250 Sorcery If he succeeds and the spell lasted at least 10 minutes, he instead gains a permanent +1 bonus to Wisdom. No character can be affected by Wisdom gains or losses from this spell more than once, though he will still be affected by the penalties to attack rolls and the like if he is targeted a second time. Material Component: A dose of a suitable hallucinogenic drug such as lotus juice (see page 275), costing around 100 silver pieces. This must somehow be administered to the target before the spell can be cast. Hypnotism Hypnotism is extremely useful both as a direct means of attack and for far more subtle purposes. Though it may not be so quick as a hurled globe of demon-fire, it can still provide fairly rapid effects that are significantly more versatile than mere flaming destruction. Hypnotism is not inherently sorcerous. Much hypnotism is simply mesmerism, an ability to take advantage of another’s superstitious fears and unconscious willingness to be dominated. This type of hypnotism requires no expenditure of Power Points but simply takes time. It is for this reason that some scholars regard hypnotism as beneath themselves, considering it to be no true sorcery. However, many of the more advanced hypnotic spells do require sorcery, such as when it comes to forcing a victim to do one’s bidding, or affecting him at distances where mere mesmerism would be quite unfeasible. Entrance (Basic Hypnotism) Power Point Cost: None Components: S, M or F Casting Time: One full round Range: Evil Eye Target: One creature Duration: Concentration Saving Throw: Will negates Magic Attack Roll: Sets DC for the target’s saving throw When you cast this spell, the target creature must make a Will saving throw or be unable to take any actions for as long as you concentrate. If the creature is attacked or sustains damage while entranced, it may attempt a saving throw again to throw off the effects of the spell. This second saving throw gets a bonus equal to the amount of damage inflicted. This spell can only affect a creature that has six or fewer hit dice. It is possible to boost the power of this spell by preparation. For each full round in which you do nothing but stare at the target creature before attempting to entrance it (whether or not you have eye-to-eye contact over that time) you can affect a creature of +2 HD and you gain a circumstance bonus of +1 on your magic attack roll. Note that an entranced creature is not stunned, so attackers gain no special advantage against it. Material Component or Focus: A shining object, such as a small mirror, suspended from a cord Terrible Fascination (Defensive Blast) Power Point Cost: All remaining points Components: V Casting Time: Immediate Range: Personal Area: 10 foot radius around the sorcerer Duration: 1d4 rounds Saving Throw: Will negates Magic Attack Roll: Sets DC for the victims’ saving throw When this spell is cast, all creatures within 10 feet of the sorcerer must make a Will saving throw or be entranced as if by the entrance spell. The entrancement lasts for 1D4 rounds and cannot be maintained longer than this, although the sorcerer may use the entrance spell on one of his victims while he is under the effect of terrible fascination. Dance of the Cobras Power Point Cost: 5 Components: S, M, F Casting Time: One full round Range: Evil Eye Target: One humanoid creature Duration: Concentration Saving Throw: See below Prerequisites: Perform (any musical instrument) 8 ranks, Ritual Sacrifice, must be a worshipper of Hanuman, entrance, telekinesis.
251 Sorcery Magic Attack Roll: Sets DC for the target’s saving throws or Perform checks The dance of the cobras is an extensive and elaborate but powerful ritual sacrifice that revolves around four preprepared, hypnotised snakes. Four jars containing the snakes are smashed about the target. In effect, the snakes are inside the target’s fivefoot square, though at the very corners of it. For the first 1d6 rounds, the target must make a Reflex saving throw each round or be bitten by one of the snakes, suffering the usual damage and poison effects for such a bite (see page 375). If he chooses to spend the whole of each round just dodging snakes (similar to a Total Defence action in combat) he gains a +4 circumstance bonus to his Reflex saving throws. Note that the snakes do not make normal attack rolls against the target; they are, after all, hypnotised and even at this stage there is a strange, rhythmic quality to their rapid, darting movements. However, if the target attempts to leave the square, all four snakes immediately make attacks as normal. They are assumed to have attacks readied for just such an eventuality. After the initial 1d6 rounds, the spell creates unearthly music sacred to the god Hanuman and the hypnotised snakes begin to dance. The target may either continue to make Reflex saving throws to avoid them, with a +2 synergy bonus if he has at least five ranks of Perform (dance) or he may instead simply make Perform (dance) checks at the same DC. If the victim dies from being bitten by the snakes, whether from direct damage or from poison, the sorcerer who cast the spell gains a number of benefits as follows: * Power points as though the target had been slain by the sorcerer. One Power Point is gained for every three of the target’s hit points, or one Power Point for every two of the target’s hit points if the target was a human female. * +2 morale bonus to all attack rolls and magic attack rolls for the next 24 hours. If the victim somehow escapes or is rescued, the sorcerer instead suffers a –1 morale penalty to Defence and all saving throws for the next day. Material Component: Four jade jars, worth at least 100 silver pieces each. With the snakes inside (see below), these must be balanced among the rafters of the room in which the spell is to be used or, if the sorcerer has greater telekinesis available, concealed somewhere in the room or about the person of the sorcerer. Focus: Four cobras, of at least Small size. These must somehow be placed in jars before the spell is cast. Domination Power Point Cost: 2 Components: V, S Casting Time: One standard action Range: Evil Eye Target: One humanoid who is already affected by your entrance spell Duration: Concentration Saving Throw: See below Prerequisites: Magic attack bonus +3, entrance. Magic Attack Roll: Sets DC for the target’s saving throw The sorcerer can control the actions of any humanoid that he has already entranced (see opposite). The sorcerer and his target must share a common language
252 Sorcery so the sorcerer can give instructions. Casting this spell ends the effects of the entrance spell, as domination immediately supersedes said spell. The target does not gain a saving throw to resist the domination except as follows: This spell can only affect a creature with 8 or fewer Hit Dice. Targets resist this control if forced to take actions against their nature. In this case they receive a Will saving throw with a bonus of +1 to +2, depending on the type of action required. Obviously self-destructive orders would be worth a +2 bonus. Among other uses of this spell, the sorcerer can cause the target to fall asleep, as well as remove short-term memories from the target (such as the memory of having seen the sorcerer in the first place). Once control is established, the range at which it can be exercised is unlimited but new orders can only be granted if the sorcerer is within shouting distance of the target (60 feet). Dread Serpent Power Point Cost: 3 Components: V, S, (F) Casting Time: One standard action Range: Evil Eye Target: One humanoid; usually one who is already affected by your entrance spell (but see below) Duration: One round Saving Throw: Will negates Prerequisites: Magic attack bonus +4, entrance. Magic Attack Roll: Sets DC for the target’s saving throw This spell creates an illusionary snake or similarly dread, poisonous creature from another object. The illusion affects only the target, with any other observers seeing clearly that the object remains as it really is. Dread serpent can be used in one of two modes: * Turn part of the target’s clothing into a serpent. In this case, you must entrance the target before the spell is cast. Casting this spell ends the effects of the entrance spell, as dread serpent immediately supersedes said spell; this means that if the dread serpent fails, the target is no longer entranced either. * Turn your own sorcerer’s staff into a serpent, which you hurl at the target’s feet. In this case the target must be within 20 feet of you, though you need not make an attack roll against him. The main advantage of this mode of the spell is that you need not have entranced the target before casting it. The target receives a Will saving throw. If he fails, he perceives the serpent biting him and dies at once. If he makes his saving throw, he perceives himself slaying the serpent and the object reverts to its original state. In either case, making the saving throw (and, in the target’s perception, fighting the snake) takes one round, during which time the target may not take any other actions and is at –2 to Defence due to distraction. Focus: For the second mode of operation, this spell requires you to be carrying a staff worth at least 50 silver pieces, though it can functionally be quite mundane. It could be simply an ornate or decorated quarterstaff, or some kind of magical staff if you are willing to fling said staff at the feet of an enemy. Hypnotic Suggestion Power Point Cost: 1 Components: V, S Casting Time: One standard action Range: Evil Eye Target: One living creature Duration: 10 minutes plus one minute/level, or until completed Saving Throw: Will negates Prerequisites: Magic attack bonus +2, entrance. Magic Attack Roll: Sets DC for the target’s saving throws The character influences the actions of the enchanted creature by suggesting a course of activity, limited to a sentence or two. The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the activity sound reasonable to the person. In effect, it can remove the influence of either the person’s conscious will or his unconscious desires so that he will perform the suggested course of action that reason or instinct might otherwise have prevented. This spell can only affect a creature that has 12 or fewer Hit Dice. The suggested course of activity continues for the entire duration of the spell. If the suggested activity can be completed in a shorter time, the spell ends when the subject finishes what he was asked to do. The character can instead specify conditions that will trigger a special activity
253 Sorcery during the duration of the spell. For example, the character might suggest that a noble knight give his warhorse to the first beggar he meets. If the condition is not met before the spell expires, the activity is not performed. A very reasonable suggestion causes the saving throw to be made with a penalty (such as –1, –2 or such like) at the discretion of the Games Master. Alternatively, the caster can suggest an illusion to the victim. This illusion cannot be damaging (dread serpent is required for that) but he could convince the victim that a blank scroll is actually a royal warrant or that the caster is actually dressed in rich robes, not rags. If the caster chooses to create an illusion, the victim’s will is not affected, just his senses. An unreasonable illusion (say, that a horde of barbarians has just charged into the inn) will be dismissed instantly as false by the victim – the spell is capable of only subtle illusions. Mass Hypnotic Suggestion Power Point Cost: 8 Components: V, S Casting Time: One standard action Range: Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level) Area: All creatures in a radius of 30 ft. + 5 ft. per level Duration: 10 minutes plus one minute/level, or until completed Saving Throw: Will negates Prerequisites: Magic attack bonus +5, entrance, hypnotic suggestion. Magic Attack Roll: Sets DC for the target’s saving throws As with hypnotic suggestion, except that the spell affects all creatures of 8 Hit Dice or below who can hear the sorcerer’s voice. Furthermore, the sorcerer is able to magically project his voice as though it were emanating from any point in the spell’s range. Any creature within the area is affected, unless they are deaf or have stopped their ears in advance. Stopping their ears ahead of time allows opponents to avoid having to make saving throws against sound-based spells. Stopping one’s ears is a full-round action and requires wax or other soundproof material to stuff into the ears. Ranged Hypnotism Power Point Cost: +4 points Components: As per original spell, plus M Casting Time: As per original spell, plus one full round Range: Long (400 ft. + 40 ft. per level) or Magical Link Target: As per original spell Duration: As per original spell Saving Throw: As per original spell Prerequisites: Magic attack bonus +5, entrance, hypnotic suggestion. Magic Attack Roll: As per original spell A hypnotist of sufficient power can expend a vast amount of energy to hypnotise someone at a distance. The victim must either be within line of sight, or connected to the sorcerer via a magical link (see page 237). Any of the standard hypnotism spells can be made ranged with this spell. The components are as for the original spell, except as follows: Material Component: In addition to any material components required by the original spell, ranged hypnotism requires various herbal powders to a total cost of 100 silver pieces. Savage Beast Power Point Cost: 4 Components: V, S Casting Time: One standard action Range: Evil Eye Target: One living creature, plus see below Duration: One round/level, plus see below Saving Throw: Will negates Prerequisites: Magic attack bonus +3, entrance, hypnotic suggestion. Magic Attack Roll: Sets DC for the target’s saving throws This spell turns an ordinary animal into a ravening and berserk monster, very difficult to kill and very dangerous to fight. The creature resembles a rabid animal when affected by the spell. This spell can only affect a creature that has 16 or fewer Hit Dice. The target is affected as though it was in a state of fighting-madness, as if it had the Fighting-Madness feat (see page 126). The target also gains the benefits of the Diehard feat. The sorcerer can specify an enemy or group of enemies within the target’s line of sight. The creature will move as rapidly as
254 Sorcery possible towards them and attack them ferociously. If no enemy or enemies are specified, it will simply attack the closest living creature to it. In addition, the target’s bite attack, if any, has the side effect of ‘transmitting’ the spell to any creature damaged by the bite. This acts in every way as though the creature damaged had the spell cast on it by the same sorcerer that cast it on the original target, though this creature is not affected until 2d10 rounds after being bitten. Nature Magic Nature magic affects or summons plants and animals. It is commonly found among witches, wise women and shamans, since it is relatively simple to learn and highly effective in the wilderness or rural environments favoured by such scholars. Summon Beast (Basic Nature Magic) Power Point Cost: 1+ Components: V, S, F, XP Casting Time: One standard action Range: One mile/level Target: One animal that can be found in the local environment Duration: One minute/level, plus see below Saving Throw: Will partial (see below) Prerequisite: Knowledge (nature) 4 ranks. Magic Attack Roll: Sets DC for the target’s saving throw This spell summons a creature of the animal subtype, up to Medium-size, to serve the sorcerer. The Power Point cost is one for an animal of Small size or smaller and two for a Medium-size animal. The sorcerer may specify the animal he wishes to summon. If that animal is not found within one mile, he may specify an alternate animal but this will take another action and require a different focus (see below). He may keep specifying alternate animals until he finds one that is within a mile. The Power Point cost is always paid for the animal that is actually summoned, regardless of whether that animal is the sorcerer’s first choice. The animal will serve the sorcerer without question, including by attacking his enemies. However, summoned creatures may become uncontrolled if they sustain damage. At the end of any round during which a summoned creature is dealt damage, it must make a Will saving throw (DC = 10 + damage sustained that round). Failure indicates that the creature’s pain overcomes its desire to serve the sorcerer and it flees from the damage-dealing source as rapidly as possible. For some reason, any animal summoned by a Pictish sorcerer has a pale, almost ghostly appearance. This has no particular game effect but simply appears to be a peculiarity of the Pictish style of sorcery. Focus: A small image or carving of the animal to be summoned. This can be re-used on a later occasion. Experience Point cost: 25 XP (50 XP for a Medium-size creature). Greater Summon Beast Power Point Cost: 4+ Components: V, S, F, XP Casting Time: One standard action Range: One mile/level Target: One animal that can be found in the local environment Duration: One minute/level, plus see below Saving Throw: Will partial Prerequisites: Knowledge (nature) 5 ranks, summon beast. Magic Attack Roll: Sets DC for the target’s saving throw As for summon beast, except that an animal of up to Huge size can be summoned. The Power Point cost is four points for a Large creature, or eight points for a Huge creature. Experience point cost: 100 XP (200 XP for a Huge creature) Animal Intercessor (Defensive Blast) Power Point Cost: All remaining points Components: V Casting Time: Immediate Range: One mile/level Target: One animal that can be found in the local environment Duration: One round Saving Throw: None
255 Sorcery This spell summons an animal from nearby, which arrives instantly to defend the caster from an attacker. The animal immediately makes a Reflex save against the attacker’s Attack Roll. If the saving throw is successful, the animal places itself between the blow and the sorcerer and takes the damage instead. Regardless of whether or not the animal is struck, it makes one charge attack against the attacker before leaving. If the caster expends fewer than four Power Points, he summons a Medium creature. If the caster expends between four and eight Power Points, he summons a Large creature. If the caster expends more than eight Power Points, he summons a Huge creature. The animal will make one attack on the caster’s foe, then leave unless it is attacked again. The animal comes thundering out of the jungle or swooping out of the sky to protect the sorcerer for an instant; then it leaves. If the animal is large enough to carry or be ridden by the sorcerer, he may make a Reflex save (DC 15) to mount the animal as it leaves. Animal Ally Power Point Cost: 6 Components: V, S, M, XP Casting Time: One day Range: One mile/level Target: One animal that can be found in the local environment Duration: Instantaneous Saving Throw: Will negates Prerequisites: Knowledge (nature) 6 ranks, summon beast. Magic Attack Roll: Sets DC for the target’s saving throw The sorcerer gains an animal ally selected from the following list: badger, camel, dog, war dog, eagle, hawk, horse (any), owl, scorpion, snake (any of Medium size or smaller) or wolf. This animal is a loyal companion that accompanies the sorcerer on his adventures as appropriate for its kind. A 1st level caster’s ally is completely typical for its kind except as noted below. As a scholar advances in level, the animal’s power increases as shown on the table. If this spell is cast while the sorcerer already has an animal ally acquired by use of animal ally, the previous ally, if still alive, is released from service. A sorcerer of 6th level or higher may select from alternative lists of animals (see below). Should he select an animal ally from one of these alternative lists, the creature gains abilities as if the character’s level were lower than it actually is. Subtract the value indicated in the appropriate list from the character’s level and compare the result with the level entry on the table to determine the animal ally’s powers. If this adjustment would reduce the scholar’s effective level to zero or lower, he cannot have that animal as an ally. An animal ally is different from a normal animal of its kind in many ways. The ally is treated as a magical beast, not an animal, though it retains an animal’s HD, base attack bonus, saving throws, Skill Points and feats. It is superior to a normal animal of its kind and has special powers, as described below: Animal Ally Basics: Use the base statistics for a creature of the ally’s kind but make the following changes: Class Level: The character’s level. Bonus HD: Extra eight-sided (d8) Hit Dice, each of which gains a Constitution modifier as normal. Remember that extra Hit Dice improve the animal ally’s base attack, dodge and saving throw bonuses. An animal ally has good Fortitude, Will and Reflex saving throws; treat it as a character whose level equals the animal’s HD. It gains +1 base attack bonus per Hit Die and +1 base dodge bonus for every two Hit Dice. An animal ally gains additional Skill Points and feats for bonus HD as normal for advancing a monster’s Hit Dice. Natural DR Adj.: The number noted here is an improvement to the animal ally’s existing natural damage reduction. Str/Dex Adj.: Add this value to the animal ally’s Strength and Dexterity scores. Bonus Tricks: The value given in this column is the total number of ‘bonus’ tricks that the animal knows in addition to any that the sorcerer might choose to teach it (see page 104). These bonus tricks do not require any training time or Handle Animal checks and they do not count against the normal number of tricks known by the animal. The sorcerer selects these bonus tricks; once selected, they cannot be changed. Link: A sorcerer can handle his animal ally as a free action or push it as a move action, even if he does not have any ranks in the Handle Animal skill. The sorcerer gains a +4 circumstance bonus on all Ride and Handle Animal checks made regarding an animal ally.
256 Sorcery Evasion: If an animal ally is subjected to an attack that normally allows a Reflex saving throw for half damage, it takes no damage if it makes a successful saving throw. Devotion: An animal ally gains a +4 morale bonus on Will saving throws against hypnotism spells and effects. Multiattack: An animal ally gains Multiattack as a bonus feat if it has three or more natural attacks and does not already have that feat. If it does not have the requisite three or more natural attacks, the animal ally instead gains a second attack with its primary natural weapon, albeit at a –5 penalty. Improved Evasion: When subjected to an attack that normally allows a Reflex saving throw for half damage, an animal ally takes no damage if it makes a successful saving throw and only half damage if the saving throw fails. Alternative Animal Allies: A scholar of sufficiently high level can select his animal ally from one of the following lists, applying the indicated adjustment to his level (in parentheses) for purposes of determining the ally’s characteristics and special abilities. 6th Level or Higher (Level –3) Aurochs Ape Boar Panther Monitor Lizard Snake, Large Viper 12th Level or Higher (Level –9) Ghost Snake Lesser Son of Set 9th Level or Higher (Level –6) Bear Lion Rhinoceros Sabre-Tooth Snake, Huge Viper 15th Level or Higher (Level –12) Elephant Animal Allies Animal Allies Sorcerer Level Bonus HD Natural DR Adj. Str/Dex Adj. Bonus Tricks Special 3rd–5th +2 +1 +1 1 Link 6th–8th +4 +2 +2 2 Evasion 9th–11th +6 +3 +3 3 Devotion 12th–14th +8 +4 +4 4 Multiattack 15th–17th +10 +5 +5 5 18th–20th +12 +6 +6 6 Improved Evasion
257 Sorcery Material Component: A small image or carving of the animal to be allied with, plus 100 silver pieces worth of incense and herbs. Experience Point cost: 150 XP Children of the Night Power Point Cost: 1/raven Components: V, S, F Casting Time: One full round Range: One mile/level Target: One creature whose name or description is known to you, or to whom you have a magical link Duration: One hour/level Saving Throw: None Prerequisites: Knowledge (nature) 8 ranks, summon beast. Children of the night is designed as a tracking spell. It conjures up a semi-corporeal, supernatural raven to hover directly above the target’s location, loudly squawking and drawing attention to him. If the target is more than a mile away from the sorcerer, further raven-things appear and hover in the air directly between the sorcerer and the first raven at intervals of one mile. Each raven beyond the first costs an additional Power Point but appears automatically without the sorcerer needing to recast the spell or take any other action. The sorcerer can end the spell at any time rather than spend the extra Power Point needed to produce another raven. The ravens always hover some 500 feet up, so as to be highly visible to the sorcerer but difficult to shoot down with ranged weapons; assume range increments for all weapons are halved when shooting directly upwards. The ravens have a Dodge Defence of 14 and have one hit point each but any raven that is slain is immediately replaced, at a cost of one Power Point as usual. It is possible for a target to end this spell by shooting down ravens but only by causing the sorcerer to run out of Power Points or by shooting down so many ravens that he chooses to end the spell anyway. The target must be known to the sorcerer either by name or description, so there is some way for the magic of the spell to find him. Alternatively, a magical link to the target (see page 237) will do just as well. Focus: A small image or carving of a raven. This can be reused on a later occasion. Sorcerous Garden Power Point Cost: 2 Components: V, S, M Casting Time: One action Range: See below Area: See below Duration: Instantaneous Saving Throw: None Prerequisites: Craft (herbalism) 12 ranks, Knowledge (nature) 10 ranks, summon beast. This spell enables the sorcerer to cultivate magical plant creatures or to grow a number of more ordinary plants rapidly. It has different effects depending on the version chosen. Overgrowth: This effect causes normal vegetation (grasses, briars, bushes, creepers, thistles, trees, vines) within long range (400 feet + 40 feet per level) to become thick and overgrown. The plants entwine to form a thicket or jungle that creatures must hack or force a way through. Speed drops to 5 feet, or 10 feet for Large or larger creatures. The area must have brush and trees in it for this spell to take effect. You may designate places within the area that are not affected. Enrichment: This effect targets plants within a range of one-half mile, raising their potential productivity over the course of the next year to one-third above normal. Magical Plant: This effect allows you to grow one or more plant creatures from seed or seedlings to full adult size rapidly. You can cause them to grow to a total size of up to one Hit Die per caster level. For example, a 15th level scholar could grow a single 15 HD yothga, or fifteen 1 HD black lotus blossoms. Each plant grows at a speed of one HD per round. Thus, in the above example the yothga would take fifteen rounds to reach its full 15 HD size but the black lotus blossoms would all grow to full one HD size within one round. Material Component: Various special fertilisers and plant foods costing at least 40 silver pieces.
258 Sorcery Spirit of the Land Power Point Cost: 4 Components: V, S Casting Time: 10 minutes Range: 10 miles/level Duration: 10 minutes/level Prerequisites: Knowledge (nature) 5 ranks, summon beast. By means of this spell, the caster projects his mind into the land around him. If in a forest, he becomes the trees and the small animals and the vermin. If in a desert, he becomes the sandstorm and the circling vultures. The caster can perceive what animals are within the area of effect; he can also dimly sense the presence of men but cannot see who they are or learn much more than their race and rough numbers. The caster also becomes aware of large-scale events, changes or unusual things like a forest fire, a raging battle or the location of a large structure like a castle in the depths of the forest. While this spell is in effect the sorcerer’s body is comatose and helpless as his mind wanders the land all around. He is aware of its location and if it suffers harm, but no more. He may return his mind to his body as an immediate action at any time. Command Weather Power Point Cost: 8 Components: V, S Casting Time: 10 minutes Range: 10 miles/level Duration: 1d4 hours Prerequisites: Knowledge (nature) 10 ranks, spirit of the land. This spell allows the caster to control the weather in the surrounding area. He can summon up snowstorms or howling winds, quell the raging seas or pour so much rain into a river that it bursts its banks and floods a town. The caster cannot call up any weather that is outside the possible range for a region in the current season; for example, he cannot create a snowstorm in the desert or at the height of summer. Necromancy The scholar who learns necromancy achieves limited mastery over the very mysteries of life and death. This is especially popular for those who wish to slay their enemies outright, rather than merely harming or inconveniencing them. Raise Corpse (Basic Necromancy) Power Point Cost: 1/corpse Components: V, S Casting Time: One standard action Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft. per two levels) Target: Up to one corpse/level Duration: Concentration + 1d6 rounds Saving Throw: See below Prerequisite: Magic attack bonus +2. This spell turns the bodies of dead creatures into undead zombies that follow the sorcerer’s spoken commands. The zombies can follow the sorcerer, remain in an area and attack any creature (or just a specific type of creature) that enters the place or perform simple actions according to the sorcerer’s commands. The zombies remain animated until they are destroyed. A destroyed zombie may not be animated again. The zombies the sorcerer creates remain under his control for the duration of the spell. At the expiry of the spell, they become simple corpses once more, falling in lifeless heaps wherever they stand. A zombie can be created only from the mostly intact corpse of a humanoid or animal and its statistics depend more upon the corpse it was created from than any abilities it had in life. See page 387 for details on the risen dead. Afari shuddered visibly. ‘How can a common man lie to that black devil? His eyes are like coals of red fire that look into depths unnameable. I have seen him make corpses rise and walk, and skulls champ and grind their naked jaws.’ – The Snout in the Dark
259 Sorcery Chill of the Grave (Defensive Blast) Power Point Cost: All remaining points Components: V Casting Time: Immediate Range: Personal Area: 10 foot radius around the sorcerer Duration: Instantaneous Saving Throw: Fortitude half Magic Attack Roll: Sets DC for the victims’ saving throw All those within 10 feet of the sorcerer take 1d6 cold damage for every Power Point expended in the casting of this spell. A successful Fortitude save (DC = the result of the sorcerer’s magic attack roll) means the victim takes half damage. The sorcerer himself is immune to the defensive blast, as are zombies and other undead creatures. The Dead Speak Power Point Cost: 1/corpse Components: V, S Casting Time: One standard action Range: Touch Target: One corpse Duration: Concentration + 1d6 rounds Saving Throw: See below Prerequisites: Scholar level 4, raise corpse. The necromancer forces a semblance of life back into a corpse or at least a head. The animated horror can speak and think and see as it did in life, assuming it still has the necessary body parts to do so (a severed head can still speak if it has a tongue and jaw and see if it has eyes). The spark of life lasts only a few moments but this may be long enough to interrogate a fallen guard or mock a defeated foe one last time. Agonising Doom Power Point Cost: 4/target Components: V, S Casting Time: One full round Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft. per two levels) Target: One or more creatures, up to a maximum of one creature/two levels Duration: 1d6 rounds Saving Throw: Fort negates and see below Prerequisites: Magic attack bonus +6, raise corpse, death touch. Magic Attack Roll: Sets DC for the targets’ saving throws Black tendrils of power shoot out from the sorcerer’s hands, slaying his enemies agonisingly and rapidly. This spell only affects creatures with fewer than 8 HD. The targets must all make Fortitude saving throws, with success completely negating the effects of the spell. A character who fails his saving throw begins to lose 4d6 hit points per round. Furthermore, he is in such extreme pain that he must make a Will saving throw on any round in which he wishes to act. Success means he may take either a move action or a standard action but not both; failure means he may not do anything that round other than lie prone in agony. Black Plague Power Point Cost: 20 Components: V, S, M Casting Time: One day Range: One mile per level Area: One mile radius per level, or 10 foot radius per level; see below
260 Sorcery Duration: One week/level Saving Throw: Fortitude negates Prerequisites: Magic attack bonus +7, raise corpse. This is a dreadful spell capable of driving hundreds or even thousands of victims to horrible, tormented deaths. It creates a great wind propelling a foul, stinking miasma which can strike down all within its path. The effects of this spell closely resemble a disease, though in fact sorcery is responsible for the victims’ demise. The black plague has two different forms: one is designed to strike terror into a population, the other is designed to wipe out the sorcerer’s enemies wholesale. In either case, once the plague strikes, it is rapid and lethal from its onset to the victims’ death a few minutes later. A Fortitude saving throw (DC 17) must be made. Failure causes the targets 1d4 Constitution damage and turns their bodies purple. After 3d6 minutes they take another 1d4 Con damage and their bodies turn black. From that point onwards, they are dealt a further 1d4 Con damage per minute until they are dead. The first form of black plague affects a random scattering of individual humans throughout the area of its effect (which is one mile radius per level) at a rate of one per the sorcerer’s level per day. The sorcerer may not specify which individuals are affected in this way. This form of black plague tends to significantly demoralise the population through which it is sweeping, for they can see no comprehensible reason for its spread. This is likely to have a number of effects at the Games Master’s discretion, including disruption to the area’s economy, widespread looting or other lawlessness and an unwillingness among the population to become involved with other issues (such as fighting a war) until the problem of the plague is resolved. A further side-effect of this form is that it gives the sorcerer a +4 bonus on any Bluff, Diplomacy or Intimidate checks he makes to deliver news by the greater sorcerous news spell (see page 248), so long as he can plausibly tie in the effects of the plague with the message he is attempting to communicate. This will usually be most effective if he is able to present the plague as a divine punishment or warning of some kind. The devastation that this form of black plague inflicts on the community is further heightened by the scorching, blasting effects of the wind that drives the disease-ridden miasma. This wind blasts corn in the fields and fruit in the trees alike, withering plants and slaying animals. The precise effects of this on crop plants are up to the Games Master but if nothing else all creatures of the animal subtype within the area of effect must make Fortitude saving throws just as the small number of humans did, or die themselves. In the often shaky economies of many Hyborian nations, such loss of food crops and animals can weaken or destroy entire communities even more effectively than the direct effects of the plague. The second form of the spell is much more extreme in its devastation of humans but affects only a small area and has no effect on animals or plants. All humans within the specified area (a 10 foot radius per level of the sorcerer) must make Fortitude saving throws (DC 17) or die as above. A successful saving throw protects them for a week, but if they re-enter the area after that they must save again. Furthermore, with this version of the spell, the sorcerer may concentrate to move the area of effect at a speed of up to four miles per hour. This requires almost all the sorcerer’s attention, as is usual for a concentration type effect; also, Concentration checks may need to be made if he is attacked or otherwise distracted while moving the area of effect. Note that the plague is not actually contagious in either version. The plague will last for the entire duration of the spell. The only way for the sorcerer or anyone else to end it prematurely is by somehow taking control of the weather in the area and sweeping away the miasma with a great storm. Unlike with true diseases, conventional physicians using the Heal skill cannot alleviate the plague, though certain spells and magical objects may be useful for this. Material Component: Essences collected from certain tombs in Stygia, to a value of 1,500 silver pieces. Greater Black Plague Power Point Cost: 15 Components: V, S, M Casting Time: One hour Range: Magical Link Target: Up to one creature per three levels Duration: Instantaneous Saving Throw: Fortitude negates
261 Sorcery Prerequisites: Magic attack bonus +8, black plague, raise corpse. Magic Attack Roll: Sets DC for the targets’ saving throws This enhancement to black plague allows the sorcerer to target specific individuals, making it an ideal tool for magical assassination. It can only be cast while a standard black plague cast by the sorcerer is already in operation and can only affect targets within that spell’s area of effect. Those targets must immediately make Fortitude saving throws as usual for black plague, except that the DC is set by the sorcerer’s magic attack roll. These saving throws are in addition to any saving throws the victims may have already had to make for the black plague spell. Death Touch Power Point Cost: 2/touch Components: V, S Casting Time: One standard action Range: Touch Target: One or more creatures touched, up to a maximum of one creature/level Duration: One round/level Saving Throw: Fortitude partial Prerequisites: Magic attack bonus +5, raise corpse. Magic Attack Roll: Sets DC for the targets’ saving throws Any creature touched by a sorcerer’s unarmed touch attack while death touch is active die instantly. A target is entitled to attempt a Fortitude saving throw to resist the effect. If successful, he is instead stunned for one round. A stunned character may not act, nor may he use Dodge Defence or Parry Defence. Attackers get a +2 bonus on attack rolls against a stunned opponent. Each sorcerer or sect has its own variant of this spell, differing only in the details. For example, the version used by the Priests of Set causes the sorcerer’s hand to turn completely black and is known as the Black Hand of Set. Anyone slain with it has a black handprint burned on to his body with a cold, deathly fire. By contrast, Khitan sorcerers (who often wield a Staff of Death to deliver their death touches) turn the whole of an enemy corpse completely black when using this spell. The Games Master and players are encouraged to devise their own ‘signature’ effects when casting death touch. Draw Forth the Heart Power Point Cost: 7 Components: S Casting Time: One standard action Range: Evil Eye Target: One creature Duration: Instantaneous Saving Throw: Fortitude partial Prerequisites: Ritual Sacrifice, Opportunistic Sacrifice, Tormented Sacrifice, magic attack bonus +7, raise corpse, death touch, agonising doom, conjuring, telekinesis. Magic Attack Roll: Sets DC for the target’s saving throw This powerful spell can both dispose of an enemy and allow the sorcerer to recoup some or all of the Power Points used to cast it, with perhaps a few more besides if the victim was sufficiently tough. If the target fails his saving throw, he dies, his heart pulled out of his body and into your hands by a magical force. The process is so painful to him that although he dies within moments, you immediately gain Power Points as though you had sacrificed him with the Tormented Sacrifice feat after torturing him for fifteen minutes. A target who makes his saving throw suffers an effect similar to a mild heart attack and is dealt 4d6 damage. He may only perform either a move action or standard action on his next turn.
262 Sorcery Oriental Magic Oriental magic is most commonly found in Khitai, Vendhya and the Himelias, though oriental sorcerers do travel the world like all their kind. Generally, the Games Master should not overly restrict characters from non-oriental cultures from selecting Oriental Magic as a sorcery style, though in most cases they will need to learn it from another adept or demon or be a member of one of the oriental religions such as Asura, rather than research it independently. A character who does research it independently will likely need to travel to Khitai or similarly far afield to do so. Calm of the Adept (Basic Oriental Magic) Power Point Cost: 2 Components: V, S Casting Time: Three hours Range: Personal Target: Self Duration: 24 hours Prerequisite: Wis 13. By spending much of each morning in meditation, you are able to significantly enhance your mind, body and spirit for the remainder of the day. You gain a +2 enhancement bonus to Dexterity, Wisdom and Charisma for the duration of the spell. Furthermore, you gain a +2 bonus on any Will saves made to resist spells of the Hypnotism school or similar mesmeric effects. Vanish (Defensive Blast) Power Point Cost: All remaining points Components: V Casting Time: Immediate Range: Personal Target: Self Duration: One round Saving Throw: None Roll 1d6 for every Power Point expended when this spell is cast. If the total is greater than the damage inflicted by the attack which provoked the defensive blast, the sorcerer takes no damage. Instead, the sorcerer vanishes from the scene, leaving only his outer robes behind, which crumple to a heap where he was standing. The sorcerer reappears in a place chosen by the Games Master – normally a nearby sanctum, temple or garden or other tranquil, safe place. The sorcerer has no control over where he reappears. Darting Serpent Power Point Cost: 2+ Components: V, S Casting Time: One standard action Range: Personal Target: Self Duration: One round/level Prerequisites: Scholar level 3, calm of the adept. For every two Power Points expended, you gain a +2 bonus to your Dexterity and an additional +1 enhancement bonus to all Initiative checks. You may expend up to two Power Points per level. If you use this spell during combat, your initiative score is adjusted by +1 per two Power Points you expended from the next round onwards. When the spell expires your initiative returns to its previous score. Willow Dance Power Point Cost: 2+ Components: S Casting Time: One standard action Range: Personal Target: Self Duration: One round/level Prerequisites: Scholar level 3, calm of the adept. For every two Power Points expended, you may increase your base movement by five feet and gain a +2 bonus to Balance and Jump checks. You may expend up to two Power Point per level. Shape-Shifter Power Point Cost: 10 Components: V, S, M Casting Time: One full round Range: Personal Target: Self Duration: 10 minutes/level Prerequisites: Scholar level 12, calm of the adept. This spell enables you to assume the form of any single non-unique animal (any creature of the animal type) from Fine to Colossal size. The assumed form cannot have more than twice your scholar level in Hit Dice (to a maximum of 40 HD).
263 Sorcery Your creature type and subtype (if any) change to match the new form. You gain the Strength, Dexterity and Constitution scores of the new form but retain your own Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma scores. You gain all the non-supernatural abilities (both attacks and qualities) of the assumed form but lose your own ability to cast spells. The new form does not disorient you. Parts of your body or pieces of equipment that are separated from you do not revert to their original forms. While you are in your new form, you can heal up to one hit point of damage per scholar level by spending one minute resting. You can become just about anything you are familiar with. You can change form a number of times equal to your scholar level during the spell’s duration, with each change of form being a full-round action. If slain, you revert to your original form, though you remain dead. Material Component: Assorted gems worth at least 500 silver pieces. Warrior Trance Power Point Cost: 6 Components: V, S Casting Time: One standard action Range: Personal Target: Self Duration: One round/level Prerequisites: Scholar level 3, calm of the adept. Warrior trance gives one of the sorcerer’s natural weapons a +2 enhancement bonus to attack and damage rolls and gives the caster a +2 dodge bonus to Dodge Defence. The spell can affect a slam attack, fist, bite or other natural weapon. This spell does not change an unarmed strike’s damage from nonlethal damage to normal damage. The dodge bonus and enhancement bonus are increased to +3 if the sorcerer is 6th level or higher and by another +1 each three levels thereafter. Yimsha’s Carpet Power Point Cost: 20 Components: V, S, M Casting Time: One full round Range: Personal Area: Up to one foot radius per level Duration: One minute/level (D) Saving Throw: Fortitude partial Prerequisites: Scholar level 14, calm of the adept, summon elemental. Magic Attack Roll: Sets DC for the victims’ saving throws Yimsha’s carpet is a supernatural cloud of gold-veined crimson that can transport, conceal and protect its occupants. It may also be used as an offensive weapon against the sorcerer’s enemies. Powered by elemental energies, it extends outwards from the sorcerer like a vast crimson aura. The cloud has four effects: concealment, protection, transport and stunning. Concealment – the cloud grants concealment (see page 197). The sorcerer who created the cloud can see through this concealment normally but any other occupants of the cloud cannot. If there are more than five feet of cloud between two occupants, the concealment is total. Protection – solid objects such as weapons have difficulty penetrating the cloud from without, giving the occupants an effective damage reduction of 4 against any attack that originates outside the cloud. This stacks with other forms of damage reduction normally. Attacks may be made out of or within the cloud without hindrance. Transport – by concentrating, the sorcerer who cast the spell can make Yimsha’s carpet fly with perfect manoeuvrability at the stately speed of 20 feet per The scimitar-like beak was slashing for the Devi’s soft neck, but Conan was quicker--a short run, a tigerish leap, the savage thrust of a dripping knife, and the vulture voiced a horribly human cry, pitched sideways and went tumbling down the cliffs to the rocks and river a thousand feet below. As it dropped, its black wings thrashing the air, it took on the semblance, not of a bird, but of a black-robed human body that fell, arms in wide black sleeves thrown abroad. – The People of the Black Circle
264 Sorcery round. The sorcerer is automatically carried by the carpet, and he may bring along any number of passengers that fit entirely within its boundaries. If the sorcerer ceases concentrating the cloud continues to hover in place and support passengers, but moves no further. Stunning – living things that enter the cloud must make a Fortitude saving throw or be dealt 1d6 nonlethal damage per two levels of the casting sorcerer and be stunned for 1d6 rounds. A stunned character may not act and cannot use Dodge Defence or Parry Defence; attackers get a +2 bonus on attack rolls against a stunned opponent. A success on the saving throw halves the damage and means the creature is only dazed, not stunned. A character may only be affected once by each casting of Yimsha’s carpet. The sorcerer who created the cloud may freely chose which creatures within the area of effect are friends and which are foes. Friends are protected, concealed and transported by the cloud and are immune to its stunning and damaging effects. Foes gain the effects of protection from outside attacks and benefit from concealment while within the cloud, but are not transported by it and must content with its stunning and damaging effects. The sorcerer can ‘switch on’ and ‘switch off’ the cloud as a free action up to once per round during its duration. While switched off the cloud has no effects at all but any rounds it is switched off still count towards the duration. Material Component: Gold dust and herbal smoke-powders to a total value of 850 silver pieces. Prestidigitation Prestidigitation is often one of the first sorcerous paths a scholar learns, since it allows the production of more or less immediate magical effects with which to impress or terrify ordinary folk. Conjuring (Basic Prestidigitation) Power Point Cost: 1 Components: S Casting Time: One standard action Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft. per two levels) Effect: See below Duration: Concentration Saving Throw: None Prerequisite: Sleight of Hand 4 ranks. This spell allows the sorcerer to do minor acts of prestidigitation or illusion at a cost of one Power Point for each effect. Examples include suspending objects in midair or causing his eyes to glow red. The following effects are all possible uses of this sorcery style: * Telekinetically move a small, unattended object (weighing up to five pounds), so long as it remains within the spell’s range. The object can be moved at up to 20 feet per round. * Place a small object (weighing up to 10 pounds) from your hands into midair and have it remain there suspended, so long as you remain within the spell’s range. Note that in this case you cannot move the object. If you deliberately end the spell, you may spend one round concentrating on lowering the object gently to the ground. If your concentration is broken, the object simply falls to the ground with a crash. * Telekinetically guide a cloud of smoke or gas up to 5 feet by 5 feet by 5 feet in size. This could include a venomous gas cloud or similar herbal or alchemical product. The smoke can be moved at up to 10 feet per round. * Control a normal shadow up to 5 feet by 5 feet in size as though it were a puppet, potentially altering its shape and size as well as causing it to perform certain actions. * Alter your appearance in one minor way. This is not sufficient to provide an effective disguise but if desired you could use it to gain a +4 circumstance bonus to Intimidate checks. Examples include growing horns, causing your eyes to appear reptilian and similar effects. This cannot grant you any bonuses to combat – horns or claws, for example, do not allow you to make any special attacks. Conan spat savagely at the word, and Xaltotun, ignoring his fury, took a crystal globe from a near-by table and placed it before him. He did not support it in any way, nor place it on anything, but it hung motionless in midair, as solidly as if it rested on an iron pedestal. – The Hour of the Dragon
265 Sorcery * Open or close a container or door at a distance. The object to be opened or closed must not be locked, barred, jammed or any larger or heavier than a standard, human-built door or chest. * Colour, clean or soil objects (but not creatures) in a one-foot cube each round. For example, the sorcerer could turn a rose from white to red, or make a little whirlwind to sweep dust under a rug. * Chill, warm or fl avour one pound of nonliving material. This could be used to make a cheap meal more palatable or chill an expensive wine before serving. Blast Wave (Defensive Blast) Power Point Cost: All remaining points Components: V Casting Time: Immediate Range: Personal Area: A 10 foot radius around the sorcerer Duration: Instantaneous Saving Throw: Reflex half Magic Attack Roll: Sets DC of the victims’ saving throws When this spell is cast, all characters within 10 feet of the caster are struck by an invisible wave of force. The characters are hurled back 1d6 feet for every Power Point expended when the spell is cast and take normal falling damage (1d6 point of damage per 10 feet fallen). This damage is doubled if the victims hit a wall or other barrier. Victims are hurled straight back away from the caster. A successful Reflex save (DC equals the caster’s magic attack roll) means that the victims are only thrown half as far. Burst Barrier Power Point Cost: 2 Components: S Casting Time: One standard action Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft. per two levels) Target: One door, portcullis, wall, chest or other barrier Duration: Instantaneous Saving Throw: None Prerequisites: Scholar level 3, conjuring. The sorcerer creates a surge of magical force, as though a giant had shoulder-charged some barrier or other object that for some reason merits the sorcerer’s displeasure. He makes a Strength check as though the object had been hit by a Huge creature (+8 size bonus to Strength checks) with a Strength equal to the sorcerer’s level × 5. Note that unlike a more physical attempt to break or burst an object, the magical force created by this spell is entirely silent. As a useful side effect, the spell also silences any noises that would usually caused by its action. Even if the door falls to the ground, completely torn asunder from its hinges, no noise will be created. Conjure Item Power Point Cost: 1+ Components: S Casting Time: One standard action Range: Touch Effect: See below Duration: 1d6 hours Saving Throw: None Magic Attack Roll: Sets Appraise DC Prerequisite: Conjuring. By means of this spell, the sorcerer can conjure up any simple, common item that he could fit in his pocket or bag, up to a maximum size of a one-handed weapon. The spell costs one Power Point for tiny items like daggers or keys; larger items like swords or helmets cost more points. He cannot create true gold or other precious metals or gemstones with the spell but he can make false valuables. An Appraise roll against a DC equal to the sorcerer’s magic attack roll can be made to identify such conjured items. The sorcerer must be able to precisely visualise the item he desires. When the spell expires, the item is revealed to be what it truly is – twigs, folded paper, rusted scraps of metal or a handful of dust given shape by sorcery. Telekinesis Power Point Cost: 1 Components: S Casting Time: One standard action Range: 120 ft Effect: One object touched Duration: Instantaneous Saving Throw: Special (see below) Prerequisites: Scholar level 3, Sleight of Hand 5 ranks, conjuring. The sorcerer can hurl an object from his hand at an opponent, expending personal sorcerous power to do so. Objects which can be thrown in this manner include all the herbal and alchemical items marked by an asterisk (*) later in this chapter, as well as such items as rocks, weapons and so on.
266 Sorcery The sorcerer must make a ranged attack roll as normal to hit his target. The main advantage of telekinesis over simply throwing the object by hand is its increased accuracy, particularly at range. An object can be hurled up to 120 feet and is never affected by range penalties. Most objects will deal either their standard weapon damage or improvised weapon damage appropriate to their size and composition. Herbal or alchemical items will have their standard effects and may or may not require saving throws depending on the item. Greater Telekinesis Power Point Cost: 1/object Components: S Casting Time: One standard action Range: 120 ft Effect: Up to one object/level within Close range (25 ft. + 5 ft. per two levels) Duration: Instantaneous Saving Throw: Special Prerequisites: Scholar level 3, Bluff 6 ranks, Sleight of Hand 6 ranks, prestidigitation, telekinesis. This works like telekinesis, except as indicated above. Most notably the sorcerer may throw more than one object and he need not be touching the objects he hurls. Each object may have a separate target if the sorcerer so wishes. The sorcerer may also use greater telekinesis in a manner known as ‘hidden death’. When using hidden death, the sorcerer can affect a maximum of two objects which must both be on the sorcerer’s person. He may draw and throw them both as part of the standard action taken to cast the spell, hurling one from each hand (and at separate targets if he wishes). If he succeeds in a Bluff check opposed by his target’s Sense Motive check, the target loses any dodge or Dexterity bonuses to his Dodge Defence. Otherwise, hidden death follows all the normal rules for telekinesis attacks. Deflection Power Point Cost: 2 Components: V, S Casting Time: Immediate or one standard action Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft. per two levels) Target: One attack Duration: Instantaneous Prerequisites: Scholar level 3, prestidigitation. Magic Attack Roll: Becomes Parry Defence By means of this spell, the sorcerer can deflect incoming blows. The spell can be cast in two ways: as an immediate action to deflect a blow aimed at the sorcerer; or as a standard action (normally a readied action), in which case it can be used against any blow that falls within range regardless of target. In either form the spell is cast after the attack roll is compared to the target’s chosen Defence. The sorcerer’s magic attack roll for this spell effectively functions as an extra Parry, deflecting the blow if the magic attack roll is higher than the attack roll. This spell can be used to parry ranged attacks. Summoning Perhaps the gateway to the greatest magical power is through summoning otherworldly entities to do one’s bidding. Demonic pacts in particular can offer the sorcerer almost unlimited power but only at the most dreadful price: the corruption of his very soul. The Summoning sorcery style is unusual in that it offers a choice of two basic spells: master-words and signs and demonic pact. Put simply, the essential difference between these two spells is that master-words and signs compels a demon to work for you and demonic pact involves making a deal with a demon whereby you will work for it in return for certain assistance. Master-Words and Signs (Basic Summoning) Power Point Cost: 12 Components: V, S, M Casting Time: One week Range: See below Target: One demon lord Duration: Instantaneous Saving Throw: Will negates Prerequisites: Knowledge (arcana) 15 ranks, magic attack bonus +6, must know at least four sorcery styles, must never have cast the demonic pact spell. Magic Attack Roll: Sets DC of the target’s saving throw Master-words and signs summons up a demon lord and forces it to instruct the sorcerer in the master-words and signs by which almost any entity ranked
267 Sorcery below it can be compelled. The sorcerer is able to compel the demon lord by demonstrating his superior magical prowess over it. Only fairly high-powered sorcerers can learn this spell and so most prefer the quick and easy path of a demonic pact. Though the demon lord will not serve the sorcerer directly, the knowledge of the master-words and signs can be used to force other demons and similar entities to work for the sorcerer, which is often more useful in any case. The sorcerer gains a permanent +2 circumstance bonus to any magic attack rolls made in connection with summon demon, summon elemental or any other Summoning spells or when targeting summoned creatures with other spells. Furthermore, he may, up to once per round, use his knowledge of master-words and signs to formulate a simple spell based on either a single Verbal or a single Somatic component (his choice). This is cast as a free action, costs two Power Points and affects a single summoned creature within Evil Eye range. The summoned creature must immediately make a Will saving throw (DC set by the sorcerer’s magic attack roll) or be instantly dismissed back to its home. Essentially, this spell opens the door to (and enhances) other summoning spells and assists with dismissing creatures summoned by other scholars; it has no special effects other than that. The demon lord gains a Will saving throw to resist the sorcerer’s summoning and remain in its hellish home. For this purpose, its total Will saving throw bonus is assumed to be +12. If it succeeds, the sorcerer may not cast the spell again until his magic attack bonus has increased, which may be by a simple level increase or some other means such as a Charisma bonus increase. Once you have successfully cast this spell once, you no longer have any particular need to cast it again. Material Component: Powders, potions, incenses and other trappings to a total cost of 2,000 silver pieces. Demonic Pact (Basic Summoning) Power Point Cost: 2 Components: V, S, M Casting Time: One hour Range: Effectively unlimited Target: One demon Duration: One hour/level or until task is fulfilled, but see below Saving Throw: None Prerequisite: Knowledge (arcana) 4 ranks. The first time a sorcerer casts this spell, he voluntarily enters into a long-term pact with a demonic entity of medium power. The Games Master determines the precise nature of the demon, possibly in consultation with the player of the sorcerer character. The demon is usually chosen from among the types listed in Chapter 13: A Hyborian Bestiary. Usually the demon will know all the spells from 1d4+1 sorcery styles (not including Summoning) in addition to greater demonic pact, summon elemental and summon demon from the Summoning style, though the precise number of styles known will be dependent on the type of demon with whom the pact is made. The demon will teach the sorcerer one of these spells or styles (of the sorcerer’s choice) whenever he would normally be eligible to learn a new spell or sorcery style; however, the sorcerer will need to summon the demon by casting this spell once more. If the sorcerer waits until he is eligible for a new spell before casting demonic pact for the first time, he can learn the new spell when he summons the
268 Sorcery demon; he does not have to re-cast demonic pact. The duration of demonic pact will always be sufficient for the sorcerer to learn a new spell from the demon. Instead of learning a new spell, the sorcerer can call up the demon by casting demonic pact and make a deal that involves the demon performing a specific task for the sorcerer, such as attacking an enemy or scaring a rival. Such a task is always at the demon’s discretion; it will not necessarily agree to the task sorcerer’s asks for, or it may suggest an alternate task. Furthermore it will always demand a price of some kind, usually a human sacrifice, for performing the task. Finally, because it is a demon, it may well attempt to twist the sorcerer’s words so that it performs the letter but not the spirit of the task. The demon will also help the sorcerer in a more direct manner, by granting him a small talisman, tattoo or brand which he can touch as a free action up to once per week in order to gain a +4 luck bonus on any skill check, ability check, attack roll or magic attack roll or to gain a +4 insight bonus to his Defence for one round. This talisman, tattoo or brand retains its power even when the demon is not present but it only works for the sorcerer himself. If ever a month goes by when the sorcerer does not either call up the demon or sacrifice a creature to it, the power of the talisman, tattoo or brand is lost until the next time he performs one of those actions. Worse, the demon will consider this a breach of contract; sooner or later, he will come for the sorcerer, to carry him off to hell… Each time a sorcerer casts this spell, he must make a Corruption saving throw (see page 82) or gain one point of Corruption. The first time he casts the spell, he automatically fails this saving throw. A character who has already cast this spell on his own behalf can also cast it for the benefit of another willing character. In that case the other character gains all the benefits and drawbacks of the spell, including the Corruption, although the casting sorcerer also has to make a Corruption save for casting the spell as usual. As well as the usual effects of Corruption, the sorcerer applies his Corruption as a circumstance penalty to any Will saving throws he makes against the sorcery or supernatural abilities of the demonic entity with whom he has the pact. In addition, he applies his Corruption as a circumstance penalty to all magic attack rolls he makes against the demon with whom he has the pact. Furthermore, if a sorcerer ever casts this spell for the benefit of another willing character the demon may use either character’s Corruption against them in this way. Thus many sorcerers are reluctant to cast this spell on another’s behalf, since the more people a sorcerer assists to make their own demonic pacts, the more demons there will be against whom his powers are weak. No character can have a pact with more than one demon at any one time. If ever a sorcerer with a demonic pact should cast a greater demonic pact spell, the more powerful spell replaces the effects of the other. Material Component: Powders, potions, incenses and other trappings to a total cost of 50 silver pieces.
269 Sorcery Master, Aid Me! (Defensive Blast) Power Point Cost: All remaining points Components: V Casting Time: Immediate Range: 10 feet Target: One or more demons (see below) Duration: One round per Power Point expended Saving Throw: None This spell can only be cast if the sorcerer has already entered into a demonic pact. When this spell is cast, the sorcerer’s demonic master appears instantly to defend its pawn. The demon appears anywhere within 10 feet of the sorcerer and acts immediately. The demon may choose to block the attack that provoked the casting of this defensive blast – if the demon chooses this option, it must make a Reflex saving throw against a DC equal to the attacker’s attack roll. If the Reflex save is successful, the demon takes the damage from the attack instead of the sorcerer. The demon remains for one round per Power Point expended or until it is slain or banished, using its powers as it sees fit. The sorcerer automatically gains one Corruption Point when this spell is cast. If the sorcerer is subject to a greater demonic pact when this spell is cast, he may use it to summon more than one demonic minion to his side. Each Power Point that powers the spell summons a single demon for a single round. Greater Demonic Pact Power Point Cost: 8 Components: V, S, M Casting Time: Three hours Range: Effectively unlimited Target: One demon lord Duration: One hour/level, or until task is fulfilled but see below Saving Throw: None Prerequisites: Knowledge (arcana) 15 ranks, Ritual Sacrifice, Tortured Sacrifice, magic attack bonus +6, demonic pact, must know at least four sorcery styles, must be subject to a demonic pact. This spell works as for demonic pact, except as noted above and below. The demon summoned is a demon lord, rather than a demon of medium power as for demonic pact. No game statistics are provided for demon lords in Chapter 12: A Hyborian Bestiary; in effect, they are more like minor demonic gods than mere monsters. A demon lord knows all spells and all sorcery styles. Rather than intervening personally on behalf of the sorcerer the demon lord summoned with greater demonic pact will send one or more minions, which can be any of the entities that could normally be summoned with the summon demon spell, up to a total maximum HD equal to twice the sorcerer’s level. It is these minions that will respond to any casting of the spell master, aid me! as well. The insight or luck bonus granted by its brand, tattoo or talisman is doubled to +8. Each time a sorcerer casts this spell, he must make a Corruption saving throw or gain one point of Corruption, as for demonic pact. However, he does not he automatically fail this saving throw the first time he casts greater demonic pact. It is impossible for one sorcerer to have a pact with more than one demon or demon lord at a time. The greater demonic pact replaces the demonic pact that is the prerequisite for the spell. Material Component: Powders, potions, incenses and other trappings to a total cost of 500 silver pieces plus a virgin human female who is sacrificed to the demon lord during the casting of the spell. Summon Demon Power Point Cost: 1 per HD of demon Components: V, S, M, XP Casting Time: One full round Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft. per two levels) Effect: One demon, of maximum HD equal to the caster’s level Duration: One task, lasting up to one hour/ level Saving Throw: See below Prerequisites: Magic attack bonus +4, master-words and signs or demonic pact. Magic Attack Roll: Sets DC for the demon’s saving throw
270 Sorcery This spell calls up a single demon to perform a specific task for the sorcerer. This could be as simple as ‘defend me for the duration of the spell’ or a good deal more complex. However, if the wording of the sorcerer’s instructions allows for misunderstanding or wilful misinterpretation, it is likely that the demon will follow the letter of the agreement rather than the spirit. As the sorcerer who casts this spell is instructing and ordering the demon in question, he need not make a Corruption saving throw. In effect, this does not count as ‘making peaceful contact’ with the demon – the sorcerer is using his own authority or that of the demon with whom he has a pact to force the summoned demon to co-operate, which is hardly either peaceful or in the demon’s best interests. The demon you are attempting to summon gains a Will saving throw (with a DC set by the magic attack roll) to resist the spell and remain in its own hell, or in the Outer Dark or wherever it abides. Material Component: A pinch of powdered sulphur, cast into the air or onto the floor. The demon arises from the sulphur. Experience Point Cost: 50 XP/HD of demon. Summon Elemental Power Point Cost: 2 per HD of elemental Components: F or V, M, XP Casting Time: One full round Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft. per two levels) Effect: One elemental, of maximum HD equal to twice the caster’s level Duration: One task, lasting up to one hour/level Saving Throw: See below Prerequisites: Perform (song or an appropriate musical instrument) 10 ranks, magic attack bonus +7, masterwords and signs or greater demonic pact. Magic Attack Roll: Sets DC for the elemental’s saving throw This spell calls up a single elemental to perform a specific task for the sorcerer. This could be as simple as ‘defend me for the duration of the spell’ or a good deal more complex. In most cases, though, the elemental will perform the task to the best of its ability and understanding, rather than deliberately misunderstanding as a summoned demon usually would. The elemental is summoned up anywhere within line of sight of the sorcerer. The task must never be more than one single mission. For example, an air elemental could carry the sorcerer’s servant from Vendhya to Zembabwe but not wait around till he finishes his business there and bring him back. A water elemental could be summoned up to cause a river to flood, to destroy a specific ship (or even a whole fleet of ships) or to guard a port town and attack any black-sailed ships that come near it for the duration of the spell. However, it could not destroy a ship in the Western Ocean, rush over to the Baracha Isles to destroy another ship in the harbour at Tortage and then head to Argos to cause a storm. The elemental, as played by the Games Master, will never agree to any task that sounds like it is really two missions disguised as one. An elemental will regard any single use of one of its special attacks as a task in and of itself. One option that always exists with elementals is to call them up on a contingency basis. In this case, the sorcerer casts the spell in advance, explains the task the elemental is to be called up for and the event that will trigger it, then dismisses the elemental again. If the triggering event occurs within the duration of the spell, the elemental will manifest automatically, perform the task and then leave. If the triggering event does not occur within the duration of the spell, the spell will be wasted and nothing will happen. When summoned up on a contingency basis in this way, the elemental will be unable to manifest unless the material component is present. The focus or verbal component, however, is only necessary when initially casting the spell. The elemental you are attempting to summon gains a Will saving throw (with a DC set by the magic attack roll) to resist the spell and remain in its own strange home. If summoned up on a contingency basis, it may only make one Will saving throw when you call it up to begin the initial negotiations – if the contingency later occurs, it manifests without getting a saving throw to stay home. Focus: A musical instrument, played by the sorcerer during the spell’s casting time. This must be appropriate to the elemental called: a drum for water elementals, song or pipes for air elementals, stringed instrument for fire elementals or horn for earth elementals. A sorcerer with 10 ranks of Perform (song) does not need to use a separate instrument when calling up an air elemental (only), as his voice acts as a verbal component to replace the focus.
271 Sorcery Material Component: A small quantity of the element to be summoned up. This need only be a token amount: a breath of air for an air elemental (which is usually provided by the air that forms the sound of the song or pipe music), a cupful of water for a water elemental, a small fire (such as is caused by a handful of flame-powder) for a fire elemental and at least four cubic inches of bare earth for an earth elemental. Experience Point Cost: 50 XP/HD of elemental. Channel Demon Power Point Cost: 2 Components: V, S Casting Time: One standard action Range: Personal Duration: One round per caster level Prerequisites: Demonic pact. When this spell is cast, the sorcerer’s face contorts as his body is temporarily infused with demonic energies! He gains a +4 enhancement bonus to Strength and Constitution and his damage reduction increases by +2. Furthermore, he can use his hands as claws that deal 1d6 damage on a successful hit; these count as weapons for the purposes of attacks. The sorcerer automatically gains one Corruption point when he casts this spell. The War of Souls A war of souls is a clash of pure will that is typically fought between sorcerers. Bodies remain motionless while minds strive for dominance. Those who gain the upper hand in a war of souls can sap the power of their rivals, leaving them unable to use sorcery. A group of sorcerers can collectively wage a war of souls upon a single victim, rapidly stripping away his power and leaving him senseless. Even demons can be subdued by a war of souls, though this process is dangerous. War of Souls Check A sorcerer in a war of souls will need to make opposed war of souls checks against an opponent. A war of souls check is a magic attack roll with two special modifiers that the sorcerer may benefit from: +2 for knowing the entrance spell and an additional +2 if at least one advanced hypnotism spell is known. Although sorcerers find it very difficult to use the Hypnotism spells per se against other sorcerers, many of the techniques taught under that sorcery style can be modified when fighting a war of souls. Starting a War of Souls To start a war of souls, a sorcerer must engage his target mentally. Any sorcerer may declare a war of souls by challenging any other sorcerer who is within Evil Eye range (see page 237). This is a full-round action. The sorcerer makes a magic attack roll to lock his target in mental combat. If the target succeeds at his Will saving throw, the war of souls fails and is cancelled. If the target fails his Will saving throw, he and the sorcerer are now engaged in a war of souls. Conan had witnessed hundreds of battles in his wild life, but never one like this, wherein four diabolical wills sought to beat down one lesser but equally devilish will that opposed them. But he only faintly sensed the monstrous quality of that hideous struggle. With his back to the wall, driven to bay by his former masters, Khemsa was fighting for his life with all the dark power, all the frightful knowledge they had taught him through long, grim years of neophytism and vassalage. He was stronger than even he had guessed, and the free exercise of his powers in his own behalf had tapped unsuspected reservoirs of forces. And he was nerved to super-energy by frantic fear and desperation. He reeled before the merciless impact of those hypnotic eyes, but he held his ground. His features were distorted into a bestial grin of agony, and his limbs were twisted as on a rack. It was a war of souls, of frightful brains steeped in lore forbidden to men for a million years, of mentalities which had plumbed the abysses and explored the dark stars where spawn the shadows. – The People of the Black Circle
272 Sorcery War of Souls Consequences While a sorcerer is engaged in a war of souls, his ability to attack others and defend himself is limited. No Threatened Squares: The sorcerer does not threaten any squares while engaged in a war of souls. No Dodging Or Parrying: The sorcerer cannot dodge or parry while engaged in a war of souls. No Movement: The sorcerer may not move normally while engaged in a war of souls. No Spells: The sorcerer may not cast any spells while engaged in a war of souls. If a Sorcerer is Engaged in a War of Souls When a sorcerer is engaged in a war of souls (regardless of who started it) he can perform either of the following fullround actions: Drain Your Opponent While engaged in a war of souls, a sorcerer can drain Power Points from his opponent. He must make an opposed war of souls check. If he wins, he drains 1d6 Power Points from his opponent. The sorcerer gains any Power Points the target loses in this way. If this reduces the target’s Power Points to zero or below, any further drain is applied to his Wisdom score instead. The sorcerer gains no particular benefit from damaging the target’s Wisdom in this way, though of course if the target’s Wisdom is reduced to zero he collapses, helpless. Corruption: Staring into the eyes of a demon is a risky activity, for if one gazes into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into him. Any character engaging a demon of any kind in a War of Souls must make a Corruption check (standard DC for the demon) every time the demon successfully drains him. Break Off from War of Souls A sorcerer can break off a war of souls by winning an opposed war of souls check. If more than one opponent is engaged in a war of souls with the sorcerer, the sorcerer’s war of souls check result has to beat all their individual check results to break off the war of souls. (Opponents do not have to try to keep the sorcerer engaged in the war of souls if they do not want to.) If the sorcerer wins the opposed war of souls check, he is no longer engaged in the war of souls. Joining a War of Souls If a target is already engaged in a war of souls with someone else, the sorcerer can use a full-round action to join the war of souls as usual, as above. He still has to make a successful opposed war of souls check against his taget to become part of the war of souls. If there are multiple opponents involved in the war of souls, the sorcerer picks one to make the opposed war of souls check against. Multiple Combatants in a War of Souls Several combatants can be in a single war of souls. When a sorcerer is engaged in a war of souls with multiple opponents he may only drain one opponent at a time. Any opposed war of souls checks for draining are made against that opponent. In an attempt to break off the war of souls the sorcerer’s war of souls check must beat the check results of each opponent or he remains locked in a war of souls with all of them. Magical, Herbal and Alchemical Items These items are not all magical in the usual sense of the word. Some are merely mysterious but are based on knowledge that only sorcerers tend to have, such as alchemy and certain similar crafts. However, to the ignorant, anything found here will be regarded as sorcery. Little distinction will be made between the person of the sorcerer, the items he carries and the magical effects he can produce. Magical Items Characters operating under these rules cannot make the items in this section; the knowledge has been lost for centuries and so the items must be found in person or the secrets of their manufacture searched out from ancient arcane sources.
273 Sorcery Bane Knife of Khosatral Khel This heavy, curved knife was forged from meteoric iron with the specific intent of binding and then slaying Khosatral Khel, who was one of the most powerful sorcerer-gods of a bygone age a little over a thousand years ago. It is fashioned to resemble a Yuetshi knife, though it is far more elegant than those crude fishermens’ blades. The pommel is jewelled and the hilt wrapped in shagreen leather. The bane knife of Khosatral Khel can be used in three possible ways: * A character holding this knife can cancel any spell cast by Khosatral Khel as a free action at the cost of one Power Point or one hit point (character’s choice). * If the knife touches Khosatral Khel, he is immediately paralysed (no saving throw) for 2d6 rounds or until the knife is removed from contact with him, whichever happens later. * If the knife is used to attack Khosatral Khel directly, it does full damage for a Yuetshi knife, with an additional damage bonus of +1d6. Khosatral Khel’s damage resistance has no effect against the bane knife. The bane knife of Khosatral Khel can be taken as an example of the bane weapon, a weapon designed to slay a specific, named supernatural entity. Other bane weapons may be found with similar game statistics but each will be dedicated to fighting one individual creature, never a whole class of creatures such as ‘all demons.’ Crystal Ball This shimmering crystal sphere is around six to eighteen inches in diameter. There is no particular advantage to crystal balls of varying sizes, other than Buying and Selling Magical, Herbal and Alchemical Items It is very nearly impossible to buy any of the items in this chapter in the normal sense, including the herbal preparations, poisons and alchemical items. Though some of the latter items are indeed bought and sold, the trade is almost always exclusive. Lotus plants and preparations, for example, are sent by caravan from Khitai to Stygia but they are all for the use of the priests and sorcerers who form the theocratic government of Stygia. These items are not for sale to adventurers. The prices listed, then, are no more than guidelines. In most cases the listed price is the approximate price an item would cost if one was able to buy it legitimately somehow. There is no way for an average character to legitimately buy these items, so the prices given here are instead used to determine the cost and time of manufacture for those who gain the skills to make an item themselves (see page 96). A particularly rich adventurer might be able to afford to have special items stolen to order, at a cost of two or three times the listed amount – half up-front – with no guarantee that the thieves will ever make it back with the goods, or even alive. It will usually be possible to sell items from this chapter at between 50% and 150% (30% + 2d6 × 10%) of the nominal value if the seller is in a large city or has contacts with powerful sorcerers. Astute scholars will realise that it is possible to make a fair living travelling to exotic lands and gathering strange herbs for preparation, then selling them once back in civilisation. This is true, though it is not necessarily any less risky than any other adventurous undertaking! Magical items proper, such as crystal balls, are never for sale. These artefacts are always in the hands of a sorcerer already or are remote from civilisation and so well guarded that no sorcerers in living memory have been able to get their hands on them.
274 Sorcery the obvious practical ones: increased detail for larger crystal balls but increased portability for smaller ones. Often a powerful sorcerer will try to have at least two crystal balls: a small one to carry and a larger one to use in his home. In any case, a crystal ball grants a +4 enhancement bonus to the magic attack roll when using the visions spell. Crystal Ball of Speech and Vision Certain crystal balls come as a set that includes one or more smaller crystal balls that are a mere three inches or so in diameter. The main crystal ball functions exactly like a standard crystal ball with additional properties: A sorcerer who has a visions spell in operation may use the larger crystal ball to speak with the possessor of one of the smaller crystal balls, if that character is also present in the visions. A two-way conversation is possible. Speaking in this way expends an additional Power Points per minute. Note that other sounds are not transmitted, only speech between the sorcerer and one subject. The smaller crystal balls do not function other than to act as means of communication with the main one. The only image they will ever show is the face of the sorcerer who is currently using the main crystal ball (if any). Silvery Mirror A silvery mirror is in effect something like a lower-quality version of the crystal ball, with the advantage that its magical properties are not immediately obvious. Most silvery mirrors are quite large, suitable for mounting on a wall, though smaller pocket-sized versions may also be found occasionally with concomitant gains in portability and losses in clarity of vision. A silvery mirror grants a +2 enhancement bonus to the magic attack roll when using the visions spell. Spellbooks Spellbooks are usually written on human skin that has been flayed from the flesh of living victims. Sorcerers do not need spellbooks to cast their spells but may find useful arcane lore in some spellbooks; these tomes are often written to make the job of teaching acolytes less burdensome. Any one spellbook contains full information on 2d4 spells from one or more sorcery styles and adds a +4 bonus to the Knowledge (arcana) check made to research any of the spells detailed within it. A sorcerer may attempt to cast a spell directly from a spellbook without learning the spell or having all the prerequisites for the spell, although this is exceedingly difficult and dangerous. Only spells with a casting time of one full round or more may be cast in this fashion. Firstly, the sorcerer must make a Knowledge (arcana) check – see the table below for the DCs. If the check fails, he rolls on the Runaway Magic table and the spell cannot be cast. The +4 bonus to Knowledge (arcana) checks from the spellbook itself does not apply in this case. The Spell Is Knowledge (arcana) Check DC A Basic Spell 20 An Advanced Spell from a style the Sorcerer knows 25 An Advanced Spell from a style the Sorcerer does not know 30 A Mighty Spell from any style 40 If the Knowledge (arcana) check is successful, the sorcerer may cast the spell from the book but it costs an extra 1d6 Power Points. Staff of Death This Khitan magical item resembles a quarterstaff. It can be used as a weapon, in which case it is treated as a quarterstaff but with a +1 enhancement bonus on all attack rolls made with it. In addition, it can be used to deliver spells that have a range of ‘touch.’ Used in this way, it activates the spell whenever it strikes an enemy, whether or not its regular melee damage penetrates his armour. The staff itself is said to be cut from ‘the living Tree of Death’ and must be crafted individually for each wielder. If stolen or otherwise acquired from the original wielder, the staff has no effect.
275 Sorcery Drugs, Poisons and Herbal Preparations The raw materials for herbal items are generally very tricky to obtain and the final substances are also often difficult and time-consuming to manufacture. Rather than buying raw ingredients, a herbalist will usually need to search for them himself. It is rare to find unprepared herbs for sale, since anyone who knows which herbs to pick also knows there is far more profit to be had in selling the various extracts and drugs that can be made from them than selling the herbs alone. The most notorious of all herbs are the feared lotus plants. Lotuses come in a number of varieties and some of these varieties have several different uses. When gathering venom or other product that derives from a particular creature rather than a mere plant, the Games Master will require the character to play out at least one combat with it as well as simply finding it. These poisons are usually gathered with the Poison Use feat, rather than the Craft (herbalism) skill, since the latter only covers plant based products. Plant-based poisons such as the Apples of Derketa can be gathered with either the feat or the skill. Full rules for crafting herbal items can be found in the Skills section (see page 97). Apples of Derketa These large apple-like globes are dark crimson in colour and grow on a tree whose broad leaves are a rich and peculiarly vivid green. The trees grow in the lush jungles of Kush. The apples are deadly poisonous if eaten, or if the fresh juice is smeared on weaponry. The juice even inflicts some damage if spilt onto skin. The apples need no particular preparation to be poisonous, so the Craft (herbalism) skill is not needed to make use of the poison, though it could be useful in finding a place where the trees grow. If a character takes more than five points of Constitution damage from the apples, he is also blinded for 2d6 hours. The juice’s potency lasts only for an hour or so, though an apple could conceivably be carried for a week before losing its potency. Black Lotus Blossom The flowers of the black lotus give off a heady scent that causes dream-haunted slumber. Any who inhale them must make a Fortitude saving throw (DC 25) or fall fast asleep for 1d3 hours. However, this sleep can also be useful, for the dreams that result are often prophetic or otherwise highly informative in nature. Anyone who undergoes the sleep of the southern lotus may attempt a Knowledge (arcana) skill check once per hour to gain some useful insight into his current situation, at the Games Master’s discretion. If this information tells of an immediate threat to his sleeping body, he may attempt to rouse himself through sheer willpower alone with a Will saving throw (DC 25). Black Lotus Juice This is a deadly poison, plain and simple. It immediately brings a man to his knees, weak as a kitten, and finishes him off soon after. Black Lotus Powder This incense-like stuff is burnt to provide dreamy, opiumlike effects which can either boost a sorcerer’s power or allow rapid recovery from major sorcerous efforts, at the cost of a distinct lack of function for a day or so. A sorcerer who has reduced his Power Points below zero may return to full Base Power Points by burning one dose of the powder and then spending 4d6 hours completely helpless as he alternates between an unconscious stupor and wild waking dreams. A sorcerer who is at zero Power Points or above when he burns the black lotus gains one Power Point per hour for 4d6 hours, up to his maximum Power Points. His Power Points will not begin to decay back to his Base Power Points until the black lotus powder wears off. He is not completely helpless during this time but will suffer a –4 circumstance penalty to all Listen and Spot checks. Cost: 300 sp/dose Black Lotus Wine Also known as lotus-juice (although it is nothing to do with Black Lotus Juice) this is a wine-like drink that is drunk for pleasure. It is a mixture of various extracts from the black lotus, steeped in a sizable quantity of strong wine. The quantities used in the recipe are a closely guarded secret, for if the balance is wrong the
276 Sorcery An Introduction to the Lotus Various lotus plants can be found everywhere from Khitai to Kush. They seem to grow predominantly in jungle or swamp environments, though none grow in the Pictish Wilderness. Even among scholars, there is some confusion as to the nomenclature of the various types of lotus plant and the various preparations that can be made from them. The following system of classification is intended to be simple and comprehensive; it includes all the various lotus plants and preparations mentioned in the Conan stories. Black Lotus: The most versatile and infamous of all the lotus plants is the black lotus. It is used by the denizens of the lost city of Xuthal, among other places, to make a variety of preparations and grows extensively in the jungles around the Zarkheba River. It seems likely that it also grows elsewhere in the Black Kingdoms, though probably nowhere so lushly as around that black-watered river. The plant itself is actively malevolent and semi-mobile, stooping to waft its poisonous perfume at anyone nearby: treat this as a touch attack with a modifier of +6, exposing victims to Black Lotus Blossom (see page 275) on contact. Those who can get close enough to harvest it without being overcome by its dread fumes can find a variety of uses for it, including the deadly poison Black Lotus Juice, the incense-like drug Black Lotus Powder, and the potent wine known as Black Lotus Wine. The fresh-cut flowers are known to retain their hallucinogenic scent and are particularly potent in their narcotic effects. Golden Lotus: This lotus plant is something of a mystery. Its extract, Golden Lotus Juice (see opposite), is found in Zamboula and is perhaps the most beneficial of the various lotus preparations. However, if the plant itself is related to the other lotus plants then it must grow in a swamp or jungle, of which there are few near the steppes and deserts around Zamboula. It seems likely that this is another Khitan export, since Zamboula is on the main caravan route that extends from Khitai to Stygia. This would account for its relative rarity, as otherwise it seems odd that such a useful plant can not be found more commonly in the Hyborian kingdoms. Alternatively, it is certainly possible that the golden lotus is related to the white and black lotuses and so grows in Kush and the other Black Kingdoms. It could even be a swamp plant from southern Stygia, like the purple lotus. If it does indeed grow in Kush or Stygia, it must be scarce indeed, for it is highly prized. Green Lotus: One of the two varieties of lotus found as far east as Khitai, the green lotus in its natural form is almost black in colour and so is sometimes called black lotus by the ignorant. Green lotus blossoms are cut from the lost jungles of Khitai by the priests of Yun, who dry the great flowers out and powder them into a fine dust for export by caravan to Stygia. This dust is known as Green Lotus Dust (see opposite) and is one of the deadliest poisons known to man. Grey Lotus: Perhaps related to the green lotus, the grey lotus is also found close to Khitai but in the Swamps of the Dead beyond that mystical land. Its blossoms are cut, dried and powdered, then exported as far as Corinthia and perhaps elsewhere. Grey Lotus Dust (see opposite) sends any who breathe its dust immediately and murderously insane. Purple Lotus: Found only in the ghost-haunted swamps of southern Stygia, the purple lotus has only one known use. The juice extracted from all parts of the plant forms a powerful paralytic poison, known as Purple Lotus Juice (see opposite). White Lotus: The white lotus tree is larger than the other lotus plants and is surprisingly benign or at least harmless. It grows in Keshan and elsewhere in the northern Black Kingdoms but nowhere else. There are no particularly powerful uses known for the plant, though it is possible that it may have properties only brought out by combining it in another herbal preparation. Experimentation is the only way to find out for sure. Yellow Lotus: The yellow lotus closely resembles the black lotus in its effects but is a far less potent plant. It secretes Yellow Lotus Resin (see opposite) but has no other particularly useful properties. It seems likely that it, like the black lotus, grows somewhere in the northern Black Kingdoms though it is used by sorcerers from around the world.
277 Sorcery drinker may be made permanently insane or even killed by the lotus juices. When it is made correctly, lotus wine will render the drinker unconscious through alcohol poisoning before the quantity of lotus used kills him. The general effects are similar to those of burning black lotus powder, except that the wine offers no particular benefit to sorcerers – only hallucinations and drunkenness to dull the senses of the jaded. Black lotus wine is particularly common in the mad city of Xuthal (see page 330). Cost: 50 sp/pint Stygian Black Scorpion Venom A single drop of this deadly venom is enough to slay a strong man if it gets into his bloodstream. Golden Lotus Juice This golden liquid is extremely scarce and valuable, for it provides instantaneous relief from all herbal and alchemical effects, including the slumber, paralysis or madness that may be caused by some of the other lotus varieties. Drinking a single dose of golden lotus juice will also cure 1d6 points of ability damage, if the drinker has any. Cost: 1,200 sp/dose Great Serpent Venom This powerful poison is carefully ‘milked’ from the great serpents that infest the swamps of Zingara. Green Lotus Dust This is often called black lotus, though it is not the same plant as the true black lotus of Xuthal and the Zarkheba River. The green lotus blossom is a greenishyellow powder that kills when inhaled. It grows only in the jungles of Khitai but is exported in small quantities to Stygia by caravan. Grey Lotus Dust Any who breathe in this dust and fail their Fortitude saving throws are not only dealt ability damage but also enter berserk furies identical to those described under the Fighting-Madness feat (see page 126). While infuriated, they will attack the nearest living creature. Purple Lotus Juice This is by far the most powerful paralytic poison known, capable of felling even the mighty Conan. Yellow Lotus Resin This is something like a poor man’s black lotus powder, a dark yellowishbrown resin scraped from the leaves and flowers of the yellow lotus. Yellow lotus resin is used by sorcerers for its strong hallucinogenic effect to provide visions and trances. Its effects last for 2d4 hours and it grants a +2 circumstance bonus to all Knowledge (arcana) checks made with relation to Divination. Furthermore, during its duration the sorcerer is considered to be resting for purposes of regaining Power Points, whatever he is actually doing. However, he has a –2 penalty to Listen and Spot checks while affected by the resin and for 1d6 hours thereafter. Cost: 125 sp/dose.
278 Sorcery The Effects of Poison When a character takes damage from an attack with a poisoned weapon, touches an item smeared with contact poison, consumes poisoned food or drink or is otherwise poisoned, he must make a series of Fortitude saving throws. The number and timing of such throws depends on the poison – a fast-acting poison might require three throws in three successive rounds, while a slower, more long-lasting venom might require one saving throw every hour for twelve hours. The first time a character fails a saving throw, he takes damage from the poison which is normally ability score damage. Each time after that the character fails a saving throw against the poison, the die used increases by one step and he takes more damage. For example, a character is struck by a serpent whose poison deals 1d4 Constitution damage and requires one saving throw every fifteen minutes for one hour. He passes the first saving throw but fails the second, taking 1d4 Constitution damage. He then fails the third and fourth saving throws, taking 1d6 and 1d8 damage respectively, for a total of 1d4+1d6+1d8 Constitution damage. One dose of poison smeared on a weapon or some other object affects just a single target. A poisoned weapon or object retains its venom until the weapon scores a hit or an object is touched, unless the poison is wiped off before a target comes in contact with it. Poisons can be divided into four basic types according to the method by which their effects are delivered, as follows: Contact: Merely touching this type of poison necessitates a saving throw. It can be actively delivered via a weapon or a touch attack. Even if a creature has sufficient damage reduction to avoid taking any damage from the attack, the poison can still affect it if the weapon contacts bare flesh. As a general rule, if the damage reduction from armour is enough to block all damage from a blow, the contact poison is wasted. A chest or other object can be smeared with contact poison as part of a trap. Ingested: Ingested poisons are virtually impossible to utilise in a combat situation. A poisoner could administer a potion to an unconscious creature or attempt to dupe someone into drinking or eating something that has been poisoned. Thieves and other characters tend to use ingested poisons outside of combat. Inhaled: Inhaled poisons are usually contained in fragile vials or eggshells. They can be thrown as a ranged attack with a range increment of 10 feet. When it strikes a hard surface (or is struck hard), the container releases its poison. One dose spreads to fill the volume of a 10-foot cube. Alternatively, four doses may be placed in a specially designed one-use blowpipe (cost 20 sp) to fill the volume of a 20-foot by 20-foot by 10-foot high cube; the blowpipe used in this way has a range increment of five feet. Each creature within the area must make a saving throw unless they had the foresight to hold their breath first. The cloud typically persists for 3d6 rounds, so it is possible for it to affect several creatures if they wander into range; furthermore, inhaled poisons are subject to being blown by the wind during this time and could potentially be blown back towards their users. At the Games Master’s discretion, some inhaled poisons may have a lesser effect on victims who are holding their breath by being absorbed through tear ducts, nasal membranes and the like. Injury: This poison must be delivered through a wound. If a creature has sufficient damage reduction to avoid taking any damage from the attack, the poison does not affect it. Traps that cause damage from weapons, needles and the like sometimes contain injury poisons. The characteristics of poisons are summarised on the Poisons table. Terms on the table are defined below: Type: The poison’s method of delivery (contact, ingested, inhaled or via an injury) and the Fortitude saving throw DC to avoid the poison’s damage. Damage: The damage the character takes immediately upon failing his saving throw against the poison. Ability damage is temporary. Paralysis lasts for 2d6 minutes. Saves Required: The number of saving throws required. Save Interval: How often these saving throws occur. Price: The cost of one dose (one vial) of the poison. It is not possible to use or apply poison in any quantity smaller than one dose. The purchase and possession of poison is always illegal. Even in big cities, poison can be obtained only from specialised, less than reputable sources. Perils of Using Poison A character has a 5% chance of exposing himself to a poison whenever he applies it to a weapon or otherwise readies it for use. Additionally, a character who rolls a natural one on an attack roll with a poisoned weapon must
279 Sorcery make a DC 15 Reflex saving throw or accidentally poison himself with the weapon. These penalties can be removed by selecting the Poison Use feat (see page 134). Poison Immunities Creatures with natural poison attacks are immune to their own poison. Nonliving creatures (constructs and undead) and creatures without metabolisms (such as elementals) are always immune to poison. Certain kinds of outsiders are also immune to poison, although conceivably special poisons could be concocted specifically to harm them. Alchemical Items Alchemical items are quite similar in nature to herbal preparations, except that they require more extensive tools, usually a fully functional alchemist’s laboratory. Full rules for crafting alchemical items can be found in the Skills chapter (see page 96). Note that alchemical items marked with an asterisk (*) can be used in conjunction with the greater telekinesis spell. Outfitting an Alchemist`s Laboratory Unlike the usual crafts, whose practitioners can often get by with portable toolkits, alchemy requires a great deal of equipment if one is to practice it at all, let alone successfully. At a bare minimum, a room around 10 feet by 10 feet is needed to be set up as a laboratory. Alchemical work can only be done if the alchemist is undisturbed, so a stout lock, a certain amount of isolation and guards of some kind are all recommended for an alchemist’s laboratory. A basic laboratory can be set up for some 500 silver pieces so long as the above requirements are also met. The basic laboratory has only the bare minimum of equipment, such that in effect the alchemist is working with improvised tools (–2 to all Craft (alchemy) checks), though without even this minimal lab no work at all can be done. For a more advanced laboratory, a 20-foot by 20- foot room is required, along with 1,500 silver pieces in equipment. This gives neither bonuses nor penalties to alchemy. A masterwork laboratory requires a 30-foot by 30-foot room and equipment costing 5,000 silver pieces. This grants a +2 bonus to all Craft (alchemy) checks. Acheronian Demon-Fire* This powerful demon-fire recipe, older and more subtle than Kothic Demon-Fire (see next page), is loaded into a glass orb which can be flung at an opponent. It can either be hurled directly at a character or thrown on to the ground. In either case it has a range increment of 10 feet. Poison Type Damage Saves Required Save Interval Price Apple of Derketa Juice Contact DC 20 1d3 Con 4 1 round 500 sp Apple of Derketa Juice Injury DC 22 1d4 Con 4 1 round 500 sp Apple of Derketa Ingested DC 22 1d6 Con 4 Immediate/1 round/ 6 rounds/1 minute 500 sp Black Lotus Blossom Inhaled DC 25 1d3 Str + Hallucinations Varies Until failed or exposure ends 1,250 sp Black Lotus Juice Ingested DC 22 1d6 Str + 1d4 Con 4 1 round 750 sp Black Stygian Scorpion Venom Injury DC 23 1d6 Con + 1d6 Dex 4 1 round 1,000 sp Great Serpent Venom Injury DC 21 1d2 Con 10 Immediate/1 minute/ 1 hour/1 hour/1 hour/ 1 hour/1 hour/1 hour/ 1 hour/1 hour 850 sp Green Lotus Dust Inhaled DC 24 1d4 Con 1d6 1 round 1,500 sp Grey Lotus Dust Inhaled DC 22 2d6 Wis + FightingMadness (see description) 1 Immediate 800 sp Purple Lotus Juice Injury DC 28 1d6 Dex + Paralysis 1d6 1 round 2,500 sp
280 Sorcery If Acheronian demon-fire is thrown at a character, a ranged touch attack roll is made against his Dodge Defence. As usual for missile fire, Parry Defence cannot be used; a character who attempts to parry a demon-fire orb will simply set it off as soon as it contacts the parrying weapon. This demon-fire inflicts 1d6 fire damage and incapacitates (knocks unconscious) a character for 1d6 hours. He may make a Fortitude saving throw (DC 25) to avoid the incapacitation effect but not the damage. If thrown at the ground, the Acheronian demon-fire affects a 10-foot by 10-foot area. Any character within the area affected must make a Reflex saving throw (DC 20) or sustain 1 point of fire damage and be stunned for 1d4 rounds. A stunned character can take no actions and can neither dodge nor parry. Opponents receive a +2 bonus to their attack rolls to hit him. Cost: 1,500 sp. Requirements: Craft (alchemy) 6 ranks. Flame-Powder* Flame-powder is something of a poor man’s demon fire. It is magically treated sulphur, which will burst into flame as soon as it is struck hard or crushed. It can be hurled to the ground with some force but only immediately adjacent to the sorcerer who throws it. In this case it affects a five-foot by five-foot area within five feet of the sorcerer by bursting into small flames that last for one round and deal 1d4 fire damage to any creature within its square, as well as potentially starting fires. Alternatively, it can be simply poured out over a surface, so that the next creature weighing at least 200 pounds who steps on it while running (or who weighs 400 pounds or more but steps on it while walking) immediately triggers the effect. Used in this latter way, the flame-powder will lose its potency after one hour if no one steps on it. Cost: 50 sp. Requirements: Craft (alchemy) 4 ranks. Golden Wine of Xuthal This nectar-like liquid heals wounds almost instantaneously and if drunk regularly prolongs life too. It is found only in the lost city of Xuthal, deep in the Southern Desert. It is possible that the golden wine is derived from the golden lotus (see page 276) but this is no more than speculation – the secret of its manufacture is known only to the half-dreaming citizens of Xuthal. A single dose of this wine is sufficient to instantly heal 2d8 + (2 × character level) hit points on any wounded character. It also instantly restores up to (1d6 + character level) ability score loss in each damaged ability. Cost: 1,750 sp/dose. Requirements: Craft (alchemy) 12 ranks, must discover the recipe from the Xuthallans or by other researches. Kothic Demon-Fire* This small glass orb is filled with a deadly combination of substances that ignite into heat and flame on contact with air. It can either be hurled directly at a character or thrown to the ground. In either case it has a range increment of 10 feet. If thrown at a character, a ranged touch attack roll is made against his Dodge Defence. As usual for missile fire, Parry Defence cannot be used; a character who attempts to parry a demon-fire orb will simply set it off as soon as it contacts the parrying weapon. Against a character, it inflicts 5d6 fire damage and stuns him for one round. A stunned character can take no actions and can neither dodge nor parry. His opponents receive a +2 bonus to their attack rolls to hit him. He may make a Fortitude saving throw (DC 20) to avoid the stun effect but not the damage. If thrown at the ground, the Kothic demon-fire affects a 10-foot by 10-foot area. Any character within the area affected must make a Reflex saving throw (DC 20) or be dealt 2d8 fire damage. Cost: 500 sp. Requirements: Craft (alchemy) 4 ranks. Lotus Smoke* Lotus smoke is a preparation derived from any powdered lotus blossom: green, grey or black. When cast on the ground (treat as a thrown weapon with a range increment of five feet) it sheds light in a 15 foot radius. One round later, it turns into a glowing ball that affects all who look on it (treat as an Evil Eye range spell) as though targeted by an entrance spell cast by the sorcerer who created the lotus smoke. The ball moves 10 feet in the same direction as it was initially thrown. One round later still, it turns into a cloud of smoke 15 feet by 15 feet by 15 feet in
281 Sorcery size, which moves in the same direction again, this time at 20 feet per round for 2d6 rounds. In smoke form, it has exactly the same effect as the lotus blossom it was originally derived from. Cost: Lotus blacksmoke, 3,750 sp; lotus greensmoke, 4,500 sp; lotus greysmoke, 2,400 sp. Raw Materials: One dose of either green, grey or black lotus blossom (which is considered to replace the usual 1/3 cost for raw materials – see the Craft skill description on page 96). Requirements: Craft (alchemy) 10 ranks, Craft (herbalism) 8 ranks, entrance. Stygian Tomb-Dust* This dust causes temporary blindness when flung into the eyes. The target gets a Reflex saving throw (DC set by the thrower’s magic attack roll) to avoid it completely. If the target fails, he is blinded for 2d6 rounds. See page 224 for the effects of blindness. Cost: 400 sp. Requirements: Craft (alchemy) 5 ranks, Knowledge (arcana) 5 ranks. Expanding the Acolyte Background The following are examples of typical scholars who have the acolyte background. These represent the standard methods of teaching within the sorcerous societies listed; it is not usually possible for a character to deviate from these teaching methods once he has commenced them, though sometimes an individual master will alter the curriculum somewhat. A character who breaks away from his sorcerous society or who studies elsewhere in secret may certainly learn different spells with the agreement of the Games Master (usually as though he was independent or by making a pact with a demon) though this often has its own risks, such as covens wanting revenge if they discover their acolyte has rejected their teaching. Scholars with the pact or independent backgrounds are usually unique in their level progression, while priests tend to have more freedom to choose spells but a more limited range of spells to choose from – see Chapter 12: Religion.
282 Sorcery Acolytes Khitan Sorcerer: Most Khitan sorcerers value information above all else and though they will not hesitate to slay those who deserve it or are their allotted targets, they prefer to avoid unnecessary deaths. They also learn Oriental magic and Curses, making them highly effective combatants. These sorcerers usually wear hooded, wide-sleeved robes of a very dark grey or black material and sandals beneath their robes. They favour a staff as a weapon and, if they can get them, Staffs of Death (see page 274) to deliver their spells. Khitan sorcerers almost always travel and train in small groups. One member of the group will be the senior sorcerer, who is responsible for teaching the others. He will usually be scrupulously fair but by no means a pushover. Kushite Witch-Finder: The Kushite witch-doctors, witchmen or witchfinders are particularly famed for their countermagic abilities. Their duties are to protect the tribe from rival witches, predict the future and curse tribal enemies, in approximately that order of importance. Most favour feathers, bones and animal skins as their outfit, in classical shamanic style. Often they also sport long, wild dreadlocks. The Kushite tradition of scholarship is in many respects far more open-minded than that of the more supposedly civilised nations. They are happy enough to share their knowledge with others, even those from distant lands. Likewise, their sorcerers rarely exert undue influence over their acolytes – though a senior witchman can be a harsh taskmaster, he is genuinely concerned for the welfare of his acolyte and desires to train him to be an asset to the tribe. Pictish Shaman: The shamans of the Pictish Wilderness are a dangerous bunch, though fortunately they spend most of their time fighting each other rather than banding together and raiding the Hyborian kingdoms. Thus some of the earliest spells they learn are curses and they love practising such magic. Like the witchmen of Kush, Pictish shamans favour feathers, bones and simple loin-clouts as their garb, though Specific Acolyte Backgrounds Level Khitan Sorcerer Kushite Witch-Finder Pictish Shaman Rakhsha Wise-Woman or Cunning-Man Sorcerer of the Black Ring 1 Calm of the Adept Astrological Prediction Summon Beast Entrance Summon Beast Conjuring 2 Astrological Prediction Warding Lesser Ill-Fortune Calm of the Adept Astrological Prediction Lesser Ill-Fortune 3 Warrior Trance Incantation of Amalric’s Witchman Greater Summon Beast Darting Serpent Animal Ally Telekinesis 4 Psychometry, Raise Corpse Lesser Ill-Fortune, Psychometry Ill-Fortune, Warding Warrior Trance, Warding Greater Summon Beast, Warding Warding, Greater Telekinesis 5 The Dead Speak Rune of Jhebbal Sag Rune of Jhebbal Sag Hypnotic Suggestion Visions Ill-Fortune 6 Darting Serpent Visions Greater Ill-Fortune Domination Sorcerous Garden Greater IllFortune 7 Mind-Reading Greater Warding Greater Warding Savage Beast Dream of Wisdom Greater Warding 8 Warding, Greater Warding Free Choice Dance of the Changing Serpent, Astrological Prediction Lesser IllFortune, Gelid Bones Free Choice Raise Corpse, Burst Barrier 9 Sorcerous News Free Choice Free Choice Greater Warding Free Choice Free Choice 10 Death Touch Free Choice Free Choice Mass Hypnotic Suggestion Free Choice Free Choice
283 Sorcery the relatively light-skinned Picts also use war paint and other ceremonial colouring to show off their intent and call their spirits’ attention. Pictish shamans are wary of sharing their magic and this reticence even extends to their own tribe or even their families. An acolyte shaman had best be constantly on the alert to prove his loyalty or he is likely to find himself used as the next sacrifice to the weird Pictish gods. Rakhsha: These Vendhyan and Himelian scholars are experts with Oriental magic. They usually combine this expertise with at least some knowledge of martial arts, to complement such spells as warrior trance. They are also skilled hypnotists, capable of defeating most foes without so much as lifting a finger or raising a sweat. Finally, most learn at least a measure of countermagic, recognising that another sorcerer is a far greater threat than most ordinary humans could ever be. Most wear plain robes and appear unarmed, though they often have concealed weaponry or sorcerous objects hidden about their person. Rakhshas are usually acolytes of far more powerful groups. Those from the Himelian mountains are usually apprenticed to the Seers of Yimsha and are regarded as completely expendable by their wicked masters. Wise-Woman or Cunning-Man: These respected but elusive scholars are often called witches, though this is not strictly true. They tend to live an almost hermit-like existence, seeking wisdom in the silences of the high places. They gain knowledge through herbal means such as the green smoke method of casting the visions spell or from their own dreams. They gain oracular knowledge from their gods, some of which they are permitted to communicate to others, some they must keep to themselves. Most wise-women or cunning-men dress and act simply, favouring warm, practical clothing in neutral wools. Wise-women and cunning-men are some of the fairest and kindliest taskmasters when it comes to their apprentices, which is how they refer to their acolytes. Their genuine concern for the well being of their charges is on a par with their love for nature. Sorcerer of the Black Ring: The sorcerers of the Black Ring are some of the most accomplished prestidigitators of the Hyborian Age and seem to be constantly hurling demon-fire or tomb-dust at their foes. They also learn cursing, countermagic and the powerful magic of life and death. Sorcerers of the Black Ring do not have a uniform dress code, though many wear darkcoloured robes. The Black Ring is Stygia’s foremost sorcerous society and those acolytes who apprentice themselves into its lower echelons must dedicate their lives to obeying their superiors in the society. Higher level sorcerers of the Black Ring almost always learn the Summoning sorcery style and often use their apprentices as assistants when calling up demons, which can lead to even newcomers to the society coming into contact with creatures which force a Corruption saving throw (see page 82).
284 History Of that epoch known by the Nemedian chroniclers as the Pre-Cataclysmic Age, little is known except the latter part, and that is veiled in the mists of legendry. Known history begins with the waning of the Pre-Cataclysmic civilization, dominated by the kingdoms of Kamelia, Valusia, Verulia, Grondar, Thule, and Commoria. These peoples spoke a similar language, arguing a common origin. There were other kingdoms, equally civilized, but inhabited by different, and apparently older races. The barbarians of that age were the Picts, who lived on islands far out on the western ocean; the Atlanteans, who dwelt on a small continent between the Pictish Islands and the main, or Thurian Continent; and the Lemurians, who inhabited a chain, of large islands in the eastern hemisphere. There were vast regions of unexplored land. The civilized kingdoms, though enormous in extent, occupied a comparatively small portion of the whole planet. Valusia was the westernmost kingdom of the Thurian Continent; Grondar the easternmost. East of Grondar, whose people were less highly cultured than those of their kindred kingdoms, stretched a wild and barren expanse of deserts. Among the less arid stretches of desert, in the jungles, and among the mountains, lived scattered clans and tribes of primitive savages. Far to the south there was a mysterious civilization, unconnected with the Thurian culture, and apparently pre-human in its nature. On the far eastern shores of the Continent there lived another race, human, but mysterious and non-Thurian, with which the Lemurians from time to time came in contact.They apparently came from a shadowy and nameless continent lying somewhere east of the Lemurian Islands. The Thurian civilization was crumbling; their armies were composed largely of barbarian mercenaries. Picts, Atlanteans, and Lemurians were their generals, their statesmen, often their kings. Of the bickerings of the kingdoms, and the wars between Valusia and Commoria, as well as the conquests by which the Atlanteans founded a kingdom on the mainland, there were more legends than accurate history. Then the Cataclysm rocked the world.Atlantis and Lemuria sank, and the Pictish Islands were heaved up to form the mountain peaks of a new continent. Sections of the Thurian Continent vanished under the waves, or sinking, formed great inland lakes and seas. Volcanoes broke forth and terrific earthquakes shook down the shining cities of the empires.Whole nations were blotted out. The barbarians fared a little better than the civilized races. The inhabitants of the Pictish Islands were destroyed, but a great colony of them, settled among the mountains of Valusia’s southern frontier, to serve as a buffer against foreign invasion, was untouched.The Continental kingdom of the Atlanteans likewise escaped the common ruin, and to it came thousands of their tribesmen in ships from the sinking land. Many Lemurians escaped to the eastern coast of the Thurian Continent, which was comparatively untouched. There they were enslaved by the ancient race which already dwelt there, and their history, for thousands of years, is a history of brutal servitude. In the western part of the Continent, changing conditions created strange forms of plant and animal life. Thick jungles covered the plains, great rivers cut their roads to the sea, wild mountains were heaved up, and lakes covered the ruins of old cities in fertile valleys.To the continental kingdom of the Atlanteans, from sunken areas, swarmed myriads of beasts and savages – ape-men and apes. Forced to battle continually for their lives, they yet managed to retain vestiges of their former state of highly advanced barbarism.Robbed of metals and ores, they became workers in stone like their distant ancestors, and had attained a real artistic level, when their struggling culture came into contact with the powerful Pictish nation. The Picts had also reverted to flint, but had advanced more rapidly in the matter of population and war-science.They had none of the Atlanteans’ artistic nature; they were a ruder, more practical, more prolific race.They left no pictures painted or carved on ivory, as did their enemies, but they left remarkably efficient flint weapons in plenty. The Hyborian Age By Robert E. Howard
285 History These stone age kingdoms clashed, and in a series of bloody wars, the outnumbered Atlanteans were hurled back into a state of savagery, and the evolution of the Picts was halted.Five hundred years after the Cataclysm the barbaric kingdoms have vanished.It is now a nation of savages – the Picts – carrying on continual warfare with tribes of savages – the Atlanteans.The Picts had the advantage of numbers and unity, whereas the Atlanteans had fallen into loosely knit clans.That was the West of that day. In the distant East, cut off from the rest of the world by the heaving up of gigantic mountains and the forming of a chain of vast lakes, the Lemurians are toiling as slaves of their ancient masters.The far south is still veiled in mystery. Untouched by the Cataclysm, its destiny is still prehuman. Of the civilized races of the Thurian Continent, a remnant of one of the non-Valusian nations dwells among the low mountains of the southeast – the Zhemri. Here and there about the world are scattered clans of apish savages, entirely ignorant of the rise and fall of the great civilizations.But in the far north another people are slowly coming into existence. At the time of the Cataclysm, a band of savages, whose development was not much above that of the Neanderthal, fled to the north to escape destruction. They found the snow-countries inhabited only by a species of ferocious snow-apes – huge, shaggy, white animals, apparently native to that climate. These they fought and drove beyond the Arctic Circle, to perish, as the savages thought. The latter, then, adapted themselves to their hardy new environment and throve. After the Pictish-Atlantean wars had destroyed the beginnings of what might have been a new culture, another, lesser cataclysm further altered the appearance of the original continent, left a great inland sea where the chain of lakes had been, to further separate west from east, and the attendant earthquakes, floods and volcanoes completed the ruin of the barbarians which their tribal wars had begun. A thousand years after the lesser cataclysm, the western world is seen to be a wild country of jungles and lakes and torrential rivers. Among the forest-covered hills of the northwest exist wandering bands of ape-men, without human speech, or the knowledge of fire or the use of implements. They are the descendants of the Atlanteans, sunk back into the squalling chaos of jungle-bestiality from which ages ago their ancestors so laboriously crawled. To the southwest dwell scattered clans of degraded, cavedwelling savages, whose speech is of the most primitive form, yet who still retain the name of Picts, which has come to mean merely a term designating men – themselves, to distinguish them from the true beasts with which they contend for life and food. It is their only link with their former stage.Neither the squalid Picts nor the apish Atlanteans have any contact with other tribes or peoples. Far to the east the Lemurians, leveled almost to a bestial plane themselves by the brutishness of their slavery, have risen and destroyed their masters.They are savages stalking among the ruins of a strange civilization.The survivors of that civilization, who have escaped the fury of their slaves, have come westward.They fall upon that mysterious prehuman kingdom of the south and overthrow it, substituting their own culture, modified by contact with the older one. The newer kingdom is called Stygia, and remnants of the older nation seemed to have survived, and even been worshiped, after the race as a whole had been destroyed. Here and there in the world small groups of savages are showing signs of an upward trend; these are scattered and unclassified.But in the north, the tribes are growing.These people are called Hyborians, or Hybori; their god was Bori – some great chief, whom legend made even more ancient as the king who led them into the north, in the days of the great Cataclysm, which the tribes remember only in distorted folklore. They have spread over the north and are pushing southward in leisurely treks.So far they have not come in contact with any other races; their wars have been with one another. Fifteen hundred years in the north country have made them a tall, tawny-haired, grey-eyed race, vigorous and warlike, and already exhibiting a well-defined artistry and poetism of nature. They still live mostly by the hunt, but the southern tribes have been raising cattle for some centuries. There is one exception in their so far complete isolation from other races: a wanderer into the far North returned with the news that the supposedly deserted ice wastes were inhabited by an extensive tribe of apelike men, descended, he swore, from the beasts driven out of the more habitable land by the ancestors of the Hyborians. He urged that a large war-party be sent beyond the Arctic Circle to exterminate these beasts, whom he swore were evolving into true men. He was jeered at; a small band of adventurous young warriors followed him into the North, but none returned. But tribes of the Hyborians were drifting south, and as the population increased
286 History
287 History this movement became extensive. The following age was an epoch of wandering and conquest. Across the history of the world tribes and drifts of tribes move and shift in an everchanging panorama. Look at the world five hundred years later.Tribes of tawnyhaired Hyborians have moved southward and westward, conquering and destroying many of the small unclassified clans. Absorbing the blood of conquered races, already the descendants of the older drifts have begun to show modified racial traits, and these mixed races are attacked fiercely by new, purer-blooded drifts, and swept before them, as a broom sweeps debris impartially, to become even more mixed and mingled in the tangled debris of races and tag-ends of races. As yet the conquerors have not come in contact with the older races.To the southeast the descendants of the Zhemri, given impetus by new blood resulting from admixture with some unclassified tribe, are beginning to seek to revive some faint shadow of their ancient culture. To the west the apish Atlanteans are beginning the long climb upward. They have completed the cycle of existence; they have long forgotten their former existence as men; unaware of any other former state, they are starting the climb unhelped and unhindered by human memories.To the south of them the Picts remain savages, apparently defying the laws of Nature by neither progressing nor retrogressing. Far to the south dreams the ancient mysterious kingdom of Stygia. On its eastern borders wander clans of nomadic savages, already known as the Sons of Shem. Next to the Picts, in the broad valley of Zingg, protected by great mountains, a nameless band of primitives, tentatively classified as akin to the Shemites, has evolved an advanced agricultural system and existence. Another factor has added to the impetus of Hyborian drift.A tribe of that race has discovered the use of stone in building, and the first Hyborian kingdom has come into being – the rude and barbaric kingdom of Hyperborea, which had its beginning in a crude fortress of boulders heaped to repel tribal attack. The people of this tribe soon abandoned their horsehide tents for stone houses, crudely but mightily built, and thus protected, they grew strong. There are few more dramatic events in history than the rise of the rude, fierce kingdom of Hyperborea, whose people turned abruptly from their nomadic life to rear dwellings of naked stone, surrounded by cyclopean walls – a race scarcely emerged from the polished stone age, who had by a freak of chance, learned the first rude principles of architecture. The rise of this kingdom drove forth many other tribes, for, defeated in the war, or refusing to become tributary to their castle-dwelling kinsmen, many clans set forth on long treks that took them halfway around the world. And already the more northern tribes are beginning to be harried by gigantic blond savages, not much more advanced than ape-men. The tale of the next thousand years is the tale of the rise of the Hyborians, whose warlike tribes dominate the western world.Rude kingdoms are taking shape.The tawny-haired invaders have encountered the Picts, driving them into the barren lands of the West.To the northwest, the descendants of the Atlanteans, climbing unaided from apedom into primitive savagery, have not yet met the conquerors. Far to the east the Lemurians are evolving a strange semicivilization of their own.To the south the Hyborians have founded the kingdom of Koth, on the borders of those pastoral countries known as the Lands of Shem, and the savages of those lands, partly through contact with the Hyborians, partly through contact with the Stygians who have ravaged them for centuries, are emerging from barbarism.The blond savages of the far north have grown in power and numbers so that the northern Hyborian tribes move southward, driving their kindred clans before them.The ancient kingdom of Hyperborea is overthrown by one of these northern tribes, which, however, retains the old name. Southeast of Hyperborea a kingdom of the Zhemri has come into being, under the name of Zamora. To the southwest, a tribe of Picts have invaded the fertile valley of Zingg, conquered the agricultural people there, and settled among them. This mixed race was in turn conquered later by a roving tribe of Hybori, and from these mingled elements came the kingdom of Zingara. Five hundred years later the kingdoms of the world are clearly defined.The kingdoms of the Hyborians Aquilonia, Nemedia, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Koth, Ophir, Argos, Corinthia, and one known as the Border Kingdom – dominate the western world.Zamora lies to the east, and Zingara to the southwest of these kingdoms – people alike in darkness of complexion and exotic habits, but otherwise unrelated. Far to the south sleeps Stygia, untouched by foreign invasion, but the peoples of Shem have exchanged the Stygian yoke for the less galling one of Koth. The dusky masters have been driven south of the great river Styx, Nilus, or Nile, which, flowing north from the shadowy hinterlands, turns almost at right angles and
288 History flows almost due west through the pastoral meadowlands of Shem, to empty into the great sea. North of Aquilonia, the westernmost Hyborian kingdom, are the Cimmerians, ferocious savages, untamed by the invaders, but advancing rapidly because of contact with them; they are the descendants of the Atlanteans, now progressing more steadily than their old enemies the Picts, who dwell in the wilderness west of Aquilonia. Another five centuries and the Hybori peoples are the possessors of a civilization so virile that contact with it virtually snatched out of the wallow of savagery such tribes as it touched. The most powerful kingdom is Aquilonia, but others vie with it in strength and splendor. The Hyborians have become a considerably mixed race, the nearest to the ancient root-stock are the Gundermen of Gunderland, a northern province of Aquilonia. But this mixing has not weakened the race. They are supreme in the western world, though the barbarians of the wastelands are growing in strength. In the north, golden-haired, blue-eyed barbarians, descendants of the blond arctic savages, have driven the remaining Hyborian tribes out of the snow countries, except the ancient kingdom of Hyperborea, which resists their onslaught. Their country is called Nordheim, and they are divided into the red-haired Vanir of Vanaheim, and the yellow-haired Æsir of Asgard. Now the Lemurians enter history again as Hyrkanians. Through the centuries they have pushed steadily westward, and now a tribe skirts the southern end of the great inland sea – Vilayet – and establishes the kingdom of Turan on the southwestern shore.Between the inland sea and the eastern borders of the native kingdoms lie vast expanses of steppes and in the extreme north and extreme south, deserts.The non-Hyrkanian dwellers of these territories are scattered and pastoral, unclassified in the north, Shemitish in the south, aboriginal, with a thin strain of Hyborian blood from wandering conquerors.Toward the latter part of the period other Hyrkanian clans push westward, around the northern extremity of the inland sea, and clash with the eastern outposts of the Hyperboreans. Glance briefly at the peoples of that age. The dominant Hyborians are no longer uniformly tawny-haired and grey-eyed. They have mixed with other races. There is a strong Shemitish, even a Stygian strain among the peoples of Koth, and to a lesser extent, of Argos, while in the case of the latter, admixture with the Zingarans has been more extensive than with the Shemites. The eastern Brythunians have intermarried with the darkskinned Zamorians, and the people of southern Aquilonia have mixed with the brown Zingarans until black hair and brown eyes are the dominant type in Poitain, the southernmost province. The ancient kingdom of Hyperborea is more aloof than the others, yet there is alien blood in plenty in its veins, from the capture of foreign women – Hyrkanians, Æsir, and Zamorians.Only in the province of Gunderland, where the people keep no slaves, is the pure Hyborian stock found unblemished. But the barbarians have kept their bloodstream pure; the Cimmerians are tall and powerful, with dark hair and blue or grey eyes.The people of Nordheim are of similar build, but with white skins, blue eyes, and golden or red hair.The Picts are of the same type as they always were – short, very dark, with black eyes and hair.The Hyrkanians are dark and generally tall and slender, though a squat slant-eyed type is more and more common among them, resulting from mixture with a curious race of intelligent, though stunted, aborigines, conquered by them among the mountains east of Vilayet, on their westward drift. The Shemites are generally of medium height, though sometimes when mixed with Stygian blood, gigantic, broadly and strongly built, with hook noses, dark eyes, and blue-black hair.The Stygians are tan and well-made, dusky, straight-featured – at least the ruling classes are of that type.The lower classes are a downtrodden, mongrel horde, a mixture of Negroid, Stygian, Shemitish, even Hyborian bloods. South of Stygia are the vast black kingdoms of the Amazons, the Kushites, the Atlaians, and the hybrid empire of Zimbabwe. Between Aquilonia and the Pictish wilderness lie the Bossonian marches, peopled by descendants of an aboriginal race, conquered by a tribe of Hyborians, early in the first ages of the Hyborian drift.This mixed people never attained the civilization of the purer Hyborians, and was pushed by them to the very fringe of the civilized world. The Bossonians are of medium height and complexion, their eyes brown or grey, and they are mesocephalic. They live mainly by agriculture, in large walled villages, and are part of the Aquilonian kingdom. Their marches extend from the Border Kingdom in the North to Zingara in the Southwest, forming a bulwark for Aquilonia against both the Cimmerians and the Picts.They are stubborn defensive fighters, and centuries of warfare against northern and western barbarians have caused them to evolve a type of defense almost impregnable against direct attack.
289 History Five hundred years later the Hyborian civilization was swept away.Its fall was unique in that it was not brought about by internal decay, but by the growing power of the barbarian nations and the Hyrkanians. The Hyborian peoples were overthrown while their vigorous culture was in its prime. Yet it was Aquilonia’s greed which brought about that overthrow, though indirectly. Wishing to extend their empire, her kings made war on their neighbors. Zingara, Argos and Ophir were annexed outright, with the western cities of Shem, which had, with their more eastern kindred, recently thrown off the yoke of Koth. Koth itself, with Corinthia and the eastern Shemitish tribes, was forced to pay Aquilonia tribute and lend aid in wars. An ancient feud had existed between Aquilonia and Hyperborea, and the latter now marched to meet the armies of her western rival.The plains of the Border Kingdom were the scene of a great and savage battle, in which the northern hosts were utterly defeated, and retreated into their snowy fastnesses, whither the victorious Aquilonians did not pursue them. Nemedia, which had successfully resisted the western kingdom for centuries, now drew Brythunia and Zamora, and secretly, Koth, into an alliance which bade fair to crush the rising empire.But before their armies could join battle, a new enemy appeared in the east, as the Hyrkanians made their first real thrust at the western world. Reinforced by adventurers from east of Vilayet, the riders of Turan swept over Zamora, devastated eastern Corinthia, and were met on the plains of Brythunia by the Aquilonians; who defeated them and hurled them flying eastward. But the back of the alliance was broken, and Nemedia took the defensive in future wars, aided occasionally by Brythunia and Hyperborea, and, secretly, as usual, by Koth, This defeat of the Hyrkanians showed the nations the real power of the western kingdom, whose splendid armies were augmented by mercenaries, many of them recruited among the alien Zingarans, and the barbaric Picts and Shemites. Zamora was reconquered from the Hyrkanians, but the people discovered that they had merely exchanged an eastern master for a western master. Aquilonian soldiers were quartered there, not only to protect the ravaged country, but also to keep the people in subjection.The Hyrkanians were not convinced; three more invasions burst upon the Zamorian borders, and the Lands of Shem, and were hurled back by the Aquilonians, though the Turanian armies grew larger as hordes of steel-clad riders rode out of the east, skirting the southern extremity of the inland sea. But it was in the west that a power was growing destined to throw down the kings of Aquilonia from their high places.In the north there was incessant bickering along the Cimmerian borders between the black-haired warriors and the Nordheimir; and the Æsir, between wars with the Vanir, assailed Hyperborea and pushed back the frontier, destroying city after city.The Cimmerians also fought the Picts and Bossonians impartially, and several times raided into Aquilonia itself, but their wars were less invasions than mere plundering forays. But the Picts were growing amazingly in population and power. By a strange twist of fate, it was largely due to the efforts of one man, and he an alien, that they set their feet upon the ways that led to eventual empire.This man was Arus, a Nemedian priest, a natural-born reformer. What turned his mind toward the Picts is not certain, but this much is history – he determined to go into the western wilderness and modify the rude ways of the heathen by the introduction of the gentle worship of Mitra. He was not daunted by the grisly tales of what had happened to traders and explorers before him, and by some whim of fate he came among the people he sought, alone and unarmed, and was not instantly speared. The Picts had benefitted by contact with Hyborian civilization, but they had always fiercely resisted that contact.That is to say, they had learned to work crudely in copper and tin, which were found scantily in their country, and for which latter metal they raided into the mountains of Zingara, or traded hides, whale’s teeth, walrus tusks and such few things as savages have to trade. They no longer lived in caves and tree-shelters, but built tents of hides, and crude huts, copied from those of the Bossonians. They still lived mainly by the chase, since their wilds swarmed with game of all sorts, and the rivers and sea with fish, but they had learned how to plant grain, which they did sketchily, preferring to steal it from their neighbors the Bossonians and Zingarans. They dwelt in clans which were generally at feud with each other, and their simple customs were blood-thirsty and utterly inexplicable to a civilized man, such as Arus of Nemedia.They had no direct contact with the Hyborians, since the Bossonians acted as a buffer between them. But Arus maintained that they were capable of progress, and events proved the truth of his assertion – though scarcely in the way he meant. Arus was fortunate in being thrown in with a chief of more than usual intelligence – Gorm by name. Gorm cannot be explained, any more than Genghis Khan, Othman, Attila, or my of those individuals, who, born in naked lands among untutored barbarisms, yet possess the instinct for conquest and empire-building. In
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291 History a sort of bastard-Bossonian, the priest made the chief understand his purpose, and though extremely puzzled, Gorm gave him permission to remain among his tribe unbutchered – a case unique in the history of the race. Having learned the language Arus set himself to work to eliminate the more unpleasant phases of Pictish life – such as human sacrifice, bloodfeud, and the burning alive of captives. He harangued Gorm at length, whom he found to be an interested, if unresponsive listener. Imagination reconstructs the scene – the black-haired chief, in his tigerskins and necklace of human teeth, squatting on the dirt floor of the wattle hut, listening intently to the eloquence of the priest, who probably sat on a carven, skin-covered block of mahogany provided in his honor – clad in the silken robes of a Nemedian priest, gesturing with his slender whim hands as he expounded the eternal rights and justices which were the truths of Mitra.Doubtless he pointed with repugnance at the rows of skulls which adorned the walls of the hut and urged Gorm to forgive his enemies instead of putting their bleached remnants to such use. Arus was the highest product of an innately artistic race, refined by centuries of civilization; Gorm had behind him a heritage of a hundred thousand years of screaming savagery – the pad of the tiger was in his stealthy step, the grip of the gorilla in his black-nailed hands, the fire that burns in a leopard’s eyes burned in his. Arus was a practical man.He appealed to the savage’s sense of material gain; he pointed out the power and splendor of the Hyborian kingdoms, as an example of the power of Mitra, whose teachings and works had lifted them up to their high places. And he spoke of cities, and fertile plains, marble walls and iron chariots, jeweled towers, and horsemen in their glittering armour riding to battle. And Gorm, with the unerring instinct of the barbarian, passed over his words regarding gods and their teachings, and fixed on the material powers thus vividly described.There in that mud-floored wattle hut, with the silk-robed priest on the mahogany block, and the dark-skinned chief crouching in his tiger-hides, was laid the foundations of empire. As has been said, Arus was a practical man. He dwelt among the Picts and found much that an intelligent man could do to aid humanity, even when that humanity was cloaked in tiger-skins and wore necklaces of human teeth. Like all priests of Mitra, he was instructed in many things. He found that there were vast deposits of iron ore in the Pictish hills, and he taught the natives to mine, smelt and work it into implements – agricultural implements, as he fondly believed. He instituted other reforms, but these were the most important things he did: he instilled in Gorm a desire to see the civilized lands of the world; he taught the Picts how to work in iron; and he established contact between them and the civilized world. At the chief’s request he conducted him and some of his warriors through the Bossonian marches, where the honest villagers stared in amazement, into the glittering outer world. Arus no doubt thought that he was making converts right and left, because the Picts listened to him, and refrained from smiting him with their copper axes. But the Pict was little calculated to seriously regard teachings which bade him forgive his enemy and abandon the warpath for the ways of honest drudgery. It has been said that he lacked artistic sense; his whole nature led to war and slaughter. When the priest talked of the glories of the civilized nations, his dark-skinned listeners were intent, not on the ideals of his religion, but on the loot which he unconsciously described in the narration of rich cities and shining lands. When, he told how Mitra aided certain kings to overcome their enemies, they paid scant heed to the miracles of Mitra, but they hung on the description of battle-lines, mounted knights, and maneuvers of archers and spearmen. They harkened with keen dark eyes and inscrutable countenances, and they went their ways without comment, and heeded with flattering intentness his instructions as to the working of iron, and kindred arts. Before his coming they had filched steel weapons and armour from the Bossonians and Zingarans, or had hammered out their own crude arms from copper and bronze. Now a new world opened to them, and the clang of sledges re-echoed throughout the land. And Gorm, by virtue of this new craft, began to assert his dominance over other clans, partly by war, partly by craft and diplomacy, in which latter art he excelled all other barbarians. Picts now came and went freely into Aquilonia, under safe-conduct, and they returned with more information as to armour-forging and sword-making. More, they entered Aquilonia’s mercenary armies, to the unspeakable disgust of the sturdy Bossonians. Aquilonia’s kings toyed with the idea of playing the Picts against the Cimmerians, and possibly thus destroying both menaces, but they were too busy with their policies of aggression in the south and east to pay much heed to the vaguely known lands of the west, from which more and more stocky warriors swarmed to take service among the mercenaries.
292 History These warriors, their service completed, went back to their wilderness with good ideas of civilized warfare, and that contempt for civilization which arises from familiarity with it.Drums began to beat in the hills, gathering-fires smoked on the heights, and savage sword-makers hammered their steel on a thousand anvils. By intrigues and forays too numerous and devious to enumerate, Gorm became chief of chiefs, the nearest approach to a king the Picts had had in thousands of years. He had waited long; he was past middle age. But now he moved against the frontiers, not in trade, but in war. Arus saw his mistake too late; he had not touched the soul of the pagan, in which lurked the hard fierceness of all the ages. His persuasive eloquence had not caused a ripple in the Pictish conscience. Gorm wore a corselet of silvered mail now, instead of the tiger-skin, but underneath he was unchanged – the everlasting barbarian, unmoved by theology or philosophy, his instincts fixed unerringly on rapine and plunder. The Picts burst on the Bossonian frontiers; with fire and sword, not clad in tiger-skins and brandishing copper axes as of yore, but in scale-mail, wielding weapons of keen steel.As for Arus, he was brained by a drunken Pict, while making a last effort to undo the work he had unwittingly done.Gorm was not without gratitude; he caused the skull of the slayer to be set on the top of the priest’s cairn. And it is one of the grim ironies of the universe that the stones which covered Arus’s body should have been adorned with that last touch of barbarity – above a man to whom violence and blood-vengeance were revolting. But the newer weapons and mail were not enough to break the lines. For years the superior armaments and sturdy courage of the Bossonians held the invaders at bay, aided, when necessary, by imperial Aquilonian troops. During this time the Hyrkanians came and went, and Zamora was added to the empire. Then treachery from an unexpected source broke the Bossonian lines. Before chronicling this treachery, it might be well to glance briefly at the Aquilonian empire. Always a rich kingdom, untold wealth had been rolled in by conquest, and sumptuous splendor had taken the place of simple and hardy living. But degeneracy had not yet sapped the kings and the people; though clad in silks and cloth-ofgold, they were still a vital, virile race.But arrogance was supplanting their former simplicity. They treated less powerful people with growing contempt, levying more and more tributes on the conquered. Argos, Zingara, Ophir, Zamora and the Shemite countries were treated as subjugated provinces, which was especially galling to the proud Zingarans, who often revolted, despite savage retaliations. Koth was practically tributary, being under Aquilonia’s ‘protection’ against the Hyrkanians. But Nemedia the western empire had never been able to subdue, although the latter’s triumphs were of the defensive sort, and were generally attained with the aid of Hyperborean armies. During this period Aquilonia’s only defeats were: her failure to annex Nemedia; the rout of an army sent into Cimmeria; and the almost complete destruction of an army by the Æsir.Just as the Hyrkanians found themselves unable to withstand the heavy cavalry charges of the Aquilonians, so the latter, invading the snow-countries, were overwhelmed by the ferocious hand-to-hand fighting of the Nordics. But Aquilonia’s conquests were pushed to the Nilus, where a Stygian army was defeated with great slaughter, and the king of Stygia sent tribute – once at least – to divert invasion of his kingdom.Brythunia was reduced in a series of whirlwind wars, and preparations were made to subjugate the ancient rival at last – Nemedia. With their glittering hosts greatly increased by mercenaries, the Aquilonians moved against their old-time foe, and it seemed as if the thrust were destined to crush the last shadow of Nemedian independence.But contentions arose between the Aquilonians and their Bossonian auxilliaries. As the inevitable result of imperial expansion, the Aquilonians had become haughty and intolerant. They derided the ruder, unsophisticated Bossonians and hard feeling grew between them – the Aquilonians despising the Bossonians and the latter resenting the attitude of their masters – who now boldly called themselves such, and treated the Bossonians like conquered subjects, taxing them exorbitantly, and conscripting them for their wars of territorial expansion – wars the profits of which the Bossonians shared little. Scarcely enough men were left in the marches to guard the frontier, and hearing of Pictish outrages in their homelands, whole Bossonian regiments quit the Nemedian campaign and marched to the western frontier, where they defeated the dark-skinned invaders in a great battle. This desertion, however, was the direct cause of Aquilonia’s defeat by the desperate Nemedians, and brought down on the Bossonians the cruel wrath of the imperialists – intolerant and short-sighted as imperialists
293 History invariably are. Aquilonian regiments were secretly brought to the borders of the marches, the Bossonian chiefs were invited to attend a great conclave, and, in the guise of an expedition against the Picts, bands of savage Shemitish soldiers were quartered among the unsuspecting villagers. The unarmed chiefs were massacred, the Shemites turned on their stunned hosts with torch and sword, and the armoured imperial hosts, were hurled ruthlessly on the unsuspecting people. From north to south the marches were ravaged and the Aquilonian armies marched back from the borders, leaving a ruined and devastated land behind them. And then the Pictish invasion burst in full power along those borders. It was no mere raid, but the concerted rush of a whole nation, led by chiefs who had served in Aquilonian armies, and planned and directed by Gorm – an old man now, but with the fire of his fierce ambition undimmed.This time there were no strong walled villages in their path, manned by sturdy archers, to hold back the rush until the imperial troops could be brought up. The remnants of the Bossonians were swept out of existence, and the blood-mad barbarians swarmed into Aquilonia, looting and burning, before the legions, warring again with the Nemedians, could be marched into the west. Zingara seized this opportunity to throw off the yoke, which example was followed by Corinthia and the Shemites. Whole regiments of mercenaries and vassals mutinied and marched back to their own countries, looting and burning as they went. The Picts surged irresistibly eastward, and host after host was trampled beneath their feet. Without their Bossonian archers the Aquilonians found themselves unable to cope with the terrible arrow-fire of the barbarians. From all parts of the empire legions were recalled to resist the onrush, while from the wilderness horde after horde swarmed forth, in apparently inexhaustible supply. And in the midst of this chaos, the Cimmerians swept down from their hills, completing the ruin. They looted cities, devastated the country, and retired into the hills with their plunder, but the Picts occupied the land they had over-run. And the Aquilonian empire went down in fire and blood. Then again the Hyrkanians rode from the blue east. The withdrawal of the imperial legions from Zamora was their incitement. Zamora fell easy prey to their thrusts, and the Hyrkanian king established his capital in the largest city of the country. This invasion was from the ancient Hyrkanian kingdom of Turan, on the shores of the inland sea, but another, more savage Hyrkanian thrust came from the north. Hosts of steel-clad riders galloped around the northern extremity of the inland sea, traversed the icy deserts, entered the steppes, driving the aborigines before them, and launched themselves against the western kingdoms.These newcomers were not at first allies with the Turanians, but skirmished with them as with the Hyborians; new drifts of eastern warriors bickered and fought, until all were united under a great chief, who came riding from the very shores of the eastern ocean. With no Aquilonian armies to oppose them, they were invincible. They swept over and subjugated Brythunia, and devastated southern Hyperborea, and Corinthia.They swept into the Cimmerian hills, driving the black-haired barbarians before them, but among the hills, where cavalry was less effectual, the Cimmerians turned on them, and only a disorderly retreat, at the end of a whole day of bloody fighting, saved the Hyrkanian hosts from complete annihilation. While these events had been transpiring, the kingdoms of Shem had conquered their ancient master, Koth, and had been defeated in an attempted invasion of Stygia. But scarcely had they completed their degradation of Koth, when they were overrun by the Hyrkanians, and found themselves subjugated by sterner masters than the Hyborians had ever been. Meanwhile the Picts had made themselves complete masters of Aquilonia, practically blotting out the inhabitants.They had broken over the borders of Zingara, and thousands of Zingarans, fleeing the slaughter into Argos, threw themselves on the mercy of the westwardsweeping Hyrkanians, who settled them in Zamora as subjects.Behind them as they fled, Argos was enveloped in the flame and slaughter of Pictish conquest, and the slayers swept into Ophir and clashed with the westward-riding Hyrkanians.The latter, after their conquest of Shem, had overthrown a Stygian army at the Nilus and over-run the country as far south as the black kingdom of Amazon, of whose people they brought back thousands as captives, settling them among the Shemites.Possibly they would have completed their conquests in Stygia, adding it to their widening empire, but for the fierce thrusts of the Picts against their western conquests. Nemedia, unconquerable by Hyborians, reeled between the riders of the east and the swordsmen of the west, when a tribe of Æsir, wandering down from their snowy lands, came into the kingdom, and were engaged as mercenaries; they proved such able warriors that they not only beat off the Hyrkanians, but halted the eastward advance of the Picts. The world at that time presents some such picture: a vast Pictish empire, wild, rude and barbaric, stretches from the coasts of Vanaheim in the north to
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295 History the southern-most shores of Zingara. It stretches east to include all Aquilonia except Gunderland, the northernmost province, which, as a separate kingdom in the hills, survived the fall of the empire, and still maintains its independence. The Pictish empire also includes Argos, Ophir, the western part of Koth, and the western-most lands of Shem. Opposed to this barbaric empire is the empire of the Hyrkanians, of which the northern boundaries are the ravaged lines of Hyperborea, and the southern, the deserts south of the lands of Shem.Zamora, Brythunia, the Border Kingdom, Corinthia, most of Koth, and all the eastern lands of Shem are included in this empire.The borders of Cimmeria are intact; neither Pict nor Hyrkanian has been able to subdue these warlike barbarians.Nemedia, dominated by the Æsir mercenaries, resists all invasions. In the north Nordheim, Cimmeria and Nemedia separate the conquering races, but in the south, Koth has become a battle-ground where Picts and Hyrkanians war incessantly. Sometimes the eastern warriors expel the barbarians from the kingdom entirely; again the plains and cities are in the hands of the western invaders.In the far south, Stygia, shaken by the Hyrkanian invasion, is being encroached upon by the great black kingdoms. And in the far north, the Nordic tribes are restless, warring continually with the Cimmerians, and sweeping the Hyperborean frontiers. Gorm was slain by Hialmar, a chief of the Nemedian Æsir. He was a very old man, nearly a hundred years old.In the seventy-five years which had elapsed since he first heard the tale of empires from the lips of Arus – a long time in the life of a man, but a brief space in the tale of nations – he had welded an empire from straying savage clans, he had overthrown a civilization.He who had been born in a mud-walled, wattle-roofed hut, in his old age sat on golden thrones, and gnawed joints of beef presented to him on golden dishes by naked slave-girls who were the daughters of kings. Conquest and the acquiring of wealth altered not the Pict; out of the ruins of the crushed civilization no new culture arose phoenix-like.The dark hands which shattered the artistic glories of the conquered never vied to copy them. Though he sat among the glittering ruins of shattered palaces and clad his hard body in the silks of vanquished kings, the Pict remained the eternal barbarian, ferocious, elemental, interested only in the naked primal principles of life, unchanging, unerring in his instincts which were all for war and plunder, and in which arts and the cultured progress of humanity had no place.Not so with the Æsir who settled in Nemedia.These soon adopted many of the ways of their civilized allies, modified powerfully, however, by their own intensely virile and alien culture. For a short age Pict and Hyrkanian snarled at each other over the ruins of the world they had conquered. Then began the glacier ages, and the great Nordic drift. Before the southward moving ice-fields the northern tribes drifted, driving kindred clans before them.The Æsir blotted out the ancient kingdom of Hyperborea, and across its ruins came to grips with the Hyrkanians.Nemedia had already become a Nordic kingdom, ruled by the descendants of the Æsir mercenaries. Driven before the onrushing tides of Nordic invasion, the Cimmerians were on the march, and neither army nor city stood before them. They surged across and completely destroyed the kingdom of Gunderland, and marched across ancient Aquilonia, hewing their irresistible way through the Pictish hosts.They defeated the NordicNemedians and sacked some of their cities, but did not halt.They continued eastward, over-throwing a Hyrkanian army on the borders of Brythunia. Behind them hordes of Æsir and Vanir swarmed into the lands, and the Pictish empire reeled beneath their strokes. Nemedia was overthrown, and the half-civilized Nordics fled before their wilder kinsmen, leaving the cities of Nemedia ruined and deserted. These fleeing Nordics, who had adopted the name of the older kingdom, and to whom the term Nemedian henceforth refers, came into the ancient land of Koth, expelled both Picts and Hyrkanians, and aided the people of Shem to throw off the Hyrkanian yoke.All over the western world, the Picts and Hyrkanians were staggering before this younger, fiercer people. A band of Æsir drove the eastern riders from Brythunia and settled there themselves, adopting the name for themselves.The Nordics who had conquered Hyperborea assailed their eastern enemies so savagely that the dark-skinned descendants of the Lemurians retreated into the steppes, pushed irresistibly back toward Vilayet. Meanwhile the Cimmerians, wandering southeastward, destroyed the ancient Hyrkanian kingdom of Turan, and settled on the southwestern shores of the inland sea.The power of the eastern conquerors was broken. Before the attacks of the Nordheimr and the Cimmerians, they destroyed all their cities, butchered such captives as were not fit to make the long march, and then, herding thousands of slaves before them, rode back into the mysterious east, skirting the northern edge of the sea, and vanishing from western history, until they rode out of the east again, thousands of years later, as Huns,
296 History Mongols, Tatars and Turks. With them in their retreat went thousands of Zamorians, and Zingarans, who were settled together far to the east, formed a mixed race, and emerged ages afterward as gypsies. Meanwhile, also, a tribe of Vanir adventurers had passed along the Pictish coast southward, ravaged ancient Zingara, and come into Stygia, which, oppressed by a cruel aristocratic ruling class, was staggering under the thrusts of the black kingdoms to the south. The redhaired Vanir led the slaves in a general revolt, overthrew the reigning class, and set themselves up as a caste of conquerors. They subjugated the northernmost black kingdoms, and built a vast southern empire, which they called Egypt.From these red-haired conquerors the earlier pharaohs boasted descent. The western world was now dominated by Nordic barbarians. The Picts still held Aquilonia and part of Zingara, and the western coast of the continent. But east to Vilayet, and from the Arctic circle to the lands of Shem, the only inhabitants were roving tribes of Nordheimr, excepting the Cimmerians, settled in the old Turanian kingdom. There were no cities anywhere, except in Stygia and the lands of Shem; the invading tides of Picts, Hyrkanians, Cimmerians and Nordics had leveled them in ruins, and the once dominant Hyborians had vanished from the earth, leaving scarcely a trace of their blood in the veins of their conquerors. Only a few names of lands, tribes and cities remained in the languages of the barbarians, to come down through the centuries connected with distorted legend and fable, until the whole history of the Hyborian age was lost sight of in a cloud of myths and fantasies.Thus in the speech of the gypsies lingered the terms Zingara, and Zamora; the Æsir who dominated Nemedia were called Nemedians, and later figured in Irish history, and the Nordics who settled in Brythunia were known as Brythunians, Brythons or Britons. There was no such thing, at that time, as a consolidated Nordic empire. As always, the tribes had each its own chief or king, and they fought savagely among themselves. What their destiny might have been will not be known, because another terrific convulsion of the earth, carving out the lands as they are known to moderns, hurled all into chaos again. Great strips of the western coast sank; Vanaheim and western Asgard uninhabited and glacier-haunted wastes for a hundred years – vanished beneath the waves. The ocean flowed around the mountains of western Cimmeria to form the North Sea; these mountains became the islands later known as England, Scotland and Ireland, and the waves rolled over what had been the Pictish wilderness and the Bossonian marches. In the north the Baltic Sea was formed, cutting Asgard into the peninsulas later known as Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and far to the south the Stygian continent was broken away from the rest of the world, on the line of cleavage formed by the river Nilus in its westward trend. Over Argos, western Koth and the western lands of Shem, washed the blue ocean men later called the Mediterranean. But where land sank elsewhere, a vast expanse west of Stygia rose out of the waves, forming the whole western half of the continent of Africa. The buckling of the land thrust up great mountain ranges in the central part of the northern continent. Whole Nordic tribes were blotted out, and the rest retreated eastward.The territory about the slowly drying inland sea was not affected, and there, on the western shores, the Nordic tribes began a pastoral existence, living in more or less peace with the Cimmerians, and gradually mixing with them.In the west the remnants of the Picts, reduced by the cataclysm once more to the status of stoneage savages, began, with the incredible virility of their race, once more to possess the land, until, at a later age, they were overthrown by the westward drift of the Cimmerians and Nordics. This was so long after the breakingup of the continent that only meaningless legends told of former empires. This drift comes within the reach of modern history and need not be repeated. It resulted from a growing population which thronged the steppes west of the inland sea – which still later, much reduced in size, was known as the Caspian – to such an extent that migration became an economic necessity. The tribes moved southward, northward and westward, into those lands now known as India, Asia Minor and central and western Europe. They came into these countries as Aryans. But there were variations among these primitive Aryans, some of which are still recognized today, others which have long been forgotten. The blond Achaians, Gauls and Britons, for
297 History instance, were descendants of pure-blooded Æsir. The Nemedians of Irish legendry were the Nemedian Æsir. The Danes were descendants of pure-blooded Vanir; the Goths – ancestors of the other Scandinavian and Germanic tribes, including the Anglo-Saxons – were descendants of a mixed race whose elements contained Vanir, Æsir and Cimmerian strains.The Gaels, ancestors of the Irish and Highland Scotch, descended from pureblooded Cimmerian clans. The Cymric tribes of Britain were a mixed Nordic-Cimmerian race which preceded the purely Nordic Britons into the isles, and thus gave rise to a legend of Gaelic priority. The Cimbri who fought Rome were of the same blood, as well as the Gimmerai of the Assyrians and Grecians, and Gomer of the Hebrews. Other clans of the Cimmerians adventured east of the drying inland sea, and a few centuries later mixed with Hyrkanian blood, returned westward as Scythians. The original ancestors of the Gaels gave their name to modem Crimea. The ancient Sumerians had no connection with the western race. They were a mixed people, of Hyrkanian and Shemitish bloods, who were not taken with the conquerors in their retreat. Many tribes of Shem escaped that captivity, and from pure-blooded Shemites, or Shemites mixed with Hyborian or Nordic blood, were descended the Arabs, Israelites, and other straighterfeatured Semites. The Canaanites, or Alpine Semites, traced their descent from Shemitish ancestors mixed with the Kushites settled among them by their Hyrkanian masters; the Elamites were a typical race of this type. The short, thick-limbed Etruscans, base of the Roman race, were descendants of a people of mixed Stygian, Hyrkanian and Pictish strains, and originally lived in the ancient kingdom of Koth.The Hyrkanians, retreating to the eastern shores of the continent, evolved into the tribes later known as Tatars, Huns, Mongols and Turks. The origins of other races of the modern world may be similarly traced; in almost every case, older far than they realize, their history stretches back into the mists of the forgotten Hyborian age... A Note on the Kingdom of Acheron Howard’s original essay on Hyborian history, reprinted in full in this chapter, omits to mention the kingdom of Acheron, which, according to the Conan novel The Hour of the Dragon, existed as a contemporary of Stygia.This section is an attempt to fill in the gaps. Acheron was originally a Stygian colony.Stygians settled throughout the regions later known as Aquilonia and Nemedia, with the colony growing in size until it was able to throw off Stygian rule and become a kingdom in its own right. This kingdom was named Acheron. It came into existence just before the first Hyborian settlers began their conquest of the northern lands. For some years, Acheron retained its dominance over its ancient empire, though the Hyborians must have settled in pockets around Acheron – perhaps including Koth and Ophir, two of the oldest Hyborian kingdoms, which would at that time have been subject to Acheronian governance. For a time, Acheron’s borders reached as far south as the north of Shem, which was under Stygian rule, so that the two evil empires shard a vast border of some 1500 miles in length. The Hyborian tribes that had already settled in the area first conquered many of the Stygian outposts in Shem, probably including Kuthchemes; this is when Koth annexed Shem for the first time. Next, they rose up against Acheronian rule. It seems likely they were assisted in these endeavours by a new influx of Hyborian barbarians from the north. With strong iron weapons and good horsemanship, they took Acheronian city after Acheronian city, putting wizards to death wherever they found them.
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299 Gazetteer Conan’s world is a brutal, exotic setting filled with diverse nation-states, powerful sorcerers, ancient treasures and lost dungeons and cities. The lands of Hyboria offer the chance for both glory and death in equal measure. Customs and Society Law and Order Most countries use their armies rather than a dedicated police force to maintain order. Judges or magistrates are common but juries do not seem to be used. A judge’s edicts are enforced through the nation’s military might. In some regions, a governor or other authority may also take on the duties of a judge. Punishment is usually simple and direct – a fine or imprisonment for lesser offences and execution for greater offenses. The most common methods of execution are hanging and beheading. Calendar The Hyborian calendar is similar to the real-world one, with twelve months of approximately thirty days each. The months have non-descriptive names, such as Yuluk. The years are also named; for example, there have been the year of the Gazelle, the year of the Lion and year of the Dragon. In conversation a Hyborian might refer to ‘the tenth of the month Yuluk, of the year of the Gazelle.’ The superstitious sometimes claim there is some special significance to the events of each year. For example, the year of the Lion might be regarded as auspicious for heroic acts, while the year of the Dragon is a suitable time for acts of powerful sorcery. Dress In the Hyborian kingdoms most people wear clothing similar to that worn by folk in real-world late medieval Europe. The rich wear doublets and hose, often in expensive fabrics such as silk, satin and velvet. The poor wear simple unbuttoned tunics or sometimes short coats of wool or linen and rough hose to match. Women of all ranks wear kirtles, the material and cut of which demonstrate their wealth. In many nations it is traditional for whores to wear red, so this colour is avoided by respectable women. War, Peace and Alliance A formal declaration of war is usually made as a prelude to an attack and in many cases two civilised countries will even agree on a time and a barren, open place that is well-known to both sides to do battle. This ensures that the much-prized lands the two are fighting over do not get destroyed by the battle and that the two armies can find one another! Wars are more common than peace during the Hyborian age. At any time, every nation on the Earth is probably in a state of war – or at least intrigue, assassination and skirmish – with one or Conan’s World A Guide to the Hyborian Kingdoms and Beyond