Introduction

Religion in the Hyborian Age

Religions in the Conan stories are generally dark, brutal affairs, full of secrets and monstrous priests. Most of the stories give religion a rather unholy, unclean air. Conan the Cimmerian strives to conquer and tread a primitive time with primitive religions. This volume in the Conan the Roleplaying Game series is designed to enhance the roleplaying aspect of scholars, cultists and religious leaders in the Hyborian Age.

In the Conan stories, it is left unclear as to whether the gods exist or not. The descriptions for the Hyborian Age gods, which may or may not be real entities, do not include ‘statistics,’ such as might be found in many sourcebooks. Even if a Games Master does consider the Hyborian Age gods to be real, they would possess powers that no mortal, not even the mighty Conan, could hope to defeat. Thus the need for monster-like statistics for these gods is still unnecessary. Conan does not come into armed conflict with Set but only with Set’s priests. Keep in mind that just because a certain demon claims to serve a deity, that demon could be lying or may have the same misconceptions about the gods as some mortals have.

Since this volume does not contain useless statistics for the gods, the question becomes, what does a priest of a god worship and why does he worship it? This volume is designed to answer those questions, not to become some sort of ‘divine bestiary’ of fiends and foes for Conan the Roleplaying Game characters to fight and defeat.

The religions are divided up largely by culture and even a few heresies and alternate religions at variance with the ‘official’ religion of an area are detailed. New feats, spells and other concepts are also detailed.

Readers will note that a few things are left vague. For the most part, this book does not try to describe each and every ritual or even catalogue all the possible rituals a given religion might have. A game should live during actual play, and players and Games Masters both should be able to contribute to the overall world; a completely comprehensive work would diminish a player’s and a Games Master’s ability to make the game world of the Hyborian Age his own, with its own rituals and gods and concepts.