Hyborian Age Asia

Howard obviously was interested in the Far East, but is there any Howard Conan stories based on Medieval Japan and Samurai?

Did any Comics set Conan in Medieval Japan?

I know Japan had the whole isolationist outlook until Cmdre perry, but…

The mysterious and exotic east, Vendhya and Khitai, was merely mentioned by REH.
They are based on historical and anachronistic India and China, Japan is not even mentioned, as it is way out of the scope of the original Conan stories.

Regarding historical Japan, or India, or China: I would be careful to simply use our modern view on those REGIONS as monolithic cultures or even states. They were not. Japan had for most of the time wars upon wars of petty states with each other. China had several kingdoms that were at war at nearly all times - plus some horse nomad invasions and some japanese pirates and other problems. India was split up into lots of independent, often divided by religion, states who went to war with each other all the time - until the English came and exploited this weakness.

What we see as India, China, Japan today looking backwards from our modern point of view, is quite wrong in a historical sense. I happened to look into the medieval history of the Indian states quite a bit. India is a subcontinent as is Europe, and the Indian history is as rich in conflicts and events as the European history. India only very recently became a unified state - and that is, as weird as it seems, thanks to the British colonialism. Else the political landscape would look very much like it did for the last two thousand years before the British came.

For a Conan game you can introduce any and all historical cultures as you like, and REH’s epigons did just that - and changed the figure of Conan quite a bit at that.
In a Conan RPG anything goes that you and your players want to play.

So why not sending Aquilonian knights to duel with some feudal Samurai in the mysterious and exotic far east?

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i was thinking more of having a Junk get attacked by Nordheimers along the coast, finally coming to shore by ocean-cide pict tribes land…
Samurai in Pictish Wilderness traveling east, Aquilonian PC Scouts exploring west.

Thanks Britain.

The old Savage sword of Conan magazine comic had a whole story set in Japan which Conan had to fight against the Witch Queen. They had a map which showed the Hyborian Japan on this site, but I can’t find it on the site now.

Japan is called Yamatai in the comic.

Hyborian Age d20 Campaign Site - hyboria.xoth.net

I think I downloaded the image and have it on a flash drive if you can’t find it

The comics went with a female ruler cause of the historical Queen Himiko and used her as lose inspiration. I can post you some info on her if you like. A lot of occult practices seemed to have been female shamanistic ones. Give me a day or two if you want some more information on her.

Someone did annotation of all the Savage Sword issues and you can see some pictures and get some info on the issues here, the story starts in #194:

The annotated Savage sword of Conan | The Classic Comics Forum (boards.net)

Also see the annotation for issue #184 at:

The annotated Savage sword of Conan | The Classic Comics Forum

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So quick info while I can still post.

Yamatai is in the Funcom Conan universe. In the Conan Exiles expansion Seekers of Dawn adds in Yamati stuff.

Some links on the historical Yamatia.

Podcast on Queen Himiko

Episode 13: Queen Himiko — Sengoku Daimyo

For magical practices I recommend you grab a copy of The Catalpa Bow: A Study of Shamanistic Practices in Japan, by Carmen Blacker.

I have a good bit of research on Japanese occult practices bytheway.

Was planning to post some more, but just came from urgent care and leaned I have COVID and am feeling real sick, even after getting vaccinated and a booster. So, no clue if I’ll be on again, I don’t have net access at where I’ll be in a bit due to quarantine. I’ve been on antibiotics for the last 5 months due to a serious health problem and a weakened (compromised immune system) along with other risk factors so I’m not sure what is going to happen.

Can’t help you with Japan in particular, but ‘Asia’ is described in ‘The Road of Kings’ sourcebook for Conan the Roleplaying Game, published in 2004. The map of the Hyborian Age in this book stretches all the way to the pacific, with China region being named ‘Khitai’ and described in detail in its own chapter.
East of Khitai lies an island called ‘Lemuria’. While not exactly the shape of Japan, its position is that of Japan main island. Unfortunately Lemuria is not described in detail inside the book, but the description of Khitai gives a very good feeling what Hyborian Age oriental Asia looked and felt like.
In Robert E. Howards own ‘history’ of the Hyborian Age Lemuria sank during the cataclysm, the same time as Atlantis, so you could bring back ‘Samurai’ from a forgotten age, maybe as undead or isolated leftovers of an ancient empire. Just an idea…

Comics and games aside, which were obv. post-Howard, my understanding is that “Khitai” was as much a vaguely understood foreign region as it was an actual nation. Pretty much anything East of Vendhya was just “Khitai” in the minds of the Hyborian nations, just as anything South of Stygia was just “the Black Kingdoms” because that’s a place that people heard of. So your Khitai could have Japanese influences without having to adopt Yamatai or invent a new place - it could just be a regional cultural variant of textbook Khitai.

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