Do other races exist in the Conan lore?

Only watch 1-2 movies about Conan. So are there dwarves and elfs in Conan lore?

The Hyborian Age, which is the setting for the Conan universe takes place in an abridged human history of a pre-ice age earth. There are no fantasy races, save for the more fantastical and extinct races of giants, or serpentmen who are held as an enemy of humankind. It’s more of a low fantasy, where it’s about human history instead of an all new universe

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Short answer, NO. There are no dwarves, evles, goblins, orks or any other tolkin like races in Hyboria.

No! I can’t be a dwarf woman with a beard.

Most of those were already mostly extinct during the Thurian age and fully extinct by the time of the Hyborian age. Some small pockets do manage to cling to existence but they too will soon become extinct.

Fun fact, Robert E. Howard died in 1936, nearly twenty years before the publication of The Lord of the Rings. Since it was LotR that basically created the entire genre of high fantasy with all its various races, that means elves and dwarves and orcs as most people know them didn’t even exist when the original Conan stories were written.

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There was one vampire though :slight_smile: she sold her soul to something very dark for eternal youth. She was told to retain it she has to feast upon blood.

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I wasn’t referring to anything from Lovecraft. I was referring to:

I should have been more specific though.

As far as I remember, in Howard’s Conan stories there was only one unambigous case of a vampire, which was Akivasha. Howard’s other (non-Conan) fiction may have included others, and non-Howardian Conan stories have had various fantastical creatures, including vampires and lycanthropes. Other forms of undead, such as Xaltotun and arguably Thugra Khotan/Natohk, also made appearances in Howard’s Conan stories. Demonic creatures and other otherworldly horrors were more common because of the influence of contemporary horror fiction authors, such as Howard’s friend Lovecraft.

Howard’s fiction doesn’t contain many modern fantasy elements because he predates modern fantasy. The genre was known as “sword and sorcery” in his time and was far from mainstream entertainment.

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Serpent men, ape men, vampires.

Another fun fact. The word Orc is derived from the old english orcneas and was originally used in to refrence sea monsters. Then it takes over as a more generic term for monsters in general and eventually settles into being more specifically used a synonym for ogres.

Then! Before Howard dies or Tolkien publishes the Hobbit, L. Frank Baum uses the word Ork in 1915 in “The Scarecrow of Oz” for a race of featherless rubber skinned flying quadropeds! Which are not sea monsters, ogres, or greenskins. They are however sentient and cabable of speach and empathy.

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There was only ever one vampire in the entirely of the Hyborian world of Robert E. Howard and they were not a vampire by the traditional sense. There was never any talk of Akivasha leaving the tomb where she lived to feed upon the blood of mortals or anything like that. And there is no evidence that there are any others either.

Akivasha was a Stygian, a once-human. I wouldn’t consider that an independent fantasy race more than I would consider it a curse or dark corruption, like Nahtok’s immortality after returning from death.

Actually, she was likely of the pre-stygian race that existed before the Stygian’s conquered them. Those which fled would go on to form Acheron, those which stayed tended to occupy the upper levels of nobility of Stygian society and intermixed with the Stygian people thus causing Conan, a Cimmerian, to not know the difference.

If you are interested you can take a read on this article here. It has some fairly good reasoning to it.

A good read to be sure, but it only reaffirms the history of the game itself. The pre-human pre-stygians are literally the giant kings we know of through the game lore, as well as addressed later in the article. The talk of the lemurians overthrowing them was well covered in the game as well, being the downfall of the giant kings and their city. The only interesting thing to note is the tall, pale skinned reference. That would imply that the blood of the giant kings has been cross-bred into the humans, creating the hybrids that make up the stygian royalty as well as individuals such as Tyros, the kinscourge.

the white hand. sorcery ftw

Well, the Lemurians would actually have never encountered the Giant Kings (which also would not have looked anything like they do in Conan Exiles if you read the works of Robert E. Howard). The first Lemurians, those who managed to survive the destruction of Lemuria at the ending of the Thurian age were enslaved by the Khari for over a thousand years before they revolted. Those decedents would go on to form Khitai. The Khari, now without a home would wonder the earth conquering small tribes along the way assimilating them as they go until they eventually descend up a new land that they conquer and would rename Stygia. So it was the Khari who first defeated the Giant Kings but then they went on to create the nation of Acheron and ruled there for hundreds of years until the waves of Hyborian savages eventually swept over their empire and destroyed them for good. You can read about the Khari and Lemurians here.

What? No?

I have. Bold assumption I haven’t. Where’s your source on this?

The game explicitly states that it’s the lemurians who are in the exiled lands and are the ones who revolted to form stygia. The books also corroborate this. The pre-human kingdom referenced in the hyborian age is the giant kings, not the khari. Your article has no sources linked whatsoever and therefore I have my doubts on it’s legitimacy given it contradicts the books.

Which books are you referring to? The original stories written by Robert E. Howard? He never once claims that the Lemurians formed Stygia and the article I referenced only uses sourced from the works of Mr. Howard. Also, it clearly states that the Giant Kings ARE the ones who are living in what is to become Stygia, it is the remnants of the Khari who the enslaved decedents of the Lemurians revolted against and drove out of their homeland that conquered the Giant Kings and took on their worship of Set. And if you read the article it gives many sources all of which are within the works of Robert E. Howard himself, not the programmers of Funcom. I personally have found flaws in several things they have done on Conan Exiles as well as Age of Conan but I honestly do not care because I have enjoyed the hell out of both games. :slight_smile: And in the end, unless Robert E. Howard comes back to life no one will know for certain exactly what happened. :stuck_out_tongue:

I’m retracting this post. I found some interesting things going back and re-reading. I’ll admit I’m not entirely right, but we should discuss this privately. I’ll DM you