Against the Black Priory

Back at the start of April, I wrote about my inability to replay the old AD&D computer game, Pool of Radiance. The difficulty lay primarily in its user interface, which was clunky and difficult to use on a contemporary computer. Likewise, the graphics, which looked fine on the screen in the late 1980s, did not translate well on a better monitor with a higher resolution. Consequently, I found it nigh impossible to play, let alone enjoy, Pool of Radiance again (or likely any of the other AD&D computer RPGs from that era). That's a shame, because I'm a fan of computer roleplaying games and am always on the lookout for enjoyable ones.

Fortunately, I stumbled across Skald: Against the Black Priory, a brand new (released May 2024) computer RPG inspired by the 8-bit CRPGs of old, while introducing aspects of modern design to make it more playable on contemporary machines. Though Skald no doubt took a lot of inspiration from games like Bard's Tale – likely explaining its title – one of the things that sets it apart in my opinion is the combination of sword-and-sorcery and cosmic horror of its narrative. Think Robert E. Howard's "Worms of the Earth" or Clark Ashton Smith's Hyperborea stories and you have a good idea of the kind of thing I'm talking about.

I've enjoyed my time playing the game. It's party-based (with up to six characters) and uses a top-down perspective, in keeping with its inspirations. There are lots of little details hidden throughout the game, both to assist you in your quests and to paint a picture of the overall setting. The game is quite unforgiving at times (again, in keeping with its inspirations). Not only are enemies tough, especially at low levels, but there are some choices you can make that result in automatic death. Though its interface is better suited to modern sensibilities, the game itself is quite old school in its deadliness (though there is an option for "narrative play," if you aren't interested in a challenge).

All in all, I have almost entirely positive feelings about Skald: Against the Black Priory. My biggest complaints are minor (the combat system can be grindy) and are outweighed by the game's cleverness and atmosphere. Playing through it has definitely whetted my appetite for more games like this. Now, I just need to find them ...

Nothing New Under the Sun

This week's installment of Pulp Fantasy Library discussed Robert E. Howard's story of Kull, "The Cat and the Skull." To the extent that the story is known at all, it's because it features the first appearance of the undead sorcerer. The revelation of his involvement in the events of the tale is quite memorable.

The face of the man was a bare white skull, in whose eye sockets flamed livid fire!

"Thulsa Doom!"

"Aye, I guessed as much!" exclaimed Ka-nu.

"Aye, Thulsa Doom, fools!" the voice echoed cavernously and hollowly. "The greatest of all wizards and your eternal foe, Kull of Atlantis! You have won this tilt but, beware, there shall be others."

Years ago, when I first read this story, I was convinced that it had to have been the origin of D&D's lich. While I knew the lich from the AD&D Monster Manual, with its unforgettable illustration by Dave Trampier, the lich was introduced into the game through Supplement I to OD&D, Greyhawk. There, liches are described as "skeletal monsters of magical original, each Lich being a very powerful Magic-User or Magic-User/Cleric in life, and now alive only by means of great spells and will." The longer description in the Monster Manual adds that a lich possesses not just a skeletal form but "eyesockets mere black holes with glowing points of light." That sound a lot like REH's description of Thulsa Doom to me.

The early 1970s was a remarkable time for aficionados of Robert E. Howard's writing. Not only was Lancer releasing its paperback editions of Howard's sword-and-sorcery yarns, but Marvel Comics was producing comic adaptations of many of them as well. In addition to the much more well known and celebrated Conan the Barbarian (and, later, Savage Sword of Conan), Marvel adapted Howard's characters and stories in other

magazines, such as Monsters on the Prowl. Issue #16 of that magazine (April 1972) featured an original Kull story called "The Forbidden Swamp," in which Thulsa Doom is introduced to comics readers. As drawn by the brother and sister team of John and Marie Severin, Thulsa Doom shares a lot with D&D's lich, don't you think?

For years afterward, I held on to my theory that it was Thulsa Doom who had inspired Gary Gygax in his creation of the lich. Not only was there much similarity between their descriptions, but Thulsa Doom's earliest published appearance, whether in Lancer's King Kull anthology or Marvel's comics, occurred just before the publication of OD&D. There was thus a certain plausibility to the one having been inspired by the other.

As it turned out, my theory was wrong – or at least not the whole story. Many years later, in one of his many online question and answer threads, I recall that Gygax admitted he swiped the lich from "The Sword of the Sorcerer," a Kothar story by Gardner F. Fox. In that tale, Kothar encounters an undead sorcerer named Afgorkon, who is repeatedly referred to by the word "lich," something that cannot be said of Thulsa Doom so far as I can tell. That's not to say that Thulsa Doom might not have exercised some influence over the creation of D&D's lich, only that he wasn't, at least as far as Gygax claimed, the primary one. It's not as if the idea of a skeletal, undead sorcerer is a wholly unique idea anyway.

That's something I keep in mind whenever I look almost any element of Dungeons & Dragons. Very little of it is genuinely unique to the game. I'd wager that almost all of its monsters, spells, and magic items derive from a pre-existing story, comic, movie, or TV show. Indeed, it probably wouldn't take much work to demonstrate this, since Gygax and others were often quite open about the earlier creators and works that inspired them. I don't mean this to be a criticism – far from it! Rather, I bring this up simply as a reminder that what makes D&D special is not any of its individual elements, very few of which are original, but rather the strange alchemy of their admixture. 

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Cat and the Skull

Of all of Robert E. Howard's characters, I would argue that Kull is perhaps his most misunderstood – and not without reason. Though Howard wrote more than a dozen stories featuring the Atlantean king of Valusia, only three of them were published during his lifetime. Compared to, say, Conan or Solomon Kane, who appeared in many more stories, Kull seems almost like an afterthought, a character Howard discarded after the publication of "Kings of the Night" in November 1930. 

Conan, who first appeared twenty-five months after Kull's published swan song, plays a huge role in explaining why Kull is largely unknown today. Even among those aware of Kull, there's often a false sense that he's little more than a "rough draft" of the Cimmerian, an impression that isn't helped by the knowledge that Howard re-purposed a rejected Kull story, "By This Axe I Rule!," for Conan's debut, "The Phoenix on the Sword." 

This is a great shame in my opinion. As characters, Kull and Conan have similarities, to be sure, but they also have differences. These differences are much more apparent when one reads the various unpublished Kull stories that Glenn Lord found in REH's famous storage trunk. Lord, a fan and fellow Texan, tracked down "the Trunk," as it is sometimes known, in 1965, finding that it contained about half of everything Howard had ever written, most of which had never been published in any form – including numerous Kull stories in various stages of completion.

Two years after the discovery of the Trunk, the anthology King Kull was released by Lancer, who'd already found great success with its line of Conan paperbacks. And just like those Conan paperbacks, this volume included posthumous "collaborations" between Robert E. Howard and editor Lin Carter. In this case, Carter finished three incomplete tales of Kull to varying degrees of success. Among the wholly Howardian stories presented for the first time in King Kull is one entitled "Delcardes' Cat" therein but whose proper title is "The Cat and the Skull."

The start of the tale is compelling.

King Kull went with Tu, chief councillor of the throne, to see the talking cat of Delcardes, for though a cat may look at a king, it is not given every king to look at a cat like Delcardes'. So Kull forgot the death-threat of Thulsa Doom the necromancer and went to Delcardes.

Thulsa Doom! Now, there's a name to seize the imagination. Though generations know him as the antagonist in John Milius' Conan the Barbarian, he is, in fact, the archnemesis of Kull and this story marks his first ever mention (and, as it later turns out, appearance) in fiction.

Kull is no fool and is thus skeptical of the existence of a talking cat. Tu is even more "wary and suspicious" in part because "years of counter-plot and intrigue had soured him." Indeed, he suspected that the supposed talking cat "was a snare and a fraud, a swindle and a delusion," not to mention "a direct insult to the gods, who ordained that only man should enjoy the power of speech." Does this sound at all like the opening of a Conan story? The yarn begins almost whimsically and I cannot deny that I was immediately seized with interest in seeing where Howard took things.

The cat, whose name is Saremes, is the companion – not pet! – of Delcardes, a Valusian noblewoman, who is herself described as "like a great beautiful feline," whose "lips were full and red and usually, as at present, curved in a faint enigmatical smile." She has come to the court of Kull to crave a boon from the king. The boon in question is marriage to Kulra Thoom of Zarfhaana, a match that would be forbidden, because "it is against the custom of Valusia that royal women should marry foreigners of lower rank." Delcardes knows this and argues that "the king can rule otherwise," much to the consternation of Tu, who reminds Kull that such a breach of tradition "is like to cause war and rebellion and discord for the next hundred years."

Kull will have none of this.

"Valka and Hotath! Am I an old woman or a priest to be bedevilled by such affairs? Settle it between yourselves and vex me no more with questions of mating! By Valka, in Atlantis men and women marry whom they please and none else."

Delcardes sees this as the perfect opportunity to remind Kull of the cat who accompanied her. The cat 

lolled on a silk cushion, on a couch of her own and surveyed the king with inscrutable eyes ... she had a slave who stood behind her, ready to do her bidding, a lanky man who kept the lower part of his face concealed with a thin veil which fell to his chest. 

The noblewoman explains that Saremes was "a cat of the Old Race who lived to be thousands of years old." She then asks him to ask the cat her age.

"How many years have you seen, Saremes?" asked Kull idly.

"Valusia was young when I was old," the cat answered in a clear though curiously timbered voice.

Kull started violently.

"Valka and Hotath!" he swore. "She talks!"

Delcardes laughed softly in pure enjoyment but the expression of the cat never altered.

"I talk, I think, I know, I am," she said. "I have been the ally of queens and the councillor of kings ages before even the white beaches of Atlantis knew your feet, Kull of Valusia. I saw the ancestors of the Valusians ride out of the fear east to trample down the Old Race and I was here when the Old Race came up out of the oceans many eons ago that the mind of man reels when seeking to measure them. Older am I than Thulsa Doom, whom few men have ever seen.

"I have seen empires rise and kingdoms fall and kings ride in on their steeds and out on their shields. Aye, I have been a goddess in my time and strange were the neophytes who bowed before me and terrible were the rites which were performed in my worship to pleasure me. For od eld beings exalted my kind; beings as strange as their deeds."

This is great stuff in my opinion. Apparently, Kull thought so too, because his interest is greatly piqued, so much so that he then asks the cat.

"Can you read the stars and foretell events?" Kull's barbarian mind leaped at once to material ideas.

"Aye; the books of the past and the future are open to me and I tell man what is good for him to know." 

It's at this point that Kull's skepticism of the existence of a talking cat – a skepticism that Tu still holds – gives way to hope, hope that Serames might possess knowledge that will enable him to make the right decisions as he ponders how to rule Valusia and meet the challenge of Thulsa Doom the necromancer. 

What follows is an odd pulp fantasy tale, one in which the barbarian king of a civilized land spends much time discussing fate, prophecy, and free will with a talking cat. I ask once again, does this sound like a Conan story? "The Cat and the Skill" is a fun story, one that nicely balances thoughtfulness with action, honesty with intrigue. That – and I hope no will be surprised to learn this – Serames is revealed to be a fraud, just as Tu warned, in no way takes away from my enjoyment of the story. What transpires before this revelation is thoroughly captivating and a much-needed reminder that Kull is no "rough draft" of anyone, but rather a uniquely engaging character in his own right.   

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Phoenix on the Sword

While writing last week's entry in this series, I realized that I had somehow never written a post about "The Phoenix on the Sword," the very first published yarn of Conan the Cimmerian," and I resolved to rectify the matter as soon as possible. As is well-known, "The Phoenix on the Sword" is a reworking of another story, "By This Axe I Rule!," which Howard wrote for the character Kull of Atlantis in 1929. Twice rejected at the time of its writing, REH set the tale aside for several years before he turned it into the debut of Conan, resulting in its publication in the December 1932 issue of Weird Tales.

Like its immediate sequel, "The Scarlet Citadel," "The Phoenix on the Sword" is a story of Conan after he has become king of Aquilonia. Indeed, there's a remarkable degree of similarity between the two stories, at least when it comes to their overall plots. In both, a conspiracy consisting of noblemen aided by a sorcerer works to overthrow Conan and place one of their own on the throne. There the resemblance ends. 

"The Phoenix on the Sword" is likely the most quoted tale of Conan, beginning as it does with the following:

"KNOW, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars—Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen- eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet."—The Nemedian Chronicles

Whatever else one can say about the story – or indeed about Robert E. Howard's work in general – I don't think there can be any question that the excerpt above is a remarkably evocative bit of writing. With just a handful of sentences, Howard firmly establishes his setting, its mood, and his protagonist. It's an amazing bit of literary economy and I can't help but be envious of how much he did with so few words. 

After this, the reader is introduced first to the outlaw Ascalante and then to the Rebel Four who have "summoned [him] from the southern desert." The Four are

Volmana, the dwarfish count of Karaban; Gromel, the giant commander of the Black Legion; Dion, the fat baron of Attalus; Rinaldo, the hare-brained minstrel

Each of the Rebel Four has his own reasons for wanting to see Conan, "a red-handed, rough-footed barbarian who came out of the north to plunder a civilized land," dethroned, but all are united in wanting to see it done by any means necessary. That's why they have turned Ascalante, a ruthless bandit with a reputation for achieving what he sets out to do. Unbeknownst to them, Ascalante has his own plans.

As for me – well, a few months ago I had lost all ambition but to raid the caravans for the rest of my life; now old dreams stir. Conan will die; Dion will mount the throne. Then he, too, will die. One by one, all who oppose me will die – by fire, or steel, or those deadly wines you know so well how to brew. Ascalante, king of Aquilonia! How do you like the sound of it?

The outlaw boasts of his plan to his slave, a Stygian who bemoans his own fate.

"There was a time," he said with unconcealed bitterness, "when I, too, had my ambitions, beside which yours seem tawdry and childish. To what a state I have fallen! My old-time peers and rivals would stare indeed could they see Thoth-amon of the Ring serving as the slave of an outlander and an outlaw at that; and aiding the petty ambitions of barons and kings!"

This is one and only direct appearance of the wizard Thoth-amon in the Howardian canon. Yet, so memorable is this appearance, that it left a lasting impression on the minds of many pasticheurs, like L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, who then concocted the idea that he was somehow Conan's arch-nemesis. The Marvel Conan comics of Roy Thomas perpetuated this notion, from which it passed into the imaginations of many others.

While Ascalante and the Rebel Four plot against him, Conan is unhappily reflecting on his current situation as a barbarian ruling a civilized kingdom.

"When I overthrew the old dynasty," he continued, speaking with the easy familiarity which existed only between the Poitainian and himself, "it was easy enough, though it seemed bitter hard at the time. Looking back now over the wild path I followed, all those days of toil, intrigue, slaughter and tribulation seem like a dream.

"I did not dream far enough, Prospero. When King Numedides lay dead at my feet and I tore the crown from his gory head and set it on my own, I had reached the ultimate border of my dreams. I had prepared myself to take the crown, not to hold it. In the old free days all I wanted was a sharp sword and a straight path to my enemies. Now no paths are straight and my sword is useless.

Conan's last statement sums up well the plot of "The Phoenix on the Sword" and why it's so compelling. Conan is a good king; he rules Aquilonia and its people more fairly than his predecessor. Yet, he is a foreigner and a barbarian at that. Many of his subjects do not accept him as their ruler and now foolishly recall the tyrant Numedides with misplaced fondness. The conspiracy of the Rebel Four is built, at least in part, on Conan's lack of acceptance by a populace who do not fully understand how lucky they are to have this barbarian rule rather than one of their own. Conan knows this and laments it, just as he laments the way that his crown binds him and keeps him from the freedom he once enjoyed. This is powerful stuff and near-perfect grist for the pulp fantasy mill. It's not a perfect tale by any means, but it's well worth a read, if you've never had the chance to do so before. 

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Screaming Skull of Silence

Among the creations of Robert E. Howard, Kull of Atlantis occupies a strange place. On the one hand, he might reasonably be called a "first draft" of the vastly more famous Conan the Cimmerian. Both are crafty barbarians who rise to the rulership of a civilized, if decadent, kingdoms, for example. On the other hand, Kull, when he is remembered at all, is thought of primarily as King Kull, ruler of Valusia, whereas Conan's reign as king of Aquilonia is less celebrated than his time as a wandering warrior (and occasional thief). This is somewhat ironic, given that Conan's first published appearance, "The Phoenix on the Sword," features Conan as king and is in fact a rewrite of another, unpublished story, "By This Axe I Rule!," whose protagonist is Kull. 

The relative obscurity of Kull, at least in popular culture, can to some extent be ascribed to the fact that only three of Howard's stories of him were published during his lifetime. The other were largely unknown until the 1967, when Lancer published King Kull. As you can see from the cover accompanying this post, the book's editor, Lin Carter, shares authorship with Robert E. Howard, thanks to Carter's having "completed" three fragmentary stories originally penned by Howard in the 1930s. Like most so-called "posthumous collaborations," I don't think much of Carter's efforts, but there's no question that King Kull was an important publication for appreciating Howard's broader literary legacy. If nothing else, it gave fantasy fans a fuller picture of Kull and his world so as to distinguish them from Conan and the Hyborian Age.

"The Screaming Skull of Silence" is one of the stories first appearing in the 1967 collection, where it's simply titled "The Skull of Silence" (the longer title being given later after an examination of Howard's papers). After his success with "The Shadow Kingdom" and "The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune," he submitted this yarn to Weird Tales for publication but the capricious Farnsworth Wright rejected it and I can see why. "The Screaming Skull of Silence" is quite short in length and filled with philosophical musings about the nature of reality and our place within it – hardly the stuff of thrilling pulp adventure. But then Kull, moreso than Conan, is prone to such musings; it's an important part of his character and why I find him every bit as compelling as the storied Cimmerian. 

The story opens with Kull, seated upon the throne of Valusia, "listening idly to the conversation of Tu, chief councillor, Ka-nu, ambassador from Pictdom, Brule, Ka-nu's right-hand man, and Kuthulos, the slave, who was yet the greatest scholar in the Seven Empires." 

"All is illusion," Kathulos was saying, "all outward manifestations of the underlying Reality, which is beyond human comprehension, since there are no relative things by which the finite mind may measure the infinite. The One may underlie all, or each natural illusion may possess a basic entity. All these things were known to Raama, the greatest mind of all ages, who eons ago freed humanity from the grasp of unknown demons and raised the race to its heights."

The idea that the world we inhabit is actually an illusion of some kind is an old one and one Howard has pondered elsewhere. In this tale, though, it serves as the starting point for a larger discussion that, in turn, ties into its plot. In any case, Ka-nu, the Pictish ambassador, recognizes the name of Raama and dubs him "a mighty necromancer." Kuthulos objects to this simple characterization of him.

"He was no wizard," said Kuthulos, "no chanting, mumbling conjurer, divining from snakes' livers. There was naught of mummery about Raama. He had grasped the First Principles, he knew the Elements and he understood natural forces, acted upon by natural causes, producing natural results. He accomplished his apparent miracles by the exercise of his powers in natural ways, which were as simple in their manners to him, as lighting a fire is to us, and as much beyond our ken as our fire would have been to our ape-ancestors."

From this description, Raama would seem to be a scientist of some sort. The councillor, Tu, seems to understand this as well as asks Kuthulos why Raama did not "give all his secrets" to mankind, to which the slave replies, 

"He knew it would not be good for man to know too much. Some villain would subjugate the whole race, nay the whole universe, if he knew as much as Raama knew. Man must learn by himself and expand in soul as he learns."

Hearing this leads to more objections from Kuthulos' interlocutors, leading to further discussion of the nature of things and whether sight or sound have an essence of their own, apart from our perceptions of them. Kuthulos acknowledges that, yes, somewhere, there exists the essence of such things. Ka-nu pipes up saying that the essence of silence – its "spectre" – does indeed exist and that had long ago been shut up in a great castle by none other than the very Raama they had discussed earlier. Brule agrees.

"I have seen the castle – a great black thing on a lone hill, in a wild region of Valusia. Since time immemorial it has been known as the Skull of Silence."

"Ha!" Kull was interested now. "My friends, I would like to look upon this thing!"

Needless to say, Kuthulos tries to discourage Kull from this path, telling him "it is not good to tamper with what Raama made fast," but the Atlantean is undeterred. He then sets off with his companions to find the Skull of Silence and see for himself if the legends of what it contains are true.

"The Screaming Skull of Silence" is short, as I said. Yet, within the span of a few pages, it contains several engaging ideas that I think elevate it above many similar pulp fantasies. I can't completely disagree with Farnsworth Wright's rejection of the story, as it's not the most exciting sword-and-sorcery yarn ever written, nor is it even Howard's most genuinely thought-provoking one. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it and found myself inspired by some of the ideas it plays with. Given its length, I think it well worth a read.

A King Comes Riding

Conan the Barbarian was, far and away, one of Marvel's most successful comics during the 1970s, spawning not just a second title, the black and white, adult-oriented Savage Sword of Conan, but also Red Sonja and other related series. So popular was Conan that Marvel regularly found ways to include him in non-sword and sorcery comics, such as multiple issues of What If?, where he battles Wolverine, Thor, and Captain America. Interestingly, Spider-Man, Marvel's other powerhouse character from the same era, never met Conan (though he did meet Red Sonja).

Instead, Marvel Team-Up #112 (December 1981) sees Spidey interact with another Robert E. Howard character, Kull of Atlantis – sort of. In the previous issue of Marvel Team-Up, the Webslinger joined forces with Devil-Slayer to fight Serpent Men. As it turns out, these Serpent Men are the same breed as those from the time of King Kull. One of the Serpent Men injected Spider-Man with venom that was slowly killing him, in large part because – and I'm not making this up – he has "much in common" with the Spider-People, who are (apparently) the ancestral enemies of the Serpent Men. Hey, if you can't trust Dr Strange about these matters, whom can you trust?

The only cure for this venom lies in the ancient past, during the height of the Serpent People's power, when Kull was king of Valusia. However, because Spider-Man's physical body is too injured from the effects of the poison, Dr Strange – who, he reminds Spidey, is "a doctor of both the mundane – and the mystical" – plans to project his astral form into the past. Once there, he has the ability to possess people and to control their actions, which he does almost immediately, foiling a plot to assassinate Kull.

Grateful, Kull calls the young man to his court to reward him, but he cannot remember anything of the events, except the feeling that something had entered his body and took control of him. Kull suspects sorcery or the work of spirits. Spider-Man then possesses the king's boon companion, Brule, and explains to Kull and his chief counselor, Tu, who he is and why he has come. Unfortunately, they explain that the only person who knows how to cure Serpent Man venom is the renegade Pictish shaman, Ju-Lak, who is described as "evil – insane – a dealer with demons!" However, Kull feels he owes a debt to Spider-Man for saving his life and agrees to accompany him into Pictland to seek out Ju-Lak.

As these kinds of stories go, it's not terrible – a little ridiculous, of course, even by the standards of superhero comics but far from the worst I've ever read. I couldn't help but wonder what Robert E. Howard would have thought about it, if he had been able to see it himself. Compared to Conan's interactions with Marvel universe characters, this comic was remarkably low key and restrained. The device of Spider-Man astral projecting into the past makes sense, given the involvement of Dr Strange (but I've always had a soft spot for the Sorcerer Supreme). I also appreciated that the writer, J.M. DeMatteis, made an effort to distinguish Kull from Conan by his actions (he spares Ju-Lak, for example, rather than slay him). All in all, it's not a bad comic for what it is.

The Halls of Tizun Thane

A constant lament of this blog since its inception is the extent to which fantasy games and gamers are ignorant of the literary origins of the genre on which they both depend. This lament is not universally applicable, however: many older games and game writers were better versed in the foundational works of fantasy. A good example of this can be seen in issue #18 of White Dwarf (April/May 1980), which contains a low-level Dungeons & Dragons adventure entitled "The Halls of Tizun Thane" by the late, great Albie Fiore, whose title is clearly a riff of that of the titular wizard from Robert E. Howard's "The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune."

"The Halls of Tizun Thane" is a remarkable piece of work from the early days of White Dwarf, as this terrific map of more sixty-five keyed areas amply demonstrates.

The scenario involves a party of adventurers exploring the former abode of Tizun Thane, "a high level evil magic user, who was as cruel as he was cunning." Thane, we learn, had a hall of mirrors in his abode, and, if one stared into them, one could see "not reflections but instead a scene from another scenario" – a clever echo of what Kull observes in the short story linked above. Otherwise, the adventure doesn't have any other obvious connections to the story, but the fact that it has any whatsoever is a testament, I think, to how much more commonplace familiarity with pulp fantasy stories was among early RPG players. 

The Murderous Mirrors of Kharam-Akkad

I wrote in my earlier post on "The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune" that Roy Thomas "clearly disagrees with me" regarding adapting the story to feature Conan. I wrote this because I was thinking of Issue #25 of Conan the Barbarian (April 1973). That issue contains a story entitled "The Murderous Mirrors of Kharam-Akkad" that draws heavily on the Kull tale but isn't precisely an adaptation, as I had thought. In it, a Hyrkanian high priest named Kharam-Akkad possesses Tuzun Thune's mirrors and sees in them a vision of Conan standing over his dead body. 

Kharam-Akkad becomes so obsessed with this vision of his demise that he attempts to thwart it by ordering Conan captured and brought to him. You only need to have read Sophocles or Shakespeare to see where this story is going: the Cimmerian's capture brings about the very death that Kharam-Akkad had hoped to avoid. 

It's frankly not a very interesting story in its own right and only really serves to advance the story of Conan's life, pointing toward his eventual adoption of the pseudonym Amra. That said, the story does feature a couple of panels that recapitulate the plot of "The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune," marking the first ever appearance of Kull in the pages of a Marvel comic. 

Whatever else I could say about Thomas's Conan comics, one thing I will always praise is his willingness to use Howard's own words (or paraphrases of them) in his dialog and descriptions. That's evident in the panels above, which include snippets from "The Mirrors of Tuzun Thane" and this otherwise forgettable issue is the better for it.

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune

Robert E. Howard's character Kull of Atlantis is not as well known as Conan, even among fans of fantasy, and understandably so. For one, Kull appeared in only three published stories between August 1929 and November 1930. For another, Kull is a much more "restrained" character than the Cimmerian, being much more conventionally chivalrous and, I'd wager, less compelling than the hotblooded barbarian to readers of the pulps. Consequently, the stories of Kull, both those published during Howard's lifetime and those published later (mostly in the 1960s and '70s), to the extent that they're remembered at all, are conflated with those of Conan. This situation is only made worse by the fact that REH himself re-purposed at least one Kull story as a tale of Conan, which established a precedent followed by others, such as Marvel's Roy Thomas. 

I think this is a shame, not just from a historical perspective, but also because I think that Kull is an intriguing protagonist in his own right, one whose differences from Conan demonstrate well Howard's range as a writer. This comes through clearly in the second published Kull story, "The Mirrors of Tuzun Thane," which appeared in the September 1929 issue of Weird Tales. The yarn begins with with one of my favorite passages in all of Howard, as Kull struggles with a dark mood.

There comes, even to kings, a the time of great weariness. Then the gold of the throne is brass, the silk of the palace becomes drab. The gems in the diadem and upon the fingers of women sparkle drearily like the ice of the white seas; the speech of men is as the empty rattle of a jester's bell and the feel comes of things unreal; even the sun is copper in the sky and the breath of the green ocean is no longer fresh.

Kull sat upon the throne of Valusia and the hour of weariness was upon him. They moved before him in an endless, meaningless panorama, men, women, priests, events and shadows of events; things seen and things to be attained. But like shadows they came and went, leaving no trace upon his consciousness, save that of a great mental fatigue. Yet Kull was not tired. There was a longing in him for things beyond himself and beyond the Valusian court. An unrest stirred in him and strange, luminous dreams roamed his soul.

Kull is so immersed in his thoughts that even his boon companion, the Pictish warrior, Brule, can rouse him from them. Then, "a girl of the court" with golden hair and violet eyes whispers to the king of the wizard Tuzun Thune, who, she says, possesses "the secrets of life and death." Kull asks the girl to tell him more of the wizard, which she does, explaining that he is

"A wizard of the Elder Race. He lives here, in Valusia, by the Lake of Visions in the House of a Thousand Mirrors. All things are known to him … he speaks with the dead and holds converse with the demons of the Lost Lands."

Intrigued, Kull sets off to meet Tuzun Thune alone, hoping that "this mummer" might be able to cure him of his melancholy. 

Upon meeting him, Kull interrogates the wizard, asking him, "Can you do wonders?" What follows is memorable and another example of the ways in which the tales of Kull differ from those of Conan.

The wizard stretched forth his hand; his fingers opened and closed like a bird's claws.

"Is that not a wonder – that this blind flesh obeys the thoughts of the mind? I walk, I breathe, I speak – are they not all wonders?

Kull meditated a while, then spoke. "Can you summon up demons?"

"Aye. I can summon up a demon more savage than any in ghostland – by smiting you in the face."

Kull started, then nodded. "But the dead, can you talk to the dead?"

"I talk with the dead always – as I am talking now. Death begins with birth and each man begins to die when he is born; even now you are dead, King Kull, because you were born.

Kull is unimpressed by these clever responses and declares the wizard to be "no more than an ordinary man." It's at this point that Tuzun Thune suggests that Kull "look into my mirrors" and reveals that the walls and ceiling of his home consisted almost entirely of perfectly jointed mirrors. The king does so and, in so doing, sees first scenes from the past and then the future before being directed into another mirror "of the deepest magic," in which Kull sees only himself – or does he? 

Fascinated by his reflection, the king begins to wonder "Am I the man or is he? Which of us is the ghost of the other?" This thought slowly overtakes him and, even after he leaves Tuzun Thune's home, he continues to ponder it, in the process becoming more and more unsure of whether the world he inhabits is the real one or whether the world beyond the mirror is. His advisors begin to worry about his state of mind, fearing that Valusia will come to a bad end because of it.

"The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune" is a unique story, marrying the conventions of pulp fantasy to a philosophical exploration of the nature of identity and indeed reality itself. No one's world is going to be shattered by this story: it's interesting but not especially profound. But I enjoy it nonetheless, in large part, I think, because of just how different it is from Howard's Conan stories. Though Conan is no blockhead, he prefers to leave questions such as these to teachers and priests. I can't imagine the Cimmerian starring in a story like this one (though Roy Thomas clearly disagrees with me) and that's more than enough to make it memorable. 

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Frost-Giant's Daughter

"The Phoenix on the Sword" by Robert E. Howard is rightfully called the first published story of Conan the Cimmerian. However, it's actually a rewrite of "By This Axe I Rule!," an unpublished tale of Kull of Atlantis. "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" was written later but, unlike "The Phoenix on the Sword," it was always intended to be a Conan story, thus making it the first original piece of Conan fiction, a fact supported, I think, by its taking place early in the Conan's life, when he was young and relatively inexperienced. These might seem like trivial details but the story of the creation and publication of "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" is not without value to understanding it and its place within the Conan canon. 

Howard submitted the short story to Weird Tales sometime in early 1932. Farnsworth Wright, its editor, rejected it curtly with the words, "I do not much care for it." Much ink has been spilled over the matter of just why Wright did not care for it, with some suggesting that the content of the story was too racy for his sensibilities. However, a cursory examination of the contents of any issue of Weird Tales, as well as the Unique Magazine's many covers by Margaret Brundage, should quickly disabuse anyone of this interpretation. Instead, I think we should take Wright at his word: he simply did not enjoy the story and there need not be any further explanation. I'll come back to the supposed raciness of the story before long.

Undeterred by the rejection, REH went back and rewrote the story, replacing Conan with another nearly-identical character, Amra of Akbitana (a name that Conan fans should recognize as an occasional alias of the barbarian). He then retitled it "The Frost King's Daughter" and submitted it to the amateur periodical The Fantasy Fan, edited by Charles Hornig (who is himself an incredibly fascinating individual). When it appeared in issue #7 (March 1934), its title was changed again, this time to "Gods of the North." A version of the story featuring Conan, as Howard has intended, did not appear until 1953 in the Gnome Press edition of The Coming of Conan, edited by L. Sprague de Camp. Despite the fact that De Camp had access to Howard's original manuscript, he nevertheless tinkered extensively with the text, as he so often did, and it would not be until 1976 that an unaltered version of the Conan version would appear, in Donald M. Grant's Rogues in the House. In the years since, other versions of the Howardian text have also appeared in print. 

The story itself is a short one, one of the briefest of all Conan tales but, for my money, it's also one of the most memorable and visceral. A young Conan is working as a mercenary in the service of the Aesir against their Vanir enemies. Though he survives a fierce battle that takes the lives of his comrades in arms, Conan is nevertheless wounded and exhausted. He falls into the snow, as a "rushing wave of blindness engulfed him." It's then that the story truly begins.

A silvery laugh cut through his dizziness, and his sight cleared slowly. He looked up; there was a strangeness about all the landscape that he could not place or define - an unfamiliar tinge to earth and sky. But he did not think long of this. Before him, swaying like a sapling in the wind, stood a woman. Her body was like ivory to his dazed gaze, and save for a light veil of gossamer, she was naked as the day. Her slender bare feet were whiter than the snow they spurned. She laughed down at the bewildered warrior. Her laughter was sweeter than the rippling of silvery fountains, and poisonous with cruel mockery.

“Who are you?” asked the Cimmerian. “Whence come you?”

After a short exchange, Conan gazes upon "her billowy hair [and] her ivory body … as perfect as the dream of a god" and is "spell-bound." Take note of that last phrase. I do not believe Howard has chosen it carelessly. Indeed, I believe it is key to understanding everything that follows. 

The mysterious white-skinned woman mocks and taunts Conan, who attempts, in the haze of his wounds and fatigue, to determine who she is and how she has come onto this battlefield, which is littered with the corpses of the feuding Aesir and Vanir. At last she asks him,

"Then why do you not rise and follow me? Who is the strong warrior who falls down before me?" she chanted in maddening mockery. "Lie down and die in the snow with the other fools, Conan of the black hair. You can not follow where I would lead."

With an oath the Cimmerian heaved himself up on his feet, his blue eyes blazing, his dark scarred face contorted. Rage shook his soul, but desire for the tainting figure before him hammered at his temples and drive his wild blood fiercely through his veins. Passion fierce as physical agony flooded his whole being, so that earth and sky swam red to his dizzy gaze. In the madness that swept him, weariness and faintness 

Conan will take no more of her taunting; he is now determined to catch the woman and make her pay for her ridicule. 

The remainder of the story is some of Howard's most intense and impassioned writing. Conan is overcome by powerful feelings that impel him forward, relentlessly chasing the woman across the snows, deeper and deeper into the cold – but are his feelings rage or lust or something else entirely? It's common to suggest that it's base lust that motivates him or perhaps a combination of lust and anger at being belittled, but I urge readers to remember that Howard describes Conan as being "spell-bound" after he first sets eyes on the woman. I believe that the Cimmerian has been literally bewitched and that the remainder of the story bears this out, as the woman, realizing she may have made a mistake in trifling with the young Conan, calls upon every power she can muster to prevent herself from falling into his hands.

"The Frost-Giant's Daughter" is a great story, a powerful exemplar of Howard's blood and thunder style of storytelling. Farnsworth Wright may not have thought much of it, but it's one of my personal favorite tales of Conan and a good introduction to him and his world. 

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Shadow Kingdom

August 1929 marked the first appearance of Robert E. Howard's original barbarian hero, Kull of Atlantis, when the story "The Shadow Kingdom" appeared in the pages of Weird Tales. Considered by some to be the first true swords-and-sorcery story as we now understand the genre, "The Shadow Kingdom" shows us Kull after he has already ascended the throne of decadent Valusia, the greatest of the Seven Empires of the pre-cataclysmic Thurian Age, which precedes Howard's more well known Hyborian Age.

Not on the Topaz Throne at the front of the regal Tower of Splendor sat Kull, but in the saddle, mounted on a great stallion, a true warrior king. His mighty arm swung up in reply to the salutes as the hosts passed. His fierce eyes passed the gorgeous trumpeters with a casual glance, rest longer on the following soldiery; they blazed with a ferocious light as the Red Slayers halted in front of him with a clang of arms and a rearing of steeds, and tendered him the crown salute.

Despite the exultant shouts that greet Kull and his soldiers as they return home from war victorious, not everyone in Valusia is pleased:

"Kull! Ha, accursed usurper from the pagan isles." -- "Aye, shame to Valusia that a barbarian sits on the Throne of Kings."

Little did Kull heed. Heavy-handed had he seized the decaying throne of ancient Valusia and with a heavier hand did he hold it, a man against a nation.

More worrisome than such sinister whispers against him is the news that Ka-nu, an advisor to the king of the Picts, the traditional enemies of Kull's own Atlantean people, has requested a private audience with Valusia's barbarian ruler. Though suspicious, Kull puts aside his prejudices against the Picts and agrees to this meeting, going alone to meet with Ka-nu, a "soft and paunchy" old man seemingly "fit for nothing except to guzzle wine and kiss wenches!" After the two men feel one another out, Ka-nu comes to the point:

I see a world of peace and prosperity -- man loving his fellow man -- the good supreme. All this can you accomplish -- if you live!"

Ka-nu warns Kull of a plot against his life, fomented with the help of Baron Kaanuub of Blaal, a former rival of Kull who still seeks the throne of Valusia for himself and his shadowy allies. To ensure that Kull does not die -- and a glorious future along with him -- Ka-nu promises to send along a bodyguard, a Pictish warrior named Brule the Spear-slayer, who will stand with Kull against the secret enemies who seek his death. As a show of good faith, he entrusts Kull with a green gem stolen from the Temple of the Serpent, possession of which means execution. If what he has said is untrue or if he in any way betrays him, Kull need only accuse Ka-nu of the theft of the gem and be rid of him. This gesture on the part of a Pict intrigues Kull and agrees to his plan, even though there is much the barbarian king still does not understand.

What follows is a superb fantasy tale that includes equal parts palace intrigue, feats of derring-do, and eldritch horror. It's a heady combination that, while sharing many similarities with Howard's later work on Conan, nevertheless strikes a different tone, one that is more melancholy and thoughtful about the inevitable decline of civilization than many might expect.

"You are young," said the palaces and the temples and the shrines, "but we are old. The world was wild with youth when we were reared. You and your tribe shall pass, but we are invincible, indestructible. We towered above a strange world, ere Atlantis and Lemuria rose from the sea; we still shall reign when the green waters sigh for many a restless fathom above the spires of Lemuria and the green hills of Atlantis and when the isles of the Western Men are the mountains of a strange land.

"How many kings have we watched ride down these streets before Kull of Atlantis was even a dream in the mind of Ka, the bird of Creation? Ride on, Kull of Atlantis; greater shall follow you; greater came before you. They are dust; they are forgotten; we stand; we know; we are. Ride, ride on, Kull of Atlantis; Kull the king, Kull the fool!"

Kull himself is similarly melancholy and thoughtful despite his rough heritage. He cares about Valusia and her people and acts accordingly. His willingness to believe Ka-nu and accept Brule as his companion is motivated as much by a desire to see that his kingdom does not fall into the hands of evil men -- or worse -- as by his desire to save his own life. Kull is thus a sympathetic figure and one with whom I found it easy to identify. He's also a subtle counterpoint to Conan, another barbarian turned king of a civilized but decadent people. Though both are unmatched warriors, Kull lacks Conan's bombast and bluster. Kull also seems less interested in the pleasures of this world, being more focused on ideals and a sense of duty to others. No one could mistake the two characters, despite some surface similarities between them.

I've seen it said, with some merit, that a writer's earliest works are often his best, even if they lack the polish and sophistication of his later efforts. I think this holds true for "The Shadow Kingdom," which I like a very great deal. The writing is a bit more stiff and formulaic in it than in, say, most of the Conan stories, but I think its characters and ideas are very strong and possess a kind of inchoate energy to them that I sometimes find lacking in the lesser Conan tales. Perhaps I'm biased because I find Kull more like myself than I find Conan, I don't know, but I genuinely love this story, which, regardless of its position in Howard's overall literary corpus, is a great story in its own right and well worth a read.

Sad News

According to a post written yesterday, one of my favorite non-gaming blogs, The Cimmerian, will cease to be on the second weekend of next month. While I fully understand and appreciate the reasons for this turn of events, I'm disappointed nonetheless. While there are many, many other fine Robert E. Howard-focused blogs and forums out there, for me, the Cimmerian will always be the one that connected me to the others. It was a gateway to the world of contemporary pulp fantasy scholarship and criticism and I'm very grateful for its existence.

Nothing -- especially good things -- last forever, but that doesn't mean I don't feel a twinge of sadness upon learning of the blog's imminent end. Its bloggers will still be around, of course, most likely relocated to other venues. Likewise, there will still be plenty of REH-focused discussion and commentary at places like the official Conan forums, REH: Two-Gun Raconteur, and REHupa, among others. But make no mistake: an era is ending and I am sorry to see it pass.

I suspect I won't be alone in feeling this.

Words Fail Me (Again)

Courtesy of The Bronze Age of Blogs come yet more examples of the fine work Marvel did with Robert E. Howard's characters during the 1970s.

I give you Conan and Kull stickers ...