However - Jimbo is very insistent (and also states that he has ‘confirmation from sources he is not allowed to give details on’ (whatever that means…). I’m 100% that the Exiled Lands are in some sort of ‘pocket realm’ (‘Snowglobe theory’ - which I believe was your term originally?). Jimbo has pushed me (with decent evidence) to around 95% that it’s the Dreamlands specifically, but I could still be persuaded of an alternative. What I cannot be persuaded on is ideas like ‘it’s on the coast of the Vilayet’ (as has been claimed with very poor evidence in the past).
However - where you are very correct is that I should not state that ‘as fact’. It is not proven canon. (Though it is the only plausible explanation for the Exiled Lands, in my opinion.)
Funnily enough, I had this exact debate with Jimbo fairly recently, except with him pushing a little more of a ‘Giant Kings were Acheron’ type position. (A lot of the argument centred on Rippke, who I maintain does not make clear enough distinction between what he can prove and his own head-canon.) Xaltotun was another factor brought up as having relatively ‘inhuman’ appearance and great height (though I maintain that, while it could indicate Giant King ancestry, the ‘inhuman’ element can as likely come from being a demonic sorceror).
I still maintain that while the Stygian nobility (and Acheronian) could show some evidence of Giant King ancestry, that is not required to create the difference betwen them and Stygian commoners, since the commoners are heavily intermixed with other surrounding races (and slaves). I’m also not convinced that Akivash is evidence of Giant King ancestry - that factor you bring up of Conan mistaking her for Stygian nobility can also be explained by their Khari ancestry (which we know for certain for both Stygia and Acheron).
Either way, I accept the high likelihood that the ‘Pre-human civilisation’ was most likely the Giant Kings (though maintain a small possibility that it could have been a different pre-human civilisation and the Giant Kings could have been elsewhere - but most likely they are one and the same). So it is certainly not impossible that the Giant Kings interbred with their Khari destroyers - I just don’t think it is proven/provable.
(Side note - I’m well aware you’ve read it, but in case you don’t always have easy access to it, my first post in this thread contains a link to the Guttenberg online edition of ‘The Hyborian Age’ (because I keep it bookmarked for easy reference. lol).)
Yup. Timeline-wise I’m not sure exactly when Beyond the Black River would fit with Conan’s supposed brief interlude in the Exiled Lands - I’d place it as probably after he leaves. But Venarium has definitely happened by this point.
Oh don’t worry, I have that bookmark saved. I also have an entire shelf on my bookcase dedicated to Conan / Red Sonya (including the massive collectors edition box of Age of Conan).
Well she pre-dates both Acheron and the Khari so there is that. So Stygian nobility being a mixture of Khari and Acheron (which both Stygia and Acheron were bitter rivals and fought many wars against one another so not sure how much mixing there was) wouldn’t explain her. I mean, just look at the time line.
Now, going from a starting point of the Great Cataclysm:
0: Cataclysm: Atlantis and Lemuria sink, Pictish Islands heaved up. Continental Picts and Atlanteans survive. Lemurians escape to eastern coast of Thurian Continent, enslaved by the ancient race there. Proto-Hyborians flee north, drive the snow-apes north. [382–3] 500: Pictish–Atlantean wars end. Lesser cataclysm; creates inland sea. [382–3] 1000: Acheron founded by the children of the Giant-Kings. 1500: Lemurians have risen and destroyed their masters, who came west, overthrew the giant-kings, founded the “human” kingdom of Stygia. Hyborians have spread over the north; begin to drift southward [383–4] 2000: Hyborians sweep south. Descendants of Zhemri revive. Sons of Shem wander east of Stygia. Agriculture evolved in valley of Zingg. Hyperborea has come into being. [384–5] 2000-2500: Zamora founded. Stygia expands into the lands settled by the Shemites, and lays claim to the lands east of the growing empire of Acheron. Zingara’s aboriginal inhabitants absorbed by a Pictish influx. 2500–3000: Hyborian tribes settle in the lands under Stygian rule. Hyborian tribes settle the strip of land that exists between Acheron and the Pictish and Cimmerian wilderness. The first Hyborian nations (Koth, Ophir, and Corinthia) are founded, but remain under Stygia’s domination. Zingara founded after a tribe of Hybori conquer and absorb the region’s inhabitants. [385] 3000–3500: Koth, Ophir and Corinthia successfully rebel against Stygia and sack Kuthchemes. The nation of Acheron falls under the combined weight of a Hyborian invasion. Aquilonia, Nemedia, Argos and Brythunia are founded. Koth flexs its might and drives the Stygians south of the Styx. [385–6] 3500: The kingdoms of the world are defined: the Hyborian kingdoms, Zamora, Zingara, Stygia, Cimmeria, Picts [385–6] 3500–4000: Æsir and Vanir in Nordheim. Lemurians emerge as Hyrkanians, establish Turan. [386] 4000: Hyborian civilization enters its height [386–7] 5000: Kothic adventurers carve the small kingdoms of Khauran and Khoraja out of the Shemitish lands to the southeast of Koth 6000(approx) Conan becomes King of Aquilonia. **(Looks more to be around 5500)**
However, Akivash died when?
“I am Akivasha! I am the woman who never died, who never grew old! Who fools say was lifted from the earth by the gods, in the full bloom of her youth and beauty, to queen it for ever in some celestial clime! Nay, it is in the shadows that mortals find immortality! Ten thousand years ago I died to live for ever!”
This is from the Hour of the Dragon, a story in which Conan is King, so take that at the 6,000 year point in that timeline and well… Akivasha died IN THE THURIAN AGE. In fact if you go further back into the timeline, she was around even before Kull of Atlantis. So yeah, she is not from Acheron, as Acheron did not exist yet, and she is not of the Khari as they were still over in Asia on the shores of the Pacific.
Also, you forget that Thoth-Amon seemingly was in posession of a certain relic that came FROM Stygia. As seen in this exert from The God in the Bowl:
‘A sort of sarcophagus, such as is found in ancient Stygian tombs, but this one was round, like a covered metal bowl. Its composition was something like copper, but much harder, and it was carved with hieroglyphics, like those found on the more ancient menhirs in southern Stygia. The lid was made fast to the body by carven copper-like bands.’
‘What was in it?’
'The men of the caravan did not know. They only said that the men who gave it to them told them that it was a priceless relic, found among the tombs far beneath the pyramids and sent to Kalanthes “because of the love the sender bore the priest of Ibis”. Kallian Publico believed that it contained the diadem of the giant-kings, of the people who dwelt in that dark land before the ancestors of the Stygians came there. He showed me a design carved on the lid, which he swore was the shape of the diadem which legend tells us the monster-kings wore.
Bold text added for emphasis by me, but the text is unaltered otherwise. It is clearly stated that the Giant-Kings dwelt in Stygian prior to the arrival of the Stygians (the Khari as they were called at the time).
As far as the Great Cataclysm is concern which ended the Thurian Age and brought about the Hyborian Age we see this (from the Hyborian Age essay)
The far south is still veiled in mystery. Untouched by the Cataclysm, its destiny is still pre-human.
Far to the east, the Lemurians, levelled 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 pre-human 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 worshipped, after the race as a whole had been destroyed.
So yeah, the pre-human race that lived in Stygia during the Thurian Age that went pretty much unscathed during the Great Cataclysm is beyond doubt the Giant-Kings. And considering that Akivasha is found deep inside on of the Pyramids in Stygia, and is from the Thurian Age, what race do you think she is? Even the fact that he was inside one of the Pyramids eludes to the fact that she is not Stygian.
They passed through the belt of huts and groves, and if any man saw them he was careful not to show himself. The huts were dark. Behind them the black towers of Khemi rose gloomily against the stars that were mirrored in the waters of the harbor; ahead of them the desert stretched away in dim darkness; somewhere a jackal yapped. The quick-passing sandals of the silent neophytes made no noise in the sand. They might have been ghosts, moving toward that colossal pyramid that rose out of the murk of the desert. There was no sound over all the sleeping land.
Conan’s heart beat quicker as he gazed at the grim black wedge that stood etched against the stars, and his impatience to close with Thutothmes in whatever conflict the meeting might mean was not unmixed with a fear of the unknown. No man could approach one of those somber piles of black stone without apprehension. The very name was a symbol of repellent horror among the northern nations, and legends hinted that the Stygians did not build them; that they were in the land at whatever immeasurably ancient date the dark-skinned people came into the land of the great river.
First point - yes, I entirely forgot God in the Bowl - that does settle the question of the Giant Kings being the specific Pre-Human civilisation in question. (Though I do still dispute that the Hyborian Age text is proof of interbreeding - only that ‘remnants…seemed to have survived, and even been worshipped, after the race as a whole had been destroyed’ - that proves they existed and were revered, but does not prove interbreeding.)
Agreed on there not being a question of it being the Giant Kings (God in the Bowl settles that). I’m not so certain about Akivasha - she says ‘10,000 years’, but a) exageration and rounding are perfectly in keeping with REH’s style, and b) I don’t know where you got that list of dates for the events of The Hyborian Age - no copy I’m familiar with puts any definite timescale on it. (Is that Rippke?)
Now - if the dates are correct, then I will also acknowledge that REH would be more likely to have Akivasha round to 5000 or 6000 years if he intended her not to be pre-cataclysm. So, if the dates are correct, then 10,000 years would appear to put her pre-cataclysmic, which does indeed preclude any possiblitiy of Khari ancestry. But then it also rather ‘de-canonises’ Funcom’s Giant-Kings, because there is no way Conan mistakes one of them for any kind of human, Stygian or otherwise. He might have mistaken the ‘Child of Set’ for a human (I believe that was also God in the Bowl) - but that was mostly hidden by a curtain. He wouldn’t mistake a 12 ft tall semi-reptilian completely non-human looking Funcom Giant-King for a human of any vintage.
So that creates a canon disconnect - it is possible (though I’d say unproven, depending where that timescale comes from) that REH might have intended her to be a Giant-King, but that also suggests his vision of them was a lot closer to human. (‘Pre-human’ rather than ‘Non-human’.). Funcom has taken that a different direction, clearly. You (and I) would prefer to stick with REH’s canon, but for this game at least, we are stuck with Funcom’s canon. The only way I can see to reconcile the two would be the ‘exageration’ route - if Akivasha is exagerating her age, then she does not have to pre-date the cataclysm and can instead be ancient Acheronian/Stygian/Khari.
If we take only REH canon, then yes, I concede that (subject to some good evidence for that timescale) Akivasha would appear to be Giant King (not proven, but then nothing ever is, but certainly that is what the best evidence supports, assuming the timescale to be accurate). But that would be a very different form of Giant King to what we have been given by Funcom.
Edit: Side Note - this is what I’d much rather spend my forum time on - debating aspects of the lore that we are all here because we enjoy it (to whatever degree), rather than wasting time arguing over yet another demand to nerf something…
Yeah I have ALWAYS taken issue with the horrid representation of the Giant-Kings in this game (and in Age of Conan as well, and they don’t even look the same between the two ).
I have actually written up a whole thing about Akivasha and several other characters in the original REH stories. Of note you have Thalis who was of Stygian Nobility. While she has some superficial resemblance to Akivasha she lacks several key defining elements such has her glowing eyes and her serpent-like movements. On the other hand both Guron and Xaltotun possess those same traits. Guron however IS from the Thurian Age while Xaltotun is from the Hyborian Age so it is not beyond reason that REH fully intended Akivasha to be the “bridge” between the two ages, seeing as she is am immortal Vampire and all.
And as you pointed out, REH did make it clear that they were “pre-human” and not “non-human” which would imply that they were far more human like than the abominable depiction(s) that Funcom has decided to go with. They hear the name GIANT-KING and, much like many people on this very forum, assume Giant = 12 feet tall or taller. Yet how often was Kull or Conan described as a “giant of a man” when compared to other people?
To use a “real world” example The average height of roman soldiers was around 5’6", the average height of egyptian soldiers at that time was the same, 5’6". The average height of celtic warriors from Gaul was between 5’8" and 5’11", but they were also much more broadly built than either the romans or egyptians or their day. The same is true for the germanic warriors who tended to average around 5’10" and were also far more broadly built.
Roman writers, such as Julius Caesar and Tacitus, often described the Celts as tall and imposing figures.
So when you have a massively built Cimmerian like Conan walking amongst rather soft civilized peoples who tended to be shorter and far more slender of build, they often viewed him as being “a giant of a man”. So were the Giant-Kings actually 12 feet (or more) tall “giants”, or were they merely taller than the average human of that time and region and or more broadly built? And remember, it is likely that the Khari are the ones who gave them this name and they originated from Asia and were probably shorter than average for the region that they ended up settling in when they first conquered Stygia. Maybe the Giant-Kings only averaged 6’2", but to a people to averaged 5’4" they seemed like giants! Yet people hear the word giant and they go all
That’s actually covered in the game itself - Thoth-Amon discovered the Exiled Lands and began using them for his own purposes. Both as a prison (for people like Mek Kamoses) and as a source for relics/treasures (the original purge was supposed to be sent by Thoth Amon to loot what had been collected by exiles (it wasn’t executed very well, but that concept was explained in various lore conversations).
In the REH lore, King Ctesphon is largely under the control of Thoth Amon. The Stygian ‘invaders’ are just another attempt to represent that same idea of Thoth Amon sending raiders to collect what the exiles have gathered.
So, basically, the way the Stygians get there is through Thoth Amon’s magic. Which is also how they are able to leave, but exiles can’t.
Yeah. That is an argument I’ve had many times, lol. For ancient cultures anyone over 6 ft has the potential to be viewed as a giant, depending on the culture that is viewing them.
I’ll probably get back to you on the Akivasha stuff, I’m going to reread Hour of the Dragon.
One point I have spotted already about that timeline (Rippke?) - 3000-3500, Fall of Acheron - 6000 Conan becomes King. The ‘looks more to be around 5500’ doesn’t really work. Xaltotun is told that Acheron fell 3000 years ago (again this could be rounding and exageration, but then the same becomes true for Akivasha’s age) - I can see that working if it’s 3000-3500 to 6000. But if it’s 5500, then that’s falling back more towards 2000 years since the fall of Acheron. I could accept 2700 years being rounded to 3000, but I’d have doubts that it would be applied if it was only 2200/2300.. Hardly a big deal, but it struck me as I was reading it.
While it is true that the game does say this about the Exiles Lands, this in and of itself kind of proves that the Exiled Lands cannot be the Dreamlands.
The exiles cannot leave because of the bracelets, which were created by the Giant-Kings, not because of Thoth-Amon’s magic. Sure, Thoth-Amon’s magic might be what has “re-awakened” the long lost relics, but we do not know for certain. We do know that the Bracelets are what prevent anyone who is wearing one from passing beyond the ghost fence. However, if one is NOT wearing a bracelet they can simply walk right into the Exiled Lands, and conversely right OUT of the exiled lands. Whoever put you (the player) and all of the other exiles on the crucifix clearly walked right in and upon nailing you up there walked right on out. Conan himself walked right on in and can leave whenever he feels like it. He is only still hanging around because he is looking for another roll with Ramza. If you (the player) manage to remove the bracelet what happens? You walk right the f out of the exiled lands. Which makes them a physical location connected to the physical plane where the rest of the Hyborian world exist.
So what then are the Dreamlands?
The Dreamlands (also known as the Dream Realm) are a fictional setting created by H. P. Lovecraft for a series of stories, known as the Dream Cycle, set in a world that people enter through their dreams. It is a vast, alternate dimension or universe, with lands, seas, creatures, civilisations, and an extensive Underworld.
Does this sound like a place where you can remove physical objects from? Would Thoth-Amon send raiders into a dream world, accessed only BY DREAMS to loot artifacts to… bring back to the waking world… how exactly? If you can only access the Dream Lands by… dreaming… then wouldn’t everyone in the Exiled Lands simply WAKE THE F UP?
I am sorry but I do have a lot of respect for Jimbo, however, he like many others are OBSESSED with shoehorning in H.P. Lovecraft at EVERY SINGLE OPPORTUNITY to explain EVERYTHING IMAGINABLE rather than simply looking at the works of ROBERT E. HOWARD! And to be honest Funcom is quite guilty of this as well, so they may have intended this to be the case, and yet, by all logical means, it simply CAN NOT POSSIBLY BE THE CASE.
Also, in the game they make the claim that Thoth-Amon found the Serpent Ring of Set in the Exiled Lands. This is pattently false and thus this cannot be the Dream Lands as well even if this was the case.
From The Phoenix on the Sword:
"Listen, my lord. I was a great sorcerer in the south. Men spoke of Thoth-Amon as they spoke of Rammon. King Ctesphon of Stygia gave me great honor, casting down the magicians from the high places to exalt me above them. They hated me, but they feared me, for I controlled beings from outside which came at my call and did my bidding. By Set, mine enemy knew not the hour when he might awake at midnight to feel the taloned fingers of a nameless horror at his throat! I did dark and terrible magic with the Serpent Ring of Set, which I found in a nighted tomb a league beneath the earth, forgotten before the first man crawled out of the slimy sea.
He did not find it in some alternate dimension accessible only via dreams. There is literally zero possibility that the Exiled Lands are “the Dream Lands” no matter how much people want to shoehorn in H.P. Lovecraft. It just is not possible. It goes against established lore of Robert E. Howard. It goes against the established lore of what the Dream Lands are by H.P. Lovecraft. It goes against everything.
So what are the Exiled Lands?
This is why I have never speculated on the matter. I. Do. Not. Know. They really isn’t anything to make them possible and the writing, from day one, had been too poor to make them reality in the lore. I just accept it as being “the setting of the game” and roll with it.
The piece you are missing that allows physical relics to be taken from the Exiled Lands to the real world, despite them being within a pocket dimension outside of that world, is that that is not where they originated. They started out as the lands around the Giant-Kings’ capital city. These contained many objects that would, in due course, be considered ancient and/or valuable. In order to escape the devastation of their civilisation, the Giant-Kings used their magics to separate off a chunk of their empire into a pocket dimension. All items within that chunk still existed. That is how the Snowglobe theory answers your principle objection here. (I’ll get to the Serpent Ring shortly.)
Walking into (and more rarely out of) the Dreamlands is established as thoroughly possible within Lovecraft’s writings, so that aspect is not a problem. And, while Lovecraft is not REH, there is no question that they (and Smith) shared key aspects of their wider universe by intent. Yog is more than just an ‘easter egg’. Funcom has certainly taken this further (probably far further than REH ever intended) with the clear involvement of Nyarlathotep in multiple instances - not least the Trapezium (and the ‘talky stick’), and even more so with Siptah, with the Maelstrom (Nyarlathotep literally transporting people from the Exiled Lands to the storm-wracked isle), Mi-go, Yakith, Shaggai etc etc.
It really doesn’t.
This, however, it does. (I said I’d get to the Serpent Ring…)
There is no question of the contradiction between where Thoth-Amon states in Phoenix on the Sword that he obtained the Ring, and where Funcom says he obtained it - the two positions flat out oppose each other. The only way they can be reconciled (and it is an answer I don’t like) is that Thoth-Amon is lying in his canon explanation (the lie can be explained as hiding/not wanting to explain his access to the Exiled Lands - but it still sets Funcom directly against REH - and my choice will always be REH in that situation - but the game does not allow that option, and we are trying to explain the game’s continuity).
The game flat out states that THoth-Amon stole the Ring from the Giant Kings. - that is not a tomb a ‘league beneath the earth’ and it was certainly not ‘forgotten before the first man crawled out of the slimy sea’. There is literally no way to reconcile those two points - the game goes against REH’s canon (as they largely do with the Giant Kings as a whole).
There really isn’t anything to make Funcom’s continuity possible without having to go against certain aspects of REH’s canon. However - within Funcom’s continuity, the Snowglobe theroy fits all available evidence without contradicting anything that Funcom hasn’t already directly contradicted (and the Dreamlands fits around the Snowglobe theory extremely well). There is no difficulty within the Funcom framework for the Serpent Ring to have been taken from the Exiled Lands, even within the Dreamlands, because it was first physically transported there by the Giant Kings along with everything else within those lands - that contradicts REH, but all aspects of the Ring being found in the Exiled Lands already create that contradiction, no matter where they are.
This is where I disagree. The concept of if being a “snowglobe” is, whatever. There could be a portal set up via Thoth-Amons magic, one that he discovered from, perhaps, deciphering ancient text from the Giant-Kings who, as we establish, inhabited the lands of Stygian long before the Khari ever arrived. But a land that you have to access via dreams? Let me ask you this. Have you ever removed a physical object from your dreams?
Clearly not.
And that, right there, is why it can not be the Dream Lands. Could it be a Snowglobe case. Sure. As I said, I do not know. But an alternate dimension that you can only access via your dreams? That quite simply is not a place that you can physically bring back material objects from. There are just limits are to how far you can stretch reality to fit your “hypothesis” before it unravels.
Yog is directly taken from the pages of Robert E. Howard. Though the name of this deity may have a similarity to that of Yog-Sothoth, that is exactly where the similarity ends.
Yes I already stated above that they certainly do love to shoehorn in H.P. Lovecraft. I mean, if they wanted to make a Lovecraft game so much they could have just, you know, made a Lovecraft game. Oh wait…
Yeah I guess they kinda already did that… It didn’t do so well did it?
I guess cramming it into Age of Conan towards the end of that games life wasn’t enough for them.
Again - that’s not how the (Lovecraft) Dreamlands work (and plenty of other authors that I like better, but are even less connected to REH’s works). Lovecraft’s Dreamlands are accessible by dream, but are also physically accessible, and physical objects can be brought back from them.
If we accept Funcom’s reality (which is necessary for the game), then Lovecraft’s Dreamlands work fine, precisely because they do allow this physical transition as well as the purely dream transition. (If need be I can get Jimbo to add more details - pretty much all my direct knowledge of HPL comes from stuff Jimbo directed me to read to back up elements of the Dreamlands hypothesis - but that means getting Jimbo involved, which brings its own risks ). As I’ve previously noted, I’m 100% on the snowglobe theory - Jimbo’s got me to about 95% on the Dreamlands as the specific interpretation - he’s justified it well, with good textual back-up. Those texts are Lovecraft, not REH, but as noted that’s largely down to the pardigm Funcom has created.
There is a realm that is separate but also intrinsically tied to our world known as The Dreamlands. Every so often, when we sleep, we are transported to this marvelous and overwhelming place. It is tempting to think of the Dreamlands as an ephemeral dimension only in one’s mind—a place unreal and thus inconsequential. However, the Dreamlands is a very real place, albeit not real in a sense widely recognized by modern scientific or philosophical thought. But it is real and what happens there matters…More so than we can even begin to imagine.
When one is dreaming, they might just notice the Steps of Lighter Slumber, tucked away in a corner of an otherwise normal dream. These steps are the entrance into the Dreamlands. After descending these stairs, the dreamer must then pass through the Cavern of the Flame to fully enter the Dreamlands.
As a dreamer makes their way into the Dreamlands, they become aware of their ability to exercise some control over their surroundings. The reality of the Dreamlands is somewhat malleable. A dreamer can occasionally manipulate small details on themselves, such as their own clothing or equipment. Exceedingly powerful dreamers can reshape whole parts of the Dreamlands with their desires and intentions, often without at first realizing it; such is the case with the city of Celephaïs, which was created, complete with its population, by the dreams of King Kuranes.
If a dreamer dies in the Dreamlands, they are jolted awake, safe in the waking world; however, they can never return to the Dreamlands, intentionally or otherwise. Their dream-self is dead. Conversely, dreamers whose waking self has died can become permanent inhabitants of the Dreamlands.
All signs lead towards … drum roll… the Dreamlands are a place you mind travels to when your physical body is still in the physical world and is sleeping. So what I said before still stands, you cannot remove physical objects from there. And from the quotes I just posted, if you die there, you wake up and cannot return, which directly contradicts the game mechanics. So while it does not rule out the Snowglobe idea it does kind of put a nail in the coffin of the Dreamlands idea in my opinion.
‘Haunter in the Dark’ features characters crossing physically into the Dreamlands. ‘The Witch House’ (or whatever the correct title is) includes the main character bringing back a physical item from the Dreamlands (and lays some of the groundwork for the whole ‘Exiled Lands is in the Dreamlands’ argument). I’ve read both.
Apparently, ‘The White Ship’ and ‘The Silver Key’ provide evidence for physical travel in both directions - but I’m just passing on what I’ve been told there, as I have read neither. ‘Unknown Kadath’ is apaprently a story featuring purely dream transistion into the Dreamlands. Lovecraft covered it in various ways.
But like I said - I don’t have solid text background on Lovecraft - I’ve been shown enough texts to convince me pretty well, but I don’t have the ability to pull up the relevant bits to counter texts from stories that don’t feature physical travel there. That’d take Jimbo.
I would add basically yeah to what Dan cited, but also not looking outside of REH core you can find an example within the Frost Giant’s Daughter of Conan physically having an item that the story leads you to believe happened within a dream. The entire premise behind the theory is that traversal between more than our observable dimensions is possible, be it solely your mind/soul projecting, or your body physically going. Both are possible and both have credible examples.
Then there’s the assumption that because you have a body in exiles, that must mean your physical form is there. This cannot be proven nor disproven, given the intentionally vague nature of the in-game depictions of your arrival. However an argument could be made in favour of the physical form, given Siptah begins with you on a ship bound for the exiled lands wrecking on the shore (frick boats all my homies hate boats). But even still, does our mortal distinction of where our physical body begins and ends even matter when there’s so much more imperceptible infinity that defies our understanding of reality? This is the Cthulhu Mythos after all, you’re not supposed to comprehend the incomprehensible. Dimensions, time, space - all concepts we lowly fleshbags have quantified and categorized based on what our soggy orbs of vision can perceive.
Personally, I don’t read Lovecraft. So all I did was a search on the dreamlands and those are side specifically about the dreamlands and are clearly from Lovecraft fanbases. And yet they both clearly state that you enter there from dream, while asleep. So if the Lovecraft sites are stating that this is the case then who am I to argue?
This is why I have never stated one way or another what the exiled lands are.
All that we can claim to know is that which we can prove. And all that we can prove is that which we can test and verify. You know, those things that physically exist in reality. Now, there are theoretical sciences, but they still deal with physical reality as well. So to answer this question, yes, yes it does matter where our physical body is.
Notice something…slightly off? As in… it looks NOTHING like the Giant-Kings they show in Conan Exiles? Also, neither appear to be the Giant-Kings of Robert E. Howard.
Yeah, don’t remember any references to four arms. I mean, I guess REH never explicitly describes them, so I suppose anything is theoretically possible. But if we take Akivasha to be an example - and the evidence does fit - then Conan would have to have been really drunk to mistake that for a ‘Stygian noble’…
Even the fact that he was inside one of the Pyramids eludes to the fact that she is not Stygian.
