Beyond the Road of Kings
This is not the Exiled Lands.
This is not Siptah’s Isle.
You are not an Exile.
You have chosen to be here.
Know O Prince, that in those times, to the north of Turan, between the shining Vilayet Sea and the eastern borders of Zamora, where the mighty Kezankian Mountains stood like a bulwark between east and west, there lay a wild, untamed hinterland. Here, perhaps more than any other land in the north, there were yet to be found the signs of the great civilisations that reigned supreme, before the waves swept over Atlantis, and wild, tawny haired barbarians threw down the devil haunted empire of Acheron.
Ruins stood there, the remnants of palaces and plazas and the tombs of long dead kings. And in those tombs were riches beyond imagining….
Beyond the Road of Kings is a heavily lore adherent RP server, with RP within the world created by Howard very much the emphasis. When we say that we are lore adherent, we mean it. We draw only on Howard’s work, or on sources approved by credible Howard scholars such as Dale Rippke’s “The Hyborian Heresies” and the excellent ongoing “Robert E. Howard Conan Lore Project” as well as the Modiphius Conan RPG sourcebooks. Our main admins have been reading Howard’s works, and studying them, for many years. We are passionate about the world, and we strive to bring it, in as pure a form as we can, to our server. We will accept some third party suggestions, but as a rule we do not use the Mongoose RPG books, Xoth or the CLA as our primary sources for lore.
We set our server to the north of the Vilayet Sea, an area largely undocumented in Howard’s stories, which gives us a fantastic blank page on which to write wonderful Hyborian Age tales. No Exiles here, just adventurers, cut from the same cloth as the eponymous Cimmerian.
We have an overarching server plotline as well as episodic events that evoke Howard’s Conan stories in look and feel. Our server GMs have decades of experience in running events in many formats of roleplaying, from MMOs and tabletop to freeform and LARP events. This experience allows them to approach scenario building and running from many angles not often seen in online RP. Players will be free to build and create, and to craft their own stories as they would on any server, but they will also be able to become embroiled in the ongoing server plot, or to drop in to short, self contained events on a more casual basis.
For players who wish for their characters to become sorcerers, that option is available, though the slots for sorcerous characters will be limited and there will be a series of trials and interactions and quests that the player will need to complete before any magical abilities become available to them. As with Howard’s tales, the path to sorcery is a dark and dangerous one, and at the end of that path, there are no Gandalfs or Harry Potters.
Our RP Dice System, used for some events, is bespoke and captures the feel of Howard’s Sword and Sorcery tales. The system has been designed from the ground up to enable fast play with an emphasis on RP. Players can select abilities that evoke Howard’s dynamic writing style such as “Rush in and die, dogs!”, “I have read from the iron bound books of Vathelos the Blind” and “When the broadswords sing” The system was written specifically for our server by one of our GMs, who was also part of the writing and design team on the multi award winning “Adventures in Middle Earth” books for 5th ed D&D.
For other events, we will use a “PVP/PVE Lite” method, with some aspects being not dissimilar to a LARP, in which some players will be invited to play NPC roles, and then statted, equipped and briefed regarding personality, motivation and behaviour. The fights on these events will be a mix of player controlled enemies and PVE “mobs” and will be crafted with the emphasis on entertainment for the players far more than any sort of PVP challenge. This is a method that we have used before, during the Age of Conan days, to great effect. It can result in the players using very creative ways to deal with challenges.
In all honesty, if you want a high fantasy, high magic server, with a diversity of otherworldly and magical races, ours is not for you. If, however, you are searching for a server that captures the pulp sword and sorcery stories of Robert E Howard, we may be exactly what you’re looking for.
Server Capacity: 30
Discord:
Text based RP
No password, though an character application is required before a character will be able to exit the starting area to enter the server
Server Settings:
XP Rate x1
Players may choose to start their characters at level 1 or to receive an instant boost to either level 30 or level 60
Drop Equipment on Death: No
God Avatars Enabled: No
Containers Ignore Ownership: No
Purge Activated: No
Peak Play Times: Varied. We have a good mix of European and US Players. Peak Times tend to be from 8pm UK time to 7am UK time
Does the server use Mods: Yes
Mod List:
Pippi
ThrallWarDecorations
immersivearmor
ArenaPier
NorthernTimber
SandAndStone
No_Building_Placement_Restrictions
UnlockableContainers
BarbaricBarber
Improved_Quality_of_Life
WarSong
RavencrestCouriers
Warrior Mutator
NoSkelosCollector
StylistPlus
CAS
AkubaSalon
Emberlight
RA
Devious_Desires
nordic_decorations
DungeonMasterTools
SvS2
SvS_Extended
RoleplayRedux
Savage_Wilds
AmunetDecoCollector
NoSlaveBracelet
BTROK
StacksizePlus
Building limitations:
Building limits are based on Clan size, as follows:
1 Character: 500 Build pieces/250 Placeables
2 800/450
3 1100/600
4 1400/775
5 1700/950
6 2000/1125
Maximum Clan size at present is limited to 6 characters
Application form: Actual application is available in our discord and consists of the following:
Before we can grant you access to the server, we ask you to fill in the following brief application form. Once done, we will process it as quickly as possible. If we are uncertain about any of your answers, we will contact you to talk them through in order to make sure that you can be online and playing as quickly as possible.
Character Name:
Character Race:
Brief Character Description:
What has brought your character to this land?
Give us a brief emote in response to one of the following situations:
The wizened merchant looks up, his dark eyes gleaming with an avaricious glee, lips peeling back from rotted teeth. He gestures imperiously to his tawdry wares, making a grand sweep of his clawlike hand before picking up a curved dagger “By Ishtar, you will not find a better blade than this in Murun, I swear it. I see that you desire it! You cannot hide it from me. For only two silvers, it can be yours!”
A hush suddenly descends upon the forest, an almost palpable sense of imminent danger hanging in the air. A pair of men glide from the shadows, naked steel gleaming dully in their hands, their mismatched armour and and the cold, hard glint in their eyes hinting at violent perfidy and dark intent. One of them speaks then, his voice a low growl, lips curled in a cruel and mirthless smile “Best you drop your weapons and hand over your coin pouch, lest we leave you as food for the worms…”
The tavern is bustling, the loud clamouring of revellers and carousers shaking the stained beams of the low ceiling. The air is thick with the reek of cheap wine and the sour sweat stench of unwashed bodies. (write a short emote of your arrival to this scene)