Joined: Aug 2011 Gender: Male Posts: 297 Karma: 18
Hyborian Age Maps - re Howard « Thread Started on Jul 5, 2012, 8:45pm »
In the superb 2002 Del Rey volume of Conan Tales The Coming of Conan The Cimmerian there are two sketch maps in an end-section entitled 'The Hyborian Age'.
Id like to know if anyone has sourced high quality scans of Howard's own maps or come across faithful and tasteful elaborations? It's good to have a map to refer to reading the stories. I may have a go myself when I become familiar with the terrain.
Perhaps a Howard fan could let us know how much the author relied on an explicit map for Conan's world.
Joined: Sept 2010 Gender: Male Posts: 386 Karma: 5
Re: Hyborian Age Maps - re Howard « Reply #2 on Jul 6, 2012, 3:42pm »
That's the map from the MGP d20 Conan RPG (Atlantean Edition), which is now OOP. The font is available as "Ronan" (at the time I bought the font package it was around 25 USD). There is a smaller clone freeware called "Crom". According to author Vincent Darlage, who wrote many of the RPGs books, some of the details and city-locations in this map are inaccurate. NB: The artist (can't recall his name right now) was found to be guilty of plagarism of other artwork (in the Shadizar boxed set), and is not in high standing in the commercial art world, IIRC.
« Last Edit: Jul 6, 2012, 3:44pm by DungeonDevil »
That's my favorite one. I had a poster made of it, which I framed and hung in my house, though I modified it to read "The Hyborian Age," as "Hyboria" is one of my pet peeves--it's not "Hyboria," it's Earth, during the Hyborian Age.
iirc, Vincent Darlage didn't say the cities and such were wrong on the MC map, only admitted that "Mu" shouldn't be there, but that it was decreed the artist had to put it in there. And I BELIEVE (though I could be wrong) that it was a different artist who plagiarized the Shadizar map (it was taken actually from one of WotC's map-a-week archives; I have the pre-recall version of it).
Jason Vey, President Elf Lair Games http://www.elflair.com/ Sent from my Transformer Prime tf201 Using Proboards for Android
I BELIEVE (though I could be wrong) that it was a different artist who plagiarized the Shadizar map (it was taken actually from one of WotC's map-a-week archives; I have the pre-recall version of it
I haven't seen this Shadizar map - what exactly was copied from it?
Joined: Mar 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 772 Location: Hyperborea Karma: 47
Re: Hyborian Age Maps - re Howard « Reply #6 on Jul 13, 2012, 8:54am »
Kent, I believe the Ronan font was first established as the "Conan" font by Dark Horse Comics when they acquired the rights to publish Conan in comic book form.
Kent, I believe the Ronan font was first established as the "Conan" font by Dark Horse Comics when they acquired the rights to publish Conan in comic book form.
The notes in the backs of those Del Rey books are fascinating, eh?
That set of volumes is the classiest presentation of any fantasy paperbacks that I have seen and reading them with the notes has done much to bump my respect for Howard up to the Leiber rank. The film The Whole Wide World helped too.
Kent, I believe the Ronan font was first established as the "Conan" font by Dark Horse Comics when they acquired the rights to publish Conan in comic book form.
The notes in the backs of those Del Rey books are fascinating, eh?
That set of volumes is the classiest presentation of any fantasy paperbacks that I have seen and reading them with the notes has done much to bump my respect for Howard up to the Leiber rank. The film The Whole Wide World helped too.
The Whole Wide World was a fascinating film, no doubt.
I have to admit, regarding the Del Rey treatments of all REH's works, I have read and re-read those notes an embarrassing amount of times.
Del Rey's Bran Mak Morn, in particular, stands out to me, because the end essays pertaining to Howard's conception of the Picts was absolutely fascinating. It actually gave me a new appreciation for Beyond the Black River and Wolves Beyond the Border.
Del Rey's Bran Mak Morn, in particular, stands out to me, because the end essays pertaining to Howard's conception of the Picts was absolutely fascinating. It actually gave me a new appreciation for Beyond the Black River and Wolves Beyond the Border.
I have hesitated in getting the Bran Mak Morn and King Kull volumes so that is interesting to know. I bought the Best of Howard volume 1 for the Grey God Passes - his interest in things Irish further increases my curiosity - and what I assumed might be a sufficient few Kull, and Bran Mak Morn stories. I think I'll get the BMM volume too then.
As someone who played and loves Rugby, I think Howard captures the exuberance of brutality better than any fantasy writer except ER Eddison. I back up this claim with reference to the scrap between Lord Juss and The Manitcore. The lightness of touch with which Howard assimilates and blends real world exotic cultures is also impressive and he is likely to long endure for his originality being a pre-Tolkien writer.
The essential difference for me is that the colour map decides the continent is far far smaller than I imagine it to be. I don't see any reason for the coast to curl around The Black Kingdoms. I imagine instead it extends far to the south.
I have all of the REH Del Rey's except the Sword Woman book only because I have not picked it up yet.
I think I have everything but the Best of #1 & 2. The more I read from these Del Rey versions the more disgusted I become with DeCamp and Carter's treatment. Though after reading Carter's book on Lovecraft and his unconcealed contempt for HPL I have a great wariness of anything Carter was involved with.
Anyway, I found the maps and the new artwork in these volumes to be very enjoyable.
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