Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of

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Conan: Adventures in
an Age Undreamed Of
Conan-Adventures-in-an-Age-Undreamed-Of--1st-edition--2016.jpg
Cover illustration by Gerald Brom
Designers Chris Birch
Publishers Modiphius Entertainment
PublicationPDF: January 31, 2017
Physical book: June 2017
Genres Sword and sorcery
Systems 2d20 System [1] [2] [3]

Robert E. Howard's Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of is a sword and sorcery pen-and-paper role-playing game set in the world of Conan the Barbarian, the fictional Hyborian Age. Both the character and the setting were first imagined by author Robert E. Howard. Howard's original literary work has since spawned a vast franchise of novels, comic books, films, video games, board games, role-playing games, etc. Following this tradition, Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of is the third officially licensed Conan role-playing game. The two precedent games were Conan Role-Playing Game (1985–1988) and Conan: The Roleplaying Game (2004–2010), although there also had been supplements for independent generic systems, like GURPS Conan (1988–1989).

Contents

Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of was developed by a team of game designers, writers and artists, all led by Chris Birch of Modiphius Entertainment. [4] The rights to publish this derivative work were licensed from Conan Properties International.

Development

In February 2015, British game company Modiphius announced that it would be releasing Robert E. Howard's Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of [5] for launch August of the same year. [6] [7] Actually, the core rulebook was not launched until a whole year later, via Kickstarter, on 16 February 2016. [8] [9] A free Quickstart Guide was made available for download, which came with a short adventure. [10] The Kickstarter was fully funded within hours of launch and in March 2016 its planned duration expired with a huge success (45,000 £ required / 436,755 £ reached [11] ). Despite that the Kickstarter ended successfully in Summer 2016, the core rulebook was still being the subject of printing tests in January 2017. [12] The Kickstarter raised almost ten times the goal amount. [13]

Publication

In January 2017, Modiphius Entertainment released Robert E. Howard's Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of [14] in PDF form through DriveThruRPG. The first adventure supplement, Conan: Jeweled Thrones of the Earth, [15] was also released in PDF form via DriveThruRPG on the same day as the PDF core rulebook.

In hardcover physical format, the core rulebook and the supplements Player's Guide and Jeweled Thrones of the Earth were all three printed in May 2017 and started distribution as of June 2017.

Core rulebook

The core rulebook for Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of, published in 2017, is a 368-page full colour hardcover book containing everything needed to adventure in the world of Robert E. Howard’s hero, Conan. It is based entirely on the canonical Conan stories, and uses the 2d20 system developed by Modiphius, [16] which was previously used in the role-playing games Mutant Chronicles 3rd Edition (2015), Corvus Belli's Infinity (2016), Star Trek Adventures (2017), and John Carter: Warlord of Mars (2018).

Jeffrey Shanks, award-winning Robert E. Howard scholar and essayist (Conan Meets the Academy [17] and The Dark Man: The Journal of REH Studies [18] ) has been hard at work guiding the Modiphius team during initial development in 2015.

List of published books

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conan the Barbarian</span> Fictional character created by Robert E. Howard

Conan the Barbarian is a fictional sword and sorcery hero who originated in pulp magazines and has since been adapted to books, comics, films, television programs, video games, and role-playing games. Robert E. Howard created the character in 1932 for a series of fantasy stories published in Weird Tales magazine.

<i>The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game</i> 2002-2006

The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game, released by Decipher, Inc. in 2002, is a tabletop role-playing game set in the fictional world of Middle-earth created by J. R. R. Tolkien. The game is set in the years between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, but may be run at any time from the First to Fourth Age and contains many examples of how to do so. Sourcebooks cover the events of The Lord of the Rings and Peter Jackson's film trilogy adaptation.

Conan may refer to:

<i>Torg</i> Fantasy tabletop role-playing game

Torg is a cinematic cross-genre tabletop role-playing game created by Greg Gorden and Bill Slavicsek, with art by Daniel Horne. It was first published by West End Games (WEG) in 1990. Game resolution uses a single twenty-sided die, drama cards and a logarithmic results table, which later formed the basis for WEG's 1992 sci-fi RPG Shatterzone and 1994 universal RPG Masterbook. WEG produced over fifty supplements, novels and comics for the first edition. A revised and expanded core rule book was produced in 2005, with a single adventure. After WEG closed in 2010, Torg was sold to Ulisses Spiele, who, after a successful crowdfunding campaign, published a new edition called Torg: Eternity in 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hyborian Age</span> Fictional period created by Robert E. Howard

The Hyborian Age is a fictional period of Earth's history within the artificial mythology created by Robert E. Howard, serving as the setting for the sword and sorcery tales of Conan the Barbarian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Tower of the Elephant</span> Short story by Robert E. Howard

"The Tower of the Elephant" is one of the original short stories starring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard. Set in the fictional Hyborian Age, it concerns Conan infiltrating a perilous tower to steal a fabled gem from an evil sorcerer named Yara. Its unique insights into the Hyborian world and atypical science fiction elements have led the story to be considered a classic of Conan lore, and it is often cited by Howard scholars as one of his best tales.

"The Hyborian Age" is an essay by Robert E. Howard pertaining to the Hyborian Age, the fictional setting of his stories about Conan the Cimmerian. It was written in the 1930s but not published during Howard's lifetime. Its purpose was to maintain consistency within his fictional setting. Howard opens the essay stating "When I began writing the Conan stories a few years ago, I prepared this 'history' of his age and the peoples of that age, in order to lend him and his sagas a greater aspect of realness."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cary Nord</span> Canadian comics artist

Cary Nord is a Canadian comics artist. He has worked on series such as Daredevil, X-Men, and Conan The Barbarian. Throughout his career Nord has worked on books including Superman for DC Comics; Wolverine, Mutant X, Ghost Rider, Spider-Man, and Thor for Marvel Comics; X-O Manowar for Valiant Entertainment, and Star Wars and Conan the Barbarian for Dark Horse Comics, the latter of which won him the 2004 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award for Best Single Issue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bêlit</span> Fictional character created by Robert E. Howard

Bêlit is a character appearing in the fictional universe of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian. She is a pirate queen who has a romantic relationship with Conan. She appears in Howard's Conan short story "Queen of the Black Coast", first published in Weird Tales #23. She is the first substantial female character to appear in Howard's Conan stories. Partly thanks to her substantial appearance in the Marvel Comics' Conan series, the character is recognized as being Conan's "true love".

<i>Conan Against Darkness!</i> Dungeons & Dragons adventure module

Conan Against Darkness! is a 1984 adventure module for the first edition of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, set in the Hyborian universe of Robert E. Howard's character Conan the Barbarian. It is designed for four player characters at character level 10-14 and uses some minor rule variations in an attempt to recreate the setting's atmosphere. It was publicized as containing a "journey of epic proportions".

<i>Pathfinder Roleplaying Game</i> Tabletop role-playing game

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adaptations of works by Robert E. Howard</span>

The works of Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) have been adapted into multiple media, the most famous being the Conan films starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. In addition to the Conan films, other adaptations have included Kull the Conqueror (1997) and Solomon Kane (2009). In television, the anthology series Thriller (1961) led the adaptations with an episode based on the short story "Pigeons from Hell." The bulk of the adaptations have, however, been based on Conan with two animated and one live action series. Multiple audio dramas have been adapted, from professional audio books and plays to LibriVox recordings of works in the public domain. Computer games have focussed on Conan, beginning with Conan: Hall of Volta (1984) and continuing on to the MMO Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (2008). The first table-top roleplaying game based on Howard's works was TSR's "Conan Unchained!" (1984) for their game Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. The first comic book adaptation was in the Mexican Cuentos de abuelito - La reina de la Costa Negra #8 (1952). Howard-related comic books continued to be published to the present day. Howard is an ongoing inspiration for and influence on heavy metal music. Several bands have adapted Howard's works to tracks or entire albums. The British metal band Bal-Sagoth is named after Howard's story "The Gods of Bal-Sagoth."

<i>GURPS Conan</i>

GURPS Conan is a sourcebook and a series of solo adventures for GURPS.

<i>Conan Role-Playing Game</i> Tabletop fantasy role-playing game

The Conan Role-Playing Game is a fantasy role-playing game published by TSR, Inc. in 1985 that is based on the Conan the Barbarian stories by Robert E. Howard, Lin Carter, Andrew J. Offutt. and Robert Jordan.

<i>Conan: The Roleplaying Game</i>

Conan: The Roleplaying Game is a sword and sorcery British role-playing game based on the D20 System first published in January 2004 by Mongoose Publishing, mainly designed by Ian Sturrock and set in the fictional Hyborian Age of Conan the Barbarian, created by Robert E. Howard in the 1930s.

<i>Rogue Trader</i> (role-playing game) Tabletop role-playing game

Rogue Trader is a Science-fiction role-playing game published in 2009 that uses the Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay system.

<i>Mindjammer - The Roleplaying Game</i>

Mindjammer - The Roleplaying Game is a space opera role-playing game (RPG) created by Sarah Newton, published by Mindjammer Press in 2014, and distributed by Modiphius Entertainment.

Modiphius Entertainment is an RPG and tabletop game publisher based in Fulham, London. Modiphius was founded in 2012 by husband-wife team Rita and Chris Birch to publish their first game, Achtung! Cthulhu. The company have since published a number of product lines based on independent licenses and established brands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Star Trek Adventures</span>

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References

  1. https://www.blackgate.com/2020/08/06/a-report-on-modiphiuss-robert-e-howards-conan-adventures-in-an-age-undreamed-of-part-one/ [ bare URL ]
  2. https://www.blackgate.com/2020/08/11/a-report-on-modiphiuss-robert-e-howards-conan-adventures-in-an-age-undreamed-of-part-two/ [ bare URL ]
  3. https://www.blackgate.com/2020/08/24/a-report-on-modiphiuss-robert-e-howards-conan-adventures-in-an-age-undreamed-of-part-three/ [ bare URL ]
  4. "Modiphius Entertainment" . Retrieved 16 February 2016.
  5. "Robert E. Howard's Conan - Adventures In An Age Undreamed Of". Modiphius. Retrieved 9 February 2015.
  6. "New Conan RPG Coming from Modiphius", Table Top Gaming News, 9 February 2015
  7. "Brand new Conan tabletop roleplaying game!", Age of Conan website (News section), Editor: Funcom, 11 February 2015
  8. "All new Conan tabletop Roleplaying Game Kickstarter has just begun!", Age of Conan website (News section), Editor: Funcom, 16 February 2016
  9. "Robert E. Howard's Conan Roleplaying Game" . Retrieved 16 February 2016.
  10. "Discovering Robert e Howard: The New Conan RPG – Black Gate". 15 March 2016.
  11. Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of, Kickstarter campaign
  12. "PREVIEW: Conan Core Book!" . Retrieved 17 January 2017.
  13. https://www.blackgate.com/2019/03/22/by-crom-conan-adventures-in-an-age-undreamed-of-qa-with-jason-durall/ [ bare URL ]
  14. "(PDF) Conan: Adventures In An Age Undreamed Of". Modiphius. Retrieved 1 February 2017.
  15. "(PDF) Conan: Jeweled Thrones of the Earth". Modiphius. Retrieved 1 February 2017.
  16. https://www.blackgate.com/2018/03/10/modular-adventuring-in-an-age-undreamed-of/ [ bare URL ]
  17. Shanks, Jeffrey (2012). Conan Meets the Academy. McFarland. ISBN   978-0786461523.
  18. Shanks, Jeffrey (2011). Theosophy and the Thurian Age: Robert E. Howard and the Works of William Scott-Elliot.

Further reading