. A fundamental contradiction lies at the heart of the belief that the king is both on the World Wheel and also a god.
Gazetteer 61 Vendhyan easily reconcile this in their own minds, and only the uncouth barbarian would bring up such a paradox. The Great Agra of Asura Built upon the spot where the old gods died in a great confrontation and where Asura appeared to offer redemption to them upon the World Wheel, the Great Agra, or temple, is by law the tallest structure in the city. Only Asura can be this close to the stars. Not even the king himself may violate this rule. A statue of Asura, covered in gold plating, peers down at worshippers from a height of over one hundred feet under the central stupa. Bearing six arms, each holds one of the sub-worlds of the wheel. Old, nearly forgotten mechanics cause the arms to spin in a slow circle, thus mimicking the procession of the worlds within the World Wheel. Only the highest priests of Asura know how this machine works. The faithful from throughout Vendhya make spiritual pilgrimages to the Agra several times throughout in their lifetime, where possible. During the first, their parents bring them before the age of three. Later, they bring their children and then, most likely, their parents. Finally, prior to their death, their own children bring them. Tower of Kites A hundred-foot tower, once the largest building in the city, the Tower of Kites has been both fortress and prison. Dating from the earliest days of Ayodhya, the tower served as fortification and a hub of military communication. Long ago, a series of such towers traced over the fertile topography of Vendhya like a stand of lanterns lighting the night. Each tower used a series of kites and lights to signal the towers to either side of it. In this way, communications rode up and down these defenses. In Ayodhya, orders were likewise issued to the towers nearest by signals using the kites, and so on down the line. The system of kite signals has long since fallen away and, for the last 400 years, the Tower of Kites served as a prison. The old stone spire stands as testament to the king’s law and his justice. The heads of would-be poisoners and other enemies of the state trim the tower like grim festival decorations. No citizen gazing upon the tower has any illusion about the king’s will nor divinity. At the very apex of the tower is a single cell reserved for an unknown man. Rumors among the gaolers contend he has been imprisoned since before King Bunda Chand’s grandfather was born. No guard may enter the cell. Food and other necessities are exchanged by a simple judas hole in the cold iron door. It is said that only the king knows the identity of the prisoner, and that identity is passed to the next king via a copper scroll that is read but once then locked away. PESHKHAURI The even hand of Chunder Shan governs the furthest northwest city of Vendhya, Peshkhauri. Quite literally settled on a dangerous frontier, the city serves as bulwark against the ever-rapacious hill tribes of the Afghulistan region of neighboring Ghulistan. The governor’s fort sits outside the city walls, and patrols flood from its mighty gate regularly to police the border. Outlying villages and farms sometimes fall victim to the hill people’s raids, but Chunder does his utmost to keep the wild hill folk in check. The governor’s fortress was strong, and situated outside the walls of the city it guarded. The breeze that stirred the tapestries on the wall brought faint noises from the streets of Peshkhauri — occasional snatches of wailing song, or the thrum of a cithern. — “The People of the Black Circle” Given its extreme position on the northwest border of Vendhya, it is not unlikely that any Turanian incursion would first target Peshkhauri. Yet the Turanians have only begun to build forts in Ghulistan itself, so, hopefully, a direct conflict is some ways away. It is said that only the rough wild hills of the Himelians, and the more savage people who dwell there, keep Turan and Vendhya from open war. Any side wishing to attack the other would first have to subjugate the hill tribes — no mean feat. Peshkhauri is more cosmopolitan than its geographical position suggests. The city dates back many hundreds of years and stood as fortress against Hyrkanian invasion. Sadly, several hundred years ago, the Hyrkanians successfully conquered much of Vendhya, including Peshkauri. Today, the city sits at a confluence of two major trade routes, thus earning the moniker “Gateway to Vendhya”, though some say this name applies because Peshkhaur was the first city to fall to the Hyrkanians. Despite the Vendhyan influence, it is essentially a rugged frontier town, barely held to order by its regional governor. Spies, bandits, mercenaries, explorers, and other adventuresome souls will find Peshkauri much to their liking, and as such it is a rich source of danger and opportunity.
A wanderer may expect to encounter a hundred different kinds of adventure in their peripatetic journeys. These restless folk settle nowhere. The road is their home, and it brings ever-shifting forks and paths. No wanderer, it is said, walks the same path twice. To the outlander, the East is full of wonder and mystery. To the native, it is a puzzle box which they know takes a lifetime to understand. The world seems more complex here, and scholars question history as often as they record it. Science begins in earnest here, though it’s in its infancy. Alchemy and sorcery take strange turns, and the Outer Dark is given due respect. There are a thousand customs for every occasion, and the cultured Easterner knows that they find not just society but also the cosmos. Walk on, travel to the next town, follow the road to the infinite horizon… the wise know the journey is the thing, not the destination. NATURAL EVENTS THE SCOURGE OF PLAGUE Pestilence knows no borders. It is foe to every man and woman of the age, and none can escape it save by luck, for no chirurgeon knows its methods. Plagues swept the East in the past and will do so again. The so-called Yellow Plague ran rampant through Khitai in Conan’s own lifetime, and unverified accounts suggest he was there. Vendhya, too, has had its share of disease while Kosala claims the god Yajur saved them from some like menace long ago. There is little even the great Emperors of Khitai can do to fight such an invisible, merciless foe. Even dark sorcery, for all its unnatural perversions, is feared less by some than the spread of an incurable fever, boils, buboes… Yet man, in his ever-inventive way, managed once to harness such a disease for his own ends. Seventy some years ago, during a Hyrkanian attack against Turan, plague victims were flung over a city’s walls by catapult. The disease quickly found victims in the city and — before the Hyrkanians could further drive home their territorial borders — Turan itself burned its own city and people to the ground. Since that day, Turan and Hyrkania have had naught but skirmishes, at least for now. Of note to scholars is the seeming link between the prevalence of Erlik worship and disease in Hyrkania. Based on oral accounts, the god first came into favor when the first nomad empires were mere horse clans along the steppe and taiga. This is ages past, so dim in memory now as to be legend. Yet the legend persists. It holds that plague devastated the horse clans so that they could no longer make war among themselves. The cult of Erlik sprung up in the devastation, a yellow-eyed sign in the sky to which the great chieftains were drawn. There, under a sun shrouded in the grim gray gauze of the god’s frozen throne room, these chieftains set aside arms and formed a single tribe. In time, EVENTS CHAPTER 3 “I never saw people exactly like them. But there’s the smack of the East about them—Vendhya, maybe, or Kosala.” “Were you a king in Kosala?” she asked, masking her keen curiosity with derision. “No. But I was a war-chief of the Afghulis who live in the Himelian mountains above the borders of Vendhya. These people favor the Kosalans. But why should Kosalans be building a city this far to west?” — Conan and Valeria, “Red Nails”
it became an empire that rivalled Khitai — some accounts say it even conquered the jewel of the East. No matter, the empire did not last. Tribes fell to internecine fighting again, and Erlik worship fractured into a number of smaller cults, each with different ways of serving their god. Would disease cause such a union again and, if so, what would become of today’s empires should Hyrkania purpose itself toward conquering? POLITICS, SOCIAL EVENTS & WAR The East is no stranger to the handiwork of man. Even in the taiga or open steppes, the will of lords, chieftains, and queens can change the world as much as the raw power of nature. WAR War and upheaval define the Hyborian Age, regardless of what side of the Vilayet one finds themselves. The fractious kingdoms of the West are no anomaly. Khitai, Vendhya, Hyrkania — all make war against some foe or another. Expansion and conquering are the rules of the day Yet many cultures and empires of the East have forgotten more about intrigue and the art of war than the West may ever know. Amidst the chaos and tumult of war are natural disasters, uprisings, raids from Afghuli tribesman, and the wicked weed of sorcery. Man is a consistent animal but, in the East, the flavor of his highs and lows varies like the tides. Still, the cycles of history continue, and the Hyborian Age is but one layer in the vast strata of geologic history Howard gave us. Khitai Goes to War The most powerful kingdom in the East did not become such for lack of ambition. Just as in the West, every mighty ruler Dr. Jack, Yer not the only one with these mooks on yer heels. I ported in Manila and damn if the whackos didn’t follow me there. Though I guess they might’ve wired ahead. No matter, though, for all their, what do ya call it, zeal? Yeah, for all their zeal they go down like a dirty pug, takin’ a dive if you give ‘em a baby swipe. I seen a symbol tattooed on their wrists over here too. Good work, better than some of what I got myself three sheets to the wind and loaded to bear. Remind me to show you some of that if we ever see each others in person. Anyway, me not having a heater about my person let a couple of them cult types live. They was flat-out unconscious, mind you, but I knows a den where I brought them. A local owed me a favor. I won’t get into details, but the man’s heavy into the gangs over here, I got to tell you. And a man that heavy, he has men that can lean on people to get ‘em to spill no matter how much zeal they got. I’ll spare you the details, as you’re a perfesser and all and don’t want to hear about no hot pokers on the flesh or bamboo shoots under the nails or other likewise. Suffice it to say, the little nut talked. I had to get my friend to translate, but he’s part of some damn thing called the Cult of the Butterfly. Sounds innocent enough, but my friend says the cult does dark deeds in dirty places — that’s black magic to you and me. Anyhows, this little feller also gave up his address, a shack in the red-light district. I helped myself to a looksee there on your dime (thanks for the moola by the by), and found a matchbook from London of all places. Joint called The Hellfire Club. I don’t know of it, but the matchbook has some of that strange writing on it. I’m tossing it in with the letter. Let me know if you go to London. I gotta haul munitions on an old steamer to some island I never heard of. I think the Japanese are stockpiling. Have another go at China. But this little feller I put the questions to says, China will rise again. Right now, looks like they have heaps of trouble with the Rising Son. My little joke. Watch yer back. —Sailor Steve
64 Chapter 3 eyes their neighbors with the intent of possible conquest. Khitai, with its disciplined army and motivated troops, coupled with advances in tactics and technology, is in a fine position to expand. In fact, Khitai is probably better able to conquer its neighbors than, say, Turan… at least for now. One day, perhaps, Khitai and the West might square off, but that day is not today. Below, then, we see likely targets for Khitai’s ambition, speculate on the results of such conflicts, and offer ideas to how these macro-events might affect your campaign. Warring States History is both cyclical and capricious. What happened before will happen again and often when one is least prepared for it. Long before the rise of the Ten Thousand Year Empire, Khitai was but a series of warring states struggling for dominance. While nigh 700 years have passed since that era, cultural differences yet run deep and ambitions of prefects are lofty. Internecine war could break out, should the gamemaster find it narratively rich. At first, this would begin with intrigue and spying, for Khitai goes not to war without knowledge. The player characters might be recruited as scouts and spies or even assassins. After all, a Western barbarian slaying a high-ranking noble looks less suspicious, for no respectable Khitan would deal with such foreigners on such a subtle matter. From the intrigue phase, we move directly into the beginning of war. Border skirmishes flare, troops marshal, and soon the entire empire is in civil war. Foreigners with a good sword-arm are suddenly far more welcome than they once were. Mercenaries flood in from any place available, as many Khitan commanders would rather spill the blood of the pale men than that of their own. Besides, outlanders fight differently and with a raw savagery that belies the well-studied arts of Eastern warfare. In this scenario, player characters might become king makers, allying with whomever they think best fit for a throne or playing one would-be ruler against another. They had best tread carefully, though, for when all quiets down, blame is likely to fall on those who do not belong. Such is the way of mankind. PALACE COUP Such an event would most likely take place in Vendhya or Khitai, though there is nothing to prevent such a usurpation from happening anywhere, as Conan’s own story demonstrates. Wherever there is absolute power, others wait in the wings to take it. It is not paranoia which causes the Emperor of Khitai to utilize a dozen food tasters before meals. Such a coup, when it does take place historically, is bound by certain rules or at least traditions. The West cannot hope to understand what prevents a simple assassination. Yet there must be just cause for the killing or the conspirators themselves die by the same means. Tradition and duty hold even more power for most Easterners than their laws. Yet humans are human, and their business on this Earth involves plotting and intrigue. Thus, no court is immune to the machinations of clever, willful plotters. More dynasties than can easily be counted have ruled Khitai — only some were established through lineage and law. The size and power of both Vendhya and Khitai mean that any change in power would have tremendous effects on the entire region. The great empires might even split, falling into internal battles, as has happened in the past. The Easterner knows that nothing is permanent. All things, including dynasties, have their rises and their falls. Native Characters Involved in a Coup Any player characters raised in the East will be very wary of participation in the overthrow of even a minor noble. These characters know their traditions and know the penalty for violating them without cause. It is therefore rare that an internal plot comes to fruition without some assurance of power behind the play, as well as a foundational claim of vendetta or imperial failure — both of which are legitimate causes for slaying a king or emperor. Only fools and outlanders would knowingly get involved in an attempt to overturn a throne without exceedingly strong motivation and concomitant knowledge of all conspirators. Outlanders Involved in a Coup It is this gap, between the demands of fidelity and the drive of personal ambition, into which foreign conspirators often fall. Killers from Zamora care little whether a murder is justified. Plotters from Stygia cannot fathom the depth to which duty is seated in the Eastern heart. And so, as if often the case in political intrigue, outsiders are employed to do what locals will not. Any wandering group might, after becoming known for certain reputations, be approached obliquely with the notion of such a plot. The approach is never direct, for who can trust a foreign devil? Instead, the idea seems to arise naturally while getting to know a sly courtier with power lust. First, the outlanders meet only her minions, and even they work and speak subtly. Indeed, such is the long-winded and evasive manner of speaking about murders that most foreigners tire and lose patience. These are not conspirators who could have been trusted to fulfill their role. And, because the very scent of conspiracy brings in the ruler’s interrogators, merely listening to someone vaguely suggest a killing can mark an outlander for death. The East has no traditions or compunctions about the hows and whys of killing the dogs of the West.
Events 65 FOREIGNERS PURGED FROM KHITAI Merchants return from Khitai claiming that the Khitans fear them, but this is inaccurate. Khitai has no fear of foreigners; they just don’t especially like them. That said, dislike all too easily turns to hate, and it sometimes serves the purposes of provincial administrators or of those even higher to blame outlanders for troubles caused internally. To a Khitan, a ‘foreigner’ isn’t just someone from the West, mind you. Anyone not of Khitai proper, including many peoples of the southern jungles, are considered outsiders. So, too, are Hyrkanians, though that particular people rarely stay long in Khitai. Historically, purges have occurred during times of stress on the Empire. Plagues and famines have been blamed on foreign sorcery. Failed plots to kill leaders are pinned on outlanders — admittedly sometimes truly. Sometime, any excuse to unite against a perceived common foe will do. To be fair, all this applies in many Western kingdoms, as well. No kingdom of the Hyborian Age is without prejudice. Ask any civilized man what he thinks of a barbarian. Thus, Khitai is only different in that the player characters may comprise nothing but so-called foreigners. They stick out. They don’t know the customs of Khitai, and Khitans are largely not willing to show them. The player characters might get caught up in such a purge. Do they flee, or take up arms against the persecution? It serves to remember that Conan was often unwelcome where he visited, but his iron will and steel blade soon remedied the doubts of any who survived trying to oust him from their lands. THE CULTS OF ERLIK UNITE As previously mentioned, Hyrkanian legend accounts for the rise of Erlik as relating to a plague. It is further said that Erlik caused the plague so that Hyrkanians would unite. Who can say what muse a god follows? In fact, perhaps the gods themselves create muses that only men follow. Whatever the case, Erlik worship hasn’t been unified in Hyrkania for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. What passes for Erlik worship in Turan churns the stomach of any member of the nomad empires. Thus, each empire, sometimes each tribe, worship Erlik according to their own custom and tradition. Astreas the Scholar once attempted to track the various versions of the god depicted and worshipped in Hyrkania, but soon gave up. Today, while Erlik remains a somber death god for Hyrkanians, little more can be said consistently from one area of Hyrkania to the next.
66 Chapter 3 Yet a fervent cult grows somewhere in Hyrkania — one dedicated to the reunification of their god under a single set of rituals and tradition. This cult believes, as all cults must, that theirs is the one, true faith. Ask a Hyrkanian about it, and they are like to turn upon the asker. However, enough merchants pass through their territory that the story of the cult leaked into the West like the very disease Erlik is known to spread. Some tales say the cult lives in the taiga or even further north. Others put the cult on the edge of Khitai, possibly in the Swamps of the Dead. Traveler’s tales are oft amusing but rarely true, and this particular story would easily be dismissed were it not for the strange altars found by both merchant caravans and migrating nomads alike. They are covered in blood. Their victims gone. Not even a trace of them remains. Locals avoid these areas, while foolish traders have sought them out, never to return. In addition to the altars, people go missing in the night. It happens among all the nomad empires, even becoming a cause for war. Yet most kings know that it is not another Hyrkanian empire which takes these folks, for there is always impossibility surrounding their vanishing. Reports of people sleepwalking from their yurts, naked, into the open steppes, of winged demons lifting burly warriors from horseback, never to be seen again; all this surrounds the mysterious disappearances. Something fell and unnatural wafts like a deathly odor from any mention of this cult. Even priests of Erlik are loath to speak of its existence. And yet. Erlik is an old god, terribly so. Some trace his worship to the Outer Dark. Were that true, were Erlik a Great Old One, then such a cult, with such power on its side, could indeed subsume the lesser masks of the death god’s worship. Such a possibility makes even the walls of Akif and Paikang shake, as if the Earth itself vomits up tremors in the true name of beings whose existence drives men mad, lays low empires, and ends entire civilizations. That is what the traveler’s tales say, anyway. UNNATURAL EVENTS The Hyborian Age is replete with a thousand thousand natural terrors which can kill or maim a person. Yet, atop this, the people of this age also must deal with the unnatural. The world is infected by corruption, by the Outer Dark. Fell sorceries resurrect the dead and defy natural law. The East is no more immune to the effects of such risky flirtations with the abyss than the West. Below are some decidedly unnatural events which could have far-reaching consequences in your campaign. THE YAGGITES Long ago, before the coming of man, the Yaggites fell to Earth, deep in the jungles of Khitai. Exiles from their own planet, their wings carried them across space’s endless gulfs until, arriving on our planet, their wings burned, and they became trapped. They survived and watched Elder Things war with Mi-Go, watched those civilizations rise and fall as Lemuria and Mu sunk. They watched the rise of humankind and, in time, taught it the sorcerous ways of their world. Perhaps humanity’s ascent in the East is due to their interference. Perhaps humans rose of their own accord. Perhaps all of this happened too long ago for any human to even contemplate. All we know of Yag and its denizens comes from Yagkosha, the elephant-headed alien being trapped in his titular tower by a malevolent wizard. We find the last surviving member of this race a pitiable creature, all his nobility and power stripped by the desire of men. But little is known of what the Yaggites did in detail before they died out. Yag-kosha spoke of the Kings of Yag who had exiled the ones who came to Earth. Likely, these kings survived the rebellion against them, and perhaps, as their own planet turns brown and dead like a petrified orb in the sky, they will seek a new home here on Earth, as well. What would this mean, the arrival of the Kings of Yag? Do they retain their wings, or become trapped? Are Earth and Yag connected in some unknown way, paired spheres in the heavens bound by some ethereal tether? The arrival of such powerful beings would disrupt Khitai and, eventually, all of the East. The kings were described as vengeful and powerful; such creatures might take control of the Empire of the Yellow Lotus and begin to spread west. Who could stop such a power from dominating or crushing anything in their path? A few unknown wanderers? Stranger things have happened. ADVENTURES IN THE EAST The Hyborian Age is a relative treasure vault of adventures, and this is no different in the East. Herein we outline some thematic differences Western player characters might encounter, as well as offering ideas about what kinds of weird, fantastic danger seekers of fortune might encounter in the relatively unknown world beyond Hyborian ken. STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND One classic trope of all fiction is the fish out of water, the new arrival, the person who arrives in the new world. For characters of Western origin, the East is, indeed, a ‘strange
Events 67 land’. Its rigid manner is foreign, the languages more so. Duty is more than lip service here, and a man’s honor is sometimes as valuable as gold. The Western mind is not, as a rule, of such composition. Honor is only carved in blood, and a wanderer must take the world by the throat to get what they want. What good is ritual, custom, and etiquette against naked steel, one may ask? In the lands beyond the Vilayet, this answer is revealed. Player characters are likely accustomed to life in the West. Yet the lands of the East offer a respite from the usual. One can cause trouble by mere misunderstanding and violate laws never conceived of in places like Aquilonia. Some cultures have tolerance for such ‘Western barbarism’, while others do not. In any event, player characters arriving as outlanders should find themselves often out of place, confused, and reversed in their roles. In the West, they may command respect. Here, no one has heard of them and their rude instruments of war carry less weight. The Simple Made Complex It is often a simple matter for player characters to find someone that speaks a common language. In Zamora the Accursed, a dozen languages assault the ears in the Maul. In Paikang, there is but one language and few outsiders speak it. So, too, with customs. Anyone unfamiliar with the ways of specific cultures such as Iranistan or Vendhya might insult someone by mere accident. A Western player character without any social experience in the East is like a drunk stumbling about the tavern — trouble finds them. The gamemaster can cause tension to rise from such unexpected places. After all, a player character knows a pitfall is a hazard to look for in desolate ruins, but would they think equally deadly traps might spring merely by making the wrong hand gesture to a Vendhyan noble? The gamemaster should take what the player characters expect and turn it on its ear. This is especially rewarding for those who have become far too confident in their prowess in combat but think nothing of the finer graces in this life. Just because the robed man that’s been insulted can recite poetry does not mean he lacks equal skill with parting a head from its body. Sorcery in the East Sorcery is always surrounded in mystery. It is never predictable, and all those of experience learn to respect it. In the East, this is no different, but the player characters who think they know something of the dangers posed by the Outer Dark find that Eastern sorcerers often play with different powers. Mesmerism and illusion are, overall, more common sources of unnatural power than demons called down from the void. While the Western mind is not inculcated to this kind of magic, that also gives them a benefit — their minds are not as easily tricked. They have not the cultural belief in hypnotism, for example, so the mesmerist might have a more difficult time bending their mind. Or course, the outlander also has little idea what tricks a wizard might hold in these remote lands. The Book of Skelos covers mesmerism in considerable depth, so that sourcebook might be a useful adjunct to campaigns or adventures set in the East. NATIVES OF THE EAST Native Eastern characters could also comprise the bulk of a player character group. In this case, the East is not foreign, but still holds mysteries. The Easterner knows that the cosmos is vast, complicated, and barely understood by the human mind. They know the customs of their culture and perhaps those of others around them. The Easterner respects tradition and rejects unnecessary change, at least if a civilian. Of course, few farmers or village folk take up a sword and walk the dusty roads that wend through the world like blue veins. Those who do are, of necessity, possessed of a certain spark of restlessness. In the East, every person knows their place. It is set out by birth and in the stars. Therefore, those who seek to make their own fortune are rarer than in the West, though, even there, they are already rare indeed. As such, a player character from one of the countries detailed herein is likely either something of an anomaly among their kind… or an exile. This is a broad classification AFTER THE FALL OF YIMSHA After the events in “The People of the Black Circle”, the kingdom — now properly a queendom — of Vendhya is no longer under the sway of the titular sorcerers. The court is free of their malice, and the princess free of Khemsa’s threat. Vendhya inevitably experiences a shift in power. Bunda Chand is dead. The Devi Yasmina presumably holds the throne but there are no doubt others plotting to exploit her brother’s death. This can quickly lead to instability, revolt, civil war, or the ascent to the throne of some tyrant. Likewise, the Devi herself may quell all such who speak against her, and rule wisely and with measured reason. Perhaps Vendhya experiences a resurgence or cultural change under her aegis. Certainly, some of the green-robed acolytes who survived might wish to resurrect the cult or use the knowledge they gained there for other purposes, perhaps resulting in an exodus from Mount Yimsha of the Master’s former students, selling their sorcerous aptitude across the lands of the West and East.
68 Chapter 3 and does not apply to all. But one must look at the mentality found in the East. People live and die by strict rules. Life is circ*mscribed and predestined. Few have hope of rising above the station to which they are born. While this is also true in the West, the history of the Bori people is one of rejecting civilization and tearing down what they do not like. Overall, this is not true in the East. This leads to two very general kinds of player characters — the restless vagabond and the exile. The Restless Vagabond The rice farmer’s child may look to the stars at night and wonder: is their fate really bound to these paddies like that of their parents, and their parent’s parents? Perhaps the stars have something else writ for them that no mortal can read. Perhaps, the child even fearfully wonders, the Emperor does not know all. Such a child might grow weary of toiling under the sun from its rising to its setting. At some point they might seek other trials, other lives. Their culture may frown upon it, their parents might be ashamed, but some restless hearts simply cannot be tied to a given place of life. Conan himself is an example of this kind of character, insofar as he left Cimmeria. Most Cimmerians are content to stay in their cold, gloomy lands. Conan, inspired by his uncle’s travels, was not. In this way, the Easterner who turns their back on custom and tradition is very much like Conan himself. Of course, in the East, such a soul is judged more harshly. Even still, the rebel of any culture carries part of their culture in their hearts, easily readable on their countenance. One never abandons the place from which they came. Most Eastern vagabonds have some respect for decorum and tradition. They retain a knack for subtlety, and they may well carry their native gods with them wherever the road takes them. The Exile The second broad reason a citizen of the East takes to the road is exile. Compulsion, rather than the restless heart, drives this type of character from their native world. Any culture as codified as are many in the East leaves little room for breaking rules. Likewise, a person’s very existence in the East is often defined by their duty and, should they fail, they expect punishment. Many are simply executed. The less fortunate are banished. Particularly in Khitai and Vendhya, there is no greater punishment than to be marked forever a pariah. These folks cannot return home. Whatever social norm they violated makes them forever outsiders, little better than the barbarous Westerners they may have to travel with. The exile has a melancholy about them; resentment lies in their heart. At night, they may dream of returning to the rice paddies the vagabond forsook. They may yearn to return to the circ*mscribed life. Their tragedy is that they never will. Other Eastern Wanderers Not every player character fits into the convenient archetypes above. These generalizations exist to provide readyto-play personas and spark ideas. The vast majority of those who wander the East are neither rebels nor exiles. Merchants, diplomats, scholars, and the like all have reason to travel. So too do mercenaries, soldiers, and others who live by the sword. A group of Eastern player characters might be given orders from their lord to venture forth to unknown places. Likewise, they might already exist on the fringes of their society as hill-folk, raiders, beggars, or thieves. Just as there are myriad conditions which bring Western characters to the life of the rogue or sell-sword, so too are there hundreds more in the East. The gamemaster and the player ought to collaborate on the reasons a given character takes up the life of a wanderer. “I could never endure to seclude myself in a golden tower, and spend the long hours staring into a crystal globe, mumbling over incantations written on serpent’s skin in the blood of virgins, poring over musty volumes in forgotten languages.” — Salome, “A Witch Shall Be Born”
MYTH & MAGIC CHAPTER 4 The myth and magic of the East is not easily digested in a native lifetime. Outsiders have little hope to grasp any of it with depth, but still they try. All cultures have their legends, their secrets, and their dark sides. In the lands beyond the Vilayet, all three mingle into a heady spice, a kind of mental lotus which clouds the mind and abstracts the world in shapes both foreign and alien. While men of the age such as Astreas, and modern-era academics like Dr. Jack Kirowan, have done their best to untangle truth from fiction, black from white, material from incorporeal, the East makes fewer distinctions. The world is often of a whole here, and minds too rigid to accept a paradoxical totality cleave to primitive beliefs and reflexive violence. THE GODS OF THE EAST Eastern gods are strange to Westerners. Their rituals oft seem incoherent or even horrific. Death is a prevalent theme among them, but this is an age where death lurks around every bend in the road. Of these looming giants, these strange beings who rule from outer realms and arctic hells, little is known west of the Vilayet. Should one wish to learn the ways of Eastern worship, one must press into their lands and, perhaps, pray to their gods that ignorance is accepted as a thirst for wisdom. ASURA OF THE PARTED VEIL Where Yajur is the cold reality of death, Asura is that which sees beyond states to a larger whole. Some say Yajur herself parts the veil because that veil is death. The faithful of Asura know that death, too, is an illusion. Early texts often blur the line between Asura and Yajur, even suggesting they were once an androgynous god, and that they gained gender upon being ripped apart by the World Wheel. Other sects believe they were man and wife, and their separation formed the world from the primeval chaos of their parting. For many Asurans, the very notion that the two were ever related is anathema. Asura sees through the illusion that is the world, and Yajur is merely an aspect of that mirage. Asura is always found as a male aspect, and his cults operate as far west as Aquilonia. In Vendhya, Asura is the chief deity, but his name coats the tongue of many Eastern nations. His priests tend toward openness but are not easily fooled. His temples are open to those willing to likewise open their eyes. He is without wrath, but those who ignore his wisdom find the cosmos makes its own doom for them. I took an ivory grinning joss, From a chest of scented sandal wood. Now where the woven bamboos cross It stands where a silver idol stood. We sat beneath the drowsy fronded tree, From shell-thin cups we sipped our amber tea. The Mandarin laid his coral button cap Upon the silken ocean of his lap. He raised a finger nail with jade ornate And carved the sky in patterns intricate. — “Sighs in the Yellow Leaves”, Robert E. Howard
Asuran priests hold political power in Vendhya in a way largely unknown outside Stygia or Iranistan. To the Western mind, there are a host of gods, and one may be readily traded for another. In the East, this is not so, and men gain power using the name of Asura. Sometimes, this leads to corrupt priesthoods who create more illusion, gather more cobwebs than they ever clear away. Remember, those who are hard to fool are also adroit at fooling those who aren’t. ERLIK The god of the Hyrkanians, Erlik, sits upon a black throne beneath the Earth in his icy hell. That is where all souls are destined, the terminal point of life and, ironically, the end to which all life aspires. Where Erlikism is grim in Turan, worship of the god is morbid and sometimes ghastly on the steppes of Hyrkania. As the Four Winds blow, the fate of empires may rise and fall, but for whatever cardinal point the wind takes a person, all will end in death. To have a good death means one had a good life, though ‘good’ in this case is certainly not the sort of ethos that the fat priests of Mitra would recognize. A good life for a Hyrkanian means sending the enemy to either the Halls of Erlik or, if an unbeliever, to the non-space of being that is neither death nor life which the Khitans call “The Realm of Hungry Ghosts”. Erlik does not merely infuse Hyrkanian culture but is Hyrkanian culture. One cannot separate the two anymore than man may separate life from death. Beneath the yurts where Hyrkanians sleep in life to the kurgans (see page 40) where their bodies sleep in death, Erlik provides guidance and a watchful eye over all. A person’s life is not their own, but rather part of a skein made by Erlik, of which each person, and even their entire generation, will see only a part. One’s role in life is determined by their name at birth, when Erlik blows the brief breath of life into their lungs… breath which he shall alltoo-soon take away. Yet, for all this, Erlik is not a grim god, for he encourages his people, offspring of his nine progenies, to take of this life what they may. Upon their death, they shall heap memories of their time on Earth before Erlik’s throne and their god will judge whether these bits of life essence are enough for one to join him in his ice-sheathed hell. Life and death are a single line for Erlik’s people, one no man can untangle nor avoid. You take what you can from this life and barter it for a better position in the next. This temporary prison of flesh is but a test. Know this when facing a Hyrkanian in battle.
Thus, Hyrkanian belief is complex and often particular to a given clan or nomad empire. For details on Erlik and the way Hyrkanians worship him, see pagea 39-40. YAJUR OF THE SEVEN TONGUES The Black One, the Ten Arms of Death, She of the Seven Tongues, Yajur acquires names like a corpse acquires flies. Indeed, Yajur is Devi of the Dead, among other things. Her cults are found throughout the East, but open worship is most common in Kosala and Ghanara. A dark god, Yajur dances on the corpses of the dead including her lover — who some say is Asura — whom she killed after mating. For this reason, she is sometimes associated with the black widow and spider god of Yezud, though she is neither of these things. Vendhyan texts going back seven centuries bear what appears to be eyewitness accounts of Yajur’s intervention on the battlefield, sometimes for one side, other times for another. Her priests and faithful ritually sacrifice their victims to her, but never by drawing blood. In Kosala, great stranglers wring the life from victims with bare hands. In Vendhya, they wrap silken cords around necks or use poison. The body itself is then burned, for every drop of blood must go to Yajur alone. Should an assassin of Yajur spill a victim’s blood, some sects demand they replace the sacrifice. These zealots go willingly to Yajur’s many-armed embrace. As a female deity, Yajur bestows her power upon mortal women. In Vendhya, a matriarchy formed under the intoxicating red eyes of the Black One — the largest matriarchy in the known world. There are few men, despite their positions of power, who would openly invoke Yajur’s wrath. Better to err on the side of caution than find oneself visited in the night by a Yota-pong strangler. Her temples are found in both modern urban settlements as well as ruins crawling with age and vines. Some say Yajur was first the god of life but turned into a god of death after the Cataclysm. For others, she is merely the god of change. EASTERN SORCERY Sorcery in the East is not so different than in the West save by façade. In the end, true sorcery is a pact with forces from the Outer Dark and, howsoever one dresses that up, the truth remains — sorcery is unnatural and not of this Earth. Superstitions about the dark arts abound in the East as they do in the West, though these beliefs are more codified in places like Ghulistan and Khitai. Some of these codes or rules seem frivolous, and many of them are. However, many more are truths passed down through the ages; these warn specifically of the ways in which a person invites the void into their heart or make of themselves a mark for dark beings, or warn of lines which, when crossed, cannot be crossed again. All this is not to say there are more or fewer sorcerers east of the Vilayet than not. We merely herein pose to the enterprising gamemaster that magic remains mysterious and, when describing it, adjusting from what it looks like in the West is helpful. No magic is explicable save for that which is mere trickery. While player characters may be used to encountering “I was chosen by the priests of Yajur in my infancy, and throughout childhood, boyhood, and youth I was trained in the art of slaying with the naked hands—for only thus are the sacrifices enacted. Yajur loves blood, and we waste not a drop from the victim’s veins. When I was a child they gave me infants to throttle; when I was a boy I strangled young girls; as a youth, women, old men, and young boys. Not until I reached my full manhood was I given a strong man to slay on the altar of Yota-pong.” — “The Man-Eaters of Zamboula” THE JOURNAL OF THE WANDERER’S CLUB VOL. 36 NO. 8 1936 …and so, I posit that again we see the cycles of time repeat, what Nietzsche called eternal return, though these sparks of culture appear in different ways at different times. Take our Judeo-Christian religions, originating in our near-East. There, the beginnings of monotheistic theology took strongest root. In the Hyborian Age, in that period’s near-East, the first hints of monotheism also flowered. I do not exaggerate when I say that the basis of our current religious paradigm began in the Hyborian Age in places called Iranistan and extant records I have previously cited, mired in pantheism and ambiguous morality, some Hyborian Vendhya. While the western lands were, according to Age Eastern cultures already advanced to Manichean dualism and morality as defined by a single god. One could argue that the age might be properly called the Vendhyan Age or the like, even if places such as Aqulionia dominate the surviving records. I turn now to Iranistan and its ancient religion which prefigures, perhaps even lead directly to, what we call Zoroastrianism….
72 Chapter 4 all sorts of dark arts within the course of their exploits, the way in which the gamemaster accents that experience can make all the difference. A demon drawn down from the gulfs of space may look very different in the East, though they remain the same mechanically. Magic is something man cannot understand, and so we process it through our minds and the cultures which hewed them from airy nothing. That is to say, we impose our cultural traditions upon things unnatural so that they take on some semblance of familiar appearance even as they drive us mad. Rotting hags in the Swamps of the Dead may drag men to underwater graves and suck the life from their bloated corpses… yet they are still vampires. Old Gods who go unnamed save on the tongues of madmen may appear differently in the books of Paikang than in “The Nemedian Chronicles”, yet both are Elder Gods that have forgotten more of space and time than man, in his brief season on the Earth, will ever know. THE HEART OF ERLIK It was a ruby, of such deep crimson that it looked darkly purple, the hue of old wine, and the blood that flows near the heart. It looked like the materialization of a purple nightmare. She could believe now the wild tales she had heard—that Woon Yuen worshiped it as a god, sucking madness from its sinister depths, that he performed terrible sacrifices to it— — “The Purple Heart of Erlik”, Robert E. Howard An egg-sized ruby of the darkest hue, this artifact is said to represent the heart of the god Erlik, cherished throughout the centuries as it made its grim path across the lands of the East. The Heart of Erlik is priceless, valuable enough to purchase entire castles should it find a buyer. A successful Daunting (D3) Lore roll is required to recognize it outside of the East, but any worshipper of Erlik will recognize it immediately. ■ Reputed Qualities: Possession of the Heart of Erlik provides +1d20 to any casting of Favor of the Gods when the spell is dedicated to Erlik. Additionally, the Heart has a bizarre and unfortunate reputation: that it thirsts for the blood of any who handle it who are not high priests of Erlik. If the Heart is profaned through handling by the non-devout, it must be submerged in a chalice of the fresh blood of those self-same heretics, drawn by the possessor of the Heart. If this is not done within one full day of the transgression, the Heart’s owner will suffer the effects of a personal Doom pool of 5 Doom per session that the gamemaster can only spend on them. The Heart does indeed drink the blood it is submerged in, as it will vanish within moments.
Myth & Magic 73 YAG The folk of Yag came to Earth across the vast gulfs of space, blown by interstellar winds on wings which died and withered upon their exile on Earth — exiles, for they warred with the Kings of Yag and left that green world behind. They arrived in the East, in the area that would one day be called Khitai. They landed when humans were new and when the spawn of the Outer Dark held dominion over the planet. Few now know of their existence, for the people of Yag are long extinct — or so one supposes. Only one Yaggite ever spoke of his world, at least as recorded in the West, and he was called Yag-kosha — the last survivor of his race. Yet in the jungles of Khitai, in jungles older and more primeval still, cities of the Yag exiles remain, folded in loam and ruin, waiting for intrepid, foolish, and amoral men to exploit their resources and knowledge. Once, men worshipped the people of Yag as gods, though this belief is now all but forgotten. And yet, it was not forgotten, not by all… cults of Yag exist and some haunted-eyed witnesses to their rites claim some Yaggites yet live too. “We saw men grow from the ape and build the shining cities of Valusia, Kamelia, Commoria and their sisters. We saw them reel before the thrusts of the heathen Atlanteans and Picts and Lemurians. We saw the oceans rise and engulf Atlantis and Lemuria, and the isles of the Picts, and shining cities of civilization. We saw the survivors of Pictdom and Atlantis build their stone-age empires, and go down to ruin, locked in bloody wars.” — Yag-kosha, “The Tower of the Elephant” These cults are more secretive than the deepest double agents of kings and more guarded than the deepest mysteries of Mitra. Only the cults of the Great Old Ones remain as esoteric and legendary as the cults of Yag. Eastern scholars posited, most of them having gone mad after, that some truce or pact between the Outer Dark forces on Earth and the Yag must have been in place. How else could these alien cultures coexist? In von Junzt’s Unaussprechlichen Kulten (known in translation as Nameless Cults), the author suggests that Yag, in its distant orbit of our galaxy, occasionally slipped into the void itself. Yag-kosha himself claimed to practice only white magic, but the kings who he and his rebellious lot opposed likely practiced its opposite. In the modern age, far from the remote Hyborian Age, men like Dr. Jack Kirowan theorize that the people of Yag had not magic at their disposal, but such superior science as to seem like sorcery. He notably expounds on this idea in a paper published in The Wanderer’s Club Journal on Kosalan ‘super-science’. A portion of that essay appears below, courtesy of Miskatonic University Press. Old Kosala is covered in detail in Chapter 2: Gazetteer, mastered technology unfathomable even by modern standards. To the people of the age, indeed to even modern scientists, the acts of which Old Kosalan machines were capable seem like true magic. Where Old Stygia and Acheron founded their power on actual sorcery, ancient Kosala took a different path. Whether sorcery of science was more potent, the history of the Hyborian Age speaks much more of Acheron and Old Stygia than it does of Old Kosala. Yet that may simply indicate Kosalan records did not survive or perhaps were stored in methods other than writing which none have yet decoded. Even Dr. Kirowan, as seen in his essay, must of necessity surmise rather than deduce some aspects of this forgotten technology — the Hyborian Age remains largely silent. Old Kosala fell and left less trace of itself than its sorcerous contemporaries but, curiously, those remnants and cities which did remain were far more intact than anything built in mighty Acheron. Even the pyramids eroded over time and in the Cataclysm, yet cities like Xuchotl and Xuthal remained, so far as we know, until the Picts swept down from the north and ended the Hyborian Age in violence and bloodshed. EASTERN RELIGION IN PLAY The further one wanders East, the stranger religions become to one of the West. Not only are gods stranger, perhaps closer to the Earth than in the Hyborian kingdoms, but some cultures have them not at all. Patterns are mapped in the stars where, in Khitai, a life of a single man or entire empire might be read. In Ghulistan, animism prevails, but it is the proverbs learned by generations over time that form a closer analog to Western religion than anything else. In Kosala, Yajur of the Seven Tongues is worshipped openly with human sacrifice, while Vendhyan belief is a mix of spirituality and philosophy under the guidance of Asura. Whatever role religion plays, or does not play, in a Conan campaign, the gamemaster should emphasize that it is notably different from what player characters have seen west of the Vilayet. All sorts of wonders and horrors, insights and mind-blasting truths await those travelers who seek not only the peripatetic life, but the mind which is sponge to all the world’s beliefs.
74 Chapter 4 Aspects of Kosalan Technology No artifacts remain in museums, only fragmentary accounts passed down through the ages — first as facts and later as legends. Taken collectively, they offer a tantalizing suggestion of the super-science wielded by the race descended from Mu. The following are broad categories encompassing this mysterious counterpoint to the sorcerous arts. ■ Automated Food Manufacturing: Cities built by the ancient Kosalans appear largely automated, so much so that the remnant population of these green stone cities live lives of decadent comfort. Among the facilities provided by the city, or some aspect thereof, is the apparent spontaneous generation of food and drink. One merely need feel thirst, and the city slakes it. No such methods of conjuring sustenance appear anywhere where sorcery is concerned. ■ Alchemical Drugs and Extended Life: The people of Xuthal accessed a dream world via a strange elixir. They also appeared considerably, possibly incomprehensibly, old. Drugs, perhaps some distillation of the lotus flower, most likely achieved these ends. Perhaps they perfected not only the conscious altering properties of lotus, but some medicinal panacea, as well. For more on Xuthal’s golden dream drug, see page 93 of The Book of Skelos. ■ Luminescent Crystals: The Hyborian Age is largely a world lit only by fire. Yet, in cities traced to Kosalan builders, curious green, gem-like radium stones light the roads and alleys of what would be darkest night. They give off no smoke, no odor, and seemingly power themselves. How do they work? Were these some early, if not superior, form of the light bulb? ■ Heavier-than-air Flight: As Dr. Kirowan notes, what if the Wright Brothers were not the first to fly? Ancient Indian Vedas talk of machines which flew and even boasted terrible weaponry. The few records of Vendhya uncovered by the Wanderer’s Club and others likewise speak of similar devices. Does some airship wait to be discovered somewhere in the Himelian Mountains? ■ Electricity and Magnetism: In the lost city of Xotolanc, the ancient and near-mummified sorcerer Tolkemec used a wand that blasted arcs of electricity at his command, and in the city of Zamboula the sorcerer-priest Totramesk had a large disk-shaped table of metal that was but a great magnet. Both relics have direct links to old Kosala, and in all likelihood point at other such items and linked technologies, such as magnets, electric wires, lightning rods, or more exotic derivations. Technology and the Demise of Old Kosala If sorcery corrupts the individual, it might be fair to say that technology corrupts the masses, or at least has in it the potential. Acheron was not brought down by its reliance on fell arts, but by the barbaric Borians whose savage fervor ran wild over that once mighty armor. Old Kosala did not, so far as we know, fall victim to outside forces but merely faded away. The bits which remained, discovered in a kind of temporal amber like Xuthal or Xapur, were populated by a decadent people whose every need was provided by technology they no longer understood. Where sorcery takes a personal cost, where it is bound to one’s soul, science does not. Perhaps, had their technology taken some toll on the individuals of these cities, it might not have led to the civilization’s demise. Here we presuppose their power science was their undoing, though not without reason. In nearly every instance, ancient Kosalan cities seem to scream toward man the horrors of technology run amok. These are not the deep, alien terrors of the Outer Dark, but rather the banal horror of man’s own capacity for complacency. Time and again, the Hyborian Age reminds us that civilization leads inexorably to lethargy, to softness, and to the dustbin of history. Technology is yet another method by which humankind achieves its own demise.
THE WORLD WHEEL Some call it a religion, others a philosophy. Whichever the case, the idea of the World Wheel permeates the cultures beyond the tempestuous waters of the Vilayet. In Aquilonia, Nemedia, Koth, and elsewhere in the West, one’s soul is their own. It infuses their life while they walk this earth then leaves to parts unknown after their demise. While a host of unnatural forces might bind such a soul, the soul itself remains something of the human who carries it. This they believe in the West. In the East, a soul is but the temporary tenant of a body, borrowed or granted for the span of a lifetime then returned to the Cosmos for a kind of recycling. This is the World Wheel, and while not all in the East believe it, many faiths and creeds are formed on its precepts. Fealty to society and tradition takes on greater meaning when any given individual might have once been a slave, or a king, or even an animal. This is not to say that people of the East are without the same human failings of their Western counterparts — indeed, they are. Greed, covetousness, selfishness, and cruelty all abound, but they are often framed differently. A fearsome, tyrannical emperor tells himself and his subjects he serves society, whereas someone like King Strabonus of Koth makes no excuses for serving himself. Just as the nations of the Hyborian Age draw on real cultural antecedents, the people in these nations do the same for faith and philosophy. Any nation, region, or caste has its own members that break every norm. Just as every not Hyborian is a barbarian, not every Khitan holds fealty above all. However, there are some basic beliefs centered on the World Wheel which guide the gamemaster in designing their own faiths, metaphysics, and characters derived from either. It was smoky, dim, ghostly, like the life-tide that flickered thinly in a wounded man. The thought came vaguely to Conan that the spells of magicians were more closely bound to their personal beings than were the actions of common men to the actors. — “The People of the Black Circle” THE JOURNAL OF THE WANDERER’S CLUB VOL. 36 NO. 8 1936 Super-science and Sorcery in the Hyborian Age We have, in the space of a scant century plus, come further technologically than all our ancestors did in 5,000 years of human history. The impossibility of flight became reality just 33 years ago today, and it is that anniversary which prompted me to dig this rough-hewn manuscript from my drawer, polish it and present it to this esteemed club of freethinkers and experts on the occult. As is my penchant of late, the Hyborian Age compels me to research, write, and speculate. My colleague and friend, Dr. William Dyer, wrote extensively on the technological artifacts found by him and his party near the South Pole, and this is an extension of that research. From records of the era, we may deduce the existence of such science as we ourselves cannot understand. I remind you of Xuthal, that city spoken of in “The Nemedian Chronicles”, said to produce food from nothing for its inhabitants. This struck me as oddly familiar when I first read about this science, and I turned to the Bible and those passages detailing the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark produced food for the Chosen People as they trekked through the desert via a force called manna. The specifics of this “manna” sounds very much like a machine. While rereading this, I was also reminded of Ezekiel’s Wheel, another Biblical event that sounds suspiciously like a technological device to a modern mind. What if some portion of our history, our own legends, if you will, are misinterpreted records of technology we lost since as a race? Put plainly, if the Hyborian Age is real, and I think it is, we are a species with amnesia. Some vast chunk of the record of our race is largely lost to us — what wondrous technologies might have risen and vanished between then and now? I turned next to the Indian Vedic texts, particularly that of the Mahabarata and its “mythological” accounts of the wars of gods. Taken at face value, I always dismissed them along with Zeus and Mount Olympus; but looking at it though a lens of sudden revelation, it was not too farfetched to suppose some of the flying vehicles written of there, the vimana, could be something akin to our modern aeroplanes. What if, I wondered, the Wright Brothers did not invent machine-made flight 33 years ago but merely rediscovered it. For deeper insight into this possibility we turn now to the land known only as Old Kosala….
76 Chapter 4 The Eternal Spirit The spirit, the soul, the ka — many are the names given to that essence of being which survives the flesh. The World Wheel posits that this incorporeal manifestation is not merely of the self, but of something beyond the self. The spirit in the World Wheel merely possesses a person for their brief span on the earth. After that, it returns to a vast repository of such souls and is passed to another mortal form. Any individual is really an entire history of previous incarnations and, by extension, part of a line of all their future manifestations. A brooding Atlantean general is reborn after the Cataclysm as a Stygian slave, and tens of thousands of years later, as an Irish soldier in the First World War. Like a musical composition, variations on a central theme appear as an individual where an underlying pattern defines the entirety of the piece, or the being. The Consequences of Lives Some forms of the World Wheel hold that the lives led previously lead directly to the lives ahead. While morality varies, actions which are right and wrong form a kind of Then there came a period of blind impulse and movement, when the atom that was she mingled and merged with myriad other atoms of spawning life in the yeasty morass of existence, molded by formative forces until she emerged again a conscious individual, whirling down an endless spiral of lives. In a mist of terror she relived all her former existences, recognized and was again all the bodies that had carried her ego throughout the changing ages. She bruised her feet again over the long, weary road of life that stretched out behind her into the immemorial past. Back beyond the dimmest dawns of Time she crouched shuddering in primordial jungles, hunted by slavering beasts of prey. Skinclad, she waded thigh-deep in rice swamps, battling with squawking water-fowl for the precious grains. She labored with the oxen to drag the pointed stick through the stubborn soil, and she crouched endlessly over looms in peasant huts. She saw walled cities burst into flame, and fled screaming before the slayers. She reeled naked and bleeding over burning sands, dragged at the slaver’s stirrup, and she knew the grip of hot, fierce hands on her writhing flesh, the shame… — “The People of the Black Circle” HOWARDIAN SCIENCE FANTASY Modern distinctions between science fiction and fantasy were far less prevalent during Robert E. Howard’s lifetime. While credited with launching the sword and sorcery genre, it does us well to remember that some of that “sorcery” was technological in nature. Arthur C. Clarke’s famous maxim, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”, applies well to many of Howard’s stories. “The Tower of the Elephant” features an actual alien from another planet. “Xuthal of the Dusk”, describes a city in the desert that works on technological principles rather than magic. The line between them is often blurred. Today, we might easily ascribe certain elements to fantasy — spells and monsters — and others like technology to science fiction. But Howard wrote in the time of Lovecraft, and Howard’s world even shares elements of the Cthulhu Mythos. That mythos was a hybrid of magic and science fiction. Alien gods are summoned by spells, but elder creatures also wield such weapons as lightning guns and practice time travel. While Howard treats the science fantasy with a lighter hand, the tropes of what we know as science fiction were present in the stories. As this roleplaying game is built on a foundation of pure Howardian material, it is appropriate to incorporate Howardian science fantasy in Conan games. The Howardian approach is to treat this technology much like a kind of magic, insofar as no one understands how it works. However, scholars of the Hyborian Age, and certainly any Conan players, know that there is a difference between sorcery and technology and that each follows its own rules. No hard and fast border exists between the two in the Hyborian Age or in Howard’s stories. By the same token, the frequent symbols of science fiction — energy guns, robots, and flying vessels — do not proliferate the tales of the mighty Cimmerian. Yagkosha was an alien, but his magic was purely sorcerous in nature. Magic and science both are elements in Howard’s world, but serving the greater story. Just as sorcerers are few and powerful in Conan’s world, so too should be high technology. This lost super-science and vestiges of high technology further underscore the antiquity of the Hyborian Age and its predecessors: what the modern reader might think is advanced has been long since lost to the inevitable march of time. Whatever technology is left long since faded from both understanding and ubiquity and, moreover, naked steel and the will of a player character can overcome it.
Myth & Magic 77 cosmic tally at the end of each life. That sum determines if one is born well next time, or even born human. It is not prescribed by one’s culture. Must an evil, cruel torturer reincarnate as a horse fly? None know, but many theologians and metaphysicians of the East say “yes” to this notion. The Grand Balance If the eternal spirit reincarnates again and again, philosophers in Vendhya and Kosala argue that some sort of cosmic balance must maintain lest the forces of the Outer Dark consume all. Incumbent upon the individual incarnation is the idea that it must in some way offset the extremes of its previous being. Heady stuff, and at best gnomic to Western minds, the East accepts this as routine and smoothes all paradoxes that result with a grander view of a total cosmos. The wills of the gods, even, are but pressures against the World Wheel, powerful to be sure, but nothing compared to the axle that turns eternally. For many foreigners, such thoughts amount to sophistry. A god’s will, or even a human’s, is their own. How one applies it bends not only the arc of their life, but that of history. Very broadly, this creates a division between those who believe humankind shapes history and the world, and those who believe greater forces carve both like wood against a lathe. Cyclical Time The Great Wheel applies not just to people but to the vast cycles of history. Time and again the great patterns of civilizations rise and fall, humankind descending to mere apedom and once more attaining the sophistication of culture, only to lose this once more. Cultural patterns reassert themselves over and again in the same rough geographical proximity, and even certain myths and archetypes re-establish themselves despite the utter lack of any living being who remembers them. This can only be an example of the World Wheel’s gyre at work. THE REALM OF HUNGRY GHOSTS There is a place that is neither life nor death. It is a nonspace and a space all the same, a conundrum to which the Khitan mind is bent. This is the Realm of Hungry Ghosts and it is misty limbo where those who stalled upon the World Wheel exist. None would say they live there, for this existence is not life. In the West, perhaps, we would call these unfortunates spirits or shades, for they can be summoned for or contacted by the world of those who draw breath. Further, they have jealousy of the living and the dead, for either progresses upon the World Wheel while they, the hungry ghosts, watch with green-eyed envy as souls progress to their most perfect iterations. Varying philosophies and tracts in the libraries of Khitai, and to a lesser extent Vendhya, describe this realm and the sins which consign one to it. Some say it is a temporary Purgatory, which a non-being can leave behind if they learn from it. Others say it is permanent, that souls are simply removed from the World Wheel never to progress again. Which is the correct interpretation? One would have to visit the Realm of Hungry Ghosts to find out. THE REALM OF HUNGRY GHOSTS IN PLAY It is possible that player characters might need to contact some soul in the Realm of Hungry Ghosts and may even need to visit that realm to do so. The “ghost”, for want of a better term, is a shadow of a life. They know things about their existence, but not all of it and certainly not in chronological order. This makes for confusing, often circuitous conversations. Moreover, the ghosts on this plane want the life of anyone who visits. They are desperate for it, ravenous, and the gamemaster may decide that none can enter this place without the denizens taking something from them. That could be a memory, a feeling, or even a skill. That is up to the gamemaster. From a standpoint of roleplaying, the place is cold without having any temperature. It is lonely while filled with sunken faces. It cries out to the hearts that yet beat with pangs of suffering, pain, and pleading. None that leave feel the experience was natural, and many are haunted by it long after. Player characters might, if the gamemaster decides so, glean valuable information from these specters. However, they might also lose part of themselves or even become trapped forever among them.
ENCOUNTERS CHAPTER 5 I am foul and monstrous to you, am I not? Nay, do not answer; I know. But you would seem as strange to me, could I see you. There are many worlds besides this earth, and life takes many shapes. I am neither god nor demon, but flesh and blood like yourself, though the substance differ in part, and the form be cast in different mold. —Yag-kosha, “The Tower of the Elephant” The East is home to as many nefarious and noble characters as the West. Humankind does not change. Its essential nature remains howsoever far one ventures in this world. One should expect no more of the good in one’s character in the East than at home. “That noble beast” that Astreas once wrote of humankind is but a figment of that writer. Nobility is in no ways intrinsic to humanity, though beast-hood certainly is. Yet while the real beast in the dark heart of people flourishes in the East, there are other beasts — strange, powerful, and sanity-rending — for whom no analogue exists back in the staid Hyborian world. What unnatural horrors might visit foreign travelers are described herein — though, of course, such a catalog is woefully incomplete, for those who would tell of other terrors were consumed by them and there are no witnesses to record them here. If joss or fortune be at one’s back, perhaps one might endeavor to expand this roster of things best left unmentioned and unencountered, for the sake of future travelers. FOES AND ALLIES OF THE EAST People rule over each other here as they do in the West. Life remains unfair, a wheel of pain upon which the peasant classes eternally turn. Among the cultists, chieftains, and the few of benevolent purpose are a host of others unnamed. They enter the stage and exit without word, fall beneath the blades of reavers and slayers without even giving name to their gods. Yet they in their legions comprise the world, and in such numbers can fell even the greatest of heroes. ACOLYTE OF THE BLACK CIRCLE (MINION, TOUGHENED) Green-robed cultists in thrall to the Black Seers of Mount Yimsha, these acolytes have usually just begun their path to knowledge. Some, though, approach the edges of what the Seers and Master know. Those who survive this brush with forbidden truths have some measure of power. Most are pilgrims from other lands, often further east, but some have come from the Hyborian kingdoms or even the surrounding area, taken as children and raised within Mount Yimsha. All, regardless of experience, are fanatical to the dark beings they serve.
encounters 79 ATTRIBUTES Awareness Intelligence Personality Willpower 7 8 6 7 Agility Brawn Coordination 7 6 6 FIELDS OF EXPERTISE Combat 1 Movement — Fortitude — Senses 1 Knowledge 2 Social — STRESS & SOAK ■ Stress: Vigor 3/6 (Toughened), Resolve 4/7 (Toughened) ■ Soak: Armor 1 (Robes), Courage 2 (Fanatical) ATTACKS ■ Dagger (M): Reach 1, 3§, 1H, Hidden 1, Parrying, Thrown, Unforgiving 1 ■ Exploding Globe (R): Range M, 5§ to anyone within zone ■ Eyes of Madness (T): Range C, 2§ mental, Stun SPECIAL ABILITIES ■ Explosive Globe: The acolytes are taught how to make and use globes that explode, causing horrible damage to those who hear them. See above for details. ■ Sorcery: Few acolytes know much more than the making of petty enchantments or simple alchemy, but some have knowledge of a spell or two. Generally, they know spells such as Astral Wanderings or Haunt the Mind, though some few know Dismember. They can spend Doom to cast these in place of Momentum. DOOM SPENDS ■ Fanatical Horde: Acolytes may summon reinforcements from their ranks at half the Doom cost. Those summoned do not possess exploding globes, however. AFGHULI TRIBAL WARRIOR (MINION, TOUGHENED) Reputed as deadly warriors, fine archers, and respected even by their neighboring enemies, Afghuli tribesman charge into combat with the fury and honor of their people behind them. Though Ghulistan is prime territory for any enterprising empire, it has never been conquered by a foreign people. Men and women such as these are the reason. This can be used to represent any other of the Ghulistan tribal warriors. ATTRIBUTES Awareness Intelligence Personality Willpower 8 7 7 9 Agility Brawn Coordination 8 9 9 FIELDS OF EXPERTISE Combat 2 Movement 1 Fortitude 1 Senses 1 Knowledge — Social 1 STRESS & SOAK ■ Stress: Vigor 5/9 (Toughened), Resolve 5/9 (Toughened) ■ Soak: Armor 1 (Desert Garb), Courage 1 (Born Warriors) ATTACKS ■ Zhaibar Knife (M): Reach 1, 4§, 1H, Unforgiving 2 ■ Hunting Bow (R): Range C, 3§, 2H, Volley DOOM SPENDS ■ Gutting the Zhaibar: By Spending 2 Doom, an Afghuli warrior increases their damage by +1§. They may only do this twice per attack, up to a total of 4 Doom (+2§).
80 Chapter 5 MARTIAL ARTS DISCIPLE (MINION, TOUGHENED) This student of the martial arts is an example of those who might be recruited to inhabit a Temple as described with the talent of the same name on page 22. Personalities range from humble to arrogant, and backgrounds from peasant to noble, but all are united with the single desire to learn at the feet of the wise master. Most martial artists as students are Minions, but disciples are Toughened. ATTRIBUTES Awareness Intelligence Personality Willpower 9 8 8 10 Agility Brawn Coordination 12 10 12 FIELDS OF EXPERTISE Combat 2 Movement 3 Fortitude 2 Senses 1 Knowledge 2 Social 1 ATTACKS ■ Martial Kicks and Punches (M): Reach 1, 4§ ■ Angry Screams (T): Range M, 2§ mental, Area, Stun SPECIAL ABILITIES ■ Ascetic Wisdom: When assisting in philosophical discourse, the Martial Arts Disciple counts as having the Knowledge Field of Expertise of 4 instead of 2. HYRKANIAN NOMAD (TOUGHENED) Born to the saddle on the vast wilds of Hyrkania, these tribesmen fight like lions, live like each day is their last, and welcome their voyage to the icy hell of their death god Erlik. They are masters with the bow, and dangerously mobile. ATTRIBUTES Awareness Intelligence Personality Willpower 9 7 7 8 Agility Brawn Coordination 10 9 10 FIELDS OF EXPERTISE Combat 2 Movement 1 Fortitude 2 Senses 1 Knowledge — Social 1 STRESS & SOAK ■ Stress: Vigor 9, Resolve 8 ■ Soak: Armor 2 (Hide Armor), Courage 1 (Fearless) ATTACKS ■ Sabre (M): Reach 2, 4§, 1H, Cavalry 1 ■ Hyrkanian Bow (R): Range C, 4§, 2H, Volley ■ Screams from the Steppes (T): Range C, 2§ mental, Stun SPECIAL ABILITIES ■ Born to Ride: A Hyrkanian nomad reduces the Difficulty of all tests to ride a horse by two steps, to a minimum of Simple (D0). ■ Brutal Cavalry: Once per attack when mounted, a nomad can re-roll any § that doesn’t roll an Effect. DOOM SPENDS ■ Ride Them Down: A nomad can spend 1 Doom to include their mounts in a Mob or Squad for one attack. The mount rolls as if it was another nomad. ■ A Thousand Voices as One: When in a Mob or Squad, the nomad can spend 2 Doom to add +2§ for every member of the Mob to their Screams from the Steppes attack. This can only be done once at the start of an attack.
encounters 81 PHILOSOPHER (MINION) ATTRIBUTES Awareness Intelligence Personality Willpower 8 10 9 8 Agility Brawn Coordination 7 7 7 FIELDS OF EXPERTISE Combat — Movement 1 Fortitude — Senses 1 Knowledge 4 Social 1 STRESS & SOAK ■ Stress: Vigor 4, Resolve 4 ■ Soak: Armor —, Courage 1 (Quizzical) ATTACKS ■ Existential Doubt (T): Range M, 2§ mental, Area, Stun (see below) ■ Unarmed (M): Reach 1, 2§, 1H SPECIAL ABILITIES ■ The Ways of Humankind: A philosopher may substitute their Knowledge with their Social Field of Expertise in situations when they are able to impress others with their learning and expound upon the order of the universe. DOOM SPENDS ■ Pacifist: Most philosophers are not fighters, and do not readily enter combat willingly. A philosopher may only use their Existential Doubt attack by spending 1 Doom and must spend 1 Doom per round of any physical combat. WILDLIFE OF THE EAST The East contains an amazing topography of climates and natural environments unlike those within the West, and thus is full of many creatures and natural animals utterly unknown to the Hyborians and their ilk. EAGLE, HUNTING (MINION) Though the eagle is common throughout all the Hyborian kingdoms, in the East is it truly allowed to flourish. Notable among these fine beasts are the golden eagles of Hyrkania, each a princely gift in value and a sign of considerable prestige to the one fortunate enough to own one. ATTRIBUTES Awareness Intelligence Personality Willpower 10 (1) 4 — 6 Agility Brawn Coordination 12 6 8 FIELDS OF EXPERTISE Combat 1 Movement 2 Fortitude — Senses 2 Knowledge — Social — STRESS & SOAK ■ Stress: Vigor 3, Resolve 3 ■ Soak: Armor —, Courage — ATTACKS ■ Ripping Beak & Talons (M): Reach 1, 4§, Vicious 1 ■ Screech (T): Range M, 2§ mental, Area, Stun SPECIAL ABILITIES ■ Eyes of the Eagle: Senses tests using sight are always Simple (D0) and suffer no increase to steps of Difficulty due to distance. ■ Flight ■ Inhuman Awareness 1 ELEPHANT (TOUGHENED) Huge pachyderms, elephants are common throughout Vendhya, Kosala, and many portions of Khitai, and are often domesticated for use as labor animals or as transportation. Perhaps due to their similarity to Yaggites, they are particularly venerated in Khitai. War elephants are described on pages 65–66 of Conan the Mercenary: these are their gentler and smaller kin. ATTRIBUTES Awareness Intelligence Personality Willpower 7 5 5 6 Agility Brawn Coordination 4 15 (2) 4 FIELDS OF EXPERTISE Combat — Movement — Fortitude 3 Senses 1 Knowledge — Social — STRESS & SOAK ■ Stress: Vigor 17, Resolve 6 ■ Soak: Armor 2 (Tough Hide), Courage —
82 Chapter 5 ATTACKS ■ Trample (M): Reach 3, 8§, Area, Knockdown, Stun SPECIAL ABILITIES ■ Inhuman Brawn 2 ■ Keen Senses (Hearing, Scent) ■ Monstrous Creature DOOM SPENDS ■ Inelegant: Due to its great mass, an elephant is not very adept at movement at speed or in close quarters. It must spend 1 Doom to make any Movement test while under these conditions. FALCON, HUNTING (MINION) Fierce predatory birds, the falcon is smaller but faster than the eagle, and somewhat easier to train and handle with Falconry talents. Few birds are as majestic as these, or as terrifying from the vantage point of prey. ATTRIBUTES Awareness Intelligence Personality Willpower 10 (1) 4 — 4 Agility Brawn Coordination 10 4 8 FIELDS OF EXPERTISE Combat — Movement 2 Fortitude — Senses 1 Knowledge — Social — STRESS & SOAK ■ Stress: Vigor 2, Resolve 2 ■ Soak: Armor —, Courage — ATTACKS ■ Raking Talons (M): Reach 2, 4§, Piercing 1 SPECIAL ABILITIES ■ Flight ■ Inhuman Awareness 1 HILL-HOUND (MINION) Fierce dogs from the hills of Ghulistan, these mangy curs fight in packs and plague all the hill tribes, though they are mostly tolerated. They are usually scavengers but are occasionally emboldened to attack humans when sufficiently hungry or threatened, usually striking as a pack. ATTRIBUTES Awareness Intelligence Personality Willpower 9 5 4 7 Agility Brawn Coordination 9 7 9 FIELDS OF EXPERTISE Combat 1 Movement 1 Fortitude 1 Senses 2 Knowledge — Social — STRESS & SOAK ■ Stress: Vigor 4, Resolve 4 ■ Soak: Armor 1 (Hide), Courage — ATTACKS ■ Bite (M): Reach 1, 2§, Grappling ■ Foaming Growl (T): Range C, 2§ mental, Stun SPECIAL ABILITIES ■ Keen Senses (Scent) OWL, HUNTING (MINION) Often called “eagle-owls”, these are large and powerful birds of prey, difficult to domesticate due to their independent, stubborn nature. Most have ear tufts of some sort. These are impressive creatures and are often granted as gifts to favored subjects or allies. ATTRIBUTES Awareness Intelligence Personality Willpower 10 5 5 6 Agility Brawn Coordination 7 7 8 FIELDS OF EXPERTISE Combat 1 Movement 2 Fortitude 1 Senses 1 Knowledge — Social — The party had not gone fifty steps when a snarling shape burst from behind a rock. It was one of the gaunt savage dogs that infested the hill villages, and its eyes glared redly, its jaws dripped foam. Conan was leading, but it did not attack him. It dashed past him and leaped at Kerim Shah. The Turanian leaped aside, and the great dog flung itself upon the Irakzai behind him. — “The People of the Black Circle”
encounters 83 STRESS & SOAK ■ Stress: Vigor 4, Resolve 3 ■ Soak: Armor —, Courage — ATTACKS ■ Claw & Bite (M): Reach 1, 2§, Grappling ■ Startling Coo (T): Range M, 2§ mental, Area, Stun (only works once per encounter, and only when its presence is undetected) SPECIAL ABILITIES ■ Keen Senses (Sight) ■ Flight ■ Night Vision UNNATURAL BEINGS The East is full of mysterious beings, those which crawl out from the dark gulfs of unnatural nights. Some are like those found in the West, which is terrible enough. Below, a variety of new forces are outlined which may kill Easterner and outlander alike with impunity and perhaps even with relish. Across the whole of the Thurian Continent, the unnatural stalks humankind in dreams, shadows, and even open daylight. BLACK SEER (NEMESIS) Vulture-headed humanoids in voluminous black robes, the Black Seers of Yimsha are in fact demons. Bound, cajoled, or otherwise in service to the Master of Yimsha, the Black Seers do his bidding on the mortal plane and perhaps beyond. While there are seemingly only four, they can take the form of a conoid cloud the color of a bloody eye. In this state, they fly like a tornado where they will and materialize as four distinct entities upon landing. Such is their combined will that no one of the East can resist them, for such folk are inculcated from birth to believe in mesmerism. The raw, inchoate force of these creatures can cause anyone to bend their knee unless some aspect of self, some naked emotion, ties them directly to another mortal. Curiously, love seems a way to refute the Black Seers power of dominance over the mind, but only for a while. Underneath their robes are hands which are not hands and feet which are not feet, for they come not from the coupling of man and woman but are spawns of the gulfs between realities. Their power is bound to a crystal globe, or at least so it appears. Perhaps the globe found in the citadel of Mount Yimsha is what binds them to this plane and to The Master. Perhaps, were they were released, they would seek some vengeance upon The Master to ensure his undoing. Perhaps, being alien of body and mind, they would care not for the mortal world once they shuffle off all rude semblance of it. ATTRIBUTES Awareness Intelligence Personality Willpower 10 11 8 14 Agility Brawn Coordination 13 13 13 FIELDS OF EXPERTISE Combat 3 Movement 2 Fortitude 3 Senses 3 Knowledge 3 Social — STRESS & SOAK ■ Stress: Vigor 16, Resolve 17 ■ Soak: Armor 4 (Unholy Flesh), Courage 4 (Horror) ATTACKS ■ Inhuman Rake (M): Reach 1, 7§, 1H ■ Devilish Will (R): Range M, 6§, Knockdown, Stun ■ Radiance of the Dark (T): Range L, 4§ mental, Area, Stun SPECIAL ABILITIES ■ Crimson Tornado: The four Black Seers can form a crimson, cone-like cloud and travel through the air, unimpeded by any mortal boundaries. If challenged or for some reason tested, this is a Movement Field of Expertise, not Knowledge, which is usually used for sorcery-related tasks. ■ Dread Creature 3 ■ Sorcerer: A Black Seer knows spells as required by the gamemaster. Suitable ones include Dismember, Enslave, and Venom on the Wind. Not being human, these spells cost no Resolve to learn and may be used by spending Doom. DOOM SPENDS ■ Concerted Malignance: The Black Seers are accustomed to using the Devilish Will attack (see above) together, and combine it, adding +1d20 and +1§ per additional Black Seer, for a total of +3d20 and +3§ to their use of this attack, at the cost of 1 Doom per Seer. ■ Diabolic Ritualists: Black Seers can contribute +3d20 on any ritual casting when assisting their Master. This bonus is only conferred once, no matter how many are present and assisting. ■ Fell Powers: If the Black Seer pays 2 Doom, they gain the Area Quality on their innate sorceries.
84 Chapter 5 DRAGON, KHITAN (NEMESIS) A long and sinuous reptile, the Khitan dragon is a magnificent creature covered in resplendent scales that grows to a truly monumental size. The dragon represents the galaxy in which the Earth finds itself, and thus has sacred properties to Khitans. To slay one is considered an ill omen, while surviving an encounter with one is deemed a boon from the celestial heavens and beyond. While some are rumored to be sentient, others are simply beautiful snarling beasts, favoring water but fully amphibious. ATTRIBUTES Awareness Intelligence Personality Willpower 11 6 –9 10 12 Agility Brawn Coordination 9 12 (2) 9 FIELDS OF EXPERTISE Combat 3 Movement 3 Fortitude 5 Senses 2 Knowledge 0 –3 Social 0 –3 STRESS & SOAK ■ Stress: Vigor 19, Resolve 17 ■ Soak: Armor 3 (Resplendent Scales), Courage 3 ATTACKS ■ Snapping Bite (M): Reach 1, 7§, Vicious 1 ■ Constricting Form (M): Reach 1, 5§, Grappling ■ A Jewel of Heaven (T): Range C, 5§, Area, Stun, Piercing 1 SPECIAL ABILITY ■ Dread Creature: The dragon begins with a Doom pool equal to twice its ranks in Knowledge. ■ Breath of Steam (Optional): If the dragon succeeds in avoiding a melee attack, it can blast its aggressor with its hot breath. This causes 2§ non-lethal damage which is immune to non-magical Soak of all sorts. ■ Creature of Elemental Water (Optional): The dragon is a creature tied to the element of water. It can move between any two locations tied by a continuous stretch of water as a Free Action. ■ Mythical Wisdom (Optional): The dragon is reputed to be a creature of great wisdom. If it has a Knowledge greater than 1, it can speak languages equal to its twice its Knowledge ranks and adds its Knowledge ranks in Doom to its Dread Creature ability. Additionally, the dragon knows spells equal to its Knowledge ranks and may spend them by paying Doom (see below). DOOM SPENDS ■ Sinuous and Flowing: The dragon is a fast animal capable of moving with tremendous speed. It can pay 1 Doom to gain the Area Quality on its attacks. ■ Mythical Sorcerer: If the dragon knows any spells, it can cast them as a sorcerer and gains 2 bonus Momentum on any Sorcery test. ■ The Lash of Lightning (Optional): The dragon is a living lightning bolt rippling with static electricity. If it makes any contact with another character, that character suffers X[CD], non-lethal stun damage where X is the Doom spent. This includes successful melee attacks, successful parries of the dragon’s attack, or touching the dragon in any way. LION DOG (NEMESIS) Named for their loyalty rather than their species, the “lion dog” is actually a small, well-trained breed of lion. A common tale holds that in the early empire, a princess was married to the King of Lions. The early marriage was quite happy, leading to the birth of a son, but over time the princess grew weary of the lion and abandoned him. Angered, the King of Lions terrorized the community until his own son sought him out. They fought and the son killed this fearsome beast. Upon discovering the unhappy truth that he had slain his own father, the princeling took lionesses as his wives, creating a line of royal animals that have never swayed in their duties. While the truth is more likely to involve intergenerational training and a touch of sorcery, lion dogs are to this day presented to Khitan royal households upon the birth of an heir and are ritualistically married into the family. These creatures are usually found in pairs, often chained upon either side of a door. ATTRIBUTES Awareness Intelligence Personality Willpower 10 8 5 8 Agility Brawn Coordination 13 12 11 FIELDS OF EXPERTISE Combat 2 Movement 3 Fortitude 4 Senses 2 Knowledge — Social — STRESS & SOAK ■ Stress: Vigor 16, Resolve 12 ■ Soak: Armor 1 Thick Pelt, Courage 4
encounters 85 ATTACKS ■ Tooth and Claw (M): Reach 2, 5§, Grappling, Knockdown ■ Snarling Visage (T): Close, 4§, Area, Stun SPECIAL ABILITIES ■ Dancing Gait: A lion dog often moves in an erratic jerking fashion. Attacks made against one increase in difficulty by one step. ■ Doom-herald ■ Paired Guardians: Lion dogs will work as a coordinated team with another lion dog. While both dogs are alive and in proximity, they each gain +1d20 on all skill tests. DOOM SPENDS ■ Generations of Training: If the lion dog successfully knocks down an opponent, it can spend 1 Doom to perform any one, and only one, of the following effects: ■ Vicious Bite: The lion dog immediately bites its prey, resolved as a Simple (D0) Melee test dealing Tooth and Claw damage, though it loses the Grappling Quality for this attack. ■ Disarming Bite: The lion dog is trained to remove weapons where possible. The target character is disarmed with any weapons held being knocked out of reach. ■ Smother: The lion dog places its bulk over the head and face of its victim. The target character begins to suffer an effect akin to drowning. This causes 1 Fatigue, and if Grappled, will cause 1 additional Fatigue every round the grapple is maintained. ■ Sorcerous Bloodline: While the lion dog cannot cast spells, it can use counter magic for any spell cast in its vicinity, using Intelligence + Fortitude. It must pay 1 Doom to attempt this. WARRIOR, TERRACOTTA (TOUGHENED) Carved into the likeness of one of the emperor’s champions, the terracotta warrior is a vessel for the soul of a fallen champion. While the body remains, the soul cannot seek out its resting place and is held by its sense of duty in place, ready to protect the remains of its dead master. These grim relics are often found in the tens, if not hundreds, arrayed in rows and buried with their former liege. ATTRIBUTES Awareness Intelligence Personality Willpower 10 8 5 8 Agility Brawn Coordination 13 12 11 FIELDS OF EXPERTISE Combat 2 Movement 3 Fortitude 4 Senses 2 Knowledge — Social — STRESS & SOAK ■ Stress: Vigor 14, Resolve — ■ Soak: Armor 3 (Coat of Plates), Courage — ATTACKS ■ Poleaxe (M): Reach 3, 8§, Intense, Piercing, Vicious 1 ■ Stoic Silence (T): Range C, 2§ mental, Area, Stun SPECIAL ABILITY ■ Duty Above All: A terracotta warrior is immune to mental damage and automatically succeeds any Willpower test or struggle. ■ Ready for War: A terracotta warrior cannot be ambushed. All attempts at an ambush fail and grant initiative to the warrior. ■ Spectacular Display: Every round that a character witnesses the terracotta warrior fight, they must pay 1 Doom or suffer 1 Despair. ■ Unrivaled Experience: A terracotta warrior never suffers penalties from Reach and can use the Secondary Target Momentum spend up to three times in a round. This costs 1 Momentum per use. DOOM SPENDS ■ Legion: A terracotta warrior can pay 2 Doom to summon four Minions. These Minions use the same attributes of the terracotta warrior, though their Vigor is 7 and they only possess the Duty Above All special ability. ■ Down But Not Out: When a terracotta warrior suffers their second Wound, they can instead pay 3 Doom to ignore it and keep fighting. Every time the terracotta warrior does this, the Doom price doubles.
86 Chapter 5 YAGGITE (NEMESIS) Aliens from the planet Yag, these are beings of incredible wisdom and resilience, with lifespans measuring in millennia. A rebellion tore their planet apart, unleashing a wave of conflict and destruction on a scale unimaginable to human beings. Having little choice but to flee, the upstarts who failed set forth across the stars, borne on great wings and traveling throughout the deeps of space to find a new home. Eventually they settled upon Earth, particularly in the lands of the East. There, they ruled from within the steaming jungles that were so like those of their homeworld, eventually adopting humankind almost as a pet. Humans worshipped the Yaggites and learned from them, and many of the philosophies and magic of the East have their origins in the alien culture of the Yaggites. Mystery cults grew around them, and they became reclusive, set apart from the burgeoning civilizations of humankind, which to the Yaggites had so many of the faults of their own former oppressors on Yag. Thousands of years later, these ancient creatures are all but extinct in our world. Some say the last was killed by Conan himself. The great kings of Yag, though, may remain on their world. And, someday, they could come here. The Yaggites and their history are discussed in greater detail on page 50, and the most famous Yaggite, Yag-kosha, is described on pages 95–96 of Conan the Thief. ATTRIBUTES Awareness Intelligence Personality Willpower 10 12 11 13 Agility Brawn Coordination 9 13 9 FIELDS OF EXPERTISE Combat 1 Movement 1 Fortitude 2 Senses 2 Knowledge 4 Social 3 STRESS & SOAK ■ Stress: Vigor 15, Resolve 15 ■ Soak: Armor 3 (Thick Hide), Courage 2 ATTACKS ■ Heavy Rod (M): Reach 2, 7 §, 2H, Stun ■ Alien Presence (T): Range C, 5 § mental, Stun SPECIAL ABILITIES ■ Dread Creature 5 ■ Familiar ■ Metaphysical Heart: Each Yaggite has a giant gem in which they store their soul. Should a character gain possession of this item, the Yaggite is all but defenseless against them. The Yaggite must obey any character controlling their metaphysical heart and cannot cast spells or attack the possessing character. In addition, the attacks of the possessing character gain the Fearsome 2 Quality against the Yaggite. Note that each heart is specific to each Yaggite: possessing one Yaggite’s heart does not provide any benefits against another of that race. ■ Patron ■ Sorcerer DOOM SPENDS ■ Master Spellcaster: Yaggites know all spells and can pay 1 Doom to cast any spell as if with 2 Momentum. Yaggites automatically win magical struggles unless the target spends 1 Fortune point or possesses the Yaggite’s metaphysical heart. “We saw new savages drift southward in conquering waves from the Arctic circle to build a new civilization, with new kingdoms called Nemedia, and Koth, and Aquilonia and their sisters. We saw your people rise under a new name from the jungles of the apes that had been Atlanteans. We saw the descendants of the Lemurians who had survived the cataclysm, rise again through savagery and ride westward as Hyrkanians. And we saw this race of devils, survivors of the ancient civilization that was before Atlantis sank, come once more into culture and power — this accursed kingdom of Zamora.” — Yag-kosha, “The Tower of the Elephant”
encounters 87 YENG-DU (TOUGHENED) There exist 18 levels of Hell for a Khitan, and many courts. Each acts as a crucible to test and expiate the sins of one’s life above. Not until the soul passes through each court and trial may it reincarnate. But what of those who somehow escape? What of those souls that literally “break out of hell (diyu)”? They are called yeng-du and they are, fortunately rare. Who wants to tangle with a soul tortured in hell only to return to the surface world? What mad vengeance and rage do these spirits possess? A great deal. Inchoate, the yeng-du are part of the physical world and part of hell. Their bodies are not entirely incorporeal. Instead, they may focus their diyu energies to manifest physical parts but, in general, exist as a kind of malleable goo in human form. Yeng-du are often interested in exacting revenge on those involved in their sins. However, wherever they manifest, they possess an innate hate for the living, for the living possess what they do not. Some folk tales in Khitai portray a few of these souls as protectors, coming to wayward people to warn them of the hell that awaits them if they do not mend their twisted path. More often, folk tales speak of sorcerers summoning these tortured folk and purposing them toward destruction. When they manifest on their own, they typically emerge from diyu at the place they died. From there, they may range many leagues, though one volume of the blind scribe Vathelos’ Book of Skelos suggests there is a limit to how far they can stray from their place of death. However, there exist spells of unbinding which sorcerers may trade in pacts with yeng-du. By this means, a yeng-du might travel anywhere so long as the pact allows. ATTRIBUTES Awareness Intelligence Personality Willpower 11 8 7 12 Agility Brawn Coordination 12 12 12 FIELDS OF EXPERTISE Combat 3 Movement 1 Fortitude 3 Senses 2 Knowledge 2 Social — STRESS & SOAK ■ Stress: Vigor 12, Resolve 12 ■ Soak: Armor 3 (Incorporeal), Courage 1 (Undead) ATTACKS ■ Ghostly Talons (M): Reach 1, 5 §, 1H, Fearsome 1 ■ Pitiless Gaze (T): Range C, 5 § mental, Area, Stun SPECIAL ABILITIES ■ Rend Soul: Once a yeng-du has successfully hit a target with its Ghostly Talons, it can latch on to its victim’s very soul and cause its victim to suffer 1 § mental damage every scene so long as the yeng-du continues to exist. This prevents the victim from resting and healing stress. In addition to this, every time this damage rolls an Effect, the yeng-du gains 1 Doom. The yeng-du can only maintain a connection to one soul at a time. DOOM SPENDS ■ Burning Agony: Any time the yeng-du uses Rend Soul, it can spend 1 Doom prior to rolling to increase the damage dealt by the effect by 2§. ■ Visitation: The yeng-du can spend 2 Doom to immediately appear within Reach of the character it has connected to with Rend Soul. If it spends 1 extra point of Doom, it is invisible until it attacks. FIGURES OF RENOWN AND INFAMY Though remote to the Hyborian kingdoms, many of the notables of the East nonetheless hold great reputations throughout their homelands and beyond those tentative borders. These noble and ignoble personages might become useful allies to the player characters, implacable foes, or both. Such is the way of things in the East, where an enemy might become a staunch partisan and a loyal follower a treasonous usurper. BUNDA CHAND, KING OF VENDHYA (NEMESIS) A young king, Bunda Chand traces his lineage back into dimly remembered history. Normally a pragmatic man, Chand is known as a wise and just ruler. His court contains scholars from Vendhya’s finest schools, and his library contains treatises on everything from the cyclical nature of time to the reality beside this one, which powers fell sorcery. For all that, his heart does pump human blood and he loves a princess of Kosala. Viziers caution him to marry within Vendhya to better solidify his heirs. He was considering this until he recently took ill. His arms ache, his head pounds, and he feels, when he dreams, as if something unnatural, something not of this world, tugs at his soul. Bunda Chand tells little of this to the doctors who attend him. He bears the pain, physical and psychic, without complaint. At least for now. Chand’s primary political concerns are the preservation and prosperity of Vendhya. The rising might of Turan is
88 Chapter 5 of concern, and Bunda knows that political ‘solutions’ only further King Yezdigerd’s ambitions. Sooner or later, perhaps over disputed Ghulistan, their armies will meet. That keeps Chand’s mind sharp and the demons away… for the time being ATTRIBUTES Awareness Intelligence Personality Willpower 9 8 9 9 Agility Brawn Coordination 6 6 6 FIELDS OF EXPERTISE Combat 2 Movement 1 Fortitude 2 Senses 2 Knowledge 3 Social 4 STRESS & SOAK ■ Stress: Vigor 8, Resolve 11 ■ Soak: Armor —, Courage 2 ATTACK ■ Scimitar (M): Reach 2, 3§, 1H, Cavalry 1 ■ The Power of the Throne (T): Range C, 8§ mental, Stun SPECIAL ABILITIES ■ Experienced Ruler: When issuing a command to any subject, that subject must pay 2 Doom to attempt resisting. If the subject succeeds in the attempt and chooses to disobey, they must pay 1 additional Doom. CHUNDER SHAN, GOVERNOR OF PESHKHAURI(NEMESIS) Chunder Shan rules a city on the edge of the wild county where hill people burn villages and kill citizens of Vendhya. As governor, Chunder’s role is to protect the city of Peshkhauri first, but the people outside the walls are never far from his mind. Indeed, his own fort lies outside the walls of that northwesternmost city. A member of the Kshatriyas warrior caste, Chunder is ever faithful to the royal bloodline. All in Vendhya serve at the pleasure of their rulers, whom they believe possess divine power. Such power is not, alas, enough to keep the wild hill people at bay. On Chunder Shan’s broad shoulders falls that responsibility. He bears it well, limiting the number of successful attacks on his people and keeping the wild tribes harried. Chunder is as clever as he is faithful, though, and he sees the hill tribes as a force that could prove Peshkhauri’s undoing, were they to unite. To this end, he attempts to keep enmity between them through guile and spies, though his regular patrols must of necessity undermine part of this goal. Vendhya is a bulwark against the uncivilized and a check on Turanian aggression. Chunder’s country is far older than these new kingdoms or savage tribes. History and tradition matter. ATTRIBUTES Awareness Intelligence Personality Willpower 9 11 7 10 Agility Brawn Coordination 6 8 6 Chunder Shan, governor of Peshkhauri, laid down his golden pen and carefully scanned that which he had written on parchment that bore his official seal. He had ruled Peshkhauri so long only because he weighed his every word, spoken or written. Danger breeds caution, and only a wary man lives long in that wild country where the hot Vendhyan plains meet the crags of the Himelians. An hour’s ride westward or northward and one crossed the border and was among the Hills where men lived by the law of the knife. — “The People of the Black Circle”
encounters 89 FIELDS OF EXPERTISE Combat 3 Movement — Fortitude 2 Senses 1 Knowledge 2 Social 2 STRESS & SOAK ■ Stress: Vigor 10, Resolve 12 ■ Soak: Armor 2 (Ceremonial Garb), Courage 2 ATTACKS ■ Scimitar (M): Reach 2, 3§, 1H, Cavalry 1 ■ Poisoned Knives (R): Range C, 4§, 1H (see below) ■ Indomitable Will (T): Range C, 4§ mental, Stun SPECIAL ABILITIES ■ Intrigue: When engaging in any conversation, Chunder gains 2 Momentum which must be used to gain information. DOOM SPENDS ■ Paralyzing Venom: Chunder can spend 2 Doom to add the Vicious 2 Quality to his knives. Characters “killed” by this attack are paralyzed and will survive, though capture is certain. ■ Spy Network: At the gamemaster’s discretion, Chunder can spend 1 Doom to win any attempt at an ambush without a skill roll, forewarned by his informants. If such distribution of information is not possible, he can do the same through an intuitive reading of his current circ*mstances and environment. GITARA (TOUGHENED) The comely handmaiden to the Devi Yasmina, sister to the king of Vendhya, Gitara swore an oath to the royal family, and more particularly Yasmina. The handmaidens of Vendhya are chosen carefully from a pool of specially bred workers. Gitara can trace her bloodline, and its tether to Yasmina’s bloodline, almost as far back as Vendhyan scholars can record. Vendhyans impart near godlike powers on their rulers. Those who tend to them must be faithful of heart and mind. To date, most of those in service to the royal family have been above reproach. Indeed, Gitara seems much the same, but there is someone she loves more than her Devi — Khemsa, a sorcerer with ties to the Black Circle of Yimsha. For his part, Khemsa is as devoted to the Black Seers as he is to his own life… or so he believes. In truth, the love which burns between acolyte and handmaiden may, in time, melt the bonds of fealty tethering them to others. Gitara has of late become restless in her position as servant, however pampered that may be. She begins to see other options, plans that might further her station and gain her great wealth. As the king lays dying, Gitara wonders if perhaps she and Khemsa might make a move of their own. First, though, she must convince Khemsa to break with the Black Circle. To do so, he says, is tantamount to suicide. Yet Gitara’s love and her feminine charms are ample. In the lust for power and the lust for love, one must often concede one to the other ATTRIBUTES Awareness Intelligence Personality Willpower 8 8 9 8 Agility Brawn Coordination 6 7 6 FIELDS OF EXPERTISE Combat — Movement — Fortitude — Senses 1 Knowledge 1 Social 2 STRESS & SOAK ■ Stress: Vigor 7, Resolve 8 ■ Soak: Armor —, Courage — ATTACKS ■ Dagger (M): Reach 1, 3§, 1H, Hidden 1, Parrying, Thrown, Unforgiving 1 SPECIAL ABILITIES ■ Wise if Biased Words: When attempting to convince a character to act in her interests she can roll +2d20. DOOM SPENDS ■ Beguile: Gitara can seduce, convince, and command most people through a combination of clever machination and exotic beauty. When attempting to command any non-player character, she can spend Doom equal to the number of Trauma that character can withstand and have them obey without question. Khemsa too was panting, shaking like a leaf in her grasp; his face showed gray in the starlight, beaded with great drops of perspiration. — “The People of the Black Circle”
90 Chapter 5 KERIM SHAH (NEMESIS) Kerim Shah serves at the pleasure of the Turanian government as their eyes and ears throughout Vendhya. His ability to charm and impress, both as a prince of the royal bloodline and also as a skilled diplomat, grants him access into closed meetings and darkened bedchambers with equal ease. He sees the world in tactical terms, and always weighs his options before determining whether to engage in battle. In his role as an ambassador to a foreign power, Kerim Shah is well aware that all of his actions have consequences. The only way Kerim Shah would draw his sword is in defense. He would much rather use his wits and cunning to defuse a situation until he can learn more about his opponent. Once he has analyzed an enemy’s weakness, he strikes, leaving nothing to chance. Once engaged, Kerim Shah is a ferocious combatant and, if not on horseback, will use both scimitars to his full advantage, attacking and parrying with ease. If he can get close enough to an opponent, he will attempt a leg sweep to knock them off balance or knock them down. If Kerim Shah is on horseback, he will not hesitate to charge, using whatever weapon is handy to try and knock down an adversary. Kerim Shah will always choose the best, most effective tactics and weapons for any encounter. He knows when to press an attack and when to break off a fight. ATTRIBUTES Awareness Intelligence Personality Willpower 10 10 10 10 Agility Brawn Coordination 10 10 10 FIELDS OF EXPERTISE Combat 4 Movement 2 Fortitude 3 Senses 3 Knowledge 2 Social 4 STRESS & SOAK ■ Stress: Vigor 10, Resolve 10 ■ Soak: Armor 4 (Concealed Plate), Courage 3 (Ideals) ATTACKS ■ Two Scimitars (M): Reach 2, 5§, 1H, Cavalry 1, Parry ■ Lance (M): Reach 3, 8§, Unbalanced, Cavalry 2, Fragile ■ Hyrkanian Bow (R): Range M, 5§ 2H, Volley ■ Put at Ease (T): Range C, 4§ mental, Hidden 3, Stun SPECIAL ABILITY ■ Agent of the Court: When attempting a Social test while acting as a spy, Kerim Shah can re-roll any d20 that is not initially a success. He may attempt one re-roll for each d20. DOOM SPENDS ■ Royal Command: When leading a unit in a charge, Kerim Shah can spend 3 Doom to initiate a free Display attack with Fervent Zeal: Range C, 4§, Area, Stun. KHEMSA (NEMESIS) Khemsa has grown up in the royal palace. An ambitious man, full of promise, this child of the court was taken under the tutelage of the palace scribes at an early age. His aptitude for reading and writing allowed him to move rapidly from teacher to teacher. Even as the court educated him, he knew he didn’t really belong to the family and thus, would never “Few of us are what we seem. I, whom the Kshatriyas know as Kerim Shah, a prince from Iranistan, am no greater a masquerader than most men. They are all traitors in one way or another, and half of them know not whom they serve.” — “The People of the Black Circle”
encounters 91 be treated as an equal by them. So, he left under the guise of wanting to further his study and wandered for many years. When he found the Seers of Mount Yimsha, they offered to teach him their skills, in return for being an agent on their behalf. Khemsa readily agreed, and when he returned to court, after many years of traveling, it was with a new demeanor. Gone was the eager youth with a thirst for knowledge, and in its place was a studious and canny young man, wise to the levers of power and how to manipulate them. Khemsa would much rather scheme than fight, but if pressed, he will not hesitate to use his petty enchantments to startle, confuse, or otherwise befuddle an enemy and use the confusion to slip away to fight another day. If directly attacked and unable to use his magic, he will try to use his staff to incapacitate and stun an opponent. His dagger, and the spilling of blood, are a last resort — one he’d rather not use unless his life were in immediate danger. ATTRIBUTES Awareness Intelligence Personality Willpower 9 12 13 11 Agility Brawn Coordination 10 7 8 FIELDS OF EXPERTISE Combat 3 Movement 2 Fortitude 2 Senses 3 Knowledge 4 Social 4 STRESS & SOAK ■ Stress: Vigor 9, Resolve 10 ■ Soak: Armor 2 (Thick Robes, Girdle), Courage 3 (In love) ATTACKS ■ Curved Dagger (M): Reach 1, 3§, 1H, Hidden 1, Parrying, Vicious 1, Unforgiving 1 ■ Staff (M): Reach 3, 4§, 2H, Knockdown, Vicious 1 SPECIAL ABILITIES ■ Girdle of Protection: See page 97 for additional information on this rare artifact. ■ Patron (The Black Circle) ■ Sorcerer: Khemsa possesses the spells Dismember, Enslave, and Haunt the Mind, paying Doom for their use. THE MASTER OF YIMSHA (NEMESIS) Like flesh flayed from a condemned man over tortuous days, so too has all that was human been stripped from the Master of Yimsha. Over the course of centuries, his interaction with the Outer Dark flensed all morality and mortality from this powerful sorcerer. He appears as a man in velvet robes and cap when it suits him to do so, but he also takes the form of a giant serpent, or a skeletal horror from the House of Shades. No mortal mind can hope to understand the inner workings of the Master. He does what amuses him, what benefits him, and what furthers goals no man can name. At his service, and in his bondage, are demons pulled from the great voids in space and time. The Master’s power may be his undoing, for he has concentrated much of it in four golden pomegranates — yet these are so well protected that no normal man could hope to get at them. How the pomegranates work is not known. Perhaps some measure of his power is imbued in each. Perhaps they are the means by which he twists forces of the great dark to his sinister purposes. Older than even the Book of Skelos might easily reckon, the Master’s being is inextricable to his relationship with the dark arts. A being of power, perhaps some single spark of humanity rests yet within him — desire and spite. Unlike those gods of the Outer Dark to whom no human emotion may be ascribed, the Master has something of an ego. Woe to those who tread upon it. His machinations involve compromising and manipulating rulers of the Hyborian Age, though whether this is for influence or entertainment only the Master can say. Beneath him serve the four Black Seers of Yimsha and a host of acolytes who would learn the sorcery of their masters in exchange for their humanity. ATTRIBUTES Awareness Intelligence Personality Willpower 12 13 11 13 Agility Brawn Coordination 13 13 12 FIELDS OF EXPERTISE Combat 3 Movement 2 Fortitude 4 Senses 3 Knowledge 6 Social 2 STRESS & SOAK ■ Stress: Vigor 17, Resolve 17 ■ Soak: Armor 5 (Enchantment of Protection), Courage 5 (Indomitable) “Even the arts you call sorcery are governed by cosmic laws. The stars direct these actions, as in other affairs.” — Khemsa, “The People of the Black Circle”
92 Chapter 5 SPECIAL ABILITIES ■ Master of Yimsha: The Master gains +1d20 whenever he casts spells or uses counter magic. DOOM SPENDS ■ “I Will Take Your Heart!”: Once per scene, the Master can cast Dismember, paying 1–5 Doom to gain twice the amount spent in Momentum. This Momentum may only be used on this spell’s casting. ■ Blackest Magics: The Master knows all spells, including some otherwise lost to time. By spending Doom equal to and in addition to the required Momentum, the Master can use any Momentum spend from any spell on any casting of any spell. YAR AFZAL, CHIEF OF THE WAZULI (NEMESIS) With dark hair as thick as a wire — like the rest of the hill folk in Ghulistan — and the broad chest of that same kin, Yar Afzal presents an imposing figure. He is not lean, but powerful muscles lurk beneath a layer of fat. His dark skin and beard mark him as a hill man to anyone from the plains. Yar was born to a hetman of his people but earned his rank as chief by the strength of his sword-arm and unflinching loyalty to those he calls friend. He rules with both the mind’s keen razor and the raw brutality of his station. Those who question him are beaten, shamed, or even killed. This is the way of the hill tribes, and any chief who lacks such methods quickly finds himself lacking both position and head. The wildness born of the defiles between the hills runs also in Yar’s veins. He shrinks from no man and would gladly face death were it preferable to fleeing. He is not, however, suicidal, though the grim, fateful mien of the Wazuli in the face of death can easily be mistaken for such a condition. Yar’s home is the village of Khurum, from which Wazuli power spreads in the region. What Yar does not tell his people, what he tells no man or woman of this earth, is that he pledged his mortal heart to the Master of Yimsha. A bargain made long ago, Yar scarcely remembers, or chooses not to remember, the specifics of this deal. Surely the Master forgets nothing. One day, Yar will pay for the occasional brilliance in tactics he received from the Master. On that day, he must submit to the sorcerer or have his still beating heart pulled from his chest. ATTRIBUTES Awareness Intelligence Personality Willpower 7 7 8 7 Agility Brawn Coordination 8 8 6 FIELDS OF EXPERTISE Combat 2 Movement — Fortitude 2 Senses — Knowledge — Social 1 STRESS & SOAK ■ Stress: Vigor 10, Resolve 9 ■ Soak: Armor 3 (Mail Shirt), Courage 2 ATTACKS ■ Scimitar (M): Reach 2 3§, 1H, Calvary 1, Parrying ■ Bow (R): Range C, 3§, 2H, Volley ■ Killer’s Eyes (T): Range C, 3§ mental, Stun SPECIAL ABILITIES ■ Pact with Yimsha: The dark powers of Yimsha guide the hetman in unseen ways. The hetman rolls +1d20 on all tests so long as he’s loyal to the Master, combining Momentum spends from entirely different spells, where possible. DOOM SPENDS ■ It Is Our Way: Yar can spend 1 Doom to ignore any mental damage caused by a Wazuli. YASMINA, DEVI OF VENDHYA (TOUGHENED) Royal houses have produced innumerable decadent lines down the long centuries. Such beings scoff at nobler sentiments. Loyalty is a courtly charade used in intrigues. Fealty to another, including their own kin, is a temporary inconvenience on their road for personal power. The Devi Yasmina comes from a land steeped in such infernal machinations, but she has defied the odds. The Wazuli girl laughed mockingly, Conan scowled, and then the door opened and Yar Afzal came swaggering in. The Wazuli chief was as tall as Conan, and of greater girth, but he looked fat and slow beside the hard compactness of the Cimmerian. — “The People of the Black Circle”
encounters 93 She was raised haughty and proud, second only to her brother Bunda Chand, the King of Vendhya. In a lesser soul this lesser position would have sparked jealousy and envy. Yasmina carries within her heart true love and devotion for her sovereign brother. The king’s recent illness has shaken his subjects to the core, none more so than faithful Yasmina. The root of his malady eludes the court physicians. Poison has been ruled out. Since birth, others have been tasked with tasting first any food and drink that may touch the King’s lips. Wise men look to the stars and ponder their positions. What portents does the Serpent coiled in the House of the Elephant bring to Vendhya? Are darker forces at work? Although beautiful and pampered by a life of luxury, Yasmina is no preening plaything who waits idly for a suitor. She is strong-willed, clever, and — when need be — resourceful. In seeking an answer to her brother’s condition, she has read from many occult tomes and sought arcane wisdom, though she has shied away from the actual practice of sorcery. Should she discover that there is something more behind Bunda Chand’s condition, she will stop at nothing to avenge her brother. Fire and sword marches alongside her wrath. Player characters may encounter the Devi Yasmina, if summoned to the royal court on some matter. There she will be resplendent in silks, veils, and gold. Her every need will be tended by her handmaidens. If some twist of fate were to take her from her station there, she is not above donning a rougher disguise, or going all but alone into a dangerous place. ATTRIBUTES Awareness Intelligence Personality Willpower 9 11 11 10 Agility Brawn Coordination 9 7 8 FIELDS OF EXPERTISE Combat — Movement 1 Fortitude — Senses 1 Knowledge 2 Social 3 STRESS & SOAK ■ Stress: Vigor 7, Resolve 10 ■ Soak: Armor 1 (Clothes), Courage 2 ATTACKS ■ Ornate Dagger (M): Reach 1, 3§, Hidden 1, Unforgiving 1 SPECIAL ABILITIES ■ Devi: As the de facto ruler of Vendhya while her brother is incapacitated, Yasmina can use the Commanding Mien, Heed My Words, and Healthy Superstition talents from the Conan corebook (pages 62, 62, and 65, respectively). DOOM SPEND ■ The Devi Demands: Used to the life of an influential noble, the Devi has remarkable self-confidence and the love of her people. She can spend 1 Doom to trigger the Inspiring Leader talent (Conan corebook, page 62) and activate Minions. This ability can only be used in her homeland, or with a group of her loyal subjects. ZHENG OF KHITAI (NEMESIS) Whipcord thin, Zheng’s features seem to droop like his thin mustache. His countenance always betrays an inability to suffer his lessers, especially outlanders. Some of this no doubt dates to his simple beginnings as a commoner. Based on Zheng’s birth, none would expect him to ever approach the Great Court of the Heavens in Paikang, let alone serve there. Yet an uncanny facility with languages soon brought him to the attention of the Emperor, The Magnificent Son of Ten Thousand Years. The Emperor’s wisdom, Zheng says, is as deep as his magnanimity. This is why Zheng must tolerate the uncouth outlanders who come to court. He interprets for them, makes them clean and presentable, and wonders at what mad world west of the Vilayet could produce such dirty, stupid menfolk. Some small portion of his time on this earth has had cause to draw him to the west under the Emperor’s name. He was not at all impressed by the experience. Still, The Son of Ten Thousand Years is no fool. If he sees some value in hosting the pink barbarians, then there must be method to it. Zheng, however, makes sure to convey to all outsiders this singular notion — Khitai is the world, and the world is Khitai. This must be distinctly understood. Sobbing wildly, Yasmina plucked a jeweled dagger from her girdle and plunged it to the hilt in his breast. He stiffened and then went limp, a grim smile curving his dead lips. Yasmina hurled herself face-down on the rush-covered floor, beating the reeds with her clenched hands. Outside, the gongs and conchs brayed and thundered and the priests gashed themselves with copper knives. — “The People of the Black Circle”
94 Chapter 5 ATTRIBUTES Awareness Intelligence Personality Willpower 10 11 8 10 Agility Brawn Coordination 5 5 5 FIELDS OF EXPERTISE Combat — Movement 1 Fortitude — Senses — Knowledge 3 Social 3 STRESS & SOAK ■ Stress: Vigor 5, Resolve 10 ■ Soak: Armor —, Courage 1 ATTACKS ■ Dagger (M): Reach 1, 3§, 1H, Hidden 1, Parrying, Thrown, Unforgiving 1 SPECIAL ABILITIES ■ Master Translator: Zheng speaks more languages than he can name and can quickly learn new ones. ■ Master of Etiquette: If Zheng chooses to aid a character in matters of etiquette, he can grant +2d20 to any Persuade test. Likewise, should he choose, he can increase the Difficulty of such a test by one step. DOOM SPENDS ■ Bodyguard: Zheng is a trusted servant of the Khitan Emperor and can summon toughened bodyguards as if they were Minions at the cost of 1 Doom apiece. ■ Envoy in Sheep’s Clothing: Zheng has a code of movement and posture that he shares with the Emperor. Consequently, he can spend X Doom to increase the Difficulty in persuading another character by X steps. This is in addition to his Master of Etiquette ability (above). Dr. Jack, Sorry for the delay. I been in the brig, well, a Vladivostok brig. Seems yer man is working with the Russkies ‘cept it’s them they call White Russians. Didn’t know they still had ‘em here. Plenty in Shanghai, though. Was the Soviets that actually busted me out. Don’t that beat all? They are on to this cult of ours, too. Seems these whackos are in Siberia as well, looking for some tomb that has the body of yer Butterfly Emperor in it. The White Russians want the Bolshie’s out, and they got an alliance with the Chinese Nationalists to do it. According to them, this Wu gal has the big time hoodoo, or did, and they think they can bring her back from out of the big dark. When they do, they think her power can overthrow Steel Joe and his gang of mooks as well as whip the Commies on the Chinese mainland. (I didn’t ask what they thought she’d do about all them Japanese ships and planes waiting to start a big ‘ole war.) So, this feller named Yemtov broke me outa this rust bucket ship the White Russians had me on and enlisted my help to go find this tomb. Trouble is, I got no sense for digging up bodies, but I figure you do. Yemtov has a rubbing he made from something called an Obelisk near Lake Baikal. I says to him I got me an employer that can maybe translate that. So, we copied it. It’s in the envelope for you. Right now, I’m enjoying myself some Soviet vodka with these Red Army intelligence fellows. Communism isn’t half-bad if yer not in a gulag. Anyway, they don’t want this Wu coming back, and they seem to think that’s a real possibility. Let me know if you can translate this thing for us, then wire me. We gotta bust up this ring of grave robbers fore they bring about the end of the world and all. Least that’s what Yemtov says. —Steve
HITHER CAME CONAN CHAPTER 6 Conan is a long way from his humble beginnings in gloomy Cimmeria, a period described in Conan the Barbarian. Conan the Thief addresses his sojourn as a thief in the eastern Hyborian kingdoms, and his period as a sell-sword in the middle kingdoms is detailed in Conan the Mercenary. His career as a pirate upon the southern coasts is dealt with in Conan the Pirate, and Conan the Brigand describes his time amongst the kozaki as a bandit chief. Moving southeast from there, the wayward barbarian earns a place as a chief of the rugged tribal nomads of the mountains of Ghulistan, no small feat for a foreigner. In less than a year, he becomes a popular leader among the Afghuli, adopting their customs entirely. PEOPLE OF THE BLACK CIRCLE Utilizing skills and abilities he learned among the brigands of the near-east, Conan and his men have become a thorn in the side of the regional governor, until seven of them are captured and he makes a desperate bid to free them. Upon the untimely sorcerous demise of the king of Vendhya, Bunda Chand, his sister Yasmina journeys to the border city of Peshkhauri — nearest to Mount Yimsha, the stronghold of the Seers of the Black Circle, who were responsible for her brother’s death. Her goal is to bring her brother’s killers to justice, though they are apparently beyond the law. While there, the Devi Yasmina interrupts a meeting of the governor and Conan, who has broken in on the governor to negotiate the release of his captured hillmen. Seizing the opportunity, Conan captures the Devi and spirits her away into the night — the governor and his forces, led by the Iranistani nobleman Kherim Shah, in hot pursuit. Unbeknownst to his Vendhyan masters, Shah is a spy for King Yezdigerd of Turan, seeking to weaken Vendhya against Turan. Caught in the middle of these events are Khemsa, an enigmatic devotee of the Black Circle, and his beloved, a slave girl named Gitara. Urged by Gitara, Khemsa seeks freedom from his sorcerous mentor, the Master of the Black Circle. He slays Conan’s captive hillmen as a means of weakening the governor’s bargaining position. Once this atrocity has been committed, Khemsa strikes out to Afghulistan, towards Mount Yimsha, to challenge his former master. Chased through the Zhaibar Pass, Conan and his captive Yasmina encounter some of Conan’s allies, and take shelter with them. When Khemsa and Gitara cross their paths, the sorcerer casts diabolical sorcery that turns the hillfolk against Conan, and he and Yasmina are forced to flee once more. Though Yasmina urges the barbarian to aid her in slaying the Master of Yimsha, he chooses instead to try to return with her to his camp, to use her as a hostage to bargain back his captured hillmen — unaware they are already dead at Khemsa’s hand. In the rough hill country, they encounter Khemsa and Gitara, and Conan overcomes the mesmerist tricks of the sorcerer. Before Conan can kill Khemsa, however, the Black Seers of Mount Yimsha arrive, and Conan and Yasmina witness the magical confrontation between the sorcerer and his former masters. Gitara is slain and Khemsa is soon overcome by the Black Seers, falling to his apparent death into an avalanche of their making. Recognizing the Devi, the Black Seers wrench her from Conan’s arm, and blast Conan with magic. When Conan recovers, they and the Devi are gone. He continues towards his camp and runs into a small army of Let me know if you can translate this thing for us, then wire me. “I was born in the Cimmerian hills where the people are all barbarians. I have been a mercenary soldier, a corsair, a kozak, and a hundred other things. What king has roamed the countries, fought the battles, loved the women, and won the plunder that I have?” — “The People of the Black Circle”
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