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How could I not share this?

Today (22 January) is the anniversary of the birth of Robert E. Howard author of the Conan, Kull and Solomon Kane stories among many others. He was a prolific pulp author in the 1920s and 30s till his suicide in 1936, with his output including westerns, comedy and horror stories as well as his better known fantasy works.

I've been a reader of his stories for many years, primarily Conan and Kull but also Solomon Kane and the horror fiction. Though he was a correspondent of H.P. Lovecraft and wrote stories that do fit into Lovecraft's Yog-Sothothery (as HPL called the Cthlulhu Mythos, such as the Black Stone, he had a very different authorial style. For example the protagonists of Pigeons from Hell or Worms of the Earth react by struggling against the supernatural more than say the protagonist of The Hound or the Color out of Space. To be fair not all Lovecraftian heroes are inactive, but it is a different style of storytelling between the two authors.

Personally I do enjoy Howard's writing and what I'd describe as its percussive rhythms and spare descriptions. My favourite stories are probably Red Nails, Queen of the Black Coast, People of the Black Circle, Jewels of Gwalhur, Mirrors of Tizun Thune and Worms of the Earth.

Howard has been an important influence on Fantasy fiction and role playing games with the films of Conan starring Arnold Schwarzenegger having made his most famous character part of mainstream culture.

Character background for Tut-anh-mekri.

Tut-anh-mekri was born into the Stygian nobility and grew to an impressive stature even as a teenager reaching 6'3" (1.89m) making him hard to mistake. As a Stygian noble he learned much of the arts of war, but was always better with the study of arcane lore. His early aptitude for study and desire to learn the dark arts led to him becoming an acolyte of the Black Ring. His master, Ankh-en-atra soon recognized how exceptional his pupil was, and how dangerous he could become.

Tut stands broad shouldered at 6'3" with his presence physically only overwhelmed by his greater force of personality. His black hair and olive skin are typical of Stygian nobles, but the fire in his brown eyes is startling, His black robes cover his frame and emphasize his physical presence.

He seeks now to learn greater things and move rapidly through the ranks of the Black Ring. He will often try to intimidate rather than fight opponent, but is capable of being dangerous in combat.

This character is the Stygian scholar I created using the 'heroic method' of character creation in the Conan RPG rules. By dint of some unbelievable dice luck this character has turned out to be extremely tough. Looking at the rules I ended up swapping the scores I'd originally assigned to Strength and Dexterity so his ability to avoid getting hit in combat would be greater.


With the sorcery style Prestidigitation there is a problem as the Conjuring spell requires 4 ranks in Sleight of hand which is not a class skill for the Scholar class. I'd fix it by using a house rule that Scholars taking the style would be able to treat Sleight of hand as a class skill. As I wanted to do the character with the RAW (Rules As Written) I've not done that. I've not had time to write a decent background so I'll add that later.


Name: Tut-Anh-Mekri Male Human Stygian
Class: Scholar 1
Str 11 (+0)
Dex 15 (+2)
Con 18 (+4)
Int 18 (+4)
Wis 17 (+3)
Cha 15 (+2)


Hit points: 10
Power Points: 7
Languages: Stygian, Shemitish, Kushite, Hyrkanian, Acheronian

Saves:
Name	Base	Ability	Final
Fortitude	+0	+4	+4
Reflex	+0	+2	+2
Will	+2	+3	+5

Base Attack Bonus: +0 Stat: +0 Final: +0
Base Dodge Bonus: +0 Stat: +2 Final: +2
Base Parry Bonus: +0 Stat: +0 Final: +0
Base Magic Bonus: +0 Stat: +2 Final: +2

Weapons:
Name	To Hit	BAB	Bonus	Damage	Critical	Armour Piercing
Stiletto	+0	0	+0	1D4	x4	1

Class Abilities:
Sorcery Style(Curses), Scholar, Acolyte(Black Ring),Knowledge is Power
Feats:
Altertness
Spells:
Lesser ill-fortune

Skills:
Skill	Total	Ranks	Ability	Background	Other
Appraise	+5	1	+4	0	0
Balance	+4	+2	+2	0	0
Bluff	+2	2	0	0	0
Concentration	+8	4	+4	0	0
Craft(alchemy)	+9	3	+4	+2	0
Craft(herbalism)	+6	2	+4	0	0
Decipher Script	+8	4	+4	0	0
Forgery	+5	1	+4	0	0
Gather Information	+4	2	+2	0	0
Heal	+5	2	+3	0	0
Intimidate	+6	4	+2	0	0
Knowledge (Arcana)	+10	4	+2	+2	0
Knowledge (Religion)	+8	4	+4	0	0
Knowledge (Nobility)	+8	4	+4	0	0
Listen	+5	1	+2	0	+2
Move Silently	+4	2	+2	0	0
Perform (Ritual)	+7	2	+3	+2	0
Search	+4	0	+4	0	0
Sense Motive	+5	2	+3	0	0
Sleight of Hand	+4	2	+2	0	0
Spot	+5	0	+3	0	+2

Equipment:
Stiletto, Robes, Belt, Belt pouch, Spell component pouch, shoes, Holy symbol of Set, prayer beads, incense worth 50sp, ink, quill, parchment, 2sp
Background:

In this I'll continue with the first character that I generated using the traditional 4d6 drop lowest system. Rather than roll randomly for race and class I selected these as an Argossean Pirate as I've not used this race/class combo before. There were no stats adjustments to make

Name: Demetrius Male Human Argossean
Class: Pirate 1
Str 12 (+1)
Dex 14 (+2)
Con 14 (+2)
Int 11 (+0)
Wis 10 (+0)
Cha 11 (+0)

Base Attack Bonus: +0
Base Dodge Bonus: +0
Base Parry Bonus: +0

Weapons:
Name	To Hit	BAB	Bonus	Damage
Arming Sword	+1	0	+1	1D10
Poiniard	+1	0	+1	1D6
Sling	+2	0	+2	1D8

Class Abilities: Seamanship +1, Ferocious Attack

Feats: Alertness

Skills:
Skill	Total	Ranks	Ability	Background	Other
Appraise	0	0	0	0	0
Balance	+5	1	+2	+2	0
Bluff	+2	2	0	0	0
Climb	+1	0	+1	0	0
Escape Artist	+2	0	+2	0	0
Gather Information	+3	1	0	+2	0
Jump	+1	0	+1	0	0
Listen	+2	0	0	0	+2
Knowledge (Geography)	+2	2	0	0	0
Move Silently	+2	0	+2	0	0
Profession (Sailor)	+3	1	0	+2	0
Spot	+4	2	0	0	+2
Survival	+2	2	0	0	0
Swim	+3	2	+1	0	0
Tumble	+4	2	+2	0	0

Equipment: Arming Sword, silk breeks, poinard, buckler, leather jerkin, Sling and 10 bullets

Background: Demetrius grew up in a fishing village on the Argossean coast and followed his father becoming a fisherman, before deciding to join the pirate crew of Leto Mamides, the Green Pirate. Since that time he has been raiding up and down the coast until now, with Leto killed and his crew broken up he's washed up into this town and is looking to earn some coin by fair means or foul.

Well I've decided to start with the Conan RPG published by Mongoose. As an OGL game it probably is not something that appeals to all gamers, but I like it and consider it to be a good version of the Hyborian age using the D20 rules concepts. Enough preamble, now to use the dice.

In Conan character generation race (human subrace) and class are not rolled for, but selected by the player thought the DM may choose to restrict options, e.g. not many Vendhyan characters in Aquilonia.

Standard
Six rolls of 4D6 discarding the lowest gave me 14, 11, 11, 14, 10, 12 not superb, but no negative modifiers.

Heroic method
I don't know how it happened, but the D10 I selected for this seemed to be rolling very high so I ended up with 18, 15, 11, 17, 15, 18 for six rolls.

Now to turn these into characters

Number 1
I decided to make this character using the standard method as an Argossean Pirate. In assigning the rolls to characteristics I thought that as this would be a lightly armoured character high Dex and Con would be good ideas. I assigned the rolls like this:
Str 12
Dex 14
Con 14
Int 11
Wis 10
Cha 11

Number 2
This one I decided to make a Stygian Scholar, as that is a combination that I haven't done so far for a character or NPC and it could be useful for my gaming. With the die rolls that I got for stats it would be easy to create an effective character for any class, and if a player had come to my table with these I would have been highly sceptical, but I saw the dice fall. This character was generated by the heroic method, but has ended up with much higher average statistics than the method would normally generate (15.6 as opposed to 13.5).
Str 15
Dex 11
Con 18
Int 18
Wis 17
Cha 15

To actually start fleshing these characters out I'll use separate posts for each one to avoid this becoming too much of an epic.

Well I've decided to make a project out of comparing three or four currently available fantasy role playing rule sets that I know well. These are D&D 3.5, Castles & Crusades, and Warhammer FRP. Though I am tempted to include Conan RPG as an alternative to the D&D tropes using the D20 ruleset.

I'll take step by step through comparison of character generation, advancement, combat and magic. Setting isn't really something that I can compare as only Warhammer and Conan have a default setting assumed, though it can be argued that all D&D is based around the Greyhawk world.