I made a halloween styled adventure for my groups to play in set in the Border Kingdoms which is a place I had never read about in a REH Conan story. I did some research with Conan the Scout and the Core book and loved the fact that it is like a slavic area such as Romania, Lithuania, & Estonia so I decided to have a folktale run in with some famous Romanian monsters. Then ramp it up into an epic sword and sorcery encounter. I hope other players will enjoy this.
I copied non artwork from the books so I hope this is ok. If not please remove the post.
Edit: Let me know if the link works. It works for me on separate devices.
A late to the party thank you for this one. Really enjoyed reading it.
An aside about your description of it (not trying to be a knowitall nor rude, just from that general neck o’ the wood), Romania isn’t a Slavic country. Like Hungary, they’re just surrounded by Slavic countries.
One of the same reasons I like the Border Kingdoms. Anyway, thanks for sharing the adventure. I’m going to have it waiting if the characters end up going that direction…
Very true. Learned of Romanians not being Slavic recently and I need to update it. Also I call the some of the npcs in the story Gypsies instead of the proper Romani usage because I had no idea it was a slight or slur when I wrote that. I just thought it was interchangeable descriptions.
Hope you enjoy it. I ran the first part like horror folklore then increased the pace to a more action sword and sorcery.
The Gypsies/Romani conundrum is far less clearcut than that, but avoiding intentional slights is not a bad thing to strive for. In the Balkan countries, very many Romani describe themselves as gypsies; which doesn’t mean the term isn’t still used as a pejorative by others. And within traditional Romani society is a vicious patriarchy that complicates things even more. To some perspectives, especially within the context of games/fiction, descriptors are fine but denigration is not. Which depends a lot on intention. And there we are in the murky bits of culture again.
Whoo. Shake off work talk. Game worlds are a lot easier to understand. And more fun to play!
Adapting this to fit our campaign—it will segue nicely and be well received.
I frankly do not remember any REH’s words suggesting any kind of connection between Border Kingdom and Baltic Countries and/or Slavic countries and/or Romania.
If they exist, I would be pleased to be contradicted and corrected!!
I’ll just learn something.
Admitedly some old Marvel conan comics kind of had THAT feeling regarding Border Kingdoms…but nothing from pure REH source, at least as far as I remember.
I suspect that your “research” is just “Conan 2d20 Core Rule page 204” (which, by the way, seems to suggest only Baltic Countries).
Modiphius Conan is an AWESOME game…but sometimes one must be careful about its supposed REH purity. They got rid of SO MUCH established “pastiche” (De Camp or Marvel Comics), just to give more more pastiche and pass it for “pure REH”.
It’s not that all of this it’s bad in itself…but when you pretend to be “pure REH”, I expect some reference.
maybe it’s just me, but i still can’t use the link, it always tells me that the file isn’t available.
i’m not sure about why i cant download it.
anyhow i liked the idea of a slavic inspired adventure.
