Robert E. Howard was born this 22nd of January in 1906 in Peaster, Texas. As a reader of this blog, you no doubt know him as the creator of Conan the Barbarian and the father of the Sword & Sorcery genre. But Conan was not his only Sword & Sorcery hero. There is also Kull, Bran Mak Morn, Cormac Mac Art, Turlough Dubh, Cormac Fitzgeoffrey, Dark Agnes de Chastillon (Red Sonja), and Solomon Kane just to name a few.
In honour of Mister Howard, I am reading the Spears of Clontarf. One of his many historical fiction stories that contained hints and suggestions of the supernatural as well as graphic violence. Nobody can describe a fight scen like REH!
Spears of Clontarf also gives us the infamous Dalcassian Axe, said to be able to cleave through mail and plate like cloth. It is a one-handed axe that does damage like a two-handed axe! In game terms, I give it a d10 for damage but restrict it to the Dalcassian Irish.
Another interesting item from the story is the contrast between the Christian Irish berserkers (Barbarians) and the Pagan Viking warriors (Fighters). The Irish eschew all armour aside from shields and tightly woven linen stiffened in vinegar (except for Turlough Dubh who fights in a full maille harness). Whereas the Vikings are armoured head to toe in maille and/or scale.
One of the characters I find fascinating is Eevin, a woman of the Dark Folk (Cruithni or Pict) who has prophetic visions and can either teleport or cast plant door because she can quickly move from the Viking “castle” to the Irish encampment and with great stealth as well. Howard told H.P. Lovecraft in one of his letters how the Picts hold a fascination with him. The Picts are the one “race” or culture that links the stories of Kull of Atlantis, Conan of Hyboria, Bran Mak Morn of Roman Britain, and probably Cormac Fitzgeoffrey of Ireland (I’m hoping to discover that in some of the unpublished fragments). Both Howard and Lovecraft subscribed to the theory that remnants of a prehistoric people gave rise to the legends of dwarves, elves, and fairies.
Howard eventually rewrote the Spears of Clontarf to give it even more supernatural elements (Eevin becomes a Sidhe) and retitled it The Twilight of the Gods a.k.a. The Grey God Passes which Roy Thomas presented as The Twilight of the Grim Grey God in Conan the Barbarian number 3. That was the very first comic book I purchased and yes indeed the name inspired Grymwurld™ and Grymlorde™.
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